Category Archives: Talmud

Ive never done Talmud.

Ive never seen anyone do Talmud, except on the pages of books Ive read, whose stories take readers inside the lives of devout observers of Judaism.

One of those books is The Chosen, by Chaim Potok, the story of an unlikely friendship between two teenage Jewish boys the Orthodox Reuven and the ultra-Orthodox Danny, whose father is a Hasidic rabbi. (Dannys calling to study psychology is at odds with his fathers dream that he become a rabbi.)

Its been a few years since Ive read The Chosen, although Im now reading another Potok book, My Name is Asher Lev, about a Hasidic teen with a gift for creating art.

But I remain drawn to the scenes in The Chosen, where Reuven and Danny are invited to join the rabbi and other Hasidic men in a session of studying Talmud.

Its a collection of centuries-old writings on Jewish laws and legends. Studying Talmud was probably what 12-year-old Jesus was doing in the temple in Jerusalem, when Joseph and Mary noticed he was missing, and frantically searched for him (Luke 2:41:52).

I never gave much thought to what Jesus might have experienced sitting among the teachers, listening, asking questions until I read the description of Danny and Reuven doing Talmud, in The Chosen.

Studying religious writings in my experience, and I suspect in the experience of many people of faith is serious, solemn work. For Lutherans like me, it tends to be a left-brain activity, a cognitive, systematic process, sometimes tedious, sometimes satisfying, but never joy-filled.

Thats why the Talmud scene from The Chosen stood out in my memory.

Most of the men in the group certainly the rabbi, Dannys father had read those writings hundreds of times. Yet, by reading together in a group, and thinking out loud about what they read and how they read it, they came up with insights that were fresh, delightful and surprising.

Something similar happens in a good study group like the current Wednesday morning Bible study on Exodus, facilitated by my churchs gifted interim pastor.

The group experience is vital, whether were all in the same room or whether were linked via an interactive computer program. We need to see each others faces, tell our stories and share our insights.

At its best, our study like the Talmud study in The Chosen is a right-brain, creative, colorful activity. Its work that feels like play.

The roles of the teachers and students are often blurred, even reversed.

Group study of sacred writings is not the same as worship, but its just as essential to a rich, full faith walk.

Im starting to understand why not-quite-teenage Jesus was so drawn to it.

In the story in Luke, Jesus comes off as a little bit sassy to his understandably worried parents, when he says, How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be in my Fathers house?

I can imagine Jesus saying something more like this: Mom, Dad, I got caught up in the joy of joining others in experiencing the mysterious, spiritual richness of the written word. I cant wait to do it again.

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Jerde: Good study groups add to experience of sacred writings - telegraphherald.com

When I was a child, the strongest presence I felt in our house in Brooklyn was my fathers absence. It clung to his possessions and places, like the drop-leaf desk at which he worked when he was home, and the cellar where he had built the desk. Only my father used the cellar, with its massive table saw, tools hanging in neat rows and shelves holding baby food jars with nails and screws sorted by size.

To me, my father was as tall as the Empire State Building and knew as much as the encyclopedia. I loved the feel of his huge, callused hand, a big, safe house around my little one. But he was rarely home. Most days, evenings and even many weekends, he was at work or at the Brownsville-East New York Liberal Party headquarters, where he was an officer.

The sense that I couldnt reach my father stayed with me into adulthood. I often dreamed that I saw him across a room or on a train platform but couldnt get to him.

After he retired at 70, my father had more time, but he always ceded conversation to my mother. When I visited, she and I would become engrossed in talk and he would retreat to his desk to pay bills or write letters. If he answered when I called home, hed say as soon as he heard my voice, Ill tell Mother youre on the phone. Hed stay on while she picked up an extension, but before long, Id realize hed stopped speaking.

Wheres Daddy? Id ask.

But there was one situation in which my father would stay on the phone: if I happened to call when my mother was out, and I got him talking about his past. I once asked why. Maybe because its pent-up words, he said. I like to reminisce. I cant reminisce with Mother because she doesnt like it. She complains, You only want to talk about people who are dead.

The dead people my father liked to talk about were from his childhood in Warsaw, where he was born in 1908 and lived for 12 years before coming to the United States. Until he was 7, he lived, together with his mother and sister (his father had died when he was very young), in a household headed by his grandfather, a white-bearded, ultra-Orthodox Hasid who arose each morning at 5 to study a large Talmud.

My father never tired of describing his grandparents: their large, gaslit apartment, the way his grandfather held sugar cubes in his mouth while sipping tea from a glass. He never tired of talking about the Hasidic neighborhood, the crowded streets lined with stores, the beggars who came into the courtyard along with vendors offering to sharpen knives.

And I never tired of listening. I soon decided I could bring back to life World War I Hasidic Warsaw by including it in a book about my fathers life. This gave me license to spend hours talking to him conversations that were not recreation, but research.

My father, in his early 90s, is in the hospital after surgery for an infected gallbladder. I walk with him down the hall, accompanied by an IV pole on wheels. In an alcove with chairs, we sit and continue the conversation weve been having all afternoon. Though it breaks my heart to see him so weak, I treasure the hours the days the hospital gives us to talk.

