Category Archives: Talmud

Three tragic events came together this past Thursday.

This was a day for crying and contemplation, and a day for once again posing that most probing, most essential eternal theological question: Simply put, does God exist, and if so, how does he interface with the universe? Is there a vigilant, involved, all-knowing Creator minding the store, or are we at the mercy of capricious fate and fortune be it good or bad which operates independently of a higher power? For anyone who has, or is suffering, for anyone who has lost something precious particularly if that loss seems to be cruel, unjust or undeserved this is more than just mental gymnastics; it cuts right to the heart of our belief system and directly impacts the moral compass that allows us to maintain our sanity and move forward with productive lives.

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It would seem to be a spiritual Gordian Knot: If God is indeed in complete control of the worlds events and micro-manages his creatures existence, then why do tragedies occur? Why do children die in an instant on the road; why does evil flourish, why are some selected for lives of ease while others seemingly good people struggle to simply survive? And if God is not either willing or capable of managing the planets affairs and seeing to it that justice is done, then how do we rationalize praying to a merciful, compassionate deity in the face of these catastrophes? Is life simply a random sequence of events, a rudderless ship without a captain at the helm?

Since the dawn of time, the brightest minds have grappled with this problem. Cain, who killed his brother Abel the worst crime in history, whereby 25% of the worlds known population was murdered expressed this quandary and confusion when he remarked, Am I my brothers keeper?! The emphasis here was on the I. Cain was essentially challenging God: You supposedly control the world; if Abel lies dead, surely that must be Your will as much as mine!

Moses after witnessing the cruelty and death that accompanied the slavery in Egypt was deeply troubled by the seeming inequity of the world, as were the prophet Isaiah and Job; each of them cried out to God for an answer. And the Talmud debates the issue repeatedly, indicating that even our greatest religious models were plagued by the question; their numerous statements display their angst and ambivalence.

Some opinions clearly express a staunch belief in Heavenly control of earthly events:

Said Rav Chanina: No one so much as cuts his finger in the world below, unless it is so ordained in the world above (Tractate Chulin 7b). Said Rav Ami: There is no death without sin, and no suffering without guilt (Shabbat 55a). Rabbi Akiva said: Whatever the Almighty does is all for the good (Berachot 60b). Maimonides wrote: Calamities as well as good things are dispensed equitably, with no injustice whatsoever (Guide to the Perplexed). Rabbi Shlomo Aviner succinctly summed up this approach: Every bullet has an address, he said.

Yet other authorities took a markedly different view:

King David said in his Psalms, Death may occur as a result of Divine decree, but may also be the consequence of natural causes (such as old age), or result from human actions (such as in war) (The Kuzari). Ninety-nine out of 100 people die due to negligence, while only one dies by the hand of Heaven (Jerusalem Talmud Shabbat 14). Rava said: Length of life, children and prosperity depend not on merit, but on mazal (Moed Katan 28).

These different approaches are perhaps best illustrated by the famous story of the sage Elisha ben Avuya. He witnessed a young boy climbing a tree, at his fathers behest, to shoo away a mother bird from her nest in order to take the eggs. The boy fell from the tree and died. Elisha, his faith shaken, looked to the Heavens and asked, Where is the reward of long life, promised by the Torah both for obeying ones parent and sending away the mother bird?! Horrified that a God who espoused truth and kindness could allow this catastrophe to happen, Elisha became a heretic and remained estranged from Judaism.

Yet later, in assessing this same incident, Rabbi Eliezer concluded that God was not to blame for the tragedy. The ladder the boy climbed upon, he said, must have been rickety, and where there is danger, one may not rely upon a miracle to be saved (Kiddushin 39b).

Perhaps Rav Yannai offers the most salient comment of all, to which many of us would nod in approval, when he declared, It is not in our (human) hands to explain why the righteous suffer or why the wicked prosper (Avot 4:19).

It seems clear that the clear indecision of the sages, and the radical diversity of their outlooks, mercifully provides each of us with the freedom to choose our path. If it soothes our conscience and lessens our grief, we can maintain that events follow a natural course and just happen because thats the way it is; God is not apt to miraculously save us when a hurricane or epidemic strikes, or when we choose to endanger our lives by crossing a busy street with our eyes closed. Alternately, we may opt to believe that specific events do indeed emanate from God, yet we mortals are not necessarily privileged to know or understand why we were chosen and others were not. Or, as King David said, there may be several options which cover all the bases.

