Sderot

A trip to Sderot with my class opened my eyes to what its really like being a settler on the frontier. In case you don't know Sderot is in the Western Negev, it is part of Israel and has been since its independence. No group has ever said that Israel doesn't have claims to Sderot, except those groups who desire the destruction of Israel and the Jewish people. Sderot has been hit by over 4000 rockets since Israels disengagement from Gaza in 2005. On Monday when we went there no rockets had fallen for fours days mostly due to the ceasefire Israel signed with Hamas. The next day rockets fell again. Being there and seeing it with my own eyes was a powerful experience. Its something that is hard to describe. Seeing bomb shelters at bus stops, at kindergartens, every where talking with people who live with the reality that the Israeli government doesn't seem to care about them. That the world is happy to ignore their problem while condemning Israel for human rights violations. And I have to say after my trip I agree Israel is in violation of human rights violations, against their own people, people who they're unable to defend, people who they seem okay with ignoring. I know the whole group walked away with incredible respect for the people who live in Sderot, for more information check out the Sderot Media Center.

Restore my Soul

Life has this funny way of amazing me. For instance its always amazing to me how much my thoughts can shift in such a short time. Last week at this time if you had asked me my plans for a year from now I'd have told you I'd likely be a reform Jew, as in I spent sometime in yeshiva learned a little something and now I've regained my sanity. My oh my how a week can change things. Now today at this moment sitting here typing this, my soul feels restored. I feel good about my decision to be in Israel, learning Torah, and growing. It can be confusing and hard, as I've tried to document on this blog, but when you get a bit of clarity nothing else seems right. I've always known that I'm old fashioned. In a world where family values seem like a thing of the past, where people don't understand what it is to commit to something greater then themselves individually, I feel a bit like an old man. And yet in a Torah community, the moral and ethical values I've cultured my whole life are not just accepted but embraced. Before I left for Israel I spent a Shabbat at one of my Rabbis houses in Westchester and I starting talking with a friend of his. A younger guy with a young family, and he said something to me that I'll never forget, something that resonates with me until this day/ He said you'll never find a community like this in the goyish world. Obviously the religious world isn't a perfect place, far from it. But that doesn't change the fact that the people I meet and am comfortable with are good people, committed to working on themselves and to Tikkun Olam i.e. the repairing or bettering of this world. And thats a community I want to be a part of. It's hard to me to think about and even harder for me to say in such a public forum. I've always had difficulty committing myself to anything much less something that in its core exposes a world view with an absolute reality. But slowly more and more I find myself okay with that and that my friends is a beautiful thing. Shalom Alechem from Eretz Israel.

A Tree of Life

Taking a break from the majority of my religious practices is and has begun to give me a bit of clarity on them. I can't claim I'm totally clear on anything(although that would be really excellent) but I do feel like a little space has given me much needed perspective. A major part of any Jew's daily practice is prayer, something that I generally find to be very rewarding. I connect to prayer mostly because its such an emotional practice, question why are men obligated to pray three times a day with other people and women are not? Because men are generally more emotionally challenged then women. Remember of course that generalizations are good because they are generally true. And I've realized what may seem like a silly point to people, the more I pray, the more often I open up my siddur and read those ancient words, the more connected to god I feel. And more to the point the more I feel open to religious practice in general. The more I just meditate, sit in a corner alone and try to focus my mind on simply being, the more I feel like I simply exist and the less seriously I take the minutia of Jewish halacha. After not opening up my siddur for a solid week or so I thought about one passage in it that I really connect to, its beautiful even in the English, although the Hebrew is for obvious reasons better. It's a passage not read everyday, it is in fact reserved for placing the Torah back into the ark , after the tri-weekly Torah reading. Here it is:

"A tree of life is it(the Torah) for those who grasp it, and its supporters are praiseworthy. Its ways are ways or pleasantness, and all its paths are peace. Length of days are at its right; at tis left are wealth and honor. HaShem desired, for the sake of(Israel's i.e. the Jewish people) righteousness, that He make great the the Torah and (make it) glorious"

