Category Archives: Talmud

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Dear Mr President, theres no apartheid in Israel - TimesLIVE

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

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

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

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

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

1. The Levites prepare for service in the Tabernacle.

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

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

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

5. The structure of the camp is described.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Watch: Society creates lots of arbitrary rules that we are compelled to follow: An empty ideal is portrayed, and the whole world has to run after it. Everyone faces social pressures, but who can overcome them?

Money can buy happiness.There is an ideal family size.Attracting is attractive.

Society creates lots of arbitrary rules that we are compelled to follow: An empty ideal is portrayed, and the whole world has to run after it. Everyone faces social pressures, but who can overcome them?

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Moshe Rabbeinu was given a glimpse of all future generations spanning across time. He was shown the great Sages of the Mishna, the Babylonian rabbis of the Talmud and Jewish leaders in the Diaspora. He was shown the self-sacrifice, and the persecution that his nation would endure for centuries. Among all these giants, one generation stood out to Moshe Rabbeinu.

When Moshe envisioned the final generation before the coming of Moshiach, the greatest Jewish leader was humbled. What was it that Moshe saw in our simple, struggling generation?

Our generation does not have the deepest understanding of spirituality. No, we may not reach the highest heights of Divine service.

Yet, the tremendous influences of modernity seeking to redefine everything we hold sacred, are unparalleled in our history. And despite these immense distractions, we withstand the pressure and forge on in our fulfillment of the Torah.

The level of effort invested is what counts. Our deeds are precious and powerful. With our small, yet significant choices that buck the tide, we will be the ones to reach the finish line.

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Are You Able to Buck the Tide? - Anash.org - Good News

Bob Dylan has never made it easy for the legions of fans, critics, scholars and journalists who analyze his music with almost Talmudic fervor. Famously unforthcoming in interviews, which are rare, the protean singer-songwriter and Nobel Prize winner has succeeded in keeping listeners guessing over the course of his nearly six-decade recording career.

Dylan, who turns 80 today, remains a mystifying figure in American popular culture, even as many of the songs from his 39 studio albums the most recent of which, Rough and Rowdy Ways, came out last year feel as relevant today as they did when they were first produced, including Masters of War, The Times They Are A-Changin, and Hurricane, among countless other hits.

Bob Dylan displayed the wit and wisdom of an 80-year-old man from the very first time we heard him at age 21 in 1962, Seth Rogovoy, the author of Bob Dylan: Prophet, Mystic, Poet, told Jewish Insider in a recent email exchange. The point is not so much age as it is timelessness.

Even obscure works from Dylans lesser-known albums manage, on occasion, to speak to the moment long after they have been released. Neighborhood Bully, from Dylans 1983 record Infidels, was released a year after the First Lebanon War and two years after an airstrike in which Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor outside Baghdad. But its themes have clear parallels with the recent conflict between Israel and Hamas. The song, a hard-driving rock number, never explicitly mentions Israel, yet it is widely interpreted as something of a Zionist anthem in the form of a biting satire lambasting those who would fault the Jewish state for defending itself in a hostile region.

The neighborhood bully just lives to survive

Hes criticized and condemned for being alive

Hes not supposed to fight back, hes supposed to have thick skin

Hes supposed to lay down and die when his door is kicked in

Hes the neighborhood bully

Its so right for this moment, with the whole discussion of Israel being totally hypocritical, argued Barry Shrage, a professor in the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University and the former president of the Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston.

For Barry Faulk, a professor of English at Florida State University who specializes in 20th century popular music, Neighborhood Bully speaks more broadly to what he regards as an aspect of Dylans political temperament that in some ways cuts against his reputation as a countercultural icon. It reminds me that Dylan has long worked outside, even against, the secular liberalism that was the core value of his early audience, Faulk told JI, describing the song as one of his favorites in Dylans extensive oeuvre.

True to form, however, Dylan has kept his distance from Neighborhood Bully, a controversial song that has garnered its fair share of criticism over the past few decades and is, somewhat mysteriously, unavailable on YouTube despite that other songs from Infidels can be accessed on the site.

