Not boycott, buy-cott

On Tuesday, November 30, anti-Israel activists in New York plan to demonstrate and call for boycotts of stores that sell Israeli products aspart of the BDS campaign against Israel - Boycott, Divest, Sanction. In response, people in all locations are encouraged to take part in an Israeli product BUY-cott, and purchase Israeli goods on Tuesday (and everyday!)

(I love Jews)

Cyber War

I'd like to thank Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for making me laugh this morning when I read a quote of his about the recent WikiLeaks release of US secret diplomatic cables about US foreign policy around the world. This has been a fascinating story on so many levels, the most fundamental being how could the US let this happen? Its such a massive breach of security.

Cyber warfare is only just starting to make its way onto the stage just like terrorism did post 9/11. Iran is battling the Stuxnet virus and a Chinese group called Government Leaks has announced a June 1, 2011 launch of leaks from the Chinese government just in time for the twenty second anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre.

Very interesting times, heres the quote from Foreign Policy:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the information in the cables confirms Israel's own assessment of the Iranian threat. “There is not a huge gap between what we say behind closed doors and what we say openly,”

God Said and it was

Judaism marks the world’s first transition on a national scale from an oral to a literate culture. Hence the unique significance it attaches to the spoken and written word. We discover this at the very beginning of the Torah. It takes the form of the radical abandonment of myth. G-d spoke and the world came into being. There is no contest, no struggle, no use of force to subdue rival powers – as there is in every myth without exception. Instead, the key verb in Genesis 1 is simply leimor, “G-d said [vayomer], Let there be . . . and there was.” Language creates worlds.

The Chief Rabbi J. Sacks

That which is plain

Even that which is plain in the Torah is obscure, how much more so that which is already obscure - Judah Halevi

A statistical aberration

There are 195 countries in the world.

Israel is the only country in the world that is Jewish.

The chance of randomly choosing a Jewish state is 0.0051%.

Israel’s Jewishness is a statistical aberration.

Attire

Reading a very interesting new book called Yiddish Civilization by Paul Kriwaczek while he admits right at the beginning that he's neither "a learned Jew nor a professional historian," the book is very interesting thus far. I really enjoyed his insight on the Chassidic style of dress found in the quote below. Please note I've added bold for emphasis and reference.

Back in the 1950’s most London Jews dressed like everyone else. Not particularly to make themselves inconspicuous, but because they saw no reason to be different...Today’s orthodox take pride in singling themselves out by their apparel, asserting their right to look different. Moreover many Chassidim, particularly on Sabbaths and holidays, go further and wear what amounts to a historic costume: black caftan fastened with a sash round the middle, knee breaches over white stockings, together with a wheel-shaped brown fur hat – an ensemble apparently attuned to the fashion sense of seventh-century Polish noblemen. The new eagerness to stand out from the crowd isn’t simply a consequence of the rise in orthodoxy among part of the Jewish population…but rather a desire to present themselves publically as Jews. After all, being strictly religious has, in principle, little bearing on attire, which is more a symbol aimed at other people rather than a message to God… The renaissance of Polish court style among the Chassidim is, rather, just one aspect of a sudden and surprising rediscovery and reassertion of Jewry’s eastern European roots among every section of the community. Far from wishing to erase all recollection of the heym(homeland)as in the past, today’s generation is busily trying to revive its memory. p.18-19

Simplicity

Besides simplicity and purity, you should understand that there is no need to search for specially strict practices to take upon yourself. To think that you should is an illusion: it is simply one of the devices of the Evil One to deter you from serving G-d. Such practices are not part of serving G-d. As our Sages said: `The Torah was not given to the ministering angels' (Kiddushin 54a). It was given to men of flesh and blood. These exaggerated practices can put you off completely. The greatest wisdom of all is not to be wise at all. It is simply to be pure and straightforward.

Rebbe Nachman of Breslov

I offer up this quote in part because I feel as though many observant Jews participate implicitly if not explicitly in a sort of game of one-upmanship with their observances, and it becomes a badge of honor to be stricter in observance. But being more machmir (strict) does not necessarily mean anything in fact if you read the words of the Rebbe it might even be a bad thing, it might prevent us from getting closer to ha kadosh baruch hu, instead of drawing us nearer.

It’s okay to say you know what, I’m not so strict about this, I’m in fact mekel (lenient) on this mitzvah. This is especially important to remember when one is taking on new mitzvoth; one of the worst things to do is to feel bad about ones observance (or lack thereof) when it’s not necessary. Those feelings are a burden that doesn’t need to be carried. So learn to serve god with simplicity and sincerity and don’t let yourself get to caught up in all the hype.

L’Shalom

Chicken and Egg

What came first the chicken or the egg? Philosophers have debated this question since time in memoriam, and today I’d like to take a crack at it.

Why you might ask? Because at the moment I’m learning Talmud and the section I’m learning is called betzah, translated literally: egg. The first discussion in this tractate is centered around a discussion about whether or not it’s permitted to eat an egg that was laid on a festival. I won’t go into the details, except to say learning Talmud is always a fascinating and frustrating academic exercise. Based on what I’ve learned during these last few weeks I’d like to offer an answer to the original question I’ve posed: what came first the chicken or the egg? According to the Rabbi’s it doesn’t matter, the real question we should be asking is: can we eat them!

(Personally I can’t think of any answer more Jewish then that)

L’Shalom.

love, fear and belief

Heard at the Shabbat table...There is a little truth behind every joke...

Sephardic Jews love god, but don’t fear him. Ashkenazi Jews fear god, but don’t believe in him.

A fly also lives

I was reading The Chosen on Shabbat afternoon and came across this passage which has always resonated with me, so I plucked it out of the text to share here.

“Reuven, listen to me, do you know what the Rabbis tell us God said to Moses when he was about to die? God said: “You have toiled and labored, and now you are worthy of rest. Human beings do not live forever... We live less the then time it takes to blink an eye, if we measure our lives against eternity. So it may be asked what value is there to a human life. There is so much pain in the world. What does it mean to have to suffer so much if our lives are nothing more then the blink of an eye…I learned along time ago, that the blink of an eye in itself is nothing. But the eye that blinks, that is something. The span of life is nothing, but the man who lives that span, he is something. He can fill that tiny span with meaning, so its quality is immeasurable though its quantity may be insignificant…a man must fill his life with meaning, meaning is not automatically given to life. It is hard work to fill ones life with meaning, a life filled with meaning is worthy of rest. I want to be worthy of rest when I am no longer here. Merely to live, to exist – what sense is there in that? A fly also lives.”

I also like these two quotations: from Rabbi N. Weinberg: “When you know what you're willing to die for, then you know what to live for.” and from Martin Luther King Jr. “A man who won’t die for something is not fit to live.”

A Moment of Zen

The soul can take delight in small things if ones dreams only leave it in peace long enough.

The Journey Home