Category Archives: Talmud

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After learning this week that Taylor-Guthartzs research fellowship at LSJS was revoked and with it, her teaching role 30 rabbis and cantors, mainly women, from the Reform and Liberal movements wrote Mirvis to protest the decision.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

Get The Times of Israel's Daily Edition by email and never miss our top storiesFree Sign Up

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

Yisrael Beytenu leader and Finance Minister Avigdor Liberman wrote on Twitter Thursday morning that the resolution was the result of joint efforts byDefense Minister Benny Gantzand himself, which will do justice to the families [of the victims] and prevent the next such disaster in the State of Israel.

On April 30, some 45 mostly ultra-Orthodox men and boys died in a mass crush on Mount Meron, the site of the tomb of Talmudic sage Shimon Bar Yohai, where tens of thousands of pilgrims had gathered for the annual Lag BaOmer celebrations.

The site suffers from deficient and unsuitable infrastructure, with past government, police and media reports having determined that it must be overhauled to avoid a disaster.

The last government refused to appoint an independent state committee of inquiry, headed by a Supreme Court judge .

Ultra-Orthodox Parties Shas and United Torah Judaism proposed the establishment of a public committee of inquiry instead, which would have been controlled by government ministers and whose members would have been chosen by them.

When Gantz submitted his proposal to the cabinet earlier this week, he described the need for a state committee as a basic ethical imperative vis--vis the families, and in order to prevent tragedies of this nature in the future.

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

The resolution is almost certain to be approved.

The Forum of Families of Meron Victims welcomed Gantzs submission of the resolution back on Monday.

As we have demanded from the outset, and together with MK Moshe Gafni, in his letter a month ago on behalf of the United Torah Judaism faction, we hope that an investigative committee into the Meron disaster will be established immediately, said the forum in a statement to the press.

This is not a political matter; we expect the entire political spectrum to support the establishment of an inquiry committee so that the ultra-Orthodox community will sense that the investigation is carried out with sensitivity and with determination, it said.

Read more:

Meron tragedy: Cabinet to vote on Sunday to approve investigation - The Jerusalem Post

New York mayoral candidate Andrew Yang recently made waves when he declared that the city shouldnt interfere with Orthodox Jewish schools as long as the outcomes are good. Yangs position is very different from the one that some activist groups have pushed in recent years. Critics claim that many such yeshivas do not offer enough secular education to satisfy New Yorks requirements and to prepare their students for the workforce.

But Yang got this right. Even if some Jewish schools do not teach the same content as public schools, if, as Yang put it, their outcomes are good, the city should let them be.

First, the criticisms of New Yorks yeshivas are empirically unsound. Reports of minimal secular education across New Yorks Yeshivas confuse the exceptions for the rule. Over 170,000 students attend hundreds of Orthodox Jewish Schools in New York. Most of these schools offer a robust secular studies curriculum. Even the few Hasidic schools that dont still provide an intellectually rigorous education; they simply prioritize religious studies over secular equivalents.

As Yangwho is famously data-drivencertainly realizes, no data support the view that outcomes are poor for students in Hasidic schools. While data about Hasidic economic and educational outcomes are limited, the information available does not suggest that Hasidim are particularly disadvantaged economically. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, average household incomes in Williamsburg and Borough Park in Brooklyn (home to many of New York Citys Hasidim) are 9th and 29th highest out of 50 districts city-wide. So too, its not clear that Hasidic students who are largely English Language Learners (ELL) since their first language is usually Yiddish would fare any better in public schools. For example, 8th grade ELL students in the Williamsburg public schools (where many Hasidim live) had a zero percent proficiency rate in math and English in 2016, according to the citys own data.

Most importantly, the criticisms misstate both the law and the philosophical problems that underlie it. American law balances a real tension between two competing values: parents right to educate their children as they see fit and the states right to ensure a reasonable education for all children. As far back as 1925, the Supreme Court in Pierce v. Society of Sisters recognized the unique role that parents play in their childrens education. In 1972, the Supreme Courts ruling in Wisconsin v. Yoder made clear that when mandatory education laws would destroy a viable religious community, the state must back off to allow the community to function, even at the expense of the model of education that the state prefers.

New York codifies this balance using the phrase substantial equivalence. Private school education must be substantially equivalent to but not necessarily identical with public school education. (See New York State Cracks Down on Religious Schools, Fall 2019.)

For over a century, this New York standard lay dormant. In 2018, the state responded to complaints about some Hasidic yeshivas in New York by redefining equivalence to mean that private schools must offer a wide range of specific subjects for specific periods of time each day. Many private schools objected, and a trial court rejected this approach as administratively over-broad. Had the regulations stood, they would have transformed private school education in the state by requiring private schools to reproduce public education, rather than fulfilling their own unique missions.

Resolving this legal problem requires thinking through some fundamental questions. Why should the state regulate education? To produce law-abiding citizens? To teach students how to think? To ensure their personal happiness? To train them for sustainable jobs?

By the most important of these metrics what Yang calls good outcomes Hasidic schools pass with flying colors. They offer a deep and rich education that emphasizes text comprehension and analytic thinking, even if the context for these skills is very different from that found in public schools. They produce graduates who live in stable communities: Hasidic populations report low levels of violent crime, and a high degree of family and social cohesion.

