Akiva Society

by Jenny Hazan


Jews in prisons and the people who have not forgotten them.





An online petition by more than 200 Jewish groups gathered more than 36,000 signatures against the execution of Martin Edward Grossman, a Jewish inmate who was nevertheless recently brought to death at Florida State Prison for murdering a wildlife officer more than 25 years ago.

This outpouring of Jewish support for the Jewish death row inmate, who committed the crime as a 19-year-old, drug-addicted high school dropout with an IQ of 77 and a history of epilepsy, is a true exception to the rule.

“There are a few groups in American Jewish society -- the elderly, and prisoners -- that are overlooked. Jews don’t even want to know that there are Jewish prisoners. They are ashamed. It’s a shunda,” says Manuel Weiss, 58, an activist attorney in Colorado Springs, who took on the fight for the religious liberties of Jewish prisoners in 1995. “What it comes down to is that these guys are alone -- oftentimes their families have written them off, and the Jewish community wants nothing to do with them.”

“Our primary objective with Jews who are incarcerated is to ensure they have the opportunity to practice their faith."
Weiss is among 700 volunteers for Jewish Prisoner Services International (JPSI), a national organization dedicated to helping Jews in prisons across the U.S. Another few hundred are affiliated with the Aleph Institute. These are the only two nation-wide non-profit organizations dedicated to helping Jews behind bars. They work together to arrange rabbinical visitations, holiday services, religious and educational programming, religious freedom advocacy, and to supply Jewish resources to the prisons’ usually Christian staff chaplains.

“We’re a small but dedicated bunch,” says Chaplain Gary Friedman, Chairman of JPSI, who estimates that of the over 5,000 staff chaplains employed by federal and state institutions across the U.S., only some 250 are Jewish, and most of those on a part-time basis, leaving most of the work of looking after the needs of Jewish prisoners to volunteers.

 

“Most people are surprised to discover that Jews go to prison for non-white collar crimes,” says Friedman. “We come from a community that believes our people don’t do anything wrong, at least not really wrong,” says Friedman. “But unfortunately we do.”

Aleph and JPSI volunteers reach Jews in hundreds of institutions across 45 states. “We are guided by a philosophy. According to Maimonides, in the Laws of Charity, one takes priority over all the rest: Pidyon Shevuim, the redemption of captives,” says Friedman. “Our primary objective with Jews who are incarcerated is to ensure they have the opportunity to practice their faith, which translates into their chance for redemption.”

The view from inside

According to Friedman, this is easier said than done. Jews in prison face many unique challenges. To start, it is difficult to find them. Since prisoners are eligible to change their religious status once a year, there are many who list themselves as ‘Jewish’ when they’re not. Friedman estimates this is the case with some 20,000 prisoners in the U.S., who do this most often to obtain a kosher diet, which is perceived as ‘cleaner’ than common prison fare. “There are more riots in prison over food than anything else,” notes Friedman.

Some 20,000 non-Jewish prisoners in the U.S. list themselves as Jewish, most often to obtain a kosher diet.
On the other side of the coin are those inmates who are Jewish, but who refuse to identify themselves as Jews, either because they were raised in non-observant homes and it means little to them, or because they have strayed from Judaism and feel unworthy or ashamed of their affiliation.

Add to this another reason for staying quiet about being Jewish: it poses certain social challenges in prison. “Socially, prison is very hard for Jewish people. It might not be so comfortable, the language of the inmates is very rough, and there are some anti-Semitic instances, though they are not very common. Jewish people are often very lonely in prison,” says Rabbi Avrohom David, 45, head of the Seattle Kollel, who has visited prisoners at the federal detention center in SeaTac, Washington for the last 14 years. “A lot of them -- men and women -- go to bed crying every night. It’s not an easy thing. It’s very hard on people.”

Taking all of these factors into consideration, it’s difficult to get an accurate read on the number of Jews in prison. The Aleph Institute estimates there are some 4,000-6,000 halachic Jews in federal, state and county institutions, representing some 0.25% of the 2.4 million men and women in prison in the U.S. JPSI estimates are much higher, 12,000-15,000, or some 0.63%.

Once they are identified, a process which usually entails a series of sincerity checks -- Greenhaven maximum security prison in Stormville, New York forces Jewish-listed prisoners to write a test which they must pass in order to receive the country’s only hot kosher meal program -- volunteers go into action.

The battlefield is set with teams of messianic Christian volunteers, who with seemingly endless budgets manage to circumvent laws against proselytizing. Friedman estimates their numbers at around 500,000. Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship Program, an evangelical Christian organization with an annual budget over $60 million, alone contributes thousands of volunteers, nationwide.

“There are legions of evangelicals trying to convert prisoners and their families and the rest of us are doing what we can to spite them,” says Friedman, who in addition to chairing JPSI, serves as headquarters chaplain for the Washington State Department of Corrections and is the sole Jewish prison staff chaplain in his region of the United States.

“There are legions of evangelicals trying to convert prisoners and their families and the rest of us are doing what we can to spite them."
It was this ‘imbalance’ at the Davis correctional facility in Holdenville, Oklahoma, that inspired Bob Rubin, 68, to get involved in prison volunteering in 2005. “On my first visit, there were dozens of Christian volunteers doing Bible studies with some 200 prisoners,” recalls Rubin, who now serves as Religious Liaison for Jewish offenders across Oklahoma State. “I didn’t like the set-up where the 6-8 Jews there had nobody to talk to, to answer questions, or to visit them.”

