Talmud תלמוד by Tzvee Zahavy

10 Years Ago: Tzvee and Talmud Hullin on the FYI Page 3 of the Jewish Standard

2021-06-30T22:30:00.002-04:00

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Ten Years Ago: Larry Yudelson of the Jewish Standard of Teaneck wrote me up for their page three FYI column.

The Jewish Standard, Teaneck NJ
July 8, 2011

FYI
Local author puts Talmud translation on the web

As the seven-year cycle of daily Talmud study known as Daf Yomi began a new tractate last month, Tzvee Zahavy found himself running low on blog ideas.

Zahavy, a Teaneck resident, professor and rabbi, is also a blogger.

As the Daf Yomi project approached the beginning of the Babylonian Talmud tractate Hullin, Zahavy realized that he already had content.

"I figured it would be a service both to me in my own studies, and to my readers, if each day for 142 in all, I shared on my blog the text of my English translation of one page of the Talmud text," he said.

Zahavy translated Hullin as part of a series that was completed in 1995 by Professor Zahavy and others, called, "The Talmud of Babylonia. An American Translation." Sales of the set have been modest, in the thousands, he said.

The translation is now available in a new edition from a Christian publisher, Hendrickson, in both print and digital formats.

Artscroll’s English version of the Talmud is better selling, Zahavy said because it is Orthodox-approved and non-academic.

Zahavy said that the general public does not go out in great numbers to buy and read books of and about the Talmud. “Back in the late sixties, author Norman Mailer told us students in a lecture at Yeshiva College that he read the Soncino English Talmud every night at bedtime,” Zahavy said. “We saw that he was trying to impress us and he didn’t. We all knew that the Talmud is always studied seriously - it is never read at bedtime.”

Zahavy’s newest book is called “God’s Favorite Prayers.” The volume will be published in print and digital formats this summer by Talmudic Books, a new imprint that Zahavy started. He is confident that it will sell better than his Talmud translations.“More people pray than study,” he said.

--Larry Yudelson

Yahrzeit of my mother Edith Zahavy

2021-06-12T21:53:00.000-04:00

We are observing the 21st Yahrzeit of my mother Edith Zahavy (aleha hashalom).

We miss her so very much. She would have loved to see the progress of her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and take pride in all of their accomplishments. She would have loved to read books to her great-grandchildren and to watch them play and grow.

She was born in NYC and attended the public schools in Washington Heights. She watched from her classroom window as they built the George Washington Bridge.

She graduated from Hunter High School, Hunter College and went on to a career in public service at the OPA and then into the field education. Together with my dad, she founded the Park East Day School when my father was rabbi at the Park East Synagogue, then called Congregation Zichron Ephraim. She subsequently taught in NYC public schools for many years.

She is interred on Har Hamenuchot in Jerusalem. Her beautiful memorial photo site is here.

Rabbi Dr. Zev Zahavy - Yahrzeit Number 9

2021-04-21T08:54:00.001-04:00

Photos

Rabbi Dr. Zev Zahavy

New York City

September 8, 1918 - May 1, 2012

Nine Minute ZZ Slideshow
edited by Barak

200+ ZZ Sermons cited in the NYT - View Online
Sermons - Download PDF

edited by Tzvee

Yahrzeit of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, great Torah Sage and the Quintessential Scribe

2021-04-12T22:39:00.001-04:00

My teacher and rebbe Rav Aharon Lichtenstein passed away six years ago.

He was awarded the Israel Prize 2014 in Jewish religious literature.

He was one of the finest teachers that I studied with in college - a genius as an educator and a sincere and compassionate human being. He is the person that I chose to personify the quintessential scribe personality of prayer in my book "God's Favorite Prayers (p. 71 ff)." Here is the excerpt.

The Scribe’s Prayers

I had the privilege of studying in Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s Talmud shiur (class) for two years, 1966-1968. Each December, he invited us talmidim (disciples) to his house for latkes (potato pancakes) on Hanukkah. There, in his apartment, we sat with his little kids and his wife Tovah, daughter of Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik. The latkes were good and the Lichtensteins appeared to be a regular family. For some reason, that surprised me.

Once, during the years that I was in his shiur, while I was out with some of the guys playing basketball on the courts between the Yeshiva College dorms, Rav Aharon, a lanky, thin and tall man, came walking by. One of us had the chutzpah to ask him to join the ball game. He said okay and he played aggressively—and just like a regular guy. For some reason, that blew my mind.

And, one year, in our student play, the Yeshiva College Purim shpiel, a satiric revue for the holiday, I played the role of Rav Aharon. In my performance, I hemmed and hawed and exaggerated my rebbe’s mannerisms much more than I should have. And there in the audience sat my rebbe, laughing heartily along with us. For some reason, that really blew my mind.

These three anecdotes aside, Rav Aharon was not just a regular guy. He also was a special teacher who imbued me with indelible lessons that I have taken with me throughout my life.

Rav Aharon taught me that you could be both a humanist and a Talmudic scholar, a lamdan. He clearly loved English literature, which he had studied at Harvard. He often and freely quoted poets John Milton and Edmund Spenser. He happily contrasted the ideas of the enlightenment with those of the Torah. But all the time it was clear to me that literature was his avocation and that learning Torah was his true vocation.

Rav Aharon also taught me that you could critically study and deeply love the lifestyle instructions—called the hashkafah—of the Torah. Each week, we read and discussed a chapter in Rabbi Elimelech Bar Shaul's inspirational Hebrew treatise, Mitzvah Valev (Tel Aviv, 1956), which means the commandments and the heart. Through that work, Rav Aharon taught us that the cognitive understanding of a commandment needed to be joined to the emotional commitment of one's heart. His lessons had a profoundly powerful and positive impact on my faith.

Finally, Rav Aharon taught me that you could be a vitally creative pedagogue even in the most traditional subjects of learning. The college administration told him that he had to give us exams in Talmud, the main subject that he taught us, so he used that as an opportunity to teach us more. He gave us thought-questions. Based on something we learned previously, he would ask us to resolve a new scenario. Or he would give us text-questions. He would have us examine a brand new text, related to some passage we had learned before, and then he asked us to parse it and to comment on it. We had to decide what commentary he had plucked the text from, tell him what the text meant and then explain why we came to our conclusions. That was hard.

That is how Rav Aharon taught me that an exam could do more than ask a student to regurgitate what he had learned. The rabbi tested my knowledge and my thinking powers at the same time, and was the only teacher that I ever had who truly knew details of my personal styles of learning and of my own intellectual strengths and weaknesses. I happily confess that I used elements of Rav Aharon’s methodology of thought-questions and text-questions in many of the Talmud and Jewish Studies courses that I taught over the years at the University of Minnesota, the Jewish Theological Seminary and elsewhere.

After I went on to become a professor, I would take extended leaves to work on my research in Jerusalem, Israel. My father owns a Katamon-neighborhood apartment that he inherited from his parents, who moved to Israel in the 1950s from New York City. That is where I lived while in Jerusalem. In the mornings, I frequently would go to the shacharit morning services at the Shtiblach nearby.

The Shtiblach was a veritable prayer mall, a busy set of connected, one-room prayer-halls in a single, modest neighborhood building. There, I would often see the saintly Rav Aharon at one of the services, sitting near him and thereby joining him de facto at prayer. That would lift my spirits for the day.

Because Rav Aharon embodies the ideals of the scribe archetype, I use his name to refer now to that remarkable model of prayer that I met during my spiritual quests in search of perfect prayer.... [Continues in my book "God's Favorite Prayers (p. 71 ff)."]

Jewish Standard Feature Article on my Polychrome Historical Haggadah, the beautiful Color-coded Haggadah that reveals the Seder's history

2021-03-25T08:58:00.000-04:00

Thanks to all of you who have purchased my Haggadah on Amazon.

Happy Spring!

Jewish Standard Feature Article:

Color-coded Haggadah highlights seder’s origins: The Polychrome Historical Haggadah

Teaneck rabbi reprints classic work of seven-hued scholarship

By Larry Yudelson

Who wrote the Haggadah?

We know who wrote the Hogwarts Haggadah. (Moshe Rosenberg.) We know who wrote the Rav Kook Haggadah. (Bezalel Naor.) We even know who wrote the ArtScroll Family Haggadah. (Nosson Scherman.)

But who wrote the original text?

Like all the siddur and other classic works of Judaism, the Haggadah dates back to before people started putting title pages and copyright notices on their books and listing them on Amazon. So we don’t really know.

We do know that most of the text we use today is found in the earliest Jewish liturgical manuscripts, which date from the ninth century. And the outline accords with the teachings of the Mishna from six centuries earlier.

But who put this together, and exactly when?

Truth be told, we don’t know.

Now, however, a Teaneck rabbi — and Jewish Standard columnist — has republished a classic work that highlights all the different pieces of the jigsaw puzzle.

“We are having a conversation with Jews across all periods of history,” Rabbi Tzvee Zahavy said. “This is not just something we’re doing with our family. We’re having a dialogue across the ages.”

This month, Rabbi Zahavy reissued the Polychrome Historical Haggadah. Originally published in 1974, it was the work of Rabbi Jacob Freedman of Springfield, Massachusetts. It highlights the different levels of the Haggadah by putting each stratum in a different color. Biblical verses are black. Mishna passages are red. And so on — until contemporary additions like the Hatikvah, appropriately in Israeli-flag blue.

It is a seven-hued rainbow.

“I like the fact that it focuses you on the text of the Haggadah itself,” Rabbi Zahavy said. “You look at the colors and think ‘This is from the talmudic period, this is from the biblical text, this is from medieval times.’

“Many of the Haggadahs make you associate interesting ideas with the text but they take your mind off of the page to other places, to other people’s concerns and concepts. This Haggadah makes it possible to be mindful and focused, just super-conscious of the text of the Haggadah.”

The idea for the Polychrome Historical Haggadah came from the Polychrome Bible, an edition of the Hebrew scripture that “was put out in the early part of the 20th century in order to show the documentary elements according to biblical scholarship,” Rabbi Zahavy said. “It was a brilliant idea.

“Of course it’s a heretical idea to say the Torah was the product of different documents, since according to Orthodox theology it’s one unitary document. The Torah is Moshe Rabbeinu’s Torah. But the world of scholarship decided to go out and investigate the Bible from a historical perspective and came up with the documentary hypothesis” — that the Torah was a composite of four or so different texts stitched together by an editor.

“The Polychrome Bible was a result of that scholarship.”

Rabbi Zahavy came to the polychrome concept when he was studying the prayer book.

“I was working on the siddur, and I saw the different strata and strands,” he said. “I figured there must be someone who tried to do a polychrome siddur. That’s when I came to rediscover Jacob Freedman, because he had started working on a polychrome siddur showing the historical layers. He was only able to publish a prototype of 28 pages.”

Rabbi Freedman, ordained by the Jewish Theological Seminary of America, led several Conservative synagogues. He was 71 years old when his Haggadah was published in 1974; he died 12 years later. Rabbi Freedman assigned the copyright to his book to a foundation he created. The foundation subsequently was dissolved, leaving the copyright in limbo.

“This is a work that I loved,” Rabbi Zahavy said. “It was orphaned. I really wanted to become a new parent of this Haggadah. I started to work on it finally as a labor of love.”

Rabbi Zahavy scanned the pages of Rabbi Freedman’s original work, and he wrote an introduction to it.

“It’s a very charming and impressive work,” Rabbi Zahavy said. “It will take anyone using this Haggadah several years to get the full impact of the scholarship that went into it.”

In addition to the full color pages of Hebrew text (the translation is not color-coded), the Haggadah reprints color pages from medieval illuminated Haggadah manuscripts.

“They are well chosen as well,” Rabbi Zahavy said. “There’s a classic example of what the German 15th century Haggadahs look like, what the 14th century Spanish Haggadahs look like. Jacob Freedman picked out some really good pages. They really add a lot of life and more color.”

Seeing the different sources of the Haggadah in vibrant color “really makes the point that Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik always said, that the Haggadah is not really the retelling of a story.

“It’s the act of talmud Torah, studying Torah in the rabbinic manner. When you finish at the end of the seder, you haven’t really told the story of the Exodus in a very narrative way. You’ve told it in a kind of midrashic mishmash. The color highlighting shows you the alternating cadences of the work.

“It’s like an opera with different arias. The Haggadah is the libretto,” Rabbi Zahavy said.

Purchase this book at Amazon.

Repost from 4/6/2017

Download Online a Free Passover Seder Haggadah

2021-03-25T08:57:00.001-04:00

Here are several of the best places you can go online to download a free Passover Haggadah for your Seder.

I give Chabad credit for a great resource if you want a wide selection of free Hebrew Haggadahs.
Download Hebrew Haggadahs here.

My new Haggadah is not free - but it is really fantastic!

I thought you might be interested in this new for 2017 reprint of a classic haggadah with a foreword that I added - available from Amazon. - Tzvee

The Polychrome Historical Haggadah
by Jacob Freedman et al.

Learn more

Library Makes 1,000 Rare Haggadahs Available Free Online

An illustration of King David praising G-d in a rare Haggadah published in 1710 in Frankfurt am Maine, Germany

By Dovid Zaklikowski

The central Chabad-Lubavitch library in New York made 1,000 Passover Haggadahs, many of them rare, available on the Internet for browsing by the public. The Agudas Chasidei Chabad Library has one of the largest collections of the Passover orders of service in the world.

Housed at the Lubavitch World Headquarters, the library's Haggadah collection began years ago with a nucleus of some 400 volumes purchased on behalf of the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, by renowned collector and bibliographer Shmuel Wiener in 1924.

The posting at ChabadLibraryBooks.com represents close to half of the library's total Haggadah collection and is part of chief librarian Rabbi Sholom Ber Levine's goal of making the library more accessible to the public. All told, the library possesses more than 2,200 editions of the Haggadah. Although the rarest of the books, all handwritten, are not yet available, Levine is looking for ways to post them next year. Hebrew Books, directed by Chaim Rosenberg, collaborated on the project.

Was Rush Limbaugh Jewish?

2021-02-19T15:07:00.000-05:00

Yes, Rush Limbaugh was a Jew. Rush's Conservative Gentile persona was a successful act that earned him record multi-million dollar contracts in the radio business.

Rush's real name was Ronald Levy. He was born on the upper West Side of Manhattan. His father was a dermatologist and his mother a junior high school librarian. He attended the Ramaz School where he excelled at floor hockey and then Amherst College where he double-majored in art history and chemistry.

Rush was accepted to Albert Einstein Medical School of Yeshiva University. He had to withdraw during his first semester because he could not control his mocking derisive laughter when confronted with the illnesses and infirmities of the hospital patients.