Hasidic culture is different, even strange, to many Americans. But that does not make Hasidic life any less valuable and productive. It is parochial to assume that the only life of value is one that aims for the Ivy League.

No one cultural or educational model is right or wrong. Use of education law to mandate schooling that conflicts with religious faith is exactly what our constitutional system opposes. And for good reason: forcing parents into an educational model that they religiously oppose is unlikely to succeed. Private schools subsidize public education since parents pay taxes towards the schools, but do not send their children to them (to the tune of $7 billion a year in New York City, since NYC spends $28,000 per student in public school and 256,000 NYC students go to private schools). We should use some of those savings to help Hasidic yeshivas improve in ways that match the values of society at large without undermining religious values they hold dear.

In an environment of increasing antisemitism, and after two years of near daily physical and verbal attacks on Hasidic Jews, does it make sense to single out this communitys schools alone for special condemnation, particularly when the citys public schools are often doing no better a job?

In a multicultural society, we must all make room for each other and for our diverse values. While most Americans will attend public schools, private schools (particularly parochial schools), exist to provide other kinds of education in Mandarin or Yiddish, focusing on Native American culture or Talmudic law, providing an Amish or Catholic view of the world.

Rather than mandating conformity, New York should support reasonable educational rubrics ones that are consistent with each religious communitys values, and that, as Yang suggests, produce good outcomes. Carrots from government, rather than sticks, need to be used to achieve those goals.

Michael J. Broyde is a professor of law at Emory University and the Berman Projects Director at its Center for the Study of Law and Religion. Moshe Krakowski is an associate professor and director of the masters programs at the Azrieli Graduate School of Jewish Education and Administration at Yeshiva University.

Follow this link:

Andrew Yang Is Right. There Should be Very Little Regulation of Hasidic Education - EducationNext

This weeks Torah reading contains an exceptionally puzzling passage. We are told about the complaints of the Jews, who are thirsty and worried. Moshe and Aharon are told by God totake the rod and assemble the community, and before their very eyes order the rock to yield its water. Moshe hits the rock twice, and it gives forth a copious amount of water.

Immediately after this miracle, God says to Moshe: Because you have not believed in Me, to sanctify Me in the eyes of the children of Israel, therefore you will not bring this assembly into the land which I have given them.

What did Moshe do wrong? This passage challenges every interpreter. Don Isaac Abravanel mentions eleven interpretations of this passage. And there are yet more. One opinion he cites says perhaps Moshe didnt sin at all, and the Torah is blaming Moshe for the sins of the people. A clear explanation remains elusive.

Rashi offers one of the stranger explanations. He says Moshes sin was hitting the rock after he had been specifically commanded to speak to the rock. Rashi says: For had you spoken to the rock and it had given forth [water], I would have been sanctified in the eyes of the congregation. They would have said, If this rock, which neither speaks nor hears, and does not require sustenance, fulfills the word of the Omnipresent, how much more should we!

Rashis explanation seems more puzzling than the passage itself! The Ramban points out that God had asked Moshe to carry his stick to the rock; wouldnt that imply he was supposed to hit the rock? In addition, considering that the rock is an inanimate object, what difference does it make if he speaks to the rock or hits it?

When you consider the wider context, Rashis explanation is even more perplexing. In a prior section of the Torah (Exodus 17:5-6), Moshe is commanded to produce water for the congregation by hitting a rock. Why would this time be different?

Perhaps the best way to read Rashi is to see this as an allegory on leadership. Moshes audience is not the rock; it is the people. Whether he hits the rock or speaks to it tells us everything about how he will lead the people.

Leaders use different tools to influence their followers, and those methods run on a continuum from coercion to persuasion. Warm words are used to persuade, while a swinging stick is used to coerce. A leader must adjust his methods according to the audience: for certain audiences one needs to carry a big stick, and for others, it is critical to speak softly.

A leader must adjust his methods according to the audience: for certain audiences one needs to carry a big stick, and for others, it is critical to speak softly.

In Moshes early career, he had to be a leader who carried a big stick. When Moshe initially refuses to lead, he says it is because he is not a man of words. The Midrash (Shemot Rabbah 3:14) explains that God responds to Moshe that he doesnt need to speak. In dealing with a dictator like Pharaoh, a man accustomed to the master-slave view of politics, all Moshe needs is a big stick. Pharaoh is not open to persuasion and will only respond to brute force.

Even Moshes leadership of the Jews after leaving Egypt is based on brute force. As former slaves, they respond best to strength and coercion. Similarly, at Mount Sinai, the Talmud says the Jews accept the Torah under duress (Shabbat 88a).

In this context, we can understand why in the Book of Exodus, during the first year in the desert, Moshe is commanded to hit the rock. Moshe must lead a reluctant assembly of former slaves, a people who only know how to respond to coercion; leadership for them requires a powerful show of force.

But the event at Mei Merivah takes place in the 40th year. This is a new generation, born free in the desert. They too must follow; but this is not the time for coercion. Here, a new generation must be convinced to be self-reliant and strong, and that can only be accomplished with persuasion and education.

Rashi incisively leads us to the core of the Mei Merivah issue. In the 40th year in the desert, big stick leadership will diminish the second generations ability to hear Gods voice.

