Daily Archives: May 27, 2021

By Charles Mathewes, Ph.D., University of VirginiaRabbinic Judaism emerged out of a moment of crisis: the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the creation of the Diaspora. (Image: New Africa/Shutterstock)The Concept of Rabbinic Judaism

Rabbinic Judaism is the form of Jewish faith and practice that arose after the fall of Jerusalem in the first century and the scattering of Jews, known as the Diaspora, across the Mediterranean and Near East in the following two centuries. It flourished from the third century all the way to the 20th century. In some ways, its still flourishing today.

The third century of the Common Era is effectively the era of Talmuds composition; the Talmud is the body of literature that comments and interprets the Torah, Jewish religious law, in general.

Rabbinic Jewish tradition takes the Talmud to be a text of near-scriptural authority for interpreting the Torah; indeed, the Talmud is the textual fixing in this tradition of the Oral Law in comparison to the Written Law of the Torah.

This is a transcript from the video series Why Evil Exists. Watch it now, on The Great Courses Plus.

The rabbis were the Jewish communitys teachers and ministers. They were scholars who knew the Torah very well and the debates surrounding it in the Talmud. They were effectively walking repositories of the tradition.

They understood the height of their religious duty to be the study of Torah and Talmud, the enormously complicated sets of argumentative commentaries that previous rabbis had created to understand how to live faithfully as Jews in this very complicated world.

Learn more about the Reformationthe power of evil within.

In the wake of the Shoah or Holocaust, theres been a huge wave of Jewish rethinking of the faith, but there have been events of similar existential crises in Judaism at different moments in Jewish history. One of them is the famous Babylonian Captivity where the remnants of Israel, or a large part of them, were exiled to Babylon in the sixth-century B.C.E.

Rabbinic Judaism emerges out of another one of those moments of crisis: the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem and the creation of the Diaspora. This was a revolution in Jewish thinking on the scale of the Shoah (Holocaust) with enormous ongoing effects.

In the Diaspora, the Jews effectively lost the Promised Land, and they lost the central ritual place of worshipping God (namely the Temple in Jerusalem). They did not return to Israel as a people for almost 2,000 years. A new kind of religion had to be built out of the rubble and the ashes of the old, and thats what the rabbis essentially did.

In terms of evil, in particular, rabbis explored a series of alternative moral psychologies of human malice; but much of their discussion centered around the evil and the good impulses in the human heart. The evil impulse is called yetzer ha-ra and the good impulse is called yetzer ha-tov.

Adam and Eve ate of the tree of the knowledge of tov and ra, good and evil. The rabbis saw God creating in humans two different and rival sources of energy, inclinations, or impulses. In fact, for the rabbis, the condition of the human, as driven by these two impulses, is signified in the scriptures themselves.

Learn more about self-deception in evil-scholasticism.

Jewish people view good and evil differently than Christians. It is rooted in the idea that the behavior of good or evil is anchored in basic human impulses existing essentially from the creation.

For Christ to have been so good, something must have been awful (that he came to remedy). The Jewish conception of these two impulses suggests an entirely different picture of how humans are organized and what motivations and struggles theyre dealing with internally.

Learn more about the Hebrew Bible and human rivalry with God.

The yetzer ha-tov, the good impulse, is basically conscience; its an inner sense that alerts the person when he/she is considering violating Gods law. It warns the person, and it develops around age 1213 when the young Jewish boy or girl first begins to become an adult.

At a boys Bar Mitzvah or a girls Bat Mitzvah for example, when the child first begins to struggle with Gods word in the Torah and the observance of the Commandments, for the rabbis, that is the true mark of a maturing Jew.

In contrast to the yetzer ha-tov, the yetzer ha-rathe evil impulseis a far more murky concept. It doesnt emerge when the person is 1213, and its part of human nature. Genesis, for example, says: The yetzer of the human heart is ra from youth, The impulse of the human heart is bad from youth (Genesis 8:21).

Learn more about Hobbes and evil as a social construct.

The evil impulse is not demonic, and its not an utterly unnatural violation of creation expressing some sort of anarchic hostility to Gods creation. The rabbis believe this is a paranoid kind of self-interest. In their view, a young child or infant sees the world as a threatening and dangerous place.

For example, think about how small children react when their parents introduce them to a stranger, often theyll hide behind their parents; in other words, the rabbis have a great deal of empirical evidence they can point to. Children are sometimes terrified of strangers, and they are scared of the world, and this seems accurate as to how children behave (at least part of the time).

After the fall of Jerusalem in the first century, a different kind of Jewish tradition arose called Rabbinic Judaism. This tradition flourished from the third century onward.

According to Rabbinic Judaism, Yetzer ha-tov, or the good impulse, is an inner sense that warns people when they are considering violating Gods law. This innate sense is also known as conscience.