Dylan has never performed the song live, according to Terry Ganss 2020 book Surviving in a Ruthless World: Bob Dylans Voyage to Infidels. The singer only seems to have discussed it once, in a 1984 interview with Rolling Stone in which he denied that the song was a Zionist political statement.

Youd have to point that out to me, you know, what line is in it that spells that out, Dylan told the journalist Kurt Loder, adding: Neighborhood Bully, to me, is not a political song, because if it were, it would fall into a certain political party. If youre talkin about it as an Israeli political song even if it is an Israeli political song in Israel alone, theres maybe 20 political parties. I dont know where that would fall, what party.

But when Loder asked if it would be fair to call that song a heartfelt statement of belief, Dylan seems to have let his guard down ever so slightly.

Maybe it is, yeah, he replied. But just because somebody feels a certain way, you cant come around and stick some political-party slogan on it. If you listen closely, it really could be about other things. Its simple and easy to define it, so you got it pegged, and you can deal with it in that certain kinda way. However, I wouldnt do that, cause I dont know what the politics of Israel is. I just dont know.

Despite his self-proclaimed ignorance of Israeli politics, Dylan has nevertheless maintained a connection with the Jewish state throughout his career. He has visited Israel a number of times and played a handful of shows there, most recently in 2011. In 1983, the year he put out Neighborhood Bully released in Hebrew by Ariel Zilber in 2012 Dylan celebrated his sons bar mitzvah at the Western Wall.

Still, on a personal as well as an artistic level, Dylan also seems to have demonstrated something of an ambivalent relationship with his own Judaism. Born Robert Zimmerman, Minnesotas Jewish son briefly flirted with born-again Christianity in the late 1970s and early 80s during which time he produced a trio of evangelical albums, the first of which Slow Train Coming, is regarded as a classic of the form.

He put poetry on the jukebox put the Bible on the jukebox! said Liz Thomson, a London-based author and Dylan expert.

But while Dylans music has always retained something of a Biblical subtext, he has rarely alluded to his Jewish roots, with the exception of some songs such as Highway 61 Revisited, All Along the Watchtower, With God on Our Side and the little-known novelty Talkin Hava Nagilah Blues.

For the most part he is not explicit about these themes, said Elliot Wolfson, a professor of Jewish Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, who contributed an essay on Dylans Jewish gnosis to a new collection, The World of Bob Dylan.

In many ways, that approach is in keeping with Dylans persistent effort to evade any kind of label, according to the music historian and critic Ted Gioia. For me, Dylan will always be the musician who didnt care about having a personal logo, or attaching his name to a running shoe, or launching a high-priced fashion line, he told JI. If you believe his songs, he expected us to have higher aspirations than that. Even now, Id like to think thats what he wants his legacy to be after hes gone.

Gayle Wald, a professor of English at The George Washington University, echoed that sentiment. From a certain perspective, she said of Dylan, hes not very satisfying because hes not intelligible, always, as a Jew.

One gets the sense, though, that Dylan wouldnt want it any other way.

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An exploration of Bob Dylan at 80 - Jewish Insider

Shavuot is the celebration of the revelation of the Torah. Since that moment when it was given to the Jewish people, matan torah, its words and letters including the spaces on the Torah scroll have been open to interpretation. When we think of commentaries that help us comprehend the multilayers and multidimensions of meaning in the Torah, we think of the rabbis of the Talmud and Midrash, not to mention Ibn Ezra, Rashi, Ramban, Sforno, Hirsch, Nechama Leibowitz, Shlomo Riskin, Aviva Zornberg and Jonathan Sacks, to name a few. While all are important, there are other forms of commentary that use the other side of the brain.The arts can also be a form of commentary.One way I teach is by taking a biblical scene and finding a number of paintings, sculptures, or drawings to see how different artists interpret the text through the artwork they produce. For example, there is one theory that Michelangelo painted the robe surrounding God in the Creation of Adam in the Sistine Chapel as a silhouette of the human brain. In this way, Michelangelo represents God as pure thought or reason. Lyrics in modern and contemporary songs can be another example of biblical commentary. Leonard Cohens You Want It Darker is a haunting and profound interpretation of the biblical word heneni (here I am).MOVIES, TOO, can be a form of commentary/interpretation. When it comes to the revelation of the Torah at Mount Sinai, we have Cecil B. DeMilles The Ten Commandments and Stephen Spielbergs The Prince of Egypt. The question both DeMille and Speilberg faced is who would do the voice of God, which in and of itself is a question of interpretation. DeMille shot some of the movie at the mountain of Santa Caterina in the Sinai Desert in 1955, a year before the Sinai War. At the monastery at the base of the mountain after a day of filming Gods revelation at the Burning Bush, Charlton Heston (who played Moses), DeMille and the abbot of the monastery had dinner together. Heston remembers:

