Christmas Reflections

The Highlights:

Typing this list with just my left hand, due to a mending right arm

Going to food shopping with my dad for the ingredients for a kosher antipasto, kosher wine and a kosher roast and trying not to mention what twelve pounds of kosher beef was being used for to the butcher.

Reminiscing with my Uncle, him telling me he could remember when I was first born and me saying the same things about his thirteen year old twin boys… also on another note we’re getting old.

Roles reversing: my sister insisting that I woke her up at 8:00am to open presents and our parents being more excited to open presents then us.

Wrapping tefillin, saying Shema and then going downstairs to open presents under the tree with my family.

…getting a slow cooker and setting up for cholent for Shabbat

Watching Casablanca with my father and sister in the morning

The following text message received from a good friend:
Happy movie-and Chinese food day to my Hebraic friends… and merry Christmas to my goyem and shiksah friends

Watching football with my dad’s side of the family on Christmas day eve and quietly celebrating Shabbat after they left

Waking up the next morning and noticing that this was the first time I didn’t wake up and feel my shoulder aching, just eight days after going under the knife.

Music of the Spheres

The fanatical atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle. They are creatures who - in their grudge against traditional religion as the 'opium of the masses' - cannot hear the music of the spheres.

Albert Einstein

Merry Christmas everyone.

Freeing God and Religion

Check out this brilliant article from the Huffington Post written by Alan Lurie.

A great quote

We can clearly see the absurdity of attempting to limit, define, control, and divide God. Religion is what it is - a human institution containing the collection and transmission of spiritual experiences and practices to facilitate such experiences for others. By beginning with, and continually returning to, personal experience, the temptation to fundamentalism and extremism dissolves, and we can have honest, respectful conversations about the nature of God and religion free from dogma, accusations, and hatred.

Posted in honor of this blogs most loyal reader, my grandmother, who is always sending me emails asking me questions about what I've written, or random (often useless) information about everything and anything.

This one is good though.

I'm headed home for a little R&R and family time.

Enjoy.

'Danielle keeps repeating it over and over again. We've been back to this animal shelter at least five times. It has been weeks now since we started all of this,' the mother told the volunteer.

'What is it she keeps asking for?' the volunteer asked.

'Puppy size!' replied the mother.

'Well, we have plenty of puppies, if that's what she's looking for.' 'I know..... We have seen most of them, ' the mom said in frustration...

Just then Danielle came walking into the office.

'Well, did you find one?' asked her mom.

'No, not this time,' Danielle said with sadness in her voice. 'Can we come back on the weekend?'

The two women looked at each other, shook their heads and laughed.

'You never know when we will get more dogs. Unfortunately, there's always a supply,' the volunteer said.

Danielle took her mother by the hand and headed to the door. 'Don't worry, I'll find one this weekend,' she said.

Over the next few days both Mom and Dad had long conversations with her. They both felt she was being too particular. 'It's this weekend or we're not looking any more, Dad finally said in frustration.

'We don't want to hear anything more about puppy size, either,' Mom added.

Sure enough, they were the first ones in the shelter on Saturday morning. By now Danielle knew her way around, so she ran right for the section that housed the smaller dogs.

Tired of the routine, mom sat in the small waiting room at the end of the first row of cages. There was an observation window so you could see the animals during times when Visitors weren't permitted.

Danielle walked slowly from cage to cage, kneeling periodically to take a closer look. One by one the dogs were brought out and she held each one. One by one she said, 'Sorry, but you're not the one.'

It was the last cage on this last day in search of the perfect pup. The volunteer opened the cage door and the child carefully picked up the dog and held it closely. This time she took a little longer.

'Mom, that's it! I found the right puppy! He's the one! I know it!' She screamed with joy. 'It's the puppy size!'

'But it's the same size as all the other puppies you held over the last few weeks,' Mom said.

'No not size... The sighs. When I held him in my arms, he sighed,' she said.

'Don't you remember? When I asked you one day what love is, you told me love depends on the sighs of your heart. The more you love, the bigger the sigh!'

The two women looked at each other for a moment. Mom didn't know whether to laugh or cry. As she stooped down to hug the child, she did a little of both.

'Mom, every time you hold me, I sigh. When you and Daddy come home from work and hug each other, you both sigh. I knew I would find the right puppy if it sighed when I held it in my arms,' she said. Then, holding the puppy up close to her face, she said, 'Mom, he loves me. I heard the sighs of his heart!'

Carl Sagan on Skepticism

If we teach school children the habit of being skeptical perhaps they will not restrict their skepticism to aspirin commercials and 35,000 year old channelers. Maybe they will start asking awkward questions about economic or social or political or religious institutions, and then where will we be?

Skepticism is dangerous. In fact, it is the business of skepticism to be dangerous. That is exactly its function…It seems to me what is called for is an exquisite balance between two conflicting needs: the most skeptical scrutiny of all hypotheses that are served up to us and at the same time a great openness to new ideas.

If you are only skeptical, then no new ideas make it through to you. You never learn anything new. You become a crotchety old person convinced that nonsense is ruling the world. (There is, of course, much data to support you.)

On the other hand, if you are open to the point of gullibility and have not an ounce of skeptical sense in you, then you cannot distinguish the useful ideas from the worthless ones.

If all ideas have equal validity then you are lost, because then, it seems to me, no ideas have any validity at all.

More Protests in Tehran

Almost a year has gone by since the current president came into power promising change and I sit here today and I ask, what change?? Please, please won't someone show me what has changed? Today I am disgusted as Iranian youths protest and are beaten and dragged away to places from which they will never return (and if they do return they will never be the same)

President Obama says nothing, NOTHING!! It will soon be to late to help these people as the Basij hardliners tighten their grip on the country and as the reach and scope of the horrors that have already begun accelerate and once again the world does nothing.

A few quotes from this NY Times article

More than 200 people were arrested in Tehran on Monday during protests by tens of thousands at universities nationwide, and Iran's top prosecutor warned further unrest would not be tolerated. He hinted authorities could even pursue the top opposition leader, Mir Hossein Mousavi, an escalation the government has so far balked at in Iran's postelection turmoil.

A fierce crackdown since the summer crushed the mass protests that erupted after June's disputed presidential election. But Monday's unrest showed how students have revitalized the movement. They showed an increased boldness, openly breaking the biggest taboo in Iran, burning pictures of Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and chanting slogans against him.

Iran's top prosecutor, Gholam Hossein Mohseni Ejehi, warned that the judiciary will no longer tolerate protests.''So far, we have shown restraint. From today, no leniency will be applied.''

Since the summer, the opposition has held major protests less than once a month -- timed to coincide with the many political anniversaries and religious occasions that traditionally bring street demonstrations. The strategy aims to drum up as many people as possible and draw more attention.

The coming months could heat up with several key occasions for possible protests.

From Sinai

I say that all the wisdom of the world was not found at Sinai. Sinai is my point of departure, but I don’t remain there. From Sinai I learn from the world and I absorb the world into Sinai.

David Hartman Shalom Hartman Institute, from "From Beirut to Jerusalem" p.319

Capital T

What I always said was that if you are religious it meant by definition there was such a thing as Truth, capital T. So to make it work in a world full of differences, you had to recognize that there was a big distinction between the existence of Truth, capital T, and the ability of any one human being to understand it completely and to translate it into political actions that were 100 percent consistent with it. That's what you had to do; all you had to do was accept human frailty. You can't tell people of faith to be relative about their faith. They believe there is a truth. But the question of whether they can know it and turn it into a political program is a very, very different thing. That is an act of arrogance. - Bill Clinton

Check out more of his thoughts on world events in this interview from Foreign Policy

A Moment of Zen: 12/3/09

It’s beautiful out today. It should be miserable and cold by now in Boston. But today is the most picture perfect spring day in Massachusetts that you could ever ask for. So I decided to go for a walk outside. On my way back to my desk a woman whom I’ve never seen or spoken to before turns to me in the elevator and says “Gosh today is just dragging by, I can’t believe its only noon” which made me laugh and agree because I’ve been feeling that way all day today. It was a wonderful moment of serendipity and it made me smile.

The Answer

The Answer, AI, Allen Iverson these are the names of one of my favorite childhood athletes. I’ve written about football and baseball before but today I want to talk about the littlest big guy I’ve ever seen play. I’ve grown up watching Iverson play. The first time he came to my attention was in 1996 when he was drafted first overall by the 76’ers. I was twelve years old and all I knew is that this guy; a midget compared to everyone else around him played like he was the biggest guy on the court, he was fearless and always wanted the ball in his hands when it mattered.

I was always playing sports as a child and I was always one of the smallest guys out there. I had to fight hard for respect from everyone on the field. If I was playing football and I missed a catch I might not see the ball again for all of recess. I hated that, I hate that I was (or at least felt) disrespected by the bigger kids. As a result I fought hard when I played and in Allen I found a kindred spirit.

So it’s hard for me even now as an adult to see one of the players whose game I grew up admiring being so disrespected by the sports world. I’m now at the age where the new players who come into the sports universe are younger then me. Which quite frankly is more then a little weird; as with all things you love as a child as you grow up your relationship with those things changes and with sports most acutely. At thirty four Iverson is being treated as if he has nothing left in the tank and I just don’t understand it.

But it’s nice to feel this sort of indignation. I appreciate that he is one of the last athletes that I’ll truly feel connected to the way I do. I no longer play hoops with my friends at recess pretending that I’m the Answer ready to take out my opponents with that devastating crossover that I used to love watching him employ. So I’m enjoying the feeling of being so fired up about a sports figure like I am today with Iverson. I hope he lights it up in Philly for the rest of the year and has a chance to go out on his own terms. He hasn’t had it easy and despite his sometimes standoffish attitude with the media he’s earned the right to walk away when he’s ready.