In many cases, Christian staff chaplains, or the institution itself, obstruct minority faith observance. Despite the Free Exercise of Religion clause in the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, many prison facilities, each of which goes according to its own rules, still operate out of ignorance, and incarcerated Jews are systematically denied kosher food, religious articles, and the ability to practice certain religious rites.

According to Friedman, who helped draft The Handbook of Religious Beliefs and Practices, a policy guide for corrections systems meant to counter this problem, denials are more often than not the result of lack of education and understanding. “Jews are misunderstood in general,” he says. “The ones in prison are no exception.”

“There have been prisoners that have had their teffilin, siddur, and talit confiscated; those told that they aren’t allowed to wear a kippa; those told they can only lay teffilin on Thursday mornings; and others told that they can only light Shabbat candles before 3 p.m.; or to only ‘light’ electric candles,” says Weiss. “I am talking about the regular denial of religious liberties.”

According to Neil Steinhorn, 60, who along with members of the Jewish Big Brother and Big Sister League in Maryland, has been visiting Maryland state prisons for the last 15 years, this situation has only gotten worse. Five years ago, he used to bring in a menorah and candles and donuts for Chanukah, and for Passover, he would bring in kosher meals and lead a 1.5-hour seder. Nowadays, he says, he has to get clearance to bring items in months in advance, and they are limited to catering one ceremonial meal per religion per year. “Things have become a lot stricter,” he says.

New York is one of the only states that puts a concerted effort into balancing security concerns with considerations for religious practice. It hires staff chaplains at state facilities, and most large facilities have a Muslim Imam, Catholic and Protestant chaplains, and a Rabbi on the payroll.

“If you look at states across the country, I think you’ll find that New York stands out in terms of allowing religious practice, as long as it doesn’t present a security problem,” says Ken Perlman, Deputy Commissioner in charge of Program Services throughout the New York state prison system. “But New York is different from most other states.”

The view from outside

In addition to the unique challenges that Jewish prisoners face behind bars, they face a series of challenges outside of prison, too. Unlike their Christian counterparts, organized Jewish community organizations tend not to support their brethren behind bars.

Only B’nai Brith, the birthplace of JPSI, which became independent from its mother organization in 1997, gives some funding to the cause. Besides that, it’s all up to the Aleph Institute and JPSI. “We are not the most popular cause; people prefer to look the other way,” says Friedman. “If it’s a choice to give to heder, or disabled people, or whatever -- anything else will get funding first.”

“People don’t see investing in offenders as an investment in the future,” says Rubin. “They see it as a dead end. It’s tragic. Many of these folks are good people who have done bad things.”

The result: Jewish prisoners are loners, both in the prison system and out of it.

“Family members are often wrongfully judged. They are not guilty of anything but they are suffering too.”
Oftentimes, the families of incarcerated Jews carry the same social stigma as their imprisoned family member and are equally as alienated by the Jewish community. The Aleph Institute estimates there are some 25,000 spouses, children, and parents who fall into this category. To address this problem, they started the F.E.E.L.S. Family Program in 1984 to help look after their financial, psychological and social needs.

“Family members are often wrongfully judged. They are not guilty of anything but they are suffering too,” says Friedman. “A lot of our focus is on normalizing family members’ lives.”

When inmates are released from prison, they often need a lot of help. “Usually, they walk out with $40 in their pocket and the clothes on their back,” says Friedman. “We spend a lot of time with prisoners, working on their release plans.”

Says Friedman, the buzzword for the last decade has been, ‘reentry.’ “We Jews have been involved in reentry since Biblical times, except we don’t call it reentry. We call it teshuva -- repentance.”

Why they volunteer

Rubin deems this aspect of Jewish prisoner advocacy most important. It is why he holds weekly ‘equipping’ classes for Jewish prisoners. “The institutions feed and house the prisoners, but there is not enough money in the system to reeducate the prisoners and give them tools to survive in the outside world when they get out on parole. That’s the responsibility of volunteers,” he says.

Rubin’s classes teach everything from common courtesies and new popular technologies to how to apply for a job, get a driver’s license, and rent an apartment, to Jewish ethics. “These people become our neighbors. If you don’t want them to go back to the people they knew before they went in, which is usually the worst thing they can do, you have to give them the tools to stand on their own.

“I see these prisoners first and foremost as Jews, and a Jew is a Jew.”
“I see these prisoners first and foremost as Jews, and a Jew is a Jew,” he says. “My commitment to Jews in Oklahoma corrections facilities can be summed up in four words: No Jew Left Behind.”

Eleanor Gibson’s reasons are more personal. Twenty-five years ago the 65-year-old woman’s 18-year-old daughter was brutally murdered by one of her flatmates in her Seattle apartment. The 18-year-old Jewish boy, who is still serving a life sentence at a maximum security facility in Colorado, smashed the girl over the head with a dumbbell, strangled her, and then decapitated her.

“It doesn’t seem like it’s been 25 years,” says Gibson, who now lives with her second husband and three sons in a town called Grayland, on the Washington coast. “It happened 25 years ago, but it happened yesterday. It’s always yesterday.”

Several years after the murder, Gibson’s synagogue hosted a speaking engagement for Chaplain Friedman. He came to the small community to impress upon the congregants the urgent need for volunteers at the newly-built Stafford Creek Correctional Center, just 20 minutes from Grayland, which had become home to some six Jewish inmates.

“After talking to Chaplain Friedman and realizing that there was a desperate need for volunteers, I felt that maybe it would be something positive that would come out of it,” says Gibson.

