tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-275447162024-03-06T22:59:22.540-06:00Consider the SourceI'm not an expert on anything. I try to get my facts straight, but I may not have all the facts, and any conclusions I draw are questionable.~~Preaching on virtues I may not have.~~The late paytan John Hartford wrote, "All I am is a hole in the air / Surrounded all around with teeth and hair." He was indeed a mere hole in the air surrounded all around with teeth and hair <b><i>and created in God's image</i></b>. As are you and I, my friend. As are you and I.Michael Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07334251239196640565noreply@blogger.comBlogger61125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-32629121853065816322022-08-02T19:49:00.003-05:002023-07-26T18:23:54.726-05:00Baseless annoyance, baseless hatred, and a rabbi's foolishness: a pre-Tisha b'Av sermon--version 2.0<i>This is a slightly tweaked version of a 2020 post.</i></b></b><p>I propose an additional prayer for Tisha b’Av, one that’s useful for every day. Some of you may be thinking, “What, we’re suffering from a shortage of Tisha b’Av prayers?” I agree; what we already have is more than sufficient.</p><p>The Tisha b’Av liturgy is full of <i>kinot</i>—dirges, laments. They describe in gruesome and graphic detail the sufferings of the Jewish people in connection with the destructions of the First and Second Temples. They also lament at some length the sins we committed that provoked God to unleash destruction on the First Temple. And the kinot go on and on. There are a lot of them, some of them quite long.</p><p>The Talmud (Yoma 9b) tells us why the Temples were destroyed. The first was destroyed because of murder, prohibited sex, and idolatry. These three sins have a special halachic status: if an oppressor tells us to commit one of these sins or die, we choose martyrdom over sinning. The generation of the Second Temple was quite different from the first; it occupied itself with learning Torah, observing divine commandments, and acts of kindness. So why was the Second Temple destroyed? Because of baseless hatred (<i>sin’at ḥinam</i>). This teaches us that baseless hatred is as serious as the other three sins combined.</p><p>Given that baseless hatred is so much more serious than the other three, why doesn’t halachah require that we undergo martyrdom rather than engage in it? I have two guesses, both of which may be wrong. First, it would be impractical. People can be told not to murder, not to have illicit sex, and not to worship idols, and there’s some chance they might obey. There’s little chance that people will stop hating baselessly. Second, how likely is it that an oppressor will order you to baselessly hate someone on pain of martyrdom? Nevertheless, it's a good teaching tool to bring home the fact that baseless hatred is a very serious matter.</p><p>And we need to define terms. What is baseless hatred anyway? Rashi defines it (at Shabbat 32b). Baseless hatred is hatred in which the hater sees no sin that would permit hatred. In other words, baseless hatred is hatred that you can’t blame the hated person for.</p><p>Now for the prayer I recommend for Tisha b’Av. It’s a statement on forgiveness that’s used as an introduction to the bedtime Shema. There are several variations, and some siddurim just don’t include it. All the versions I’ve seen include this language: "I forgive all who have angered me or annoyed me or who have sinned against me whether against my body or my property or my honor or anything of mine. . . ." The author of this prayer had great insight. If he had assumed that we are angry or annoyed only with those who have sinned against us, he wouldn’t have listed them separately; he would have simply written “I forgive all who have sinned against me,” since that would include those who angered or annoyed the one who’s praying. If someone angers or annoys us, that has to do with <i>our reaction to them</i>, not necessarily with anything they did to us. (Obviously, people who anger or annoy us may have also sinned against us.) Is there anyone who just <i><small>ANNOYS</small></i> you??? Not that they’ve done anything to you, but is their presence like the sound of someone playing with Styrofoam????</p><p>This prayer is appropriate for Tisha b’Av because it’s very possible that baseless anger and baseless annoyance are the gateways to baseless hatred. In your personal Tisha b’Av liturgy, you have my permission to substitute this prayer for a kinah (or for many kinot). If you’re using a siddur where this prayer mentions incarnations or Israelites, you have my permission to skip those parts, which aren’t included in some versions anyway.</p><p>Let’s talk about some events of 2020. Women of the Wall (WOW) released a letter that Shmuel Rabinowitz (Rabbi of the Western Wall and Holy Sites) sent to one of his rabbinate’s supporters in which he denies that a Torah scroll intended for the women, which was taken into custody, was confiscated. He writes, “The only event which sadly provokes animosity, violence, and <i>baseless hatred</i> [emphasis added] is the demonstrative prayer service conducted by the Women of the Wall.” Odd. So I wrote to WOW to ask for the original Hebrew version of the letter; I wanted to find out if he actually used <i>sin’at ḥinam</i>. (I contacted WOW because the Wall rabbinate’s only online presence is <a href = "https://english.thekotel.org/">a very beautiful site</a> that doesn’t say anything about WOW—no press releases or the like. Which makes sense; the purpose of of the web site is to attract people to the Wall, not to talk about controversies.) WOW sent a slightly different letter, dated about a week later, from Rabinowitz to another supporter. The Hebrew letter mentions “an event arousing animosity, violence, and <i>sin’at ḥinam</i>.”</p><p>If I were one of the violent guys with animosity (which I’m not; I support WOW), I think this would probably be my reaction:</p><blockquote>Well, this stuff from the rabbi is strange. Violence and animosity, obviously, I get that. But baseless hatred? That’s as serious as an accusation gets. Does this rabbi person even get that? If he thinks we’re baselessly hating, he should be preaching to us about it and trying to get us to do teshuvah, not just mentioning it in passing in a letter (thereby doing <i>loshn hora</i> [evil speech] against us). But the worst part is his talking about “provoking” baseless hatred. What sort of foolishness is this? It’s not merely ridiculous, but actually absurd, to talk about provoking baseless hatred. If there’s provocation, then the hatred isn’t baseless. Do we really need this rabbi fellow with his nonsense? Should we hire someone else?</blockquote><p>Nonsense indeed, and we need to learn from this rabbi guy’s foolishness. We need to be absolutely clear with ourselves that we can’t blame anyone else for our baseless anger and baseless annoyance. It’s on us, and we need to deal with it; it isn’t the annoying person’s problem. (For me, annoyance is a much more serious demon than anger.)</p><p>And more 2020, and beyond. In the prayer, we forgive those “who have sinned against me.” It doesn’t say anything about forgiving those who have sinned against others, or against whole populations. There is much to be angry about. I’m angry. We mustn’t let our anger distort our beings, but we need to stay angry. And focused. We need to keep in mind that cutesy nicknames for those we’re angry at or making fun of their appearance is a behavior that should be discouraged in children; so what excuse do we chronological adults have? (And that preachment is intended both for those I agree with and for those I disagree with.) It’s not helpful, it’s not going to convince anyone of anything (except maybe our wondrous cleverness), and it degrades us. As Rev. Bernice King, daughter of Martin Luther King, <a href = "https://www.facebook.com/OfficialBerniceKing/posts/10158323845430571">points out</a>, the problems are institutional, not personal.</p>
<p>This Tisha b’Av we’ll be thinking about the sufferings of our people, which are many and tragic. Some of us may also be reading literature bemoaning the flawed state of today’s Judaism ("those whose piety differs from mine are the source of all our problems!"). I ask that we devote some of our time to thinking about our baseless anger and baseless annoyance and our need to conquer them.</Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-60672327673365524522021-04-28T10:43:00.003-05:002021-04-29T20:37:20.462-05:00A Lag ba'Omer invitation<p>A <a href = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lag_BaOmer">Lag ba'Omer</a> invitation:
<blockquote>Please join me in a celebration of L'ag B'Omer, hopefully once again at least the beginning of the end of the current Wuhan virus pandemic....</blockquote>
"Wuhan virus"? The virus has been thoroughly domesticated and Americanized by Our Current President Donald J. Trump.</p>
<p>More importantly, this is absolutely unacceptable when Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders are at the receiving end of violence because of the "Chinese virus." I don't believe for a moment that the inviter hates Asian Americans or blames them for the virus. Maybe they were just owning us libs. Immature, but whatever. I do immature things too. Maybe it's a way of showing what political tribe they belong to. OK, I do that too. Nevertheless, if the intention isn't to provoke violence, this might be a good time to retire "Wuhan virus." As a pious child of Israel, the inviter may understand the power of words to inflict damage.</p>
<p>Is the invitation racist? Let's use an imperfect analogy. It's the fourteenth century. The Black Death is rampant. So are pogroms. Jews are accused of causing the pandemic by poisoning the wells. You, a non-Jew, are planning a get-together. You're not an anti-Semite, and neither you nor your invitees support violence or participate in it. Nevertheless, your invitation mentions "the Jewish pandemic" because doing so identifies you with some political tribe. I'm not asking about your intentions: is your invitation anti-Semitic?</p>Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-55593589470355966622020-02-09T20:38:00.000-06:002020-02-09T20:38:41.748-06:00Not taking Nancy Pelosi at her word: Donald Trump on prayer<style>
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Back when Barack Obama was president, some Republicans were saying that he was actually a Muslim. The reasonable response would have been “It’s none of your blessed business what my religion is, and it has nothing to do with my performance as president.” Reasonable but impolitic, and Obama was a politician. So Obama announced that he’s a Christian. On <i>Meet the Press</i> on August 2, 2010, Dave Gregory asked Mitch McConnell to weigh in on Obama’s religion:
<blockquote>SEN. McCONNELL: The president says he’s a Christian, I take him at his word. I don’t think that’s in dispute.</br>
MR. GREGORY: And how do you think it comes to be that this kind of misinformation gets spread around and prevails?</br>
SEN. McCONNELL: I have no idea, but I take the president at his word.</blockquote>
<p>Some people were upset by this answer. In <i>New York</i>, <a href = "http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2010/08/mitch_mcconnells_subtly_underm.html">Dan Amira wrote</a>,
<blockquote>While it’s nice McConnell says Obama’s faith is “not in dispute,” his answer wasn’t an unequivocal “The President is a Christian.” It was, “He’s telling us he’s a Christian and I believe him.” Recalling Hillary Clinton’s remark during the presidential primary that she takes Obama “<a href = "https://www.huffpost.com/entry/hillary-obama-not-muslim-_n_89546">on the basis of what he says</a>,” McConnell leaves some room for doubt in the minds of anyone who <i>doesn’t</i> generally take Obama at his word, which, in the GOP, is probably most people.</blockquote>
This anger was misguided, although possibly politically handy. McConnell gave the only possible reasonable answer. Amira thinks he should have said, “The president is a Christian.” If McConnell had said that, a number of other questions would follow. How in the world would McConnell know that? Did God tell him? Did he look into Obama’s eyes and see his soul? The only sane answer would be “I take him at his word.”</p>
<p>I don’t know McConnell’s motives (and it’s possible he wasn’t being honest when he said he didn’t know how the Muslim rumors got spread). Regardless, this was the only reasonable answer. If he had said, “It’s none of your business, or mine, or anyone else’s. We oppose him based on policy disagreements, and his religion is irrelevant,” that would have been an excellent answer. A few problems with it: he’d never give such an answer for the same reasons Obama wouldn’t, and that answer, though excellent, would be noncommittal about Obama’s religion. “I take him at his word. I don’t think that’s in dispute” at least gives lip service to Obama’s Christianity, regardless of McConnell’s motives.</p>
<p>I didn’t know that Nancy Pelosi had said she was praying for Donald Trump until <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Letter-from-President-Trump-final.pdf"</a> he accused her of lying about it in his December 17, 2019, letter to her</a>. Trump wrote, “You are offending Americans of faith by continually saying ‘I pray for the President,’ when you know this statement is not true, unless it is meant in a negative sense.” We’ve come a long way from McConnell’s taking Obama at his word. We don’t know how Trump knows the statement isn’t true (or how he knows Pelosi knows it isn’t true). Trump repeated this, complete with mind reading, at the 2020 National Prayer Breakfast. <a href ="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/trump-pence-national-prayer-breakfast">As Caleb Parke reported for Fox News</a>, “‘I don't like people who use their faith as justification for doing what they know is wrong,’ Trump said, and added, in a seeming hit at Pelosi, ‘nor do I like people who say, “I pray for you” when they know that that’s not so.’”</p>
<p>I can’t speak for Pelosi, but I see no reason not to believe her. I pray for all who are malevolent, or cruel, or selfish, or uncaring. I pray that we (I often have to include myself) change ourselves and get rid of, or at restrain, our bad qualities. That we mensh out. I believe Trump to be malevolent, cruel, selfish, and uncaring, and my prayer includes him. I pray for him—us—<i>because</i> of his bad qualities. Besides being an obvious thing about religion, it’s part of American folklore. When the bad guy ties the widowed mother to the railroad track, the oldest sister tells the youngsters to pray for him. I don’t know how anybody could have missed this.</p>
<p>I also don’t understand why the prayerful pious at the National <i>Prayer</i> Breakfast didn’t rise in righteous protest at Trump’s complete cluelessness about prayer.</p>
Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-28432518505705952542019-11-17T18:14:00.000-06:002019-11-17T18:14:36.183-06:00Do angels look Jewish?