Despite all the pithy and profound statements that this subject generates, after all the centuries of debate and discussion, the bottom line for many myself included may very well be an admission that where certain things are concerned, we simply do not know. We rely on the prophet Habakuks motto, Ish bemunato yichye, the righteous shall live by their faith.

Or, as my late father would put it, You bets your money, and you takes your chances.

The writer is director of the Jewish Outreach Center of Raanana.

jocmtv@netvision.net.il

Excerpt from:

When tragedy strikes, where is God? - The Jerusalem Post

In 1947, when Vivian Sigel zlwas 18, she began commuting every day on the train from Worcester to Brookline to attend Hebrew College on Hawes Street.

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In her four years at Hebrew College, she earned her college degreeand fell in love with being a Judaic scholar. She loved studying Talmud and became fluent in Hebrew. She also became very steadfast in her Jewish traditional beliefs and her commitment to teaching. Perpetuating Jewish education really became a life mission for her, said her son, Bob.

Vivian developed her passion for Judaism watching her father, Hyman Steinberg, a Lithuanian immigrant who enriched Jewish education in his adopted community by founding the WorcesterIvriahSchool and achugfor Yiddish speakers like himself.

My grandfather was the one who inspired my mom to become a Hebrew teacher, Bob said.

Bob remembers his mother talking about becoming very close to several people at Hebrew College. She always encouraged people to study there. She was all about sustaining Jewish education and its value. She was incredibly committed.

After graduating from Hebrew College in 1951, Vivian married, started a family and worked as a Hebrew teacher for many years at Beth Israel Synagogue in Worcester, where she had also worked part-time while studying at Hebrew College. Bob recalls, Mom was my first grade Hebrew teacher. I called her Morah Sigel. In class she would whisper in my ear, If you dont pay attention and behave, Im telling your father when we get home!

According to Bob, his mother was responsible for pushing his family to understand Hebrew language, Jewish values and their Jewish rootsand that passion came from her upbringing and her experience at Hebrew College. We called her The Family Rebbetzin, he said. Not only was she learned, she also instilled values of love of Jewish learning, tikkun olamand a commitment to Jewish philanthropy in us. And those are values we carry on today.Ldor vador!

Bob followed his mothers footsteps, attending Hebrew College Prozdor as a teenager.

And she also inspired her children to give back to Hebrew College and other Jewish causes. Among their many philanthropic endeavors, the family helped found the Solomon Schechter School in Worcester; he and his siblings have held numerous positions on Jewish boards in the Worcester area; and Bob and his siblings foundation, the Sigel Family Foundation, recently supported Hebrew Colleges Capital Campaignfor thenew shared campusin memory of his mother.

Hebrew College was always in the back of my mothers mind. She attributed her knowledge and her lifelong passion for Jewish education to her professors at Hebrew College. I know it was a special place to her.

Learn more about Hebrew Colleges centennial year and special events here.

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This post has been contributed by a third party. The opinions, facts and any media content are presented solely by the author, and JewishBoston assumes no responsibility for them. Want to add your voice to the conversation? Publish your own post here.MORE

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The Family Rebbezin | JewishBoston - jewishboston.com

PODCAST Hello Rapids Fans! This week on HTHL, it was a tale of two games. We look at how the Colorado Rapids trouble with elite teams. The guys banter about the disturbing news coming out about the NWSL and the upcoming USMNT World Cup Qualifiers. We review the win against Austin FC and the loss at Seattle Sounders.

Holding The High Line is an independent soccer podcast focused on the Colorado Rapids of MLS and a member of the Beautiful Game Network. If you like the show, please consider subscribing to us on your preferred podcatcher, giving us a review, and tell other Rapids fans about us. It helps a ton. Visit bgn.fm for a bunch of other great podcasts covering soccer in North America.

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Matt Pollard is the Site Manager for Last Word on Soccer and an engineer by day. A Colorado Convert, he started covering the Colorado Rapids as a credentialed member of the press in 2016, though hes watched MLS since 96. When hes not watching or writing about soccer, hes being an outdoorsman (mostly skiing and hiking) in this beautiful state or trying a new beer. For some reason, he thought that starting a podcast with Mark was a good idea and he cant figure out how to stop this madness. He also hosts Last Word SC Radio.