After completing the year-long volunteer training course at the prison, Gibson, an observant woman, began teaching a class for the Jewish inmates on Hebrew, Jewish history and culture.

“In the beginning, it was very hard. Here I was, teaching a class to sex offenders and murderers. I had to overcome my own revulsion,” says Gibson, who for the last five years has taught the weekly three-hour class. “Last year, we started going over the Torah portion. The men have really come to enjoy it, and for me, well, it has become my island of sanity in the week.”

For Steinhorn, a lawyer who himself spent 18 months in a federal facility in Martinsberg, West Virginia 20 years ago for ‘structuring a monetary transaction,’ it is volunteers’ small shows of kindness that can make all the difference in the world.

 

“As a former recipient of volunteer services, I know how important they are and what a lifeline they can be,” he says. “Most prisoners’ families have given up on them and they never get visitors, so to give them, even just an hour a month, a conversation with someone who’s not part of the prison system, goes a long way.”

The power of Judaism for Jews behind bars cannot be overestimated.
Rabbi David says his interest in volunteering stems mostly from a desire to ensure that the prisoners have Jewish opportunities. “While in prison people are willing to learn more, and it’s a good opportunity to offer them more education,” he says. “Most of the people I have worked with come to a place where they realize what’s most important in life.

“There’s one idea that I teach,” he says. “We are never allowed to judge a person where they are in the eyes of God. If we were given the same set of circumstances they were, we may have done the same or worse. I teach it and try to live it as much as possible, and if you look at people in that way it’s a lot easier to visit them.”

Rabbi Michael Chill, who for the last 15 years has served as chaplain at Greenhaven, which has the largest Jewish prisoner population in New York state and possibly in the U.S., says the power of Judaism for Jews behind bars cannot be overestimated. “Religion is a very strong point, it helps them go out on the street and not come back. It’s a public safety issue,” he says. “If we release an individual into the community better than he came in, we are doing a service to the safety of the community.”

“You ask me why I do this work,” says Weiss, “it is the obligation of every Jew to come to the aid of another Jew in need of help.”



This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/jw/s/85028667.html

Rav Isaac Sher - Getting Drunk On Purim

"Chayav Inish Livisumei" (Megila 7b).  It is incumbent on a person to get drunk on Purim.  The gemara tells us that Raba and Rav Zeira had a Purim seudah and they both got so drunk that Raba slaughtered Rav Zeira.  Only through Raba's tefila did Rav Zeira come back to life.  What is this all about?  We find over and over in the Torah the troubles that come from drinking.  It started with Noach, Lot, Ba'al Pi'or, and the Sotah.  Becoming intoxicated is not a Jewish thing!

Rav Isaac Sher answers that we must look into the Avodah of Purim.  The gemara (Shabbos 88a) tells us that on Purim we rectified our aveira and were Mikabel the Torah with our own free will.  Which aveira?  Rebbi Shimon explained to his talmidim that the reason why Haman was able to destroy the Yehudim was because they bowed down to Nevuchadnetzar's idol.  Although it wasn't a real Avodah Zara only a statue in honor of the king,  and although the Yehudim only put on a charade for the outside world and did not mean it, still they should have been Moser Nefesh like Chananya, Mishael, and Azarya.  Only after the complete tshuva upon hearing Haman's decree,  did they rectify this small gap in their commitment to Hashem, and were then saved.  After the great Nes of Purim they were Mikabel the Torah with genuine 100% unforced commitment.

On every Purim, says Rav Isaac Sher, we must relive this feeling and renew our commitment to Hashem and do complete tshuva.  We must show our willingness to be Moser Nefesh and die Al Kiddush Hashem even when it is technically not required.  To this end the gemara in Sanhedrin (43a) says that before Bais Din executes someone who is Chayav Misa they intoxicate him wine so that he oblivious to the horrible scene and the pain of the execution.

Therefore on Purim when we get intoxicated we are supposed imagine that we are giving our lives Al Kiddush Hashem.  The wine is our last drink to dull the pain.  This is what Rabba and Rav Zeira did only they got a little carried away in their acting and Raba actually carried out the execution and killed Rav Zeira, until he restored his life through tefila.  So if you are going to drink, don't forget your script and why you are drinking... and please stop before the grand finale!

from Revach.net

The Mitzva of Matanos L'Evyonim (gifts to the poor on Purim) is mainly meant to make sure that the poor people have enough to eat for Purim Festive Meal.  Considering this can you give a check for Matanos L'Evyonim?  Rav Shlomo Zalman Auerbach, one of the greatest Halachic authorities in the last generation, in Halichos Shlomo (2:19:23) says you can fulfill your obligation with a check even if the bank is closed that day.  Moreover he says you can even give a post dated check.  The reason is that people use checks as cash to pay the grocery and other bills so the check itself is useable and considered money for this purpose. If a poor person owes you money, says Rav Shlomo Zalman, by simply forgiving him of the debt him you have not fulfilled Matanos L'Evyonim.  You must give him money.

Disclaimer: We try to convey the halachic discourse to the best of our ability. We admit that our understanding may not be accurate. Please also understand that this Tshuva may not be the final word on this topic. One should consult a Rav before drawing any conclusions.


From Revach.net


HAPPY PURIM from the Akiva Society!