Everything in parenthesis I either added for emphasis or clarification or was added into the English translation because Hebrew doesn't have a lot of the connecting words that English has. I think that statement is incredibly beautiful and its a wonderful meditation to think about, all is ways are pleasantness and all its paths are peace. Shouldn't this be everyone's objective shouldn't we all be striving to live or lives in peace and pleasantness? I kind it's a little idealistic for me to think about but still what if we all worked towards this goal? This passage and many others are why I'll never be able to just give up on Judaism even when I have my doubts. Shalom Aleichem.

Scaps of Paper

I have a habit of writing down quotes or things that pop into my head suddenly on pieces of paper, usually I end up with tons and tons of little scraps of paper that I don't do anything with, thats usually the case however today I found one of those scraps of paper and I thought I'd share its contents on this blog, enjoy:

Joy that is shared is doubled
Grief that is shared is halved

Who is the victor? The one that holds the weapons of battle in his hand. - Zohar 1 221a

If there is a concept of damage, then there is certainly a concept of repair.

The world is not a small place, its just well managed.

Part of life is a quest to find that one essential person who will understand our story. But we choose wrongly so often, over the ensuing years that person we thought understood us best ends up regarding us with pity, indifference or active dislike. Those who truly care can be divided into two categories: those who understand us and those who forgive our worst sins. Rarely do we find someone capable of both. Jonathan Carroll, Glass Soup

The Jerusalem Times

I’m not even going to try to lie here I’ve been freaking out for the last week or two, I’m not entirely sure what it is but I have my guesses. After almost eight months away from home I’m starting to feel the pressure to come home and just do something. I’m also thinking about my level of religious commitment and questioning whether or not I really believe it. I can’t help but wonder how much I’ve been influenced by the environment that I live in. This is a topic that is discussed in the writings of our sages. They talk about how your environment influences you so you’d better find a place to live where you’ll be positively influenced, so you’ll be influenced in ways you want to be and can live confidently in your beliefs. I’m sure when I go home I’ll find myself in a similar position that I am here, except in reverse. Here I’m always defending other beliefs, insisting that though flawed Reform and Conservative Judaism have something valuable to offer, and not just Judaism but also many other schools of thought that run contrary to Jewish thought. I for better or worse believe strongly in the mosaic. I believe that no one philosophy has a monopoly on the truth, that inevitably since the truth isn’t just for the Jewish people so to other religions and philosophies have discovered/ have had revealed to them elements of essential truth. Interestingly enough I know that when I get home I’ll be forced to take the other side of this argument. I know I’ll be dealing with people day in and day out who simply won’t understand choices I make regarding lifestyle. I’ll be faced with friends who don’t believe in objective truth. And will therefore find positions I may take as ludicrous. I know all these things, and it is my sincere hope that though my actions and words I’ll be able to help others see the world though my eyes, even when my vision may be a bit cloudy.

I’ve been in a real funk for a solid week now, I have no desire to be a practicing Jew, no desire to pray, eat kosher food, keep Shabbat, wear a kippa, nothing. This is by far the most apathetic I’ve been towards my religion in a very long time. I feel like in many ways I haven’t gotten anywhere in all these months, all I know for certain is that being a Jew and raising a Jewish family is the most important thing to me. But what does all that mean? How to I translate that into a coherent philosophy? With those questions I still struggle as I know many, many other people out there do as well. I think about the messianic age about what that really means for humanity. Is it just an abstract concept speaking of a time where the human race will get past our petty differences and see each other for what we really are, sparks of heavenly light; little tiny infinitely lacking specks of god. Or is it an actual physical reality, the Jews will rebuild the third temple, etc, etc, etc. I don’t know I wish I did. What I do know is despite all these questions I have unanswered time and life marches on.