Moshes sin is nearly imperceptible from the text, because it is unique to his situation. As a leader overseeing generational change, he was expected to understand that some generations require the big stick, while others require soft words. And because Moshe cannot pivot to the leadership of speaking softly, another leader must bring the second generation into Eretz Yisrael.

Moshes sin is nearly imperceptible from the text, because it is unique to his situation.

For the last 200 years, Orthodox Jewry has been trying its best to adapt to a new reality. In the medieval era, certain judicial rights were granted to the leadership of the community, and Jewish leadership within the ghetto could certainly pressure and coerce their members into observance. But after the Emancipation gave political rights to the Jews in Western Europe, the ghetto walls came tumbling down, and the position of Orthodoxy diminished.

Many recognized that political rights would change the religious landscape. As Napoleon was marching toward Russia, the rabbis of Russia debated whether they should pray for him to defeat the hated czar, Alexander I. Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Rebbe of Chabad, said that he was praying for the czar to be victorious. He explained that he had seen a vision of the future on Rosh Hashanah, and was shown that if Bonaparte is victorious, the wealth of the Jewish people will be increased and the dignity of Israel will be restored. The hearts of Israel, however, will become more distant from their father in heaven. It would be difficult to lead the Jews into a new world and persuade them to follow in the ways of their ancestors.

Generations later, all Jews would be liberated, and grow more distant from heaven. But the Seventh Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who passed away 27 years ago this week, was one who understood better than anyone how to adapt the message of Torah to the modern world; and he did so brilliantly, using down-to-earth lessons from baseball and profound insights from physics. He understood that a new vocabulary needed to be used, and that every Jew needed to learn how to reach out to others. Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, in his biography of the Rebbe, begins with a chapter entitled A Rebbe for the New World, a description that recognizes how difficult it is to teach ancient wisdom to a very different generation of Jews. And the Rebbe recognized his mission encompassed all of humanity.

In one of the more powerful stories in the book, Telushkin tells of advice the Rebbe gave to Shirley Chisolm, the newly elected congresswoman from his district. As Telushkin explains, Chisholm was the first black woman elected to Congress. [she] lacked the power to stop senior and influential southern democratic congressmen, many of whom in those days were racists, from assigning her to the agriculture committee, an intentionally absurd appointment for a representative from Brooklyn. Chisholm, who wanted to work on education and labor issues, was both frustrated and furious. She soon received a phone call from the office of one of her constituents: The Lubavitcher Rebbe would like to meet with you. Chisholm came to 770. The Rebbe said: I know youre very upset. Chisholm acknowledged being upset and insulted. What should I do? The Rebbe said: What a blessing God has given you. This country has so much surplus food, and there are so many hungry people and you can use this gift that Gods given you to feed hungry people. Find a creative way to do it.

And so she did. Together with farming state sponsors, Chisholm would introduce the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), which would feed millions of people.

This is just one example of how the Rebbes persuasive leadership would be transformative for Jews and non-Jews alike. Remarkably, a new generation in the new world could still follow a Rebbe, because they were ready for a different kind of leadership.

Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz is the Senior Rabbi of Congregation Kehilath Jeshurun in New York.

View original post here:

Moshe's Leadership, the Rebbe, and the Dilemma of the Modern Jew - Jewish Journal

For over a decade Stephen Tobolowsky has been sharing stories. Have you heard the one about his Talmud collection?

The 70-year-old actor, known for his turns as a folksy insurance salesman in Groundhog Day and a hapless tech sociopath in Silicon Valley, has written two books, hosts a podcast and is now debuting an audio play chronicling his friendship with a Holocaust survivor and his own journey of grief. Produced by LA Theatre Works, its called A Good Day at Auschwitz, and is in fact unsparing when it comes to the many, many bad days. The show is just one part of a late onset spiritual development in a life whose arc he likens to the Five Books of Moses. In explaining it, he started with his own origins, or Genesis.

Photo by David Carlson

Stephen Tobolowsky

Tobolowsky grew up in the Oak Cliff neighborhood of Dallas. His grandfather was one of the founders of the citys Orthodox Congregation Tiferit Israel. But his religious observance didnt match that pedigree.

We werent even really Reform, Tobolowsky tells me from his home in Los Angeles. There were members of the Nazi party I mean the people who paid the dues, who took Stormtrooper magazine, who had a bust of Adolf Hitler in their den and German flags. There were more people like that in my community than there were Jews.

His parents were very wary of antisemitism, and so they kept a low profile when it came to outward shows of faith. When Tobolowsky moved to LA, he promised his mother hed go to shul. It wasnt until the 90s when he really made good on the promise what he calls a Leviticus moment of midcourse direction, urged on by fellow actor Larry Miller. Tobolowsky started learning from a rabbi operating out of a house in Studio City, studying the Torah scrolls letters on the bimah on days when there wasnt a minyan.

In 2007, catastrophe struck. Tobolowskys mother died and saying Kaddish became his daily ritual at Adat Ari El in North Hollywood. One morning an 80-something-year-old guy shuffled up to him. He guessed Tobolowsky was there for his mother just from the way he said Kaddish. That encounter grew to a years-long friendship between Tobolowsky and the man, Abe Sarna, who survived three years in Auschwitz and regularly plied Tobolowsky with early morning shots of Canadian Club and stories. The stories were often bawdy, sometimes chilling with their insight into human cruelty and surprising in their demonstrations of kindness in the midst of wholesale murder.