Happy Purim everybody. א פריילעכן פורים
Rush! Rush! Rush! !רָשׁ! רָשׁ! רָשׁ

חַג פּוּרִים, חַג פּוּרִים,
חַג גָּדוֹל לַיְּהוּדִים!
מַסֵּכוֹת, רַעֲשָׁנִים,
שִׁירִים וְרִקּוּדִים!

הָבָה נַרְעִישֶׁהָ:
רָשׁ רָשׁ רָשׁ!
הָבָה נַרְעִישֶׁהָ:
רָשׁ רָשׁ רָשׁ!
הָבָה נַרְעִישֶׁהָ:
רָשׁ רָשׁ רָשׁ!
בָּרַעֲשָׁנִים

//this is satirical Purim Torah - edited to past tense 7 Adar 5781 - reposted from 5769//

Resources in the analysis of the connections between terrorism and religion

2021-01-14T09:18:00.001-05:00

I taught a college course about religion and politics and terrorism in 2005. Now the content and the analysis of terrorism is more real and more relevant and more frightening than ever.

Here is a linked guide to my substantial blog posts of study resources in the analysis of the connections between terrorism and religion.

Questions about American Christian Terrorism
Marginality, sexual despair, political powerlessness, masculinity and terrorism
Religion and Jewish Terrorists
What is a Religious Culture of Violence and Terror?
Who were Shoko Asahara and the Buddhist Aum Shinrikyo Religious Terrorists?
How did Religion Motivate Sikh Terrorists?
What is the Logic of the Theater of Religious Terror?
Why Do Religious Terrorist Martyrs say that they aim to kill the demons?
What do Sexuality and Humiliation have to do with Terrorism?
Will the War Against Religious Terrorism Ever End?
From Kahane to Osama: How Do Men Make Religious Terrorism Into Cosmic War?
How can we end religious terrorism and achieve the peace of God?
Concluding Questions on Religion and Terrorism

Kushner: Crimes, Misdemeanors and Philanthropy

2020-12-24T09:43:00.002-05:00

[I first published this blog post on 12/06/2006.]

“Behind every great fortune is a great crime,” my friend Charlie used to assure me on the golf course as we discussed the meaning of life. He exaggerated to make his point that it is commonly understood that people break laws in the pursuit of wealth. Lately we don’t have to look far to find proof.

When the wealthy donate the products of their ill-gotten gains to charities we face some meaty moral issues. Do yeshivas, synagogues and federations have the obligation to investigate the source of the munificence that donors offer? How far must they go to be sure that the money is clean and that the donor is not a crook? Are there circumstances when accepting money from a scoundrel is morally right?

In a recent local example Harold Kushner, a billionaire real estate developer and businessman in Essex County, made substantial donations to Jewish charities including Yeshiva University and a local yeshiva, subsequently named after him, the Kushner Academy. Now said individual has been arrested for allegedly paying prostitutes in an effort to suborn the perjury of witness that could testify that he made illegal contributions to political candidates.

This is not a “great crime” but the full story of Kushner’s fortune has not yet unraveled. We may derive some moral guidance in today’s scandal ridden times at what some people argued regarding earlier ill-gotten gains.

Back in the eighties New Yorker, Ivan Boesky made millions of dollars through the exploitation of illegal insider information. He did not earn his fortune honestly and through hard work. We know that he broke laws with impunity.
And worst of all we know that with his dirty fortune he sought and was accorded notoriety and prominence in our community. Boesky served as president of the New York Federation fund drive, as member of the national Holocaust Memorial Council, and as a prominent supporter of the Jewish Theological Seminary.

A troubling question was raised then as it should be again now, what should the community do? According to the New York Times of November 28, 1986, the insider trading scandal stirred an ethics debate. This was surprising since the public discussion of morality always has been rare in American society and has been virtually nonexistent in the American Jewish community.

One issue that was raised in the controversy back then was whether the activities of the so-called "corporate raiders" were at all ethical? Arguments on both sides supported the self interests of the raiders on the one hand and of the entrenched corporate managers on the other. Whoever was right, one thing was clear. This aspect of the process of amassing great wealth in a short term was not an exclusively theological or religious issue. Surely this was not a problem that was likely to be handled intelligently by theologians.

The rabbis certainly could attempt to sort out what should be done with the "dirty money" earned by unscrupulous persons who have transgressed the statutes of our land?

Rabbi Wolfe Kelman, executive director of the Rabbinical Assembly of Conservative rabbis, was quoted in the New York Times in 1986 as saying, "There have to be some limits to the prevalence of greed." He suggested a "moral retooling" beginning with a summit meeting of rabbis, cardinals and priests. No one disagreed with this call to justice, echoing, if only weakly, the exhortations of Israel's classical prophets.

Note well however that the summit was not held. What if we now held the meeting? On the top of the agenda of any forthcoming moral summit conference or continuing debate of public morality within the Jewish community, we must place several problems:
Should philanthropic institutions, rabbinic seminaries, holocaust memorials, synagogues and schools accept donations of "dirty tzedakah"?
How far, we must ask, should an institution go to investigate the source of every munificent gift?
Once we have discovered that funds received by an institution derived from theft, embezzlement or swindling, should we give those funds back, refuse to make use of the fruits of iniquity?

If we put these questions on the agenda the preponderant responses will be that we must look more closely at the sources of monetary donations, we must scrutinize more carefully their sources. But on the subject of returning illegally earned monies already donated to the Federation, the yeshiva, or other philanthropic recipients, we will find understandable resistance.

Two paths of argument will emerge. One voice will argue that laundering illegal funds by donating them to worthy causes is good. It cleanses the soul of the donor and allows for some worthy outcome for reprehensible behavior. These gifts serve as sin-offerings of a sort. And anyway, some may say, who can determine whether a dollar given to charity came from a shady deal or a legitimate one? If the charity doesn't take the money, or keeps it and doesn't give it back out of revulsion, and if the Federation and UJA don't use the proceeds of scandal for purposes of ultimate good, then someone else will surely use the money and maybe not for such seemly purposes. And furthermore, the recipient needs to grow and do more of its consecrated work. The local agencies supported by Federations need more funds for their worthy purposes. And the UJA needs the money it has received to do more good for social welfare in the State of Israel.

Very few who will raise their voice against this practice will dare to contend that stolen money must not be accepted in any form into the organized community. Few will say that by accepting stolen funds one desecrates the sanctity of a cause; that by honoring the crook, one sanctions immorality. Few will argue that the most effective way to limit greed and corruption is to use the sanctions of society against the immoral elements who would want to be accepted into our organized and orderly world.

Yet where do we draw the line? Will we continue to accept money from the Boeskys, Levines, Kushners and their friends? Will we name Yeshivas after them? Will we hold these people up as models of behavior for our younger generation?

Perhaps we should demonstrate our moral abhorrence of greed and criminality by rejecting the corrupt and sending back to them the fruits of their corruption with a reminder of an age-old message like that of the prophet Malachi at the end of chapter one, the Haftarah of Parashat Toledot:

"You bring (to the Temple) what has been stolen or is lame or sick, and this you bring as your offering! Shall I accept that from you hand? says the Lord. Cursed be the cheat who has a male in his flock and vows it, and yet sacrifices to the Lord what is blemished; for I am a great King says the Lord of hosts, and my name is feared among the nations."

To continue to be a great nation we must uphold our moral standards, even when the cost is great. We must set the highest standards for ourselves, our children and for the world around us. That has always been the destiny and primary mission of the Jewish people. _____________________________

Tzvee Zahavy was ordained rabbi at Yeshiva University and holds a Ph.D. in Religious Studies from Brown University.

The Celebrity Archetype in Jewish Prayer: A chapter from my book "God's Favorite Prayers"

2020-12-16T10:47:00.002-05:00

A chapter from my book.

The Celebrity’s Prayers

Aleinu

(Hebrew: עָלֵינוּ, “upon us”) or Aleinu leshabei'ach (“[it is] upon us to praise [God]”), meaning “it is upon us or it is our obligation or duty to praise God.” A Jewish prayer recited at the end of each of the three daily services. It is also recited following the New Moon blessing and after a circumcision is performed.

—Wikipedia, Aleinu

y quest for perfect prayer and for spiritual insights evolved, not just at synagogues on the ground but also one time during my davening on a jumbo jet flight at an altitude of 39,000 feet and a speed of 565 miles per hour. That is where, by happenstance on an airplane in 1982, I met Rabbi Meir Kahane, an American-Israeli Orthodox rabbi, an ultra-nationalist writer and political figure and, later, a member of the Israeli Knesset.

I recognized Kahane right away when I saw him on the flight. He was a famous New York Jew. In the 1960s and 70s, Kahane had organized the Jewish Defense League (JDL). Its goal was to protect Jews in New York City's high-crime neighborhoods and to instill Jewish pride. Kahane also was active in the struggle for the rights of Soviet Jews to emigrate from Russia and to immigrate to Israel. By 1969, he was proposing emergency Jewish mass-immigration to Israel because of the imminent threat he saw of a second Holocaust in an anti-Semitic United States. He argued that Israel be made into a state modeled on Jewish religious law, that it annex the West Bank and Gaza Strip and that it urge all Arabs to voluntarily leave Israel or to be ejected by force.

It was then, by coincidence, that I traveled with Kahane on a long Tower Air flight to Israel. As was common on flights to Israel, a few hours after takeoff, Jewish men gathered at the back of the plane. As the sun became visible in the Eastern sky, they formed a minyan, kind of an ad hoc synagogue. In this unusual and somewhat mystical setting, I prayed the morning services with the rabbi and others at the back of the jumbo jet.

After that service, I introduced myself and, during the continuation of the flight, engaged him in conversation, politely challenging Kahane at length about his radical political views. After meeting him on the plane, I followed his political career with some interest.

Kahane was a hardened nationalist. In 1984, he became a member of the Knesset representing his Kach party. In 1988, the Israeli government banned Kach as racist. On November 5, 1990, at age 58, after delivering a speech that warned American Jews to emigrate to Israel before it was too late, Kahane was assassinated in Manhattan by an Arab gunman. In 1994, Kach was outlawed in Israel and listed by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization.

Bearing all of this in mind, in my discussion of the celebrity-monotheist archetype of the synagogue, I call my illustrative character Rabbi Meir.

Let me introduce you to Rabbi Meir, the celebrity-monotheist. First, let me tell you how he differs from my five other synagogue friends.

Rabbi Meir is not much of a scribe. He is not happy just to sit at his desk with his books, to keep track of his texts and accounts. He is a man in motion, expecting change in the world at large, provoking it where he can and watching for it all the time.

Rabbi Meir is not much of priest, either. He cares, but not a lot, for the priestly content, the values we associate with the Temple, the precincts of the sacred or the profane, the lineages and classifications of the kosher and treif. But he does cast himself very much like the priest in one respect: He visualizes his role as a designated high profile leader of his people with a clearly specified public mission.

Rabbi Meir is not a meditative type of person anchored in the immediate textures of this world of ours, here in the synagogue building. He is not much of a mystic either, seeking flights of ascent to know the intimacies of heaven.

Rabbi Meir is not a well-rounded mythic thinker, either. He doesn’t consider it paramount to relive the past epochs of the Israelite dramas. Okay, then, where does that leave him?

Meir would rather participate in a coming drama—to lead the charge in the next and final chapter of Jewish history. He sees himself as a team captain of the Jews. He will carry out his leadership roles on the field of battle and in the theater of confrontation, struggle and war. In the dramatic unfolding of time, as he sees the world, we are in the metaphoric fourth quarter and the clock is running down. Rabbi Meir is out there to lead the forces of the one God of the Jewish people as they celebrate their deserved victory when the time runs off the clock.

And Rabbi Meir fully expects his team, the Jews, to win the game, the ultimate Super Bowl. That victory will trigger not just a celebration but a new epoch. The team calls it the Age of the Messiah, that distant galaxy of wish and fantasy where kingdoms are restored and created.

Keep in mind, as you get to know him, that Rabbi Meir is a total fan—a fanatic—of his side. A celebrity himself, he roots for the other celebrities on his team. He identifies with them and, when they win, it lifts his spirits. The dual actions of rooting and competing in the contest are primary to this personality. The outcome of the game is important, but secondary to Rabbi Meir, because he has no doubt that victory is at hand.

Our God is Number One

call Rabbi Meir, the next person you meet in the synagogue, a celebrity because that is his self-proclaimed status. Performing on the world’s center stage, he lets us know that he is a star member of the cast of the Chosen People. He is a confident monotheist who has an exciting story. As he tells it, the gods now are engaged in a continual conflict and competition. And, then, at some point in the future, there will be a final match when idolatry will lose. The victory will go to the one true God over his false and worthless competitors.

Our celebrity-monotheist exhorts everyone in the synagogue simultaneously with both vivid and vague visions of a cosmic war in heaven and on Earth. Rabbi Meir tells us about the coming state of affairs for the Jewish people. Our destiny will be fulfilled at the end of time in a promised culmination.

All of this drama is simply stated in the first section of the Aleinu prayer (which we first cited above, in connection with the performer in the context of the Rosh Hashanah services):

It is our duty to praise the Lord of all things,
to ascribe greatness to him who formed the world in the beginning,
since he has not made us like the nations of other lands,
and has not placed us like other families of the earth,
since he has not assigned unto us a portion as unto them,
nor a lot as unto all their multitude.

For we bend the knee and offer worship and thanks before the supreme King of kings, the Holy One, blessed be he,
who stretched forth the heavens and laid the foundations of the earth,
the seat of whose glory is in the heavens above,
and the abode of whose might is in the loftiest heights.

He is our God; there is none else: in truth he is our King; there is none besides him;
as it is written in his Torah, “And you shall know this day, and lay it to your heart that the Lord he is God in heaven above and upon the earth beneath: there is none else.” (Koren Siddur, p. 180)

Rabbi Meir cheers on, urging his values on others like that of a team coach or captain in a locker room before a crucial game. But, wait. There is another important vagary. This is not yet a real game. In his synagogue prayers, the celebrity-monotheist does not encourage and exhort his team of worshippers to go out and trample the identified competing teams. Rather, his call in his liturgy is figuratively to act out a competition—akin to participating in a fantasy religion league—to imagine that the ultimate showdown is nigh, to conjure a vision of the minutes ticking down at the close of the game. The end of time, the end to the struggle and the ultimate victory of the team of the one true God over the team of the false Gods is at hand. The conclusion of the Aleinu prayer finally and forcefully proclaims the details:

We therefore hope in you, O Lord our God,
that we may speedily behold the glory of your might,
when you will remove the abominations from the earth,
and the idols will be utterly cut off,
when the world will be perfected under the kingdom of the Almighty,
and all the children of flesh will call upon your name,
when you will turn unto yourself all the wicked of the earth.