In Judaism, Abraham is considered the exemplar (I mean, other than God, of course) of <i>ḥesed</i>—extreme kindness (to be discussed at greater length in a later post, I hope). The November 16, 2019 (Parashat Vayera), issue of <i>Likutei Peshatim</i> (a devar Torah and announcement newsletter distributed at Orthodox Jewish institutions in the greater Chicago area) preaches on Genesis 18:3: “‘And he [Abraham] said: My lords, if it please you that I find favor in your eyes, please do not pass from before your servant.’” Abraham had been sitting outside his tent waiting for wayfarers whom he could be hospitable to; the quoted verse is his invitation to three men who turn out to be angels.<p>Judaism teaches that <i>hakhnasat oreḥim</i>—welcoming strangers into our homes—is a form of ḥesed, and Abraham’s behavior here is the model we should follow. In expounding on this, <i>Likutei Peshatim</i> says, “When a Jewish person is visiting an unfamiliar community, we have the privilege and opportunity to greet him as a member of Hashem’s chosen children, and as a family member in our nation.” The question is whether Abrahamic people were visually distinguishable from others back in Abraham’s day. If so, did the angels look Abrahamic? If there was no visible difference between Jews and non-Jews, we would follow Abraham’s model by welcoming people without distinguishing between Jews and non-Jews. (Of course, if the angels looked Abrahamic, we’d still be following Judaism by welcoming non-Jews.)</p>Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-41569520869124079352017-11-28T20:46:00.000-06:002017-11-28T20:48:05.669-06:00Noah, ishhood, and responsibility<div class="MsoNormal">
Genesis 6:9 reads (in part) “<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Noah was in his
generations a man righteous and whole-hearted” (Jewish Publication Society 1917
translation). At least two interesting things are going on here.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">First, why specify “in his generations”? Who
else’s generations would he be righteous in, right? Noah lived in a time of
great wickedness. Rashi notes that among the rabbis of the Talmud, there are
some who take “in his generations” as praise. He was fully righteous even in
his corrupt environment; if he had lived in an age of righteous people, he
would have been even greater. Others take “in his generations” as a reproach.
He was righteous only by the standards of his corrupt time; had he lived in the
time of Abraham, he would have been considered a mere nothingness
righteousnesswise.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<span style="background: white; line-height: 107%;">Second, the phrase translated here as “man
righteous” is <i>ish tzaddik</i>. The basic
meaning of <i>ish</i> is “man”; in various contexts,
it can mean a person or a leader of either sex. The word <i>tzaddik</i> can be either the adjective “righteous” (an adjective comes
after its noun in Hebrew) or the noun “righteous person.” <i>Ish tzaddik </i>does indeed mean “righteous man,” but <i>tzaddik</i> by itself can also mean that. So
<i>ish</i> seems superfluous in this verse.
Why is it there? I have no clue, but I won’t let that stop me from preaching
about it.<o:p></o:p></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
Pirkei Avot 2.6 quotes Hillel as saying “in an <i>ish</i>-less place, strive to be an <i>ish</i>.” In this context, an <i>ish</i> is a person who takes
responsibility. Hillel is addressing the non-<i>ish</i> among us. A job needs to be done, and there’s nobody around to
do it. So you, who aren’t yet an <i>ish</i>,
you need to step up and take care of things.<o:p></o:p></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
This is Noah under the derogatory understanding of his
character. A job needed to be done, and Noah, who let’s face it wasn’t such a
big <i>tzaddik</i>, took care of biz. The
non-<i>ish</i> became an <i>ish</i>. For those of us (such as my good
self) who aren’t as righteous as Abraham, mediocre Noah is more inspiring than
magnificent Noah. This Noah guy, he wasn’t such a big deal, and he saved all
life on earth. I’m even more superlatively mediocre than he was, so what’s my
excuse for not doing the same?<o:p></o:p></div>
Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-66072714195886504242016-10-09T11:46:00.002-05:002016-10-12T23:52:16.948-05:00Avinu Malkenu (ver. 2.0)<center><i>Let me clarify. This is not version 2.0 of Avinu Malkenu, but version 2.0 of this sermon.</i></center>
<p>We recite Avinu Malkenu (Our Father, our King) during the Ten Days of Teshuvah as well as on fast days throughout the year. It ends with a well-known song that contains the phrase "<i>ein banu ma'asim</i>"--we have no deeds or acts or the like. More literally, it means we have no deeds <i>within us</i>--the usual way of saying "we don't have" is <i>ein <b>lanu</b></i>, not <i>ein <b>banu</b></i>.</p><p>This raises two questions. First, we're saying we have no deeds on the same days that we're alphabetically listing our bad deeds in the Viduy (Confession). English translators of siddurim recognize the problem and fix it incorrectly--they English it as "we have no good deeds" or words to that effect. The problem with this translation is that it makes no sense. We <i>know</i> that we have good deeds. Furthermore, we're supposed to act as though both our scale and that of the world, of which we're part, is evenly balanced between good and bad deeds. If we think in these terms, we realize that every deed, whether good or bad, tips the balance on both scales. To proclaim that we have bad deeds and no good deeds is counterproductive. The second question is why we say "<i>ein banu ma'asim</i> (we have no deeds within us) instead of just "<i>ein lanu ma'asim</i>" (we have no deeds).</p><p>To figure out what "<i>ein banu ma'asim</i>" means in this context, let's divide Avinu Malkenu into seven sections. In fact, we only need the first five sections for our purposes; sections 6 and 7 are bonus sections.</p><h2>Section 1</h2><p>Section 1 consists of the first three lines. It's just an introduction--it's us, we've sinned, for the sake of your name forgive us.</p><h2>Section 2</h2><p>Section 2 is a wish list of things we want from God--a good year, the ripping of the unhappy decree, good health, and so on. We're asking for results that are out of our control. We can influence the process and improve our chances--don't eat unhealthy stuff, don't start fights, be a good person--but we're asking here for results that we can't guarantee for ourselves. Section 2 takes up most of Avinu Malkenu.</p><h2>Section 3</h2><p>In section 3, we're no longer asking for things--now we're referring back to the list and telling God <i>why</i> he should do these things for us. In the first through third of the four lines that make up section 3, we ask God to do these things for the sake of our martyrs: "Do it--act--for the sake of those who were murdered for your holiness. Do it for the sake of those who were slaughtered for proclaiming your unity. Do it for the sake of those who went into flame and water sanctifying your name." Each of these three begins with <i>"'aseh"</i>--do it. Fulfill our requests for these reasons. In the fourth line of section 3, we ask God to avenge before our eyes the spilled blood of his servants. It's sort of part of section 3, because it's about our martyrs, but it's also sort of part of section 2, because we're asking for a result that we can't guarantee.</p><h2>Section 4</h2><p>In the first line of section 4, we realize that maybe we were being a little <u>h</u>utzpedik in section 3: "Act--<i>'aseh</i>--for <i>your</i> sake if not for our sake." The remaining three lines all also begin with <i>"'aseh"</i>. "Act--<i>'aseh</i>--for your sake and save us. Act--<i>'aseh</i>--for the sake of your great mercy. Act--<i>'aseh</i>--for the sake of your great, mighty, and awe-inspiring name, which we call upon."</p><h2>Section 5</h2><p>In section 5, we finally get to the well-known song, up to the words we've been trying to figure out, <i>"ein banu ma'asim"</i>: we have no deeds, or we have no deeds in us.</p><p>In the most general context-free sense, what does one do? One does deeds. Or what is a deed? It's something someone does. <i>Ma'asim</i> (deeds) and <i>'aseh</i> (the imperative verb meaning "act" or "do it") have the same root, and are even more tangled up in one another than <i>do</i> and <i>deed</i>. This is <i>ma'aseh</i>, the singular of <i>ma'asim</i>:</p><p><center><span style="font-size:200%;">מעשה</span></center>. <p></p><p>This is <i>'aseh</i>:</p><p><center><span style="font-size:200%;">עשה</span></center>. <p></p><p>In Avinu Malkenu, we ask God to do (<i>'aseh</i>) deeds (<i>ma'asim</i>) for us. <i>These</i> are the <i>ma'asim</i> that "<i>ein banu ma'asim</i>" refers to. And these are deeds that we can't do for ourselves; we don't have it <i>within us</i> to do them. Thus "<i>ein <b>banu</b> ma'asim</i>."</p><h2>Section 6</h2><p>Well, now we've figured out what "<i>ein banu ma'asim</i>" means. Section 6 is the first of the two bonus sections. The song continues with <i>"'aseh 'imanu tzedakah va<u>h</u>esed</i>"--treat us with charity and lovingkindness. I propose an alternative reading, based on ignoring idiom and translating it verbatim. <i>'Imanu</i> literally means "together with us." Translating this word by word, we get, "Do, together with us, charity and lovingkindness." This is remarkable. We often say that someone who does charity and lovingkindness is doing God's work. Under this reading, <i>we</i> are taking the initiative. We're claiming charity and lovingkindness as our work and asking God to sign up to help out as a volunteer.</p><h2>Section 7</h2><p>Avinu Malkenu concludes with "<i>vehoshi'enu</i>"--"and save us." Saving us is still in God's allegorical hands, like all the items in section 2. And, not presuming to read God's allegorical mind, it's possible that charity and lovingkindness might influence the outcome in a positive way.</p><h2>Conclusion</h2><p>So what's my conclusion? Avinu Malkenu is somewhat about human helplessness, sort of. But it is absolutely <i>not</i> a call for human passivity.</p>Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-53515641900560688442016-07-20T08:15:00.002-05:002016-07-20T08:15:52.316-05:00proposed addition to our vocabularyIn an "I forgive" statement that appears in many prayer books before the bedtime Shema, we say "I forgive all who have angered or annoyed me, or who have sinned against me, whether regarding my body or my possessions <i><b>or my honor</b></i> [<i>bein bikhvodi</i>], whether under compulsion or willingly, whether mistakenly or intentionally..." (emphasis added). The statement forgives those who have dissed us, which may be the hardest one to forgive. (I discuss the statement a little more <a href="http://considerthesource2.blogspot.com/2013/05/the-worst-prayer-in-judaism.html">here</a>).<p>Jews, at least those who use Ortho-speak, have a number of conversational tags. "<i>Lo aleinu</i>" (it shouldn't happen to us), "<i>Yasher koach</i>" (or "<i>Shkoich</i>") (good job!), and so on. I propose that we add "<i>bikhvodi</i>" from the "I forgive" statement to this list as something to be said silently. It means "in my honor" (or, given what a pain prepositions are when going from one language to another, "having to do in some prepositional sort of way with my honor"). When we get bent out of shape because someone has slighted, superciliated, or otherwise dissed us, we can use this to bend ourselves back into shape.</p>Warning to those who don't know Hebrew: It would be reasonable to surmise that <i>bein</i> (rhymes with "pain"), means "or," but it generally doesn't. In this case, "<i>bein</i> this <i>bein</i> that <i>bein</i> the other" means "whether this, that, or the other."Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-74108193255354028172016-02-17T05:40:00.000-06:002016-06-27T09:08:24.227-05:00The first (as far as I know) Jew to anglicize his nameI don't remember why, but yesterday a person I knew in high school a zillion years ago whose middle name was <i>Athelstan</i> was floating around in my mind. I knew the original Athelstan was an early English king, but I didn't know the details. So of course <a href = "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%86thelstan"> I Wikipedia'ed him</a>. What I found there gave me an insight that was so astonishing, and yet so obvious, that it completely smacked my gob. It's obvious in the way that the convenience of having zero in our arithmetic is obvious now that it's been pointed out.
