Category Archives: Talmud

Rabbi Avremel Caroline delivered a powerful invocation at last Thursdays Village of Key Biscayne Mayoral Debate presented by Islander News and the Key Biscayne Chamber of Commerce, featuring candidates Fausto Gmez, Katie Petros and Joe Rasco.

The message was well received and even cited by some of the candidates. Here is a reprint of Rabbi Carolines invocation:

We have come together this evening, ultimately for the purpose of strengthening our community. Our shared vision is for a community where we all, together, live healthy, prosperous, and meaningful lives in a safe and beautiful environment. This is something we all have in common.

During a time of transition, especially a transition in leadership as our community is preparing for the upcoming mayoral election, it is especially important to remind ourselves of our shared vision and interests. While there will always be different views on how to achieve that vision and in which order to prioritize those interests, it is appropriate for us to emphasize and appreciate our shared commitment to our community and to each other.

It is for this purpose that we are invited to take a moment before the exchange of perspectives and opinions begins, and to share a moment of prayer and reflection, to call forth the very best version of ourselves, and to do so together.

The Talmud, in the section called Pirkei Avot, has a passage where it describes four qualities - wisdom, strength, wealth, and honor, giving a new insight and deeper definition to each of them.

First, ,

Who is truly wise? One who learns from every person

Wisdom is not knowing a lot; it is knowing how to listen and learn from others. It is not having the best opinions but having the skills and the humility to hear somebody else's.

Second, ,

Who is truly mighty? One who controls their own impulses.

While strength and power are often associated with controlling others, the strongest people are those who have true control over themselves

Third, ,

Who is truly wealthy? One who is happy with their portion.

Gratitude makes someone far richer than any amount of possessions ever will, or even can.

Finally, ,

Who is truly honored? One who honors others.

Putting others down can be a quick way to be acknowledged, but to be truly respected means to earn peoples trust, and that can only be accomplished by truly respecting others (even ones adversaries), by lifting others up, and by speaking positively about everyone.

With this in mind, please join me in prayer to the Almighty God, that our community be blessed to live in true harmony, to celebrate our differences and the wholesome community they create.

May we be blessed with the wisdom to learn from every person and appreciate their unique qualities, experiences, and points of view.

May we be blessed with the strength to face and overcome our own weaknesses and shortcomings.

May we be blessed with the wealth of being grateful and appreciating the countless blessings we experience every day.

And may we be blessed with the honor of honoring others, with enough confidence in our own message that we can respect someone else's message, and with the honor and trust that this brings.

And may our community be blessed to achieve our shared vision of building a beautiful community where we live together in peace, harmony, and friendship.

And let us say, Amen.

You can watch a replay of Rabbi Caroline's invocation by clicking here.

To reach Rabbi Caroline or the Chabad of Key Biscayne, visit chabadkeyb.com or email info@chabadkeyb.com. You may also call (305) 365-6744.

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Rabbi's Caroline's invocation kicking off the Mayoral debate - Islander News.com

Republican candidates from Arizona to Pennsylvania ought to worry. On Tuesday, voters in Kansas rejected efforts to gut a womans right to choose. In 2020, Donald Trump trounced Joe Biden there 56-42. Two years later, an anti-choice referendum went down in defeat 59-41. Suburban moms and dads had thundered; turnout soared. The supreme courts wholesale attack on Roe backfired.

The competing opinions authored by Justices Alito, Thomas and Kavanaugh may gift the Democrats a two-seat gain in the Senate, and doom Republican pick-ups of governorships in Michigan and Pennsylvania. Grasp more than you can hold, and you will be left with nothing, the Talmud says. On primary day, the high courts decision in Dobbs seems to have energized plenty of otherwise loyal Republicans. By the numbers, 65% of Americans believe the constitution enshrines a right of privacy even as they hold doubts about abortion.

Trump-endorsed Senate hopefuls JD Vance (Ohio), Mehmet Oz (Pennsylvania), Herschel Walker (Georgia) and Blake Masters (Arizona) must now answer for the Republicans war on autonomy. Vance also wants to ban pornography as he gives a greenlight to guns and embraces Marjorie Taylor Greene. He claims smut harms fertility rates.

A recent Fox News poll shows Democrats with double-digit leads in Pennsylvanias Senate and governors races. Doug Mastriano, the Keystone states Republican gubernatorial candidate, came under recent fire for his embrace of Christian nationalism and ties with antisemitic figures. And Dr Oz is Dr Oz.

Tudor Dixon, the Trump-backed winner of Tuesdays Michigan Republican gubernatorial primary, believes that a 14-year-old raped by a relative should be forced to carry her pregnancy to term. Yeah, perfect example, she told an interviewer.

Her remarks now are a centerpiece of incumbent Democrat Gretchen Whitmers re-election efforts. Dixon opposes exceptions to an abortion ban in cases of rape and incest. She trailed Whitmer by 11 points in a July poll.

The Michigan Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative may also appear on the fall ballot. Once upon a time opponents of Roe claimed the ruling was wrong because it was anti-democratic.

Adding fuel to this Great Lakes dumpster fire, Matt DePerno, Michigans prospective Republican attorney general, openly mused about restricting accessibility to contraception. At a Republican debate, he questioned the validity of Griswold, the pertinent 1965 supreme court ruling. For good measure, DePerno previously spearheaded efforts to undo Bidens 150,000-vote win in Michigan.

Tuesdays contests were also about the 45th president exacting revenge and promoting the big lie that he was defrauded of victory.

To be sure, not all Republicans were buying what the former guy was selling. But he had greater success than Kansass pro-lifers. Trumpism remains very much alive.

In the state of Washington, incumbents Jaime Herrera Beutler and Dan Newhouse stand on the verge of rebuffing primary bids by Trump-endorsed challengers. Both Representatives Herrera Beutler and Newhouse voted to impeach the ex-reality show host over his role in the January 6 insurrection.

On the other hand, Michigans Representative Peter Meijer, who voted for Trumps impeachment, lost to John Gibbs, a Trump-backed challenger. Gibbs had received a boost from congressional Democrats, as part of an audacious strategic move to empower Republicans they think will lose in the general elections. Meijer, a supermarket chain scion, lost by four points.