Photo by Stephen Tobolowsky

Abe Sarna was a regular at morning minyan and a killer card player who loved schnapps.

A Good Day at Auschwitz, which had a previous life on two episodes of Tobolowskys podcast and chapters in his 2017 book on faith, Adventures with God, follows Sarnas remembrances of the death camp and his youth in a small town in Poland. But while Sarnas life is remarkable and hes wonderfully rendered by veteran actor Alan Mandell casual fans of Tobolowsky might be struck by just how Jewish the play is. In it, the actor-writer, who portrays himself, unpacks the meaning of the word tzedakah and cites Barry Holtz of the Jewish Theological Seminary. When he came on my Zoom screen it all clicked.

Framed by huge, voiceover-grade headphones and a tad obscured by the windscreen of his microphone (a high mediocre audio setup), Tobolowsky was also backed by books. Dark-spined books that I suspected, and later confirmed, were books of Talmud and Midrash and chumashim. He started reading Talmud around 2008, after falling off a horse in a strong gust of wind near an active volcano in Iceland, causing what was referred to, quite ludicrously, by a doctor as a fatal injury, a neck broken in five places.

With his trademark zeal, propelled by gasps over the wonder of the box of jewels that is his heritage, he pulled out a volume of the Commentators Bible (the Readers Digest of Wisdom). Right now he loves an exegesis of Nachmanides on the first word in Exodus.

Its mind boggling, the inner stories of stories, Tobolowsky said, but you know, you wouldnt know it without a scorecard.

At times, it was hard to keep up with Tobolowskys own stories. Hed circle back and wonder how he got from point A to B, but seemed very excited to be picking up a Jewish theme. He loved telling me about his recently wrapped film, Stay@Home, a comedy by director and pop punk idol L.E. Staiman, who is Orthodox. Tobolowsky marveled at how the devout production staff started smoking doobies around lunchtime and kept a rare Shabbat-observant set.

That story of shomer production and kosher weed quickly careened into one in which Tobolowsky spoke of pulling a reverse Sandy Koufax, working on Yom Kippur to finish a complicated season finale of the rebooted One Day at a Time, a beloved sitcom that was regularly under threat of being cancelled. When he decided to come in to shoot, Norman Lear hugged him and they traded tales of Yom Kippurs past.

With Sarna, Tobolowsky was in the position of chronicler, taking notes as his drinking and poker buddy held forth about his the ghetto, the judenrat, the bastards who killed because they could and the unexpected love he found in the camp. For once Tobolowsky wasnt the biggest character in the room. In fact, for a time in their acquaintance he couldnt even speak due to a vocal cord injury that required surgery.

He loved it when I couldnt talk, Tobolowsky said. Then he had the full stage.

Photo by Ann Hearn Tobolowsky

Alan Mandell and Stephen Tobolowskyat the first (pre-pandemic) reading forA Good Day at Auschwitz.

Tobolowsky, referring to the Five Book-structure of our lives, locates Abes experience in the Book of Numbers, with love and loss. But in sharing it with the world, hes doing the work of Deuteronomy, sharing the story with the next generation and an act of remembrance.

While recording the play had its challenges he and Mandell werent even in the same room for audio considerations, not COVID ones collecting memories from Sarna was easy. Yet the ending only came to Tobolowsky after Sarna passed away in 2010.

During one of their first lunches together, Abe told a story about a tallis two men found in the woods and each argued over who should keep it based on who gave more money to the shul or who studied more Torah. He asked Tobolowsky if he knew who got it, not knowing it himself.

Over a year later, Tobolowsky would learn that Sarna first heard this story in cheder the day the Nazis invaded. His teacher rushed out and they never finished the lesson.

One day Tobolowksy found this exact story in the Talmud. He had his answer and his ending. And all of it came out of chance.

It is amazing, he said. And accidental! If it hadnt been for catastrophe, it wouldnt have happened.

More:

Stephen Tobolowsky has a Talmud story to tell you - Forward

Last week, the GOP may have filibustered the future of American democracy. Senate Republicans used this parliamentary tactic to prevent the creation of an independent commission to investigate the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection. When the vote fell short of 60 the threshold needed to pass the measure the Democratic senator from West Virginia, Joe Manchin, told reporters he was very, very disappointed, very frustrated that politics has trumped literally and figuratively the good of the country.

But the vote did not trump Manchins adamant opposition to eliminating the practice of the filibuster. Im not willing to destroy our government, he declared in the same briefing with reporters. Q.E.D. Even extra-terrestrials now know that as Manchin goes, so goes the filibusters fate: In the evenly split Senate, this conservative Democrats vote is, in effect, the only vote that counts.

Inevitably, Manchins stance has caused lots of teeth gnashing among most anyone who cares about our nations fate. Unfortunately, it has caused little reflection over the legitimacy of Manchins reasons. A thought experiment might help. What if we were to imagine ourselves not in a nation hurtling towards disaster but instead on a trolley car hurtling towards a group of rail workers? Or, for that matter, standing between a group of people and an arrow hurtling towards them?