Thanks Allen for making me feel like a kid again, all the best.

This to

One day Solomon decided to humble Benaiah ben Yehoyada, his most trusted minister. He said to him, "Benaiah, there is a certain ring that I want you to bring to me. I wish to wear it for Sukkot which gives you six months to find it."

"If it exists anywhere on earth, your majesty," replied Benaiah, "I will find it and bring it to you, but what makes the ring so special?"

"It has magic powers," answered the king. "If a happy man looks at it, he becomes sad, and if a sad man looks at it, he becomes happy." Solomon knew that no such ring existed in the world, but he wished to give his minister a little taste of humility.

Spring passed and then summer, and still Benaiah had no idea where he could find the ring. On the night before Sukkot, he decided to take a walk in one of he poorest quarters of Jerusalem. He passed by a merchant who had begun to set out the day's wares on a shabby carpet. "Have you by any chance heard of a magic ring that makes the happy wearer forget his joy and the broken-hearted wearer forget his sorrows?" asked Benaiah.

He watched the grandfather take a plain gold ring from his carpet and engrave something on it. When Benaiah read the words on the ring, his face broke out in a wide smile.

That night the entire city welcomed in the holiday of Sukkot with great festivity. "Well, my friend," said Solomon, "have you found what I sent you after?" All the ministers laughed and Solomon himself smiled.

To everyone's surprise, Benaiah held up a small gold ring and declared, "Here it is, your majesty!" As soon as Solomon read the inscription, the smile vanished from his face. The jeweler had written three Hebrew letters on the gold band: _gimel, zayin, yud_, which began the words "_Gam zeh ya'avor_" -- "This too shall pass."

At that moment Solomon realized that all his wisdom and fabulous wealth and tremendous power were but fleeting things, for one day he would be nothing but dust

Not all who wander

I’ve been trying to find a new use this space which I’ve grown so comfortable over the last few years, why you may ask? Good Question.

Many reasons: For a long time this blog was an attempt to make sense of an idea and it has served that purpose and then some. It became my emotional and intellectual sounding board during ten intense months in Israel the transition back to America. I’ve developed, through my writing, a perspective on the question I originally sought to ask, namely: What does it mean, too me to be a Jew.

Put differently, it’s found its place in my life and learned to just shut up and not bother me so much.

Another reason: My life is changing.

I started graduate school and am now working towards my masters in Urban and Regional Affairs. It’s a big investment of time and creativity. I figure that after a few solid years of hard work (which I have no doubt I will complain about the whole way through) I will inshallah have had enough time to sort through the next set of questions that I must find answers to. And there’s no reason this blog can’t be a part of it.

With the whys out of the way, we move to our next question: what’s next?

Basically the same thing I’ve been doing for the last month or two. I spent the last few months, resisting the idea of going in this direction. An idea which I had to this point refused to give in to, but now have decided to embrace. It’s the natural choice given what I’ve been learning and bisrat hashem it will lead me to as much clarity as writing what I affectionately think of as the ‘Manic Mitzvah Chronicles' did.

Lastly J.RR Tolken said not all who wander are lost, after much wandered and feeling like I was, in fact, lost. I now understand what he was talking about.

Thanks for walking along the way with me.

The Show Needn't Go On

From: Commentary written by Michael J. Totten

If you've never had a chance to read Michael before you really should checkout him out at Michael Totten.com his reporting is insightfull and copelling espcially his unsights on the Iraq and Afghani wars.

A few quotes from the article:

Peace talks, if they ever actually start, aren't going anywhere, and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu knows it...Syria's Bashar Assad knows it too...Because supposedly right-thinking Westerners are appalled, Israel and Syria will pretend to hold talks while the more seasoned Western diplomats will pretend the talks stand a chance. It's like the old Russian joke about Communism: "We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us."

This is a show for us in the West, but it's for a dwindling number of us in the West...Michael Oren -- now the Israeli ambassador -- said, "Remove 'solution' from your vocabulary and everything will be fine."... The Middle East will stop performing its "peace process" theater as soon as we stop demanding it. And as soon as we stop demanding it, time, resources, and energy can be spent on something that might be slightly productive. The conflict isn't resolvable now, but it's manageable. Even in the Middle East, there is such a thing as damage control...We can't solve this problem right now, but we can try to make it less deadly by isolating and even blockading the combatants instead of cajoling their paymasters into talks they don't take seriously.

Part of Life

I wanted to sit down and write today but unfortunately it wasn't in the cards. It was an eventful week full of wonder and excitement.
Shabbat Shalom.

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.

Our ability to live in peace with each other depends first and foremost on our ability to accept all that is different between us. I want to get closer to you, but let me be who I am. I welcome you coming closer to me, while respecting who you are. On our own individual paths we are all looking for the bread, the water, the wind and a dignified life. And yes, we all cling to love. - Idan Raichel

Between men and women

I’ve been thinking recently about relationships, not necessarily romantic ones but relationships between men and women. I’ve always been the type of guy who’s primarily had close female friends. I’m not going to try to psychoanalyze what this means; I’m just stating it for a fact. My best friend from middle school Sara is still one of my closest friends, in college many of my friends were women but for the first time my closest friends were guys. I’m not talking about general friends; I’ve always made friends with lots of guys and girls in general. I’m talking about close friends, confidants.

As I’ve gotten older I’ve noticed that my friendships with women don’t last like they used to and the people I’ve come to rely on are my guy friends. Two from college and two from Israel have made it into my inner circle. In that time no women, who I still talk with regularly have made the same leap for me. It was I suppose inevitable. I only have so much time to talk with people and to keep up with them and the women I meet I tend to talk to for some time and then inevitably drift away from or they just remain friends but not confidants. I attribute this mainly to my libido, these days if I meet a girl and like her I either: chase after her and try to date her and succeed or not. It’s mostly because when I do find a girl I like and start to date her I no longer need the same kind of emotional support from my friends that women are generally better at providing. Not to mention the other woman in my life generally don’t appreciate that there are other women who I share so much with. I don’t blame them I’d imagine it’s hard enough for women to share their men with their mothers and sisters much less other women.

It’s kind of sad in one respect on the other hand it’s an inevitable reality I don’t have the time or the inclination to spend the necessary time to foster that sort of closeness and if I do there are other motivations behind it. I guess its just part of growing up, maybe it’s just me. I’m not sure but it’s what I was thinking about this morning.

Yemenite Jews

From the JPost

History will record that 2,500 years of Jewish life in Yemen is now over.

The Rescue illuminates an often overlooked aspect of the 60-year-plus Arab-Israel conflict. Whereas the Arab world has purposefully maintained the 700,000 or so Palestinian Arabs made homeless in the course of the 1948 war and their descendants as permanent refugees and political pawns, the State of Israel and world Jewry have worked hard to resettle a roughly equal number of Jewish refugees forced to flee Arab lands.

The behavior of Arab leaders toward their Jewish subjects after the creation of Israel was (with notable exceptions) characterized by scapegoating and marginalization culminating in mass exodus. In 1947, Arab rioters in Aden killed dozens of Jews to protest a two-state solution in Palestine. In 1949 and 1950 the bulk of Yemen's Jews, some 49,000 souls, were airlifted here in "Operation Magic Carpet." The broad Arab refusal to accept the legitimacy of Israel as a sovereign Jewish state is partly attributable to Arab attitudes toward their Jewish minorities.

Coexistence was possible - so long as Jews knew their place.

Football Day

I don't know what I see when I watch football. It must be something insane, because I should not enjoy it as much as I do. I must be seeing something so personal and so universal that understanding this question would tell me everything I need to know about who I am, and maybe I don't want that to happen. But perhaps it's simply this: Football allows the intellectual part of my brain to evolve, but it allows the emotional part to remain unchanged. It has a liberal cerebellum and a reactionary heart. And this is all I want from everything, all the time, always. - Chuck Klosterman

Good Shabbat

"The most fundamental principle of all is that man must create himself. - Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, Halakhic Man

"Why was man created last? In order to say, if he is worthy, all creation was made for you; but if he is unworthy, he is told, even a gnat preceded you." - (Bereishith Rabbah 8: 1; Sanhedrin 38a)

"I may attack a certain point of view which I consider false, but I will never attack a person who preaches it. I have always a high regard for the individual who is honest and moral, even when I am not in agreement with him. Such a relation is in accord with the concept of kavod habriyot, for beloved is man for he is created in the image of God." —Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik

The Beatles

I went out and read the book the other day and pulled out the whole Beatles quote thats in the book, it takes place between Nick and his friend Dev:

“You know what it’s all about, Nick?”

“What what’s about?”

“It, Nick. What it’s all about.”

“No.”

“The Beatles.”

“What about the Beatles?”

“They nailed it.”

“Nailed what?”

“Everything.”

“What do you mean?”

Dev takes his arm and puts it right against mine, skin to skin, sweat on sweat, touch on touch. Then he glides his hand into mine and intertwines our fingers.

“This,” he says. “This is why the Beatles got it.”

“I’m afraid I’m not following…”

“Other bands, it’s about sex. Or pain. Or some fantasy. But the Beatles, they knew what they were doing. You know the reason The Beatles made it so big?”

“What?”