According to Rabbinic Judaism, the evil impulse is part of human nature (self-interest). The evil impulse is called yetzer ha-ra in the Jewish tradition.

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Rabbinic Judaism: The View of Good & Evil in the Jewish Tradition - The Great Courses Daily News

The 14th day of Sivan, May 25, was the 200th yahrzeit of Rav Hayyim Ben Yitzhak of Volozhin (7 Sivan 550914 Sivan 5581).

Born in Volozhin, Lithuania (today Valozyn, Belarus), he studied at the age of 12 with R. Raphael Hacohen of Hamburg (who was head of the beit din in Minsk at the time), and at age 15 with R. Aryeh Leib Gunzberg, (the Shaagat Aryeh). R. Yisrael of Shklov claims that R. Hayyim finished all of Talmud with the commentaries by age 22. At age 19 he met the Vilna Gaon (Eliyahu ben Shlomo Zalman, the Gra) whom he visited several times a year, often for a month at a time. The Gaons sons, considered R. Hayyim to be their fathers most important student.

He founded the Volozhin Yeshiva in 1802, which became the prototype for all Lithuanian yeshivot in the 19th century and eventually for all yeshivot until today. After his death, the Volozhin Yeshiva was called Eitz Hayyim in his memory. R. Hayyim wrote one book, Nefesh Hahayyim, which his son Yitzhak had published after his fathers death in 1824. His commentary to Pirkei Avot, called Ruah Hayyim, was collected by his students and published by R. Yehoshua Heschel Levin in 1859. Another work, Hut Hameshulash, published by R. Hayyims grandson R. Hayyim Hillel Fried, contains 22 of his responsa in addition to responsa from his son-in-law and grandson. There are also few surviving letters.

In addition, there is a large collection of questions that the students of Volozhin asked R. Hayyim in the later years of his life. These questions and answers, regarding Jewish law and philosophical outlook (Halacha and hashkafa), are found in six different collections, some published and some not, the most popular of the published ones are found in a work called Keter Rosh published in 1917.

I have researched this latter material and the fruits of my labor will be published in Hebrew by Idra, in a book called Rav Hayyim Volozhins Conversations with Students of the Yeshiva.

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Our Rabbi said to one of his family members who was inclined to hassidism, at least be careful about three things:

a.) To study Talmud and its discussions and make this the main service of God in your eyes.

b.) To keep all the laws of the Talmud.

c.) For heavens sake [lemaan Hashem], to not to talk about our Rabbi, the Gra. (Sheiltot 88, Ms. London-Podro 44). This tolerance was despite R. Hayyims ideological differences. (see my article on the Polemic with Hassidism in Moreshet Yisrael, 18,2 pp. 269-298.)

2. R. Hayyim saw Torah study as the main service of God, the main way of repentance, and said that even ones prayer depended upon it.

3. R. Hayyim did not don tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam.

He [the Gra] answered: If you want to be exempt from all the opinions you must don 24 pairs of tefillin.

He [R. Hayyim] was surprised . How can one find 24 possibilities?

He [the Gra] answered: Check and see.

He checked and found them.... Then our Rabbi [Hayyim] said [to the Gra]: But in the holy Zohar it says that the tefillin of Rabbeinu Tam is [on the level] of the world to come, and the Arizal also said to put them on.

He [the Gra] responded, I do not concern myself with the world to come, and those who are mehader [concerned, or strict about] the world to come can put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. But the simple meaning of the Zohar is not like this. From the day that our Rabbi heard these words from the Gra he never put on Rabbeinu Tam tefillin. (Ms. London-odro 72)

4. R. Hayyim said the Zohar and the Talmud do not conflict.

Our Rabbi said in the name of the Gra of blessed memory that the Zohar never differs with the Gemara on any issue. What people say [that it does], is due to their not understanding the meaning of the Gemara or the Zohar. Only in one case do I follow the Zohar, not to pass four cubits around one who prays, whereas the Gemara mentions only in front of them, and this is not a dispute just a stringency. (Keter Rosh Maamarim uMaasiyot 15)

5. R. Hayyim told his students to study Zohar.

He [R. Hayyim] was in charge of the tzedaka [charity] money for the poor living in the Land of Israel. (Jacob Lifshitz, Dor veSofrav, Hakerem 1888 p. 180)

R. Aryeh Ben Yerahmiel, who was a member of the Kolel Haprushim (of the Gaons students) and made aliyah in 1813 wrote, In 5560 since creation, God remembered the Holy Land and aroused a pure spirit in the heart of the saint, the true genius, our rabbi and teacher Hayyim of Volozhin of blessed memory, student of our teacher and master rabbi of all the exiles Rabbi Eliyahu of Vilna... and sent from among the students of the saintly Gaon, our teacher Rabbi Mendel, the memory of saints for blessing, student of the Gaon in Kabbalah, he and his son.