Thanks to the recent television series The Good Place, which managed to make viewers both chuckle over and chew on serious philosophical questions, trolleyology has become something of a thing. The term refers to an ethical dilemma posed by the philosopher Philippa Foot a half-century ago: You are standing near a track-changing lever when you see a runaway trolley car barreling towards five rail workers. By pulling the lever, you can divert the trolley to another track. But wait there, too, is a rail worker.

What do you do?

With great concision, Foot thus staged the clash between the consequential and deontological schools of moral philosophy. The former, which often goes by the name of utilitarianism, seeks the greatest good or happiness for the greatest number of people. The latter, on the other hand, insists that certain laws or rules must never be broken, even if this means the greatest number will get snookered or have their lives snuffed out.

Foot was the first to propose trolleys, but not the first to pose the moral dilemma. Stretching back as far as antiquity, various biblical passages, from Leviticus to Samuel, riff on the problem. More recently, the 20th century Talmudic scholar Avrohom Yeshaya Karelitz, known by the same name as his principal work, the Hazon Ish, explored the dilemma. In a work that predates Foots article, Hazon Ish offered the arrow dilemma, where a bystander sees an arrow speeding towards a large group of people. He can deflect it from its course only by redirecting it towards a smaller group.

While the arrow, unless shot by Hawkeye, could not pierce more than one bystander, we nevertheless find ourselves in the same spot as with the trolley: left with only bad choices. What strikes me as crucial is that both halakhic commentaries and philosophical arguments tend to come down squarely on both sides of the question. Take the Hazon Ish, who recognizes the power of the consequential claim We have to try to reduce the loss of Jewish life as much as possible while acknowledging the deontological primacy of the biblical command not to kill. At the end of the day, there is no endpoint to his commentary. It cuts both ways.

Similarly, moral philosophers have debated the trolley problem, along with its many fiendish variations, for the past half-century without reaching an endpoint. In fact, it has meant more than one philosopher reaching for their gun. When David Edmonds, author of Would You Kill the Fat Man: The Trolley Problem and What Your Answer Tells Us About Right and Wrong, approached one famous ethicist with the problem, the latter growled: Sorry, I just dont do trolleys.

When it comes to the future of American democracy, though, we have no choice but to do trolleys or arrows. This applies to both consequentialists and deontologists. The first camp, which dominates the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, is eager to divert the careening trolley away from the many towards the single worker or, in this case, single rule. If the filibuster stands between efforts to repair the climate, strengthen voting rights and broaden Obamacare, it stands to reason to run it over. As New York Times columnist Ezra Klein notes, the fate of the filibuster looms over every other decision facing the Biden Administration.

Yet the deontologists those who insist on the sanctity of this institutional commandment are no less categorical. Their warning, in effect, is Thou shall not nuke this rule. It is, argues USA Today columnist James Robbins, the last vestige of doing the peoples business that was rooted in the norm of compromise. Once it is kaput, so too will be our political system.

At the end of the day, night always follows. But the difficulties posed by the darkness depend on how well we prepare for it. In the case of the filibuster, as in the case of the trolley, there is no single and right answer. It may well be that our democratic future balances on how closely we attend to and acknowledge the legitimacy of one anothers arguments.

Robert Zaretsky teaches at the University of Houston. His latest book is The Subversive Simone Weil: A Life in Five Ideas. He is a contributing culture columnist at the Forward.

See the original post here:

Joe Manchins filibuster-sized Talmudic trolley problem and ours - Forward

A bronze amulet engraved with the name of God and a magical symbol that protects you from demons and curses. Malicious eyesWas handed over to authorities after being excavated in the north Israel 40 years ago.

The amulets that were once worn on necklaces are believed to date back about 1,500 years. Byzantine era, According to the Israeli Antiquities Agency (IAA). At that time, the area was governed by the Byzantine Empire. The Byzantine Empire was also called the Byzantine Empire after Byzantium. This was the name of the city at the time (by that time Byzantium was renamed Constantinople and is now Istanbul).

The amulets are engraved with Greek letters, which spell out the name of the Jewish god IAW , in the English alphabet Yahweh.

Archaeologists have discovered a bronze amulet about 3 inches (8 cm) long and 1.5 inches (4 cm) wide near the ancient Jewish synagogue in Abel, just west of the Sea of Galilee. According to IAA archaeologist Eitan Klein, the location and inscription suggest that the amulet may have been worn by Jews, despite its religious origin.

Relation: 30 of the worlds most precious treasures that are still missing

Scholars generally identify wearers of such amulets as Christians and Gnostics, but the fact that amulets were found in Jewish settlements, including synagogues, in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. Is [A.D.] Even the Jews of the time may have shown that they wore this type of amulet to protect themselves from the evil eye and the devil. Said in a statement..

This type of amulet was relatively common in the Galilee region at the time and in what is now Lebanon. They are sometimes known as a form of Solomons Mark named after the legendary King of Israel. On one side, a horse riding a sprinting horse is depicted, its head surrounded by a halo, and a spear piercing the figure of a woman lying on her back. The Greek inscription on the jockeys head says the only god to conquer evil, and the Greek letter IAW is engraved under the horses legs.