When we talked about his past, my father was as pleased that I wanted to listen as I was that he wanted to talk. I think most fathers are pleased when their children want to hear what no one else can tell them what the world was like for them when they were growing up. My father died in 2006. In his last years, I knew that the man who looked to me like my father looked to the world like an old man. But when we talked, Id forget he was old. And Id bask in what had seemed impossible when I was young: my fathers undivided, unlimited attention.

Deborah Tannen is a professor of linguistics at Georgetown University and the author, most recently, of Finding My Father, from which this essay is adapted.

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Commentary: As my father aged, the words began to flow - Bend Bulletin

In a few days, it will be my second time celebrating Fathers Day as your dad. What a gorgeous and, at the same time, heartbreaking year it has been.

Last Fathers Day you could not yet walk or talk, and now I watch in amazement as you run, climb, sing, and speak in clear, full sentences. This morning, we took a stroll together down a nature path. You picked up a long stick and tapped it against the ground as we walked, counting forcefully with each tap: One! Two! Three! You continued until you reached eleven, and then started over again. Our prayer book talks aboutnissim bchol yom, everyday miracles, of which this was surely one.

Of course, all this growing has taken place against the strange, bleak backdrop of the pandemic that has lasted most of your lifetime. For as long as you can remember, this has been the state of the world. This year, you did not attend synagogue or school. You did not travel on an airplane or eat inside a restaurant.

It is only in the past couple of months that you have started to spend time with more adults and other children. For most of the past year, it was just the three of usyou, me, and Momstaying inside together, day after long, tedious day, trying our best to be safe.

For as tough as it has been, I admit that there have been some bright moments of life in COVID-land. In no other world would I have been at home to witness your first steps and your first words, to be a part of your waking up, falling asleep, and so many other little moments in between almost every day. My own (truly fantastic) father, your Papa, was not able to do that with me. His father was not able to do that with him. But I got to spend this precious, irreplaceable time with you, and for that, I will always be grateful. As I reflect on this Fathers Day, no gift could be more valuable than this.

If Im really honest, there was a part of me that was grateful that we could keep you tightly wrapped in our little bubble for a bit longer than we would have otherwise. There was a way that quarantine felt a lot like the first months after bringing you home from the hospital. We barely went out or had anyone else over. Our whole job was to watch over you. I remember the hours upon hours I would swaddle you so tightly in a blanket and walk you through the house, tucked securely in the crook of my arm. In some ways, this year felt like putting you back into that sweet bundle, holding you close and keeping you safe, as the world churned in chaos just outside our door.

If Im really honest, there was a part of me that was grateful that we could keep you tightly wrapped in our little bubble for a bit longer than we would have otherwise.

I know, though, that keeping you permanently wrapped up tight is not what parents were put here to do. The Talmud teaches that a parents essential job is to prepare their children to go out into the world, including offering the highly specific requirement to teach you how to swim (Babylonian Talmud, Kiddushin 29a). The medieval commentators tend to read that provision quite literally, with Rashi (1040-1104) drolly stating the obvious, that in the event of a shipwreck, it is useful to know how to swim.

However, I cannot help but read it much more expansively: the commandment to teach ones child to swim is about a fundamental recognition of the limits of my power as a parent. I cannot be at your side every moment, and there will come a time soon enough when you certainly would not want me to be. My job is to give you the skills, strength, courage, and character to safely venture into the world on your own. Life under lockdown has meant I could put off that job for a little while, but as life continues and more becomes possible every day, my real task as your dad now truly begins.

Maybe it has already begun. A couple of weeks ago, we were sitting together on a big lawn in a park. You began to wander away from me, exploring other patches of grass and searching for interesting rocks and sticks, and carefully eyeing the bigger kids at play. My first instinct was to get up and trot along beside you. But I stayed put and just watched. You ventured farther and farther, fully engrossed in your expedition until you almost reached the other side of the lawn. Then, you suddenly turned back, gave a huge smile, and came running until you collapsed into my arms in a fit of giggles. A few moments later, you stood back up and were off and running again. It was so very sweet to behold.

Dad

Rabbi Adam Greenwald is the Vice President for Jewish Engagement atAmerican Jewish University.

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From a Rabbi to His Daughter: Teach Her to SwimAnd to Run - Jewish Journal

This First Person article is the experience ofRabbiKliel Rose, the spiritual leader of Congregation Etz Chayim, who was born in Israel and grew up in Winnipeg.For more information about CBC's First Person stories, please see the FAQ.

I grew up in the north end of Winnipeg, in the Seven Oaks neighbourhood. To be more precise, our house was located on Matheson Avenue, west of Main Street between Salter and Powers streets.

I lived less than a block away from the Talmud Torah day school and the synagogue; both were housed in the same building. These were two significant institutions in my life as a child.

Across from this was Matheson Park, where I spent a great deal of my time playing with friends and neighbours.

Our street was filled with many Jewish families as well as people from various backgrounds.

I have so many wonderful memories from my childhood; my friends and I were free to roam and explore easily within this small and secure contained area of our city.

I must add that rarely, as someone who always wore a kippa (a skullcap, perhaps what might now be referred to as a visible minority), did I ever feel that I would be threatened or attacked for being openly Jewish.