Let all the inhabitants of the world perceive and know that unto you every knee must bow, every tongue must swear.

Before you, O Lord our God, let them bow and fall;
and unto thy glorious name let them give honor;
let them all accept the yoke of your kingdom,
and do you reign over them speedily, and forever and ever.

For the kingdom is yours, and to all eternity you will reign in glory;
as it is written in your Torah, “The Lord shall reign forever and ever.”

And it is said, “And the Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day shall the Lord be One, and his name One.”

Let me measure the dimensions of this archetype. Like those of the mystic and meditator, he is a powerful personality type without any specific proclivity of status or profession. I could have called this archetype a “triumphalist.” That labeling bears a pejorative connotation when it is used by social scientists to describe a type of leader or his groups. So, rather than use that term, which is the best existing label, I chose to make up for him a new name without any baggage, that is, the celebrity-monotheist.

And, indeed, this is the most potentially controversial and even negative archetype of those ideal people whom you meet in the synagogue. He may turn out to be a forceful competitor with combative rhetoric. And there is the danger that his friends could hear his bellicose cheering and cross the line. They could potentially be cajoled into going beyond enthusiastically rooting for a hoped-for fantasy victory leading to a Messianic Age. They could be moved beyond argumentative rhetoric to take up antagonistic actions to bring about their hoped-for triumph.

Misdirected and misguided, religion in a triumphal mode can—and, sadly, often does—breed violence and terrorism.

In relation to the other archetypes of the synagogue, I associate this archetype in one respect with the priest, who is somewhat of a public and political personality. But the priests are entrenched in their world of present day discipline, their recollections of the Temple rites and all that attends to them—those notions that we spelled out in our previous chapter on the priest’s prayers. They do not care much for the way that Rabbi Meir tries to turn the attention of the synagogue to a distant dream of salvation. They offer a viable set of saving graces through acts of worship, religious institutions and the worldview that surrounds those core values. When they do reluctantly buy into the celebrity’s messianic message, it takes a recognizably priestly form. They accept a vision of the age of redemption that includes for them a complete package deal: the rebuilding of the city of Jerusalem and the Temple, and the restoration of the sacrificial service.

As I note, Rabbi Meir shares few values with Rav Aharon the scribe or with the ideal type of Deborah the meditator. Neither of these personalities particularly wants to divert the focus from his or her day-to-day religious habits, conceptions and values and turn instead to primarily await the messiah and the end of days. When those archetypes do accept elements of a vision of the transformation at the end of time, it takes a specific shape; they see it as an era of peace and not war, a tame time of tranquility when the predator will befriend the prey. The priest’s vision of political and religious triumph, and the rebuilding of the Temple, takes a back seat to their notions that the redeemer will change the natural order of things and bestow a universal peace upon the land. Rather, it will be the perfect future age in which the scribe and meditator can practice their way of life based on the Torah—just as they do in the present—but, finally, in the new age, they can do all that without fears or disruptions.

In our ideal synagogue, the celebrity articulates his agenda of a dramatic public and political Messianic Age and the priests, scribes and meditators hear a different model. The celebrity’s message of the end of days comes to wider expression in multiple layers of narrative. The other archetypes attach what they want onto the articulation of the universal recognition of our one God. They append onto the vision of the celebrity their expectations of the rebuilding of Jerusalem, the city and the Temple, of the change of the natural order and, also, of the mystical resurrection of the dead.

As I get know the celebrity Rabbi Meir better, I understand that his core formative principles coincide with the essence of a generic warrior archetype—a character who, in fact, is mainly absent as an attendee at the synagogue. As I said earlier, in the synagogue’s incarnation, the combatant does not do any actual fighting. An imagined mythic conflict is conducted on his behalf by a god who will vanquish the enemy idols at the end of days. “Our God will be number one” is the signature cheer of the essential narrative of this archetype.

In sum, the celebrity-monotheist shows confidence and derives pride from his sense of being one of the chosen and in his certainty in ultimate triumph. He speaks boldly of the moment of his group’s inevitable victory, couched as his faith in his God’s ascendancy and superiority. And, as I showed above, the Aleinu serves as a pristine liturgical case in point for this archetype.

Not surprising, in speaking about that prayer in a roundabout way, some rabbinic interpreters tried to tell us this. They explained the prayer’s origin in history instead of enlightening us more fully about how this prayer promises us a future conflict and conquest. The rabbis suggested that the victorious biblical warrior-prophet Joshua composed the Aleinu in the distant past during one of his triumphs, either when he crossed the Jordan to enter the Promised Land or after his victory at the battle of Jericho. [See Arugat ha-Bosem, ed. by E. E. Urbach, 3 1962, 468–71.] The spectrum of time merges for the rabbis as they talk about their theory of the origins of the prayer so as to shed light on what this celebrity-monotheist’s prayer tells us about his expectations for the future.

The stories referenced in the celebrity-monotheist’s prayers—the hints and suggestions in the synagogue about the messianic redemption—are not only about confrontation, conflict and victory. There are alternatives in the prayers of the synagogue that touch on the messianic theme in a more peaceful manner, one more acceptable to the scribes and the meditators.

To help make this clear, I introduce you briefly to Beruryah—a hybrid variety of celebrity-monotheist combined with elements of other archetypes. While Beruryah is equally certain of the starring role of the Jews and of their God in the script of world history, she is more irenic, more peaceful in her visions of the future, of the final act of the drama.

In the Talmud, there are a few stories about a morally admirable woman named Beruryah, who was the wife of an ancient Rabbi Meir. She stands out as a rare woman-scholar in the male-dominated rabbinic culture. To give you a flavor for what the Talmudic Beruryah stood for, here is one of the traditions about her from the Babylonian Talmud, tractate Berakhot 10a:

Certain brigands who were in the neighborhood of Rabbi Meir used to trouble him greatly. He prayed that they die. Beruryah his wife said to him, “Why do you pray this way?

“Because it is written (in Psalms 104:35), ‘Let sins cease...?’ Is ‘sinners’ written? Rather ‘sins’ is written.

“Furthermore, cast your eyes to the end of the verse, ‘And they are wicked no more.’ Since sins will cease, the sinners will be wicked no more.

“So pray that they repent and be wicked no more.”

He prayed for them, and they repented.

Much like the Talmudic figure of that name, my imaginary character Beruryah encapsulates a moral superiority. In addition, we attribute to her some of the prophet Isaiah’s anti-war visions of salvation at the end of days, which we judge to be a morally superior vision of the end-times. After some supernatural transformation of the nature of humankind, scripture reports in Isaiah chapter two, “…and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore.”

Although this model of the age of redemption is not spelled out unequivocally in the prayers, you do find echoes of such notions in several places, including the Kedushah for Shabbat in the Shaharit service, as follows:

Reader — We will sanctify your name in the world even as they sanctify it in the highest heavens, as it is written by the hand of your prophet: And they called one unto the other and said,

Cong. — Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts: the whole earth is full of his glory.

Reader — Then with a noise of great rushing, mighty and strong, they make their voices heard, and, upraising themselves toward the Seraphim, they exclaim over against them, Blessed.

Cong. — Blessed be the glory of the Lord from his place.

Reader — From your place shine forth, O our King, and reign over us, for we wait for thee. When wilt thou reign in Zion? Speedily, even in our days, do thou dwell there, and forever. May you be magnified and sanctified in the midst of Jerusalem your city throughout all generations and to all eternity. O let our eyes behold your kingdom, according to the word that was spoken in the songs of your might by David, your righteous anointed:

Cong. — The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise you the Lord.

Reader — Unto all generations we will declare your greatness, and to all eternity we will proclaim your holiness, and your praise, O our God, shall not depart from our mouth forever, for thou art a great and holy God and King. Blessed art thou, O Lord, the holy God.

The liturgy does not negate directly the triumphal celebrity monotheist’s vision. What it does, however, is present a more morally balanced and less confrontational scenario by intermixing mystical concepts with messianic themes in formulating elements of the ultimate praise of God.

Another articulation in the synagogue of the celebrity’s views is the special Kaddish that is recited in the funeral service at a cemetery. This is the Kaddish that is said by the mourning children after the burial of their parents. This prayer has no explicit irenic intent. Rather, it’s an interesting amalgamation—an olio, if you will—of some messianic notions with the priestly images of Temple and Jerusalem, its city, along with the mystic’s idea of the resurrection of the dead at the end of days:

Mourners — May his great name be magnified and sanctified in the world that is to be created anew, where he will quicken the dead, and raise them up into life eternal; will rebuild the city of Jerusalem, and establish his temple in the midst thereof; and will uproot all alien worship from the earth and restore the worship of the true God. O may the Holy One, blessed be he, reign in his sovereignty and glory during your life and during your days, and during the life of all the house of Israel, even speedily and at a near time, and say ye, Amen.

Cong. and Mourners — Let his great name be blessed forever and to all eternity.

I find yet another instance of a messianic medley of expressions of the celebrity-monotheist in a passage from the beginning of the central part of the Musaf, the Additional Service Amidah for Rosh Hashanah:

Now, therefore, O Lord our God, impose your awe upon all your works, and your dread upon all that you have created, that all works may fear you and all creatures prostrate themselves before you, that they may all form a single band to do your will with a perfect heart, even as we know, O Lord our God, that dominion is yours, strength is in your hand, and might in your right hand, and that your name is to be feared above all that you have created.

Give then glory, O Lord, unto your people, praise to them that fear you, hope to them that seek you, and free speech to them that wait for you, joy to your land, gladness to your city, a flourishing horn unto David your servant, and a clear shining light unto the son of Jesse, your anointed, speedily in our days.

Then shall the just also see and be glad, and the upright shall exult, and the pious triumphantly rejoice, while iniquity shall close her mouth, and all wickedness shall be wholly consumed like smoke, when you make the dominion of arrogance to pass away from the earth.

And you, O Lord, shall reign, you alone over all your works on Mount Zion, the dwelling place of your glory, and in Jerusalem, your holy city, as it is written in your Holy Words, The Lord shall reign forever, your God, O Zion, unto all generations. Praise be the Lord.

The prayer repeats the familiar themes and announces new sub-themes, namely that wickedness and arrogance will be banished at the end of days; gladness and a shining light will characterize the new era, an age that will be imposed with awe and dread.

The dour, even militant tenor of the last two examples, and the mainly peaceful tendency of the one that precedes it, show us that there are different flavors of the celebrity-monotheist visions.

These contrasts are more dramatically and bluntly juxtaposed in another illustration, in a ritual at the Seder meal. On Passover night, we hope and expect with joy that the prophet Elijah will visit the Seder at every Israelite house. And, so, we pour a cup of wine for the prophet, the herald of the coming of the end of days and of the transformation of conflict into peace.

During the Seder, right before the recitation of the psalms of the Hallel, when we open the door to greet Elijah, the precursor of the peaceful messiah, the instructions in the Haggadah prescribe, “The fourth cup is poured and the door is opened. Say the following”:

Pour out your wrath upon the nations that do not acknowledge you, and upon the kingdoms that do not call upon your name. For they have devoured Jacob and laid waste his habitation. Pour out your indignation upon them, and let the wrath of your anger overtake them. Pursue them with anger, and destroy them from beneath the heavens of the Lord.

Here, then, outside of the synagogue, in the Seder recited at home, a sentiment about the coming age is stated most strongly. The liturgist calls on God to confront his foes, to vent his indignation, wrath and anger, and to destroy those who do not recognize our God.

Prayer-jacking and Martyrs

hen you hijack a plane, you violently take control of the whole entity and fly it to the place you choose. When you hijack a liturgy, you try to do the same. The celebrity-monotheist tried to hijack the Unetanneh Tokef prayer, a liturgy of the scribe and mystic from the High Holy days that we discussed above. He tried to make it his own, by writing a story about its authorship and origin.

I’ve emphasized how I judge that, in all cases, prayer origins are secondary to their essences. Certainly, here, in the case of such a powerful poem, thinking about who was its ancient writer detracts from it and distracts us from the impact of the complex religious messages embedded in the prayer.

Rabbi Reuven Hammer summarized the strange authorship story of this liturgy. As we recall, it speaks dramatically about how God decides on Rosh Hashanah who shall live and who shall die. Hammer calls the origin account for this liturgy a “legend”:

It is little wonder that this poem gave birth to legend. It is said that it was recited by Rabbi Amnon (Mainz, c. eleventh century), who had failed to reject a proposal of apostasy immediately and instead asked for three days to consider it. When he did not agree to give up his faith, he was taken away and tortured brutally. It was Rosh Hashanah, and he asked his disciples to take him to the synagogue, where he interrupted the service and recited this prayer in order to sanctify the name of God. Upon completing the recitation, he died. Later, the legend continues, he appeared to Rabbi Kalonymus in a dream and asked that this prayer be recited each year. Moving as this legend is, it should not distract us from the piyyut itself, the subject of which is not martyrdom, but human responsibility and the possibility for change, as we face the judgment of our creator.

Sadly, in real Jewish history, martyrdom did occur many times. However, imposing a gory martyrdom background origin-story on this particular liturgy is a violent means of taking us away from the inherent mystical and scribal images of the prayer and its potent meanings.

The celebrity’s darker side comes to the forefront here. The description in the authorship legend is actually more graphic than what Rabbi Hammer recounts. In the full version of the legend, the Christian authorities dismembered the martyr and delivered him back to the synagogue without limbs. In his us-versus-them world, the celebrity archetype sometimes uses a gruesome means to stir his team’s emotions against his imagined enemy.

In fact, while we are on the subject, there is a poignant martyr’s prayer recited on Yom Kippur in the Musaf service. The prayer begins, “These I recall,” in Hebrew, Eilleh Ezkrah. It’s an old and venerable narrative account from the time of the Crusades in the Middle Ages. It tells us about the much earlier torture and killing of ten rabbis by the Romans in Israel after the Bar Kokhba revolt in 135 CE.

At his death at the hands of the Romans, with his last breath, Rabbi Akiva recited the Shema. The scribe-martyrs of Eilleh Ezkrah chose to recite the Shema with their last breaths, to perish with their declaration of the love of God, his Torah and their loyalty to his commandments.

The martyrdom account of Rabbi Akiva mournfully describes, “As they scraped his skin with iron combs, he recited the Shema, accepting the yoke of the sovereignty of heaven… His soul left him as he uttered the word ‘One.’”

Other accounts of medieval martyrs have them reciting the Aleinu as their last utterances. In 1171, at Blois France during the Crusades, Barry Freundel (Why we Pray What we Pray, NY 2010, p. 228, citing Raphael Posner, et. al., ed., Jewish Liturgy: Prayer and Synagogue Service through the Ages, Jerusalem, 1975, p. 110) tells us the following:

…thirty-four Jewish men and seventeen Jewish women were burned at the stake because they refused to accept Baptism. The contemporaneous records of this act of martyrdom tell of these Jews singing Aleinu with a “soul-stirring” melody as they gave their lives to sanctify God’s name.