With the rightwing Gibbs as the Republican nominee, the Democrats may actually pick up a House seat. Had Meijer emerged with the Republican nod, he would have been favored. All this raises the question of whether Democratic talk about putting the country ahead of party is partisan blather.

Elsewhere, Trump claimed the head of Republican Rusty Bowers, the outgoing speaker of the Arizona senate. He had opposed efforts to overturn the 2020 election, and appeared before the January 6 select committee.

Days after Bowers testified, Trump declared: Bowers must be defeated, and highly respected David Farnsworth is the man to do it.

Farnsworth believes that Satan stole the 2020 election. Really.

This is a real conspiracy headed up by the devil himself, he explained at a debate.

Along with Farnsworth, Mark Finchem, a diehard election denier and conspiracy theorist, notched the Arizona Republican nomination for secretary of state. He too had Trumps blessing.

As for the states Republican primary for governor, Kari Lake holds a two-point lead with more than 80% of precincts reporting. Like Finchem and Farnsworth, Lake garnered a Trump endorsement and rejects Bidens legitimacy as president. Whether she actually wins the primary and can prevail against Democrat Katie Hobbs, the current secretary of state, remains to be seen.

With Kansass resounding no vote, Democrats have good reason to make abortion a major issue for the midterms. Of course, as Republicans learned on Tuesday, it is all too easy to go off the deep-end.

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Tuesdays primaries offered a glint of hope for Democrats this fall - The Guardian

Rabbi Jack Shlachter

Los Alamos Jewish Center News:

Over the course of two recent consecutive Monday evenings, the Los Alamos Jewish Center hosted an adult education mini-series entitled Jewish Perspectives on Termination of Pregnancy.

The presenter, Rabbi Jack Shlachter, shared relevant Jewish source text passages with the in-person and Zoom audience.

Rabbi Jack, who returned to Los Alamos this spring following a few years in New York, explained that the Jewish perspectives are heavily nuanced; some situations require that a pregnancy be terminated, others permit termination, and yet others prohibit abortion.

This complex, contemporary topic can be informed by examining the Jewish sources; attendees at the Jewish Center were able to see the two full cartons of books assembled for the talks.

Texts providing insight into Jewish perspectives on abortion include materials from all three parts of the Jewish Bible; from ancient expansions on those biblical passages; from the Talmudic literature and sections from a medieval Jewish code of law; from the Jewish mystical tradition; and from questions and answers posed to rabbis on contemporary issues that may not be directly addressed in the ancient texts, such as use of electricity or airplane travel.

One such question-and-answer, composed in the Kovno ghetto during the Nazi occupation, is about abortion. The Nazis had ordered that pregnant Jewish women in this Lithuanian ghetto would be immediately executed, and rabbinical ruling was that in order to save the womans life, a pregnant woman was permitted to have an abortion.

Future adult education programs at the Los Alamos Jewish Center will address other contemporary topics such as gun control, and separation of church (synagogue) and state, using Jewish texts as primary resources.

Los Alamos Jewish Center offers Shabbat and Jewish holiday services, community Shabbat dinners, childrens religious/Hebrew school, adult learning, and holiday and social events.

For more information, visit http://www.lajc.org, email losalamosjewishcenter@gmail.comor call 505.662.2140.

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Jewish Perspectives On Termination Of Pregnancy - Los Alamos Daily Post

At the beginning of the book of Devarim, Moses reviews the history of the Israelites experience in the wilderness, starting with the appointment of leaders throughout the people, heads of thousands, hundreds, fifties, and tens. He continues:

And I charged your judges at that time, Hear the disputes between your people and judge fairly, whether the case is between two Israelites or between an Israelite and a foreigner residing among you. Do not show partiality in judging; hear both small and great alike. Do not be afraid of anyone, for judgment belongs to G-d. Bring me any case too hard for you, and I will hear it. (Deut. 1:16-17)

Thus, at the outset of the book in which he summarized the entire history of Israel and its destiny as a holy people, he already gave priority to the administration of justice: something he would memorably summarize in a later chapter (Deut. 16:20) in the words, Justice, justice, shall you pursue. The words for justice, tzedek and mishpat, are repeated, recurring themes of the book. The root tz-d-k appears 18 times in Devarim; the root sh-f-t, 48 times.

Justice has seemed, throughout the generations, to lie at the beating heart of Jewish faith. Albert Einstein memorably spoke of Judaisms pursuit of knowledge for its own sake, an almost fanatical love of justice, and the desire for personal independence these are the features of the Jewish tradition which make me thank my lucky stars that I belong to it. In the course of a television program I made for the BBC, I asked Hazel Cosgrove, the first woman to be appointed as a judge in Scotland and an active member of the Edinburgh Jewish community, what had led her to choose law as a career, she replied as if it was self-evident, Because Judaism teaches: Justice, justice shall you pursue.

One of the most famous Jewish lawyers of our time, Alan Dershowitz, wrote a book about Abraham, whom he sees as the first Jewish lawyer, the patriarch of the legal profession: a defense lawyer for the damned who is willing to risk everything, even the wrath of G-d, in defense of his clients, the founder not just of monotheism but of a long line of Jewish lawyers. Dershowitz gives a vivid description of Abrahams prayer on behalf of the people of Sodom Shall the Judge of all the earth not do justice? (Gen. 18:25) as a courtroom drama, with Abraham acting as lawyer for the citizens of the town, and G-d, as it were, as the accused. This was the forerunner of a great many such episodes in Torah and Tanach, in which the prophets argued the cause of justice with G-d and with the people. (See Abraham: The Worlds First (But Certainly Not the Last) Jewish Lawyer, 2015, by Dershowitz.)

In modern times, Jews reached prominence as judges in America among them Brandeis, Cardozo and Felix Frankfurter. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was the first Jewish woman to be appointed to the Supreme Court. In Britain between 1996 and 2008, two of Britains three Lord Chief Justices were Jewish: Peter Taylor and Harry Woolf. In Germany in the early 1930s, though Jews were 0.7 percent of the population, they represented 16.6 percent of lawyers and judges.

One feature of Tanach is noteworthy in this context. Throughout the Hebrew Bible some of the most intense encounters between the prophets and G-d are represented as courtroom dramas. Sometimes, as in the case of Moses, Jeremiah, and Habakkuk, the plaintiff is humanity or the Jewish people. In the case of Job it is an individual who has suffered unfairly. The accused is G-d Himself. The story is told by Elie Wiesel of how a case was brought against G-d by the Jewish prisoners in a concentration camp during the Holocaust. At other times, it is G-d who brings a case against Bnei Yisrael.

