Seasonal controversy

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This all started with a post--actually it was a status update--that I put on Facebook.

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). 

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.

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.

The real 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.

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 חֲנֻכׇּה has no dot, therefore it's not doubled. That was the easy part.

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.

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) (and 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 חֲנֻכׇּה? Obviously it's a "k" instead of a "chhhhhh," but that's true with both options. Is the "k" doubled?

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 חֲנֻכׇּה but with a non-bgdkft letter in the same position as the kaf. If those letters have a dagesh, they have to be doubling dageshim. And if we look at such words, like גֽדֻלָּה and קְדֻשׇּׁה, we find that the non-bgdkft letters in that position do have dageshim. This also makes it very likely that the kaf in חֲנֻכׇּה is doubled.

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 חֲנֻכׇּה 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 חֲנֻכׇּה, 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).

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.

The entire staff of Consider the Source wish our entire readership a happy holiday.

Tinkering with the wording of prayers

I recommend Lethargic_Man's post on this topic (and in fact with this very title).

The worst prayer in Judaism

Eloqai Netsor was put into the Jewish liturgical canon to fulfill our need for noncanonical nontextual spontaneous personal prayer from the heart.

(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?"!]!)

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 [nefesh] be like dust [ʿafar] before all."

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 not 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.

"May my soul be silent before those who curse me, and may my soul [nefesh] be like dust [ʿafar] 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.

The language of Eloqai Netsor reminds us of Genesis 2:7: God formed man from dust [ʿafar] and breathed life into him, and man became a living soul [nefesh]. In the verse, God forms us from ʿafar and we become a living nefesh; in the prayer, we ask that our nefesh be like ʿafar. For those who take the verse seriously--and note that I didn't say "literally"--this prayer should seem both ungrateful and dehumanizing.

Just to clear up any ambiguity, I'll point out that I dislike Eloqai Netsor.

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.

Hareini Moḥel is an "I forgive" statement that precedes the bedtime Shema (also known as the hypnagogic "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:

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.

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 grate on your nerves. 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 mensh.)

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.

Minor shande

Likutei Peshatim 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

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 www.jonahweb.org or call 201-433-3444.

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 Likutei is very misleading, and it appears to be intentionally so.

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.

Geshem and gashem

This is a reworking of (and I hope an improvement on) an old now-deleted post.   Well, the holiday season is over. Which raises the eternal question that I know is on everyone's mind: "Should I say 'Mashiv haruah umorid hagashem,' or 'Mashiv haruah umorid hageshem'"?

But first, let's discuss pausal forms. Those who know from pausal forms are invited to skip down to the paragraph that begins "Gashem is the pausal form of geshem."

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 retzonékha [new clause] uvirtzon^ekhá haniah ["hanah" in Birnbaum] lanu..." What's with the two different endings for the same word? And similarly in the weekday Amidah, we find "vekarno tarum bishu'atékha [new clause] ki lishu'at^ekhá kivinu..."

And in the post-drinking blessing for wine, what's with all the gefen and gafen? "Gafen" must be the basic way of saying it, right? I mean, everyone's heard "borei peri hagafen." So you look up vine in an English-Hebrew dictionary--it's gefen.

And at the end of Birkat Hamazon, we have "vezar'o mevakesh lahem" instead of "lehem," and in Ashrei "ugdol-hased" instead of "hesed."

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 "-^ekhá" (meaning "your") that becomes "-ékha" in pausation. Thus lishu'at^ekhá and bishu'atékha. 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 lehem, melekh, and hesed; the first segol becomes a qamatz (the vowel that looks like a squushed-down capital T). Thus "vezar'o mevakesh lahem" and "ugdol-hased."

"But wait!," you may be saying. "You said the pausal forms are in biblical 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?'!"

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 Aharonah: "al Yisra'el amékha, ve'al Yerushalayim irékha, ve'al Tsion mishkan kevodékha, ve'al mizbehékha, ve'al heykhalékha." On this and on this and on this and on this and on this. 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.

* * *
Gashem is the pausal form of geshem. 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 shelihei 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.

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 Mississippi Fred MacDowell, I would still be eternally grateful to him for pointing me toward Dr. Leiman. Specifically, to this shiur by Dr. Leiman on the history and halakhah of the geshem-vs.-gashem controversy. 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.