Why marriage matters. A Jewish response to Liz Gilbert’s new bestseller.

by Sara Yoheved Rigler



Contemplate the sad fate of a pretty girl growing up in the shadow of her Beauty Queen older sister. Now you’ll understand why I feel sorry for Committed, the sequel to Liz Gilbert’s wildly popular memoir, Eat, Pray, Love. While Eat, Pray, Love has been translated into more than 30 languages, is being made into a major motion picture starring Julia Roberts, and occupied the throne of #1 on the New York Times Bestseller List for a whopping 57 weeks, Committed, released a scant five weeks ago, enjoyed one glorious week in the #1 position and is already wending its way down.

In Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth tells the tale of her one-year quest to find wholeness after a devastating divorce, a miserable love affair, and a deep depression. She travels to Italy, India, and Bali, masterfully recounting her inner and outer adventures. In Bali she meets a Brazilian man 17 years her senior, whom she pseudonymously calls “Felipe.” The book concludes with her and Felipe deciding to live together in America, Australia (where his grown children live), Brazil, and Bali.

Their love story picks up in Committed. They have settled in Philadelphia, and have pledged to each other lifelong fidelity. In addition, since they are both survivors of painful divorces, they have, as Elizabeth writes, “sworn with all our hearts to never, ever, under any circumstances marry.” The villain who wrecks their dreams then appears: the U.S. Dept. of Homeland Security. One fateful day at the Dallas airport, Felipe is stopped by the authorities, interrogated for six hours, and then told he will not be allowed to enter the U.S. ever again. Felipe’s only hope of return, Officer Tom suggests to them, is to get married.

Why is Liz Gilbert so utterly opposed to the “institution of marriage”? They spend the next ten months traveling in Southeast Asia, the cheapest place to live, since Eat, Pray, Love has not yet burst into stardom. Outwardly, they are “killing time,” waiting for the bureaucratic process to grant Felipe’s fiance visa. Inwardly, Elizabeth is going through an even more arduous process, trying to make peace with what she repeatedly calls “the institution of marriage.”

And here is where Committed turns off most of its reviewers and readers. The author launches into a historical and sociological exploration of marriage in the Western world. “I hoped that all this studying might somehow mitigate my deep aversion to marriage," she explains on page 22. "What I really wanted, more than anything, was to find a way to somehow embrace marriage to Felipe when the big day came rather than merely swallowing my fate like a hard and awful pill.”

She never really manages to sweeten the pill. The subtitle of the book is, “A Skeptic Makes Peace with Marriage,” but, alas, only after a couple hundred pages of resistance more virulent than Davy Crockett’s at the Alamo. At the end, her “Peace with Marriage” is like Egypt’s cold peace with Israel -- no blood shed, but no love lost. Even I, a fan who would read Liz Gilbert even if she wrote computer manuals, was losing patience by page 250. It felt like trying to get a cranky toddler, kicking and screaming, into the bathtub. I felt myself through clenched teeth saying, “Just do it, Liz, just do it.” After all, 75% of divorced people do get married again. Why all the fuss?

In that sense, the book is really a mystery, and the “Whodunit” question is: Why is Liz Gilbert so utterly opposed to the “institution of marriage”? I put that phrase in quotes because every time she used it, I bridled (no pun intended). Usually, the term “institution” is juxtaposed to the word, “home.” Children raised in an “institution,” which is by definition cold and unloving, turn out differently than children raised at “home,” a place of warmth and belonging. I have been living for 25 years in an observant Jewish community, a quite marriage-centered society, and I have never once heard the term “institution of marriage” used here. Instead, the Jewish idiom for marriage is “building a home.” The traditional blessing given to every bride and groom is: “May you merit to build a Jewish home.”

Is a person (especially a woman) diminished or enhanced by marriage? This distinction is important, because while a “home” fosters growth, in Elizabeth’s mind marriage stifles, restricts, and inhibits. (Think of such “institutions” as reform schools, prisons, and mental hospitals.) The basic question with which Elizabeth grapples (and grapples and grapples!) is: Is a person (especially a woman) diminished or enhanced by marriage?

Giving It All Away

Indeed, the essence of Elizabeth’s stubborn, almost pathological, resistance to marriage is embedded in the story of her Grandmother Maude’s coat. Grandma Maude was born, on a farm in Minnesota in 1913, with a serious cleft-palate deformity. Even after surgery, she was left with a visible scar in the middle of her face that rendered her, in everyone’s estimation, unmarriageable. Since she would have to support herself through life, she was allowed to finish high school (a luxury her siblings on the farm were not granted). After graduating, while all the other girls in her society were hunkering down to marriage and motherhood, Maude embarked on a great adventure. She traveled to Montana all by herself, worked in a restaurant, got herself a haircut and a fancy permanent wave from an actual hairdresser, went to the movies, and read books. Returning to Minnesota, she got a job as a housekeeper and secretary to the wealthy Mrs. Parker, a socialite who threw parties with the best steaks, booze, and cigarettes.

Writes her adulating granddaughter Liz: “Her youthful independence is best epitomized by one symbol: a gorgeous wine-colored coat with a real fur collar that she bought for herself for $20… I believe you could pick your way through my family’s genealogy with tweezers and never find a woman before Maude who’d ever bought something so fine and expensive for herself.”

Then, to everyone’s surprise, Maude married a handsome, hardworking farm boy. She moved into a single, Spartan room in her father-in-law’s small farmhouse, and proceeded to give birth to seven children. “Her life after that was pretty much unremitting hardship and hard work,” writes Liz. The cruelest cut came when Maude’s first daughter was born. Maude cut up her cherished wine-colored coat and used the material to sew a Christmas outfit for the new baby.