The word the Hebrew Bible uses for these unique dialogues between heaven and earth is riv, which means a lawsuit, and it derives from the idea that at the heart of the relationship between G-d and humanity both in general, and specifically in relation to the Jewish people is covenant, that is, a binding agreement, a mutual pledge, based on obedience to G-ds law on the part of humans, and on G-ds promise of loyalty and love on the part of Heaven. Thus, either side can, as it were, bring the other to court on grounds of failure to fulfill their undertakings.

Three features mark Judaism as a distinctive faith. First is the radical idea that when G-d reveals Himself to humans He does so in the form of law. In the ancient world, G-d was power. In Judaism, G-d is order, and order presupposes law. In the natural world of cause and effect, order takes the form of scientific law. But in the human world, where we have free will, order takes the form of moral law. Hence the name of the Mosaic books: Torah, which means direction, guidance, teaching, but above all law. The most basic meaning of the most fundamental principle of Judaism, Torah min haShamayim, Torah from Heaven, is that G-d, not humans, is the source of binding law.

Second, we are charged with being interpreters of the law. That is our responsibility as heirs and guardians of the Torah she-be-al peh, the Oral Tradition. The phrase in which Moses describes the voice the people heard at the revelation at Sinai, kol gadol velo yasaf, is understood by the commentators in two seemingly contradictory ways. On the one hand it means the voice that was never heard again; on the other, it means the voice that did not cease, that is, the voice that was ever heard again (Deut. 5:19). There is, though, no contradiction. The voice that was never heard again is the one that represents the Written Torah. The voice that is ever heard again is that of the Oral Torah.

The Written Torah is min ha-shamayim, from Heaven, but about the Oral Torah the Talmud insists Lo ba-shamayim hi, It is not in Heaven (Bava Metzia 59b). Hence, Judaism is a continuing conversation between the Giver of the law in Heaven and the interpreters of the law on Earth. That is part of what the Talmud means when it says that Every judge who delivers a true judgment becomes a partner with the Holy One, blessed be He, in the work of creation (Shabbat 10a).

Third, fundamental to Judaism is education, and fundamental to education is instruction in Torah, that is, the law. That is what Isaiah meant when he said, Listen to Me, you who know justice, the people in whose heart is My law; do not fear the reproach of men, nor be afraid of their insults (Is. 51:7).

This is what Jeremiah meant when he said, This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the L-rd: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their G-d, and they shall be My people (Jer.31:33).

This is what Josephus meant when he said, 1,900 years ago, Should any one of our nation be asked about our laws, he will repeat them as readily as his own name. The result of our thorough education in our laws from the very dawn of intelligence is that they are, as it were, engraved on our souls. To be a Jewish child is to be, in the British phrase, learned in the law. We are a nation of constitutional lawyers.

Why? Because Judaism is not just about spirituality. It is not simply a code for the salvation of the soul. It is a set of instructions for the creation of what the late Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein, ztl, called societal beatitude. It is about bringing G-d into the shared spaces of our collective life. That needs law: law that represents justice, honoring all humans alike regardless of color or class; law that judges impartially between rich and poor, powerful and powerless, even in extremis between humanity and G-d; law that links G-d, its Giver, to us, its interpreters, the law that alone allows freedom to coexist with order, so that my freedom is not bought at the cost of yours.

Small wonder, then, that there are so many Jewish lawyers.

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Why Are There So Many Jewish Lawyers? - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

An Israeli poll in 2017 found that politicians are the most widely seen culprits for Israeli societys deep rifts, according to fully 75% of Israeli Jewish respondents, and 67% said Ultra-orthodox rabbis and their religious establishment were also to blame. Now, after 5 years and 4 elections, the rifts have gotten worse.

In the State of Israel, where millions of Jews live together in one small geographic area, there are, and have always been, a dozen (sometimes 15+) Jewish political parties.

Is a community as divided and fragmented as Israel currently is, not in danger of disintegrating or being destroyed by its enemies? According to Talmud Yerushalmi (Sanhedrin 29c,) Rabbi Yohanan said that Israel did not go into exile until there were twenty-four (divisive) sects.

This means that some divisions (less than two dozen) are normal and necessary; but too much division (more than two dozen) is destructive.

Just as every human body is a total unity divided into many different parts (organs, bones, personality types etc.), social, political and religious bodies are also made up of many different religious, social and political parties.

Thus, while Judaism and the Jewish People have always been one religion and one nation; their one wholeness has always been the sum of many different parts.

In Biblical days, the People of Israel were divided into three or four distinct groups based on the number of Mitsvot (religious duties) they were expected to do.

First, the twelve tribes of Israel were divided into Levites, who were responsible for running the Temple in Jerusalem, and the remaining eleven tribes; with more Mitsvot applying to the Levites than the rest of Israel.

Second, the tribe of Levy was divided into the clan of Kohanim, who were responsible for the Temple service ritual offerings; and the other clans who were just regular Temple Levites, with the Kohanim being responsible to do many more Mitsvot than even the Levites.

Third, all Israelites were divided by gender; with many more Mitsvot applying to men than to women.

Although the Jerusalem Temple has not existed for more than nineteen centuries, remnants of these distinctions still do exist in Orthodox Synagogues, where there is a fixed order of four distinct hereditary categories in which Jews are called up to read Torah

First Kohanim, second Levites, third Jewish men in general and fourth; Jewish woman, who are not called up to read Torah at all.

In Conservative Synagogues there are only the first three categories, and in Reform Temples where tribal and gender equality is stressed there is only one category: Jews.

The new groups, parties and sects within the Jewish People in the post Biblical period were no longer tribal and inherited. They were geographical and cultural i.e. Hellenistic Jews and Israeli Jews; religious i.e. Scribes Pharisees, Sadducees, Essenes, and political; Herodians, Zealot and Sicari anti-Roman revolutionaries and disciples of the sages/rabbis.

In Medieval times diversity among new groups was reduced and constricted primarily to geography; Sephardim and Ashkenazim and to some extant to philosophy; Karaites, Kabbalists and Talmudists.