This comment from Siddur Tzelota d'Avraham summarizes both the geshemite position and, so that it can be refuted, the gashemite position (you can enlarge the image by clicking on it):

Morid hageshem: The gimmel takes a segol [i.e., it’s geshem]. This is how it’s printed in all the old Ashkenazic siddurim and mahzorim, 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 [Isaac Satanow] published a siddur, Vaye'ater Yitzhak, in which he prints it as "hagashem," in accordance with the rules concerning pauses. And in fact Zechariah 14:15 [sic; it seems to me to be verse 17] ends with "yihyeh hagashem." After Satanow, it was published as hagashem 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 hayyim behesed). As the Tur (Orah Hayyim 114) notes, "morid hageshem" supports "mekhalkel hayyim" because the rains provide livelihood and sustenance (kalkalah, which has the same root as mekhalkel). It has nothing at all to do with "mehayyeh hametim" (giver of life to the dead), which precedes it.

Note that in the same siddur that makes this argument that there is no pause at all after hageshem, hageshem is followed by a period. As I was saying. This is why I was a gashemite.

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):

mashiv haruah
umorid hag*shem
mekhalkel hayyim behesed
mehayyeh metim berahamim rabim
somekh nofelim
verofe holim
umatir asurim
umkayyem emunato lisheney afar

OK. So it’s associated with the following phrases. This doesn’t necessarily mean it should be geshem. After all, Ashkenazic liturgy is heavy on the pauses--recall the Berakhah Aharonah. Maybe it should be pausal gashem. But note the next phrase; it ends with hesed, not hased. Because I’m claiming that the two lines have parallel construction, I choose to say geshem (which is not the same as claiming that gashem is incorrect).

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.

Symposium on Eliezer Berkovits--virtual version

Back 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. Here's that link.

Question that some of you may know the answer to, although everyone I've asked doesn't

Given 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"?

Thank you.

Important event

My shul is hosting a blood drive on Sunday, May 15.(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.

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 reminds 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.

So yeah, I don't care whether you donate at our drive as long as you donate somewhere. 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.

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.

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 and 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.

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 miyisrael--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.

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.

Ill-considered

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.

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.

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:

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.

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 not attempt to "sell" other people's chametz.

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.

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 is 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

My pre-Purim reading

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," Harvard Theological Review 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.

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.

Shoveling snow on the Sabbath, 2010 version

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.

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.

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.

As a side note, I once told a friend, former and (I hope) future hevruta, 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.

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.

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.

Members of the Tribunal (M"T): Well, what about this Mr. McNotzreigh who got injured on your ice?

Me: Sorry about that, but only a little, since I was observing Shabbat.

M"T: Very nice.

(I assume the M"T are Orthodox Jews, among whom "very nice" means "yeah, right, whatever.")

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.

Torah Jews

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.

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.

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.

(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.")

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.

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.

"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.

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.

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.

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.

Card trick

While surfing the aether recently, I came across this post on the Than Book blog, in which the author reprints a discussion he participated in in the comments to a post on another blog, regarding Lubavitcher dissembling about Messianism. He concludes the post with a quotation from the host of the blog the discussion took place on:

So it would seem, that there is permission, if not an actual mandate, to hide the truth about Lubavitch messianism. IOW, you can't necessarily believe what they tell you about "Oh, I don't believe in that stuff". They may well, but because it's off-putting to other Jews, they may feel compelled to go so far as to lie about it. The Shi'i Muslims have a word for this: Taqiyya.

I'm disturbed by that last sentence, and by the fact that Than Book liked it enough to title the post "Lubavitcher Taqiyya." What would have been lost if that quotation had ended with "go so far as to lie about it"? Not much. Nothing except the chance to play the Shi'ite card, which seems to be a new variation on the old Nazi card. The illusionist taps his hat, pulls out a card, and goodness gracious, where did Khamenei come from? It looks like in this case the whole idea is to namecall and demonize.

And it's not even well-chosen namecalling. According to the linked Wikipedia article, taqiyya is lying in the face of persecution or other danger. We Jews can be unpleasant to each other, but I don't think we usually rise to quite that level.

Naivete

My shul is a Modern Orthodox one. So why is the vort du veek at shalosh se'udot and/or se'udah shelishit given by haredi yeshiva bokherlakh? No clue.

A few weeks ago I had an argument with them. If the rabbi hadn't been out of town, I might have been better behaved. Maybe not. At any rate, they didn't show up for the next two or three weeks. Did I scare them away, or were they otherwise engaged? Again, I don't know.

But anyhow, they were back yesterday. Jacob told Esau he stayed observant in Laban's home. The point was to let Esau know that he was a proud Jew. And that's what we have to do. We might sometimes interact with non-Jews, and we have to let them know we're proud Jews. For example, you might be applying for a job. You let them know up front that because you're a Jew, you work six days a week, but you're not available on the Sabbath. You don't wait until after they've hired you.