That perception of security unravelled for me rapidly when I was only seven years old. My outlook about my personal safety, as someone who was identifiably Jewish, shifted in a dramatic way.

While my recollection of the details are a little foggy, I do recall hearing that one of the older students from the synagogue I attended, who lived a block over from us (someone I deeply admired who taught me how to chant Torah), had been beaten up on a Friday night while walking home on Shabbat.

His attackers noticed he was wearing a kippa and decided "that this Jew needed to learn a lesson" and understand why his kind was not tolerated in their neighbourhood.

This particular incident deeply impacted me.

In some ways it fractured my innocence as well as the freedom I had in meandering without difficulty in this magical place. My relationship to my neighbourhood was never quite the same.

I never stopped wearing a kippa, but as a result of this incident, I became more vigilant about my circumstances and who was around me.

To have to carry that fear and anxiety at seven years old felt terribly unfair.

My perspective over 40 years later has not changed.

Just this month on June 6 there was what police called a targeted attack on a Muslim family walking in their neighbourhood in London, Ont. Four members of one family were killed and a nine-year-old boy remains in critical condition in the hospital.

While I cannot fathom the magnitude of pain being felt by the members of this family and their community, I can relate in some way to the fear and the panic felt by someone whose religious identity is easily noticed every time they enter public space.

There is no room for such acts of hate in our society; this latest act, and others like it, serve as a direct affront to God, to values which are held dearly by the overwhelming majority of Canadians.

Jews know all too well what it is to be victims of suspicion and hatred based on our religion and ethnicity. Perhaps this places added responsibility on us to call out hatred and injustice when we see it.

The time has come for all the best of religious conviction to denounce the activities and beliefs of those who are filled with the worst of ideological credence, before they desecrate the democratic values we hold dear as Canadians.

On behalf of my family and congregation, I offer my deepest condolences to the family, their loved ones and the entire Canadian Muslim community. We also add our prayers of healing for the recovery of the nine-year-old boy who remains in the hospital.

For the sake of our children and for the preservation of our sacred Canadians values, we must resolve to speak out against xenophobia, antisemitism, Islamophobia, racism, homophobia and hatred of any kind that seeks to diminish the value of any human being.

May the memory of the Afzaal family continue to be a blessing.

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There is no room for acts of hate in our society, rabbi says after Muslim family run down in London, Ont. - CBC.ca

In this weeks parsha the Jewish people once again express discontent that there is no food and no water, and [they are] disgusted with the insubstantial food (Bamidbar 21:5). Hashem sent venomous snakes to attack them and many people died. Hashem then instructed Moshe to place a copper serpent on a pole and it will be that anyone who was bitten will look at it and live. It is noted in Melachim II (18:4) that King Chizkiyahu destroyed that copper snake, which the Jewish people had begun to worship.

Concerning this event, the Talmud (Rosh Hashanah 29a) asks: Did the serpent kill, or did the serpent preserve life? The explanation is given that when the Jewish people looked upward and subjected themselves to their Father in Heaven, they were healed, but if not, they died.

To expound on this concept, the Zera Shimshon cites the Talmud (Brachos 33a) which teaches that if one is in the midst of his prayers, even if a snake is wrapped around his heel, he may not interrupt his prayer. However, the Talmud notes that this is only with regard to a snake, because if one does not threaten the snake, it will not bite him and will eventually uncoil and not harm the individual. The Shulchan Aruch (104) clarifies that if the snake is poised to strike, though, then one should immediately move from his place.

The Talmud then tells of R Chanina ben Dosa who was called to help in a city where the inhabitants were being injured by a snake. When R Chanina saw the snake emerging from its hole, he placed his heel over the mouth of the hole. The snake bit him and died. R Chanina then brought the snake on his shoulders to the beis medrash and announced: It is not the snake that kills, but the transgression that kills.

The Talmud in Yerushalmi explains that R Chanina was in the middle of prayer when the snake bit him, but he did not feel anything as he was so intensely focused on his prayers. The potency of this particular snakes venom was contingent on reaching a source of water first. Hashem made a miracle and created a wellspring beneath his feet and he was saved. Our sages discuss whether it was proper for R Chanina to step on the snake, thereby placing himself in danger. Doing so goes against the admonition of our sages (Shabbos 32a) that one should never stand in a place of danger and say that Hashem will perform a miracle for him, lest no miracle will be performed. And even if a miracle is performed, it would be deducted from his merits.

The Zera Shimshon counters that R Chanina was accustomed to experiencing miracles, and therefore he did not fear the bite of the snake. However, asks the Zera Shimshon, what was original about R Chaninas remark that it is sin that kills? We already know from Koheles (10:11) that the snake derives no benefit when it bites a person.

The Zera Shimshon explains that herein lies a fundamental concept regarding the service of Hashem. He notes that there are individuals who have difficulty overcoming the yetzer hara (evil inclination). In fact, if they are challenged by the evil inclination, they immediately surrender because they believe that the confrontation itself is an indication that they cannot be successful. R Chanina established that the snake only harms someone who has transgressed. Moreover, if the snake attempts to injure someone who successfully triumphed over the yetzer hara and did not transgress, then the snake is immediately destroyed.