In a letter from R. Yisrael of Shklov to R. Avika Altschul, who was close to R. Hayyim, R. Yisrael advised him to meet with R. Hayyim before making aliyah: If you take my advice, you should not go without the agreement of the light of our eyes... our teacher and Rabbi Hayyim, may his candle continue to shed light, the Rav of Volozhin.

R. Hayyim Told R. Yisrael of Shklov that if he prays with a minyan of Sephardim (in Israel) he should not change from their custom: He [R. Hayyim] commanded his student R. Yisrael of Shklov who went to live among the Sephardim [in Safed] not to change from their custom and to pray like them. (SHaarei Rahamim 9A)

I heard from our Rabbi on the verse: She fell and will not rise again, the maiden of Israel, [Amos 9] that our sages interpreted in the Gemara [Brachot 4B] She fell and will not [fall anymore]. Arise again Oh maiden of Israel, and he [R. Hayyim] said that the maiden of Israel is called falling just like the sukkah of David which is called falling. For every day she falls further for there is no day whose curse is less than the previous one. Therefore she is referred to as the falling one, for she will continue to fall until she shall reach the lowest level and from there cannot fall anymore. And now we have reached the time of Arise oh maiden of Israel. (Keter Rosh and Sheiltot)

We know for sure from the holy mouth of the Gaon, and Rabbi Hayyim of Volozhin of blessed memory, when they asked him concerning money sent for holy purposes here [in Israel]. He said, The Torah and [Divine] service done there [in the land of Israel] even for a quarter of an hour, is more dear to God than the study of your yeshivot every day in the impure lands. (Letter of R. Yitzhak Kahana from Jerusalem on Rosh Hodesh Kislev 1858 to Rav Zvi Hirch KalisherArchive A9/55)

10. R. Hayyim ate soaked matza (sheruyah) on Passover. (Kneidelach and Farfel, Sheiltot Ms. London-Podro 70,71)

Quotes to remember

The Gra said that a persons main labor should concern [avoiding] the transgressions between man and his fellow in all its details. (London-Podro 2, 34)

If a person performs a mitzvah and their body is overly excited and enthusiastic to perform the mitzvah quickly, its probably a ploy of the evil inclination. (Commentary to Ruth 1,18)

He [R. Hayyim] said that he would exchange all of his prayers for even one new understanding [concerning Jewish law] in the Gemara. (Keter Rosh 48)

Studying Torah is the main thing, attaining knowledge is secondary. (Ruach Hayyim, 3,18)

People say that studying poskim without the Gemara is like eating fish without spicy peppers, and our Rabbi [Hayyim] said, like eating spicy peppers without fish. (Sheiltot 62)

Our Rabbi said, at the place where philosophy ends, from there begins the wisdom of Kabbalah, and from the place where the Kabbalah of R. Moshe Cordovero ends, there begins the Kabbalah of the Arizal. (Sheiltot 110).

Go here to read the rest:

Ten things you didnt know about Hayyim of Volozhin on his 200th yahrzeit - The Jerusalem Post

TheTorah columnis supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.NasoNumbers 4:217:89

As American society wrestles with its history of criminal injustice, a classic piece of rabbinic commentary on this weeks portion contains penetrating wisdom for us.

Parashat Nasso contains the beloved Birkat Kohanim (priestly blessing), that we recite in prayer and offer to our children on Friday nights. May God bless you and protect you. May God make Gods face shine upon you and be gracious with you. May God lift Gods face toward you and grant you peace. (Numbers 6:24-26)

The Rabbis must have loved these powerful images of divine love and blessing. But they raise a logical and moral challenge about the words lift Gods face toward you, also translated as, May God bestow Gods favor upon you.

Elsewhere in the Torah (Deuteronomy 10:17), we are told that no undue favor is to be granted to one person over another. Using the same language, one verse says, Bestow Gods favor! and the other says, Do not bestow Gods favor!

The Rabbis are essentially saying, Of course wed love to receive divine blessing. But the Torah insists that the administration of justice (and divine love?) be shared equally, without special privileges afforded to some and not to others. How do we deal with the contradiction?

The commentators offer different answers to the question. Rav Avira essentially replies, How could God not give special consideration to Israel, who are so grateful for Gods gifts? (Talmud Berachot 20b)

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah says that the command not to confer privilege refers to the time of a court case, prior to the verdict; the verse in which God offers special love applies after the verdict. (Talmud Niddah 70b)

Yet another answer: God offers preferential love at times of prayer, but not in the administration of justice. (Midrash Sifrei)

What is strangely missing from all of this rabbinic discussion is the context of the verse in Deuteronomy 10, which cautions against unequal treatment in matters of justice. The text says, God the great, the mighty, and the awesome God, shows no favor and takes no bribe, but upholds the cause of the orphan and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing them with food and clothing. You too must befriend the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt. (Deuteronomy 10:17-19)

We are told unequivocally that it is Gods essence to show no favor and take no bribe, but then we are told whom God decidedly does prefer.