I didn't say anything this time because I felt bad about having scared them away (if indeed I did so). So you good reader get to hear my reactions. Two reactions, the less important one first. We interact with non-Jews all the time. We don't need to be given an example in order to see that the very idea isn't far-fetched.

Much more importantly, I thought we told potential employers up front that we can't work on Saturdays because we're honest in our business dealings. Naive.

Birkat Hamazon (Amsterdam, 1722-23): a Modern Orthodox bencher?

In most of today's Ashkenazi benchers and siddurim, Birkat Hamazon (grace after meals) has separate harahaman statements for different places where you eat: at your parents' table, at the table of people other than your parents, at your own table. (The Sefaradi Birkat Hamazon doesn't have these statements.) Married people eating at their own table include a blessing either for "my wife" (ishti) or "my husband" (ba'li). Most old siddurim include only the harahaman for one's parents' table. If they include the harahaman for one's own table, they have only the husband's blessing of his wife; they don't include the wife's blessing of the husband. We're not talking only about old, old, old siddurim: neither the Hertz nor the de Sola Pool nor the Birnbaum siddur includes the wife's blessing; the Ziegelheim bencher, still distributed at some simchas, has only the husband's blessing.

I don’t pretend to know why the wife’s blessing of the husband didn’t appear. I gather it’s a new custom that began in the twentieth century, and that before that it was just assumed that women didn’t say Birkat Hamazon, at least not in Hebrew.

Hebrewbooks.org has recently added a bencher, Birkat Hamazon (Amsterdam, 5483 [1722-23]), to its database. It’s downloadable here. (You can expand the image of the cover page by clicking on it.)It is a bencher (it calls itself dos benshen) because it includes Birkat Hamazon, many other berakhot, Sabbath zemirot, and a Haggadah, but none of the actual prayer services. At a quick glance, it has several points of interest. First, the cover page (above) contains what we can recognize as modern advertising. The cover pages of most Hebrew religious books talk about how great the author is and about all the commentaries that are included. This one says, “We have newly printed the bensher with many more berakhot, laws, and songs…” The “new and improved” aspect gives it a modern feel.Another interesting thing. Most versions of Birkat Hamazon have the phrase “kemo shenitbarekhu avoteynu Avraham Yitzhak veYaakov bakol mikol kol”--as our fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were blessed with everything (bakol) from everything (mikol) everything (kol). This drives home the point that they were fairly comprehensively blessed. In this version, the “all”s are distributed among the fathers: “kemo shenitbarekhu avoteynu Avraham bakol Yitzhak mikol veYaakov kol.” The Yiddish notes explain that of Abraham it is written “bakol,” of Isaac “mikol,” and of Jacob “kol.” Seligmann Baer's notes in Seder Avodat Yisrael get more specific, citing Bereshit Rabba (although I needed a concordance for chapters and verses--unusual for Baer). Abraham: "Abraham was old, getting on in years, and the Lord blessed Abraham with everything [bakol]" (Genesis 24:1); Isaac: "And I ate from all of it [mikol]" (Genesis 27:33) (although in this context Isaac doesn't sound like he's feeling particularly blessed); Jacob: "Since God has been gracious to me and since I have everything [kol]" (Genesis 33:11).

And the one that takes us back to our earlier point about my assumption that there was an assumption that women didn’t read Birkat Hamazon in Hebrew. Ignore the highlighting at the top; the part of interest is on the bottom line.

The final words on the page are "ve'al beritecha shehatamta bivsarenu"--and on the covenant that you have sealed in our flesh. Before these words is the instruction that women don't say this. I haven't seen this elsewhere. It does seem to assume that women say Birkat Hamazon in Hebrew.

Requesting peace

[Originally posted in 2007]

This post starts out looking like just another self-indulgent whine about King James-isms, but please keep reading; it actually has a point that may be worth bearing in mind, especially in this season of reflection.

As we all know--and by "we all" I mean all of us native speakers of English--anyhow, as all of us know, Psalm 34 tells us to "seek peace, and pursue it." It appears that way, with or without the comma, both in King James and and in every English-language Jewish translation I've seen. Although we all know the psalm says this, we can refine it a little and make it clearer. Bakesh, translated in this verse as "seek," usually means "request" or "beg," a specific kind of seeking.

The difference is important. A mevakesh--one who is requesting--is not arrogant (as other seekers may be), at least at the moment of the request. A mevakesh is in a humbled condition. The person the mevakesh is addressing has something that the mevakesh, hat in hand and powerless, doesn't have. If the mevakesh comes with a request for peace, it may be that what the person receiving the request has is justice. To be mevakesh shalom means that you acknowledge that you may not be the good guy in the dispute--that real peace quite possibly may not be on the terms that you want.

