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.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
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
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
Sunday, June 21, 2009
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:
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:
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.
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.
Friday, June 19, 2009
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.”
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.”
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
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!
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!
Sunday, June 14, 2009
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!
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!
Sunday, June 7, 2009
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:
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:
“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
LOve you so, Gram XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
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!
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!
Monday, June 1, 2009
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..."
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..."
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