God privileges the orphan, the widow and the stranger the marginalized, the oppressed, the poor and those seen as the other.

There is no pretense here about Gods partiality. God gives special favor to precisely those whom society tends to demean, hate and dehumanize. And we who were strangers in the land of Egypt must do the same.

Honestly, I am untroubled by the promise of universal love in our verse, May God lift Gods face toward you.

The God that I worship loves all of creation with an expansive and undiscriminating love. Much as parents exude passionate love for their children, God, our Creator, overflows with boundless love for us. This is a quality of love the Torah repeatedly calls us to emulate.

In the context of the justice system, the Torah actually tells us something similar: Do not favor the rich over the poor. Do not allow the justice system to be impacted by corrupt human preferences. Fashion social systems that serve as instruments of Gods love and justice in the world, applied equitably across all markers of identity.

But when you must discriminate, do so in favor of the marginalized, those whom God loves with a special love.

I see no contradiction between the call for universal love in our verse and the call for impartial justice in Deuteronomy. Both flow from the same principle that all of us are loved by the One. To make this love real in the public sphere, we must right the boundless wrongs that have been done to the impoverished, the disadvantaged and the despised.

After hundreds, even thousands, of years of differential treatment of the wealthy and the privileged in human societies, we must finally emulate the Divine model to offer compensatory favor to those who have been wronged.

We have all heard the word privilege a lot in recent years. The word may sound new and jarring. But it is ancient. Privileging the oppressed to right social wrongs is precisely what God demands of us.

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The Torah has a lot to say about privilege J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

Now that the latest conflict between Israel and terrorist groups in Gaza has ended, it is important to look back at one of the more wrenching and unprecedented aspects of the recent conflagration.

One of the most important elements to this is how best to understand and then combat hate, incitement and violence between communities.

Jews had lived in what was variously named Babylon, Mesopotamia and Iraq for around two and a half millennia. The Iraqi Jewish academies in Sura and Pumbedita gave us the Babylonian Talmud, the compilation of texts that forms the backbone of the Jewish tradition to this day.

It witnessed the Chaldean Empire, Mongol invasion, Islamic Caliphate and the Ottoman Empire. Sometimes it thrived and contributed to society and the wider world and other times it merely survived.

Jews helped fight for Iraqs independence in the 20th century, and the authorities utilized the talents of the Jewish community and its expertise in areas such as the economic, judicial and postal systems. Iraqs first minister of finance, Yehezkel Sasson, was a Jew.

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Unfortunately, independence also provided power to some who would use malevolence, division and hatred to achieve their political goals.

During World War II, Rashid Ali al-Gaylani became prime minister and decided he would ally with Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to win support for his government. Gaylani was the person who introduced the rabid antisemite Grand Mufti Haj Amin al-Husseini to Hitler, and Iraq became an early base for Nazi Middle East intelligence operations during World War II.

Gaylani used anti-British sentiment throughout Iraq, with the Jews as scapegoats, coupled with violent antisemitic incitement spread by the German embassy in Baghdad to foment hatred and mistrust towards the Jewish community.

The German embassy bought the newspaper Al-alam Al-arabi (The Arab world), which published, in addition to antisemitic propaganda, a translation of Mein Kampf in Arabic and supported the establishment of Al-Fatwa, a youth organization based upon the model of the Hitler Youth.

According to witnesses at the time, Nazi-like propaganda was regularly broadcast on the radio and throughout the country. Jewish businesses and homes were marked and false rumors that the Jews were helping the British in the war spread.

After Shavuot, on June 1st, 1941, Jews ventured out from the holiday to be met by mobs in an orgy of violence that lasted two days and left around 180 Jews dead, buried in a mass grave, hundreds more wounded and scores of Jewish homes, businesses and synagogues routed and burned.

It was a blow that the Jewish community never recovered from and led to the mass exodus of Iraqi Jews to the State of Israel after it was established. Between 1948 and 1951, 121,633 Iraqi Jews were airlifted, bused or smuggled out of the country, leaving only a few thousand left who fled the country after public hangings of prominent Jews in the 1970s.

Even up to the very end, many Jews and Arabs refused to be enemies and lived and worked side by side. Animosity was largely imported from outside and incitement as a tool for political goals.

Unfortunately, we see many similar worrying signs in the violence in mixed Israeli towns and cities.