However, the Ashkenazim in the modern age are divided into several religious sects: Hassidim, Anti-hasidim, modern Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Renewal and other smaller groups.

So, is the warning of Rabbi Yohanan that Israel did not go into exile until there were twenty-four devisive sects still valid today? Yes and no.

Some divisions are normal and necessary, especially in the realm of religion. As Thomas Jefferson said: The maxim of civil government being opposite that of religion, where its true form is: Divided we stand, united we fall.' But when religions get political then extreme and intolerant division is destructive.

As we have seen, from the time of Jacobs descendants Israel has been divide into twelve tribes. From the time of Aaron descendants, the tribe of Levy has been separated from the other tribes.

From some time after the Maccabbees the Essenes and the Pharisees separated (Pharisee means separatist) from the Sadduces and by the first century there were over a dozen separate religious and political parties in Israel.

But even so there did not have to be fragmentation and destruction. The sin that caused the destruction of Jerusalem was that political and religious extremism led to unrestricted, unlimited hate.

As Eichah Rabbah 1:33 teaches: Why was the First Temple destroyed? Because of three things which existed in it: idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed. But why was the Second Temple destroyed, since at that time people were involved in study, mitzvot, and deeds of kindness? Because at that time there was senseless hatred among the Jewish people. This teaches that senseless hatred is as powerful an evil as idolatry, immorality, and bloodshed combined!

What kind of hatred and intolerance was there? After the disaster our sages said (note that all of these things were done only by some Jews): Jerusalem was destroyed only because of:

her laws were based on the strict letter of the Torah and not interpreted by ways of mercy and kindness,the morning and evening prayers were abolished.the school age children who remained untaught.the people who did not feel shame (at their hatred) toward one another.no distinction was drawn between the young and the old.one did not warn or admonish (against hating each) other.much of scholarship and learning was despised.there were no longer men of hope and faith in her midst.(Vilnay, Legends of Jerusalem, citing Shabbat 119b, Yoma 9b, Tosefta Menahot 13:22, Yalkut Shimoni Isaiah 394, Seder Eliyahu Zuta 15:11)

Or as Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai (who was there) remarked in the account of Kamza and Bar Kamza,Through the strict scrupulousness of Rabbi Zechariah ben Abkulas our homeland was destroyed, ourTemple burnt, and we ourselves were exiled from our land. (Gittin 55b-56a)

The Talmud (Shabbat 119b) relates that Rabbi Hanina said, Jerusalem was destroyed only because its inhabitants did not reprove one another. Israel in that generation kept their faces looking down to the ground and did not reprove one another. Rabbi Hanina doesnt mention any one specific action that was so reprehensible that it doomed the city.

Perhaps it was something like the decision of some ultra-Orthodox Rabbis to declare null and void the conversions of thousands of Jews, by proclaiming the radical innovation of retroactive annulment of thousand of orthodox conversions that took place in Israel in previous years. The sad fact is that most other Rabbis in Israel failed to publicly reprove these zealots for violating the Torahs commandments to both love converts and not in any way oppress them.

Thus, it was not just the variety of parties and sects that doomed Jerusalem in the first century. It was the unrestrained hatred resulting from the strict, uncompromising, overly self-righteous, intolerance of many of the parties that doomed Jerusalem.

That is why our sages decreed a special blessing to be said when we see a very large population of Jews, who because of their great numbers must include more sects of Jews than we ourselves usually associate with: Blessed is the Sage of Esoterica, for the opinion of each (Jew) is different from the other, just as the face of each (Jew) is different from the other. (Berakhot 58a)

The problem was not that they differed with each other. The problem was that some of them hated each other with a hatred that was unrestrained by their teachers, and unfettered by the leaders who were close to them. Although teaching this blessing was to late to save Jerusalem and its Holy Temple, our sages learned a very important lesson from that bitter experience.

This lesson and this blessing needs to be relearned by all Jewish political and religious leaders today, so that Jerusalem will not again be destroyed.

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The 9th Of Av: Divided, The Jewish People Stands OpEd - Eurasia Review

On April 11, 1944, a young Anne Frank wrote in her diary:

Who has made us Jews different from all other people? Who has allowed us to suffer so terribly until now? It is God Who has made us as we are, but it will be God, too, who will raise us up again. Who knows it might even be our religion from which the world and all peoples learn good, and for that reason and that reason alone do we now suffer. We can never become just Netherlanders, or just English, or representatives of any other country for that matter. We will always remain Jews.

Anne Frank was on to something. The Talmud asks, from where did Har Sinai derive its name? After offering a few alternatives, the Talmud suggests that Har Sinai comes from Hebrew word sinah which means hatred, because the non-Jews hatred of the Jews descended upon that mountain when the Jewish people received the Torah there. Torah demands a moral and ethical lifestyle, an attitude of giving rather than taking, a life of service rather than of privilege, that has revolutionized the world.

The Jewish people have been charged to be the moral conscience of the world, a mission they have not always succeeded at, but that nevertheless drew the ire, anger and hatred of so many. For two thousand years the Jews were bullied and persecuted simply because of their Jewishness and all that stands for. After the Holocaust, the world gave the Jews a reprieve from their hatred, becoming instead beneficiaries of their pity. But looking at events around the world, it is rapidly becoming clear that the last 75 years was an aberration. We have witnessed the rise of anti-Semitism around the world as the world reverts back to its ageless pattern and habit.

The Midrash (Eichah Rabbah 1) teaches that three prophets used the term eichah o how! In Devarim, Moshe asks: Eichah, how can I alone bear your troubles, your burden and your strife? (Deut. 1:12) In the Haftorah for Shabbos Chazon, the Prophet Yeshayahu asks: Eichah, how has the faithful city become like a prostitute? Lastly, Yirmiyahu begins the Book of Eichah: Eichah, how is it that Jerusalem is sitting in solitude! The city that was filled with people has become like a widow Eicha How? How is it that anti-Semitism persists? Why must they rise up against us in every generation?

On Tisha BAv we will sit on the floor and wonder aloud, eicha? How could it be Jews have to fear for their lives yet again? Eicha how could it be that today, with all the progress humanity has made, more than a quarter of the world is still holding anti-Semitic views?