On the other side, an arrow-pierced eye and a bifurcated object are drawn. The eyes appear to be threatened by the appearance of two lions, one snake underneath, one scorpion, and one bird, above which the Greek letter meaning the only god The abbreviation is engraved.

Amulets may have been produced in the area to protect themselves from the magical curse known as the devil and the evil eye. This belief was retained in the ancient world at least until the 6th century BC. According to this belief, some sorcerers can level the curse with a malicious gaze, although the recipient may suffer injuries or misfortunes.

The rider is depicted as overcoming evil spirits. In this case, [Greek] The mythical figure Gello or Gillow, who threatens women and children and is associated with the evil eye, said Klein. The back eye is being attacked and defeated by various means. Identifiable. Therefore, the guard may have been used to protect the body from the evil eye, perhaps to protect women and children.

This amulet was discovered in the ancient Jewish settlement of Alber about 40 years ago by a founding member of nearby Moshav, a type of community farming community founded by Israeli pioneers in the 1920s.

The family of the discoverer, who is now dead, recently handed over the amulet to the Israeli Antiquities Department, and Klein advised people with similar treasures to do the same.

This amulet is believed to date back to the end of the Talmud era in Jewish history, formalizing traditional Jewish theology and law into a collection of works known as the Talmud. Klein said the Alber synagogue is often mentioned in historical sources from the Talmud era. There was a linen manufacturing industry, where many Jewish sages visited and taught.

Initially published in Live Science.

The ancient magical amulet used to repel the evil eye was rediscovered 40 years later.

Source link The ancient magical amulet used to repel the evil eye was rediscovered 40 years later.

Here is the original post:

The ancient magical amulet used to repel the evil eye was rediscovered 40 years later. - Eminetra

The famed French writer Alexander Dumas, author of such classics as The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo, tells what happened when, as a child, he lost his father:I remained thoughtful for a while. Though such a child, and unable to reason, I understood nonetheless that something final had happened in my life I reached the small rooms where arms were kept; I took down a single-barreled gun which belonged to my father, and which had often been promised to me when I grew up. Then, armed with the gun, I went upstairs. On the first floor I saw my mother. She was coming out of the death chamber; she was in tears. Where are you going? she asked Im going to the sky dont stop me. And what are you going to do in the sky, my poor child? Im going to kill God, who killed father.The impulse to punish God for the sufferings of human beings is an ancient one. After the dispiriting report of the spies, the Israelites contemplate stoning Aaron and Moses out of fury (Numbers 14:10). The verse continues, When the glory of the Lord appeared in the Tent of Meeting. In the Talmud (Sotah 35a) Rabbi Hiyya bar Abba says, This teaches that they took stones and threw them at the sky as if to throw them at God.

cnxps.cmd.push(function () { cnxps({ playerId: '36af7c51-0caf-4741-9824-2c941fc6c17b' }).render('4c4d856e0e6f4e3d808bbc1715e132f6'); });

Read more from the original source:

Parashat Shelah: Fighting the impulse to blame God - The Jerusalem Post

Are we able to defeat giants? The Torah tells us that the inhabitants of Eretz Yisrael were yelidei hoanak, remnants of a race of giants. When the meraglim returned with their report, they announced: The people that dwell in the land are fierce, and the cities are fortified and very great. Moreover, we saw the children of giants there (Bamidbar 13:28). The parsha also makes reference to the anshei middot, men of great stature, and the nefillim, primeval giants (Bamidbar 13:32-33).

The Torah wants to impress upon us that it was not bigness which was required to conquer and hold the Holy Land but greatness. The spies used the wrong measuring rod of bigness, and that was their tragic and fatal error. However, G-d desires greatness, not bigness.

This idea of bigness versus greatness is expressed in many places in Tanach. Yitzchak referred to Eisav as bno hagadol [his big son] (Bereishit 27:2). The Talmud comments, G-d said to Yitzchak, By your standards Eisav may be big; but by My standards Eisav is a dwarf among dwarves (Bereishit Rabba 65:11).

In the 16th Chapter of Shmuel I, we are given a beautiful description of the Biblical concept of greatness, in contrast to the popular concept of bigness. The prophet Shmuel is sent to Bethlehem to select a successor to Shaul HaMelech for the kingship. One by one, Shmuel looks upon the sons of Yishai and thinks that this one or that one is the anointed one of G-d, but G-d says to him: Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his stature for it is not as a person sees; for a person looks on the outward superficial appearance, but G-d looks into the heart of a human being (Shmuel I 16:7).

And so it is little David, though short in stature, who is selected, not by the standard of bigness, but by the measuring rod of greatness.

Bigness is measured from the chin down, but greatness is measured from the chin up. A person may be the biggest and tallest player in the NBA and still be a mental midget. The greatness of a people is no more determined by their number than the greatness of a person is determined by his height. This is certainly true in the case of Israel. As the Torah says: For you are a Holy People to your G-d G-d did not choose and desire you because you were more in number than any people, for you are the fewest of all nations (Devarim 7:6-7).

We were selected because of greatness, because we are an am kadosh (a holy people), and not for our size and numbers. When we are counted, it is from the chin up: Ki tisa et rosh bnei Yisrael (when you raise up the head of Israel) (Shemot 30:11). The Torah also says Naso et rosh (when you lift up the head) (Bamidbar 4:22).