Her anguished granddaughter writes: “That has always been, in my mind, the operative metaphor for what marriage does to … the women in my family…. Because what my grandmother did with her fine coat (the loveliest thing she would ever own) is what all the women of that generation (and before) did for their families and their husbands and their children. They cut up the finest and proudest parts of themselves and gave it all away.”

Elizabeth's core mistake is assuming that the purpose of life is self-expression rather than self-transcendence. With that, Elizabeth unveils the fear that spawned this entire book, her desperate attempt to understand the purpose of marriage in the Western world. But asking what is the purpose of marriage requires asking what is the purpose of life, because marriage is just one course in the great curriculum called “life.” Elizabeth makes her core mistake in assuming that the purpose of life is self-expression rather than self-transcendence.

Why Marriage Matters

Elizabeth, who spent four months in an Indian ashram (chronicled in Eat, Pray, Love) on her hands and knees scrubbing the temple floors, surely learned there that the enemy of the Higher Self is the ego, which must be tamed, trained, trounced, and transcended. Liz’s guru would have considered the fancy-coat-decked-out Maude, enjoying hairdressers, movies, and sumptuous parties, to be a deluded prisoner of her own ego, and the married, mothering Maude, in giving and serving mode, to be cutting through a bar of that prison every time she put others first. (Indeed, Liz is flabbergasted when her grandmother tells her that the happiest period of her life was not when she worked for Mrs. Parker, but rather the first few years of her marriage.)

When self-transcendence is the goal, marriage is not the great spoiler, but rather the great facilitator. The daily discipline of relinquishing your preferences for your spouse, of going Chinese when you prefer Italian, of sleeping with the thermostat set to a frigid 64 when you prefer 68, can liberate you from the prison of egotism and self-centeredness.

Judaism, alone among the great religions, has always regarded marriage as the highest spiritual path. After documenting how early Christianity was pro-celibacy and anti-marriage, Elizabeth asserts: “So when modern-day religious conservatives wax nostalgic about how marriage is a sacred tradition that reaches back into history for thousands of uninterrupted years, they are absolutely correct, but in only one respect -- only if they happen to be talking about Judaism.”

According to Torah [Genesis 1:27], the first human being was created half male and half female. Then this androgynous being was separated, with God detaching one side (not rib, as often mistranslated, but side) to become a separate female being. The primordial wholeness can be restored only through marriage. When two Jews marry, something mystical happens under the chuppah; their two souls are fused into one. And this new, joint entity can become the resting place for the Divine Presence in this world. Indeed “bayit,” the Hebrew word for “home,” is the same word used for the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, where the Shechinah or Divine Presence, the manifestation of the Infinite God in the finite world, dwelled. As the Talmud states: “No man [should be] without a woman, no woman without a man, and both of them not without the Shechinah.”

Rather than diminishing the self, marriage expands the self to include the spouse. Rather than diminishing the self, as Elizabeth fears, marriage expands the self to include the spouse. In this sense her metaphor of marriage as relinquishing the fine “coat” is apt. A coat encloses the person and protects her from cold, wind, and other outside forces. A coat delineates the borders of the self; there is no room for anyone but you inside your coat. By contrast, a chuppah is a piece of fabric that protects all those who stand under it: the couple and their families. The chuppah symbolizes the home (there’s that word again) that the new couple is about to build. It is their shared garment and shared goal.

In Judaism, the purpose of marriage is to create a sacred space where the Divine Presence can dwell. Since the Holy Temple was destroyed, there is no other way to bond with God on all levels than through bonding with one’s spouse.

This process is difficult (as all worthwhile endeavors are) because men and women are so different in their physical, psychological, and spiritual make-up. That’s why commitment is necessary. As beautifully illustrated in Aish.com's video “Burn Your Bridge”, as long as there’s an escape route, a person will take it when the going gets rough. When there’s no escape route, a person will tap every bit of his/her potential to fight for victory.

Relationships sans marriage have many convenient exits. Once a person commits to marriage, however, there’s only one exit: divorce. While Elizabeth, with her Christian background, regards divorce as “sinful,” in Judaism divorce is a valid exit offered by the Torah. Even so, the door of divorce is a tight, barbed wire trimmed exit; no one gets through it unscathed. Which is precisely why the married person is more apt to stretch, change, adapt, and grow in order to make the relationship succeed.

As Rabbi Nachum Braverman explained the Jewish view of commitment and divorce: “What is my commitment to my hand? I'm not committed to my hand. I AM my hand.” In a similar way, your spouse is part of you. And as you wouldn’t amputate your hand unless it became gangrenous and was threatening your life, so divorce, which is an actual amputation, should be considered only when keeping the relationship is killing you.

Greek vs. Hebrew

After conducting a mental debate with the author throughout Committed, I was startled to turn a page near the end and find my debate in print. Elizabeth comes to the conclusion that she is so stubbornly resisting marriage because she is “Greek,” as opposed to “Hebrew.” She explains:

It has long been understood by philosophers that the entire bedrock of Western culture is based on two rival worldviews -- the Greek and the Hebrew -- and whichever side you embrace more strongly determines to a large extent how you see life.

From the Greeks… we have inherited our ideas about secular humanism and the sanctity of the individual… “Hebrew” is shorthand for an ancient worldview that is all about tribalism [Her repeated references to Jewish “tribalism” make me feel like I’m wearing a tiger-tooth necklace with a bone dangling from my nose], faith, obedience, and respect… The collective is more important than the individual, morality is more important than happiness, and vows are inviolable.