Rabbi Soloveitchik tells us that though the Midrash identifies three times the word eicha is used, in truth there is a fourth. When Adam and Chava fail to take responsibility, God calls out to them and says ayeka, where are you? Ayeka is spelled with the same letters as eicha, leading Rabbi Soloveitchik to say that when we dont answer the call of ayeka, when we dont take personal responsibility for our problems and blame others, we will ultimately find ourselves asking eicha, how could it be?

We can ask eicha, how could all of these terrible things be, but we may never have a definitive answer. Our job is to make sure we can answer the call of ayeka, where are you? Are you taking responsibility? We may not be able to fully understand why anti-Semitism exists, but we can and must remain vigilant in calling it out, confronting it and fighting it. We must remain strong in standing up for Jews everywhere. We must confront evil and do all we can to defeat it.

And, we must do all that we can to take personal responsibility to fulfill the Jewish mission to bring Godliness into the world. If individual Jews were hated for being the conscious of the others, all the more so does a Jewish country generate hate for being the moral conscious of the whole world, held to higher moral standards than any other country or state.

Our job is not to be discouraged by asking eicha, but to ensure that we can answer the call of ayeka. Anti-Semitism will not come to an end by assimilating and retreating. It will come to an end when we can positively answer the question that the Talmud tells us each one of us will be asked when we meet our Maker: did you long for the redemption and did you personally take responsibility to do all that you can to bring the redemption? Did you truly feel the pain of exile and feel the anguish of the Jewish condition in the world? Do you truly and sincerely care? Did you anxiously await every day for Moshiach to herald in an era of peace and harmony, an end to anti-Semitism and suffering?

It is not enough to long for Moshiach, we must bring him. It is not enough to hope for redemption, we must be the catalyst for it. It is not enough to be tired of eicha, we must answer ayeka. If we want to get up off the floor and end the mourning, if we want to finally end anti-Semitism, it is up to us to do what is necessary to heal our people, to repair the world, to love one another, and to earn the redemption from the Almighty.{Reposted from Rabbi Goldbergs site}

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STAND UP AND SPEAK OUT! - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

An exciting find I had this week was a run of the Orthodox Youth (which eventually became the Orthodox Tribune) from December 1940 to January 1945. The periodical was a publication of Agudah, and contains a wealth of information regarding life for observant Jews in the United States at the time, as well as reports of the horrors of the war and world events. The issues dealt within may seem foreign to Orthodox Jews today, but they were on the forefront of the issues of the day.

One article implores married men in the armed forces to write up a divorce in advance of their deployment in the event that they are missing in action. In response to the destruction of the centers of Hebrew printing in Europe, notices appear of an intent to publish essential seforim in the United States. The first of these publications was the Chiddushim of Rabbi Akiva Eiger, followed by a set of Shitah Mekubetzet on the Talmud.

An open letter to the rabbis in one of the issues states: We Torah True Jews of the United States will still cling to the true ideals of our faith and follow the advice and decision set down by the Chofetz Chaim, Reb Chaim Oser Grodensky, Chordkover Rebbe, Reb Chaim Sonnenfeld and other great gedolim, and the still follow the authority of the Gerer Rebbe, Reb Elchanon Wasserman, Rabbi Dushinsky and others. All these great Gaonim and Zaddikkim have forbidden the Jewish people to support the Jewish National Fund.

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News from the soldiers in the field abound as well. One article reads, Somewhere in New Guinea a group of Jewish servicemen bitten with the journalist bug published the Island Glicken, a service newspaper distributed throughout the Southwest Pacific Area. One of their features is Yiddish in a Jiffy, subtitled The Five-Year Cheder Plan condensed in two lessons. The author is a Reb Chaim who calls himself, the Mome-Loshen expert. A can of gefilte fish is given as a prize for a correct translation of a Yiddish letter.

In response to receiving from the Agudah a copy of Machane Yisrael, a book authored by the Chofetz Chaim for Jewish Soldiers, a Jew in the army wrote, Every night before I go to sleep I read a chapter or a part in order to get some bit of learning. It comes in handy for any religious fellow in the service. In my opinion it is just as important for a soldier to carry this book which was written by the Chofetz Chaim as he carries the army handbook.

Some of the issues would feel current to many people today as well. One editorial wrote: With the advent of the summer a new set of standards usually is adopted. On June 21st a sudden revolution seems to take place in peoples minds, and styles, modes and practices that are frowned on during the other nine months of the year, suddenly become the proper way of life. There can be no uglier or more repressive sight, both aesthetically and Jewishly, than the scantily clad denizens of the beach and summer resort. And there can be nothing more reprehensible than the sight of men and women whiling away their days and nights with a deck of cards.

See the article here:

War News And Gefilte Fish - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

Multiple communities around the Twin Cities have seen antisemitic and white supremacist notes distributed this summer to residential areas.

Since July 1,the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC) has found flyers distributed in the following areas in the Twin Cities metro:

The JCRC condemned the acts this week.

The Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas (JCRC) condemns the distribution of noxious propaganda fliers in neighborhoods across the Twin Cities metro area. Compounding this ugly antisemitism is the invasion of tranquil neighborhoods during the night," the civil rights group stated.

The St. Louis Park Police Department and city officials said they are investigating after flyers were distributed in the city this past weekend.

St. Louis Park Mayor Jake Spano received one of the fliers at his home overnight Sunday into Monday, July 24-25. He called the discovery "disgusting and sad." He added that the acts are having an opposite effect on people than what the person(s) responsible are intending.

This morning I, and those in my neighborhood, awoke to anti-semitic flyers left at our homes which served as a disgusting and sad reminder that religious-based hate remains a pervasive problem. Ive been in contact with residents of multiple faiths today and I can tell you that whatever the people spreading these hateful messages think they are accomplishing in dividing people, its having the exact opposite effect," Spano said in a statement on Monday.

Similar happenings have occurred over the summer, however, police have not confirmed a connection between each incident. Despite that, the JCRC has attributed these incidents to a national extremist group based in northern California.

The first known instance of antisemitic flyers in the metro this summer was in June in St. Paul, with Sgt. David McCabe telling Bring Me The News that flyers were found at the Newman School-Talmud Torah.

As was first reported by TC Jewfolk, a Reddit user posted a photo of the St. Paul flyer, which shows a revolver crushed in a first over the Israeli flag and the Star of David, opposite of a satanic pentagram. There are also 21 Jewish lobbyists, politicians and lawyers pictured on the page.