There are many players in the region who seek to whip up the Arab citizens of Israel into a frenzy, whether Iran or extreme Sunni elements. They see Jewish-Arab coexistence as a challenge that needs to be dismantled and replaced with enmity and animosity.

Lies about Jewish takeover attempts to invade and destroy al-Aqsa Mosque originated with the very same Haj Amin al-Husseini a century ago. Unfortunately, it is a canard that has not gone away since and raises its head whenever necessary for those who wish to sew divisions in Israel.

It is exactly this type of incitement that Israeli politicians, religious leaders and other opinion-shapers should confront and demolish. Instead of driving communities apart, we should be investing in coexistence, collaboration and partnerships. We know that the silent minority in both communities do not seek violence and division, and we have witnessed in recent years tremendous steps in bringing Jews and Arabs together.

The creation of the State of Israel is a remarkable and unique event in Jewish history and became a refuge and a home to the hundreds of thousands of Jews from the Middle East and North Africa who had to flee their millennia-old homes.

Israel is a beacon of light in a region where there has been such a history of darkness for so many, including Jews. Now that we have reestablished sovereignty in our indigenous and ancestral homeland, we need to learn the lessons of the past and use them to create a more peaceful and secure future for all who live within its borders.

That would be the greatest memorial to the Jews murdered during the Farhud 80 years on.

See more here:

Remembering the Farhud pogrom and its lessons for today - opinion - The Jerusalem Post

For many people, especially in todays world, it is very hard to reconcile the personal suffering of good and pious people, with Divine justice and love. Believers of all religions face this challenge. There are many answers offered; from Karma to reincarnation.

Muslims and Jews have traditionally given the same answers with some variation. This is to be expected since both Jews and Muslims share the same belief in Gods oneness, goodness and justice; and both Jews and Muslims reject the doctrines of bad luck, or inherited sin from previous lives, or original sin.

The Quran tells us that just because you become, or already are, a believer doesnt mean that you are exempt from personal suffering. Do men think that they will be left alone on saying We believe and that they will not be tested? (29:2), this is not correct: Ye shall certainly be tried and tested in your possessions; and in your personal selves. (3:186)

You will be tested by fear of, and hunger for, the loss of material goods, loved ones lives, and the failure of your efforts to bear fruit. Yet if you patiently persevere all will be well Be sure We shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods, or lives, or the fruits (of your toil); but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere. (Quran 2:155)

The glad tidings might come from a reversal in your bad fortune in this world, as happened to Job: or in your life in the world to come.

Traditional Jewish sages and rabbis would have agreed with all of the already quoted verses in the Quran. The first thing you should learn from suffering, your own and that of others, is that different people react to suffering in very different ways. Our reactions to suffering rest upon the varied beliefs we hold both consciously and unconsciously.

I share a few Jewish reports about suffering along with several probing questions so that you can examine your own beliefs and those of others; and thus gain a greater understanding of one of the major challenges in life. The first story embodies the heroic perspective.

One day a young man stood in the middle of a town proclaiming that he had the most beautiful heart in the whole valley. A large crowd gathered and all admired his heart, for it was perfect. There was not a mark or a flaw in it. Yes, they agreed it truly was the most beautiful heart they had ever seen. The young man was very proud and boasted about his beautiful heart, which was the result of his following a path of calmness and detachment.

Then an old Rabbi named Akiba ben Yosef the convert appeared at the front of the crowd and said, Why your heart is not nearly as beautiful as mine. The crowd and the young man looked at the old mans heart. It was beating strongly, but full of scars, it had places where pieces had been removed and other pieces put in, but they didnt fit quite right and there were several jagged edges.

In fact, in some places there were deep gouges where whole pieces were missing. The people stared. How can Rabbi Akiba say his heart is more beautiful, they thought?

The young man looked at the old mans heart and laughed. You must be joking, he said. My heart is perfect and yours is a mess of scars and tears.

Yes, said Rabbi Akiba, yours is perfect looking but I would never trade with you. You see, every scar represents a person to whom I have given my love. I tear out a piece of my heart and give it to them, and often they give me a piece of their heart, which fits into an empty place in my heart. But because the pieces arent exactly equal I have some rough edges, which I cherish, because they remind me of the love we shared.

Sometimes I give pieces of my heart away, and the other person doesnt return a piece of his or her heart to me. These are the empty gougesgiving love is taking a chance. And then there are places where my heart is broken, reminding me of the love I have had, and lost. I then say the mourners prayer, the Kaddish, for it is better to love and lose than never to love at all.

The young man stood silently with tears running down his cheeks. He walked up to the old man, reached into his perfect young and beautiful heart and ripped a piece out. He offered it to the old man with trembling hands. Rabbi Akiba took his offering, placed it in his heart and then took a piece from his old scarred heart and placed it in the wound in the young mans heart.