“I Wanna Hold Your Hand. First single. Fucking brilliant. Perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That’s what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a blow job or a million dollar crib. No. They just wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can’t hide. Every single successful love song of the past fifty years can be traced back to I Wanna Hold Your Hand. And every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand holding. Trust me. I’ve thought a lot about this.”

“I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” I repeat

“And so you are my friend. So you are.”

A good story

I’m a sucker for movies, I’m more of a sports guy when it comes to TV but I get caught up on movies. Yesterday I had the day off so after spending the morning writing a paper, I happened upon ‘Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist’ its one of those cute love storyish movies. It has recognizable characters, and good dialogue (it captures those awkward / poignant / cheesy moments wonderfully). What makes movies or TV shows for that matter stand out for me are little moments, the ones that feel real, this movie has many great moments in it. One such moment is when Nicks calls Nora at the beginning of the end of the movie, there is a moment when she hangs up, bites her lip (to stop herself from smiling), flips her hair back and then just smiles. That’s a real moment, we’ve all felt that way when someone who we’ve just met calls us up and says something stupid and it makes us feel special and happy and we start to smile. Everything feels right in the world because we know that person was thinking about us. Those moments are real and this movie does a good job capturing not just that moment but many others.

Here are a two quotes and why I liked them:

"Other bands, it's about sex. Or pain. Or some fantasy. But The Beatles, they knew what they were doing. You know the reason The Beatles made it so big? 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand.' Fucking brilliant, perhaps the most fucking brilliant song ever written. Because they nailed it. That's what everyone wants. Not 24-7 hot wet sex. Not a marriage that lasts a hundred years. Not a Porsche or a million-dollar crib. No. They wanna hold your hand. They have such a feeling that they can't hide. Every single successful love story has those unbearable and unbearably exciting moments of hand-holding."

Awesome.

Said to Nick by his (gay) friend while he’s trying to sort out the events of the night. This line got me thinking, it’s been over two years since I’ve been in a real relationship, I’ve had a few girls come in and out of my life, but no one really special. This line brought me back to the wonderful little things about being in a relationship, like reaching out for the persons hand when you’re walking down the street, or waking up next to them and being content to just be close. Those are good moments in life and its not all the time that you meet someone who makes you want them.

NORAH: That reminds me of this part of Judaism that I really like. It’s called Tikkun Olam. It says that the world is broken into pieces and it’s everybody’s job to find them and put them back together again.
NICK: Well maybe we’re the pieces, you know, maybe we’re not supposed to find the pieces, maybe we are the pieces.

Is it tremendously profound? I say no. But it’s the kind of thing a person says to another person when they’re looking each other in the eye, and are both a little unsure of how the other feels. Like I said before it feels real and that’s why I enjoyed this movie so much, have a wonderful Tuesday everybody.

Young war, old peace

“Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men – courage and hope for the future. Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men – mistrust and caution. It must be so.” -- T.E. Lawrence, “Lawrence of Arabia”

Yom Kippur (post script)

It’s been a while since I’ve sat down (well not literally I’m in bed right now) and written a post for the blog but I wanted to say something about Yom Kippur.

This year I had a Yom Kippur like I’ve never experienced before. I felt terrible on Sunday morning, I spent the day eating and drinking in preparation of the fast. As the day went on I continued to get dizzier and dizzier, my head was pounding… I was not in good shape. I wasn’t sure what to do. What I did was fall asleep at roughly 4:45, I woke up as the sun was setting. I finished my preparations and got ready to go to Kol Nidrei… I didn’t make it, I fell back asleep. I woke up at dawn.

I was not doing well.

I contemplated my options; I knew that I could not stay in bed all day and continue to fast. I knew that staying home would mean making soup and taking some medicine and sleeping some more, boy was I tired (and I had slept for 14 hours that night!)
I decided to get up, get dressed and get to shul. When I finally made it I was greeted warmly, everyone was glad that I made it, they all knew I wasn’t feeling well, they all told me the same thing, just go as long as you can, if you can’t make it don’t try to be a hero, eat, take some medicine and get into bed. Take care of yourself if you have to and so it began. I made it through the day; we took one 45 minute break. We prayed all day.

This is the first place where I’ve ever felt completely accepted as a spiritual person, where I don’t feel the need to hide myself. This is my chosen community; this is still very new for me. I stood next to two of the Kollel Rabbis these guys are heavy hitters. They are also my friends and they got me though the day, making my laugh when I felt I couldn’t go on any longer, helping me find my place when I got lost and or just zoned out for a few minutes, encouraging me to go on and make it though the day.

I thanked god for the many, many blessing he has given me, I asked god for forgiveness for my many, many sins. I asked for nothing other than strength to make it though the day.

By around six I was getting delirious when it came time for the Neliah service I wasn’t sure if I’d make it. It’s the last service of the day; we open the doors of the Ark and don’t close them until we’re done. That means we stand for the whole thing, last year I almost passed out (not I’m not exaggerating, my knees buckled at one point but I made it then) and I made it this year, in the closing moments when I knew I would make it, I felt such an amazing wave of euphoria. I was determined to make it and I did, the day was almost over. Soon I would be home eating and drinking. I’d once again have to look after my own needs.

The thing about Yom Kippur is that, on that day we are like the angels. Completely without need, the whole day we atone, we ask for nothing but forgiveness and god in his infinitely mercy grants it not just to us individually but us as a group, and not just to the group of people we’re with at that particular time but to the whole world. I felt it in those final moments when we yell out to god, in grief and happiness. I felt that I was truly connected to each and every person in that room. I hadn't made it WE had made it. I hadn’t been forgiven WE had been forgiven and not just those of us in that room but each and every one of us. I needed nothing I was completely whole.

I wish that every person could have an experience as I had on that day. To everyone I say have a great weekend, a good Shabbat and a good year.

Enough Jews

My Grandmother sent me this...

At the Russian military academy, a general gave a lecture on "Potential Problems and Military Strategy."

At the end of the lecture, he asked if there were any questions.

An officer stood up and asked, "Will there be a third world war? Will Russia take part in it?"

The general answered both questions in the affirmative.

The officer asked, "Who will be the enemy?"

The general replied, "All indications point to China ."

All in the audience were shocked. The officer asks, "General, we are only 150 million. There are 1.5 billion Chinese. Can we win at all?"

The general answered, "Just think about this. In modern warfare, it is not the quantity that matters but the quality. For example, in the Middle East we have had a few wars recently where 5 million Jews fought against 150 million Arabs, and Israel was always victorious."

After a small pause, the officer asked, "Do we have enough Jews?"

A New Year Begins

Whoa! What the hell happened to September, it’s almost over already, life has been crazy busy and wonderful since my last post, no I haven’t given up on blogging. I’ve just been trying to be more in the moment, not to mention having lots and lots and lots of reading / work to do. So I haven’t been worried about posting on the blog. But needless to say I have not forgotten nor do I plan on stopping my often rambling reflections.

I do feel it’s important to get perspective from time to time and I still enjoy the process of thinking, planning and writing. My classes are engaging, and have me thinking about a myriad of topics, so I hope in the future to post my thoughts on those topics as well. We’ll see how it goes. I hope everyone's New Year was restful and inspiring and I hope that you’re all preparing to be judged on Yom Kippur, may we all merit a year filled with much happiness and love.

Shalom Aleichem

Summer's Over

Oh summer where have you gone? It’s been over a year now since I returned home from that Maniac Mitzvah, another year gone by. When I look back and reflect on everything that has happened to me I’m amazed by where I’ve been and how far I know I still have yet to go. With August behind us and September coming in like a lion (it’s been downright cold here at night) I’m once again starting over. I’m starting graduate school in a week and a half and I’m excited and scared and nervous and ready to go. I’m looking forward to a new challenge.

But I’m always aware of how far I still have yet to go. Graduate school is not an end, it is (or should be, bizrat hashem, inshallah) a means to an end. A way to spring myself forward professionally, its funny how some things just workout exactly as you’d imagined it. When I graduated from college over three years ago I almost went straight to grad school the idea being that to make it where I’d like to go eventually I would need another degree, so how not just get it while I was already in school mode? In the end I was not ready to make that leap then. I knew that I was still to clueless about who I was and what I wanted, I needed more time.

I’ve had that time, I’ve managed to see much, learn much, laugh often, cry little and through all of that I’ve become myself.

I don’t claim perfection… just improvement, steady improvement and refinement.

And so the summer is over and once again I’m getting ready for school, there is a lot to do but it is an exciting new challenge. Through the challenges I’ve realized the impossibility of predicting what will happen with the decisions we make, about the incomprehensibility to truly predict the outcomes of our decisions. Lord knows I wasn’t expecting to be starting full time graduate school work three months ago, and in Boston of all places. Yet here I am, ready to embrace this challenge with an open heart and open mind. I know I can despair at times. I know that at some point possibly soon, I’ll question the decisions that lead me to the point I stand at out now.

For now however I’m going to try to appreciate everything that has gotten me to this point and how much I’ve had to struggle just to get where I am now and not judge myself to harshly for my past wrong decisions. After all I’m here, and it took a lot to get here and that’s worth taking a moment to appreciate.

So here’s to everyone who’s made such growth possible for me, both friends, family and those who curse me (to whom may my soul be silent) thank you for helping me along the way. I’m going to enjoy my last few days of summer, may we all have many more.

The Shofar Blast

I heard the shofar blow this morning, when I got to the kollel I thought about hearing it at the end of the service. But I got so wrapped up I had forgotten about it until I heard the rams horn blast through the quiet morning.

More on: Elul

The First Stone

A great rabbi stands teaching in the marketplace. It happens that a husband finds proof that morning of his wife’s adultery, and a mob carries her to the marketplace to stone her to death.