This is an important lesson at any time, but it seems especially important this time of year. Going around and asking for forgiveness should not be a meaningless formality. If a true mevakesh shalom makes a random and meaningless seasonal apology and someone replies, "Well, there are some serious things that I need to forgive you for; do you have time to hear them?" the mevakesh finds the time to hear them and to take them seriously.

The entire staff of Consider the Source wish all of our readers a shanah tovah. And since all of our readers won't quite fill a phone booth (especially since phone booths are hard to find in this day and age), we also wish the rest of you, who aren't reading this, a shanah tovah.

Slogans

Here's the text of a bumper sticker you see here and there in the greater West Rogers Park metropolitan region:
ארץ ישראל לעם ישראל על פי תורת ישראל
Eretz Yisrael la'Am Yisrael al pi Torat Yisrael.This is the slogan of the Religious Zionists of America, and it means "The Land of Israel belongs to the People Israel according to the Torah of Israel." A slogan like this may be good for rousting up those who agree with you. Nothing wrong with that; roustage is a reasonable purpose for a slogan. But it isn't going to convince anyone else. The Torah of Israel says the Land of Israel belongs to the People Israel? Goodness. And does the Christian Bible say anything about Christianity triumphant? Like Louis the Casablancan Gendarme, I'm more than shocked: I'm shocked--shocked! And what if you're dealing with people for whom the Torah of Israel isn't the ultimate authority?

The Religious Zionists of America is the U.S. branch of the World Mizrachi Movement, whose slogan sounds deceptively similar but is in fact quite different:

עם ישראל בארץ ישראל על פי תורת ישראל
Am Yisrael be-Eretz Yisrael al pi Torat Yisrael.Or "The People Israel is in the Land of Israel according to the Torah of Israel."

I'll leave it to others to figure out why they have such different slogans. And there's probably no practical difference. Just thought it was interesting.

A dyvbuq has taken possession of the bride: on dagesh hazaq in bg"d kf"t letters

This one is irremediably geeqy. Apologies to the nondiqduqgeeqs who dropped in.

When there's a dagesh hazaq, the degushah letter is geminated--it is repeated, as though there's a sheva nah between the two occurrences of the letter. In Professor Moshe Goshen-Gottstein's Diqduq ha'ivri hashimmushi (Tel Aviv: Schocken, 1996), two examples are given (p. 28):

עַמִּים = עַמְמִים and שִׁבֵּר = שִׁבְ-בֵּר

The first of these is a little problematic, since Professor Goshen-Gottstein just told us (p. 26) that a sheva between two identical letters is a sheva na, not a nah. Maybe a hyphen, as in the second example, would have helped. But we know what he means, and the first example isn't the one I'm really interested in.

I see the logic in the second example, and it may well be theoretically correct. But assuming you pronounce the dagesh hazaq in tefillah or qeri'ah, does it make sense in real life to pronounce these bg"d kf"t letters as a fricative followed by a stop? Most likely, the person doing this would get corrected. This would be awkward at best. Let's say that during Untaneh Tokef the hazzan sings something about "yom tzom kifpur." A few possibilities arise. Maybe someone could incorrectly "correct" the hazzan. If the hazzan insists on his correctness, it would probably be embarrassing for the correcter, the hazzan, or both. Not to mention disruptive. But if the hazzan accepts an incorrect correction, that's not really great either. Even if nobody says anything, the pronunciation would be so unusual as to be a distraction for everyone.

It seems to me that when we have a dagesh hazaq in a bg"d kf"t letter, the best thing is to sacrifice a possible correctness for decorum. But then, who cares how it seems to me?

No sale, ver. 2.0

Ver. 1.0, posted about three years ago, has been taken down because the tone was much too sarcastic. Believe it or not, ver. 2.0 is very toned down.

Some Orthodox rabbis allow, or even encourage, members of their synagogues to have their relatives' hametz sold in preparation for Pesah, even without the relatives' knowledge. To me this seems misguided. Why "misguided"? Because I'm being tactful.

Is such a sale really a sale? The certificate that the seller signs usually says that the transaction that's being arranged is a legal sale under both halakhah and the laws of the state that the synagogue is in. I'm skeptical. Would the state recognize a sale in which the seller not only hasn't authorized the sale, but doesn't even know about it? (Lawyers, please comment on this.) Does halakhah recognize such a sale? (Halakhists, you should comment on this too.)