<p>Æðelstān (the correct spelling) was the first Anglo-Saxon king of all of England. But here's the thing. We all know that Old English is derived from Yiddish. And <i>Æðelstān</i>, according to Wikipedia, means "noble stone." OK. I mean. <i>Æðel!</i> Noble! <i>Edel!</i> Right? Right? And check this out. <i>Stān!</i> Stone! <i>Stein!</i></p>
<p>Yes, it's true. This King Æðelstān guy? He was in fact an Edelstein who anglicized his name. I surmise that his first name was <i>Mel</i>, short for <i>melech</i>, the Hebrew word for king. Mel Edelstein, the nice (so I assume) Jewish boy who became the first English king of England. The king of England, and yet he kept his origins hidden. Until now.</p>
<p>What is the significance of this discovery? Most importantly, did he pronounce his Jewish name "Edelsteen," or "Edelstyne"? Further research, beyond the scope of this post, is needed.</p>
Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-31954597925195566042015-12-20T18:41:00.000-06:002016-01-11T15:26:46.979-06:00Wheaton College, Muslims, and JewsI have nothing but admiration and respect for Dr. Larycia Hawkins, the Wheaton College professor who is wearing a hijab in solidarity with American Muslims. I think the college was wrong to suspend her. The college claims that it put her on paid administrative leave not because she wears a hijab, but because of <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/ct-wheaton-college-professor-larycia-hawkins-20151216-story.html">her statement</a> on social media:
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"I stand in religious solidarity with Muslims because they, like me, a Christian, are people of the book," she posted Dec. 10 on Facebook. "And as Pope Francis stated last week, we worship the same God."</blockquote>
I find this problematic, although not for the reason the college does. Let’s imagine that some group who are <i>not</i> people of the book and do <i>not</i> worship the God of Abraham were being discriminated against or oppressed in the US, and that some or all of the women in that group wore some distinctive garb that isn’t in itself offensive to Christianity. Would Dr. Hawkins solidarize with them by wearing that garb? It’s possible, but she certainly wouldn’t be able to use the rationale that’s in her Facebook post. This is always a problem when you solidarize with an oppressed people not because they’re oppressed, but because they’re oppressed and they have a lot in common with you. Is there a Christian faith-based rationale for supporting the oppressed even when they aren’t sort of your coreligionists? Wheaton College seems to think there is. In a <a href="http://wheaton.edu/Media-Center/Media-Relations/Statements/Wheaton-College-Statement-Regarding-Dr-Hawkins">statement about Dr. Hawkins</a>, the college writes
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Wheaton College rejects religious prejudice and unequivocally condemns acts of aggression and intimidation against anyone. Our Community Covenant upholds our obligations as Christ-followers to treat and speak about our neighbors with love and respect, as Jesus commanded us to do.</blockquote>
The college's objection to Dr. Hawkins's Facebook has to do with the claim that "we [Christians and Muslims] worship the same God." In a <a href="http://wheaton.edu/Media-Center/Media-Relations/Statements/Wheaton-College-Statement-Regarding-Dr-Hawkins"> December 16 press release</a>, the college says,
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<blockquote>
As a Christian liberal arts institution, Wheaton College embodies a distinctive Protestant evangelical identity, represented in our Statement of Faith, which guides the leadership, faculty and students of Wheaton at the core of our institution's identity. Upon entering into a contractual employment agreement, each of our faculty and staff members voluntarily commits to accept and model the Statement of Faith with integrity, compassion and theological clarity.<br />
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Contrary to some media reports, social media activity and subsequent public perception, Dr. Hawkins' administrative leave resulted from theological statements that seemed inconsistent with Wheaton College's doctrinal convictions, and is in no way related to her race, gender or commitment to wear a hijab during Advent.</blockquote>
The first half of the first item in the <a href="http://wheaton.edu/About-Wheaton/Statement-of-Faith-and-Educational-Purpose"> Statement of Faith<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null"> reads,
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<blockquote>
WE BELIEVE in one sovereign God, eternally existing in three persons: the everlasting Father, His only begotten Son, Jesus Christ our Lord, and the Holy Spirit, the giver of life</blockquote>
Muslims and Jews believe in God as a Holy Unity, not as a Holy Trinity. Yes, we all believe in the God of Abraham, and yes, people can describe the same thing differently and still be talking about the same thing. But the question of Unity or Trinity is so essential to each religion's notion of God that we may in effect be talking about different Gods.<br />
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So I don't know whether we small-<i>u</i> unitarians and the trinitarians worship the same God. But I know this with all the certainty I have: no professor at Wheaton College, no writer for the <i>National Review</i> has ever been disciplined for saying that Christians and Jews worship the same God. I am certain of this because if the college or the review had done so, I would have heard about it at some synagogue; we Jews don't take that stuff lightly. I don't know whether any such professor or writer has said such a thing, but it seems reasonably likely; it's the type of thing that many Christians and Jews and righties and lefties often say. If a Wheaton College person or a <i>National Review</i> person has said that Jews and Christians worship the same God and haven't been rebuked for it, it's possible that those institutions may be operating with an anti-Muslim double standard.Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-63418873584023930552015-11-01T21:19:00.000-06:002015-11-06T06:09:51.700-06:00How to save a world, and the Tif'eret Yisrael on diversityLeviticus 19:9-10 commands the makers to open their fields and vineyards to the takers.
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When you reap your land’s harvest, do not completely harvest the ends of your fields. [Also] do not pick up individual stalks [that have fallen]. [Furthermore,] do not pick the incompletely formed grape clusters in your vineyards. [Also] do not pick up individual [fallen grapes] in your vineyards. [All the above] must be left for the poor and the stranger. I am God your Lord. (<i>The Living Torah</i> translation; square brackets in the published translation)</blockquote>
If we want to be truly pious about this, and if we object to my use of "makers and takers," we can say that all this bounty comes from God. "Makers and takers" becomes inappropriate, and we can use another phrase from campaign 2012: "You didn't build that."
<p>We don’t give these gifts only to the Jewish poor. Mishnah Gittin 5.8 teaches that we give them to the non-Jewish poor as well for the sake of the ways of peace (<i>darkhei shalom</i>, דרכי שלום). The point is that if your tzedakah goes only to the Jewish poor, you need to diversify.</p>
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As you may have seen on various bumper stickers, Hallmark cards, and those needlepointed things that people hang in their kitchens, the Talmud teaches that one who saves a single life is like one who has saved a whole world. Sometimes you will hear from some Jews that one who saves a single <i>Jewish</i> life is like one who has saved a whole world. Which version is correct? Good question.
<p>The talmudic item in question is Mishnah Sanhedrin 4.5. This is the version that appears in standard Mishnah collections and in the Babylonian Talmud (Sanhedrin 37a):</p>
<blockquote>
[Witnesses in a capital case need to know] that capital cases aren’t like property cases. In a property case, one makes restitution and atones. In a capital case, the blood of the accused and that of their descendants hang in the balance until the end of the world, as we find in the case of Cain, who killed his brother, as it is written, “Your brother’s bloods cry out” (Genesis 4:10). It doesn’t say “your brother’s blood” [דם אחיך], but “your brother’s bloods” [דמי אחיך]: his blood and the blood of his descendants. (Another explanation: your brother’s blood that was spilled on the trees and on the stones.) Therefore, a single person was created in order to teach that Scripture considers one who destroys a single Jewish life as one who has destroyed an entire world, and that Scripture considers one who saves a single Jewish life as one who has saved an entire world.</blockquote>
Two things are worth noting here. First, the logic of the proof text doesn’t limit this to Jews. This isn’t about the children of Abraham, but about all the children of Adam. Second, the statement about one who saves a single life being like one who saves a whole world follows from the verse about Cain and Abel. It doesn’t follow from our descent from a single person. But this is the Mishnah, so who am I to argue?, and I’ll be using the fact that this follows from our common origin later in this sermon. To continue:
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It [viz., our having come from a single person] was also for the sake of peace, so that one person wouldn’t say to another, “My father was greater than your father”...</blockquote>
Or as a rabbi in Pittsburgh whose name I don’t remember put it, the first syllable of <i>yichus</i> [inherited prestige; a pedigree] is <i>yich</i>. In the Ortho community, we’re not very serious about this. “He’s Rav Alef’s brother-in-law and a scion of the Beit rabbinic family--sorry, I meant rabbinic dynasty.” Or “I’m an <i>n</i>th-generation direct descendant of the Important Gadol of Kfar Yehupitz, which means I’m cooler than my parent. I have <i>n</i> - 1 ancestors who were direct descendants of the Gadol, and my parent has only <i>n</i> - 2.” It gets pretty annoying after a while.
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...and so that sectarians wouldn’t say that there is more than one power in Heaven. Finally, it shows the greatness of the Holy One, Blessed Be He. A person stamps many coins from a single die, and each looks like the other; the King of Kings of Kings, the Holy One, Blessed Be He, stamps each person from the single die of the first person, and none of them looks like another.</blockquote>
This mishnah also appears in the Jerusalem Talmud (Sanhedrin 4.9 [23a]):
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...one who saves a single life is considered as one who has saved an entire world.</blockquote>
Here, it isn't limited to Israelite lives. Maimonides paraphrases the Jerusalem text in Hilkhot Sanhedrin 12.3:
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<blockquote>
...one who saves a single life <b><i>in the world</i></b> is considered as one who has saved an entire world. (emphasis added)</blockquote>
The Tif’eret Yisra’el commentary by Rabbi Israel Lifschütz (1782-1860), the head of the rabbinical court in Danzig, applies the metaphor of unique coins from a single die not only to individuals but to whole peoples (Yakhin note 39 on Sanhedrin 4.5):
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There are those who are black as coal such as the Ethiopian (כושי), the Negro (נעגער), and the Hottentot (האטטענטאט), and those who are white as snow such as the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samoyedic_peoples">Samoyed</a> (זאמעידען) and the Albanian (אלבאנוס), those who are the reddest (אדומים ביותר) such as the American Indian (תושבי אמעריקע), and many other various colors.</blockquote>
Rabbi Lifschütz is commenting here on the biblical verse on which the statement about saving a single life is based. So I surmise that he would have taken that statement to apply universally and not just to Jews. I don’t know whether my reasoning here is rabbinically acceptable, but that’s OK, since I’m not learned in Torah, and this isn’t about Jewish law anyway, so who cares?
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Rabbi Lifschütz assigns colors to the peoples differently than we do. He doesn’t use the people of Danzig--the Jews and their Polish and German neighbors--as an example of a white people. I wildly guess that he had no actual contact with Samoyeds or Albanians and believed that they were literally white: the Samoyeds because of their association with the snowy north, up near the White Sea, and the Albanians because their name might have seemed related to <i>albino</i> and the Hebrew word for white, <i>lavan</i>. (The speculative translation of זאמעידען as <i>Samoyeds</i> was proposed by Felix Blank of the Jewish Theological Seminary library. I asked for suggestions from both Slavic and Jewish reference librarians, and his idea made the most sense. זאמעידען is a strange word; the עי is probably pronounced /ei/ as in <i>rein</i>, but that sound is usually spelled יי in a context like this.) Does this mean that he thought of the people we usually call white not as white, but as just normal--flesh colored, as it used to say on the crayons? Maybe. Why does he call American Indians "reddest" instead of just plain "red"? Maybe because he considered the flesh-colored people the basis for comparison. I leave it to people who are smarter than I am (which is a lot of people) to decide whether we should call him a racist.