The rabbi walks forward and stands beside the woman. Out of respect for him the mob forebears, and waits with the stones heavy in their hands. “Is there anyone here,” he says to them, “who has not desired another man’s wife, another woman’s husband?”

They murmur and say, “We all know the desire. But, Rabbi, none of us has acted on it.”

The rabbi says, “Then kneel down and give thanks that God made you strong.” He takes the woman by the hand and leads her out of the market. Just before he lets her go, he whispers to her, “Tell the lord magistrate who saved his mistress. Then he’ll know I am his loyal servant.”

So the woman lives, because the community is too corrupt to protect itself from disorder.

Another rabbi, another city. He goes to her and stops the mob, and says “Which of you is without sin? Let him cast the first stone.”

The people are abashed, and they forget their unity of purpose in the memory of their individual sins. Someday, they think, I may be like this woman, and I’ll hope for forgiveness and another chance. I should treat her the way I’d wish to be treated.

As they open their hands and let their stones fall to the ground, the rabbi picks up one of the fallen stones, and lifts it high above the woman’s head, and throws it straight down with all of his might. It crushes her skull and dashes her brains onto the cobblestones.

“Nor am I without sin,” he says to the people,” but if we only allow perfect people to enforce the law, the law will soon be dead, and our town with it.”

So the woman died because her community was too rigid to endure her deviance.

The famous version of this story is noteworthy because it is startlingly rare in our experience. Most communities lurch between decay and rigor mortis, and when they veer too far, they die. Only one rabbi dared to expect of us such perfect balance that we could preserve the law and still forgive the deviation.

Orson Scott Card, “Speaker for the Dead”( p. 277 – 278)

On the Road

I’ve been on the road for the last 19 days, reading, hanging out with friends and family and just generally trying not to think so much.

From ‘This Is My God’, by Herman Wouk:

Without reaching any conclusions, I moved into a freely chosen observant life. I was gambling my existence in one hunch: that being a Jew was not a trivial and somewhat inconvenient accident, but the best thing in my life and that to be a Jew the soundest way was the classic way…I took the chance saying to myself “I may be wrong” living this way, on a gamble, I learned things about Judaism that no other procedure would have taught me… There are many things that you can come to know only by trying to do them. (p.250-251)… I claim the capacity to doubt. It is the one mental asset I am sure of, beyond the skill with words that gives me my living. I doubted at the age of twenty four the commitments of the show world to which bright people all around me uncritically gave their lives: more money, bigger projects, new pleasures, more involved plans and so on to the death. I doubted the popular naturalistic creed of my college days… and I left it for something that seemed more likely to be true. p.252

The times they are a...

I'm back in the city where I go when I dream, its been to long... I've been dealing with a lot of change, a lot of turmoil, a lot of re-evaluation of what I've been doing and what I want to be doing and there is no greater place to think about these things then this great city. I'm talking of course about New York. I've been told there's a New York bias, anyone whose from here, anyone who calls this place home inevitably discounts everywhere else.

To that I say guilty as charged.

I can't imagine raising a family here or living here for my whole life, but I do think that anyone who's anyone needs to give this place a chance, needs to test themselves here to see who they truly are. Because the thing about New York is you can be anyone here, there are a lot of things New York is and is not, I won't even try to list them. But one thing that New York is, is its a city of unlimited possibilities. Of unlimited dreams, just imagine for a second who you want to be, here in New York you can be that if only you have the nerve.

So this is a good place for me to come back to when I feel like I'm back to square one. Once again I'm back to where I started. Whenever I have to much time on my hands I'm always drawn to these feelings. To the feelings of emptiness, of loneliness. Yes I'm being dramatic, yes I'm being truthful. My generation is in many ways a doomed generation, the third generation after the war to end all wars, after the boom of our parents and their parents. Our problems are that of expectation, of living in an unrealistic reality that we'll never be able to fulfill. The prosperity that we grew up with is fading quickly into memory and all we're left with is the reality we face now, a world restructuring itself, and a reality that felt real but never was and we'll never get back.

Yes I'm back in the city of my dreams, if only I could remember what it was I once used to dream about.

Obama's Strategy

I’ve been struggling with how to feel about the current administration’s revamping of the United States Middle East policy. When I voted for Obama I did so with nagging reservations about his stances on many major issues both domestically and internationally and thus far I give him an ‘I’, as in incomplete. I’m still waiting to see how things begin to shake out in the next six months. Basically I’m giving him a full year before I start being to judgmental. To that effect I solicited a more knowledgeable friend for his take on the game Obama’s playing in the Middle East. He sent me the below response from a friend of his. It’s a succinct, well thought out and eloquent response, which I’m very grateful for. Enjoy:

Obama’s approach to the Middle East is best understood and analyzed as a function of three primary theaters: (1) Iraq; (2) the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and (3) Iran. There is little to say about Iraq other than that a “responsible drawdown” and withdrawal of U.S. forces, while premature in terms of Iraq’s overall autonomous capabilities, is nevertheless necessary due to the prohibitive cost and paradoxical challenges of pursuing Iraqi stability while simultaneously guaranteeing that—through our presence—Iraqis will never possess the incentive to take meaningfully take matters into their own hands. The withdrawal is thus a gamble, but the only realistic option, especially given the ongoing strain on our military.

The Palestinian-Israeli conflict is more complicated. While Obama is a popular president with significant political capital, he faces a hopelessly (and perhaps irreconcilably) split Palestinian polity—divided both politically and territoriality between the Hamas-run Gaza Strip and the Fatah-run West Bank—on the one hand, and an obstinate, right-of-center Israeli government on the other. The problem with Netanyahu’s government is not merely the rhetorical challenges presented by Lieberman or Netanyahu’s own politics, but the very nature of his coalition; cobbled together from smaller, rightwing parties, the political stability of Netanyahu’s government is dependent upon strong opposition to several processes which are necessary for the achievement of a final status agreement with Palestinians, including mainly the West Bank settlements, and Jerusalem.

The Palestinians and Israelis themselves therefore seem completely incapable of progress on their own, and the situation requires a heavy degree of outside pressure. Obama’s strategy, as exemplified by the Cairo speech, seems to be to reach out to regional Arab states as a way of building consensus among those actors that a peaceful resolution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is truly in everyone’s best interest, a realization which has probably been building over the last decade, with the rise of Political Islam, which threatens the control of secular Arab governments.

By publically leaning on Israel, Obama is seeking to present himself (in contrast to Bush) as a credible mediator; of course, this strategy plays differently to his Israeli audience, which finds Obama’s handling of the situation thus far biased and unfair. But I believe that it is intentionally so—not because Obama is necessarily anti-Israel or pro-Palestinian, but because of a realist recognition that Arab assistance in the peace process is a political nonstarter so long as the United States remains viewed as uncritically pro-Israel. The results of this strategy remain to be seen.

As for Iran, the Obama administration’s strategy is likely currently in total flux. The aftermath of the June 12th elections and the reaction of the Iranian regime to popular protests have changed the equation, and certainly make negotiations with Iran far more difficult—both politically and conceptually. The strategy will have to be reformulated, and we will see in the coming months how the United States, along with other world powers address this issue. An Israeli strike remains unlikely.

Appearance, Acceptance and Tisha B’Av

I’ve been thinking about appearance, I belong to a community that is all on the same wavelength, they all practice very similarly, they all dress similarly, it is a community that has an amount of conformity to it. That’s one of the things I like about it, even if I don’t match that same wavelength, it’s refreshing to be in a place with so many different permutations of the same idea. For all its ‘conformity’ it’s still remarkably diverse

Even given that diversity I still stick out and you’d think in that context that it would be weird for someone like me, to find a place in it, especially when I seem quite the outlier. In Jerusalem much of the way I dressed, many of the things I did were symbols of my freedom from and lack of attachment to the system that surrounded of me. I don’t mean to suggest that those were the only things that drove my decisions about appearance and actions but to it definitely played a role sometimes more sometimes less.

They were my assertions that while I was there, I wasn’t all there, that I was different. Here in this place while many of my actions are in their essence the same, they are symbols of the exact opposite idea… funny how that can happen…

While there I felt the need to rebel, to show my lack of conformity to some, not all of the ideas I was being exposed to, here in this community I’ve made for myself I feel none of that, and thus actions that look the same on the outside hold a profoundly different message. Here I do the things I do because they are me, because they are a genuine expression of who I am and what I believe, they aren’t a rebellion, they’re an acceptance.

They’re not an advertisement for my uniqueness in any way, except in the simple act of being me, being a part of my personality, one that neither I nor the community I’m a part of believes makes a person any more or less of a person to do. I love that. I love that something that I once used to differentiate myself is now an act of accepting myself. This is me, I’ve made a lot of changes, I’ve grown a lot, seen a lot and this is still me.

That’s one of the reasons why all of us need to be careful about judging people for their actions and appearances to quickly, we’d all like to think that we can just separate looks and actions and you name it. That we can distill actions and label those actions as one thing or the other, that things that look the same are the same. But we can’t because actions that look exactly the same on the outside can mean completely different things depending on the time or place in which they are done and it’s too easy to forget.

Yesterday was Tisha B’Av. On Tisha B’Av we mourn the loss of the Bais Hamikdash (the temples: there were two) the first one was destroyed for the crimes of sexual immorality, murder and idolatry.

The Second temple was destroyed because of baseless hatred; baseless hatred is not plain hatred. Plain hatred has a reason. For example, you hate a person who causes you financial loss or physical discomfort. Baseless hatred occurs when another person's mere presence threatens to diminish the importance of their being in their own eyes and it is for this reason that we are still in exile.