The Talmud (Succah 52b) declares: If the Evil Inclination accosts you, drag him to the beis medrash. If it is like a stone, it will be dissolved by Torah; if it is like iron, it will be shattered. We learn that the Evil Inclination is defenseless against Torah study and is ultimately destroyed that way.

As man struggles throughout his life to overcome and defeat the yetzer hara, and his deeds are constantly evaluated. When one performs even an insignificant deed of chesed, for example, he may earn an incalculable reward; likewise, the retribution for a seemingly minor transgression may also be considerable. One must always look upward towards Heaven and recognize that everything in life comes from Hashem.

A man woke up one morning and realized that inexplicably he could not move his middle finger. Although he felt no pain in his hand or finger, the middle finger was incapacitated, as if paralyzed. A visit to the doctor revealed no explanation for this complication.

As the man contemplated the situation, he considered the possibility that his disability was caused by a spiritual shortcoming that needed rectification. Our sages tell us that mans 248 limbs correspond to the 248 positive precepts in the Torah, and his 365 sinews correspond to the 365 prohibitions in the Torah. What transgression had he committed with this finger?

Hashem soon provided him with the answer. The man was a Kohen who blessed the Jewish nation every day. When the Kohen ascends to the platform, he unwinds the tefillin strap that is around his middle finger. After Birchas Kohanim, when he returns to his seat, the Kohen is supposed to rewind the strap around his middle finger, an intimation of the marriage between Hashem and the Jewish nation. The man realized that he had fallen into the habit of neglecting to rewind the strap around his finger upon the conclusion of Birchas Kohanim.

He immediately resolved to correct that lapse, and within a short time the finger once again regain full mobility.

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With An Eye Towards Heaven - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

By Rabbi Binny Freedman

How important is it for us to comprehend all that we do? Where lies the balance between pure faith and our need to understand?

This weeks parsha, Chukat, provides the ultimate example of that which is impossible to comprehend: the, the red heifer. (Bamidbar 19:1-2).

Rashi, quoting the Midrash, explains that this law is impossible to comprehend, and therefore one should not, perhaps even may not, attempt to fathom it. It is G-ds decree.

When a person comes into contact with a dead body, he is rendered tamei, or spiritually contaminated. To again achieve a state of ritual purity, he must undergo the ritual of the parah aduma. Paradoxically, while the ashes of the parah aduma purify the person who is impure, they also cause the pure person who gathers the ashes to become impure.

It is this incomprehensible phenomenon, that the parah aduma purifies the impure while contaminating the pure, that causes the Talmud to declare that even King Shlomo could not fathom this mitzvah.

Rashi seems to suggest that we are not allowed to attempt an understanding of this type of mitzvah: It is a chok, a decree from before Me, and you have no right to ponder it (Rashi, Bamidbar 19:2).

Maimonides on the other hand, openly espouses the value of attempting to understand: Even though all the chukim in the Torah are decrees it is worthy to explore them, and everything to which you can assign a reason, give to it a reason (Hilchot Temurah 4:13).

So which is it? Should we be attempting to understand that which Hashem asks of us, or are we perhaps better off relying on pure faith?

This weeks portion is actually a bridge between the first generation that left Egypt, and the second generation, born largely in the desert, who are about to enter the land of Israel. Both Miriam and Aaron die (20:1; 22-29), and in the infamous incident at Mei Merivah, Hashem decrees that Moshe too, will not enter the land.

As such, it is strange that the laws regarding a person who becomes impure through contact with death are only mentioned now, on the eve of entering the land of Israel. Indeed, the Talmud suggests (Gittin 60a) that this mitzvah was given nearly 40 years earlier, and yet the Torah chooses to place it here!

In fact, the theme of Chukat is the quintessential experience we can never comprehend: death.

Its about coming into contact with death the deaths of Miriam and Aaron, and the decree of Moshes approaching death. The verses even share with us some of the wanderings of the 40 years, during which the entire generation of Egypt dies out as well. Ultimately, there is no portion more fitting for a mitzvah we cannot understand than Chukat, which is all about death, the ultimate mystery. It is similarly no accident that this week we encounter the concept of the righteous who suffer, when the three leaders of the Jewish people (Moshe, Aaron, and Miriam) are not allowed to enter the land.

The Jewish people here begin the transition from life in the desert, where everything was clear, to the entering the land of Israel, where the great questions of life abound.

It would be absurd to imagine that we can ascertain the reason for a mitzvah. A reason is essentially causation; something caused something else. But G-d is not caused to do or command anything; G-d is the cause. If the Torah comes from G-d, the mitzvot cannot have a cause; they are the cause. Thus, we can only consider the purpose and/or implications of a given mitzvah.

Sometimes, Hashem allows us to tap into the purpose of a mitzvah, either by stating it explicitly, as with Shabbat, or by creating us with the faculty to hone in on what a particular mitzvah accomplishes for both individuals and the larger society. But sometimes, we are not privy to the purpose of a mitzvah, and this may be what chukim are about. The purpose of fulfilling such amitzvah, and how the world changes as a result, may be beyond our grasp, but this does not mean we cannot consider its implications.