The Edina Police Department is still investigating after slurs and other derogatory statements were found written on school tennis courts over the July 16-17 weekend.

On July 10, the Minnesota chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR-MN) condemned racist flyers distributed in Lino Lakes. Sen. Roger Chamberlain (R-Lino Lakes) expressed "zero tolerance for this behavior."

A week before that, on July 3, white supremacist propaganda flyers were distributed around Cottage Grove. The flyers were found in driveways across the city.

"Hate will not be tolerated in Cottage Grove. Period. The information contained in these flyers does not represent what we stand for as a police department or a community," Cottage Grove Police Chief Pete Koerner wrote.

Police in St. Louis Park are asking if anyone has received the flyer to call the department at 952-924-2618. In addition, authorities are asking for video of the person or people responsible, if by chance home security cameras recorded them in the act.

Read more here:

At least 9 cities in the Twin Cities metro targeted with antisemitic, racist flyers - Bring Me The News

So, take a good look at my face

When I rose from a deep sleep I hadnt slept for more than several hours, if that, a night for the past five days on a Newark to San Diego flight everyone, it seemed, was staring at me. My row mate, an attractive woman in her late twenties, put her hand on my arm and quietly said, You were sobbing in your sleep we couldnt wake you. As I stumbled to the lavatory with a weak, embarrassed smile, a young priest commented, as if lecturing to the passengers, He is a rabbi, and he is surely mourning for the Temple that has burned down in flames. I blurted out If only In the washroom, I got a look at my ravaged red face. During those post days, I probably zogt (chanted) the whole Book of Tehilim (Psalms) at least twice, but the only psalm I could remember was sung by The Miracles in the late sixties:

So take a good look at my faceyoull see my smile looks out of placeIf you are closer, its easy to tracethe tracks of my tears

This was during my tragic trek from Jerusalem to bury my students Marla Bennett and Ben Blustein, murdered in the terrorist bombing of the Frank Sinatra Cafeteria of Hebrew University on July 31, 2002. That day, when the staff at Pardes, especially Joanne and Trudy, tried to account for our students whereabouts. As director, I had initiated a joint program with Hebrew University to create Jewish educators well rooted in traditional Jewish learning and the best of pedagogy; and our students were studying there that day. I headed out with David, for his wife Jamie was found with minor injuries, which were later upgraded to moderate by the time we got there. Moderate? I remember wishing out loud that the arch-terrorist Yasser Arafat should merit to receive such moderate injuries. Jamie was not left alone for a moment by David, and in the next weeks by our circle, with many, including my wife Sheryl, sleeping on the crowded ward floor by her bed.

But where was Marla and where was Ben? All three were at the same table in the cafeteria, but when the bomb went off, Jamie had bent under the table which ended up affording her some protection to get a folder to show her colleagues. At first, racing around the hospital with senior staff members David Bernstein and Aryeh Ben David, we hoped we would not find them, hoped they had somehow avoided getting hurt, but soon we prayed that even if they were hurt, they would be well enough to be in treatment. I was called to identify a young woman who was terribly injured and was found in a Minnie Mouse t-shirt, gear that Marla favored. But it wasnt Marla. Eventually, some of us straggled back to our office.

Dear reader, let me tell you about Ben and Marla so that you can understand the urgency which we would feel for any student, but they each had their own individual specialness.

Ben was a large man, who was tough. He had a rough veneer and a salty tongue. He called things as he saw them, sparing no one. And it came out hard because as a recovering alcoholic and being really bright, he saw things as they were and didnt hesitate to say so. But he had a heart of gold with kindness, especially for the overlooked and forgotten also expressed in a tough manner. He was a popular DJ in the Israeli clubs late at night, but always came to my senior Talmud shiur the next morning exactly on time prepared a condition of acceptance. I dont spin on Shabbos was his signature mantra that secular and senior music colleagues loved to repeat. And at the Shabbos table, he would sing the entire songbook with a unique and real beat the only way. He made me dance with him for real on holidays.

Marla, it was her smile that just made you feel terrific. I have never met anyone who had so many people tell me, Dont tell anyone so they wont feel bad, but I was Marlas best friend. And that included not only the intellectuals and impassioned activists but the ancient bent-over lady I met randomly that Marla helped shop with and actually paid for much of her groceries. Marla illustrated her Talmud with colored pencils indicating questions, answers, counter questions, proofs, and the rest. All in different colors. In the beit midrash (study hall) her page dazzled, and when I grumbled in class, Just give me the old black and white, she protested, But the Talmud just makes me happy! A brilliant student, she became a fervent committed Zionist at Berkeley!

When the terrible news arrived, I resolved to first call the parents and tell them that we had little hope and then to call them back soon after with the actual news. I first called Michael and Linda in San Diego. Linda beseeched, Marla loves you, Danny, and says you can do anything. Fix it! When I called back with the fact that I couldnt fix it, they were despondent. At that time, I had a strong intuition that in their inconsolable grief, they would not be burdened by any concern of how their relationship with Marla was. They always knew that they had a remarkable treasure and acted accordingly.

There was only one call to Richard and Katherine, Bens loving parents. Being respectively Harrisburgs beloved pediatrician and a renowned bacteriologist, they told me that they figured I was bearing just terrible tidings.

I expected that they would be buried in Jerusalem, but both sets of parents wanted them home. I accompanied Ben to Harrisburg. We started at El Al where, in the hangar, comedian Yisrael Campbell, Bens AA sponsor, recited psalms for hours by the crated casket, to JFK, and then in the hearse with police motorcycle guards that Friday afternoon. It was a grieving small-town funeral. The hearse passed the fire station where all the trucks revolved their emergency lights and the firemen stood at attention, saluting Ben, their hometown boy felled in Jerusalem.

Despite my show of strength as rabbi at the funeral, eulogizing a beloved student, I could hardly stand upright after helping to fill the dirt on Bens grave. Then I was given strength. A student, Aaron Bisman, who had come in from somewhere came up to me and said with quiet determination, We wont just leave Ben and Marla. We will do something big in New York and in Jerusalem. I knew he would, and that year he had amazing jazz memorials (Bens medium was percussion; along with Saskia on guitar and vocals; and Rebecca and Courtney were the dancers in the jazz group, Women, Slaves, and Minors) at the Knitting Factory in lower Manhattan and on the Tayelet (Promenade) in Jerusalem. The second was a young woman with many piercings and a hippyish garb, who very much wanted to tell me this: I would not have the close relationship today with Torah and Yiddishkeit if it wasnt for Ben. I knew she spoke the truth.