These were celebrity-martyrs, who elected to die proclaiming the ultimate triumph of one God. No doubt, the victims at Blois loved Torah and commandments. And, for certain, the rabbis tortured to death who recited the Shema were confident in the ultimate victory of God and in the coming of the Messianic Age of redemption for the Jews and all humankind. But, when you choose your dying words, that comes from the essence of your identity. The core of your being rules the priorities of your choices. The creators of martyr accounts formulate matters simply. When a Jew faces martyrdom, he chooses as his last prayer that which embodies the essence of his personality. A rabbi-scribe in Roman times will recite the Shema. A resisting-celebrity in the Crusades will recite the Aleinu.

Are the accounts of martyrdom accurate to what happened? We cannot know more than what the later narrators elect to tell us about our ancient and medieval martyrs.

Sadly, we have had multitudes more tragedies in modern times. Official synagogue representation of the modern martyrs of the Holocaust, in text or ritual, has been rare. But, recently, American Conservative Judaism did choose to develop a Kaddish for death camps. Based, in part, on the last passages of Andre Schwarz-Bart’s novel, The Last of the Just(New York, 1960), this ritual and text was originally incorporated into the Yom Kippur Martyrology of the 1972 Mahzor for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur of the Rabbinical Assembly.

Rabbi Jules Harlow, editor of the Mahzor,described the impetus for the innovation as follows:

The text of the Martyrology incorporates rabbinic narratives about some of the martyred rabbis as well as words from the Psalms and from modern authors, including Bialik, Hillel Bavli, Nelly Sachs, A.M. Klein and Soma Morgenstern. At the conclusion of the narrative recalling martyrs of various times, we wanted to articulate the tension between faith on the one hand and, on the other, the questioning doubt which arises out of our confrontation with even the recollection of the murder of those Jews. And we did not want to articulate that tension in an essay or in a footnote . . .

We chose the statement of faith par excellence in Jewish tradition, the Mourner’s Kaddish. After the death of a family member, when a Jew has perhaps the strongest reasons to question God, he or she is obliged to stand in public to utter words in praise of God.

Harlow explained to me the motives of the liturgy in a personal letter (March 2, 1989):

We interrupt these words, this statement of faith, with the names of places where Jews were slaughtered, places which therefore cause us to raise questions, to have doubts. The tension is resolved, liturgically, by the last four lines, whose words are uninterrupted by the names which give rise to questioning, thus concluding in a framework of faith.

Harlow added that there are intentionally seventeen places named, signifying that life, represented by the Hebrew Chai, numerically eighteen, “…can never be complete, can never be the same, after such slaughter.” This is not noted in the prayer book.

In the new Kaddish, the original Aramaic text alternates with a register of sites of extermination in this compound liturgy:

               We rise
       Yitgadal
                   Auschwitz
       ve'yitkadash
                   Lodz
       Sh'mei raba
                   Ponar
       b'alma di v'ra khir'utei,
                   Babi Yar
       v'yamlikh malkhutei
                   Maidanek
       b'hayeikhon u-v'yomeikhon
                   Birkenau
       u-v'hayei d'khol beit yisrael,
                   Kovno
       ba-agala u-vi-z'man kariv,
                   Janowska
       v'imru amen.

       Y'hei sh'mei raba m'vorakh l'alam u-l'almei almaya.

       Yitbarakh v'yishtabah
                   Theresienstadt
       v'yitpa'ar v'yitromam
                   Buchenwald
       v'yitnasei v'yit-hadar
                   Treblinka
       v'yit'aleh v'yit-halal
                   Vilna
       sh'mei d'kudsha,
                   Bergen-Belsen
       brikh hu l'ela
                   Mauthausen
       min kol birkhata v'shirata,
                   Dachau
       tushb'hata v'nehemata
                   Minsk
       da-amiran b'alma,
                   Warsaw
       v'imru amen.

       Y'hei sh'lama raba min sh'maya v'hayim aleinu v'al kol yisrael,
       v'imru amen.
       Oseh shalom b-m'romav, hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu v'al kol yisrael,
       v'imru amen.

I cite here the Kaddish of the Siddur Sim Shalom(edited by Jules Harlow, 1985, pp. 841-843). The more extensive Kaddish of the Martyrology of the Day of Atonement is not limited to communities and camps where the Jews were killed during the Second World War. It includes Kishinev, Hebron, Mayence, Usha and Jerusalem, places where Jews were slaughtered in other historical eras.

The special Kaddish is an intermixed text with no narrative. It creates an intrusion into the set liturgy, thus wanting to depict the disruption of death within the static reality of the people. It is a violent representation. Names of locations of destruction, in language read from left to right, confront the doxology of praise, in the liturgy recited from right to left.

The new Kaddish confuses and traumatizes the soothing cadence of the expected traditional prayer. This unconventional form of the prayer breaks the somber beat of the chant of the Kaddish, one of the sure rhythms and universally recognized prayers of the synagogue.

It also mixes the main elements of a martyrology into a quintessential prayer of the mystic. Those tragic ideas and recollections are more comfortably situated in the prayers and personality of the celebrity.

Writing this prayer was a bold idea, a valiant try at getting recognition of the mythic meaning of the Holocaust into the standard service of the synagogue. But it failed, because it chose too freely to mix the notions of the celebrity archetype of prayer into the Kaddish, the doxology of the mystic. The current conservative Mahzor, Lev Shalem, published in 2010, omits the prayer from the service.

The celebrity-monotheist, as you easily can tell, is not my favorite among the archetypes I meet in the synagogue. He is, however, a legitimate, vocal and dramatically substantial member of our congregation. We doneed to meet him, to know him, to respect the integrity of his messages and try to direct his powerful energies to positive spiritual and cultural goals.

What is Hanukkah?

2020-12-12T13:56:00.000-05:00

As the Talmud asks, What is Hanukkah?

If you are wondering what is the official meaning of Hanukkah as presented in Jewish liturgy, here is the text we insert for the holiday, no spin added,

And [we thank You] for the miracles, for the redemption, for the mighty deeds, for the saving acts, and for the wonders which You have wrought for our ancestors in those days, at this time.

In the days of Matityahu, the son of Yochanan the High Priest, the Hasmonean and his sons, when the wicked Hellenic government rose up against Your people Israel to make them forget Your Torah and violate the decrees of Your will.

But You, in Your abounding mercies, stood by them in the time of their distress. You waged their battles, defended their rights, and avenged the wrong done to them. You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton sinners into the hands of those who occupy themselves with Your Torah.

You made a great and holy name for Yourself in Your world, and effected a great deliverance and redemption for Your people Israel to this very day. Then Your children entered the shrine of Your House, cleansed Your Temple, purified Your Sanctuary, kindled lights in Your holy courtyards, and instituted these eight days of Hanukkah to give thanks and praise to Your great Name.

The Hanukkah Avatar

2020-12-12T13:54:00.000-05:00

Hanukkah has its avatar. I wrote about this in my classic book, "God's Favorite Prayers."

...The concept of avatar has several meanings. First an avatar can be an embodiment or a personification of a substantial idea, for instance, "the embodiment of hope"; "the incarnation of evil"; "the very avatar of cunning." In some respects I describe in this book how the prayers serve as avatars of several diverse personalities. In this sense I can say that the Amidah is an avatar of the priest.

An avatar in the context of religions can have another meaning. In specific it is a manifestation of a Hindu deity, particularly Vishnu, in a human, superhuman or animal form. As an example of how the term is used is, “The Buddha is regarded as an avatar of the god Vishnu.” In this sense of the term, I created my archetypal avatars, such as my “priest,” as representatives of the core values that inhere in the prayers...

... The most recent technological application of the word avatar denotes a computer user's self-representation or alter ego, in the form of a three-dimensional model within a computer game, or as a two-dimensional icon picture on a screen, or as a single-dimensional username within an Internet community.

... On two special occasions, Hanukkah and Purim, we add paragraphs to the Amidah to describe the victories of heroic Jews of the past. I see these hero figures as avatars of the priest.

By no coincidence, where are we told to insert for Hanukkah and Purim the thanksgiving prayers commemorating the heroes and miracles of those festivals? Not in the Shema or anywhere else in the synagogue services. The liturgy masters could have instructed us to add the special accounts of victory anywhere in the services. But they said to add them right into the Amidah, into the blessing of Hoda'ah, thanksgiving, the eighteenth blessing.

The Hanukkah narrative glorifies an actual priest, Mattathias and celebrates his victory of reclaiming and purifying the Temple. The prologue sentence of the prayer is used on Purim and (by some Jews) on Israel Independence Day as well:

And for the miracles, for the redemption, for the mighty deeds, for the saving acts, and for the wonders which you have wrought for our ancestors in those days, at this time.

For Hanukkah the prayer continues:

In the days of Mattathias, the son of Yohanan the High Priest, the Hasmonean and his sons, when the wicked Hellenistic government rose up against your people Israel to make them forget your Torah and violate the decrees of your will. But you, in your abounding mercies, stood by them in the time of their distress. You waged their battles, defended their rights, and avenged the wrong done to them.

You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton sinners into the hands of those who occupy themselves with your Torah. You made a great and holy name for yourself in your world, and brought about a great deliverance and redemption for your people Israel to this very day. Then your children entered the shrine of your house, cleansed your Temple, purified your sanctuary, kindled lights in your holy courtyards, and instituted these eight days of Hanukkah to give thanks and praise to your great name.

The inserted passage for Purim recounts and gives thanks for the deliverance at the hands of Mordecai and Esther, two leaders who also fit as historical avatars for the frequently public, and at times heroic, priest archetype.

In the days of Mordecai and Esther, in Shushan the capital, when the wicked Haman rose up against them, and sought to destroy, to slay and cause to perish all the Jews, both young and old, little children and women, on one day, on the thirteenth day of the twelfth month, which is the month Adar, and to take the spoil of them for a prey. Then you in your abundant mercy bring his counsel to nothing, frustrated his design, and returned his recompense upon his own head. And they hanged him and his sons upon the gallows.

A third proposed parallel narration (adopted by Conservative Jews but not by Orthodox) for Israel Independence Day recounts and gives thanks for the deliverance at the hands of anonymous heroes, unnamed leaders who brought forth the victories that created the State of Israel in 1948. They also fit properly among those leaders celebrated as avatars of the ideal priest.

In the days when your children were returning to their borders, at the time of a people revived in its land as in days of old, the gates to the land of our ancestors were closed before those who were fleeing the sword. When enemies from within the land together with seven neighboring nations sought to annihilate your people, you, in your great mercy, stood by them in time of trouble. You defended them and vindicated them. You gave them the courage to meet their foes, to open the gates to those seeking refuge, and to free the land of its armed invaders. You delivered the many into the hands of the few, the guilty into the hands of the innocent. You have wrought great victories and miraculous deliverance for your people Israel to this day, revealing your glory and your holiness to all the world. (Siddur Sim Shalom for Shabbat and Festivals, 1998, The Rabbinical Assembly, p. 149.)

Yes, I bend and stretch the concept of the avatar. Still – as I see it – the anonymous architects of the synagogue services did a good job picking out stories of avatars of the priestly archetype to insert into the priest’s Amidah prayer.

I find the idea of the avatar a colorful way to visualize and parse the sacred concepts that inhere in the liturgy...

Thanksgiving Sermon of Rabbi Zev Zahavy from 1943

2020-11-26T20:53:00.000-05:00

Here is my dad's incredible inspiring and uplifting sermon from 1943 for the holiday of Thanksgiving. It was a dark year in the history of humankind. Yet Rabbi Zahavy found ways to weave together precepts from our classical Jewish tradition to give hope and optimism to those who faced the bewildering frightening world of 1943.

I read this sermon every year and it inspires me more each time. My father was an impresario of the rabbinic pulpit.

Click here for Rabbi Zev Zahavy's 1943 Thanksgiving Sermon, published by the RCA, Rabbinical Council of America.

A big hat tip to Zechariah for finding this and sending it to us.

Thanksgiving Turkey Drumstick Jack-O-Lantern Pumpkin Pie Table Song - A Lone Pumpkin Grew

2020-11-26T20:45:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving is upon us and we sing traditional holiday songs at our Thanksgiving dinner.

Here are the words to one of our favorites...

Oh a lone pumpkin grew on a green pumpkin vine.

He was round

he was fat

he was yellow.

"No silly jack-o-lantern shall I make," he said.

"I'm determined to become a useful fellow."

So he raised up his head

when the cook came around

and at once he was chosen the winner.

His fondest wish came true

he was proud pumpkin pie

and the glory of the great thanksgiving dinner...

For the glory of the jack is in the lantern

as he sits up on the gatepost oh so high;

and the glory of the turkey is the drumstick

but the glory of the pumpkin is the pie.

Here's a YouTube 2009 home video of the song -- we don't know the folks -- it sounds like our familiar melody and we heartily endorse it.

Is Ronald A. Klain Jewish?

2020-11-11T21:14:00.000-05:00

On 10/18/14 I posted this about Klain who is back in the news now:

Yes, the new Ebola Czar Ronald A. (Ron) Klain is a Jew. He previously served as Vice President Joseph Biden's Chief of Staff.

President Obama will appoint Klain according to CNN citing White House press secretary Josh Earnest, "to make sure that all the government agencies who are responsible for aspects of this response, that their efforts are carefully integrated. He will also be playing a role in making sure the decisions get made."

Klain previously served as Chief of Staff and Counselor to Vice President Al Gore. Klain also knew Biden as a result of his service as counsel to the United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary when Biden chaired that committee.

Klain lives in Chevy Chase, Maryland, with his wife Monica Medina, who is not a Jew, and their children Hannah, Michael and Daniel.

The Times reported in 2007:

... when they married, Ron Klain and his wife, Monica Medina, struck a deal: their daughter and two sons would be raised Jewish (for him), but they would celebrate Christmas (for her).

Despite their satisfaction with the arrangement, the couple, who live in Chevy Chase, Md., have never put up the tree while Mr. Klain’s mother is visiting from Indianapolis. Instead, they wait until after her annual December visit.

“I grew up in Indiana, with a decent-size Jewish community, but we were a distinct minority,” Mr. Klain said. “Not having a Christmas tree was very much part of our Jewish identity in a place where everyone else did.”

In the HBO movie "Recount" Kevin Spacey played Ron Klain.

Spacey, who was born in South Orange, New Jersey to Kathleen A. Spacey (1931-2003), a secretary, and Thomas Geoffrey Fowler (1924-1992), a technical writer, is not a Jew.