By definition, the lessons I glean from a closer examination of anything in life will inevitably make it more meaningful and further study may cause me to reassess my understanding.

This would seem to be the Torahs approach to all of lifes paradoxes and mysteries, death chief amongst them. To imagine that we as limited human beings could ever understand death and human suffering would be supreme arrogance. Yet the process of grappling with the challenge of death, and attempting to learn from the process, can be a valuable one, within these parameters.

Tumah, often translated as impurity, represents contact with death. Every instance of tumah in the Torah is the result of it, be it a dead lizard (a sheretz), or the loss of potential life after the breakdown of the uterine lining (niddah). And taharah, purity, which comes after immersion in a ritual bath full of water that represents life, is the reemergence of the individual into the mainstream.

This, then, is the paradox of the red heifer the intertwining of life and death, and the impossibility of understanding why it so often seems that the pure become impure (the righteous suffer) and the impure become pure.

Perhaps this was why King Shlomo viewed this as the ultimate mystery, because we are not meant to understand the purpose of experiences beyond our comprehension. And yet King Shlomo does try, because we are, as the Rambam suggests, meant to try. We can at least draw implications from even these most difficult mitzvot.

We live in a world full of mysteries, with realities impossible to comprehend. But the decision is in each of our hands to find meaning in every moment and every piece of every mitzvah, and it will be the determining factor between grabbing life and being reborn every minute, or losing life and dying day by day, one slow second at a time.

A version of this column originally appeared in 2012.

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Parah aduma and intertwining of life and death - The Jewish Star

Reading from a Torah scroll in accordance with Sephardi tradition. Photo: Sagie Maoz via Wikimedia Commons.

Jason Tan is a professor of Policy, Curriculum and Leadership at The National Institute of Education in Singapore. He is also an acknowledged expert on what has become known as lifelong learning. Singapore is a world leader in this field and the Singaporean government has pioneered a lifelong learning program for the entire population; its SkillsFuture platform is available to every citizen.

In an interview earlier this week, Tan noted that the major motivation behind SkillsFuture is the increasing challenge posed by technological disruption to workplaces around the world. Artificial Intelligence is no longer just a threat to lower-skilled jobs, it even threatens white-collar workers. For example, computers are able to read and interpret radiograms, surpassing radiologists in their understanding of the data. Another example is computer programs that write press releases and compose company blurbs by extrapolating information from balance sheets and related financial information. Entire areas of expertise and skill that were previously unassailably human are in danger of obsolescence.

And as this tsunami gathers pace, the only way for workers to stay ahead of the game is to continue learning throughout their lives, constantly gaining new skills, training and retraining as technology advances and circumstances change.

But what really stuck out in Tans description of SkillsFuture was when he said that the Singaporean governments conception of lifelong learning is much broader than just narrow employability concerns. In other words, lifelong learning is not just about putting proverbial bread on the table, but it is about constantly expanding your knowledge. And, most importantly, it is about accepting as fact that no matter how much you know, and how much you have studied in the past, there is always more to learn.

Our Talmudic sources are replete with references to this kind of lifelong scholarly humility, even among the most illustrious of the sages. In Avot (4:1), the last of the great Talmudic darshanim (scriptural interpreters), Simeon Ben Zoma, declares that a wise person is someone who learns something from everyone they come into contact with, based on the verse in Psalms (119:99): From all who taught me have I gained understanding. The implication is clear: learning is not limited to your years at school, and you can gain knowledge throughout your life and, indeed, thats what you should do if you want to be wise.

Both Rabbi Judah, editor of the Mishnah, and his devoted disciple Rabbi Hanina, are quoted as having said (Makkot 10a; Taanit 7a): I have learned much from my teachers and even more from my friends, but more than from all of them I have learned from my students. Strikingly, these outstanding scholars acutely understood that in order to learn, and gain knowledge, you must be willing to humble yourself even to the extent that your students become your teachers.

I can clearly remember from my own years in yeshiva that the rabbis who taught us how to study Talmud and we were self-evidently inexperienced novices by comparison eagerly sought our interpretations of the passages we were studying together, and willingly conceded to our analyses if they felt our version was more accurate. This lifelong learning model has stuck with me i.e., the total negation of ego when it comes to learning something new, or even relearning material. As far as I can tell, it is exactly this that is the root of the wisdom defined by Simeon Ben Zoma in Avot.

Remarkably, this concept of self-negation in the pursuit of knowledge, and specifically Torah knowledge, is explicitly stated by Reish Lakish, the third-century giant of Talmudic literature. In Parshat Chukkat (Num. 19:14), the Torah records the laws of ritual impurity, beginning the section which deals with the impurity of corpses with the words: Zot HaTorah Adam Ki Yamut This is the law, if a person dies in a tent. But rather than seeing this opener as merely introductory words to the arcane laws that follow, Reish Lakish suggests a novel, parallel interpretation. From where do we derive that Torah knowledge is only retained by someone who kills himself over it? he asks and then cites this verse.