The problem is that modern Western culture has somehow inherited both these ancient worldviews -- though we have never entirely reconciled them because they aren’t reconcilable… Our [American] legal code is mostly Greek; our moral code is mostly Hebrew. We have no way of thinking about independence and intellect and the sanctity of the individual that is not Greek. We have no way of thinking about righteousness and God’s will that is not Hebrew.

…The perfect Greek lover is erotic; the perfect Hebrew lover is faithful. Passion is Greek; fidelity is Hebrew.

In the end, with the Department of Homeland Security holding the shotgun, Greek Elizabeth marries Felipe. And this Hebrew reader hereby gives her a wedding gift in the form of this blessing: All that you were searching for in Italy (pleasure), in India (closeness to God), and in Bali (balance), may you find at home within your marriage.

 



This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/f/m/84558807.html

By: David Fink
from Breslov.co.il
 Does “satisfying Hashem” in doing what we feel He requires from us every day give us a license to do whatever we want once those requirements are met?

There are some very nasty habits we Jews have acquired throughout our sojourn in the nations of Edom (the Western world). We have all, to a degree, taken on their general concept of separation of church and state. We don’t simply champion the legal points; we internalize this principle into our everyday lives. We have taken the legal concept of Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion and expanded it to divide ourselves into two separate and distinct lifestyles: our religious lifestyle, and our personal lifestyle.   In separating religion from everything else we do in our daily lives, we limit Hashem to only certain designated areas.

Mitzvot are restricted to those times we are in Shul davening, or at home learning. As a Modern Orthodox Jew, I have noticed that there is a horrible unspoken acceptance that if we are following a specific regimen of mitzvoth, those moments of when we are not actively involved in their performance –anything goes. BaBoker Tefilla, BaErev Tequila (loosely translated: in the morning we pray, in the evening we play.)   Where does this come from? How could someone who recognizes that each mitzvah is a directive given to every Jew by the Creator of the world denigrate to feeling as though he has absolute permission to spend his free time in any which way he pleases?

  I believe this comes from the Religious Coma. This is a term coined by Rabbi Ben-Tzion Shaffer of theshmuz.com. It means that many of us do everything by rote. We have been performing mitzvoth in the same mechanical process that a computer runs a program. There is no life in our service of Hashem. We are not spiritual beings, but robots fulfilling a function. We don’t do mitzvoth to connect, we just complete them to get it over with. A religious coma is like a religion without G-d.   Of all the sins to perform when we are “off the clock” of doing mitzvoth, sexual sins are the worst. Sexual sins actively desensitize our neshamot to spirituality. We literally become numb to Hashem and His presence in everything around and within us. This feeds a horrible cycle of staying in a religious coma.

It reinforces the feeling that there is no physical or spiritual impact to anything special that we do. Torah becomes more of an intellectual strain and less of an exercise in the spirit. Mitzvoth are just something that we gotta do to keep Hashem satisfied until happy hour.   People can go years, decades, even their whole entire lives this way.   How do you think American Jewry is killing itself?   How did we get from an American Jewish community that was 65% observant in 1909 to a community with less than 20% observant today? It wasn’t the secular Jews that moved from the Pale of Settlement, it was the fully observant.

What happened? When we got to Ellis Island, we kept our faith, but took on the concept of limiting it to certain areas. We locked Hashem in the Shul while we spent our days in the office. The physical mitzvot were there, but the energy behind them was not. The service of Hashem was transmitted to the next generation, but the love of Hashem was not.   For the freest, richest, most powerful Jewish Diaspora community ever, the religious coma lasted for longer than a single lifetime. It spanned many generations until it put us on life support. One generation saw a religion of duty, but no energy or joy. The next generation didn’t even see a religion of obligation, just a waste of time. The generation after that started hanging up Christmas trees.  

How do we stop this? How do we wake up from our coma?   To rescue our nation, along with ourselves, we need to revisit the pussuk, “I have placed Hashem before me always.” (Psalm 16:8)   That sounds nice, but how do we do this in practical terms?   The answer lies in taking on life-transforming mitzvoth. We have to choose to observe one mitzvah that we have to cling to at every moment. Shmirat haLoshon is such a mitzvah. Watching what we say about others is something we have to be constantly thinking of – always. Shmirat HaBrit is another. To dedicate our limbs, eyes, and mind to Hashem by personally keeping them away from lustful impulses brings us a deep awareness of Who we stand before at all times.

Shmirat Emunah is a great opportunity to find the joy in all of the struggles we endure every day.   Whether in Shul, at the office, watching a ballgame, or having dinner with our family, we will be constantly aware that there is a code of behavior we must always follow. In doing so, we gradually internalize into our heart that Hashem is watching over us at every moment. We are “on the clock” at all times. This will resensitize us to our G-dly side and awaken us from our spiritual lethargy.   To a Jew – there is no separation between religion and state. In placing Hashem before us always, we are always connected to Hashem! This transforms us into higher beings, and elevates us in everything that we do.

Our prayers will feel more powerful, our mitzvoth will be invested with more energy, and the ups and downs in our daily life will feel less random and more a part of a Divinely strategy to improve our relationship with our True Guardian in heaven.   The very act of living becomes more gratifying.   

 (David Fink lives in Efrat with his wife and son.

Dear Rosie & Sherry,

I'm age 23, tall, slim and healthy; graduated with honors from a good college, and now gainfully employed. Yet for some reason I haven't had one serious courtship, even though it's been more than a year since I started dating seriously for marriage.