It fit, but not perfectly, as there were some jagged edges. The young man looked at his heart, not perfect anymore but more beautiful than ever, since love from Rabbi Akibas heart flowed into his. They embraced and walked away side by side.

How sad it must be to go through life, calmly and dispassionately, without suffering and with a perfect heart. Rabbi Akiba taught that there were yesurin shell ahavah sufferings that come with love. There really are people who can accept suffering with love. Perhaps there is no gain without pain. After all, it is a Mitsvah to love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might.

But Rabbi Akiba did not reach this view easily. The Talmud tells the story of how Akiba came to his belief.

What is the lesson from (the life of) Rabbi Nahum the optimist? This is his story: Rabbi Nahum the optimist had bad vision, and arthritis in both his hands and his feet. Once his disciples asked Rabbi, how can it be that someone as kind hearted and good as you should suffer such misfortunes?

He replied, I brought it on myself. Once I was traveling to my father-in-laws house with 3 donkeys loaded with food and drink. A poor scabby looking man came to me and said, Rabbi, help me stay alive. I replied, Wait until I unload the donkeys. While I was unloading the donkeys he died.

I felt terrible. In remorse I said, May my eyes that didnt see his needs grow dim. May my hands and feet that cared for my wealth before his health, bring me pain. His disciples said, It is awful to see you suffer so. He said, For me it would be awful if you didnt see me suffer so.

Is Rabbi Nahum overly strict on himself? Do people with very high standards for themselves suffer more? Do you admire someone who is overly sensitive more than someone who is insensitive? Why? Which way would you want to lean?

Some time later Rabbi Akiba visited Rabbi Nahum the optimist. Akiba said, It is awful for me to see you suffer. Rabbi Nahum the optimist replied, It is awful for me to see you reject my example. (I can bear my fate why cant you? I am positive about my circumstances, why cant you see the virtue of my accepting suffering as part of life and love. If it doesnt kill you, it makes you stronger. Admire how I bear my burdens, do not pity me. Does no pain, no gain apply only to exercise? to cancer? to sudden crib death?

In the end, Rabbi Akiba came to agree with his teacher and accepted from him his way of accepting suffering with love. (Talmud Taanit 21a)

The Talmud also says, The life of an overly sensitive person is no life.(Talmud Pesach 113b). Perhaps that applies to those who are overly sensitive about themselves and not about others. Perhaps Rabbi Nahum is a saint who goes far beyond the normal requirements of our duties, and is not to be copied.

Perhaps Rabbi Nahum is an extremist on one side just as Gautama Buddha, who taught that all suffering should be avoided through detachment, is an extremist on the other side. Would you choose to suffer from too much conscience or choose others to suffer because you have too little conscience? How do you find the correct balance between If I am not for myself, who will be for me, but if I am only for myself what am I? (Talmud Avot 1:14). Is this why we need community ethical and ritual rules to set the norm

Not every Rabbi welcomed suffering as the following story shows: Rabbi Heeya was very ill. Rabbi Yohanan visited him and asked. Is your suffering of any gain for you? Heeya replied Neither it nor its reward. Yohanan said, Give me your hand. Heeya gave him his hand and felt much better. (Talmud Berachot 5b )

Those who visited Rabbi Nahum expressed pity first. Rabbi Yohanan asked first. People handle pain, their own or others, in different ways. How do you respond when seeing others in pain? Do you think others should respond as you think you would or even as you did? How can one know when Rabbi Akiba is correct or when Rabbi Heeya is? Is there a great difference between physical and emotional pain?

Written on the shirt of a marathon runner Pain is the feeling of weakness being sucked out of the body. Is life a marathon? Is running a choice? Do you have to run in every race?

Judaism teaches by questioning. What other questions do these stories stimulate? As you think about your answers to these question would it be helpful to discuss your thoughts and feelings with others, both those who are close to you and those who are not.

Read this article:

Islam and Judaism on learning from questioning suffering - The Times of Israel

The truth is that there is no apartheid in Israel. All its citizens are equal before the law, have the right to vote, and serve at every level of government. At this very moment it is the Arab-led parties in parliament that hold the balance of power and will determine who will form the next government. Israel is a vibrant, liberal democracy with an aggressively free press, complete freedom of speech and association, and the full equality of all its citizens enshrined in law, and there is no segregation of public facilities.

Of course, as in any free society there are human flaws and prejudices as there are here in SA but, as we know from bitter experience, that is not the same as legally enforced discrimination.

The truth is that this conflict also has nothing to do with the situation at the Al-Aqsa Mosque. Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christians, Jews and Muslims can safely practise their faiths, and have free access to all the holy sites.