Oh yea, I finally cut my hair it’s short again, I know I told people I wasn’t going to cut it until I got home but I hadn’t anticipated what summer here is really like. Its hot, I mean seriously hot all the time, after a talk with my dad I decided I was being borderline psychotic not cutting my hair when I was struggling with the heat just because I had some abstract idea in my head that I wanted to go home with a crazy mess of hair. It would have been fun though... oh well maybe I’ll just have to stay here another six months so I can let it grow back… just kidding, Shalom from beautiful (and hot!) Eretz Israel.

Today's Moment of Zen

Every once in a while you come across something and your struck with the thought, man I really wish I had thought of that, this quote is just such a thing for me, its from Kurt Vonnegut’s Man without a Country his final work. And it is simply breathtaking, enjoy today’s moment of Zen:

“If you want to really annoy your parents and you don’t have the nerve to be gay, the least you can do is go into the arts. I’m not kidding. The arts are not a way to make a living. They are a very human way of making life more bearable. Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven’s sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something.”

Adam and Eve

God and evolution it’s a big debate these days in America and all over the world. If god created the world then how do we explain evolution? I’ve heard a lot on the topic during my time at an orthodox yeshiva and I got an email from a wonderful cousin of mine posing this question: See if you can find out if any of your Rabbi's have an opinion on how God created the world versus evolution??? How do they explain evolution if Adam and Eve were created by god?? Before I start with my own take on the subject which is my opinion based on the arguments I’ve heard along with my own research and questioning I’ve going to mention that there is a wonderful book written about this topic called Genesis and the Big Bang, by Dr. Gerald Schroeder he’s written many books trying to reconcile a rational faith in god without throwing out science. He’s also a regular speaker at Aish HaTorah and I think can provide valuable insight on the topic. So now that that is out of the way lets get down to business. Before the now prevailing theory of the origins of the universe came into being, namely the big bang theory scientists thought that our universe was static, that it had always existed. Now we know better, we understand that the universe isn’t static that it in fact had a definitive beginning, that at some point it started. That’s incredibly interesting especially given that the Torah begins with (source www.chabbad.com):

1. In the beginning of God's creation of the heavens and the earth.
2. Now the earth was astonishingly empty, and darkness was on the face of the deep, and the spirit of God was hovering over the face of the water.
3. And God said, "Let there be light," and there was light.

This is an interesting way to start the book isn’t it? Especially given that god doesn’t create the stars and the planets until the fourth day.

14. And God said, "Let there be luminaries in the expanse of the heavens, to separate between the day and between the night, and they shall be for signs and for appointed seasons and for days and years. 15. And they shall be for luminaries in the expanse of the heavens to shed light upon the earth." And it was so. 16. And God made the two great luminaries: the great luminary to rule the day and the lesser luminary to rule the night, and the stars. 17. And God placed them in the expanse of the heavens to shed light upon the earth. 18. And to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate between the light and between the darkness and God saw that it was good. 19. And it was evening, and it was morning, a fourth day.

If god didn’t create the stars and the planets until the fourth day then how do we explain light on the first day? I think its metaphorical when god said let there be light, light actually means energy, which isn’t far fetched at all after all we know that everything that exists in the entirety of creation is nothing but particles of light energy that have slowed down and condensed. So I think given this example we can begin to understand that the biblical account of creation isn’t at all far fetched. So how does evolution come into play here? And how do we account for it? When we examine the text we can begin to see that the Torah gives a step by step account of creation first light, then the heavens and the solid matter, then the waters came upon the lands, then vegetation spread out over the earth, next up is the creatures in the waters, then land animals appear, and the beasts of the earth until finally man is created. Not an altogether bad description of the evolution of life in the universe I think you’d agree. As for Adam and Eve there are lots of opinions about this and I’m not going to try to deny that there are some people who would try to deny evolution. I believe there is no issue with the idea of a biological evolution guided by god we can look at how evolution works, i.e. natural selection, environmental pressures, mutation of genes, etc; as long as we understand that Adam and Eve were the first two true human beings in the spiritual sense, created in the image of god.

