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
Thursday, August 27, 2009
The Shofar Blast
More on: Elul
Wednesday, August 26, 2009
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)
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)
Tuesday, August 25, 2009
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
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
Friday, August 7, 2009
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.
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.
Monday, August 3, 2009
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.
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.
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