Mark Goodman, the artist formally known as Rapids Rabbi, moved to Colorado in 2011. Shortly thereafter he went to Dicks Sporting Goods Park, saw Lee Nguyen dribble a ball with the silky smoothness of liquid chocolate cascading into a Bar Mitzvah fountain, and promptly fell head over heels in love with domestic soccer. When not watching soccer or coaching his sons U-8 team, hes generally studying either Talmud or medieval biblical exegesis. Which explains why he watches so much MLS, probably. Having relocated to Pittsburgh in 2019, he covers the Pittsburgh Riverhounds of the USL for Pittsburgh Soccer Now.

Photo Credit: Mark Shaiken, Last Word on Soccer.

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Holding The High Line: The Colorado Rapids Trouble with Elite Teams - Last Word on Baseball

CITY OF EGG HARBOR CITY PLANNING AND ZONING BOARD NOTICE OF HEARING TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: In compliance with the pertinent provisions of the Egg Harbor City Zoning and Land Development Ordinance and the New Jersey Municipal Land Use Act, N.J.S.A. 40:55D-1 et seq., notice is hereby given that a written appli-cation has been filed by the undersigned with the Egg Harbor City Planning and Zoning Board for an Interpretation or, in the alternative, use variance relief pursuant to N.J.S.A. 40:55D-70(d)(1), and any and all other variances or waivers the Board may reasonably require in the exercise of its discretion, and without further public notice, in order to allow the undersigned applicant to utilize the existing 3 story school building (former Saint Nicholas' School) as a Yeshiva for Jewish rabbinical seminarians. A Yeshiva is an institution for higher education in the study and practice of the Jewish Torah and Talmud. The Yeshiva is proposed on property shown as Lots 1 through 5 in Block 440 and Lots 6 through 15 in Block 440 on the Egg Harbor City Tax Map, which property is located at 500-518 and 526 Chicago Avenue. No change to the existing site plan, and no building expansion, is proposed, although interior renovations to the existing building are proposed so as to provide sleeping accommodations for the students. Public hearing on the above-mentioned application has been scheduled for October 19, 2021 at 7:00 p.m. in the Municipal Building, 500 London Avenue, Egg Harbor City, New Jersey, at which time and place any interested party (as defined in N.J.S.A. 40:55D-4) will have an opportunity to be heard. All documents in support of this application are available for public inspection between the hours of 7:00 a.m. and 3:00 p.m. in the Building Department, Municipal Building, 500 London Avenue, Egg Harbor City, New Jersey. NEHMAD DAVIS & GOLDSTEIN, P.C. Attorneys for Applicant Yeshiva Shagas Aryeh, Inc., a New Jersey Not for Profit Corporation BY: STEPHEN R. NEHMAD, ESQUIRE 4030 Ocean Heights Avenue Egg Harbor Township, NJ 08234 (609) 927-1177 Dated: October 7, 2021 Printer Fee: $36.80 Pub Date: October 7, 2021 Order #: 0000174457

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CITY OF EGG HARBOR CITY PLANNING AND ZONING BOARD NOTICE OF HEARING TO WHOM IT MAY CONCERN: - Press of Atlantic City

(This article is written by guest writer Aron Gamman.)

Exploring Judaism through the lens of Spiritual Naturalism brings forth many possibilities. On the one side it challenges Jewish traditions by denying a supernatural agency. But in as much as Judaism has been less otherworldly than some of the other major religions, Naturalism and Judaism do have a common ground.

Treating Jewish theism as mythology, rather than taking it literally, challenges the heart of what it means to be Jewish to those who hold to a more static interpretation of the tradition. This same sort of attitude reflects the reaction that the Jewish community in Holland took towards Baruch Spinoza in an earlier time. His idea of God challenged the traditional view as it also challenged the idea of God held by the Christian churches of his day.

Spinoza began his life much like any other Jew of that period. His parents had moved to Holland from Portugal to escape religious persecution. But more radically than other Jews of the time, Baruch questioned tradition and consider other options. Whether or not he saw himself as a radical, its difficult to know, but it led to his being excommunicated. In a sense he became the first secular Jew. In anarticle in the Jewish Virtual Library, it states:

At first Spinoza was reviled as an atheist and certainly, his God is not the conventional Judo-Christian God. The philosophers of the enlightenment ridiculed his methods not without some grounds. The romantics, attracted by his identification of God with Nature, rescued him from oblivion.