Judaism is a religion which does not stress bigness. For bigness, a key word in our society today, is very often bought at the expense and pain of others. However, true greatness is attained by developing the best talents within ourselves.

That is why the am kadosh never had to fear the bnei anak, the giants. For ultimately our spiritual greatness will triumph over the giants mere bigness.

Thus, the end of the parsha of the spies deals with the mitzvah of tzitzit. Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik, ztl, explains that the blue techelet of tzitzit is a symbol that all events in life are as profound and mysterious as the deep blue sky. The Talmud in Menachot states that the blue techelet of tzitzit reminds us to look up at the blue heavens and admire the incredible, vast expanse of endless space, leading to its Source, the Ein Sof of G-d.

As Tehillim 19:2 states, The Heavens tell the glory of G-ds greatness. By admiring and appreciating G-ds greatness and goodness, we can achieve our own greatness and goodness as well.

Read the original:

Were The Spies Justified In Fearing The Giants? - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

On Route 59 in Monsey, New York, an Orthodox Jewish enclave in upstate New York, there is a large billboard that says in big block letters: Dovid Wasserman. Give your wife a get!

A get is a document Orthodox Jewish men give their wives as the couple is divorcing; it seals the divorce according to religious law, meaning that the husband decides if and when the divorce is final. Without it, the woman cannot move on with her life.

The billboard is meant to embarrass Dovid Wasserman, who for more than seven years has refused to give his wife, Nechama Wasserman, this document. If she doesnt receive it, she is considered an agunah, a chained woman, because she remains chained to her former marriage.

Shes now trying a new tactic: public humiliation.

Aside from the billboard, two rallies have been held on her behalf, one in March in front of the home of Dovid Wassermans mother, Rivka, where Dovid is now living, and another in April in front of the private girls school in Airmont, at which she teaches.

In a 2019 interview with the podcast Halacha Headlines, Nechama Wasserman said: Its mind-boggling, and its hard for people to understand. Hes not asking for anything. Hes not asking for money. Hes not saying that Im taking his money. He simply wants me to come back. Thats what he tells people. That its all a mistake and Im going to come back.

About 10% of US Jews identify as Orthodox, and their divorce rate is only about 10%. While divorce is not considered a sin, it is socially frowned upon. Some would even call it a tragedy, particularly because in Judaism the home is the center of life.

The Talmud states that when a couple divorces, the altar that was in the Temple in Jerusalem, cries for them, said Rabbi Meir Goldberg of the Meor Rutgers Jewish Xperience, a Jewish educational organization at Rutgers University.

Nechamas saga is not the only one being publicly aired. In the last two months, nearly a dozen Orthodox women have taken their cases public by using the online version of a billboard: social media.

Women in this community are posting about the plights of various agunot and their recalcitrant husbands on Instagram, Facebook, WhatsApp and on Jewish media websites, to shine a light on these so-called get-refusers. The hope is that if the husbands arent sensitive to public pressure, maybe their families will be.

In the beginning, the siblings may think, ah, my brothers crazy, or Im not getting involved, or its too political. But all of a sudden, when their names are publicized everywhere, and its not just their brother but about them, things get a lot more intense, said a woman involved in the publicity campaign who preferred anonymity because she feared speaking out publicly might jeopardize Wassermans get.

The movement, as some are calling it, began last March when Dalia Oziel, an Instagram influencer and singer in the Orthodox community, began posting about a woman called Chava Herman Sharabani, who married her husband, Naftali Eyal Sharabani in 2006, but they divorced in 2010 in civil court. Since then, he has refused to give her a get and will not appear before a beth din, or Jewish court.

Using the hashtag Free Chava, Oziel posted a video montage of Chava and her two daughters, now 12 and 14, as theyve grown up, underscoring how much time has passed that Chava has been waiting to be released from her marriage.

The posts were shared by some of Oziels 34,500 followers as well as other Instagram influencers, pinging on computers from Monsey down to Boca Raton, Florida, and as far west as Los Angeles.

Oziel also helped Chava Sharabani, a third-grade teacher, launch a GoFundMe-type campaign called the Chesed fund with the hope of raising $40,000. At last count, they had raised $86,766.

There are people who work within this space who are saying theyre seeing a trend among men who would otherwise be the perfect villains for get withholding, and that theyre scared because they know that right now, theres such an intolerance for it, said Adina Miles-Sash, known on Instagram as Flatbush Girl. They dont want to be the next face all over social media.

Miles-Sash has been using her 52,300 followers on Instagram to plead Nechama Wassermans case, as well as the plight of a handful of other women.

She likened this moment to a meteor hitting the earth. While Miles-Sash has championed feminist causes for years, most of the other influencers now involved in this campaign have not. In fact, they typically toe the Orthodox female line. One uses Instagram to sell lipsticks that stay for the entirety of shabbat. Another sells wigs. A third sells cozy blankets. But when they decided to come forward on this issue, they made sure their husbands and rabbis approved of everything they said, and they didnt make statements they couldnt support. That has lent legitimacy and credibility to the movement, Miles-Sash said.

They offered an angle: that you can be observant, and you can be maternal and nurturing and a mother, and your domain could be the home and maybe a job, but that you can also stand alongside other women and advocate for their rights, she said.