Clearly, Reish Lakish would never suggest that we engage in behavior which might endanger our lives just so that we can study Torah, nor is he stating that the study of Torah will result in life-threatening health problems. After all, we are expected to live a Torah life, and if the observance of any aspect of Torah could result in death, preserving our life overrides it. And on a more practical level, being at deaths door is hardly the route to academic success.

Rather, Reish Lakish is making a more prosaic pronouncement. A person who wishes to learn must be willing to kill his ego, and the learning will inevitably be exponentially better. In Reish Lakishs creative interpretation, the verse is telling us that if you want this Torah, then always be ready to kill your ego in the tent of learning.

Or, as Albert Einstein put it, Wisdom is not a product of schooling but of the lifelong attempt to acquire it.

The author is a rabbi in Beverly Hills, California.

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What Judaism Tells Us About Wisdom and Learning - Algemeiner

By ohtadmin | on June 16, 2021

This is a time of enormous change and stress for Jews at home, in Israel, and around the world. For over a year, the world has dealt with COVID-19, a pandemic the likes of which has not been seen since the influenza pandemic a century ago. Last month, Israel experienced a barrage of over 4,500 missiles fired at its civilians by the terrorist group Hamas. Anti-Semitism, a plague that never disappears, has gotten worse. Violent attacks on Jews in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere are growing in frequency and severity. Jewish institutions are being targeted and Jews are being harassed on social media. There is also a new administration in Washington and a new government in Israel.

This is a time for Jews everywhere to be united in support of Israel and in the fight against anti-Semitism. In an environment where Jewish lives are in danger, we cannot become our own worst enemy. In order to avoid this, we must remember to be civil despite our disagreements.

Jewish history has shown that when our disagreements turn to rancor, no one except those who would do us harm wins. Everyone in the Jewish community does not need to be in the same place politically or religiously. We do, however, need to put community above our individual viewpoints. We must always express our views with the understanding that there are those who disagree. Our fellow Jews are not the enemy. The threats come from those who are anti-Semites and Israel-haters.

There is so much more that unites us than divides us. Jews share a common history and a common destiny. We are one people, and we forget that at our own peril.

The Talmud (Shevuot 39a) states Kol Yisrael Arevim Zeh Bazeh (All Jews are responsible for one another). We are responsible for sustaining our fellow Jews physically by providing for their needs. During the pandemic, our community rallied to feed those who could no longer afford food or get out of the house to get it. We are responsible for the emotional well being of our fellow Jews. We do this by ensuring that no Jew feels lonely or isolated. Our Federation, agencies, and synagogues reached out in support of Jews in our community and throughout the world. Our synagogues and their members also support Jews spiritually every single day.

None of this could take place if we lose sight of the fact that we all belong to the same Jewish community. Now is the time for unity, solidarity, and civility.

Original post:

Jewish discourse must be civil if we are to fight on behalf of Israel and against rising anti-Semitism - Jewish Community Voice

I was at an in-person Shabbat dinner a couple weeks ago my first since the pandemic began. It was my first time back in that previously-familiar environment, figuring out who you know in common with the strangers at the table.

At this dinner, specifically, the main point of connection for our game of Jewish geography was several romantic entanglements. All of us knew multiple people including some at the table who had dated a few specific guys, and revelations abounded, with appropriate gasps and laughs and editorializing commentary.

I cannot tell you how delightful it was. I stayed at this dinner until past midnight, even though it was pouring that night and I almost hadnt come.

Part of this delight was, of course, finally getting to meet new people, relax and talk at length over a tasty meal indoors in someone elses apartment. But a big part of it was the gossip.

Over the past 16 months of varying levels of quarantine, gossip has been one of the greatest losses. I talk to my friends about politics and religion and our hopes for the future and lighter stuff like TV or TikTok but gossip breeds a certain instant intimacy that is hard to achieve any other way.

I dont mean the kind of gossip that tabloids trade in; Ive never met Jennifer Aniston, so I dont really care if shes been sighted with Brad Pitt. I mean gossip about yourself, and the communities youre actually involved in.

Telling people about your own exploits and foibles requires trust and vulnerability, and it cements relationships. But with hardly anyone dating or going on adventures or seeing each other, it felt like our lives were frozen in time; there are only so many times I can talk about virus anxiety or cabin fever. My friendships sometimes felt like they were in stasis without a shared reality to bond over or personal drama to reveal and analyze.

The loss of gossip is not only isolating on an individual level it also severs ties to community. Gossip helps you better connect to and understand the contours of the communities youre part of, and establishes you as an insider. Without shared information about people, the knowledge that you are all part of the same scene and that you all impact each other, the bonds that hold a group together begin to wither. And it feels precarious to reenter the community blind, without any gossip by which to navigate the ways it has changed.

Gossip is generally decried in Jewish text all the top Google hits when I searched for Jewish gossip were admonishing the reader not to engage in lashon hara, or, literally, evil tongue.

But, gossip is rarely, well, all that gossipy, according to a 2019 study published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, which found that only 15% of gossip was negative. Instead, gossip tends to be neutral social information about acquaintances, such as how new parents are doing with their infant.

Researchers have also found that gossip serves to help people bond and function socially, and aids communities in keeping track of the well-being of its members. It teaches cultural norms of a community, making it tighter and helping to perpetuate tradition.