<p>When I was talking to some people about this a while back, a few of them objected to my using the word <i>Negro</i>. The word may be out of fashion now, but translating נעגער in any other way would have been anachronistic and incorrect. <i>Negro</i> was an honorable word until fairly recently. I was eleven when Martin Luther King gave his "I Have a Dream" speech, which is full of references to "the Negro."</p>
תושבי אמעריקע translates almost literally into <i>Native Americans</i>, but I think that would have been anachronistic.Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-65387868289609039942015-05-20T13:33:00.000-05:002015-06-06T06:45:48.077-05:00Nahum and Nokhem<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Mississippi Fred MacDowell comments on </span><a href="http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/2015/05/a-pair-of-hebrew-revolutionary-war.html"><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">one of his own posts</span></a><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"> (using his nom de comment, "S.") that some people pronounce the biblical name <i>Nahum</i> as <i>Nokhem</i> even though the first vowel of the Hebrew name—נַחוּם—is pronounced <i>ah</i> in all dialects of Hebrew. This post started as a comment on the comment, but it got too long, so I made it even longer with clarifications, and here it is. </span><span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Those who don't need the clarifications can skip the numbered paragraphs, but I don't know how you know whether you need them until you've read them. It might be easier to skip the numbered paragraphs for now and come back to them when you need them (if you do). There are cross-refs to these paragraphs.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">1. The Hebrew vowels pataḥ ( ַ ) and ḥataf pataḥ ( ֲ ) are pronounced /a/ in both the Sefardic and the Ashkenazic dialects. The pataḥ is a short vowel, and the ḥataf pataḥ is even shorter; it should be pronounced hurriedly (see paragraph 2). The first vowel in נַחוּם is a pataḥ.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">2. The ḥataf pataḥ (paragraph 1) is so short that technically it isn't even a full vowel; it doesn't produce syllables, and therefore isn't accented. It stands in for a sheva ( ְ ), which is either silent (sheva naḥ) or is pronounced like a schwa (sheva naʿ) (and this is where the English word <i>schwa</i> comes from). Other ḥataf vowels, which follow the same rules, are the hataf qamats ( ֳ ) and the ḥataf segol ( ֱ ).</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">3. There are two kinds of qamatz ( ָ ) in Hebrew; they are identical in appearance. The qamatz gadol is the long vowel corresponding to the pataḥ (paragraph 1); the qamatz qatan is the short vowel corresponding to the ḥolam ( ֹ ). (The long and short qamatzim are not the long and short vowels corresponding to each other.) Both qamatzim are pronounced /o||u/ in Ashkenazic Hebrew. In Sefardic pronunciation, the qamatz gadol (which appears much more often) is pronounced /a/, and the qamatz qatan is (or "should" be) pronounced /o/, but it usually isn't. So from a linguistic point of view, why <strong><em>SHOULD </em></strong>something be pronounced in a way most people usually don't pronounce it? Good question.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">4. A dagesh is a dot appearing within a consonant, and there are two kinds. A dagesh ḥazaq may appear in any letter other than an alef, hei, ḥet, or ayin, and only rarely appears in a resh. (When a dot appears within an alef [rare occurrence] or a hei, it's a mappiq, which is a whole other story.) It serves to geminate (double the pronunciation) of the consonant; for example, הֵלּׅמּוּד is pronounced /hallimmud/, not /*halimud/. Or not; we don't really geminate in either Ashkenazic or Sefardic pronunciation. Gemination is sometimes important for theoretical purposes, some are careful about it when chanting the Torah or saying the Shema, and I believe the Yemenite Hebrew pronunciation preserves the gemination. In the case of a bet, gimmel, dalet, kaf, peh, or tav (the begad kefat letters), the dagesh ḥazaq also makes the consonant a stop instead of a fricative. The second kind of dagesh is the dagesh qal, which appears <em>only </em>in the begad kefats and only makes the letters into stops; it doesn't geminate. In practice, gimmel and dalet are always stops in Ashkenazic and Sefardic pronunciation, and in Sefardic tav is always a stop as well. Again, this is sometimes theoretically important even when it doesn't affect pronunciation.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">5. An open syllable in Hebrew is one that ends in a vowel, and a closed syllable ends in a consonant. A consonant that is geminated with a dagesh ḥazaq (paragraph 4) or has a sheva naḥ or a ḥataf vowel standing in for a sheva naḥ (paragraph 2) closes a syllable. Broken into syllables, הֵלּׅמּוּד is /hal.lim.mud/.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Max Weinreich notes that in the Hebrew component of Yiddish, closed syllables tend to have short vowels and open syllables tend to have long vowels; although this tendency applies to the Hebrew component, it comes from the German component. He mentions several words that have either a pataḥ or a ḥataf pataḥ (/a/) (paragraph 1) in Hebrew that is pronounced like a qamatz (/o||u/) (paragraph 3). The Hebrew syllables of interest are open (paragraph 5). Recall that the qamatz gadol is the long vowel associated with pataḥ. Among the words Weinreich mentions are <i>hodes</i> (myrtle branch), <i>kholem</i> (dream), <i>khotse</i> (half), <i>kadokhes</i> (ague), <i>tokhes</i> (buttock), and <i>tones</i> (fast), as well as <i>Nokhem</i>.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">There may be at least one mistake in the list. <i>Lehokhes</i> (spite), a Yiddish noun, is a repurposing of the Hebrew infinitive לְהַכְעׅיס (to anger). The sheva here is naḥ, which closes the syllable; Weinreich says this is an open syllable. He notes that in eastern Yiddish, it's pronounced <i>lehakhes</i>. <i>Lehakhes</i> is also the pronunciation given in Uriel Weinreich's dictionary.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Some of the other things Weinreich says about open syllable/long vowel and closed syllable/short vowel correspondences don't seem intuitively right to me, but I'm not chutzpadik enough to say he's wrong unless I'm sure, which I'm not.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;"></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Times, "Times New Roman", serif; font-size: large;">Source: Max Weinreich, <i>History of the Yiddish Language</i>, 2 vols., ed. Paul Glasser, trans. Shlomo Noble with the assistance of Joshua A. Fishman (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2008); original Yiddish publication, 4 vols., 1973. The list of words is from 2008, 2: 389/1973, 2: 44; the statement about the phenomenon's German origin is from 2008, 2: 387/1973, 2: 42-43.
</span>Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-91378234255700680492014-08-27T11:21:00.000-05:002014-08-27T11:37:53.235-05:00What does G-d demand of us?<center>
<i>This d’var Torah on parshat Ekev (Deuteronomy 7:12-11:25) was delivered by Phyllis Nutkis at Kol Sasson Congregation, Skokie, Illinois, on August 9, 2014. Thank you, Phyllis, for giving me a copy and letting me post it.</i></center><br/>
When I started preparing for this d’var Torah, I really did not want to talk about the current situation in Israel and Gaza. But I haven’t been able to think about anything else. So I’m going to jump right in here and to share my thoughts with you, with the hope of starting a conversation.<br/><br/>
The more I hear and the more I read about what’s going on, the more troubled I feel. I’ve read columns and articles from the <i>New York Times</i>, the <i>Wall Street Journal</i>, and <i>Al Jazeera</i>; from <i>Ha’aretz</i> and the <i>Jerusalem Post</i>; listened to NPR and Fox News; read lots of comments and opinions from Facebook; and more, as I’m sure many of you have. Even if we ignore the obviously anti-Semitic rants, and disregard comments that are obviously ignorant or uninformed, we’ve heard and read everything from “Israel should give up all the land” to “We should just kill all the Arabs.” But it doesn’t seem as though there are any clear answers. So it seemed natural, as I sat down to write this d’var Torah, to see if there was anything in the parsha that could shed any light on this subject, or perhaps clarify or broaden my understanding. So let’s start with a question from the parsha:<br/></br>
<u>What does G‑d demand of us?</u><br/><br/>
Deuteronomy 7:12: “And if you do obey these rules and observe them carefully, The L‑rd your G‑d will with lovingkindness maintain the covenant with you that He made on oath with your ancestors.”<br/><br/>
The parsha begins with Moshe describing the specific ways in which G‑d will sustain the covenant, to bring us into the land He has promised us, <i>IF</i> we follow His commandments: the land he will bring us to will be fertile; crops will thrive; there will be just the right amount of rain, at just the right times; we will bear children, and they will survive; our cattle will reproduce; we will be healthy... G‑d will reward us with this land, because the land embodies (and in fact is critical to) everything that matters for our survival.<br/><br/>?