What my Rebbe, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, Said to Me about Women, the Torah, the Synagogues and Checks

2020-11-10T17:10:00.002-05:00

It is essential for Orthodox Judaism to provide women with full equality - to count them for a minyan, to call them to the Torah, and, after proper training, to ordain them as rabbis.

When Women Write the Checks
(I originally blogged this here in March, 2005 - published in the Jewish Press 2014)

In 1973, after I completed my Semicha studies with Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik at Yeshiva University, I attended his summer shiurim (Talmud classes) in Boston and then started as a PhD graduate student at Brown University.

Brown was known as a progressive community in an era of ferment. Some of us Orthodox graduate students gathered at the Hillel to engage in a traditional Minyan. Not surprisingly some of the women students there wanted to know how far we could push the envelope. Could we conduct an Orthodox service and give women aliyot to the Torah?

I knew these were all sincere and properly motivated students, seeking greater fulfillment in their practice of Judaism. So when they asked me to drive up to Boston and to discuss this issue with the Rav, Rabbi Soloveitchik, I readily accepted the challenge.

After an hour's drive one evening I was ushered in to sit with my rebbe. I talked with him about several topics, asked his opinion on halakhic issues and then got to the final question.

I told the Rav about our minyan at Brown and that some of the students wanted me to raise a sensitive issue with him. Then I asked matter-of-factly, "What does the Rav think about the issue of Kavod Hatzibbur?" As a sign of respect, one always referred to his rebbe in the third person, even when addressing him directly. And one always took pains to obliquely broach what might be a controversial topic.

The Talmud explains that women are not given aliyot to the Torah because of Kavod Hatzibbur, respect for the congregation. It sounds like a valid reason even though we cannot possibly know now what that phrase meant to the Babylonian sages 1500 years ago.

The Rav knew exactly what I was asking. He smiled and told me he would not give me a psak halakhah (a legal decision) on the subject. However, he said I should go back and assure the students at Brown that, "When the women write the checks, they will get the aliyot to the Torah." He repeated it three times.

I was surprised by the Rav's statement. At the time I assumed he wanted to be sociological not theological, to finesse the issue rather than to confront it.

I went back and reported the exchange to the earnest students. None of us knew what to make of it. And we went off and pursued our lives.

Through the years I have stopped to reflect on occasion about the wisdom that the Rav shared with me on this matter. Now, thirty-some-years later I have collected my insights into what he may have meant.

First and most important he meant to tell me that there is no halakhic barrier to women receiving aliyot to the Torah.

Second, he also meant to tell me that we should be patient and allow social change to take its progressive course.

And third, the way he put it contained an undertone of critique against how synagogues distribute aliyot in general. In his view, you could be a scoundrel or an ignoramous, but when you write a check you get an aliyah.

That is not the protocol that the Halakhah stipulates. The codes of Jewish law agree that learned people should be honored first and frequently with aliyot in the synagogue.

We have been patient. Over the past thirty years Jewish women have become more earnest, more sincere and more learned in Jewish law. And now all of the Orthodox women that I know have checkbooks.

So whether for the most elevated or for the most basic of reasons, it is high time for Orthodox rabbis to sanction for women aliyot to the Torah and much, much more.

Jewish Black Magic: They Cursed Ariel Sharon with the Pulsa D'Nora in 2005 - and can it work in October 2020 for someone else?

2020-10-05T22:21:00.002-04:00

I've spent years teaching numerous college courses on religion - always with the disclaimer that we will cover only the positive aspects of the subject. Religion used for evil, that is for war or other forms of harm, is a misuse and distortion of systems of faith.

Curses, I reasoned, were a misuse and distortion of religious practice.

Curses invoked before the Rabin assassination changed my mind about that. Prior to that tragic event, on the eve of Yom Kippur, a group of "Kabbalists" intoned the pulsa curse outside the Rabin residence. Once again, in the summer of 2005, another group gathered to invoke the curse against P.M. Ariel Sharon. It seemed to me that curses indeed were part of our religion - like it or not.

One blogger, Canonist, dealt briefly with the curse back in July 2005, complete with a link to the video of the curse "ceremony" and quotations from learned professors:

Praying for Ariel Sharon's Death

Yesterday's death-curse seems thus far to have gone unanswered by the Almighty, but we'll see. Generally speaking, I don't write much about Israel and the disengagement, but this latest is quite interesting. PaleoJudaica's got a great roundup, including descriptions of the pulsa de-nura ceremony, its detractors, and the threat of prosecution that've come out of it. Meantime, you can actually watch the ceremony in this video, which, with a bunch of people in sweats reading from photocopies, looks oddly like some run-of-the-mill Jewish ceremony, like burning chametz or somesuch. The video comes courtesy of Samuel Heilman, via a listserv to which he wrote, with the subject "Jewish Jihadists": "Lest any of you think that only Islamists have jihadists, see the video below in which so-called 'religious Jews' pray for Prime Minister Sharon's Death in a Pulsa De Nura." Bold words on both sides. Let's see what comes of them.

Erudite rabbis have written about the matter, explaining that magic is not a part of Judaism, as in the following:

The Pulsa D'Nora: The Tongue of Fire Curse Placed Upon the Wicked by Rabbi Ariel Bar Tzadok

In recent days there has been talk coming out of Israel of placing a certain Kabbalistic curse, upon the nations' Prime Minister. Known as the ominous Pulsa D'Nora, the Tongue of Fire curse of death, one Rabbi claims he is willing to perform this ceremony to influence Israeli governmental decisions, the details of which are well documented in the media and we have no reason to delve into here. The secular interests in government and in Israeli society in general seek to have the Rabbi investigated by the police and charged with incitement of violence against government officials.

The secular interests claim to have good reason for their concerns. It has been said that on the Rosh HaShana prior to the late Yitzhak Rabin's assassination that a Kabbalist or group of them placed a similar curse upon him. However, as political events unfolded in Israel in the days after Rabin's assassination, it became clear that what happened to the Prime Minister had no source or connection to anything in Kabbalah or to any mystical curse whatsoever. Whether or not the Pulsa D'Nora curse was placed on Rabin is of no matter. It is clear that it played no part whatsoever in his fate.

In light of this, whether or not an Israeli Rabbi places such a curse upon the present Prime Minister is also of no matter. It will be a futile effort, one which is certainly not worthy of media attention or the notice of secular interests. But in Israel, paranoia runs deep and people are often afraid of things they shouldn't be.

In order to contribute to the alleviation of this present concern, I believe it is in the public interest to expose the Pulsa D'Nora curse for what it truly is, how it works, and when it is legitimately supposed to be used.

With all the notoriety the Pulsa D'Nora receives one might assume that the order and ceremony of this ancient ritual is well known and readily available in certain Kabbalistic texts. This is by no means the case. Actually, of the hundreds, if not thousands of Kabbalah books available in print today not one of them contains a formula for the Pulsa D'Nora curse ritual. Therefore, unless one has received an oral transmission on how it is to be performed, no one knows how to do it, in spite of all claims to the opposite.

The Pulsa D'Nora has wrongfully been associated with a certain school of Kabbalah known as Kabbalah Ma'asit (magic). The Pulsa D'Nora is not a magical formula. Torah and Judaism have no connection to or tolerance of magic in any form. Therefore, the consideration of anything in holy Kabbalah, an integral part of HaShem's Torah from Sinai to have any ties to magic is a spurious and offensive suggestion.

The Pulsa D'Nora is actually not a "curse of death" as many mistakenly believe. No Rabbi or Kabbalist has the right or authority to curse another to death. In accordance to Torah Law, the only way a Jew is put to death is for violation of specific Biblical laws and then only after being tried and condemned by a kosher and authoritative Sanhedrin, the likes of which have not existed in Israel and among the Jewish people since the days of the Temple.

The Pulsa D'Nora was formatted actually as a last line of resort when all semblances of human justice fail to protect the Jewish people. The Pulsa D'Nora actually is a set of prayers asking HaShem to judge an individual who is deemed evil and a danger to the Jewish people but is outside the realm of human justice to punish.

The Rabbi or Kabbalist leading the minyan performing the ceremony asks HaShem to judge the soul of the individual in question and if he is found wanting, that HaShem should judge him and remove said soul from being a continued threat and danger to the Jewish people. In essence the Pulsa D'Nora is nothing more that a desperate cry of help to G-d. One who believes in the power of prayer will be impressed with this. One who does not believe in the power of prayer will ignore the Pulsa as such a one would ignore all other prayer. The power of the Pulsa lies more in the anguish of those suffering under the hand of the unreachable wicked one than in the ceremony itself. The ceremony only gives form and expression to the people's suffering. It is up to G-d to judge, for no human being has the authority to play G-d.

It has been said, however, that the Pulsa D'Nora is not to be taken lightly. The ceremony does include the recitation of certain Holy Names. This itself is a sacred undertaking. It is said that when one approaches the Heavenly Court to judge the soul of the accused wicked one, the first one examined by the Heavenly Court is the petitioner. If the one seeking justice is himself not just and righteous, then the Pulsa can turn on his own head. It will be the petitioner who will meets his fate instead of the one who stands accused. For this reason, using the Pulsa D'Nora is a dangerous thing, for who can stand before the Heavenly Court and proclaim oneself to be righteous and just. Often the petitioning Rabbi will offer his own life as atonement for offering the Pulsa D'Nora prayers just so that the Heavenly Court will address the issue of the wicked one who is the subject of the Pulsa.

All of this might sound fearful to some and foolish to others. It is up to each and every individual to judge for themselves whether or not they wish to ascribe power and legitimacy to the Pulsa D'Nora. I have only documented what there is to be known about it. In light of current events it is important that we dispel myth and reveal facts. Only in this way can we ever hope to find true peace and unity among the Jewish people.

In order to make this essay complete, I will now produce the entire formula of the Pulsa D'Nora ceremony in its original Hebrew. Due to the nature of this material it is not suitable for translation.

You can view the text of the curse here: http://www.koshertorah.com/PDF/pulsa.pdf.

(repost revised from 11/05)

Pandemic Kohelet: An Israelite Form of Meditation: Ecclesiastes is a cynical reflection on life’s futility that we can resonate to now more than ever.

2020-10-01T22:50:00.002-04:00

I think you will like this article published today on TheTorah.com! Kohelet: An Israelite Form of Meditation. Ecclesiastes is a cynical reflection on life’s futility. The constant sonorous repetition, visualizations, and references to breath serve as a sustained meditation to help free the reader’s soul from the agonizing struggle of life.

Talmudic Advice from a Swim Addict: Swim 100 laps every day

2020-07-31T08:41:00.001-04:00

The Tosefta quotes Rabbi Meir (2nd century CE) saying that everyone should strive to recite 100 blessings each day. It then goes on to explain how one can do this.

Blessings are berakhot ברכות in Hebrew. In modern Hebrew the laps that one swims in a pool are called berechot בריכות.

I playfully and read the Talmud this way: Don't say 100 berakhot, say 100 berechot.

More about Meir from Wikipedia: Meir was buried in a standing position near the Kinneret. Pictured here. It is said that he asked to be buried this way so when the Final Redemption occurs, Rabbi Meir would be spared the trouble of arising from his grave and could just walk out to greet the Jewish Messiah. He requested that he be buried in Israel by the seashore so that the water that washes the shores should also lap his grave (Jerusalem Talmud, Kelaim 9:4).

And so I have my Talmudic encouragement to swim 100 laps a day. On many days each year, I get to that goal.

Here are a few of my past reflections on swimming...

Some time ago, JTA reported that "Liberal men take the plunge into ritual immersion, slowly" -- Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist Jewish men were going to mikvah and finding it meaningful. Sue Fishkoff wondered why and so did I.

She ended her article with a quote from mikvah user and attorney Merrill Hassenfeld, “We’re always doing things for others, why don’t we set aside time to go to the mikvah?” he asked. “It prepares us to go out into the world and start yelling and screaming again.” (Has a greater non-sequiteur ever been uttered?)

Now, my confession. I am a pool addict. I am a lap swimmer.

Starting in 1982 my aim was to try to swim a mile - 64 laps every day. Finding the time. Finding a pool. Finding the energy. Not easy. Since 2013 I raised the lap level to 100 a day - a mile and a half. 400 miles a year.

When I come out of my pool, I find that I feel healthier, more centered and completely relaxed. Swimming a mile in around 30 minutes is hard, aerobic work. That is what I have to invest to get results from my "mikvah" experience. I'm happy to observe that others can achieve their own "incredible" positive benefits from splashing around in a state of heightened imagination.

I have sought out pools to swim my laps all over the world. My most favorite pool was the old Gordon Pool on Tel Aviv beach near the Sheraton, pictured below from a few years ago.

It was one of the wonders of the world. Each night they emptied the entire 50 meter pool, cleaned it and refilled it from underground saltwater wells 120 meters below. The pool opened at 5 AM at 24 degrees, which was just fine for us lap swimmers.

Suddenly, the Gordon pool was leveled in 2008 without warning by the city of Tel Aviv. Happily, they rebuilt and reopened it as a more modern facility. I swam there in 2011. It's wonderful.

I admit that 100 laps is an arbitrary goal. But for me, most days, it's exhilerating!

[reposted with enhancements each year from 5/20/09]

Jerusalem and Tisha B'Av - 1986 v. 2020 - How times change!

2020-07-29T10:11:00.003-04:00

Today I published my thoughts for Tisha B'Av 2020 - see it as an op-ed in the Jerusalem Post. I say Jerusalem's destruction symbolizes the sufferings of our pandemic world today.

Tisha B'Av has serious meaning for us this year. For many years I did not think that was true.

Thirty-two years ago, on August 13, 1986, I wrote an op-ed that was published in the Jerusalem Post saying that Jerusalem is not desolate. My underlying point was that when we pray, it’s false to say that Jerusalem today is in ruins.

The title that the editors assigned to the op ed was, “Some prefer to give it a new meaning,” although that’s not exactly what I said. Here is the editorial:

“I shall be fasting this week [for Tisha B’Av]. But this year, more than ever before, I feel silly mourning over the destruction of Jerusalem. I really do not know what to do when it comes time to listen to and recite for myself the classical laments for the fast of Tisha B’Av. Much of what we say about Jerusalem in the synagogue is just not true anymore.

“It is obvious to anyone and everyone that Jerusalem does not lie in ruins. On the contrary, this is my fourth extended visit to Jerusalem in the last seven years. Over the last seven years I have watched as buildings spread out from the center of town to the new neighborhoods. Now Jerusalem sprawls across the hills of Judea, south and north from Gilo to Ramot and beyond.

“On the ninth day of Av this year the observant Jews of Jerusalem will congregate in synagogues throughout the city to mourn and lament. What they say inside these halls will not reflect the reality immediately outside them.