A number of students had come to the funeral, and we were taken in by the community by Rabbi Ron Muroff of the Conservative synagogue who knew Ben and his family well, and by Rabbi Chaim Schertz of the Orthodox shul. Community members soon understood that some students wanted to travel to Marlas funeral in San Diego but lacked the resources. They took up a collection and passed it on to the students with love. We began the Blusteins shivah with them; and we felt privileged.

Motzai Shabbat was an emotional Havdalah ceremony. Very hard to separate. I was picked up by a driver to take me to New Jersey for the wedding of a dear member of this group Andy Katz and his bride Emily Shapiro. Andy called me with a sheilah (question) before I left. He asked if it was not more correct to delay the wedding, given the catastrophe. I thought of my Tosafist forebears who answered the exact same questions during the murderous violence of the Crusaders. I channeled their response: Now more than ever, your wedding must continue. I arrived at the hotel in the middle of the night the driver was falling asleep at the wheel, and I forced him to take a two-hour nap. At the wedding, we were joined by more students and some who had been in Harrisburg.

The couple were an extraordinarily handsome pair (made in Heaven), but they were very sober. At the tisch, when the chatan (groom) was away for a moment, I suddenly had a vision of my late teacher, my grandfather the Menachem Tziyon the Comforter of Zion leaning over me and saying, Remember what I taught you regarding the famous section in Kohelet (Ecclesiastes). To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose unto Heaven. It is followed by a series of opposing couplets in the infinitive, starting a time to be born / a time to die but then that structure is broken up by a pair in the continuous present a time of mourning / a time of dancing! You will see that there will be a time that you must mourn, and you must dance simultaneously.

I told this over to my students as now my grandfather had left my side and was standing at the exit. I finished: If you want to celebrate, dance! If you must mourn, dance! And they did. Under the chuppah (wedding canopy), the very beautiful bride said that she wanted to say a few words about their murdered friends that she had written. I told them both that she did not need to, but she persisted and said words of true meaning.

The dancing was intense. In the middle, I was taken away and told to eat my main course before everyone. As I finished, my driver was at the door to get me to Newark International. Eventually, I made my way down to the plane and to sleep. And thats where I began the story.

Arriving in San Diego, I somehow crawled to the baggage claim. Grabbing at my suitcase, I couldnt lift it. Hub nisht koiach, I screamed in Yiddish I have no strength. Then, smoothly, a hand appeared and lifted the bag. Tom Barad, a Hollywood director and producer who had studied with me at Wexner and then joined our Board had come down to fetch me. He placed me in his fancy sports car, raced me to the funeral and, at the same time, put me together for this next role. He was used to actors arriving at The Set all strung out. Marlas funeral was the opposite of Bens very large, everyone looked glamorous, and many highfalutin civic leaders were present. But one thing was the same the tears were copious and real. I spoke of Marla as an etz chayim (tree of life), so full of life and the Torah of life, as well as protecting those who sought her shading presence.

The internment was in a mausoleum and its cold stone could not have been starker in telling the alternate reality. Marlas real best friend from Pardes was there. The two often played off their seemingly opposite personalities. Indeed, the previous Purim [a holiday known for its topsy-turvy view of reality] they came as the Yeitzer (Inclination) twins, except it was Amanda Pogany (who often displayed attitude) dressed in white with a halo, dispensing sweet compliments and Marla as the Evil Inclination in black with horns displaying a real talent for some sharp zingers (but, being Marla, they were more hilarious than nasty).

Everyone finally left, but by this time Amanda sank to the floor, leaning on the stone. Aleyn vi a shteyn (alone like a stone) is the Yiddish description. And it fit; she would not budge. I also fell against the stone, saying after a while, I cant get up unless you do. We both rose. That night, the many students who were there camped out at the beautiful La Jolla home of Julie Potiker (also my Wexner student who became chairperson of the board) and her husband Lowell. A constant stream of food, drink, and comfort, as we had, as it were an all-night shivah of stories, reflection, and tears. All through the process, our attention and love were drawn to Michael Simon, a classmate of Marlas. We had all been awaiting their engagement. Michael, seemingly a congenital optimist, as I once had called him, was shattered by the event. He accepted comfort, but it was to no avail. In the morning, people began to make their ways back home in the USA and me back to Jerusalem.

Back in Jerusalem, I was anxious for our surviving students due to their emotional turmoil, and I feared for our institutions future. The staff and faculty, from the top down, could not have been more compassionate and realistic. And they were carrying their own emotional freight from these losses and others they had been close to, living in Israel. We were also fortunate to have new students, Aaron Katchen and Robby Grossman, who had significant Hillel expertise as directors to immediately become part of the mourning and healing process. Everyones efforts made a difference, but nonetheless, that year we were a beit shivah (shivah house).

I saw the Educators Program ending. Why should anyone come? It wasnt fair, but I knew that I needed to get our student leader back. I wrote to Amanda Pogany and said I was coming to visit her at her parents home in New Jersey. Two weeks after the bombing, I flew at Sabbaths end. I arrived in a buckets downpour without a raincoat or umbrella (I came, after all, from summer in Jerusalem) and then got the last car on the lot, a Chevy Impala, which I immediately smashed up in the front, slipping on the ramp. I was whisked to the angry managers office. He asked why I was here. I started to tell him, and then I saw that he had the Jerusalem Post article on the bombing on his desk. He, without a word, tore up my contract, handed me the keys to his own car, and sent me on my way.

Amandas parents let me in the house late Sunday morning with worried looks. Assertaining that I hadnt eaten, they whipped up a serious breakfast, somehow all the foodstuffs had their kashrut certificates displayed. Their first real comment: I dont know what you intend to do, but she is not going back to Israel. She hardly leaves her room. Amanda at last showed up to breakfast looking worse, if possible, than me. As I ate, the parents launched into a discussion of how Amanda would not be returning (impossible!) to Israel; then to how Israel and this program could not be abandoned; and finally, that Amanda would be coming back (she had to!). Amanda conveyed her assent. I hadnt said anything except, Pass the blueberry pancakes.