But it’s conditional: “And <i>IF</i> you do obey these rules and observe them carefully.” But we have a terrible track record in obeying G‑d’s rules. We have been “stiff-necked,” stubborn, and defiant. So why didn’t He just destroy us and “blot out our name from under the heaven”?<br/><br/>
It’s clear from this parsha, and from many other places in the Humash, that G‑d hasn’t drawn a line in the sand. He is willing to be persuaded that we shouldn’t be destroyed; that we should be given another chance. He repeatedly invites human moral critique. He invites us to argue with him; to make our case. He <i><b>considered</b></i> wiping us out, and he said so out loud <i>because</i> he wanted Moshe to argue with Him, to defend us. So this is <i><b>one</b></i> thing that G‑d demands from us: He wants us to be His partner in a moral debate.<br/><br/>
But in this midst of all of this—the descriptions of the land AND of our failures to keep the commandments—, there are a couple of verses that seem out of place.<br/><br/>
In 10:18-19: “[G‑d] upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger, providing him with food and clothing.” “V’ahavtem et ha-ger ki gerim hayitem b’eretz Mitzrayim. You too must love the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.”<br/><br/>
“Ger” is usually translated, literally, as “stranger.” Hazal took the biblical notion of “ger” to mean a “convert.” But in the Humash, a “ger” is more accurately described as “resident alien.” The state of being an “alien” is a result of belonging to a different culture than ours; it’s a result of that person’s “strangeness” to us. In other words, what makes a person a stranger—a ger—is <b>our</b> alienation from his or her difference. So if we are to “love the stranger,” we need to change the way we regard him. If I understand another’s culture, he is no longer alien to me. It’s very important to make clear, though, that does NOT mean that we should <i>adopt</i> the alien’s culture; in fact we are warned against this. But the other extreme is also not desirable: when we know nothing about the culture of the resident aliens who live among us, we need to familiarize ourselves, so that the “alien” is no longer a “stranger.” And as Jews, the prototypical “aliens” in a now-connected global world, we should appreciate that need.<br/><br/>
The Talmud mentions that “Ahavat haGer,” the instruction to love, and not oppress, the stranger appears 36 times in the Torah; in fact, it’s mentioned more times than any other mandate in the Torah. Nechama Leibowitz says that empathy for the stranger is an outgrowth of experience. "We are bidden to put ourselves in the position of the stranger by remembering how it felt when we were strangers in another land."<br/><br/>
Emmanuel Levinas defines the stranger as the “Other.” “The Other is what I am not. The Other is this, not because of his own character or psychology but because of his very…‘otherness.’ The Other is, for example, the weak, the poor, ‘the orphan and widow,’ whereas I am the rich or the powerful.”<br/><br/>
Why are these verses here? How do these two things—the land, and befriending the “other”—fit together?<br/><br/>
Nechama Leibowitz says: “We are accustomed to reading [this] as the classic description of the fertility and other wonderful qualities of the holy land. But we must not ignore its other implication. The Torah sings the praises of the land to emphasize too the moral dangers and pitfalls that such gifts might bring with them.”<br/><br/>
Here are two potential pitfalls.<br/><br/>
1. We are warned against worshipping other gods, so when we attempt to understand and familiarize ourselves with the “strangers” among us, we have to be careful to select and appreciate the aspects of this foreign culture that enlighten and enlarge us (everything from Galileo, Roman architecture, and seventeenth-century European music to yoga, acupuncture, and pizza), and yet reject the aspects that will undermine us and corrupt our moral standing.<br/><br/>
2. We are warned against hubris; to be careful that “when you have eaten your fill, and have built fine houses to live in, and your herds and flocks have multiplied, and your silver and gold have increased, and everything you own has prospered, lest your heart grow haughty and you forget the L‑rd your G‑d.”<br/><br/>
Receiving G‑d’s gifts, and enjoying the riches of the land, may lead us to say (8:17), “My own power and the might of my own hand have won this wealth for me.” But Moshe tells the people, “Know, then, that it is not for any virtue of yours that the L‑rd your G‑d is giving you this good land to possess; for you are a stiff-necked people.” Believing that we have the power to manipulate the world can lead to our downfall. Hubris, by definition, undermines our relationship with G‑d. Arrogance and smugness are based on dismissiveness and disregard for the “Other.” When we act with hubris, we are rejecting our relationship with G‑d. Who are we to be dismissive of another human being?<br/><br/>
So all along, we’ve been hearing about the wonderful land to which G‑d will bring us. But, of course, there’s a big problem. This isn’t just empty, uninhabited land—it’s full of people. Other human beings. They may be idol worshippers, even child sacrificers, and they’re hostile; but they’re people, and they’re there. And to make things more complicated, almost immediately after we hear about the land, we hear this:<br/><br/>
7:16: “You shall destroy all the peoples that the L‑rd your G‑d delivers to you, showing them no pity.” 7:24: “You shall obliterate their name from under the heavens; no man shall stand up to you, until you have wiped them out.” This seems to be in direct opposition to what we’ve just been told—“You shall not wrong a stranger or oppress him, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” I am not sure what to make of these statements; I find them very troubling, but that will be a subject for another d’var Torah. In the meantime, I think this is another warning: history shows that those who have been oppressed frequently become worse oppressors when they acquire power; we are thus cautioned against becoming oppressors when we have power of another.<br/><br/>
We were strangers, or “others”—resident aliens—in Egypt, and suffered under our oppressors. Samson Raphael Hirsch writes that, when we are in a position of power, we should beware of making human rights conditional on anything but “the simple humanity which every human being bears. With any limitation of these human rights, the gate is opened to the whole horror of Egyptian mishandling of human beings.”<br/><br/>
I think these concepts can help us answer the question we started with: <b>What does G‑d demand of us?</b><br/><br/>
We are made in G‑d’s image, and therefore we are to emulate G‑d, who (10:18) “upholds the cause of the fatherless and the widow, and befriends the stranger…” Ibn Ezra says: If one person “afflicts” a widow or orphan and the community doesn’t intervene to protect him/her, all will be punished; we all bear responsibility. Anyone who sees a person oppressing society’s most vulnerable and does not come to his/her aid, will also be considered an oppressor.<br/><br/>
But exactly how we are to do this isn’t spelled out; in the current situation, there are certainly no easy answers, or even any answers at all. But we know that G‑d invites, and expects, moral and ethical debate; so perhaps we are meant <i><b>not</b></i> to find a definitive answer, but to continually reexamine the question. We will never all agree; but the debate shouldn’t be about what is the “most accurate” or originalist interpretation of the text—instead, it should be about what is the most moral and ethical interpretation. What is the best for the Jews, and for all of humanity? This is also what G‑d demands of us.<br/><br/>
Among all of the things I’ve read the past month, there are some very disturbing things; and a lot of, I think, useless things that we use to avoid the really difficult questions. For example, there are lists all of our achievements—the Nobel prizes, the amazing Israeli technology, the polio vaccine. But as the parsha makes clear, we should not hide behind our accomplishments and use them as justification for our supposed “superiority” over the “other”; we aren’t getting the land because we’re so good; our victory is not proof of our virtue. 9:5, 9:6: “It is not because of your righteousness.”<br/><br/>
Often, when we are confronted with seemingly impossible situations, we tend to rely on stereotypes to reinforce what we think we know and what we want to believe in order to “justify” our beliefs. We’ve all seen dozens of examples of these stereotypes lately, but here’s one I saw the other day: there’s a picture that’s being circulated on FB of an ugly, toothless old woman, with the caption that she is one of the seventy-two virgins promised to Muslim martyrs. I find this no less offensive than the stereotypical images used by the Nazis of Jews with hooked noses, grabbing fistfuls of money. How does this help? What does this accomplish? I think it’s worse than useless, because it diverts us from examining the real issues; looking at the actual human beings before us, and looking at ourselves honestly.<br/><br/>
But doing this is incredibly hard, because we know that there are many serious and perhaps irreconcilable differences. But to say that’s it, end of conversation—that’s not helpful. <b>Especially</b> when it seems futile, we have to continue searching, talking, not closing our hearts and minds to those of the “other,” to continue to broaden our understanding of him and be mindful of our own power.<br/><br/>
We were strangers in Egypt, and thus we have a responsibility toward the strangers among us, regardless of their behavior. Even though we haven’t entirely succeeded in keeping the rules of behavior G‑d has laid out for us, he indicates that he isn’t giving up on <b>us</b> now or in the future. Our task is to keep trying; we aren’t to give up either. We should continually and continuously aspire to be a people that truly deserves this land and all it represents. The giving of the land should induce a perpetual attitude of gratitude and humility. It’s a gift we didn’t earn. The parsha makes clear this gratitude is best expressed by treating the most vulnerable in society well, especially when we have wealth and power.<br/><br/>
There are no clear answers, but we should engage in serious and sophisticated thought and discussion about how to relate to the “strangers” who are in the land, and who will always be in the land; there will always be “others.” Yes, many of them, but not all, are hostile. But what do we really know about the “other” who threatens us? Without knowing, we can’t decrease his “strangeness.” We need to take responsibility for familiarizing ourselves, and to have empathy; then the “alien” is no longer a “stranger.”<br/><br/>
This is what G‑d demands of us: to engage in a moral debate with Him, to consider and argue and devote our strongest energies to our relationship with the “stranger” among us, especially when we are in a position of power. This is HOW we fulfill the commandment to love and obey G‑d.<br/><br/>
We don’t just look for easy answers; and we don’t just walk away in disgust or despair when we don’t find the answer. We don’t resort to slogans or shallow simplifications. We live with the tensions, with the uncertainty, with the dissatisfaction of not having found a solution—yet. We keep trying to reach different and ultimately more helpful understandings of our responsibility towards the “strangers” who live among us, adopting the best of their wisdom and values, without compromising our own, keeping in mind that Judaism has survived and flourished exactly by such adaptation and adoption.<br/><br/>
As I said at the beginning, I want this to be a conversation. I hope we can keep talking about it.Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-91505129272983185942013-12-15T07:07:00.001-06:002013-12-15T07:30:08.131-06:00Shoveling snow on the Sabbath (ver. 2013)Snowy sidewalks are no big deal in themselves, but they become sidewalks with packed ice after they've been walked on for a while, and those things are dangerous and, depending on the weather, can last for weeks.<br />
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When it's necessary to shovel on the Sabbath, I always do so, wearing socks on my hands as a shinnuy. I haven't asked a rabbi about this, and this is out of respect for the rabbinate--I want to save them the embarrassment of possibly giving the wrong answer.<br />
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As a side note, I once told a friend, former and (I hope) future <u>h</u>evruta, and ethical adviser about this. He (who lives in an apartment where the landlord is responsible for shoveling, so it's not his problem) said he thought this a fine idea. Since it's just me, he said, I should do it without any distinctive Jewish accessories visible. If, however, I were R' Gedalia Dov Schwartz, av beit din of the Rabbinical Council of America and rosh beit din of the Chicago Rabbinical Council, who lives nearby, he'd advise me to do it looking like I was R' Gedalia Dov Schwartz so everyone would know it's OK. I take his point, although if I were R' Gedalia Dov Schwartz, I wouldn't need his advice.<br />
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One Sabbath morning in 2009, there was a thick layer of slush on the sidewalk. I ignored it, since it was the Sabbath, and what would the people coming to lunch think? By the time the Sabbath was over, the slush had turned into solid ice with footprints.<br />
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So let's imagine that someone had injured themselves on the ice that I piously left there, and let's further imagine that I'd passed away and had to face the Heavenly Tribunal.<br />
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<b>Members of the Tribunal (M"T)</b>: Well, what about that nice Mr. McNotzreigh who broke his whatsits on your ice?<br />
<b>Me</b>: Sorry about that, but only a little, since I was observing Shabbat.<br />
<b>M"T</b>: Very nice.</blockquote>
(I assume the M"T are Orthodox Jews, among whom "very nice" means "yeah, right, whatever.")<br />