The status quo at Al-Aqsa has remained unchanged in decades. And though the mosque sits atop the Temple Mount, Judaisms holiest site, the Israeli government has given custody over the site to a Muslim trust who manage it as a Waqf (an inalienable religious endowment), and bans prayer by Jewish visitors to the site.

The truth is that the ongoing conflict has nothing to do with the illegal occupation of Palestinian land and the denial of the Palestinian peoples right to self-determination, as you put it in your letter.

Mr President, if this were so, this conflict would have been resolved decades ago.

There have been many opportunities to establish a Palestinian state beginning with the UN resolution in 1947 partitioning the area into a Jewish and Arab state. Then there were the years from 1948-1967 when the territories of the West Bank and Gaza were under the control of Jordan and Egypt respectively.

For almost two decades, the world, the UN, and the Palestinian leadership had the opportunity to establish a Palestinian state when the territories were under Arab control but they didnt. There was no occupation then; and yet no Palestinian state, and no real demand for one.

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Dear Mr President, theres no apartheid in Israel - TimesLIVE

In the spirit of our JCDS Matters of Taste event this year, where chefs, musicians and authors shared their crafts, we are excited to welcome an additional luminary,Dr. David Kraemer, to join us for our final learning opportunity of the 2020-21 school year.Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how and why the laws of kashrut developed over time. His methods exemplify two ofJCDSs Habits of Mind and Heart: Problem Solving and Evidence.

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Dr. David Kraemer is professor of Talmud and rabbinics at the Jewish Theological Seminary, where he is also director of JTSs world-renowned library. Among Kraemers many books and articles is his influential Jewish Eating and Identity Through the Ages. In line with his method of scholarship, Kraemer identifies not only the law, but also the context in which the law develops.

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What Does It Mean to Eat Jewishly? - jewishboston.com

Winston Churchill is said to have said: A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity. An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.

Parshat Behaalotcha is a Torah portion of both difficulty and opportunity. Heres the sequence of events in this portion.

1. The Levites prepare for service in the Tabernacle.

2. The commandment to offer the Passover sacrifice is given.

3. The cloud and fire that accompanied the Israelites during their sojourn in the desert is described.

4. God commands the blowing of trumpets in the Israelite camp.

5. The structure of the camp is described.

6. Moses invites his father-in-law to join the Israelites on their travels.

7. The Israelites complain about the lack of meat to eat, leading God to send an excessive amount of quail into the camp as retribution.

Each of these moments represented either a challenge or an opportunity for the Israelites as they began the second year wandering in the desert following the Exodus. And yet, they dont really seem to form a cohesive literary unit. What does the Passover sacrifice have to do with trumpets? And why is the description of the Israelite encampment positioned next to the invitation from Moses to his father in law to accompany them on their travels?

In a public lecture in the 1970s, Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik suggested a unified theory of Parshat Behaalotcha. He posited that in the year following the Exodus, the Israelites were beginning a grand march and that each of these elements was part of their preparation for entering the land of Israel. First, the spiritual leadership of the people prepares for its work. Then the Passover sacrifice, the reminder of the Exodus, is introduced. Then the march begins: The trumpets stand ready, the camp is set up to go, and Moses symbolically invites the nations of the world to join. To a large extent, the redemption was upon them.

But then disaster strikes. The people complain, and God exacts punishment. Rather than seeing the opportunity that lay before them, the Israelites were too concerned about their immediate (and largely individual) needs. They simply werent cognizant of the historical moment they were facing. The redemptive moment passes the individuals who were meant to actualize it. This is the great tragedy of Jewish history: opportunity knocks, but the Jews dont recognize its significance.

The missed opportunity in Parashat Behaalotcha becomes even more striking when looking closely at the language in the text. The complaint of the Israelites is described with an adjective in Numbers 11:1: The people took to complaining bitterly [ra]. This bitterness (or even evil, another possible translation of the Hebrew word ra) stands in direct contrast to the vision that Moses articulates to his father-in-law upon inviting him to join the Israelites: Please join us, Moses says, for the good [hatov] that God will give us will be good for you as well. In fact, variations on the Hebrew word tov appear throughout Moses invitation.

For Moses, the grand march is an opportunity for the realization of all things good. The land of Israel is a place that sanctifies life and is a place of the ultimate goodness. Moses sees this as something that all should have access to.

But the Israelites see only the bad. And from the moment they miss the opportunity, everything turns bad. Later in the book of Numbers, when the spies return from scouting out the land of Israel, only two Joshua and Caleb describe the land as good. The others describe the land as bad. In short, once the Israelites put their individual needs before the needs of the nation, their entire experience is colored everything looks bad.

We live in a remarkable era of opportunity. While we dont always know the best way to capitalize on this wondrous moment in Jewish history, it behooves us to recognize all the good that our era has enabled us to achieve, and not let small moments of bitterness take away from our march toward a better future.