When women decide to stop seeing me after one date (even though I'm willing to continue), I ask them to explain why. The typical response is that I'm a “very nice guy,” and that they “enjoyed spending time with me.” They say there is nothing wrong with me that they can put their finger on, but for some reason they don't have the right "gut feeling." Regretfully, this has happened a number of times.

What can I do to make girls more attracted to me?

Eli

Dear Eli:

We hear the same question from many other “early daters” who wonder why they haven't been able to develop any meaningful connection with someone they've gone out with, and they suspect that something must be the matter with them. Most of the time, there's absolutely nothing "wrong" with the person asking the question. It's just that it sometimes takes a while to meet someone with the right mix of compatible values and goals, character traits, personality and appearance. These factors have to all come together in order for both people to feel that their connection has serious potential and they want to move things forward.

You've only been dating a little more than a year. You may look at some people you know who met the right person relatively quickly, and think that's the way it's supposed to happen. But that's not true for the majority of daters. Most people can date for a few years, or more, before they develop a relationship that leads to marriage. The goal of marriage-oriented dating is not to have "serious relationships," but rather to find that one right person. So it’s important that you don't put yourself on an arbitrary timetable.

On the other hand, if it's been your experience that you seldom get past the first or second date, then it would be helpful for you to take a closer look at what's happening.

It's possible that you're dating people who aren't in the ballpark for you. That can happen when you accept blind date suggestions without asking enough questions to ascertain if she and you have compatible value systems and goals, and possess several of the personal qualities each other is looking for in a partner. To simply go out with someone who's described as "nice," without finding out enough information, can result in an enjoyable date with someone whom you can't possibly build anything with in the long term.

On the first few dates, restrain yourself from talking about deeply personal topics. Another reason could be that you are overeager to have a date work out, or that you're anxious, or that you project strong positive feelings you may have about the person you are with. Any of these can make your date feel uncomfortable. The first few dates are the time for two people to break the ice, start to learn about each other, and do something fun together. The daters need to restrain themselves from talking about deeply personal topics and from displaying any strong feelings they may be having. That's because this can quickly lead to the other person feeling uneasy and turning off – because they don't know how to handle such a situation with someone they barely know.

It could also be possible that some of the young women you've gone out with don't understand how to date for marriage. They may be expecting fireworks, which is very unrealistic, and may not know that it may take two, three or even four dates before their initial “neutral” reaction starts to blossom into feeling a real connection. They may not understand that, for the first few dates, the best idea is to focus on the moment, and when the date is over, the question to ask themselves is: "Can I go on one more date with him?"

There's another possibility. Sometimes, a person who is repeatedly turned down and is told he's a "nice guy" isn't being told that something about the way he presents himself or interacts isn't working. It could be how he dresses, his social skills, what he talks about (such as focusing primarily on his job or one particular topic), or tries to impress so hard that he's not himself. When you ask someone you've gone out with what the problem is, she is probably the wrong person to ask, because this is a hard topic to discuss with someone she's dated. The better "address" to go for feedback is a third party, ideally someone who knows you both (or in the case of a blind date, the one who set it up).

If you begin to see a pattern in your dates' decision not to continue, you will want to make some changes. In this regard you can benefit from working with a dating coach.

While we think it is a good idea for you to explore the possibilities we've discussed, it is very likely that you've just not yet met a woman who is right for you. Time is part of the dating process, and while most daters wish that the Right One would come along quickly, often the process takes time. While you navigate the dating maze, we encourage you to take some of the pressure off yourself by not making your life revolve solely around your job and your dating. It's important to also keep up your contacts with friends and family, pursue a hobby or interest, be involved in a community project, and take care of yourself by eating right and being physically active. If you have a balanced life, you'll find that you are better able to deal with the ups and downs of dating – until you're fortunate enough to meet the person who is right for you.

We wish you success in navigating the dating maze.

Rosie & Sherry



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by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir, Business Ethics Center of Jerusalem

Social insurance is not the same as charity.



Q. In a recent column you suggested that getting money from a government program is better than taking charity. What is the difference?

A. Recently I suggested that giving a sum of money as unemployment insurance is better than giving it as a charitable donation. One simple reason is that government programs are anonymous, and they don't depend on the good will of the taxpayer. Therefore, the recipient doesn't have to feel personally beholden to any individual.

Maimonides writes that the highest level of charity is not to give charity at all, but rather to help a person remain independent. But he then continues:

Less than that is one who gives charity to the poor and he doesn't know to whom he gave and the poor person doesn't know from whom he took. For this is a good deed for its own sake. . . And similar to this would be one who gives to a charity fund. (1)

So at the very least a government program is preferable to an outright gift from this point of view.

However, there is also another difference. Our Sages teach us that whenever possible we should strive not to take charity at all:

Rabbi Akiva said, one should [even] make the Sabbath like an ordinary weekday rather than accept from others. (2)

A little later in the same chapter we find:

Rav said to Rav Kahana . . . flay hides in the marketplace for wages, but don't say, "I am a priest, I am a distinguished person, and it is beneath me [to do such work]. (3)

And the mishna states:

Anyone who doesn't need yet takes, will not leave the world until he becames dependent on others. And anyone who needs but doesn't take, will not die [even of] old age until he is able to support others. (Of course this does not apply to someone whose need is dire who is required to accept charity.)(4)

However, I believe that none of these dicta apply to social insuranc e programs that are not means-tested. In programs like unemployment insurance or social security, a person pays in money in order to be eligible for the benefit. When he becomes eligible, it is not because he is needy but merely because he is entitled to what he paid for.