This is particularly true in Jewish settings, where the (in)famous game of Jewish geography is a symptom of the fact that our communities are deeply interconnected. Everyone knows everyone else, and news gets around fast making us feel tightly bound to one another. Its vital to know who is sleeping with whom, who is newly religious or had a falling out or got a new job, so you can better navigate your social surroundings and make sure not to invite someones new beau to a Shabbat meal with their ex.

Honestly, what is the Talmud if not a canonized version of gossipy tales about rabbis arguing and everyday Jews trying to figure out how to live their lives? In Berakhot 62a, theres even a story about a student watching his rabbi use the bathroom, in the interest of learning the correct minhag, or custom. In the next anecdote, the same student lies under his rabbis bed in order to witness him having sex with his wife ostensibly, for the purpose of learning Torah but also incidentally pretty much the best gossip Ive ever heard.

My Shabbat table was a perfect example of all of this. Several people having stories about having dated the same guy, for example, creates intimacy, teaches me the dating norms of the community and also tells me that said guy might be more complicated than hes worth, if the prospect of dating him happens to arise.

Even just one gossipy dinner made me feel like I was part of the community again, both trusted and in-the-know, connected even to those who were strangers at the start of the meal. Hopefully, at the next one, having lived a bit more in the interim, Ill have more of my own tea to spill.

Link:

Gossip is back and thats a good thing - Forward

LONDON A recent graduate of the Yeshivat Maharat Orthodox egalitarian rabbinical school in New York has been effectively banned from teaching at the London School of Jewish Studies (LSJS), whose president is UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis.

The disqualification of Dr. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz, who has won praise across religious denominations for pursuing her rabbinic studies, brings to the fore an ongoing controversy about Orthodox semicha, or rabbinical ordination, for women.

After learning this week that Taylor-Guthartzs research fellowship at LSJS was revoked and with it, her teaching role 30 rabbis and cantors, mainly women, from the Reform and Liberal movements wrote Mirvis to protest the decision.

Three hundred more people including a former president of the United Synagogue, the home of mainstream Orthodoxy, which is under Rabbi Mirviss aegis sponsored an advertisement in Londons Jewish Chronicle saying they were delighted to congratulate Rabba Dr. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz on her ordination, and commend her commitment to an intensive program of learning. Taylor-Guthartz and those like her would be role models for future generations, both women and men, it said.

The use of the title of rabba the feminine Hebrew form of rabbi appeared to be deliberate. Taylor-Guthartz, 61, who has taught at LJSJ for 16 years, informed the school of her rabbinical studies when she first enrolled at Yeshiva Maharat three years ago.

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Rabba Dr. Lindsey Taylor-Guthartz. (Alex Taibel)

She said that she embarked on the course to enhance my Torah knowledge and develop my learning further, so that I would develop higher skills and knowledge to teach at a higher level and provide needed leadership within the Orthodox Torah world in London, and the Jewish community in general. She said that she had never intended to seek a post as a communal rabbi.

She also offered to drop the title of rabba while performing her duties at LSJS.

Eve Sacks, one of the leaders of the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance (JOFA) in the UK, said she could not understand why the college did not accept this offer, or why the Office of the Chief Rabbi (OCR) had taken the stance it had.

Taylor-Guthartz met with Mirvis privately last week. The contents of the meeting remained confidential, but it is assumed that Mirvis reiterated his position that women rabbis would not be accepted in the mainstream Orthodox world.

Ordinations of women from Yeshivat Maharat are still largely not recognized in centrist Orthodoxy. Maharat is not the only body that gives semicha to Orthodox women: Israels Rabbi Daniel Sperber, Rabbi Herzl Hefter and Rabbi Daniel Landes are all notable cases of educators who have taken that next step.

The Chief Rabbi very much recognizes the strength of feeling about this issue as is evidenced by his postbag from right across the Jewish community, in the UK and abroad. While there is strong support for the mainstream Orthodox position on female rabbis, he recognizes that others are upset and disappointed, said a spokesman for the Office of the Chief Rabbi in a statement.

It was clear that a continued formal affiliation with a person who, while having contributed a great deal to the institution, had nonetheless stepped beyond the boundaries of mainstream Orthodoxy would have sent a misleading message about what LSJS stands for a message which would have compromised its longstanding commitment to Orthodox Jewish education and training, the consequences of which could have been significant and far-reaching for LSJS, the statement said.

UK Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis at the Presidents Residence in Jerusalem, January 23, 2020. (Raphael Ahren/TOI)

The spokesman said that despite the difficulty in making such a decision when good and talented people are involved, the chief rabbi was compelled to uphold the religious ethos of the school and its position within mainstream Orthodoxy, just as he does for all synagogues and organizations under his auspices.

Mirvis added that it was important to constantly explore the challenge of empowering Jewish women in their learning and religious engagement, and encouraging them to take up leadership roles in our community, in a way that is consistent with our teachings.

But critics of Mirvis told The Times of Israel that the decision to drop Taylor-Guthartz from the LSJS teaching roster sent a difficult message to young people in the community.