Read this Torah portion,Numbers 8:1 12:16on Sefaria

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About the Author: Rabbi Seth Farber is the founder of ITIM : The Jewish Life Advocacy Center and the rabbi of Kehilat Netivot. He lives in Raanana, Israel, with his wife Michelle and their five children.

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Parashat Beha'alotcha: The Grand March Toward the Good - My Jewish Learning

After 15 months of pandemic and social distancing, California is reopening. So, too, synagogues and Jewish community organizations, which have been operating primarily online for more than a year, are resuming in-person gatherings.

As we reopen our buildings and prepare for in-person services and events, there are many questions to address.

Covid response teams and reopening committees are asking: How many people can attend an indoor event? Can we require proof of vaccination? Is communal singing safe if people are masked?

Jewish organizational leaders grapple daily with the exhausting work of adapting our operations to the continually evolving public-health protocols.

Beyond these kinds of safety protocol questions, there are also the spiritual and emotional questions: How do we celebrate reopening while also making space for the pain and losses over the past year? How do we return to the previous formats knowing how much this past year has changed us? Does Jewish tradition guide us in coming back together, with all of the mixed emotions we bring to this next phase of the pandemic?

Indeed, the ancient rabbis offered the structure of ritual to support people coming back together. The Mishnah describes a choreography for pilgrims going to the Temple for festivals. All would enter the Temple and circle from the right, but these people would circle to the left: a mourner, an excommunicated person, one who has an ill person in their house and one who lost something.

The rabbis understood that some people those who had experienced suffering or loss, those who had been shunned and caregivers to the sick needed some emotional support.

Those circling to the right would ask, Why do you circle to the left? and those circling to the left would answer, Because I am a mourner or Because I have a loved one who is ill. And those circling to the right would then respond, May the One who dwells in this house comfort you or May the One who dwells in this house have compassion on your loved one. (Mishnah Middot 2:2 and Masechet Semachot 6:11)

In coming back together after a time apart, our tradition offers this ritual to show compassion and care to those whove suffered.

How might we apply this idea to this time? How might we create similar ways to give and receive compassion and support and to acknowledge the grief, the losses and the mental health crises experienced by so many this past year?

At the same time, there is much to celebrate in this time of reopening, and the rabbis offer other ways to express gratitude for this moment.

How might we collectively offer thanks for making it across the metaphoric sea?

In the Talmud (Berachot 58b), Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi said, [O]ne who sees a friend for the first time after 30 days recites the Shehechiyanu blessing. After 12 months, one recites Blessed is the One who revives the dead (mechiyei hameitim). The sentiment behind this blessing resonates today.

After surviving a year of pandemic, we need expressions of joy and gratitude for seeing each other alive again and for feeling our own aliveness in reconnecting to one another.

In addition, the Talmud instructs that a blessing of thanksgiving is offered by those who made it across the sea, those who made it across the desert, those who recovered from illness and those who were freed from prison. (Berachot 54b)

In later centuries, the halachic codes expanded this such that anyone who survived danger should bless what we now call Birkat HaGomel, thanking God for bestowing goodness upon us.

How might we collectively offer thanks for making it across the metaphoric sea?

At Congregation Netivot Shalom in Berkeley, where I serve as rabbi, I explored these questions with a creative team of congregants, and together we designed a series of events tabbed Rituals for Reflection, Reconnection, and Returning.

As our synagogue building reopens and our members come back together in person after this year of online community, we are gathering, online and in person, to mourn our losses, celebrate our joys and reflect on this complex time of returning. One event was a communal Birkat HaGomel, in which we remembered those in our community who died this year, welcomed and kvelled over the new babies who were born this year, honored our frontline health care workers, heard from those in our community who lost loved ones to Covid and heard from those who survived it.

It was an adaptation of the rabbis circling to the left ritual so that we could bear witness to each others experiences and offer support to each other.

Another event, upcoming on June 6, is a Hanukkat HaBayit, a (re)dedication of our synagogue home. Well be marking the return to our building with ritual, music, prayer, and community art and tzedakah projects.

I hope that these rituals will allow us to reflect on this year, to support each other in all that weve been through, and to make room for the grief, the joy and all of the emotions of this complex time.

I hope that these rituals of reopening will create sacred spaces to express the emotion of Psalm 30, the song for the (re)dedication of the House: You turned my mourning into dance, You undid my sackcloth and girded me with joy, that I might sing of Your Presence and not be silent. I thank You always.

Rituals of Reopening, a 50-minute session led by Rabbi Levy in the JCC East Bay Tikkun for Shavuot, can be viewed here with passcode c%%8WSCF. Her source sheet for the session can read here.

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How Jewish rituals can ease us back into the world J. - The Jewish News of Northern - The Jewish News of Northern California