It is a bit ironic that while Spinozas family had immigrated from Portugal to gain religious freedom, Baruch sought in his new country a different kind of religious freedom. He remains today one of the heros for those of us who think that the words God and Nature essentially refer to the same thing.

Today, we possess a freedom that many in the past did not have. This allows us to explore our Jewish identity, even those of us who can no longer accept its model of theism. We can acknowledge the well-known literature (or canon) of Torah, Mishnah, Talmud, Siddur; we can appreciate how they established norms as well as humanistic ideas and values in the past, but we do not have to give them undue authority or take them literally. We can still connect to the memory of our ancestors and their stories, but in a different, perhaps more authentic form to us and our communities; one that can be integrated with the world view revealed by modern science. We can accept the possibility of new stories and new interpretations arising in the present and furthering the tradition.

We do not think religious expressions necessarily fit secular interpretations of Jewish history and human experience. Yet we wish to speak for ourselves. We wish to experiment with many of the concepts presented on our own outside of religious guidelines. We do not necessarily need to be validated by traditional religious texts.

We approach a plurality of Jewish roots so we have the power to choose. We deny a single Jewish tradition, but accept many Judaisms. Many counter-establishment traditions have existed in the past and continue to exist. These have included both mystical and secular varieties. The presence of these traditions are written of in the Talmud and elsewhere, even if some were officially ignored once issues were decided. Underground and folk traditions are as rooted in Jewish tradition as much as official ideology.

A Spiritual Naturalists approach to Judaism can be seen as a new counter-establishment tradition. Who has the authority, now? It is us. Spinozas ideas preceed those of modern science, yet to some degree he inspired them. Currently he also serves as an inspiration for those of us who embrace the world view advanced by science, yet continue to value their Jewish identity and the rich, ages-old tradition in which that identity has developed. We can embrace the incredible picture of the creation that modern science is presenting to us, while maintaining our roots in the Jewish tradition.

Read this article:

Jewish Religious Tradition and Spirituality in a Naturalistic Perspective - Patheos

What is it like to grow up as the son of arguably the most famous Holocaust survivor in the world?

That was the question put at AJRs next generations conference by Stephen Smith, now UNESCO Chair on Genocide Education and Executive Director of the USC Shoah Foundation. Dr Smith, founder of the UK Holocaust Centre in England and cofounder of the Aegis Trust for the prevention of crimes against humanity and genocide, was in conversation with Elisha Wiesel, son of the writer and Nobel prize-winner Elie Wiesel, who died in 2016.

In fact, as Elisha Wiesel made clear in their conversation, he is the son of two Holocaust survivors, but with very different attitudes towards their wartime experiences.

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His mother, Marion, wanted to put the war behind her and not talk about it ever again, he said. But to mark his mothers 90th birthday in 2020, he had managed to get a film crew to record her talking about her familys departure from Vienna after the Anschluss, their subsequent moves to Belgium, France and then Switzerland, where she remained for the rest of the war.

Elie Wiesel, by contrast, wrote 60-70 books, many detailing aspects of his survival, and not all of which, his son admitted, he had read.

The AJRs Connecting Next Generations conference at Stamford Bridge, in London (ASL Corporate Photography)

He actually sheltered me quite a bit from knowledge of the Shoah, Elisha Wiesel said. But one picks things up in an ambient fashion. When my friends [in New York] were going to Palm Beach for sumner camps, I would be going to death camps in Poland.

Overall he characterised his father as an incredible listener.he loved to engage with people and hear their stories.

Elisha Wiesel (via Twitter)

For a long time, from about age 14 onwards, Elisha wanted nothing to do with the old world. I resented being known as the son of Elie Wiesel, and I led a very rebellious teenage life, only interested in my guitar and meeting girls.

Today, however, aged 49, things are very different. Almost to his own surprise he studies a page of Talmud every day and says since he married and had children, he has joy in passing on knowledge and faith. In his family, he says, he talks much less about the Shoah and much more about what it means to be Jewish. But he admitted, with a grin, to Stephen Smith that he still plays the guitar.

Elie Wiesel had only two red lines for his son, which he hopes to pass on to his own children. He insisted that I had to marry someone Jewish, and he asked me to say kaddish for him. Now, says Elisha, he has made peace with being the son of Elie Wiesel, and makes himself available to speak about his father and bearing witness in the Second Generation wherever he can.

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Elie Wiesel's son: 'My father sheltered me quite a bit from knowledge of the Shoah' - Jewish News

THE QUESTION:

When Does Life Begin?