This anxiety and worry around how this appears means that people have lost access to a wonderful teacher, said one Orthodox woman who asked not to be named. LSJS, which is a bastion of Modern Orthodox teaching in the UK its teaching has been curtailed because of anxiety over what extremists might think. Look at the backlash that the chief rabbi got when he spoke out against bullying of LGBT teenagers. It would have been so easy for him to say, You cant use your title at the college, but carry on teaching.

Illustrative: Yeshivat Maharat students attend a graduation ceremony in New York, June 17, 2019. (Shulamit Seidler-Feller/Yeshivat Maharat via JTA)

In their letter to Mirvis, the Reform and Liberal cantors and rabbis said that despite LSJSs self-proclaimed principle of maximizing the participation of women as educational leaders, there is clearly still a glass ceiling of Torah, above which half your community may not ascend We see this decision as a blow to our wider UK Jewish community, and especially to recent notable, albeit incremental, progress in womens leadership and learning.

In the wake of the row, Middlesex University the British university which gives teacher training credits to LSJS is investigating its relationship with the college. A spokesman for Middlesex told Londons Jewish News that LSJS had maintained that they were bound by [the chief rabbis] guidance in the teaching of religious texts and rabbinic authority.

Taylor-Guthartz told The Times of Israel that an unlikely series of events brought her to the center of the current controversy. Her father is not Jewish and when her mother remarried when Taylor-Guthartz was 7, the family moved to Cornwall an area with one of the smallest Jewish populations in the UK.

We were totally assimilated, she said. I didnt know I was Jewish until I was 7.

I didnt know I was Jewish until I was 7

Taylor-Guthartz was sent to a Christian boarding school and became curious about Judaism during the Christmas holidays. She says she devoured the relevant articles in the Encyclopaedia Britannica at the local library and taught herself biblical Hebrew from a language book she found there.

When she went to Cambridge University to study archaeology and anthropology, the future rabba reconnected with the Jewish community. That was the first time, she said, that I had seen Jews who were not members of my family.

By degrees, Taylor-Guthartz began studying and observing Judaism. She began keeping the laws of Shabbat and kosher dietary laws in her second year of university and attended a Talmud class in her third year, taught by an ultra-Orthodox rabbi who didnt mind having a girl in the class.

Illustrative: Students at the Yeshivat Maharat liberal Orthodox seminary for women. (Chavie Lieber/Times of Israel)

Laughing, she confessed that I used to have half an hour of remedial Talmud before the class, just to stay with the rest of them. Just once, I asked the right question I was very proud of myself.

Today, Taylor-Guthartz counts it as an enormous advantage to have learned about Judaism from scratch, which enables her to recognize students who come from backgrounds similar to hers when she is teaching.

After moving to Israel at the age of 21, Taylor-Guthartz took a low-paying job at the Israel Antiquities Authority, supplementing her income by moonlighting as a copyeditor at The Jerusalem Post a few times a week. While there, she met her husband, with whom she shares two daughters. The couple remained in Israel for 17 years before returning to the UK in 1998. Taylor-Guthartz also worked at the Bible Lands Museum and as one of only four archaeological translators in Israel.

Taylor-Guthartz said her time in Israel provided her with fluent Hebrew skills a necessity for taking part in the Maharat course. She was, and continues to be, very impressed by the fluency of her Maharat student colleagues, and by the confidence of young women in the Modern Orthodox world, she said.

Her path to education began in the UK when Taylor-Guthartz was amazed to find herself being asked questions about Jewish practice. One woman in the United Synagogue wanted to know whether we were allowed to pray outside the synagogue, and are we allowed to pray in our own words, Taylor-Guthartz said. I was so shocked that she had no idea.

Taylor-Guthartz enrolled in a well-known program for the training of women educators, the Susi Bradfield scheme. She gradually began teaching, while still learning at the same time. Her doctorate, funded by LSJS, was about the religious lives of Orthodox Jewish women in the UK.

Former senior Reform Rabbi Laura Janner-Klausner. (Courtesy/ Graham Chweiden)

That might have been the end of her story had it not been for the tragic death of her friend and LSJS colleague Maureen Kendler in 2018. At the funeral, the then-senior rabbi of the Reform Movement, Laura Janner-Klausner, urged Taylor-Guthartz and other women present to undertake rabbinic ordination at Yeshivat Maharat in Kendlers honor. Taylor-Guthartz took that step.

After she lost her position at LSJS, she told The Times of Israel this week, I am so sad at this denial of the opportunity to take my teaching to new heights and to expand access to Torah learning for my beloved students at LSJS. I find it tragically ironic that, having spent three years studying halachah [Jewish law] I cannot share this knowledge in the institution that I have served for so long. The decision is regrettable, but I am determined to continue to teach Torah across the community to everyone who is eager to learn.

She said she has no regrets.

It has made me much better equipped, I feel I am a much better teacher, and I can help to fill the unfilled spaces, Taylor-Guthartz said. Women will benefit from having another woman with halachic knowledge to turn to. And what I am doing, and other British women on the Maharat course, will offer role models for Jewish women in the UK.

Read the rest here:

UK teacher dropped by Orthodox school after she receives rabbinical ordination - The Times of Israel