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Right. Well, very nice. But from now on, I'm going to do what needs to be done and forgo the after-the-fact teshuvah.<br />
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In the morning service, we ask God to rescue us from a bad neighbor (unless we're praying in a congregation that skips that paragraph). Reading between the lines, I am guessing that the liturgist also doesn't want us to be the bad neighbor.Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-79476459100869138312013-10-22T06:10:00.004-05:002021-04-28T12:25:07.631-05:00Seasonal controversy`<p>This all started with a post--actually it was a status update--that I put on Facebook.</p>
<blockquote>
Early skirmish in the war against Christmas. (By the way, I like the word "skirmish." It sounds like something they would have made up at Mad Mag.) Anyhow, early skirmish (gleeful chortle about saying it again) in the war against Christmas: the drugstore at Dempster and Crawford (as they quaintly call Pulaski out in Skokie) is already selling Chanukka/Chanukkah/Hanukka/Hanukkah stuff (I list them alphabetically). </blockquote>
<blockquote>
And to give the opening shot in another seasonal war, I don't care whether you spell it with a "Ch" or an "H"! I don't care whether you spell it with an "h" at the end! The important thing is you use one "n" and two "k"s. And also, you shouldn't accent the "a," since it isn't a real syllable.</blockquote>
<p>A Facebook friend (and why doesn't Facebook have interlocutors as well as friends? I mean, this guy actually is a friend, but he was also an interlocutor in this case) asked why I "insisted" ("insisted"? jeesh) on one en and two kays. This is my answer.</p>
The <i>real</i> answer is that I just wanted to stir the pot a little by starting a seasonal spelling fight while not engaging in the "Ch/H" controversy. But I'll also give a Hebraiqally geeqy answer to the question of why you "should" use one en and two kays, and also explain why my answer isn't really relevant.</p>
<p>Most Hebrew consonants can accommodate a dot (dagesh) in the middle. With almost all such consonants (including nun) it means the consonant should be doubled. The nun in <span style="font-size: large;">חֲנֻכׇּה</span> has no dot, therefore it's not doubled. That was the easy part.</p>
<p>So now we come to the "almost all such consonants" part. When a hei or an alef has a dot, the dot is called a mappiq. With the hei, the dot means the hei should be pronounced (like when a person saying Kaddish goes "shmeihhhh rabba"). You don't find many alefs with mappiqs, and when you do it means you should make sure to do the glottal stop.</p>
<p>But anyhow, there are six consonants--bet, gimmel, dalet, kaf, peh, and tav, the bgdkft letters--where the dagesh can mean one of two things. It can either mean that you pronounce the letter as a stop instead of a fricative, or it can mean that you both double the pronunciation (which most of us don't do, including me) (<i><b>and</b></i> pronounce it as a stop instead of a fricative. (I've heard that Yemenite Hebrew makes the stop/fricative distinction with all six bgdkft letters. Most of us, including me, reading this don't.) So which is it with the kaf in <span style="font-size: large;">חֲנֻכׇּה</span>? Obviously it's a "k" instead of a "chhhhhh," but that's true with both options. Is the "k" doubled?</p>
<p>Two things suggest that it's doubled. First, the diagonal row of dots (a qubbutz) is a short vowel, which suggests that the syllable is closed, which would mean that it's a doubling dot (don't ask). Second, we can look at nouns with the same pattern of vowels as <span style="font-size: large;">חֲנֻכׇּה</span> <i><b>but with a non-bgdkft letter in the same position as the kaf</b></i>. If those letters have a dagesh, they have to be doubling dageshim. And if we look at such words, like <span style="font-size: large;">גֽדֻלָּה</span> and <span style="font-size: large;">קְדֻשׇּׁה</span>, we find that the non-bgdkft letters in that position do have dageshim. This also makes it very likely that the kaf in <span style="font-size: large;">חֲנֻכׇּה</span> is doubled.</p>
<p>But wait a minute there!, you may be exclaiming. In those two supposedly vowelly similar words, the vowel with the first letter is the two vertical dots, and in <span style="font-size: large;">חֲנֻכׇּה</span> it's a horizontal line with the two dots to the right of it. What the heck? Good question. The two piled dots (a sheva, whence the English "shewa") are sometimes silent and sometimes pronounced like a shewa. Under the first letter of a word, it's always pronounced. Even when it's pronounced, a sheva isn't considered a full-fledged vowel, and it doesn't form a real syllable (for purposes of grammatical analysis; obviously it's a syllable for all practical purposes). But anyhow, the chhhet and/or heth, the first letter in <span style="font-size: large;">חֲנֻכׇּה</span>, can't take a pronounced sheva (neither can alef, hei, or ayin). So what to do? You use what looks like a combination of a real vowel and a sheva--a semivowel. And like a sheva, a semivowel isn't a complete vowel and doesn't form a syllable. And can't be accented. Which is why I said you shouldn't accent the first "a" in Hanukka (or however you spell it).</p>
<p>But this is just pretending that the "Channukah" (or however you spell it) that we say in English is Hebrew. It isn't, although it obviously comes from Hebrew. It's English. And it's--I don't know, sociolinguists probably have a name for it--let's call it Anglophone Jewish Intracommunal Patois (AJIP--I was hoping it would end up having a cool abbrev, but it didn't) (although to paraphrase Paul Robeson, "When Israel was in AJIP land, Let my people go"). Anyhow, as I was going to say before I interrupted myself) AJIP words don't come directly from Hebrew--they come from Yiddish, where it's just fine to accent "Hanukkah" on the first syllable.</p>
<p>The entire staff of Consider the Source wish our entire readership a happy holiday.Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-26348911077036445542013-05-28T20:39:00.000-05:002013-05-28T20:39:05.174-05:00Tinkering with the wording of prayersI recommend <a href="http://lethargic-man.dreamwidth.org/434487.html">Lethargic_Man's post on this topic (and in fact with this very title)</a>.Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-69797245219745917152013-05-05T09:38:00.001-05:002013-05-05T15:15:00.467-05:00The worst prayer in JudaismEloqai Netsor was put into the Jewish liturgical canon to fulfill our need for noncanonical nontextual spontaneous personal prayer from the heart.<p>(I'll let that stand as a paragraph by itself so you can let it sink in and go "Wha?" [I mean so you, not the paragraph, can go "Wha?"!]!)</p>The prayer begins, "My God, keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile. May my soul be silent before those who curse me, and may my soul [<i>nefesh</i>] be like dust [<i>ʿafar</i>] before all."<p>The Hebrew for "keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile," except for the possessives, comes directly from Psalm 34:14: "Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking guile." The difference is important. In Judaism, we have free will--we are responsible for our own ethical behavior. We may ask God for strength, but we do <i>not</i> ask God to prevent us from doing wrong things; we need to prevent ourselves from doing them. "My God, keep my tongue from evil and my lips from speaking guile" is a complete distortion of Jewish ethics.</p>"May my soul be silent before those who curse me, and may my soul [<i>nefesh</i>] be like dust [<i>ʿafar</i>] before all." This may sound like a prayer to be a forgiving person, but it isn't. Dust can't forgive. Even if it could forgive, it has no reason to, since it can't be offended. Dust isn't human. We are. Forgiveness is an activity, and this is a prayer for passivity.</p>The language of Eloqai Netsor reminds us of Genesis 2:7: God formed man from dust [<i>ʿafar</i>] and breathed life into him, and man became a living soul [<i>nefesh</i>]. In the verse, God forms us from <i>ʿafar</i> and we become a living <i>nefesh</i>; in the prayer, we ask that our <i>nefesh</i> be like <i>ʿafar</i>. For those who take the verse seriously--and note that I didn't say "literally"--this prayer should seem both ungrateful and dehumanizing.<p>Just to clear up any ambiguity, I'll point out that I dislike Eloqai Netsor.</p>I no longer say Eloqai Netsor; if you know anybody whose first name is "Rabbi," please don't tell them about it. Note that I'm not saying others shouldn't say it. If I were compiling a siddur, it would include Eloqai Netsor in its proper places, since it would be an Orthodox siddur. But there would also be a note saying that some have the practice of replacing it with Hareini Moḥel. The note would be true, since I make that replacement.<p>Hareini Moḥel is an "I forgive" statement that precedes the bedtime Shema (also known as the <a href = "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypnagogic">hypnagogic</a> "Hark!"!)! It appears in many siddurim at the beginning of the bedtime Shema song and dance. The various Korens and ArtScrolls include it, but Birnbaum does not. Some versions are longer than others, some are more annoying than others. I use a brief rendition, which includes nonannoying material found in all the versions:<blockquote>I forgive all who have angered or annoyed me, and all who have sinned against me, whether against my body, my possessions, my honor, or anything that is mine; whether under compulsion or willingly; whether mistakenly or maliciously; whether by passing thought, by planning, by word, or by deed. Let no human being be punished on my account.</blockquote>Hareini Moḥel divides those whom you're forgiving into two categories--those who have angered or annoyed you, and those who have sinned against you. Note that people in the first category didn't necessarily do anything to you--it's about your reaction to them, not about what they've done to you. This shows a realistic understanding of anger. Maybe they annoy you just by existing; maybe they just <i><b>grate on your nerves</b></i>. You're forgiving them not necessarily because of anything they've done, but because you need to let go and mensh out. Can someone belong to both categories of people you're forgiving? Of course. (Silly and annoying question; I forgive you for asking, for existing, and for frowning [don't deny it! I saw it!] at my spelling of <i>mensh</i>.)</p>In Eloqai Netsor one whines: someone cursed me!, I'm going to suffer in silence, and I want my soul to be like dust (maybe it's unfair to call it whining--writing this post is putting me on an anti-Eloqai-Netsor roll). In Hareini Moḥel, we act like adults. We acknowledge that some of our anger may not be rational, we forgive everyone, and we take responsibility.Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00795958258058435709noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-67760123946665797182012-05-08T07:10:00.000-05:002012-05-08T07:10:33.320-05:00Minor shande<i>Likutei Peshatim</i> is a weekly bulletin distributed in Ortho institutions in the Chicago area, containing divrei Torah (vey'z mir) and paid announcements. In the May 5 issue was<blockquote>JONAH, Jews Offering New Alternatives for Healing, is a non-profit international organization offering wide range of resources, services, and educational programs to the world-wide Jewish community, including helping those with unwanted addictions and habits. JONAH works directly with those who struggle and with their families and friends. For more information go to <a href="http://jonahweb.org/index.php">www.jonahweb.org</a> or call 201-433-3444.</blockquote>If you go to the website, as I did, you'll find that JONAH is "dedicated to educating the world-wide Jewish community about the social, cultural and emotional factors which lead to same-sex attractions." That seems to be JONAH's entire program. It does not seem to deal at all with chemical addictions. The notice in <i>Likutei</i> is very misleading, and it appears to be intentionally so.<p>As shandes go, this is minor stuff. The notice doesn't rape children or throw acid in anyone's face. JONAH doesn't seem to verbally abuse homosexuals. Nevertheless, the notice probably gave a moment of false hope to the reader who was looking for an Ortho org that deals with chemical addictions. Whoever placed the notice should be more careful, ashamed of themselves, or both.</p>Michael Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07334251239196640565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-5571762739005027492011-11-02T09:35:00.019-05:002020-10-04T19:32:14.190-05:00Geshem and gashem<center>
<i>This is a reworking of (and I hope an improvement on) an old now-deleted post.</i></center>
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</center>
Well, the holiday season is over. Which raises the eternal question that I know is on everyone's mind: "Should I say 'Mashiv harua<u>h</u> umorid <b>hagashem</b>,' or 'Mashiv harua<u>h</u> umorid <b>hageshem</b>'"?<br />
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But first, let's discuss pausal forms. Those who know from pausal forms are invited to skip down to the paragraph that begins "<i>Gashem</i> is the pausal form of <i>geshem</i>."<br />
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Using the siddur, I noticed some strange stuff some years ago. For example, in the Retzeh paragraph that's added to Birkat Hamazon on Shabbat, we find "kemitzvat <b>retzonékha</b> [new clause] <b>uvirtzon<sup>e</sup>khá</b> hania<u>h</u> ["hana<u>h</u>" in Birnbaum] lanu..." What's with the two different endings for the same word? And similarly in the weekday Amidah, we find "vekarno tarum <b>bishu'atékha</b> [new clause] ki <b>lishu'at<sup>e</sup>khá</b> kivinu..."<br />
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And in the post-drinking blessing for wine, what's with all the <strong>gefen</strong> and <strong>gafen</strong>? "Gafen" must be the basic way of saying it, right? I mean, everyone's heard "borei peri <b>hagafen</b>." So you look up <i>vine</i> in an English-Hebrew dictionary--it's <i><b>gefen</b></i>.<br />