THE RELIGION GUYS ANSWER:

Those four words are regularly posed in the current abortion debate, so lets scan the lines in pregnancy that have been drawn.

Pre-scientific cultures spoke of quickening, typically between 16 and 18 weeks, when the mother first feels the unborn child moving in her womb. A famous example involves the unborn John the Baptist in biblical Luke 1:41. Some ancient Jewish authorities in the Talmud, and Roman and Greek philosophers, supposed that the unborn child formed earlier, at 40 days.

Then theres viability, when a fetus can live on its own outside the womb, typically reached around 23 or 24 weeks, or somewhat earlier or later in individual cases. The U.S. Supreme Court legalized abortion before that point in its 1973 Roe v. Wade decision, and after viability when there are risks to the mothers health, broadly defined.

The high Court on December 1 hears a case from Mississippi, which defied the Roe ruling and bars abortions after 15 weeks. A Missouri law, also under court challenge, puts a ban at eight weeks when everything that is present in an adult human is now present in your baby, according to the American Pregnancy Association. The Court temporarily left in place a ban in Texas (likewise in 13 other states) after six weeks, when pulsations can be diagnosed at what eventually becomes the fully formed heart.

Many modern Christians believe that life begins at conception (sperm first meets egg) or implantation (fertilized egg attaches to the mothers womb) while some put the line a bit later at twinning (after which multiple pregnancies do not occur).

Note the brief filed last month in the Mississippi case by pro-choice religions including mainline Protestant churches, non-Orthodox Judaism, Unitarian Universalists, and others. It says numerous religious traditions posit that life begins at some point during pregnancy or even after a child is born. That perhaps refers to the judgment of some Jewish authorities that the baby only becomes a person at birth, though thats different from when life begins.

Pro-choice Supreme Court briefs contend that when life begins is a question of religious belief and therefore not the business of government to determine. That assertion is contested by conservatives such as Catholic author George Weigel, writing for First Things magazine. When human life begins is not a matter of faith; it is a matter of scientific fact, he writes. People believe in the conception line just like they believe that the Earth is spherical, not flat; that Venus is the second planet in the solar system; that a water molecule is composed of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. . .

Christians like Weigel have a point if biological science determines the question. Its incontestable that at conception, or right afterward at implantation or twinning, a genetically unique entity in the human species exists that will automatically generate continual growth on its own unless abortion or natural miscarriage intervenes.

If so, then the question is not really when does life begin, which is firmly established by science. Rather, the issue religions, judges, politicians and citizens face is when protectible life begins. Does this tiny living organism have any inherent value and right to exist, balanced against the right of the mother to abort? Why or why not, at what stage of pregnancy, under what circumstances, and who decides? That takes us beyond biology to moral decision-making.

On that, the Catholic Church teaches that direct abortion is illicit even if performed to save the mothers life. This is defined in the 1974 Declaration on Procured Abortion from the Vatican doctrinal office, ratified by Pope Paul VI. Even a serious question of health, sometimes of life or death, for the mother can never confer the right to dispose of anothers life, even when that life is only beginning. Pope John Paul II affirmed this in his 1995 encyclical letter Evangelium Vitae (The Gospel of Life).

The U.S. bishops 2001 medical directive notes that the church does not forbid treatments to cure proportionately serious pathological conditions of a pregnant woman that cannot be postponed till birth, even if they will result in the death of the unborn child as a secondary effect.

Among Protestants, however, even conservatives and evangelicals allow abortion to save the mothers life. So do all branches of Judaism. Consider the 2019 policy statement against New York States viability line issued by the Rabbinical Council of America, the largest organization of Orthodox rabbis. It declares that there is no sanction to permit the abortion of a healthy fetus, but if the mothers life is endangered then abortion is allowed, even at a late stage. The healthy adjective indicates that some Orthodox scholars permit abortion of compromised fetuses in extenuating circumstances, and some Protestant denominations agree.

The mothers-life exception has roots thousands of years ago in biblical law (Exodus 21:22-25). This passage concerns a pregnant bystander who is accidentally killed during a fight between two men. If she dies, the punishment for the killer is execution, but if only her unborn child dies a fine is paid. On that basis, Judaisms Mishnah is emphatic that the mothers life takes precedence over the fetuss life in rare cases of conflict.