“And so this year I have resolved to add a few silent paragraphs to my prayers. Then when I leave the synagogue and step out into the rebuilt city of our people, I will feel that I have been candid in my meditations and forthright in my worship. I shall say something like this:

“‘Jerusalem is not desolate. It stands glorious above our Land. Our capital looks down on the miracle of the modern state of our people, rebuilt by the sweat and labor of our brethren and sisters. A thousand settlements testify to our return and we are homeless no more.’

“‘The inhabitants of Jerusalem are not homeless. Beautiful buildings abound, apartments, condominiums, villas, large and small. Hotels and hostels, old and new. Whosoever wishes may come and live here. Whosoever is hungry shall find sustenance here.’

“‘Enemies do not govern our land. The Knesset, the site of our self-government, stands at the center of our new metropolis, a vibrant testimony to our freedom. Independent and sovereign, we struggle with each other and with the states of the world, and somehow, we manage to live in harmony among ourselves, and to survive in the swirling community of nations.’

“‘Yes, the Temple was destroyed. But we have built other edifices in its stead. Long ago, in another age, our national center was taken from us by forces we could not resist. But now we have built new structures where we symbolize and express our spirit, our minds and our creative energies, and most of all, our freedom.’

“‘A great synagogue and many more stand in our capital. They serve as the many beating hearts of our spiritual organs. In dozens of yeshivot, teachers build the religious minds of our youth. Schools abound. When school is in session, wherever you turn there are children on their way to classes from kindergartens to high schools, soaking up the knowledge of our world.’

“‘A great Hebrew University answers to the essence of our wider educational appetites, in the capital of our nation. In its laboratories, classrooms and libraries, students try to unravel the mysteries of nature and society and strive to construct a new and better order.’

“‘The Israel Museum, the Bezalel School, the Jerusalem Theatre and other institutions small and large. cater to our cultural needs. In Jerusalem we display our past and our present. We sing and dance and we mourn no more. We paint and draw and sculpt and adorn the urban hub of our people, the crown of our land.’

“‘As we watch, day-by-day, luxury hotels go up and up. Lush green gardens bloom before us. We repose in parks and swimming pools. We find our needs in supermarkets, bakeries and department stores. And we indulge our extravagances in shops and markets, elegant restaurants and offbeat cafes.’

“‘The city of Jerusalem has been rebuilt. Still, the work is never done. And the struggle will not end. But: our city is not desolate. How can we mourn? We must, yes, we are obliged, indeed, it is the highest duty, for us to celebrate. For with God’s help, but in accordance with our own will and with our own hands, we have raised Jerusalem beyond its highest heights. Never before in all of our history has this city attained such glory.’

“And so that is what I shall add as I conclude my lamentations on Tisha B’Av this year. I shall be cheerful this year, and I will not mourn. But I shall do so silently, because this is my own private devotion. Will others join me?”

Pandemic Lamentations: My Jewish Standard Dear Rabbi Zahavy Column for July 2020

2020-07-23T12:03:00.002-04:00

Dear Rabbi Zahavy,

These past few months in 2020 have been such a sad time of worldwide suffering, specifically due to the impact of the covid-19 virus. On the upcoming Tisha B’Av fast day (the ninth day of Av, which this year begins on the evening of July 29 and ends at sundown on July 30), would it be appropriate to make note of what is going on around us and perhaps to recite prayers to lament and to seek consolation for our present sufferings? How would that work for us?

Lamenting in Leonia

Dear Lamenting,

Yes, that surely is appropriate to do. Though our world of 2020 seems distant from the ancient times of Tisha B’Av, in 70 C. E., when Jerusalem and the Temple were destroyed, the underlying human conditions of life have not changed. Sadly, this year we have come to the point where right now we face extraordinary suffering, trauma, and destruction, on the personal, communal, and global level.

To make for yourself a meaningful Tisha B’Av 2020, you will need to creatively repurpose our old and established rituals, which were instituted after the destructions of 70 C.E. Under the circumstances, you should go for it, and create a new set of lamentations for yourself.Keep in mind that the events of 2020 and of 70 are distant chronologically, but they are similar in several ways.

On the Tisha B’Av of 70, we Jews lamented that invader armies destroyed our holy city, Jerusalem, whose very name means “our inheritance of peace and wholeness.”

On the Tisha B’Av of 2020, we all must lament how the invading virus has disrupted the wholeness of our lives. For each of us, the personal Jerusalem of our citadels of peaceful and whole lives have been undermined and derailed in so many ways.

On the Tisha B’Av of 70, we Jews lamented that invader armies sacked and burned our sacred Temple, where priests offered regular scheduled daily sacrifices, where they kept the calendar and declared the new moons, where they brought the festival offerings to God in the annual cycles of the years.

On the Tisha B’Av of 2020, we all can lament how the invading virus has derailed us from our life, schedules, and routines, at our homes, at our work, at our schools, and of course in our synagogues.

In the traditional Tisha B’Av service in many synagogues, which have been held for 2,000 years, we sat on the floor and we chanted our mournful laments. We fasted for the whole day, to deepen our sense of grief and loss.

Our Tisha B’Av laments in the past concluded with the urgent prayerful plea of “hashivenu” from the book of Lamentations 5:21. “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old.”

And it is true, you may say, that it is hard to see through to the restoration of order and wholeness in our lives while we still are in the midst of profound disruption and suffering.

The scroll of Lamentations actually ends on this mournful verse, “But thou hast utterly rejected us; thou art very wroth against us.” From the immediate midst of suffering it is common to feel despair. But in our synagogue recitation of the scroll, we stubbornly reply to that verse with the repetition of the previous one, “Restore us to yourself, O Lord, that we may be restored! Renew our days as of old.”

Acceptance of our grief and suffering in personal or communal or liturgical ways helps us coalesce our grief, and so it may be therapeutic for the moment. My teacher, Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik taught us that the truest prayer comes out of the cries of cavernous existential grief. So this year we ought to be able to feel a truly deep prayer experience. But the Rav also was known to reassure us students after speaking of the angst of existential sufferings. He would say to us, “We Jews are a resilient people. Yes, we were persecuted repeatedly, and we suffered greatly. But we know how to bounce back!”

Yes, the road before us looks steep and uphill. We will have a lot of renewing to do ahead of us. We must be confident that our renewed Jerusalems will be whole and healthy and sound and fit like the old ones were — or perhaps even better.

So, yes, let us create our own Tisha B’Av for 2020.

This year’s challenges — to our wholeness and health, to our rituals and recreations, to our regularity, plans, and projects, to our purity inside the sacred spaces of our homes and communities — loom hugely in front of us. We must articulate the specifics of our own personal laments and the outcries of our community. We must articulate the angst of the terrible conditions of our world.

Thus, I’ll conclude here with a few preliminary lines of the laments and the prayers that I am formulating for my Tisha B’Av 2020. Perhaps dear Lamenting, these lines will inspire your own efforts:

Woe and alas.

How tragic it has been to watch the suffering and death broadcast to us daily via our global media from our hospitals — overwhelmed by the tasks of treating the stricken — unprecedented in our lifetimes.

How sad has it been to lose our relatives, our friends. and our neighbors to such awful illness and suffering, and then not to be able to be at their funerals or shivas.

Woe to us for our exceptional schools are closed or postponed or made virtual, our preschools, elementary schools, high schools, and colleges, and our yeshivas and seminaries.

Alas we must forgo so many aspects of our prayerful Temples, synagogues, and shuls, our joyful bar mitzvahs, weddings, brises, seders, even our simple family gatherings.

Woe to us our magnificent restaurants are closed, and our glittering shops are shuttered.

Alas our ambitious travel plans to visit the meaningful, the exotic, and the beautiful destinations of the world are derailed.

Woe to us our live entertainments and diversions in theaters, and arenas of plays and concerts and sports are cancelled. Our health clubs, gyms, and pools are closed or limited.

Woe to us as we bid farewell and goodbye for now to the Temples of our “normal lives” to the peaceful city we so meticulously built in which to live.

Our normalcies are the sacred precincts of our lives — and they have been invaded and interrupted.

This year’s challenges — to our wholeness, to our rituals, to our regularity, to our purity inside our own sacred spaces of homes and communities — are enormous.

Our laments end with a hopeful prayer.

Hashivenu. Let us reach way down and find the confidence we need to survive today and restore tomorrow. We pray. Hashivenu. Help us O Lord to restore our wholeness.

Tzvee Zahavy of Teaneck has been a distinguished professor of Jewish studies, religious studies, Talmud, Jewish law codes, and Jewish liturgy at major U.S. research universities and seminaries. He received his Ph.D. from Brown University and his rabbinic ordination from Yeshiva University. He has published numerous scholarly and popular articles and books about Judaism and Jewish life. Go to www.tzvee.com for details of his publications.

9 years ago I published: "God’s Favorite Prayers" - it has been a delicious improvement on all previous theologies of Jewish prayers

2020-06-16T09:49:00.002-04:00

"God’s Favorite Prayers" (ISBN 0615509495) is a new published book that unlocks the personalities behind the prayers. Author Tzvee Zahavy introduces readers to the archetypes within Jewish liturgy in this engaging new volume.

"God’s Favorite Prayers" invites the reader into the heart of Jewish spirituality, to learn about its idiom and imagery, its emotions and its great sweeping dramas. The author invites the reader to meet six ideal personalities of Jewish prayer and to get to know some of God's favorite prayers.

According to Zahavy, Jews recite and sing and meditate prayers that derive from six distinct archetypes. He labels those six personalities: the performer, the mystic, the scribe, the priest, the meditator and the celebrity.

Zahavy wrote this book to remedy the status quo in Jewish thought, where mainly dry theological approaches have been applied to the readings of the liturgy. He points out that as a result, in many synagogues, it is common to hear that worshippers are bored with the services or alienated from them. In his new book he criticizes previous approaches to the prayer book because they offer no solution to this state of affairs.

“Liturgy is not dry theology,” Zahavy explains. Instead, he shows how the traditional Jewish services are filled with “colorful pictures, evoking sentiments and passions and full of exhilaration.”

This book provokes thinking that will make readers stop to find their own personal threads of liturgical meanings and discover the energy and excitement of the prayers.

The book is directed to lay people, educators and academics, Jews and non-Jews. Zahavy uses a fresh and original set of “contemporary metaphors and anecdotal narratives” which he wraps around his presentations and discussions of the main prayers of Jewish worship.

The author is an experienced researcher, a published scholar, and a lively lecturer on various topics related to Jewish prayer. Intended to engage and inform, Zahavy says that this book was written to shift the paradigm of study in the field of liturgical research in all religions.

"God’s Favorite Prayers" is available in print form for sale online at Amazon.com and through other channels. It is also sold in digital formats, as a Kindle book at Amazon.com, and as a NOOK book at barnesandnoble.com.

About the Author

Tzvee Zahavy earned a bachelor's degree, a master’s degree and ordination from Yeshiva University and a PhD in religious studies from Brown University. He has held professorial positions at the University of Minnesota where he won a distinguished teaching award, and at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he has taught Jewish liturgy. He regularly engages in research in Jewish studies and has written extensively on the subject in books and journals.

Contact: Tzvee Zahavy, E-mail: Zahavy@gmail.com Phone: (201) 362-5867
Web: www.godsfavoriteprayers.com www.talmudicbooks.com
Review Copies and Interviews Available

Rabbi Soloveitchik on the Ontology of Women and Replies to it - all in the Link

2020-06-15T14:58:00.004-04:00

Note: A credible scholar gave a class on zoom yesterday showing in detail that the Rav was wrong in his halakhic premises about this topic. I concur with that conclusion.

A New Transcription: Surrendering to the Almighty

By Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l | March 14, 2019

Editor’s note: Torahweb.org has just completed this new transcription as part of a forthcoming book. The full shiur, made in 1975 to Rabbinic alumni, is available on YU Torah here: https://tinyurl.com/y5ylmmax. This text is excerpted only in the interest of space, omitting several introductory paragraphs. The full transcription, with full footnotes, is available here: https://tinyurl.com/y5akgjoj.

...Today, let me say it in Hebrew, «כלו כל הקיצין» [2], and I feel it is my duty to make the following statement, and I am very sad that I have to do it. But somehow, I have no choice in the matter; there is no alternative. What I am going to say, I want you to understand, is my credo about Torah and the way Torah should be taught and Torah should be studied.

The study of Torah has had such a great cathartic impact upon me, as you understand it, is rooted in the wondrous experience I always have when I open up the Gemara. Somehow, when I do open up the Gemara, either alone or when I am in company, and I do teach others, I have the impression - don’t call it hallucination, it is not a hallucination - I have the impression as if I heard, I would say, soft footsteps of somebody invisible, who comes in and sits down with me, sometimes looking over my shoulder. It is simply, the idea is not a mystical idea, it is the Gemara, the mishna in Avos, the Gemara in Berachos say, «אפילו אחד יושב ועוסק בתורה שכינה שרויה» [4] and we all believe that the nosein haTorah, the One who gave us the Torah, has never deserted the Torah, and He simply walks, He accompanies the Torah, wherever the Torah has a, let’s say, a rendezvous, an appointment, a date with somebody, He is there.

Therefore, the study of Torah has never been for me a dry formal intellectual performance act, no matter how important a role the intellect plays in limud haTorah. You know very well that I place very much a great deal of emphasis upon the intellectual understanding and analysis of the halacha; you know that this is actually what my grandfather zichrono l’vracha actually introduced, and you know and I can tell you - and I told you so many times, and I will say it again - our methodology, our analysis, and our manner of conceptualizing, and inferring, and classifying, and defining things, halachic matters, does not lag behind the most modern philosophical analyses, I happen to know something about it. We are far ahead of it; the tools, the logical tools, the epistemological instruments which we employ in order to analyze a sugya in, let us say, חזקת הבתים, in הערל,or in Shabbos, or in Bava Kama, it doesn’t matter, are the most modern - they are very impressive (a great share in that has my grandfather.) Anyway, we avail ourselves of the most modern methods of understanding, of constructing, of inferring, of classifying, defining, and so forth and so on. So there is no doubt that the intellect plays a tremendous role in limud haTorah.