Mr. DeMille, I said. When we were filming that today, I was trying to imagine Gods voice. (We were to record that back in the studio.) Surely I hear Him inside my own head, my own heart. I think it should be my voice, too. The abbot sipped his wine and nodded thoughtfully. DeMille smiled. Well have to think about that. You already have a pretty good part, you know. Its possible, though. It might work. Some months later, thats the way we did it. I never really heard God on the mountain. But I found Moses there.

Hestons insight about the voice of God and Moses is also found in the Talmud! The question is raised over the sentence, As Moses spoke God answered him in a voice (Exodus 19:19) describing the encounter between Moses and God on Mt. Sinai. In Brachot 45a we read:

As it is stated: Moses spoke, and God responded in a voice (Exodus 19:19). This verse requires further consideration, as there is no need for the verse to state in a voice since we know that God spoke in a voice so the phrase in a voice adds nothing. Rather, to what purpose did the verse state in a voice ? In Moses voice. That is to say, since voice meaning the voice of God is redundant it must be teaching something else. In this case God spoke in the voice of Moses so Moses could better understand.

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As with all great communicators, God speaks in the language of those with whom they are speaking to so they can be better understood. George Bernard Shaw said, The single biggest problem in communication is the illusion that it has taken place. That is to say, just because words have been exchanged is no guarantee that the speaker will be fully understood by the person they are speaking to. Both the speaker and the listener make assumptions about the meaning of the words exchanged; when those assumptions dont line up, misunderstandings easily develop. This is even more so when it comes to God communicating with humans. A midrash makes the point that at Mt. Sinai, God fine-tuned His messaging by speaking in countless voices so Gods commandments could be comprehended by all the Children of Israel:

Come and see how the voice would go out among all of Israel each and every one according to their capacity: the elders according to their capacity; the young men according to their capacity; the infants according to their capacity; the sucklings according to their capacity; the women according to their capacity; and even Moshe according to his capacity. (Shemot Rabbah 5:9)

RELATED, SPIELBERGS original idea was for the voice of God to be represented by a myriad of voices according to Val Kilmer, who, in the end, did the voices for both Moses and God. Kilmer recounts it was a wonderful idea, but it didnt work dramatically. It sounded unpleasant. So they came back to the very solid theological idea that God comes to you in a voice that you can hear or comprehend. So they asked me to go back and record the voice of God. Kilmer adds, Its not exactly the voice of Moses, but its a familiar sound to him. I loved that idea.

The revelation at Mount Sinai of the Torah remains a mystery as to what exactly happened and what exactly was heard. Still: at the end of the day, we are fortunate in that we can have before us a handwritten Torah scroll and/or a chumash, the printed version of the Five Books of Moses, as well as a table full of commentaries. Rabbi Louis Finkelstein taught, When I pray, I speak to God, when I study, God speaks to me.

That is a conversation worth engaging in and listening to.

The writer is rabbi emeritus of the Israel Congregation, Manchester Center, Vermont, and a faculty member of the Arava Institute for Environmental Studies and Bennington College.

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Shavuot: The voice of God in the revelation on Sinai - The Jerusalem Post

In Israel, you can truly feel the unique combination represented by the Shavuot holiday. We commemorate the revelation at Sinai, while at the same time celebrating a harvest festival, oscillating between the heights of heaven and the soil of the Land of Israel. We cast our gaze heavenward in seeking to connect with Torah, while at the same time connecting with the earth beneath our feet, and its bounty.