What does Judaism say about other reasons to abort?The late bioethics specialist David Feldman compiled many rabbinical rulings with varying stands over centuries in Birth Control and Jewish Law (1968). A 2019 article by Rabbi Rachel Mikva of Chicago Theological Seminary summarized much the same about the history that underlies todays Jewish debate between stringent opinions versus lenient interpretations that expand justifications based on a womans well-being.

As Mikva observes, except for the Orthodox, contemporary Jews are reluctant to legislate moral questions for everyone when there is much room for debate, and they take that stance in current Supreme Court briefs.

[Disclosure: The Religion Guy co-authored Aborting America, the autobiography of gynecologist Bernard Nathanson, an atheist at the time, who ran the nations largest abortion clinic but then turned pro-life.]

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Central to the Abortion Debate: When Does Life Begin? - Patheos

The Talmud (Hebrew for study) is one of the central works of the Jewish people. It is the record of rabbinic teachings that spans a period of about six hundred years, beginning in the first century C.E. and continuing through the sixth and seventh centuries C.E. The rabbinic teachings of the Talmud explain in great detail how the commandments of the Torah are to be carried out. For example, the Torah teaches us that one is prohibited from working on the Sabbath. But what does that really mean? There is no detailed definition in the Torah of work. The talmuidc tractate called Shabbat therefore devotes an entire chapter to the meaning of work and the various categories of prohibited work.

The Talmud is made up of two separate works: the Mishnah, primarily a compilation of Jewish laws, written in Hebrew and edited sometimes around 200 C.E. in Israel; and the Gemara, the rabbinic commentaries and discussions on the Mishnah, written in Hebrew and Aramaic, which emanated from Israel and Babylonia over the next three hundred years. There are two Talmuds: the Yrushalmi or Jerusalem Talmud (from Israel) and the Bavli or Babylonian Talmud. The Babylonian Talmud, which was edited after the Jerusalem Talmud and is much more widely known, is generally considered more authoritative than the Jerusalem Talmud.Rabbi Yhudah HaNasi (Judah the Prince) is thought to be the editor of the sixty-three tractates of Mishnah in which the laws are encoded. The main editor of the Gemara is generally assumed to be Rav Ashi, who spent over fifty years collecting the material. The final revision and editing were most likely undertaken by Ravina (500 C.E.)

The Talmuds discussions are recorded in a consistent format. A law from the Mishnah is cited, followed by rabbinic deliberations on its meaning (i.e., the Gemara). At times, the rabbinic discussions wander far afield from the original topic. The Rabbis whose views are cited in the Mishnah are known as Tannaim (Aramaic for teachers), while the Rabbis quoted in the Gemara are known as Amoraim (explainers or interpreters). The Talmuds, especially the Talmud of Babylonia, also contain a good deal of aggadah: commentary on biblical narratives, stories about biblical figures and earlier Rabbinic sages, and speculations concerning physical reality and human nature. In short, anything that was of interest to the Rabbis wound up in the Talmud, which in turn became a kind of encyclopedia of the Rabbinic mind.

As books of law, the Talmuds differ greatly from the Mishnah in style and approach. The Mishnah states its rules in a straightforward manner, usually not supporting them with scriptural references or other argumentation. The Talmuds (and this is especially true of the Babylonian Talmud) are dialectical: their predominant form is debate, in which propositions are raised, attacked, refuted, and modified through the give-and-take of argument and counterargument.Thus for example, if a person wanted to find out about the laws related to Rosh HaShanah, one would go to the tractate called Rosh HaShanah and would find there numerous laws and customs related to the festival. Likewise, if one wanted to find the laws and customs about Shabbat, one could go to the tractate of the same name.

Correct answers emerge out of the process of argument that fills the Talmud and all the books written to explain it. They are tentative conclusions whose rightness is based upon the ability of one school of thought to persuade the community of Rabbinic scholars that its point of view represents the best understanding of Torah and of Gods demands upon us.

As the earliest rabbinic interpretation of the Bible, the Talmud is indispensable to understanding the laws and customs still practiced today. The Talmudic discussion and its conclusions provide us with the origins of our many laws and customs. Studying the Talmud can help us search for the many important issues and values that are essential to a thinking and committed Jew. To study Talmud is to take ones part in the discourse of the generations, to add ones own voice to the chorus of conversation and argument that has for nearly two millennia been the form and substance of Jewish law.

Link:

The Talmud | Reform Judaism

(JTA) Rabbi Moshe Tendler, an expert in Jewish law and medical ethics, died Tuesday at age 95.