It is only when we begin to allow ourselves to see past all of our assumptions, all of the nonsense that we can begin to see people for what they truly are, for what those actions truly mean, may we all merit the humility to do so.

She-yibaneh beis hamikdash bi-m'heirah v'yameinu v'sein chelkeinu b'sorah-secha

many opinions

Where there is much desire to learn, there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinions in good men is but knowledge in the making.” - John Milton

Open my heart

I always thought that religious people were running away from life, that the world was just too big, too scary, too much to deal with and they found a way to escape from it. It always seemed like a great out to have. If god controls everything then we’re not responsible, I can pass off the blame on someone else.

That’s what I used to think.

I suppose for some people that is the case, I never truly believed that living a life for god, could also involved living a life for oneself; devoid of personal responsibility one could just put up their feet and enjoy the ride.

I know differently now, for many people it’s not like that at all. For me initially it was an act of curiosity… wait a minute… your telling me that all those random experiences I had of ‘oneness’ those moments of feeling beyond myself, those feelings of connectedness have been experienced by others? That they’ve been talked about and debated by scholars of every major faith? You’ve got to be kidding me. I felt so surprised to learn that many of the ideas that I held sacred were indeed considered sacred by my own faith.

I’ve often wondered if I could have gone to other faiths and found the same or similar things. I think the answer is yes, but after my initial fear and rejection of my own for so many years, it felt oddly right to me to give what I’d been given a real chance. Not that I didn’t buy a book about Buddhism with my first collection of Jewish books when I went to the local bookstore (the books I bought? To be a Jew, God is a Verb, Siddhartha and The Jew in the Lotus). I mean I had to make a nod to the multiculturalism that I grew up with and was holding on to with ferocity.

As I continued to learn, I was constantly surprised by the ideas I was dealing with, about how well the overreaching philosophy meshed with my own. God was a part of that philosophy but I still felt it unnecessary to really tackle the elephant in the room. It’s not that I ignored god, it’s that I felt the question irrelevant. Okay so maybe this ‘god’ character is at the center of all this amazing philosophy, I don’t need to believe in god to get wisdom from this. I can take what I like and leave the rest, after all if my own consumer dominated culture has thought me anything it’s that I can pick and choose what I like, whatever fits into my own groove.

The great danger of that idea is that we, being the selective selfish creatures that we are will most likely ignore the things that we may most need to better ourselves, preferring to stay within the comfortable assumptions and behaviors that got us to that point.

What I’ve begun to realize of course is that accepting god, god as I understand him / it / she / we?? Is ultimately an act not of complacency or surrender but an act of love, mans salvation is by and through love. Being in love means that we are giving up ourselves to someone .That you are allowing the way you act to be influenced by them because you want to connect with them. Its means that you are risking being driven insane by that person when you do something they don’t like; all because you know that they believe you can do better. It means that when you do disappoint them that you’re allowing them to make you feel sad, to feel pain all because you want so fully to connect with them, to be with them. And it also means that you are allowing yourself to cause them pain because when love is mutual, when it is truly shared it means that you will cause them pain because they care about you, because they believe in you. Because they don’t want to see anything bad happen to you, because they want to protect you even when that may not be possible. I was surprised when I learned this, I continue to be surprised when I see this fully realized in the world; because it is the ultimate act of greatness, it is the ultimate act of self to live this.

I accept my own selfish impulses, I accept that I am weak when I should be strong, I accept that I must fail, I accept that I have only one small part of the answer. Yet I do not despair, I once thought that turning towards god, was to accept certainly into one’s life. Now I know it is the act of accepting and embracing uncertainly, it is an act of rejecting tragedy and accepting hope and salvation.

A moment of Zen: 23 Tammuz, 5769

Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm – Winston Churchill

Rhythm and Blues

Camp is a quiet time, a time for reflection, a time to find oneself.

Many kids here are discovering many things about themselves that they may have previously not known. For me personally it’s been fascinating to watch and to be a part of. I completely underestimated the psychological toll that being here would have on me. Because camp makes me sad, it makes me feel like I’m ten years old all over again. Isolated, struggling to figure out where I fit into the diversity, unsure of myself and what I’m doing.

I never expected it.

I don’t know why but it just never occurred to me before this whole thing started that I would be forced to confront such old demons, demons that I had thought were well in my rearview mirror. But they are not and I’ve come to realize that now. I still hold the old images of myself deep in my heart, I still imagine myself as that young adolescent: lost and confused, unsure of himself; scared and angry at the world.

We all carry past images of ourselves. We all fight old assumptions, it will never stop.

For me it’s been as much about my future as my past, when I decided to come to camp it was as much a decision of necessity as anything else… I wasn’t sure what else to do so I took this job and came. It has been rewarding beyond measure. But as with all decisions made because of uncertainty it has lead in many ways to more uncertainty, to more confusion and doubt.

I’m struggling to figure it out.

I believe I am taking steps in the right direction and it’s that belief that is leading to the strength to carry on and to keep going.

But the fog is lifting and a new day has begun, I will not allow myself to succumb to the negativity that has at times surrounded me here, I will not allow it because I cannot control everything but I can control myself. I believe in purpose and order, I trust that my trials will make me emerge a better, more complete man, I will because I must.

To those who curse us

Camp makes me tired, just forty more days and it will be over… forty days. Our sages tell us that forty days have a powerful resonance to it. In Deuteronomy Moses appeals to god for forty days after the sin of the golden calf. I only just realized that that’s how much longer I have until camp comes to an end. Thus far it has been an extremely rewarding and tiring experience. I’ve been faced with new challenges, given new responsibilities, and to this point I’d like to believe I’ve risen to them.

It hasn’t been easy.

There are some mornings like this one that I wake up at 5:00am with my head so full of thoughts that I can’t go back to sleep. If I’m being honest then I’d say even when camp isn’t going on I’m somewhat prone to these mornings. One hand it’s my natural cycle, I’ve always enjoyed the peacefulness of the morning hours, I definitely do most of my writing at this time of day. I like to solitude of having my thoughts to myself, I know that one day in the not so distant future these times will be ancient memories. Lost in the rush of mornings filled with noise, filled with the demands of true adulthood, I’m feeling nostalgic already.

Can you feel nostalgic about time when you’re in it? I believe so.

Camp is giving me a wonderful clarity on my life, no TV, lots of work, kids running around, it has a realness to it that can’t be denied.

I’m dealing with a situation here that worries me, I’m a natural worrier, some parts of your nature can’t be escaped, I need people in my life to calm those fears, and I’m so fortunate that I have them and that I’ve found them. I’ve found in life that occasionally there are people of feel threatened by your very existence and those people will stop at nothing to remove you from their sphere.

I’m dealing with such a situation at the moment. I will overcome it. I trust that it is in my best interest, I pray that I will have the strength to rise above it. I’ve found that at the end of the Amidah when I say “to those who curse me, let my soul be silent” that I can’t help but repeat that line over and over again. I found this beautiful explanation of the passage:

Tosfos [Brochos 17a] comments on the prayer recited at the end of the Shmoneh Esrei: "My G-d, guard my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking deceitfully. To those who curse me, let my soul be silent; and let my soul be like dust to everyone." What is the meaning of the term "let my soul be like dust to everyone?" Tosfos suggests the very idea introduced by the Medrash above: Just like dust (afar) is never destroyed and always remains, we pray that our descendants should always remain and not be destroyed.

This prayer is speaking about people who are not our friends, people who curse us and abuse us. We pray that to those who curse us, we remain silent and we pray that our soul will remain like dust vis-à-vis our enemies. What is the intention when we pray that we should be like dust? It expresses a desire to be among those "who are insulted by others but do not respond in kind, who hear themselves being shamed, but do not respond" [Shabbos 88b]. Such people are the ones who eventually come out on top. We express this aspiration with the words "may my soul be like dust to everyone." That which Hashem promised Yaakov collectively for his descendants, we request on an individual basis as well. Concerning such people it is written: "And let those who love Him be like the powerfully rising sun" [Shoftim 5:31]

In the end it is my belief that those who seek to undo us, undo themselves, I pray for the strength to remember this when I want to respond to the petty criticisms and annoyances that I face not just in this situation but in all situations. If gods justice and mercy is ‘measure for measure”, if all our actions resonate then to quote the Beach Boys, I’m giving out good vibrations. Or to quote another source “Keeping the Faith” (it always makes me nostalgic of my time spent in NY because it was practically shot on my block)

May those who love us, love us, and those who don't love us - May God turn their hearts. And if He cannot turn their hearts, may he turn their ankles, so that we may know them by their limping.

Emotion and Reason

A few words for this morning…

What started my spiritual journey was a singular defining moment, it took a solid week of build up to get that moment but in the end what did it for me was my eighth day on Birthright. I had spent the previous days talking about the meaning of life as I knew it; I listened to others do the same only there was a new element to it that I had never really heard before… God, Torah, halacha, etc.

On the eighth day (a number in Judaism that represents perfection) I wrapped tefilin for the first time and said the Shema. In doing so I became a Bar Mitzvah and then I approached the Kotel and prayed. I had never really tried to pray before, but this time was different, no one thing can be pointed to but it changed everything. In those moments, hours, lifetimes…?? I found something that I knew I could not let go of. Yes I found God. It sounds so cliché…whatever it happened. I tried denying it for a while but it did. I also found love. I met a girl who I dated for a long time and who I was able to open up to.