I have heard someone raise the objection that theft might be involved. Dad (for example) might eat the Gentile's oatmeal. That's right--Dad is the thief in this scenario, not the "baal teshuvah" and the rabbi. The rabbi set the questioner's mind at ease: he should still have Dad's stuff sold, since owning hametz during Pesah is worse than theft.

Dad's kid thinks he's sold Dad's stuff, Dad is neither informed nor asked about the sale, Dad doesn't realize a penny from the sale, and this guy has the hutzpah to call Dad a thief. This is a much more serious untethering from reality than mere superstition would be.

And let's say Dad, whom his son loves and reveres because that's what such a pious person does, finds out about this transaction. Dad is an apikoros and therefore unreasonable about such things. "You sold my stuff? What were you thinking?"

"Dad, I did it for your own good. I realize it was wrong of you to steal the goy's food, but owning hametz on Pesah is worse than theft."

"So you're saying that because I have h instead of matzah on Friday night during Pesah, I'm worse than a thief? Although I'm also a thief because I ate food that you think you sold to some shaygetz--maybe even a shvartze." Apikorsim just don't understand what's important (and some of them are annoyed by "goy").

Now let's imagine the "baal teshuvah" didn't tell Dad about the scheme, and the Gentile buyer comes to pick up his purchase, or at least to inventory it. What a surprise for both Dad and the Gentile. Dad and the Gentile have two things in common (in addition to being surprised and not being Torah Jews)--both claim the same oatmeal, and both are probably appalled by this bogus transaction once they figure out what happened. Not only do you think you sold Dad's stuff, but you also think you authorized some stranger to wander into his home. To take his stuff. And what about the Gentile? He probably entered into the deal in good faith, imagining that only the actual owners were selling their stuff. The rabbi and the "baal teshuvah" are acting in bad faith with the buyer by selling stuff they have no right to sell. Also, the Gentile is probably one who doesn't hold negative stereotypes about how Jews do business. And this is how you deal with him? After the encounter with Dad, the Gentile goes to the rabbi and asks what gives. What can the rabbi possibly say that won't sound stupid, cynical, or both?

Another possibility: the Gentile comes over with some deranged-sounding story about having bought Dad's food. Tempers erupt. The police are called. Perhaps the press will print an accurate story about the deal. It would be a fake shandeh. Anti-Semitism on the part of the press!

OK. Maybe Dad finds out, maybe he doesn't. But let's say the "baal teshuvah" has a little bit of common sense left and suspects that such a sale isn't really OK under state law. He asks the rabbi. Maybe the rabbi thinks such a sale is obviously OK under state law because why wouldn't it be? Such a rabbi can be suspected of being short on common sense. On the other hand, maybe the rabbi sees the problem, but encourages the "baal teshuvah" to sign it anyway. Draw your own conclusions.

Shabbat shalom

At a recent Shabbat lunch, one of the other guests, Alef, was complaining about the offensive behavior of his youthful "white trash" neighbors. Nobody there but us Orthos, so it was OK to talk like that.

What are we to make of "white trash"? The most cynical explanation I can think of is that in Alef's opinion, blacks are trash by default and whites are not, so if whites are trash, you need to specify. I reject this explanation because I choose to. Another possibility is that Alef wanted to show his lack of racism--whether or not he actually lacks racism--by making it clear that the people he objected to were white. And since in most contexts it's unusual for us melanin-deficient people to say, "Well, this white person did whatever he or she did," he used "white trash."

Then one of the other guests, Beyt, who used to live near where Alef now lives, asked some questions about the family. Beyt recognized them as the people who moved into her old place. The mother in the family is the daughter of a respected Jewish professional, and she married a non-Jew.

Shock!, tohubohu!, foofaraw!, and balaganism! at the table. These kids are Jewish? These kids are Jewish! Vey'z mir!, gevalt!, shrek! Strong men weeping. Delicate ladies falling in vapours. Jewish people behaving obnoxiously? How can this be? And amid all the chaos, Alef was heard saying (and I'm not sure of the exact words--if I'd remembered my mp3 player, I would have recorded it), "Now that I know they're Jewish, I'm going to treat them better."

So now more questions arise. Had Alef been treating them abusively? If so, how would their not being Jewish have made that OK? Had Alef been reproving them appropriately? If so, why would he stop doing that because they're Jewish?

Another question, of course, is what a supposedly pious person--one who's into all this "image of God" stuff--is doing by calling anybody trash.

And if I'm sounding superior, that's unintentional, because my behavior at the table was unacceptable--I wimped out, didn't object to anything, sat on my mouth. As always.