However, talmud Torah is more than intellectual performance. It is a total, all-encompassing and all-embracing involvement - mind and heart, will and feeling, the very center of the human personality. Emotional man, logical man, voluntaristic man - all of them are involved in the study of Torah. Talmud Torah is basically, for me, an ecstatic experience, in which one meets God. And again I want to say that whatever I told you now is not just mysticism or due to my mystical inclinations; it isn’t so. The Gemara says so. Chazal have equated talmud Torah with revelation; the great event, drama, of gilui shechina is reenacted, restaged, and relived, every time a Jew opens a Gemara. The Talmud in Berachos, while discussing the problem of ba’al keri, the issur Torah of ba’al keri, expressed itself as follows:

דתניא: והודעתם לבניך ולבני בניך... יום אשר עמדת לפני ה› אלקיך בחורב, מה להלן באימה וביראה וברתת ובזיע אף כאן באימה וביראה וברתת ובזיע. - Make them known to thy children and thy children’s children... the day that thou stood before the Lord thy God at Choreiv...[5]

The Torah did not say «make known the halachos.» More than that - make known simply your rendezvous with God, which means they should experience exactly what you did experience, when you stood before thy God in Choreiv. How did the people stand before God in Choreiv? With fear, awe, and with a tremor in their heart; trembling! So must every Jew who engages in talmud Torah stand before God with fear, awe, and tremor. That’s why a ba’al keri is assur bedivrei Torah; this is the reason! It is not the tuma, but he is not in the mood to experience the presence of the Almighty, to experience revelation every time he engages in study. So if a Jew cannot experience revelation when he is busy studying, so he is assur betalmud Torah. This is the reason for ba’al keri!

In other words, the study of the Torah is an ecstatic, metaphysical performance, and the study of the Torah is an act of surrender - this is very important. What does a Jew surrender when he studies Torah? That is why Chazal emphasized so many times the importance of humility, the importance of humility, and that the proud person can never be a great scholar, only the humble person. Why is humility necessary? Because the study of Torah means meeting the Almighty, of course, and if a finite being meets the infinite - the Almighty, the Maker of the world - of course this meeting must precipitate a mood of humility, and humility results in surrender.

What do we surrender to the Almighty? We surrender first, two things in my opinion; I’ll explain. We surrender to the Almighty the every-day logic, or what I call the mercantile logic, or the logic of the businessman, or the logic of the utilitarian person; and we embrace another logic - miSinai. And secondly, we also surrender the everyday will, which is very utilitarian, very superficial, and we embrace another will - the will miSinai. And this is not, as I told you before, it’s not just drush, homiletics. The Rambam, when he explains kabbalas ol malchus Shamayim in krias shema, and he explains the gemara, «למה קדמה פרשת שמע לפרשת והיה אם שמוע? שיקבל עליו עול מלכות שמים תחילה»[6], so the Rambam enumerates the elements of ol malchus Shamayim; it is ahavaso - love of God - yiraso - fear of God - v’talmudo - and Talmud Torah, «ותלמודו שהוא העיקר הגדול שהכל תלוי בו»[7] Talmud Torah is an act; talmud Torah means קבלת עול מלכות שמים. And that’s the reason why talmud Torah, I mean, one must not study the Torah unless he says the birchas haTorah; this is the reason for Kaddish DeRabbanan - because talmud Torah constitutes an act of surrender, of קבלת עול מלכות שמים, of accepting the harness of mitzvos.

It is interesting that Chazal always said עול מלכות שמים. Why not קבלת מלכות שמים? Why עול מלכות שמים? What is the answer? The answer is because קבלת מלכות שמים means when malchus Shamayim is convenient, cooperates with man, when man has the impression as if malchus Shamayim is out to promote his everyday business, malchus Shamayim is good, is acceptable, even from a purely pragmatic viewpoint or purely utilitarian viewpoint. That is why Chazal have always inserted the word ol - harness. Harness means regardless of the fact that קבלת מלכות שמים is sometimes very uncomfortable, and requires of man sacrificial action, and is a heavy yoke, it is a yoke, but still the kabbala must take place.

Let me now just enumerate the aspect of קבלת עול מלכות שמים which is identical with talmud Torah. What does קבלת עול מלכות שמים require of the lomeid haTorah, of the person who studies Torah? First, we must pursue the truth, and nothing else but the truth. However, the truth in talmud Torah can be achieved through singular halachic Torah thinking and Torah understanding. The truth is attained from within, in accord with the methodology given to Moses and passed on from generation to generation. The truth can be discovered only through joining the ranks of the chochmei hamasora. It is ridiculous to say, «I have discovered something of which the Rashba didn’t know, the Ketzos didn’t know, the Vilna Gaon had no knowledge. I have discovered an approach to the interpretation of Torah that is completely new.» It is ridiculous. One has to join the ranks of the chochmei hamasora - Chazal, Rishonim, gedolei Acharonim. One must not try to rationalize from without, the chukei haTorah and must not judge the chukim u’mishpatim in terms of a secular system of values. Such an attempt - be it historicism, be it psychologism, be it utilitarianism - undermines the very foundations of Torah umasora, and leads eventually to the most tragic consequences of assimilationism and nihilism, no matter how good the intentions are of the person who suggests it.

Second, we must not yield - I mean emotionally, it is very important - we must not feel inferior, develop or experience an inferiority complex, and because of that complex yield to the charm - usually it is a transient and passing charm - of modern political or ideological slogans. I say not only not to compromise - certainly not to compromise - but even not to yield emotionally, not to feel inferior, not to experience an inferiority complex. And it should never occur to me that it is important if we would cooperate, just a little bit, with the modern trend or with the secular, modern philosophy. In my opinion, Yahadus does not have to apologize, neither to the modern woman nor to the modern representatives of religious subjectivism. There is no need for apology. We should have pride in our masora, in our heritage. And of course, certainly, it goes without saying, one must not try to compromise with those cultural trends, and one must not try to gear the halachic norm to the transient values of a neurotic society, that is what our society is.

Third: קבלת עול מלכות שמים - which is an identical act with that of talmud Torah - requires of us to revere and to love and to admire the words of the chochmei hamasora, be they Tanna’im, be they Amora’im, be they Rishonim, I don’t care. This is our prime duty. They are the final authorities. An irresponsible statement about Chazal borders - I don’t like to use the word, but according to Maimonides it is - on the heretic, because the Rambam says about Tzedukim, the Rambam says who is a Tzeduki? The Rambam in perek gimel of Hilchos Teshuva, halacha cheis, «וכן הכופר בפרושה והוא תורה שבעל פה והמכחיש מגידיה כגון צדוק ובייתוס»[8]. It is very strange; I wanted to discuss it with my father zichrono leveracha. If he says that whoever denies the truthfulness or the authenticity of Torah SheBe’al Peh is a Tzeduki, why did he add והמכחיש מגידיה - «Whoever denies the authority of the scholars of the masora»? So apparently, the Rambam says that under the category of kofrim baTorah are classified not only those who deny, that for instance, nisuch hamayim is required or arava she’ba’Mikdash is required, or they deny the Torah SheBe’al Peh; there is no doubt about it, but moreover, even those who admit the truthfulness of the Torah SheBe’al Peh but they are critical of chachmei Chazal as personalities, who find fault in chachmei Chazal, fault in their character Rachmana litzlan, or in their behavior, in their conduct, say that chochmei Chazal were prejudiced, which actually has no impact upon the halacha - nevertheless, he is to be considered as a kofer. «וכן הכופר בפרושה והוא תורה שבעל פה והמכחיש מגידיה» - what does it mean «והמכחיש מגידיה»? He denies the perfection and the truthfulness of chachmei Chazal - not of the Torah, again, but of the chachmei Chazal as personalities, as real personae, as far as their character is concerned, their philosophy is concerned, their outlook on the world is concerned.

And let me add something, this is very important. Not only the halachos, but also the chazakos which chachmei Chazal have introduced are indestructible. We must not tamper, not only with the halachos, but even with the chazokos, for the chazokos which Chazal spoke of rest not upon transient psychological behavioral patterns, but upon permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality, in the metaphysical human personality, which is as changeless as the heavens above.

Let us take for instance, let’s take an example, the chazaka, for instance, that’s what I was told about. The chazaka «טב למיתב טן דו מלמיתב ארמלו» [9] has absolutely nothing to do with the social and political status of the woman in antiquity. The chazaka is based not upon sociological factors, but upon a verse in Bereishis, «הרבה ארבה עצבונך והרנך בעצב תלדי בנים ואל אישך תשוקתך והוא ימשל בך - I will greatly multiply thy pain and thy travail; in pain thou shall bring forth children, and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.»[10] It is a metaphysical curse rooted in the feminine personality; she suffers incomparably more that the male while in solitude. Solitude to the male is not as terrible an experience, as horrifying an experience, as solitude to a woman. And this will never change, כימי השמים על הארץ, it will never change, because this is not a psychological fact; it is an existential fact. It is not due to the inferior status of the woman, but is due to the difference, the basic distinction, between the female personality and the male personality. Loneliness frightens the woman, and an old spinster’s life is much more miserable and tragic than the life of an old bachelor. This was true in antiquity; it is still true, and it will be true a thousand years from now. So to say that טן דו מלמיתב ארמלו was due, or is due, to the inferior political or social status of the woman is simply misinterpreting the chazoka of טן דו מלמיתב ארמלו. And no legislation can alleviate the pain of a single woman; no legislation can change this role. She was burdened with that by the Almighty after she violated the first law.

And, let me ask you a question. Ribbono shel Olam - God Almighty - if you should start modifying and reassessing the chazokos upon which a multitude of halachos rest, you will destroy Yahadus! So instead of philosophizing, let us rather light a match and set fire to the Beis Yisrael; we will get rid of all problems!

And I also was told that it was recommended that the method of אפקעינהו רבנן לקידושין מיניה [11] be reintroduced. If this recommendation will be accepted, I hope it will not be accepted, however if this recommendation will be accepted, then there will be no need for a get. No need for a get. «האשה נקנית...בכסף בשטר ובביאה...וקונה את עצמה בגט ובמיתת הבעל»[12] we will be able to cross out this mishna, this halacha; every rabbi will suspend the kiddushin. If such a privilege exists, why should this privilege be monopolized by the Rabbanus HaRoshis of Eretz Yisrael? Why couldn’t the Rabbinical Assembly do just as well as the Rabbanus HaRoshis, if the problem is אפקעינהו רבנן לקידושין מיניה?! Ribbono d’alma kula, what are you out, to destroy everything?! I will tell you frankly, I will be relieved of two masechtos. I will not have to say shiurim on Gittin and Kiddushin, and then Yevamos as well.

And I want to be frank and open. Do you expect to survive as Orthodox rabbis? Or, do you expect to carry on the masora under such circumstances? Curse will replace the Torah. I hope that those who are present here will join me in simply objecting to such symposia and to such discussions and debate at the rabbinical convention. When I was told about it, I thought, «Would it be possible?» I cannot imagine that at the Republican National Convention or Democratic National Convention, should we introduce a symposium on whether communism and democracy, perhaps communism should replace democracy in the United States. Could you imagine such a possibility? I can not. Because there is a certain system of postulates to which people are committed, and such a discussion, at the National Convention of the Republican Party, would be outside the system of postulates to which the American people are committed to. And to speak about changing the halachos of Chazal is, of course, is at least as nonsensical as discussing communism at the Republican National Convention. It is discussing self-destruction, a method of self-destruction and suicide.

I know; you don’t have to tell it to me because, בתוך עמי אנכי יושב, I don’t live in an ivory tower, I don’t live in a fool’s paradise. I know that modern life is very complex. I know your problems; many of your problems are passed on to me. We are confronted with horrible problems - social, political, cultural, and economic. Problems of the family, problems of the community, and problems of society in general. We feel, and I sometimes feel like you, as if we are swimming against the tide; the tide is moving rapidly, with tremendous force, in the opposite direction of which we are moving. I feel it, I know that - you don’t have to tell it to me. The crowd, the great majority, has deserted us, and cares for nothing. I know the danger of let’s say ta’aruvos - of weddings, of church weddings, in which a Jew or a Jewess is united in marriage by a priest and a Reform rabbi. I know all of that. We are facing an awesome challenge, and I am mindful of all that. I don’t live, as I told you, in a fool’s paradise. However, if you think that the solution lies in the reformist philosophy, or in an extraneous interpretation of the Halacha, you are badly mistaken. It is self-evident; many problems are unsolvable, you can’t help it. For instance, the problem of these two mamzerim in Eretz Yisrael - you can’t help it. All we have is the institution of mamzer. No one can abandon it - neither the Rav HaRoshi, nor the Rosh HaGola. It cannot be abandoned. It is a pasuk in Chumash: «לא יבא ממזר בקהל ה’».[13] It is very tragic; the midrash already spoke about it, «והנה דמעת העשוקים»[14], but it’s a reality, it’s a religious reality. If we say to our opponents or to the dissident Jews, «That is our stand» - they will dislike us, they will say that we are inflexible, we are ruthless, we are cruel, but they will respect us. But however, if you try to cooperate with them or even if certain halachic schemes are introduced from within, I don’t know, you would not command love, you would not get their love, and you will certainly lose their respect. That is exactly what happened in Eretz Yisrael! What can we do? This is Toras Moshe and this is surrender. This is קבלת עול מלכות שמים. We surrender.

The Torah summons the Jew to live heroically. We cannot allow an eishes ish, no matter how tragic the case is, to remarry without a get. We cannot permit a giyores to marry a kohen, and sometimes the cases are very tragic, I know from my own experience. I had a case in Rochester, with a gentile girl, she became a giyores, the woman became a giyores, before she met the boy. She was a real giyores hatzedek; she did not join our fold because she wanted to marry somebody - giyores hatzedek. And then she met the Jewish boy. He came from an alienated background, had absolutely no knowledge of Yahadus. She brought him close to Yahadus, and they got engaged, and he visited the cemetery - since he came closer to Yahadus, he wanted to find out about his family, about his family tree, so he visited the cemetery in which his grandfather was buried, and he saw a strange symbol - ten fingers like that. So they began to ask; he thought it was a mystical symbol. So he discovered that he is a kohen. What can you do? This is the halacha, that the kohen is assur b’giyores. I know the problem. We surrender to the will of the Almighty.

On the other hand, to say that the Halacha is not sensitive to problems and not responsive to the needs of the people, is an outright falsehood. The Halacha is responsive to the needs of both the community and the individual. But the Halacha has its own orbit, moves at a certain definitive speed, has its own pattern of responding to a challenge, its own criteria and principles. And I come from a rabbinic house; it is called beis harav, the house into which I was born, and believe me, Rav Chaim used to try his best to be a meikil. However, there were limits even to Rav Chaim’s skills. When you reach the boundary line, it is all you can say: «I surrender to the will of the Almighty.» There is a sadness in my heart, and I share in the suffering of the poor woman, who was instrumental in bringing him back to the fold, and then she had to lose him. She lost him; she walked away. This is why the Rambam says that talmud Torah is identical to קבלת עול מלכות שמים.