A dean of the rabbinical school and a professor of Jewish medical ethics and biology at Yeshiva University, Tendler was considered an expert in issues of Jewish law and medical ethics.

But he was most famous for the fierceness with which he advocated for the Jewish legal position that brain death constituted death, thus allowing Orthodox Jews to donate and receive organ transplants for organ donation in the case of brain death.

He was also known for the sometimes dismissive attitude with which he regarded those who disagreed with him on that question and others. When a group of rabbis issued an opinion concluding that the cessation of heartbeat, rather than brain death, constitutes death, he denounced them publicly, in an act unusual in the typically sober world of Orthodox Jewish law decisors.

You say a thing, I believe youre ignorant on this topic, Tendler told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in 2011. Thats not an insult. Its a fact.

Born and raised on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, Tendler was immersed in the dual pursuit of rigorous secular and religious studies from a young age under the tutelage of his mother, a law school graduate, and his father, head of the Rabbi Jacob Joseph yeshiva.

Tendler grew up just a few blocks away from Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the most important Orthodox rabbinic authorities in the United States in the 20th century. Tendler eventually became Feinsteins son-in-law. He met Feinsteins daughter, Shifra, when she approached him at a public library in the neighborhood to ask him a question about chemistry.

After that, somehow I managed to come more often to the library to study, Tendler recalled. He studied at New York University, was ordained at Yeshiva University in 1949 and earned a doctorate in microbiology from Columbia University in 1957. In his tenure teaching biology and Talmud at Yeshiva University, he taught hundreds of doctors and rabbis.

In addition to teaching, Tendler also served as the rabbi of the Community Synagogue in Monsey, New York from 1967 until his death.

Tendler became an important influence on Feinsteins positions on questions of Jewish law and medicine and served as a bridge between the scientific experts and the experts in Jewish law and ethics, writing articles in the top medical journals as well as for Jewish scholars.

I remember him telling me how he used to sit with Rabbi Feinstein and he would describe the science behind it. Rabbi Feinstein would ultimately make the rulings but Rabbi Tendler was his interpreter of much of the scientific knowledge, said Alan Jotkowitz, a professor at Ben Gurion University of the Negev, director of the Jacobovits Center for Jewish Medical Ethics and director of the Medical School for International Health and Medicine.

Jotkowitz, who was a student in Tendlers biology and Talmud classes at Yeshiva University, described Tendler as a major influence for himself and other Orthodox doctors, whom Tendler empowered to be scholars of both Judaism and science.

He was a personal role model, that theres no conflict between scientific knowledge and Torah.he said you could see Gods wisdom in the Torah, but Rabbi Tendler also thought you could see Gods wisdom in nature and studying nature, Jotkowitz said.

Tendlers funeral, which was delayed because he died on the first day of a two-day holiday, is scheduled for Thursday afternoon at the Community Synagogue in Monsey, New York. He is survived by eight children.

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Rabbi Moshe Tendler, whose thinking shaped Orthodox views on organ donation, dies at 95 - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

On Saturday night, I was informed that I was in violation of Facebooks policy against trading in live animals on the site.

Let me back up.

Two years ago, inspired by a friends picture of her cat posing on an open Talmud, and ever mindful of my need for a Jewish wall calendar to ensure that the proper Dvar Torah column runs in this paper each week, I created a Jewish Cat Calendar, featuring pictures of cats engaging with Jewish texts or otherwise acting demonstrably Jewish. The calendar proved a popular success; this year I printed 1,000 copies.

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Besides selling it through Amazon and my own Ben Yehuda Press website, I make it available on Facebook, because why not.

Or at least I did, until I got the notice on Saturday night that the Jewish Cat Calendar violated the Facebook policy.

Of course, when you deal with faceless entities like Facebook, which outsource their moderation decisions to either underpaid contractors or algorithms of dubious validity, mistakes are bound to happen. And my worst-case scenario not being able to sell a calendar on a Facebook market, where, as it happens, nobody has been buying is not at all comparable to the real-world worst-case scenarios of Facebooks general policy of being as cheap as possible when it comes to moderation. That worst-case scenario would be what happened in Myanmar, where Facebooks lax moderation enabled government military personnel to incite massacres against the countrys Muslim Rohingya minority.

And besides: There is a button I could (and did) press to seek a manual review.

But it got me thinking: Was my own Artificial Intelligence smarter than Facebooks?