Both experiences taught me something that I thought I understood but didn’t and that is this: some of the things that are most real in this world aren’t logical, they aren’t neat, they are a little messy. I can’t prove that I love you, I can do things to show you, but in the end you must feel deep down that I do or all those gestures are meaningless. People seem so concerned with rational proof that I think too often they over look this essential part of life. They demand rationality with such fervor that they forget some of the most real things in this world are not rational.

In Torah I found that passion that I wanted and explored it. I read and talked with people and learned and learned. I never gave a thought to keeping kosher, or Shabbat, or really any mitzvahs. Yes I learned the Shema and acquired a pair of tefilin and started wrapping them (pardon the pun) religiously. But though all that I found the idea of the halacha appalling, antiquated. In the end though I’ve come to accept it; not necessarily because I wanted to but because I’ve come to realize that the very reality where the emotional part of the Torah comes from also has a rational basis that surrounds it. The two complement each other and to only pay attention to one is to deprive oneself of the richness and depth of the other. I still struggle with this, but I never thought I’d make keeping Shabbat a priority when I began learning, or that I’d have kosher dishes, the list goes on and on.

I think what I’ve come to accept is the whole reality of the Torah, not just part of it, not just the part that I’m comfortable with, not just the part that got me off. I have through a lot of hard work (writing this blog has helped immensely) come to accept the reality of it as a whole.

…whether the fields in science that have advanced the fastest in our time are those that have also lost the most of the earlier, more encompassing understanding. This sort of historical probing of the rejection of emotion is contrary to what B.F Skinner says about the value of history, absolutely essential to an understanding of modern events. But beyond this is a forging of the reconciliation between emotions and reason…that Quality is generated at the interface between emotion and reason. The western religions have contained elements of this idea for a long time. In Judaism, for example, Torah, the central pillar of the religion, is composed of two equally essential and entirely interwoven elements: the Pentateuch, which represents the emotional or spiritual element, and the halakhah, which is an originally oral tradition of formal rules, laws, rituals and customs – a kind of logical, rational system for interpreting and codifying the spirit of the five books. - The Arrogance of Humanism by David Ehrenfeld, chapter 4, Emotion and Reason, p.172, 173

“Catastrophic Gradualism”

It is common in contemporary humanist writing to find that a good deal of lip service is paid to the value of “emotion,” “compassion,” “human needs,” “vision,” and the like, but somehow reason always emerges as the dominate force in any humanist world view. This is not the road to synthesis. For a working synthesis can only be achieved if we make a continuous conscious effort to purge our thoughts and behavior of all traces of condescension towards the non-rational part of our nature. Emotion is a vital part of life – anger, love, fear, happiness – part of the essence of daily existence, part of our birthright which we have paid for with the countless deaths and tragedies over the course of eons. In full partnership with emotion, reason has at least a chance to help us survive. Without it, none. As usual Orwell, in his frank and simple language, has said it very well, in this case in an essay entitled “Catastrophic Gradualism.” “The practical men have led us to the edge of the abyss, and the intellectuals in whom acceptance of power politics has killed first the moral sense, and then the sense of reality, are urging us to march rapidly forward without changing direction.” Is there survival value in morality? I believe so. The modern effort to disprove the existence of altruism, the glorification of selfishness, and the apotheosis of the cost-benefit analysis are all manifestations of a reason run amok. They are short term wisdom, and no good can come of them. It is time to question reason once again, and a good question to start with can be found in Matthew 6:27. “Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit unto his stature?” The Arrogance of Humanism by David Ehrenfeld, chapter 4, Emotion and Reason, p.174

Amen

From the Chief Rabbi, a new siddur, Pirkei Avot 1:2 states: Upon three things the world stands: The Torah; The worship of God; The bestowal of lovingkindness. -Shimon the Righteous" this work attempts to address number two: prayer:

From Haaretz

"what's so special about this siddur is [Rabbi Sacks' ability] to express and reconcile the angst of a modern Orthodox Jew living in the Diaspora. If you are Haredi, you have no [religious] conflicts. You live in your world, and you know that's your world. If you are secular, you have no conflict either, because you don't really follow anything. A modern Orthodox Jew outside of Israel has identity issues."

From CJN

Authorities cited

"ArtScroll has a very narrow list of “kosher” authorities to quote in its notes. Even the insights of renowned modern Orthodox scholars such as Nechama Leibowitz aren’t included. Rabbi Joseph Soloveichik is also excluded all or most of the time. KorenSacks takes a very different approach, citing many modern Orthodox scholars, but also others, from the most haredi to the most modern. The brilliant insights into prayer of the non-Orthodox Jewish philosopher, Franz Rosenzweig, play a significant role in Rabbi Sacks’s introduction. Other writers cited include the author Leo Tolstoy, the scientist Benoit Mandelbrot, and the atheist philosopher Sir Bernard Williams, who Sacks tells us is “described as the most brilliant mind in Britain.” This prayer book subscribes to the idea that wisdom is found in many sources, not just in the writings of Orthodox rabbis."

From The Jewish Week

"The Koren Siddur beckons not only toward worship but toward thoughtful study. This siddur has retained the practical halachic instructions innovated by Artscroll, and the chief rabbi never flags in his commitment to assist the worshipper in the experience of dialogue, providing strategies of engagement with the prayers...although the Koren Siddur is certainly a halachic one, its centering in Israel makes it a less overtly denominational work. Sages of the yeshivot speak primarily to the spectrum of Orthodoxy. The ArtScroll’s use of “Hashem” for God, for example, functions as an encryption device warning non-Orthodox readers away. In the Koren version, “God” is back and the Israel orientation suggests the possibility of a prayer book for the people who call Israel “home.” There is halachic precision for the traditionally devout, thoughtful spirituality and exploration for the searcher, and a sensitive translation of the classical liturgy as a sourcebook for students of all perspectives."

Its out now, I expect to pick up a copy in the coming weeks.

Thoughts for a new month:1 Tammuz, 5769

Thought one: One should not be embarrassed from people who scoff at him with respect to his service of the Creator. But nevertheless, he should not respond brazenly, in order not to acquire the character trait of being a brazen person - even when he is not involved in his service of Hashem.- (Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 29:8)

Thought two: When I got to Camp I put my kippa back on my head, why? Because it’s a rule at camp, you can’t enter the Hadar (cafeteria) without one on. When I did it I said to one of our Rabbis “Well I guess I’ll follow your rules while I’m here” and he said in response “It’s not our rule, its gods.” That got me thinking. I had forgotten how much covering my head effects the way I see the world.

Thought three: A quote: “Who is the victor? The one that holds the weapons of battle in his hand” – Zohar I, 221A

A priori

Something new I learned today, courtesy of Wikipedia:

Galen Strawson wrote that an A priori argument is one of which "you can see that it is true just lying on your couch. You don't have to get up off your couch and go outside and examine the way things are in the physical world. You don't have to do any science." There are many points of view on these two types of assertion, and their relationship is one of the oldest problems in modern philosophy.

Am I orthodox?

I had a wonderful Shabbat this week and it got me thinking about a lot of things. Like am I orthodox? It’s a question I’m often asked, I guess the short answer is, yes. The long answer? Yes but…

I wrote to a friend about this topic recently:

For now I'm enjoying where I'm at I met a great rabbi in Boston who takes care of me, I always wondered what it would like to feel like a part of a (religious) family it’s so nice… my summer will be filled with hard work and Torah, doesn't sound so bad right? Camp has a wide, diverse range of people with a wide and diverse range of religious practices. So I'm enjoying talking to the rabbis and kids there. I've been thinking a lot about the question, am I orthodox, and ignoring the fact that I reject the term orthodox i.e. approved; conventional or rigid for the moment (I prefer religious) to which there is no doubt the answer.

In many real ways I am orthodox, if not always in practice (though I'm getting there) then for sure in the way I approach it. I read an article that got me thinking from the Jewish Press entitled: “AMERICA'S UNORTHODOX ORTHODOX JEWS: A CONVERSATION WITH PROFESSOR JEFFREY GUROCK” this is what it had to say:

The Jewish Press: Your book, devoted to American Jewish Orthodoxy, includes Jews who work on Shabbat. In what sense is someone who works on Shabbat Orthodox?

Gurock: He's Orthodox in the sense that he understands what the requirements of the halacha are. This individual is very guilty about his inability to observe Shabbat, but there are certain basic economic exigencies that force him to work to support his family.

Some would argue that working on Shabbat makes a person, a priori, not Orthodox.

Obviously people are entitled to their opinion, but no one observes all the mitzvot. What makes someone Orthodox is his understanding that one is required to observe the mitzvot. Someone could be a Reform Jew and observe many of the mitzvot, but he's not Orthodox because this is a personal decision he makes not based upon a belief in a halachic tradition.

After spending all week at Camp, I came back to my adopted community in Boston for Shabbat. I davened at the Kollel: all were happy to see me; I’ve become a real member of this community despite our differences. I guess on some level I just like sticking out. It’s so black hat, know what I mean? And yet they welcome me with open arms, it’s a committed Torah community that believes what it has is good and all who want to share in it are welcome, I like that about it very much.

At dinner I got in a discussion with a guest about sports, really it became about my rejection or lack thereof of ‘pop culture’ I won’t go into the details, it didn’t get heated, I just felt as though I was being talked at, not with. Something I have a problem with in all circumstances but I let it go, what I wanted to say was “F*** you. I love Torah, I fear god, leave me the hell alone.” I didn’t… but I think I got my point across just the same.