To speak about Halacha as a fossil, Rachmana litzlan, is ridiculous. Because we know, those who study Halacha know, it is a living, dynamic discipline which was given to man in order to redeem him and to save him. We are opposed to shinuyim (changes), of course, but chiddush is certainly the very essence of Halacha. There are no shinuyim in Halacha, but there are great chiddushim.[15] But chiddushim are within the system, not from the outside! You cannot psychologize Halacha, historicize Halacha, or rationalize Halacha, because this is something foreign, something extraneous.

As a matter of fact, not only Halacha. Can you psychologize mathematics? I will ask you a question about mathematics; let us take Euclidean geometry. I can give many psychological explanations of why Euclid said that two parallels do not cross, or the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. If I were a psychologist, I could interpret it in psychological terms. Would it change the postulate, the mathematical postulate? And Marah d’alma Kula - Almighty God - when it comes to Torah, which is from HaKadosh Baruch Hu, all the instruments of psychology, history, and utilitarian morality are being used in order to undermine the very authority of the Halacha. The human being is invited to be creative, inventive, and engage in inspiring research from within, but not from without. Instead of complaining against the inflexibility of Halacha, let us expose, let us explore its endless spaces, and enjoy talmud Torah, and find in talmud Torah a redemptive, cathartic, and inspiring reality.

[1]The text attempts at a more precise transcription than previously published, including additions to and corrections of prior versions. For the full footnote please see the online version.

[2]Sanhedrin 97b

[4]Avos 3:6; Berachos 6a.

[5]Berachos 20a.

[6]Berachos 13a.

[7] Hilchos Krias Shema 1:2.

[8] Hilchos Teshuva 3:8.

[9]Yevamos 118b; Kesubos 75a; Kiddushin 7a, 41a; Bava Kama 111a.

[10]Bereishis 3:16.

[11]Yevamos 90b, 110a; Kesubos 3a; Gittin 33a, 73a; Bava Basra 48b.

[12]Kiddushin 1:1.

[13]Devarim 23:3.

[14]See Koheles 4:1 and Medrash Rabbah ad loc.

[15]The preceding section of text («the house into which I was born...» through «...but there are great chiddushim») appears in the text posted here, but the audio for this section is missing/erased in all the versions of the recording we could find. The text does, however, correspond to basic ideas reported at the same point of the address in Light magazine and seemed accurate/plausible to Rav Hershel Schachter shlit»a, so we have included it here.

Here are the Letters

Dear Editor,

Thank you for publishing (March 14, 2019) "A New Transcription: Surrendering to the Almighty," by my rebbe, Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik, zt”l. I had the privilege of studying in the Rav’s shiur from 1969 to 1973.

This article is a powerful essay based on a speech delivered to the Rabbinic Alumni of Yeshiva University in 1975. But because you did not provide the context and purpose of that speech, the general reader may have been confused by the impassioned uncompromising tone of the piece.

This talk was delivered by the Rav as a response to proposals by Rabbi Emanuel Rackman to resolve the problems faced by women whose husbands refused to grant them a Jewish divorce. Rabbi Rackman was also in line at that time as a top candidate to become president of Yeshiva University.

Rav Soloveitchik’s strident remarks in the piece that you published characterized (without spelling this out) that the innovations that Rabbi Rackman wanted to make in divorce law were (1) heretical and (2) liable to “destroy yahadus (Judaism)” and (3) “methods of self-destruction and suicide.” Harsh words indeed.

And to justify his positions against the Rackman modifications, The Rav made several declarations about the nature of women that he called “permanent ontological principles rooted in the very depth of the human personality,” in particular that “the hazaka of “better to dwell with two bodies than to dwell as a widow” (I.e., the presumption of the Talmud that a woman is better off married than single) is a “metaphysical curse, rooted in the feminine personality.”

Now, this was a speech made approximately 44 years ago and some forceful statements in it like the preceding might sound outrageous and extreme to us today – and perhaps outright wrong. But even if we were to grant that the Rav was perspicacious and sagacious in his insights into human nature, the notion that such essential nature should be a bar to a woman from the right to dissolve an abusive or otherwise non-functioning marriage – made no logical deductive sense at all. It was a polemical move in a diatribe that was meant to quash dissent and stifle change.

The Rav’s speech succeeded to suppress Rabbi Rackman’s proposals at the time and to marginalize him, thus ending his chances to ascend to the presidency of Yeshiva University. Rackman went on to become president and chancellor at Bar Ilan University in Israel, and to initiate independent innovations in the area of Jewish divorce, without the approval of Rav Soloveitchik or other Rabbis at Yeshiva University.

So you see, the essay/speech you published was not just a nice dvar Torah to read on a quiet Shabbos afternoon. True, it was clothed in many words of Torah learning, but nonetheless it was a controversial work of religious political argumentation by a great Gadol Hatorah of a past generation.

Rabbi Dr. Tzvee Zahavy

Teaneck

Link to the Link: https://jewishlink.news/letters/30336-context-of-the-rav-soloveitchik-transcription

Disrespecting the Rav

In his letter, “Context of the Rav Soloveitchik Transcription” (March 20, 2019), Rabbi Dr. Tzvee Zahavy proceeds from describing the ramifications of the Rav’s seminal and history-impacting presentation, to dismissing and deriding the Rav’s message.

Rabbi Dr. Zahavy writes: “But even if we were to grant that the Rav was perspicacious and sagacious in his insights into human nature, the notion that such essential nature should be a bar to a woman from the right to dissolve an abusive or otherwise non-functioning marriage made no logical deductive sense at all. It was a polemical move in a diatribe that was meant to quash dissent and stifle change.”

The Rav most certainly did not state or imply that one’s “essential nature should be a bar to a woman from the right to dissolve an abusive or otherwise non-functioning marriage.” What the Rav did state was that Halacha, which requires a get to terminate a marriage (absent specific exceptional circumstances), is eternal and cannot be reformed or dispensed with, for Halacha (regarding the case under discussion) is a reflection of permanent and inherent qualities of the human persona. The Rav was making a halachic point—that termination of marriage requires a get—by going deeper and expounding upon the profound and unchanging substructure upon which Halacha is built. To submit that the Rav was using a psychological/human nature argument to adjudicate a halachic decision reflects a gross misunderstanding of the Rav’s remarks.

Perhaps worse is Rabbi Dr. Zahavy’s characterization of the Rav’s words as “ma(king) no logical deductive sense at all… a polemical move in a diatribe that was meant to quash dissent and stifle change.” Aside from the great disrespect evinced, Rabbi Dr. Zahavy degrades the Rav’s passionate plea for halachic integrity into a prejudiced political stunt. For shame.

Thank God, the Rav’s words carried the day, and the threat to normative halachic standards in the most weighty of areas was stopped in its tracks.

Rabbi Avrohom Gordimer

Manhattan

Link to the Link: https://jewishlink.news/letters/30801-disrespecting-the-rav

How to Deal With Facebook Stalkers, List Snubs and Technology Taboo Makers - My Jewish Standard Dear Rabbi Zahavy Column for June 2020

2020-06-11T11:21:00.004-04:00

Dear Rabbi Zahavy,

I am on Facebook a lot and have many friends there. Recently, one of those people, whom I have known for many years, started replying negatively on every post that I made and on every comment that I put on Facebook. These were not just critical replies. They were snarky at first, and then became nasty and highly personal in nature.

I unfriended this person. But somehow, he still manages to find and comment on all my posts. What should I do to stop this?

Besieged in Bergenfield

Dear Besieged,

Facebook has mechanisms for actively blocking content from specific individuals. You can and should poke around the platform until you find them, and then invoke the harshest level of blocking against this offending person. Be persistent. Since Facebook thrives on content proliferation, your postings make money for them, and thus it deliberately makes the blocking process possible, but neither easy nor intuitive.

I know about this because I was attacked a few weeks ago on Facebook by a person, someone I knew for many years, who suddenly turned hostile to everything I put up there.

I felt vulnerable and threatened by his constant assaults. I felt like I was being stalked. It was quite an awful sensation.

Persistent hounding like this is a type of the lashon harah — the derogatory speech or defamation — that Judaism forbids. It causes emotional hurt and harms a person’s reputation. Some people might try to reason with a stalker and appeal to their religious side and ask them to cease the lashon harah.

As for me, I blocked the perpetrator, and Facebook does not allow him to view my content and it does not show me any of his posts anymore. The mechanics are there in the online platform to protect you. Find them. Use them. Be rid of your menace.

And if you find all of this too frustrating and not worth the bother, you may want to go to the next level. You can take a break from Facebook for a few weeks, or even go to the more drastic nuclear option and delete your Facebook account.

Dear Rabbi Zahavy,

I just discovered that my neighbors have a WhatsApp group for our block, and I was not invited to be on it. I felt miffed by this and imagined that it was a deliberate slight.

Should I say how I feel to the person who told me about this?

Miffed in New Milford

Dear Miffed,

Yes, in a nice way you ought to say how you feel and perhaps ask the person in charge to put you in the group.

In the spirit of v’ahavta lirayacha kamocha, love your neighbor as yourself, give him or her the benefit of the doubt.

Keep in mind that there are many petty and some nasty people out there, and a few of them may live on your block. You can go through life remonstrating against such petty folk, or you can ignore them and be a bigger person, happy in your own skin.

You can imagine malevolent motives, or just chalk it up to an oversight on his or her behalf. It’s sometimes best to judge a person positively.

If it works to talk it out with your neighbor, congratulations! But if you are unsuccessful in getting into the group, you will be just fine. Try not to be fixated on this. Life is too short.

Dear Rabbi Zahavy,

My friends say that virtual religious rituals are not valid. They insist that they are less effective than face-to-face experiences. Given the exigencies of our lives, my patience for such opinions is growing shorter. How can I justify my necessary reliance on technology in this time of crisis?

Edgy in Englewood

Dear Edgy,

Your friend is mostly wrong, and you can tell him or her that I said so. But don’t expect to change their mind.

Technology is a boon. From my home in Teaneck, I attended two weddings this month over Zoom. One in Riverdale — my niece. And One in Israel — my cousin’s son. Both were superb experiences — it was great to be part of them — mazal tov.

And I attended a Yizkor service before Shavuot via Zoom. That memorial service is scheduled normally for the synagogue Shavuot morning. But since the synagogues are closed, and Zoom is forbidden on the festivals in the Orthodox communities, we participated in an early Orthodox Yizkor service, again, from home.

Of course, I do feel the limitations of remote events; obviously, they aren’t the same as in-person experiences. And yet I value the advantages of such events — they provide at least a limited sense of presence that can alleviate by telecommunication the isolation and powerlessness of our present situations.

I do feel frustration over those Orthodox spokesmen who continue to forbid Zoom participation for rituals on Sabbaths and festivals and in general insist that yes, you can say Yizkor on Zoom, but no, you cannot form a valid minyan to say Kaddish at any time via remote electronic means.

For all Jews of every generation, public prayer with a quorum defines an ad hoc sacred space anywhere it is conducted, in or out of a synagogue. Denying that this can be accomplished via electronic means is arbitrary at best. And for those unable to congregate in person, the limitation seems quite narrow-minded and even mean-spirited.

Thus, in the liberal branches of Judaism video-conferencing technology has been warmly and successfully embraced for remote seders and for all sorts of services on weekdays, holidays, and Sabbaths.

But Orthodox religious leaders will have none of this. As of now, such remote prayer services are routinely and roundly rejected as inappropriate by most Orthodox rabbis. They appear to shoot directly from the hip on these issues, making intuitive personal claims and inventing taboos on the fly, based on subjective notions pulled from the deep recesses of their psyches.

I have opined before about the incredible imagined metaphoric extensions of rabbinic rules to forbid electronics to back this up post hoc — after the fact. The rabbis say, for example, that you can’t build a house with a hammer on the Sabbath and conclude on that basis that you can’t use Zoom. But even a 4-year-old preschooler could see through that allegorical thinking as an inexplicable fallacy.

And just recently, an educated Orthodox professor wrote in Tablet Magazine opposing the use of technology on Sabbath with a reiteration of such thought processes, with no substantive Jewish sources to support the conclusion he draws. He says that this is a valued goal — to forbid the use of Zoom, “…to keep Sabbaths and holidays from being overrun by the technology that inevitably infiltrates our lives.”

Okay then. Should we then turn off our electricity and pray by candlelight?

The great majority of us constantly are uplifted — not infiltrated — by technologies that enable advances and improvements in every hour and minute of our lives.

I do not accept or even fathom such obvious emotional bias against technology, painting it as an evil sinister force that disrupts and corrupts “overruns” and “infiltrates” the serene and beautiful world of Jewish ritual life of our Sabbaths and festivals. It is premised on the fallacious notion that for forming a religious community at any time, especially on Sabbaths and festivals, all technology is universally bad.

Perhaps we could grant that some Jews see technology as anathema to the sacred day of rest. But how then do we explain the psychological aversion of religious leaders to the notion of an electronic quorum on any ordinary weekday?

Young and old alike, people are just mystified by such mystical gut-level objections from religious spokesmen. These inexplicable aversions to modern inventions for religious uses make little sense. The notion that by practicing such avoidances we create “sanctity” in the world defies logic.

But we do live in a democratic society, where everyone is free to express his or her emotions and notions and fantasies and free associations in private or in public. And others may rally behind them cheering — or not. Time will tell.

The Dear Rabbi Zahavy column offers mindful advice based on talmudic analysis and wisdom. It aspires to be open and meaningful to all Jews. You can find this column in the Jewish Standard. Please email your questions to the rabbi at zahavy@gmail.com

Are dirty tricks in negotiations kosher?

2020-06-05T14:13:00.000-04:00

Day after day we see ill will and bad faith in the negotiations in our marketplace and workplace.

No, dirty tricks are not kosher.

But you ask, exactly what are dirty tricks and how can you deal with them?

Several years ago we took one course in Negotiations in the MBA program at Rutgers. Each year the brilliant professor who taught the course, Daniel Levin sends emails to his former students to remind them about how to respond in a negotiation to the prevalent issue of distributive tactics or what we normally call "dirty tricks."

According to Levin, the top ten dirty tricks in negotiations are:

1. Good Cop/Bad Cop
2. Emotional Intimidation
3. Lowball (or Highball) Offer
4. Opening with a Take It or Leave It Offer
5. Exploiting the Trappings of Power
6. Increasing an Offer's Appearance of Legitimacy
7. Pretending to Have Limited Authority
8. Playing a Game of Chicken
9. Lying about Priorities
10. Nibbling

Levin gives us his priceless suggestions for responses in his Talmudic analysis here. Study it and study it some more, because everything you need to know about dirty tricks is in that grid.

We've said many times that in all of the years of our education through college and rabbinical school and graduate school at Brown, Levin's negotiations course in the MBA program at Rutgers was the most valuable course that we ever took.

We use the skills that we learned there every day.

Thank you again Dan Levin.