This measured approach spawned a large grassroots campaign among women who would otherwise be hesitant to get involved, said Avital Chizhik-Goldschmidt, a journalist in Manhattan who is a member of the Orthodox Jewish community.

Thats one of the main factors that has shifted, Goldschmidt said. These women arent known for taking on the rabbinate. Theyre not known for taking on political issues. Theyre known for posting pictures of the dinners they make or the cute hats theyre wearing, and suddenly theyre going into this. Thats the shift.

Theres no shortage of agunot causes to take on. Keshet Starr, executive director for the Organization for the Resolution of Agunot (ORA), says at any one time she has about 75 cases. While women can also hold up a divorce by refusing to accept a get thats given to them, 95% of ORAs cases involve men withholding them.

Withholding the get is a way for a husband to maintain control. It is a way of manipulating Jewish law in order to retain power and control over your partner, Starr said. In the vast majority of the cases we work on, there is a prior history of pretty extensive domestic abuse. This is rarely the first abusive thing theyve done.

When people first hear about this issue, they think, well why doesnt the woman just walk away? Starr adds. After all, if shes already divorced in secular court, theres nothing stopping her from legally remarrying.

But leaving a religious community is a bigger deal than people think: its giving up your entire way of looking at the world, your systems of meaning, your social and professional networks, your family relationships. Its an enormous cost. For someone to be faced with the options of either having this untenable situation or walking away from my community, those are pretty terrible options.

Some men have used the get process to get a leg up in the divorce proceedings, whether its asking for money outright or negotiating a smaller child support payment, said Rabbi Efram Goldberg of the Boca Raton Synagogue.

There are men who will say, Ill tell you what. I will give the get. I want half a million dollars, Efram said. Theyll use it to extort or exploit the negotiations, which is terribly unjust.

He said hes dealing with a case right now involving a couple from Boca Raton, who married in 2009, separated in 2018 and were civilly divorced early last year, but the husband, Aaron Silberberg, has not given his wife, Devorah Silberberg, a get, because he is apparently dissatisfied with the divorce terms hammered out in court.

As far as the secular court is concerned, the custody and financial arrangements have all been concluded, with a final judgment. They are entirely divorced. Theres absolutely no justification for his not giving the get, Goldberg said. The best that we can do is to apply public pressure on him to do whats right.

And thats just what they did, a few weeks ago in Lakewood, New Jersey, when about two dozen people protested outside the home of his parents, and in Boca Raton, where people chanted over and over again, Aaron Silberberg, unchain your wife!

Aaron Silberberg disputes the notion that his divorce has not yet been finalized, in either a secular court, where he says an appeal is still pending, or in a Jewish court, known as a Beth Din.

There are some women who are agunot, and everything is finalized and theres nothing more. Perhaps giving a get in that situation would make sense, he said. In my situation, she still has to come to Beth Din. If she doesnt come, how are we supposed to help her?

Women arent the only ones victimized in the divorce process, said Rabbi Goldberg. While there are undoubtedly men who have abused their power, Goldberg said, there are women who have used the children as leverage, threatening to withhold visitation if they dont obtain the financial or custody arrangements they seek in the divorce negotiations.

He said he has several friends in that situation and has heard of men withholding a get because theyre afraid if they hand it over, they wont ever see their children.

Thats sometimes the instigator for why men act the way they do, Goldberg said. Theres bad players on both sides.

He notes that outside the home, men seem to hold the power in the relationship, but inside the home, women run the show.

While that may be the case, men in an Orthodox marriage, by virtue of the fact that they get to hand over a get or not hold the divorce power. In Israel, men who withhold gets can be jailed, their drivers license or medical license can be taken away. In America, where there is a constitutional separation between church and state, secular courts cannot meddle in a religious agreement.

Secular courts can, however, enforce contracts like pre-nuptial agreements, and thats why some in the Orthodox community have been pushing for pre-nups for years. A typical pre-nup mandates that in case of divorce, the husband will provide the wife with a get, and if he doesnt, he could be forced to pay thousands of dollars a month a financial penalty that a secular court could enforce.

In the Modern Orthodox community, this is routine. And rabbis wont do your wedding unless you sign one of these, said Michael Broyde, a law professor at Emory University School of Law.

Issues involving the get arose as far back as talmudic times 1,500 years ago, when the husband might go off into the forest and not come home, and the wife was stuck because the husband wasnt there to give her a get. In the 1850s, rabbinical courts began functioning as regulators of marriage, so when the parties fought about their divorce, the rabbinical court settled it. And men didnt withhold gets because the rabbinical courts had the power and authority to make sure that didnt happen, Broyde said.

But once Jews moved to places where there was a separation of church and state and religion became more of a voluntary arrangement, rabbinical courts lost their teeth, he said. Putting a financial penalty into a contract that is signed at a Jewish wedding puts teeth back into the process.

The metaphor I use is: theyre not a cure but theyre a vaccine, he said.

So why dont all Orthodox Jews sign them?

Why do people get polio? Why do people get smallpox? he asked. Because there are people out there who resist taking their vaccines.

Read more from the original source:

Unchain your wife: the Orthodox women shining a light on get refusal - The Guardian