Shabbat day, I ate with my adopted family, and held two informal shirum for the young boys who show up with their dads to the shul. What did we talk about? Mostly sports, also myself, my family, my search for Torah. The children in this community are great, they don’t have TV’s, or the internet in their houses and yet they’re still a part of the world, they love the Red Sox. They’re fascinated by me and I enjoy exposing them to a very small part of my life and what brought me to Torah. I try to tell them they will and should struggle with Torah, but that I believe it is good. It’s fun for both sides. When this first started happening I was a little afraid that their parents wouldn’t be okay with my topics of conversation. But I’ve spoken with many of their fathers and mothers and their okay with it, they know me, they trust me it’s amazing.

I spent motzi Shabbat reading late into the night, back to Camp on Monday.

On being (a wallflower)

Life is so much what we make of it, it’s a hard lesson to learn in life, but I know that it’s critical to living a full life. A personal example: I spent last week freaking out, I called my parents daily (always a bad sign for my mental health) I complained about everything, I could find no good in anything I did. This week I’ve been focusing on the positives and it’s amazing how I’ve found so many positives in the same things I was complaining about last week and all I had to do was refocus my mind.

Has anything changed in the last week? Not on the outside, no. But my view of it has been transformed. At the beginning of the week I picked up “the perks of being a wallflower” and I couldn’t help thinking that this book would have resonated with me more ten years ago. I mean ten years ago I was a wallflower. Now? Not nearly as much, though I don’t believe our fundamental natures change. I am still the same quiet, reflective kid I was ten years ago, and ten years before that. Yet much like the main character in the book, I at some point decided that I could choose to participate, I could choose to feel a part of what was going on. It didn’t happen overnight but gradually, slowly I looked back and thought to myself, what happened to that kid who used to play by himself at recess?

There were many factors that contributed to it, but in the end it was my decision to make the effort, even in the face of great adversity that idea won the day. Glory, glory Hallelujah!

In that sense we’re all the same, as much as we’d like to fool ourselves otherwise. Our main character Charlie ultimately realizes this. In the end he rejects isolation and embraces inclusion. What happens to him we’ll never know, it’s a brilliant twist. Once he rejects isolation we lose our connection to the story. I related to the book on a personal level, I hope that most if not all people do. It’s not hard to me to draw parallels to his life and mine; it starts with him attempting to end his isolation by writing to an unknown correspondent… and what else is a blog, especially this one but an attempt to share in my own feelings of alienation and isolation I actually wrote about this idea not long ago when I changed the name of the blog. I said the following:

“…it (this blog) was a way of reaching out from a foreign land. I knew that when I made the decision to go to Israel I was going to come home profoundly changed.”

It’s amazing how not just living this transformation but writing about it has profoundly changed the way I see it. It was in many ways the last step for me in accepting a part of myself that I was struggling with. When I first started leaning Torah I felt isolated. I was rejecting the values and assumptions of my peers and family in many visible ways. I needed to reach out and I found I could in a semi anonymous way (is it really anonymous if you use your real name to post, and talk about nothing but your life?) I’ve found that putting ideas down in a public forum has helped me see them in a new light.

Charlie sees it the same way. He remarks to his unknown correspondent that it wouldn’t be the same if he were writing a journal, he needs what he is thinking to be seen and read and thought about by others. He’s reaching out in the only was he feels he can.

I know that’s why this book resonated with me and so many others, it’s not enough to live in isolation, it’s not enough to just like ourselves. We need approval; we need to come to grips with who we are collectively, as part of a group. We all deal with trauma; none of it can be trivialized. As I told my mom last week “I know that ultimately I have it good, I know that there are people dealing with ‘bigger’ issues then myself, but in the end I have to deal with my issues. God judges us all on our own merits, which means that our problems are not insignificant, they are real, we cannot trivialize them, we cannot comfort ourselves by thinking others have it worse. It does us no good. So I’m dealing with my issues.”

“the perks of being a wallflower” is a story of empowerment, of the great power we all have to take control of our lives. We must accept the things that have happened to us, we must try to understand that much is out of our control but what we do have the power to control is the way we react to those circumstances.

I’ll leave with words of wisdom from Charlie:

“There is the story of the two brothers whose father was a bad alcoholic. One brother grew up to be a successful carpenter who never drank. The other brother ended up being a drinker as bad as his dad was. When they asked the first brother why he didn’t drink, he said that after he saw what it did to his father, he could never bring himself to even try it. When they asked the other brother he said, that he guessed he had learned to drink on his father’s knee. So I guess we are who we are for a lot of reasons. And maybe we’ll never know most of them. But even if we don’t have to power to choose where we come from, we can still choose where we go from there. We can still do things. And we can try to feel okay about them.”

Boker Tov

I woke up at camp this morning, after it rained last night, the morning was beautiful. It was early 5:00am, I went back to sleep until 6:30 and woke up feeling great.

Since I still had time until Morning Prayer I decided to read. So I picked up a new book called “The perks of being a Wallflower” this book has been recommended to me by many, many people, but it wasn’t until I saw it on the list books by a fellow writer who I have respect for that I decided to pick it up. Funny how I’ve come to consider myself a writer, after spending so much time pretending that I knew how to write. The book is wonderful I quickly read to the end of part one.

Then I showered, prayed in my first conservative minion (it was interesting) and went to breakfast. Camp is starting to become fun, god willing that will continue. I’ve been trying to remember and meditate on the teachings of Rebbe Nachman who said that simcha (joy) is the highest level of serving hakadosh baruch hu.

Boker tov!

A little bit more then 140 characters

140 characters or less, that’s how many words you get to express yourself on twitter. When I heard about this idea, this product I was skeptical, in fact I still am. But It also got me thinking one hundred and forty characters… Shakespeare said brevity is the soul of whit. Yet I can’t help thinking we’ve stumbled across something evil here. Is it another step down the disposable society road? Yes of course but it also (can be) a fluid instantaneous expression.

140 characters:

140 characters or less, that’s how many words you get to express yourself on twitter. When I heard about this idea, I was skeptical, in fact I still am. But It

That’s 140 characters.

I’m a person who (generally) trusts my first assessment. Read Blink by Malcom Gladwell for more on this idea which he calls rapid cognition.

It’s an interesting thought; we’ve come to trust our own powers of reasoning so much that we forget something, our frontal lobe is young, it is still in the testing stages of its evolution. It hasn’t proven if it has staying power (please see “The Arrogance of Humanism” by David W. Ehrenfeld).

You could also argue that we’ve come so far as a society that’s we’ve gone (not literally) backwards. Our ability to communicate has been refined to how we can best communicate in short quick bursts. It makes my head hurt.

It has great potential, it can do this:

Allah O Akbar!

Andrew Sullivan writes this about it:

That a new information technology could be improvised for this purpose so swiftly is a sign of the times. It reveals in Iran what the Obama campaign revealed in the United States. You cannot stop people any longer. You cannot control them any longer. They can bypass your established media; they can broadcast to one another; they can organize as never before.

It's increasingly clear that Ahmadinejad and the old guard mullahs were caught off-guard by this technology and how it helped galvanize the opposition movement in the last few weeks. That's why they didn't see what those of us surgically attached to modems could spot a mile away: something was happening in Iran. If Drum is right , the mullahs believed their own propaganda about victory until reality hit them so hard so fast, they miscalculated badly and over-reached.

The key force behind this is the next generation, the Millennials, who elected Obama in America and may oust Ahmadinejad in Iran. They want freedom; they are sick of lies; they enjoy life and know hope.

This generation will determine if the world can avoid the apocalypse that will come if the fear-ridden establishments continue to dominate global politics, motivated by terror, armed with nukes, and playing old but now far too dangerous games. This generation will not bypass existing institutions and methods: look at the record turnout in Iran and the massive mobilization of the young and minority vote in the US. But they will use technology to displace old modes and orders. Maybe this revolt will be crushed. But even if it is, the genie has escaped this Islamist bottle.

Maybe that's what we're hearing on the rooftops of Tehran: the sound of the next revolution

Allah O Akbar!
Shema Israel!
Viva La Revolution!

One curious(and insightful) Jew

The following post contains almost none of my own words. I wrote a post entitled ‘People and places’ last week and received a response that I felt compelled to answer from a wonderful writer who I’ve been following for a long time, you can find a link to her blog “The Curious Jew” on my sidebar. This is what she starts with:

“So you may be interested to know that is very much the theme of Judaism! Our nationhood is predicated upon our choice to dedicate ourselves to God, our keeping of Torah and mitzvot, no matter where we are throughout the world. We have sustained ourselves as a nation throughout the world for centuries, and while Israel is a fantastic place and wonderful for the Jews, if God forbid it should ever fall, it would not mean the end of the Jews.” – Chana

I got the source of the idea for that idea from Paul Johnson’s ‘A History of the Jews’, it is located in part two: Judaism, page 83, please note my emphasis in bold and comment in italics:

“Hence it was during the Exile that ordinary Jews were first disciplined into the regular practice of their religion. Circumcision, which distinguished them ineffaceably from the surrounding pagans, was insisted upon rigorously, and the act became a ceremony and so part of the Jewish life cycle and liturgy. The concept of the Sabbath, strongly reinforced by what they learned from Babylonian astronomy, because the focus of the Jewish week …The Jewish year was now for the first time punctuated by the regular feasts: Passover celebrated the founding of the Jewish nation; Pentecost the giving of the laws, that is the founding of their religion; Tabernacles, the wanderings in the desert where nation and religion were brought together; and as the consciousness of individual responsibility sank into their hearts, the Jews began to celebrate too the New Year in memory of creation, and the Day of Atonement in anticipation of judgment. Again, Babylonian science and calendrical skills helped to regularize and institutionalize this annual religious framework. It was in exile that the rules of faith began to seem all-important: rules of purity, of cleanliness, of diet. The laws were now studied, read aloud, memorized. It is probably from this time that we get the Deuteronomic injunction(the first paragraph of the Shema): ‘These commandments which I give you this day are to be kept in your heart; you shall repeat them to your sons, and speak of them indoors and out of doors, when you lie down and where you rise. Bind them as a sign on the hand and wear them as a phylactery on the forehead; write them on the doorposts of your homes and your gates.” In exile the Jews, deprived of a state, became a nomocracy – voluntary submitting to rule by a Law which could only be enforced by consent. Nothing like this had occurred before in history.”