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And at the end of Birkat Hamazon, we have "vezar'o mevakesh <b>la<u>h</u>em</b>" instead of "le<u>h</u>em," and in Ashrei "<b>ugdol-<u>h</u>ased</b>" instead of "<u>h</u>esed."<br />
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What's going on? What's going on is pausal forms. In biblical Hebrew, some words undergo a change if they're immediately followed by a major pause. One pausal form is the "-<sup>e</sup>khá" (meaning "your") that becomes "-ékha" in pausation. Thus <b>lishu'at<sup>e</sup>khá</b> and <b>bishu'atékha</b>. Another occurs in nouns with three consonants and two segols (a segol is the three-dot vowel that sounds like a short "e"), such as <i>le<u>h</u>em</i>, <i>melekh</i>, and <i><u>h</u>esed</i>; the first segol becomes a qamatz (the vowel that looks like a squushed-down capital T). Thus "vezar'o mevakesh <strong>la<u>h</u>em</strong>" and "ugdol-<strong><u>h</u>ased</strong>."<br />
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"But wait!," you may be saying. "You said the pausal forms are in <i><b>biblical</b></i> Hebrew. While some of the things you've quoted are from the Bible--viz., Ashrei and the verse near the end of Birkat Hamazon--others are not. So, not to put to fine a point on it, one needs to ask 'Wha?'!"<br />
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If you're saying this, you're right. Much of Ashkenazi liturgy was recast into biblical style in recent centuries, and we sometimes go hog wild, as it were, with the pausalities. Consider the Berakhah A<u>h</u>aronah: "al Yisra'el <b>amékha</b>, ve'al Yerushalayim <b>irékha</b>, ve'al Tsion mishkan <b>kevodékha</b>, ve'al <b>mizbe<u>h</u>ékha</b>, ve'al <b>heykhalékha</b>." On <b>this</b> and on <b>this</b> and on <b>this</b> and on <b>this</b> and on <b>this</b>. This is a lot of pausativity. (Although I like this one; it makes it more lively than "on this and on this and on this and on this and on this.") But yes, it’s overdone.<br />
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<center>
* * *</center>
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<span style="font-size: 200%;"><i>Gashem</i> is the pausal form of <i>geshem</i></span>. So which one to use? I used to be a gashemite, to use the word of Dr. Shnayer Leiman. Every siddur I've seen has a full stop after "hag*shem" (either a Western-style period or a Hebrew sof pasuk, which looks like a Western colon and is more or less equivalent to a period). This is true even of those siddurim that have "hageshem." And in general, even those sheli<u>h</u>ei tzibbur who say "hageshem" also pronounce a full stop. So "hagashem" made sense to me. According to Dr. Leiman, this is in fact the rationale of the gashemites.<br />
<br />
There are some who are very intolerant of what they consider the wrong pronunciation. Even if I had no other reason to like the virtual person known as <a href="http://onthemainline.blogspot.com/">Mississippi Fred MacDowell</a>, I would still be eternally grateful to him for pointing me toward Dr. Leiman. Specifically, to this <a href="http://www.yutorah.org/lectures/lecture.cfm/725588/Dr_Shnayer_Leiman/Geshem_or_Gashem_&_tekiyot_by_yehi_ratzon">shiur by Dr. Leiman on the history and halakhah of the geshem-vs.-gashem controversy</a>. I recommend the shiur highly, even if you're not a vocalization geeq. It's as much history as it is halakhah, and Dr. Leiman's presentation is fascinating, educational, and entertaining. You don't need a yeshiva background to understand it--I, for example, am an am ha'aretz with no training in rabbinics.<br />
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This comment from <a href="http://hebrewbooks.org/20312"><i>Siddur Tzelota d'Avraham</i></a> summarizes both the geshemite position and, so that it can be refuted, the gashemite position (you can enlarge the image by clicking on it):<br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXZi1uwmbwEWP3N-18JKzQgUHmS4peCAx6HqpIPEMrIiUO5f6ZIDPwNA4GSirkRvP4QLsHyaqTPbkoDmCT3sSBs9bPgHsfqSAmzTUVwWAvSaCweyMPhEsK6tuDc5Dc1XCLrLBMww/s1600/Hebrewbooks_org_20312+Tzelota_geshem.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXZi1uwmbwEWP3N-18JKzQgUHmS4peCAx6HqpIPEMrIiUO5f6ZIDPwNA4GSirkRvP4QLsHyaqTPbkoDmCT3sSBs9bPgHsfqSAmzTUVwWAvSaCweyMPhEsK6tuDc5Dc1XCLrLBMww/s400/Hebrewbooks_org_20312+Tzelota_geshem.jpg" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5670800414533249314" style="cursor: hand; display: block; height: 274px; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; width: 400px;" /></a><br />
<blockquote>
Morid hageshem: The gimmel takes a segol [i.e., it’s <i>geshem</i>]. This is how it’s printed in all the old Ashkenazic siddurim and ma<u>h</u>zorim, and also in the Sephardic siddur that is available to me, as well as in the siddur of the Holy Luminescent Rabbi Who Wrote the Tanya (may the memory of the righteous one be a blessing). I’ve heard that a grammarian in Berlin [<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isaac_Satanow">Isaac Satanow</a>] published a siddur, <i><a href="http://hebrewbooks.org/44732">Vaye'ater Yitz<u>h</u>ak</a></i>, in which he prints it as "hagashem," in accordance with the rules concerning pauses. And in fact <a href="http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt2314.htm">Zechariah 14:15 [<i>sic</i>; it seems to me to be verse 17]</a> ends with "yihyeh hagashem." After Satanow, it was published as <i>hagashem</i> in several siddurim. But this is just a complete scrambling of the old books; there is no pause here at all. In siddurim, it's printed on a line by itself in order to teach that it's said not all year 'round, but only in the winter. But it is connected to the language that follows it; by making the rain fall (morid hageshem), God kindly sustains the living (mekhalkel <u>h</u>ayyim be<u>h</u>esed). As the Tur (Ora<u>h</u> <u>H</u>ayyim 114) notes, "morid hageshem" supports "mekhalkel <u>h</u>ayyim" because the rains provide livelihood and sustenance (<i>kalkalah</i>, which has the same root as <i>mekhalkel</i>). It has nothing at all to do with "me<u>h</u>ayyeh hametim" (giver of life to the dead), which precedes it.</blockquote>
Note that in the same siddur that makes this argument that there is no pause at all after <i>hageshem</i>, <i>hageshem</i> is followed by a period. As I was saying. This is why I was a gashemite.<br />
<br />
I’m not at all competent to evaluate the halakhic arguments for either position. I have become a geshemite for nonhalakhic reasons. When I started thinking about it, I realized that the phrase is parallel to those that follow--they all begin with participles (or what are in Modern Hebrew called present-tense verbs):<br />
<br />
<blockquote>
<b>mashiv</b> harua<u>h</u><br />
u<b>morid</b> hag*shem<br />
<strong>mekhalkel </strong><u>h</u>ayyim be<u>h</u>esed<br />
<strong>me<u>h</u>ayyeh </strong>metim bera<u>h</u>amim rabim<br />
<strong>somekh </strong>nofelim<br />
<strong>verofe </strong><u>h</u>olim<br />
<strong>umatir </strong>asurim<br />
<strong>umkayyem </strong>emunato lisheney afar</blockquote>
<br />
OK. So it’s associated with the following phrases. This doesn’t necessarily mean it should be <i>geshem</i>. After all, Ashkenazic liturgy is heavy on the pauses--recall the Berakhah A<u>h</u>aronah. Maybe it should be pausal <i>gashem</i>. But note the next phrase; it ends with <i><u>h</u>esed</i>, not <i><u>h</u>ased</i>. Because I’m claiming that the two lines have parallel construction, I choose to say <i>geshem</i> (which is not the same as claiming that <i>gashem</i> is incorrect).<br />
<br />
Judging by Dr. Leiman’s lecture, each pronunciation is advocated by bunches of rabbis, and these guys are always right, so you’re probably OK either way. On the other hand, since some of these rabbis say the other pronunciation is downright wrong, it’s possible that you’re non-OK either way.Michael Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07334251239196640565noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-57022823257727962972011-08-03T08:13:00.002-05:002011-08-03T08:15:44.397-05:00Symposium on Eliezer Berkovits--virtual versionBack in March, there was a symposium in Chicago on Eliezer Berkovits. And now those of us who registered for it have gotten an e-mail with a link to recordings of the talks. <a href="http://lucian.uchicago.edu/blogs/eliezer-berkovits-conference/recordings/">Here</a>'s that link.Michael Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07334251239196640565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-54058368885449620362011-06-10T07:00:00.000-05:002016-06-27T09:27:20.041-05:00Question that some of you may know the answer to, although everyone I've asked doesn'tGiven that one should be very careful when pronouncing shem Hashem, why does the official pronunciation silence the alef when a prefix is attached? For example, why do we say "hodu ladonai ki tov" instead of "hodu la'adonai ki tov"?<p>Thank you.</p>Michael Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07334251239196640565noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-33183297370770353582011-05-05T21:53:00.001-05:002011-05-06T07:24:53.101-05:00Important eventMy shul is hosting a blood drive on Sunday, May 15.<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY88tu21cYEpMFReaLTF1WVKU1TyajgKBDjd4LsqJpwlVlq5Na7rF7YoPNaWmiU9wsJwKI0SnHeWJSznWzLKHjQH_cpSEWHlA4RnFEXeku0aEQrai4ALPbkZYcgD-CJCb93bSNpQ/s1600/blooddrive_poster_2011.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 309px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 400px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603246459652118530" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjY88tu21cYEpMFReaLTF1WVKU1TyajgKBDjd4LsqJpwlVlq5Na7rF7YoPNaWmiU9wsJwKI0SnHeWJSznWzLKHjQH_cpSEWHlA4RnFEXeku0aEQrai4ALPbkZYcgD-CJCb93bSNpQ/s400/blooddrive_poster_2011.jpg" /></a>(Click on image to expand it.) I'm chairing the event, and I'll be there the whole time. If you have a mental image of the Miker, come on over and find out if you got it right. I'll be the guy hovering around, trying to look important. <br /><p>In point of fact, I don't care whether you donate at our drive. The important thing is that you donate somewhere or other if you can. If our drive makes it convenient for you, please donate there. If it <b><i>reminds</i></b> you that you want to donate blood, that's great too. But if it reminded you last year and you ended up not doing it, please do it at our drive. Check your schedule for Sunday, May 15. If there's anything on there that might be less important than saving three lives, please consider rescheduling it and donating blood instead.</p>So yeah, I don't care whether you donate at our drive as long as you donate <i><b>somewhere</b></i>. But I'd love to see you. If you're a member of Consider the Source's international readership and you're going to be in northeast West Rogers Park that day, drop on in. If you're medically able and you're carrying around a pint you don't need, please donate. If you're not medically able, come on in anyway. Introduce yourself, give the donors orange juice, help me with my hovering around and trying to look important.<br /><br /><p>On Saturday the 14th, kiddush at the shul will be sponsored by the blood drive committee. In honor of the occasion, we're serving theme-appropriate chowage. Since it's important to be hydrated if you're donating blood, we'll be serving some good old plain old Lake Michigan water in addition to the usual fizzy stuff. I've been drinking Lake Mish water since infancy, and look how I turned out. Also, you should iron up. We've already got a commitment from one of our members to make a spinach salad. If any of you are willing to make either gehakte leberlakh or, failing that, chopped liver in the 'gogulary kitchen Thursday night or Friday day, let me know--dietary laws observed. Also, since it's a (you should forgive the expression) yuppie 'gog, spinach pie might also work. There will even be some regular food.</p><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtcUaYiKlTX_A_hX_jfEo01fcartzhkdFd7hKdeuQuKQkOUwydzdIDciIwN2_RBR0F7mIjRTPW2S31sUX2lHXGTCMTonOrn0_5yVqDtKJQmbJbvIJaDdgVB_DNTccqnsq_VMPKOQ/s1600/200px-Popeye-littlesweatpea1936.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 200px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 155px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603254484846365314" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgtcUaYiKlTX_A_hX_jfEo01fcartzhkdFd7hKdeuQuKQkOUwydzdIDciIwN2_RBR0F7mIjRTPW2S31sUX2lHXGTCMTonOrn0_5yVqDtKJQmbJbvIJaDdgVB_DNTccqnsq_VMPKOQ/s400/200px-Popeye-littlesweatpea1936.jpg" /></a>Last year, the rabbi's dvar on the day before the blood drive suggested that if God gave us more than we need, maybe it was for the purpose of sharing with those who don't have. Af the kiddush after the service, a member of the blood drive committee gave a vort based on this. If God gave us good health <i><b>and</b></i> a pint of blood we don't need, maybe we were given that extra pint so that we could give it to someone who needs it. <br /><p>By the way, there are several versions of the mishnah that's quoted in our poster (above). Some (most, in fact) talk about saving a life <i>miyisrael</i>--a Jewish life. I've been looking into this, and my temporary conclusion is that it may not matter. The saying is based on our descent from Adam, not from Abraham, which means that the logic of it applies to all people, not just Jews. On the other hand, the context of the mishnah is the procedural rules for a beit din (rabbinic court), and only Jews are subject to the jurisdiction of a beit din. Bli neder, I'll post more about this later.</p>And what is the one thing in the world that's more negligent than not donating blood if you're able to? Obviously, that would be posting about donating blood without including everyone's favorite image re blood donation.