7. And the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and He breathed into his nostrils the soul of life, and man became a living soul.

This is my best understanding of this concept to date, like I said previously there are many far more qualified people to discuss the topic then I. However I hope I did my best to explain a rational, coherent view of this topic. And while there are some religious people who would disagree with this method of viewing the text, I find no contradiction in believing that evolution is real and that god is real. I think unfortunately too many people confuse the two topics. When we’re looking for god in evolution I think we need to understand that were asking two different questions. Evolution is a problem that means it has a solution we can work on it and come up with theories and test hypothesis and find answers. God is a mystery for which we’ll never truly have a definitive answer, I know that my life has become infinitely more enriched since I allowed god into my life. But I don’t expect to ever have a definitive answer of whether or not god exists. I can rationalize and give theories and proofs for why god must exist, but I know ultimately that people who don’t want to believe simply won’t open up their minds and hearts to the possibility, so be it. It is my opinion that one can reconcile both science and theology and find a comfortable space for the two in their lives. Please note any errors that we made are mine and mine alone and don’t take my answer as any kind of definitive proof. This is how I see the question and these are the answers I’ve accumulated that make sense to me. If there is anything I’ve been unclear about I’d love to get input and I’ll do my best to make it clearer. Shalom.

Being Jewish

I’m suffering from a post holiday hangover, typically whenever there’s a holiday around here we all do it’s a fairly common thing. This time for me it’s a little different, for this first time since I left New York at the end of October I have a direction and that is something like this. I’m coming home by the end of August, its just feels like time. I’ve been gone for seven and a half months and by the time I get home it will be something like ten plenty of time in Israel for now. And now that I’m faced with this I’m starting to freak out just a little tiny bit, for one thing it seems totally impossible that I’ve been gone for that long, I mean really?? Israel in that time has begun to feel like home. I feel comfortable with the rhythms and cycles of both secular and religious Israeli life and I like it. Whenever Americans talk to Israelis about Israel being such an amazing place they all look at us like we’re insane, they just don’t get it. And I don’t expect them to, living in a Jewish state warps their perception about what the world is really like. Many of them have no no-Jewish friends; they don’t think anything about stores being closed on Jewish holidays and open on Christian ones. To them its just business as usual and they don’t get what a little beautiful bubble Israel really is. They never grew up defending their Jewishness to their close friends, because all their close friends are Jewish, they don’t have the experience of being one of a small few Jewish kinds in their school. They grew up singing Jewish songs, dreaming Jewish dreams. Okay so maybe I’m romanticizing the point a little bit. But that’s just my point, for an American like me this is all very romantic, I grew up without a Jewish identity and I felt the pain of that, recapturing or really for that matter discovering my Jewish identity has been the most beautiful and at times painful experience of my life and its precisely because I never had it that Israel and a Jewish state is so romantic to me and many other foreign, diaspora Jews. We believe in a dream that for us always seemed like just that a dream. While many of our Israeli brothers and sisters sleepwalk through the experience.

There’s a great story told about the American – Israeli experience. It goes something like this when many religious American Jews come to Israel and few years later you’ll find them much less religious. When Israelis come to America a few years later you’ll find them much more religious. And I think it makes a lot of sense in an environment surrounded by Jews what’s the need to be so religious, even living in a secular-ish environment in Israel still places you firmly in a Jewish rhythm, life here just is Jewish all of the time, so to some extent what’s the need to be so super religious in an environment where its so easy to identify yourself as a Jew. Meanwhile for the Israeli’s suddenly they find themselves in a completely non-Jewish environment and they need to cling on to something that makes them feel more Jewish and so they turn to the one thing that makes us all Jewish, the Torah and its laws. On an unrelated note its starting to get really hot in this country I don’t know if I’ll make it though the summer, I may just shrivel away and turn to dust, now I’m starting to understand the whole living in a desert thing. But that’s just life here in Eretz Israel.