The festival of the giving of the Torah (Matan Torateinu) demands that we prepare ourselves, that we spend the night immersed in learning, that we internalize that the Torah will only continue to exist if it is embraced again and again and on the condition that we prove ourselves worthy of it. And to be worthy of receiving the Torah we need to strive to improve ourselves, on both the personal and communal levels. Yes, we can quote biblical verses and claim that the Torah justifies our actions, but all too often the result is mere hypocrisy (naval birshut HaTorah). If we truly want to embrace the Torah bestowed to our ancestors, we need to work, and work hard. If we aspire to connect with heaven, Shavuot teaches us that the pathway to heaven passes through this world.

In Vayikra Rabbah (Midrash on Leviticus) we learn: Therefore, when you enter the Land of Israel, occupy yourselves first and foremost with planting meaning that entering the land does not call for a mass prayer rally, but rather for agricultural activity.

More than two millennia later, Zionism speaks to us of the connections between a person and the land, between individuals and their destinies, and between fellow human beings. Therefore, by listening to the land we can also learn how to be more attentive to others. Connecting to the land means not just planting a tree and then moving on to something really important, but rather appreciating that a deed that begins in the soil can lead up to heaven.

There are those who believe that revelation was entirely a celestial event, detached from the vanities of this world. They would say (Babylonian Talmud, Berakhot 35b): When Israel performs Gods will, their work is performed by others. I am not referring to those who spend all day long studying in yeshivot, but rather to those who focus solely on their own beliefs, their own Torah and only as they understand it thus completely blinding themselves to the world around them.

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We must also take note of Jerusalem Day, which we have just celebrated. God said, I shall not enter the Heavenly Jerusalem until I enter the earthly Jerusalem... Jerusalem rebuilt, a city unified. (Babylonian Talmud, Taanit 5a) Perhaps, if we think about the connections between the heavenly Jerusalem and the earthly Jerusalem, we will succeed in becoming a better society. Better than a society that speaks of Jerusalem as a city unified, from East to West and from North to South. The danger of embracing a Torah that is detached from reality is not only in ignoring those around you, but also in acting neglectfully, and even cruelly toward them.

Rabbi Yoav Ende is executive director of the Hannaton Center for Leadership.

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Shavuot - Celebrating the giving of the Torah and the harvest festival - The Jerusalem Post

I am reading a striking book called Send in the Idiots: Stories from the Other Side of Autism. It is written by a remarkable man, Kamram Nazeer, who was born to Pakistani parents, raised in New York City and now lives in London. Diagnosed with autism, Nazeer went to one of the very earliest programs that attempted to provide an appropriate education for special needs children. Many years later, as an adult, he decided to visit some of his former classmates to see what had become of them and how they had adapted to life.

The first former classmate adapted to the challenge of conversing by speaking through the use of puppets. The man created a variety of puppets, and when he has specific things to say he utilizes a different puppet. His rules are that the puppet is speaking, not him, and you have to address the puppet, not him.

For autistic individuals, conversation is not something one can just assume but is a skill requiring deep and persistent work. Because of this, Nazeer spends several pages thinking about what it means to be in conversation. And his insights are relevant because the work that we Jews do is participating in and maintaining an ancient and vibrant conversation with the Holy One, with the generations, with Torah.

Nazeer observes, first of all, that conversation is a form of performance. Conversations cannot flourish when one party sets out to win or destroy the other participant. To enter into conversation means to invite the other person to join with you and can only continue when both parties are participating, when they both are engaged.

Nazeer noticed that conversations are not about conclusions. Most conversations that he overheard between neurotypical people never had a real conclusion; they just moved from subject to subject, dancing around. As I read that description, I thought, How similar to the Talmud!

The Talmud contains approximately 5,000 conversations/makhlokot. Only about 50 are concluded because the action is not in the answer; the action is in the exchange, in the questioning, in the probing, in the exploration. In understanding why someone might see a matter differently than the way we see it, we explore the origins of our perspective while continuing to perceive it the way we do. The great Jewish philosopher Shlomo ibn Gabirol, in his beautiful work Mivhar Ha-Penimim, writes, Wisdom about which there is no discussion is like a hidden treasure from which nothing is extracted. Wisdom is made visible by sharing it with others, by bringing it to the light of day and then by batting it around. It is through conversing with others that we bring wisdom into the world, and it becomes something we can own and with which we can live.