By my Artificial Intelligence, I mean the language model that an Israeli company, AI21 Labs, makes available to the public at ai21.com/studio. The model is very similar to the better known GPT-3 program made available by the American-based OpenAI company.

In a way, Artificial Intelligence is a misnomer. These are artificial writers, with the knowledge acquired from imbibing millions of pages from the Internet. You feed the program a prompt, and the program continues with a reasonable guess of what someone a person who has read the Internet but has no common sense might guess would come next.

A lot depends on the prompt.

The programs can be used to create jokes.

Heres one my son Joey coaxed from GPT-3.

He prompted it: Theres a traditional Jewish joke that goes something like this:

And the computer responded with a joke that, based on Joeys Google research, is in fact not at all traditional, but original and created by computer:

Why did God create Jews? Because He needed somebody to call Him names.

It is a joke that straddles the line between funny and profound which, if you think about all the Jewish jokes posted to the internet, is probably the situation of the average Jewish joke, half of which are funnier than they are profound, and half of which are the opposite.

Then Joey gave a larger prompt:

Theres a traditional Jewish joke that goes something like this: A Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew

He ran it a few times. Here are a couple of the results:

A Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew are all walking down the road. They come upon a rabbi. The Buddhist tells the rabbi to stop, and then proceeds to punch him, saying, Thats for making Buddha suffer. The Christian tells the rabbi to stop, and then proceeds to punch him, saying, Thats for making Christ suffer. The Jew pauses for a moment, and then proceeds to punch the rabbi saying, Thats for making us suffer.

A Christian, a Buddhist, and a Jew all receive phone calls from God. The Christian answers and says, Hello? God says, Id like to grant you one wish. The Christian says, Thank you! I wish Jesus would come back to Earth. Done, says God. The Buddhist answers and says, Hello? God says, Id like to grant you one wish. The Buddhist says, Thank you! I wish to be enlightened. Done, says God. The Jew answers and says, Hello? God says, Id like to grant you one wish. The Jew says, I wish the other two guys had wished for something else.

Again: These are jokes created by a computer program.

So back to my Facebook problem.

I figured this would work as a prompt: This is a yes or no question: Does a listing for a Jewish Cats Calendar imply the sale of live animals?

Well, it turns out that prompting AI is an art, one that I have not yet mastered. My prompt did not generate the yes-or-no answer I was hoping for.

Instead, AI21.com wrote a news story about a Jewish cat calendar, created by a Florida-based seller, who bills herself as The Jewish Cats Lady, which becomes the target of animal rights activists who launch a petition on Change.org calling on Amazon to stop selling the calendar.

As of midday Wednesday, the petition had collected 3,642 signatures, with a goal of 5,000, the AI wrote, plausibly if fictitiously.

The artificial text continues: This calendar promotes and supports animal cruelty, the petition reads. Animals are not ours to use and abuse in any way for our own selfish needs. Please stop promoting and selling this calendar or any other product that involves animals being used for human entertainment.

The AI clearly captured the rhythm and format of a Jewish newspaper story.

It continued:

Anyone who supports Jewish Cats Calendar is supporting animal abuse, said Rachel Hirschfeld, a Florida resident who launched the petition.

This calendar is just another example of how the Jewish community is not sensitive to animal suffering, she said.

Remember: This petition, and this quote, is fictional, invented by a computer program.

And the lack of common sense endemic to this generation of AI programs was evident a few paragraphs later in the story, when it described the contents of the calendar:

Most of the photos are of kittens. In June, for a page titled Roosters, [the calendars creator] features a photo of two baby chicks.

In a section titled Kittens, she includes a photo of a German Shepherd puppy, with the caption My German Shepherd Puppy.

But the AI recovered from that snafu, with another fictional quote from the (presumably) fictional animal rights activist: Its a shame that Amazon is carrying such a product, said Hirschfeld. We are not asking for a ban on calendars, we are asking that they stop selling Jewish Cats Calendar.

In a perfect final touch, the AI credited the story to JewishJournal.com, reprinting the standard footer of articles in the Los Angeles Jewish papers website.

As of this writing, I have not yet heard back from Facebook.

I can, however, assure you that the 5782 Jewish Cats Calendar includes no photos of puppies or baby chicks, and involved minimal cruelty to animals.

Larry Yudelson is the Jewish Standards associate editor.

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Oh, the inhumanity! - The Jewish Standard