Ten Utterances

As Shavuot draws near and Jews all around the world prepare themselves for the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai (note it was actually on Monday but this post just got finished), I thought I'd share with you a little something about the holiday and the significance of those ten well known utterances. Straight out of Shemos aka Exodus Chapter 20 with my own elucidations in between:

God spoke all these words, to respond:

1. "I am the Lord, your God, Who took you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

This one is somewhat straight forward I am your god the same one who released you from bondage in the Land of Egypt, Yup, that’s me.

2. You shall not have the gods of others in My presence.You shall not make for yourself a graven image or any likeness which is in the heavens above, which is on the earth below, or which is in the water beneath the earth. You shall neither prostrate yourself before them nor worship them, for I, the Lord, your God...

This asserts the oneness of god, gods name in Hebrew yud hey vav hey represents is, was, and will always be.

3. You shall not take the name of the Lord, your God, in vain, for the Lord will not hold blameless anyone who takes His name in vain.

4. Remember the Sabbath day to sanctify it. Six days may you work and perform all your labor, but the seventh day is a Sabbath to the Lord, your God; you shall perform no labor, neither you, your son, your daughter, your manservant, your maidservant, your beast, nor your stranger who is in your cities. For [in] six days the Lord made the heaven and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and He rested on the seventh day. Therefore, the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and sanctified it.

Appreciate the creation by not creating once a week, why does the Torah say we were created in the image of god? Because we just like god have the ability to consciously create things. Nothing else in the known universe has this ability just us and its what makes us godly. So appreciate the miracle but not doing it.

5. Honor your father and your mother, in order that your days be lengthened on the land that the Lord, your God, is giving you.

The first five commandments are all about man’s relationship with god now the next five; all deal with man’s relationship’s with one another. On a topical level it seems as though this one should be grouped with the next five but its not. Our parents are the closest thing we as human beings have to god in our day to day lives. They existed before us, they created us out of an act of love and they don’t need anything from us. Our relationships with are parents serve as a model of our relationship with god. If we honor our parents there is a very good chance we’ll honor god.

6. You shall not murder.

If every person was created in the image of god, murdering another person would be like killing god.

7. You shall not commit adultery.

Be faithful to one another, make commitments and stick with them. Moreover respect one another.

8. You shall not steal.

Stealing is an interesting one first off when you steal things your basically saying I don’t trust god, in fact I think I know better then god because obviously he hasn’t given me everything that I need, so I think I’ll take something that’s not mine.

9. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.

10. You shall not covet your neighbor's house. You shall not covet your neighbor's wife, his manservant, his maidservant, his ox, his donkey, or whatever belongs to your neighbor."

This last one is on a higher level then the other nine now god is asking seemly the impossible, with his last commandment he’s trying to govern not just how we act but how we feel, by telling us it’s not just that you have to act honestly but also feel honestly first make the decision not to murder or not steal or be honest in business but now you have to feel good about it. Don’t do it begrudgingly and be content with what you have. And that seems a little absurd to think that you can do that, but really when you begin to think about it when you change your actions your mindset will follow and I think anyhow that this is what the last one is getting at.

15. And all the people saw the voices and the torches, the sound of the shofar, and the smoking mountain, and the people saw and trembled; so they stood from afar.

And with that the microphone went dead and god fell silent. You can say what you want about this whole affair, I certainly believe there is a lot to be questioned. However I feel without dispute that is was the most pivotal point of human history with this event and the subsequent spread of one god morality was introduced into the world and like it or not (and believe me I definitely fall into the later category a lot of the time) this is where it all came from this is the source from which it all emanated. I hope everyone had a wonderful Shavuot I stayed up all night learning, then davened for tow and a half hours which was nutty everyone was falling asleep and then spent the rest of the day fighting off exhaustion until I finally passed out. What a crazy experience, I can’t wait for next year. Shalom and of course Eretz Israel.