<br /><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq_6zkMTmCxvn_99WFAeIJ4n433fO_6ZmW7xbD4GeDw5K4uuME16KjcxBVrz2XkW0gE93VyB9VaKfnw2ppSXY1BCICSS2hcjHgM-q8xS0uyqDVbLTSzsAbH5mmte0lUFwWp-xIhg/s1600/Give-blood-promotional-sign.jpg"><img style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; WIDTH: 320px; DISPLAY: block; HEIGHT: 240px; CURSOR: hand" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5603257095382557730" border="0" alt="" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgq_6zkMTmCxvn_99WFAeIJ4n433fO_6ZmW7xbD4GeDw5K4uuME16KjcxBVrz2XkW0gE93VyB9VaKfnw2ppSXY1BCICSS2hcjHgM-q8xS0uyqDVbLTSzsAbH5mmte0lUFwWp-xIhg/s400/Give-blood-promotional-sign.jpg" /></a>Michael Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07334251239196640565noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-9827114274186801622011-04-04T21:01:00.002-05:002011-04-04T21:15:05.304-05:00Ill-considered<p>One of the rules for Passover (Pesach) is that we must not own chametz (or chometz)--leavened materials that are forbidden for the holiday period. We sell our chametz to a Gentile before Passover, usually using a rabbi as our agent. We sign a document giving the rabbi permission to sell the chametz; we ourselves don't get the money. After Passover is over, the rabbi arranges for the gentile to sell the chametz back.</p>This is a legal sale under the laws of the civil authorities; the document says so. During Passover, we keep the sold chametz locked away in designated storage areas (like cabinets); the gentile owner has the right to inspect the chametz and to take it away. The owner is under no obligation to sell it back after the holiday is over. Nevertheless, we assume they'll sell it back. We're told to keep away from the sold chametz for some period after Passover--usually an hour or so--to give the rabbi time to buy it back on our behalf.<p>There is a halachic ruling--halachah is Jewish law--about this that I believe is extremely ill-considered. I have heard it before, attributed to Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, one of the most prominent halachic decisors of the twentieth century. I've now seen it written down for the first time, in a list of Passover laws compiled by Rabbi Shmuel Fuerst of Agudath Israel of Illinois. It appears on p. 16 of AI of I's 2011 Passover guide:<blockquote>Every Jew must sell their chometz before Pesach. If one knows that he will be eating by relatives after Pesach who do not sell their chometz, one is permitted to sell their chometz without their knowledge or permission. You are able to do this because of the rule that one is permitted to perform beneficial acts for others even without their awareness. After Pesach it will be permitted to eat in their home.</blockquote>The point of this isn't to pick on either R' Fuerst or AI. R' Feinstein's rulings are considered authoritative. I believe that he was mistaken, and that you should <b><i>not</i></b> attempt to "sell" other people's chametz.</p>Why did I put "sell" in quotation marks? We claim that such a sale is legal under the laws of the civil jurisdiction where it takes place. It seems very unlikely that these clandestine sales are legal. A person who is not legally incompetent and hasn't given you power of attorney owns some property; you sell this property without the owner's knowledge or consent. Just to make it interesting, the owner doesn't get any money from the supposed sale. You've arranged this sale because you don't approve of the owner's religious practices or lack thereof. I doubt that this is a legal sale under the laws of most states. I don't understand why this isn't obvious. I ask any lawyers who might be reading this to comment.<p>Some Orthodox Jews--a minority, I believe--don't generally consider this an important matter; we have our own laws. But in this case, civil law <i>is</i> religious law; under halachah, this sale has to be binding under civil law. If the Orthodox rabbinate allows or encourages such extralegal sales, it's undermining the rationale for the whole procedure.</p>Another problem is that it can lead to misunderstandings that may turn violent. It's very unusual for the non-Jew who bought the chametz to visit his purchases, but it does happen. The sale document explicitly allows it. We sometimes share moving stories--stories that may even be true--about a gentiles who visit their chametz because they feel so good about helping Jews observe Passover. So what happens if the gentile shows up at Dad's place--I assume most of those who sell other people's chametz are from non-Orthodox families and decided to sign up for this zany lifestyle--anyhow, the gentile shows up at Dad's place to have a look at the oatmeal that he bought but that Dad didn't sell. Since neither the gentile nor Dad is in on the secret, it could get ugly. Dad might call the police; if one of them has a short fuse, it could get violent.<p>And what about the gentile who participates in this transaction? Presumably they are well disposed toward Jews; at any rate, they probably don't have any negative stereotypes about the business practices of Orthodox Jews. This Jewish-friendly gentile is in effect made into a receiver of stolen property--Dad isn't the only victim of this deception. If Dad or the gentile found out about the game this rabbi is playing, they would probably surmise that he's either an amoral charlatan or an unwise fool. Maybe both. And who are we to disagree? At worst, the gentile might decide that the stereotypes about Jewish business practices have an uncomfortable amount of truth to them.</p>Finally, if you want to sell your relative's chametz, it's possible you should examine your own motives. Let's look back at what Rabbi Fuerst wrote: If you know you're going to be eating with relatives who don't sell their chametz, it's halachically permitted to sell it for them without their knowledge because you're doing them a good turn. After Passover, you can eat in their house. The obvious question that arises is "Huh?" If it's for their benefit, why limit yourself to those you know you'll be eating by after Passover? In Judaism, the highest kindness is that which you expect no human reward for. And one of the things we get a divine reward for is for making peace between people. So why not secretly sell the chametz of your worst non-observant Jewish enemy, at whose table you have no expectation of eating in the near future?<p>You should ask whether arranging this fake purchase shows a certain contempt for the beneficiaries of your supposed kindness. If so, maybe you should consider whether you want contempt to be the basis for your relationship with your family. I hope the answer is no; I assume that's the answer in most cases. If the answer is yes, maybe you should find an honest way of expressing your contempt.</p>Michael Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07334251239196640565noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-67652670985680979202011-02-16T20:05:00.002-06:002011-02-16T20:13:17.400-06:00My pre-Purim reading<p>I just started reading this paper, and so far it's interesting: Avi Sagi, "The Punishment of Amalek in Jewish Tradition: Coping with the Moral Problem," <i>Harvard Theological Review</i> 87, no. 3 (July 1994): 323-46. If you have access to JSTOR, you can download a copy. If you don't, you can send me an e-mail and I may be able to arrange for a pdf of it to appear in your in box.</p><p>In all too many Orthodox synagogues, Parashat Zakhor is an opportunity for a Fifteen-Minute Hate. I don't know how most non-Ortho 'gogs handle it. Some of them may just ignore it. This paper avoids both.</p>Michael Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07334251239196640565noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-9031821611181173272010-12-24T14:33:00.004-06:002011-02-16T19:59:55.360-06:00Shoveling snow on the Sabbath, 2010 version<i>Almost identical to the 2009 sermon on the subject. And I'm using the cool cybergizmo that I stole from Lethargic Man. Put the cursor on the word "shinnuy" (below). And why it's being done this year by ffiona instead of Michael has to do with difficulties regarding Michael's signing on, but that's OK, since we're both the same person.</i> <p>Snowy sidewalks are no big deal in themselves, but they become icy sidewalks after they've been walked on for a while, and those things are dangerous.</p>When it's necessary to shovel on the Sabbath, I always do so, wearing socks on my hands as a <span style="BORDER-BOTTOM: 1px dotted" title="שִׁנּוּי: a way of doing things on the Sabbath that distinguishes it from your weekday way of doing things">shinnuy</span>. I haven't asked a rabbi about this, and this is out of respect for the rabbinate--I want to save them the embarrassment of possibly giving the wrong answer. <p>As a side note, I once told a friend, former and (I hope) future <u>h</u>evruta, and ethical adviser about this. He (who lives in an apartment where the landlord is responsible for shoveling, so it's not his problem) said he thought this a fine idea. Since it's just me, he said, I should do it without any distinctive Jewish accessories visible. If, however, I were R' Gedalia Dov Schwartz, av beit din of the RCA and the Chicago Rabbinical Council, who lives a few blocks away, he'd advise me to do it looking like I was R' Gedalia Dov Schwartz so everyone would know it's OK. I take his point, although I should point out that if I were R' Gedalia Dov Schwartz, I wouldn't need his advice.</p>One Sabbath morning in 2009, there was a layer of slush on the sidewalk. I ignored it, since it was the Sabbath, and what would the people coming to lunch think? By Sunday morning, the slush had turned into solid ice with footprints. <p>So let's imagine that someone had injured themselves on the ice that I piously left there, and let's further imagine that I'd passed away and had to face the Heavenly Tribunal.</p><blockquote><p><b>Members of the Tribunal (M"T)</b>: Well, what about this Mr. McNotzreigh who got injured on your ice?</p><p><strong>Me</strong>: Sorry about that, but only a little, since I was observing Shabbat.</p><p><strong>M"T</strong>: Very nice.</p></blockquote>(I assume the M"T are Orthodox Jews, among whom "very nice" means "yeah, right, whatever.") <p></p>Right. Well, very nice. But from now on, I'm going to do what needs to be done and forgo the after-the-fact teshuvah.Michael Gilbert-Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00342280247786637206noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-27544716.post-35718411798517974842010-12-12T12:10:00.003-06:002010-12-27T09:13:20.071-06:00Torah Jews<i>This is very similar to a vort I gave a few weeks ago at kiddush at Young Israel of West Rogers Park, Chicago, on the occasion of the yortzaits of my parents, Martin (Mordechai ben Dov Ber) and Dorothy (Devorah bat Yonah Moshe) Koplow. This post is dedicated to their memory.</i><p>My mother sort of vaguely believed in Gkd; my father had little more than disdain for any sort of religiosity. They were both very menshlich people--they treated others with courtesy and respect, they were kind, they were always fair in their dealings with other people.</p>If you go to enough Orthodox shuls and go to enough vorts, you're going to hear people say that a relative or friend is (or was) not frum, but is (or was) a menshlich person. Why do we say "but"? We've all heard this "but" statement so often that it shouldn't come as a surprise any more. And even without having heard this vort a hundred times, we all know that the world is full of Jews (not to mention others) who are not frum and who are exemplary menshes.<p>(We should note, by the way, that people in the other Jewish movements talk about us the same way. "I've got this uncle who's Orthodox, but he's a very decent guy.")</p>So why do we Orthos say "but"? Two reasons occur to me. The first is that we believe, rightly or wrongly, that our religion denies that it's possible for a Jew to be both menshlich and nonfrum. The second reason is a social one. We're afraid that if people hear us go around saying that someone is both nonfrum and menshlich, they might doubt our orthodox Orthodoxy; we say "but" as self-protection. If that's why we do it, it's possible we're not giving each other enough credit.<p>In chapter 3 of Avot, we have "Rabbi El'azar ben Azariah omer, im eyn torah eyn derekh eretz, im eyn derekh eretz eyn torah"--Rabbi El'azar ben Azariah says, if there's no Torah there's no menshlichkeit, if there's no menshlichkeit there's no Torah. Gkd forbid I should ever be so chutzpadik as to disagree with Rabbi El'azar ben Azariah, but I will say I don't know what he's talking about.</p>"Derekh eretz," by the way, has several possible meanings. One of the things it can mean is a job, and the compilers of the basic bilingual ArtScroll siddur translate it that way in this context: "If there is no Torah, there is no worldly occupation; if there is no worldly occupation, there is no Torah." Tempting as it is to make fun of ArtScroll--I sometimes indulge in it myself--that reading actually is plausible in this context. The mishnah continues: If there's no wisdom there's no awe, if there's no awe, there's no wisdom; no knowledge no discernment, no discernment no knowledge; and finally, if there's no flour there's no Torah, if there's no Torah there's no knowledge. So derekh eretz, Torah, and flour all go together. Which means derekh eretz and flour--meaning sustenance--go together. A job makes as much intuitive sense here as menshlichkeit.<p>Nevertheless, most commentators go with menshlichkeit here. Kehati summarizes the near-consensus very well. "If there's no Torah there's no menshlichkeit": One who doesn't learn Torah and doesn't serve the students of the wise is not an ethical person and doesn't have good personal qualities, and he doesn't deal fairly with other people. "If there's no menshlichkeit there's no Torah": The Torah of one who doesn't have good personal qualities and treat other people appropriately is a mess, and he defiles the Torah and makes it an object of contempt.</p>So let's go back to the first part of that. If a person is ethical and has good personal qualities and deals fairly with other people, it follows that he learns Torah and serves the students of the wise. Which leaves us where we started. As I said earlier, I don't know what Rabbi El'azar ben Azariah is talking about.<p>So what do we take home from this, given that we have no clue what this means (and Gkd forbid we should say he was mistaken)? Maybe the best thing is to acknowledge our cluelessness. Maybe all the movements should be less smug about who is a Torah Jew and less contemptuous about who isn't.</p>Michael Koplowhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07334251239196640565noreply@blogger.com3