It is through conversing with others that we bring wisdom into the world.

Nazeer reflects that conversations are not linear. He writes, Though conversation may well bring out matters of this sort, it shouldnt be directed at a conclusion, and it shouldnt, too formally, be about something. It should circle, it should break up, it should recommence at an entirely different point. This is certainly an accurate description of Jewish sacred literature. Our sacred writings routinely circle around, suddenly break up and begin yet again when we least expect it.

Because we never know when a topic will reappear, we never know when a subject will begin, so we need to pay attention at each stage of the conversation. At any moment someone could reveal something you need; someone may introduce a subject of vital importance in the middle of an apparently unrelated topic.

The Talmud notes, Even the secular conversations of the Sages require study. Precisely because there is deep insight clothed even in trivial conversation, and because we dont have access to an objective place to stand, we can only know through our own knowing; we can only converse from where we are. A judge has nothing to see with save their own eyes.

Perhaps most important of all, conversation should be fun. You have to relish the opportunity to bring something into the world or to bring something out of your fellow human being. In that exchange, there is deep joy: the invitation to connect to each other, the invitation to connect to our heritage, the invitation to connect to God. As the Pirkei Avot tells us, When two persons meet and exchange words of Torah, the Shekhinah hovers over them.

But the process can only be fun if you treat your conversing partner with full respect and with unfeigned affection. There must be civility in our conversations with each other; otherwise, they will shut down. There is a tradition that in the Messianic future, we will paskin, we will adjudicate, not according to the Bavli, the Babylonian Talmud, but according to the Yerushalmi. Why is that? In Massekhet Sanhedrin we are taught, The word gracious is applied to the Sages of the Land of Israel because they are always gracious to one another in their discussions of Halakhah, their discussions of Jewish Law. Its not that the sages of Israel are smarter than those of Bavel; it is not necessarily that they have arrived at a greater truth. But their graciousness to each other makes them fitting role models for us in the Messianic times yet to come.

And that insight leads me then to my last point. Conversations are almost never about the truth. Truth pertains to very finite and concrete matters: How much money do you or do you not have in your checking account? Did you or did you not eat your healthy food prior to dessert? But most of the areas in which we work building community, healing hearts, saving souls, loving our brothers and sisters are neither true nor false. They are enriching, they are meaningful, they are empowering, and they are healing.

The Sefer ha-Hinnukh,speaking about the Hakhel, the Biblically-ordained periodic gathering of the entire Jewish people, says, It will soon come to pass that among the men, women, and children, some will raise the question, why are we gathered here, all together in this huge assembly? And the reply will be To listen to the words of the Torah which are the essence of our existence, our glory and our pride. The ensuing discussion will lead to an appreciation of our Torah, its greatness and supreme value, which in turn will arouse great longing for it. With this attitude they will study and attain a more intimate knowledge of God. Thus, they will merit the good life, and God will rejoice in their works.

Conversation is not used to verify information. Conversation is used to build community. It establishes the capacity to understand a viewpoint not our own and see the humanity of those who walk in the world differently than we do.

I love the fact that in a room full of mourners, what is required is not accurate information but shared discussion. The Talmud tells us that a group of ancient Jews responded to the destruction with extreme mourning and rigid restrictions of any pleasurable food or drink. Rabbi Joshua taught them a crucial lesson: Children come and listen to me. Not to mourn at all is impossible because the blow has fallen. To mourn overmuch is also impossible, because we do not impose upon the community a hardship which the majority cannot endure. Therefore, the Sages have ruled: You may stucco your house, but you should leave a corner bare.

Rabbi Joshua does not prove his point with logic; he enters into a relationship. He invites the others to step with him into another way of understanding the world and how to live in it.

The contemporary philosopher Jrgen Habermas affirms what I believe is an ancient and Jewish insight when he notes, In his capacity as a participant in argumentation, everyone is on his own and yet embedded in a communication context. To Habermas, an idea community of communication entails The individuals inalienable right to say yes or no and his overcoming of his egocentric viewpoint.