The students returned. The night before Hebrew U reopened, we all went together to the site of the cafeteria. Hardly a word was said we all understood and stood close to one another. The next day, they went to class.

Every year, as the Three Weeks commence, I dream dreams of Marla and Ben. This year seems to be the same. I have a dream of leaving the schools building and Marla running up to me from a table with her multicolored Talmud, saying with anticipation, I think I can correct such-and-such a reading you gave us in shiur (class), and we return to the Study Hall, but now the door is stuck. With Ben, its also always a variation of the same we are dancing at a simchah (joyous event) with Bens eyes shut, singing rapturously I shout out over the music: Is this your wedding? He opens his eyes, gives me his Ben you cant be serious look, mouths the word, No, and then closes them and we continue dancing.

These dreams no longer frighten me, but they cause me to connect to a deep sense of guilt. A guilt, I hasten to add, that I would dismiss if coming from staff or faculty. I am feeling guilty for bringing them into a dangerous situation. There was real opposition to allowing Ben into our Educators Program due to his rough nature. I saw something that was gold for his future students and overruled the nays. And Marla, I vigorously wooed her to learn with us, dismissing the offers of other institutions for superior educational training as mere training like you do with a puppy here, we learn. It worked, but the result was tragic. I think: What leaders they would have made!

I have long wondered what pathology or at least quirk has led me to embrace this guilt, which I know, deep down, really does not belong to me. But if you have been my student, then you know this: learning is not the real thing unless it brings understanding and it is not worth anything if the understanding does not lead to commitment; and commitment has a price for those who learn and for those who teach.

Ben and Marla, each in their own unique way, certainly had understanding and fulfilled commitment. Remembering each of them is a blessing.

And me? Im surrounded by a wife who keeps me existentially and morally focused, love from my children, nachas (happiness) from old students, and real challenges from the new. And Im still pushing peshat (plain textual understanding) and projects; and sometimes plotzin (collapsing in defeat); nonetheless giving it, I hope, my all. But during the Three Weeks I return to the Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, as they sing:

People say Im the life of the partyCause I tell a joke or twoAlthough I might be laughing loud and hardDeep inside Im blueSo take a good look

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Twenty years after Ben and Marla and the Hebrew University bombing - The Times of Israel

Judaism prescribes tremendous respect for our teachers. Yet even though we know that, the reverence of your teacher must be like the reverence of Heaven (Avot 4:12), there is one important difference. Heaven (God) doesnt make mistakes.

So what should we do when convinced that a master teacher is wrong? I am not talking about the quasi-democratic setting of the beit midrash which allows anyone regardless of age, rank or IQ to challenge anyone else. However once the teacher has made a decision, the student must generally accept the teachers position, whether he agrees with it or not. But that doesnt mean that he cannot subtly try to change the teachers mind. The main question is how.

The biggest difficulty in convincing a master teacher he is wrong is that his positions are generally not taken in isolation. They are part of a larger complex of ideas, many of which touch upon a structured vision of how to look at the world. Not only does that mean that more is at stake; it also means that a masters position is buttressed by a great deal of thought.

The Talmud (Sanhedrin 101) recounts two stories about Rabbi Akivas visit to his sick teacher, Rabbi Eliezer, which may be helpful in this regard. Though subject to debate, it would make sense to locate this visit at some point between the two key stories about their relationship, Rabbi Eliezers excommunication by the other rabbis (Bava Metzia 59) and the scene played out before his death (Sanhedrin 67-68).

From Rabbi Akivas perspective, his teachers excommunication had been justified. Knowing with certainty that he was right about a certain case (Akhnais oven), Rabbi Eliezer had refused to concede to the majority, thereby defying the Torahs clearly articulated rules. True, he had received some heavenly encouragement to stake out such a position. Nevertheless, his colleagues understood that if left unchecked he would be creating an impossible precedent. And yet it would appear that Rabbi Eliezer never gave in. As far as his colleagues were concerned, not only was this wrong, it was sinful.

This is the background to Rabbi Akivas visit. In the second story about this visit, he engages the attention of his teacher by telling him that afflictions are beloved. Prodded to continue, Rabbi Akiva tells him how afflictions were what brought the Kingdom of Yehudahs most notorious king, Menashe, to repent. Rabbi Akivas rebuke here follows proper protocol and is only indirect he does not tell his teacher that he needs to repent; he only tells him that it worked for Menashe. Regardless, it was also the height of audacity. Presumably to shake up Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Akiva compares him to one of the greatest villains in all of Tanakh!

This audacity is perhaps only understood when read in tandem with the first story. There, Rabbi Akiva implies that Rabbi Eliezers afflictions were a punishment for his sins. Rabbi Eliezer takes umbrage at this. Though Rabbi Akiva does not back down, there is also no indication that Rabbi Eliezer accepts the possibility that his approach may have been sinful. That is presumably why Rabbi Akiva tries a harsher tactic and compares him to King Menashe:

Menashes rebellion against the Torah was so pervasive that it must have been rooted in a complex and systematic approach to the world. He presumably had many arguments with which he rebuffed the prophets and scholars of his time. Perhaps this is what Rabbi Akiva meant when he says that though Menashe had the benefit of a father known for Torah scholarship (Hizkiyahu), the only thing that impacted upon him were afflictions. What Rabbi Akiva seems to be suggesting then is that like Menashe Rabbi Eliezer had created a complex worldview that no one could dissuade him from. In that sense, the only thing that could possibly make him rethink that worldview was a message from God himself. So, says Rabbi Akiva, should Rabbi Eliezer understand his afflictions.

It is far from clear that Rabbi Akivas words were accepted. But Rabbi Eliezer did listen. If the story reinforces how difficult it is for a thought-out individual to change his mind, it also shows us the only way someone else can try to facilitate that. On the one hand, we must respect the effort put into constructing a worldview that is more than a collection of reactions to current events. On the other hand, we must also help this type of individual question his worldview, when it or at least some of its ramifications are destructive.

Perhaps this then is what Rabbi Chanina meant when he said, I have learned much from my teachers and even more from my friends, but from my students I have learned most of all (Taanit 7a).

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When a Student must Teach the Teacher - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com