Make for yourself a Rabbi

Having a Rabbi is critical when your exploring your Jewishness that one person will have an inordinate amount of influence over your when your exploring your spirituality, so you'd better find on who you respect and who your comfortable asking personal questions and taking personal advise from. My Rabbi is R. Zalmen check out the website he's an amazing human being. Though my search other Rabbi's who I don't know personally but who's work I read have also influenced me Rabbi Zalman Schacter-Shalomi is one such example, check out a biography here and more information here and here. Check it out, I think he's an incredibly innovative and vibrant vioce that is certainly worth reading. Shalom and Eretz Israel.

What are you saying? Honesty.

What am I saying, really I mean whats going on here? Some thoughts and reflections from the last week, I've been working my schedule around this last bit and I think I'm finding something thats working for me. Namely waking up for Scharit the morning prayers then one or two classes in the morning usually Mishna and half of my Gemara class and then a full afternoon of classes. Mussar, Ulpan, Chumash, and Navi. Now you might be asking yourself what all the words mean and what the hell is it I'm actually doing so far from home.

Glad you asked here what my typical day is like. My alarm goes off at around 7am I roll out of bed, turn off my alarm, get dressed, grab my bag and off I go. To Aish HaTorah for davening. Scharit is usually 50 minutes long depending on whether its Monday or Thursday. Those are the two days we read from the Torah during the week and its one of the most beautiful moments of the week. The Torah gets brought out, people get called up to make Alliyah's. It would be easy for a person to think that we that is Jews worship the Torah its can be at times very questionable. People kiss it as it goes by and stand for it. The truth of the matter is we don't worship it, its the words themselves contained within it that are so important. According to Jewish tradition, Hashem created the entire world from the words contained within the Torah. Its all deeply Kabbalastic.

At the end of prayer, I typically eat breakfast and come back to my apartment I use the time to write or work on Hebrew or just read the sports scores and chill out. At 10am its time for Mishna class, a usually entertaining class where we simply read and talk about the Oral Law, it covers every single aspect of a Jews life. And that with the Torah encompass the laws brought down on Mount Sinai. It is the core of Jewish existence and self identity either a person believes they were given at Sinai or they don't and the fundamental answer to that question then dictates how one chooses to live their life. If it was brought down then one must do their best to follow it. It is an absolute reality that we relate to subjectively i.e. it is the guide for living a fulfilling life. Now figuring out what that means for your life and how its ultimately expressed through ones actions is in no way black and white. But that does not negate the world view that ultimately the world does have an objective truth. But I once again digress. My next stop is Gemara my time in that class is mostly spend unlocking the door to a crazy world of nitpicking. The Gemara's role is to help us understand the Oral Law or Mishna better, it picks on every nuance in the language and the Rabbis of blessed memory argue about it all. It combined abstract reasoning and logic, I've never seen anything quite like it. It is an exhausting but rewarding exercise.

My afternoons are a little different and 2pm I have Mussar. Mussar is about connecting ones intellectual knowledge with their emotions and using that to line up our actions. Thought it a person hopefully can connect their whole being together: mind, heart and hands. Most of the time we talk about day in and day out struggles. What am I struggling with this week? why have I not been able to get up and accomplish what I need to do... If I know this is right then why am I not doing it, etc. Its all about the decisions we make every moment of our lives. After that its Ulpan time, where every does their best to keep up with our amazing teacher Rabbi Gogeck. Through word and action association we (attempt) to learn the Hebrew language and I can safely say now that even though it's very hard I'm getting better and one day will be able to read and write fluently and get by on the streets. I can't stress how challenging it can be and conversely how rewarding. It is the core of everything we do, all the best commentaries and works are in Hebrew and if you really what to get inside Judaism it is a requirement. Lastly I have Chumash and Navi, both are taught by the same teacher and both dissect the inner truths contained within the Torah and the writings of the prophets. Right now I'm learning about King David's rise to power and it is fabulous stuff. And thats my day, rise repeat, rise repeat.