The right to say yes or no and the ability to transcend ones own limited viewpoint is the basis upon which we build relationships, establish community and live in Covenant. This is what it means to expand our vision, to see the views of another, to see through the eyes of the Holy One.

After all, God created the world through conversation, calling the world into being. God reached out yet again to our ancestors Abraham and Sarah, inviting them to a conversation. Again, at the height of Mount Sinai, God called the entire Jewish people to a conversation that yet abides, a conversation that involves the give and the take of Mattan Torah and Kabbalat Torah. And our predecessors the Sages of Israel and its prophets, its mystics and its monarchs have harvested an ever new Torah through ongoing conversation, a respectful yet vigorous exchange of ideas.

We too, are given the holy privilege of joining that conversation, of adding our voices to those words and inviting our people some now waiting on the margins, some now excluded, some now binding their wounds to reclaim their birthright, to rejoin the ancient, sacred conversation that is Torah.

My blessing to all of us is that we should always be worthy participants in this conversation, so that we hold in conversation the Sages and the prophets who have come before us and we hold in our hearts and our minds those with whom we speak and teach and those yet to come. I bless us that our conversations should be vessels for Gods love and light to enter the world, that in our speech and in our deeds, we should invite others to walk on that path of righteousness that has guided us across the millennia.

Rabbi Dr Bradley Shavit Artson (www.bradartson.com) holds the Abner and Roslyn Goldstine Deans Chair of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies and is Vice President of American Jewish University in Los Angeles. He is also dean of the Zacharias Frankel College in Potsdam, Germany, ordaining Conservative rabbis for Europe. He is a contributing writer to the Journal.

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On Giving and Receiving Torah: An Invitation to Conversation - Jewish Journal

Dinner Celebrating Massive New Talmud Torah Building Leaves Gerer Chassidim Inspired

In recent years, Talmud Torah Imrei Emes dChasidei Gur has invested incredible effort in acquiring an enormous new building to house the yeshivaan endeavor that has finally come to fruition. This building is now undergoing the final stages of the renovation, and the talmidim are set to move in shortly.

To celebrate this momentous occasion, a dinner was held on Sunday eveningbringing together hundreds of Gerer chassidim who drank in the celebratory, and spiritually-charged atmosphere.

Representing the Gerer Rebbe shlita at this historic event were his special emissaries; his son Rav Shloime Tzvi Alter, shlita, and his son in law, Rav Shimon Rothstein, shlita, who made the rounds to bring chizuk and warmth from Yerushalayim throughout their visit this past week, and in particular elevating the dinner through their presence, and by representing the Rebbe, shlita.

In his letter addressing this event, which was read aloud by his son Rav Shloime Tzvi, the Gerer Rebbe wrote with effusiveness and praise of those who have participated to bring this dream to realityas well as heartfelt words of guidance in chinuch of the children .

In addition to emotional, inspiring addresses throughout the evening by various rabbonim and mechanchim within the chassidus, the evening featured numerous presentations that were particularly poignant.

As we have noted, the chassidus in America has lost a precious gem to the Miron tragedy, a product of the Gerer mosdos in Boro Park, Pinchos Menachem Knoblovitz, zl, who was beloved by all those who knew him. The siyum upon the recently completed maseches Taanis by the hachanah lyeshiva (8th grade aged boys) was dedicated to his memoryafter which his father recited kaddish.

This event is just the latest in the glorious history of the Gerer chassidus rebuilding from the ashes of the Holocaust. WWII nearly wiped out the entire movement, which boasted tens of thousands of chassidim at the outbreak of the war. But with incredible mesirus nefesh, the Imrei Emes and his sons rebuilt the world of Ger that we see today.

Thus, a number of poignant audio-visual presentations took the participants on a journey through the years; from the years following the Churban, with just a handful of people, to various groundbreaking events of buildings in Eretz Yisroel and in Americaone beautiful chain of a thriving world of Torah, avodah, and chassidusthe latest link of which was celebrated in a fitting manner, in the presence of hundreds of Gerer chassidim who were filled with pride and holy joy.

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Harav Shloime Tzvi Alter, Son Of Gerer Rebbe ShlitA, And Harav Shimon Rothstein, Son In Law Of Gerer Rebbe, During A Visit To America On Behalf Of The...