I’ll let The Curious Jew bring me home:

“And the answer is exactly as you said: the core of the religion, God and His people. We are a nation predicated, not upon time and space, but upon ourselves- how we act, the ethics, morals and virtues laid out for us...this is what makes us Jewish.”

She's good...

Just read that you are on your way to camp---even tho you will be working and learning about camp life--I also want you to relax, enjoy the summer, have FUN--delay beibng introspective til the fall-- Life is complicated enough, so take time to have a ball-- Life can be beautiful, be young , dance and sing and be merry-- There will be kids there who will be nervous, make them laugh!! That will be a Mitzvot. Have a Good Shabbat.

LOve you so, Gram XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

The agony and the ecstasy

Excitement and dread, ecstasy and agony, the extreme poles of human emotion, I feel them all, more acutely then ever at the moment. I’m getting ready to go to camp for the summer and I couldn’t be more conflicted. I’m content with my life at the moment, any minor complaints are simply that minor and ultimately trivial, yet the human condition being what it is, I feel overwhelmed, because the thing is, I’ve never been to camp before…yes you read that right, I’ve never been to camp before.

I never had any desire as a child to go and now at the age of twenty five, I’m getting ready for a summer filled with camp and I’m just not sure what to do about it. I mean I just got here, I’m just a month and a half into living in Boston, I’m just starting to feel comfortable where I am and now I’m about to be somewhere else.

What I know is this, after the summer is over I’ll have a few quiet months at work, I’ll have time then to pursue my larger goals and for now I need to accept that this summer is part of those larger goals, it can just be difficult to see at times. I knew when I accepted this job that this was part of the deal: devote the summer to your job in exchange for getting September almost completely off for the Jewish holidays, getting leave early every Shabbat. In exchange for living, eating, breathing, sleeping amongst Jews all the time.

I told my father, thus far, since college / Birthright every decision I’ve made has focused around only one thing. When I moved to New York after college it was because I wanted to live in a Jewish community for the first time in my life. When I picked up everything and went to Israel is was because I wanted to do some serious learning and connect with Eretz Israel in a deeper way. When I took the job with camp it was because I’d be in a place where no one would question my Jewishness, which truth be told, was and is still a big issue for me. A good friend remarked one time ‘gosh you’re just Jewish, you’re not coming out of the closet or anything, your just freaking Jewish…chill out.’ It may be funny but it has a ring of truth to it. Less so now then when it was said three years ago, but true none the less.

In short I’ve been somewhat simple minded for the last few years, it’s all been about only one thing: where can I find a place that I’m comfortable being me. I hope and pray camp will add a new dimension to that. That idea certainly was a big reason I decided to move to this new place. I know if nothing else I will walk away with many, many good stories that I hope to share on this blog. For now I’ll keep learning as much as I can, doing what I can to reach my goals, it’s the only thing I can do.

La Chaim!

People and places

Places make you proud for a moment; people fill your life with love.

Ever since I went to Israel on birthright, the idea of that place has dominated my imagination. But it is ultimately land, as special as it may be ultimately it has not sustained me.

The time I’ve spent there, means nothing to me when I compare it to the people I’ve met both here and there. Israel is a spark inside me, but the people who nurture that spark and help me keep it safe are the gentle wind that makes it burn.

This week one such good friend returns to Eretz Israel, hatzlacha.

Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Abbas Zaki

See this link Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon Abbas Zaki I sure hope people understand what we're up against, this is not posturing, this is reality. The crazy thing is that this isn't new, this is exactly what these people have been doing for years. Making speeches designed to placate the American and European viewers, while openly stating their real opinions and objectives when asked. Its unbelievable. Some exerpts below.

Abbas Zaki: "With the two-state solution, in my opinion, Israel will collapse, because if they get out of Jerusalem, what will become of all the talk about the Promised Land and the Chosen People? What will become of all the sacrifices they made - just to be told to leave? They consider Jerusalem to have a spiritual status. The Jews consider Judea and Samaria to be their historic dream. If the Jews leave those places, the Zionist idea will begin to collapse. It will regress of its own accord. Then we will move forward."

Abbas Zaki: "The people of the West Bank are active day and night - with stones, with demonstrations, all the people have taken to the streets. You asked me if I support, in light of this bloodshed... Don't forget we're Arabs - we believe in blood vengeance. No one can treat our blood like water. We should have afflicted them with three or four operations, and then their women would have said to those sons of bitches: 'Come home, we are getting killed here.' When Israel focuses on one front, other fronts should be activated."

Abbas Zaki: "We consider the U.S. to be an enemy because its only strategic alliance is with Israel."
Interviewer: "How could you possibly accept your enemy in your land?"
Abbas Zaki: "What do you mean? We meet even with Israel."
Interviewer: "How can you consider Israel to be your enemy, if you signed a peace treaty with it?"
Abbas Zaki: "Allow me... This enemy... If I had the capabilities of the U.S. - would I be fighting it or negotiating with it?"

Abbas Zaki: "The use of weapons alone will not bring results, and the use of politics without weapons will not bring results. We act on the basis of our extensive experience. We analyze our situation carefully. We know what climate leads to victory and what climate leads to suicide. We talk politics, but our principles are clear. It was our pioneering leader, Yasser Arafat, who persevered with this revolution, when empires collapsed. Our armed struggle has been going on for 43 years, and the political struggle, on all levels, has been going on for 50 years. We harvest U.N. resolutions, and we shame the world so that it doesn't gang up on us, because the world is led by people who have given their brains a vacation..."

Cats in the Middle East

Check out the article below from Scientific American about the evolution of domestic cats.

"It appears, that cats were being tamed just as humankind was establishing the first settlements in the part of the Middle East known as the Fertile Crescent."

"...cats most likely chose to live among humans because of opportunities they found for themselves."

"Some experts speculate that wildcats just so happened to possess features that might have preadapted them to developing a relationship with people. In particular, these cats have “cute” features—large eyes, a snub face and a high, round forehead, among others—that are known to elicit nurturing from humans."

"Thus introduced, cats could have established colonies in port cities and then fanned out from there."

"Unlike dogs, which exhibit a huge range of sizes, shapes and temperaments, house cats are relatively homogeneous, differing mostly in the characteristics of their coats. The reason for the relative lack of variability in cats is simple: humans have long bred dogs to assist with particular tasks, such as hunting or sled pulling, but cats, which lack any inclination for performing most tasks that would be useful to humans, experienced no such selective breeding pressures."


The Taming of the Cat

Ruth and Shavout

I hope to write more on Shavout on Sunday but for now a few words of wisdom on the holiday and why we learn all night and read the book of Ruth, from 'A Fire Burns in Breslov'

1)Yalkut Shimoni: the Megillah describes people suffering and enduring difficulty and displaying great self sacrifice. This teaches that one can acquire Torah only through much toil and self sacrifice.

2)Chidah: Ruth demonstrates the punishment for selfishness and the importance of kindness. This teaches us that one can only accept the Torah if he does kind acts. A selfish person cannot learn truly learn Torah.

3)Likutei Halahchos: Ruth was the ancestor of David Hamelech. He was the paradigm of tefilah and humility, two absolute essentials without which one cannot learn Torah.

Chag Samach!!

The Past, Present and Future

We all use the past in order to interpret the present. Our current predicaments only make sense to us when put in the context of historical trends. We see present and future situations through the lens of our past deeds.

Recently I’ve begun to delve into my own past… but not just my own past, my families past, and not necessarily the individuals themselves but the trends. I’ve been doing my best to find out when my family is from, tracking down names, to towns and doing my best to put together a picture of where not just I come from but where my family comes from.

Why am I doing this? In some ways its pure nerdy fascination; I like stories, and creating one for myself and for my family is as interesting an intellectual exercise that I can do. In another line of thought we must know our own pasts or we will be doomed to repeat them. However in this case I’m studying historical trend, not individual choice so maybe it’s a little different. I guess the real reason is the more I explore my own very personal Jewish identity I crave some insight into where my family developed its own in the near past.

After a little digging, I found a rough outline. Basically my family is from the meeting point of present day Belarus, Poland and Ukraine. The borders have shifted and the towns’ names have changed but with some degree of reliability I found the sweet spot.

This is important to me personally because when you start to look into where your family is from you can examine the social trends of the day that may have influenced their lives. By social trends primarily what I’m talking about is the schools of Jewish thought that ran though this densely populated region of years in the 17th through 20th century and beyond.

This is amazing when you think about it. Due to the instability of the area, the relentless persecution of Jews and others for centuries and the dilapidation common to communist rule nothing should exist. But thanks to some very dedicated people there is a wealth of translated documents and names lists with town of origin to be dug though. I’m including links to a few sights I found helpful if you’re interested.

Enjoy the long weekend.


Jewish Web Index


Jewish Genealogy