In fact, I would say that these statements do not apply to any program that is not means tested, as long as no subterfuge is involved in obtaining eligibility. If the citizens of some polity decide to tax everybody in order to confer some benefit on certain citizens for some worthy cause, we may agree or disagree with the decision but it is not like giving charity to some wretched needy person.

The continuation of the above mishna condemns someone who pretends to be lame in order to obtain charity. But a person who really does have some disability is perfectly entitled to enjoy a government benefit designed to help people with such a problem. This would in fact be the highest level of charity: giving to someone as a gift without conditioning it in any way on poverty, so that there is no stigma.

Citizens can have legitimate disagreement on the proper extent of government programs and aid to various interest groups. However, once these programs are legitimately agreed upon there is no stigma involved in benefiting from them, as long as no kind of subterfuge is involved (even if it is short of fraud). There is even no hypocrisy involved in voting against a program and subsequently benefiting from it. After all, a person who votes against a program is not exempt from paying taxes for it, and so there is no reason he should feel disqualified from benefiting if he is eligible.

SOURCES: (1) Maimonides' Code, Gifts to the Poor 10:8. (2) Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 112a. (3) Babylonian Talmud Pesachim 113a. (4) Mishna Peah 8:9.



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by Rebbetzin Tzipporah Heller

Valentine's Day and our ambivalence about love.



Love. We want it more than anything else in the world. From the time that our infantile search for assurance is assuaged by the warmth of skin-to-skin contact, our quest for connection and bonding does not end until the day we die, and even the moment of death is sweetened by the presence of those dear to us.

We pursue love endlessly. We spend our lives communicating its value through every human means of self-expression. We are afraid of its power and often choose not to love rather than to be vulnerable to the pain of frustration, or worse still, rejection.

I still remember the yearning and the fear activated on Valentine's Day: "Whom shall I give my valentine to? Do they want it? Will they send one to me?"

As we grow older the words we lacked as children enter our inner dialogue. "Will anyone ever really love me? Can I trust myself enough to love anyone sincerely?"

Our landscape is littered by words that disguise betrayal. Our society has failed us. Our landscape is littered by words that disguise betrayal. We victimize ourselves ceaselessly. We want to be loved and to give love, but don't know how to do it without destroying what we want most in the process.

Let us examine the source of our ambiguity toward love -- from the source of life itself.

THE SOURCE OF AMBIGUITY

The Torah tells us that Adam, the first human, was created in the image of God. Adam could have seen himself as completely whole and without any need to search for connection or meaning. But the text continues and says that it was "not good for Adam to be alone." We then learn about the separation of Adam into two beings -- Man (Ish) and Woman (Isha).

What Adam lacked as an unencumbered single individual was the opportunity to give and receive in a meaningful way. After the division, Adam is described by the Talmud as being like a person who lost something and can't stop searching for it.

But the Torah is unwilling to allow the search to disintegrate into a quest that has a single goal -- just being beloved. There must be an additional goal that prevents the process from becoming the cannibalistic feast that it sometimes is.

So the Torah instructs: "Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife."

Since the first man obviously had no human parents, this directive is puzzling. Who exactly should he leave? The answer the Sages give is that he must leave the child-parent relationship.


The normal relationship between parents and children is that parents give and children receive. The normal relationship between parents and children is that parents give and children receive. The love that grows between them is surprisingly unbalanced. Parents love their children far more than most children love their parents. There is a flaw inherent in the relationship that causes this misbalance. Love is never the result of taking. It is the result of giving. The more we give, the more we love. The more we love, the more we are beloved.

A MEANINGFUL RELATIONSHIP

In order for the relationship between man and woman to work, it must first be defined meaningfully. When either partner yearns to be someone's "baby love," the relationship is doomed.

Which takes us to Cupid himself. The arrows he shoots are painful, but exquisite in the joy that only love brings. If grabbing and hunting doesn't do it, what does?

The only answer is a marriage in which both partners are willing to feel vulnerable enough to let themselves express love by giving of themselves freely. This ideal is difficult to live up to in a society where Judy Seifer, Ph.D., president of the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors, and Therapists, cautions women: "Keep your expectations in check. Realize that this wonderful man had a very full life before he met you... you are only part of it... Show him that you're an independent person."

What is she saying? Don't count on anyone. Have low expectations. Don't humiliate yourself by loving anyone other than yourself.

We wear armor and protect ourselves from what we want the most. Make no mistake: the Torah recognizes that we are imperfect people, living in an imperfect world. While it tells us to love, it also teaches us how to preserve our emotional integrity. We are fragile. We are broken easily by selfishness and rejection.

So how does the Torah give us the balance we need?

THE TORAH ANSWER

When a man meets a woman with whom he would like to have a relationship, he must realize that he owes it to himself to find what he has lost, what he has been looking for all the time. The man is simultaneously restricted from what I shall call "hunting." Every woman must be treated as a human. Only on that basis can the relationship be one in which he genuinely cleaves to her and becomes one with her.

To make this work, women must also make a decision. To make this work, women must also make a decision. They must decide to reject the societal notion that they can be loved honestly, while at the same time defining themselves as prey.

Women, as well as men, are required to be (of all things) modest. It must be their decision to project themselves as truly human, if they want to be seen as such.

Modesty is not a hang-up. It is a choice to be one's highest and most human self.

Wendy Shalit wrote in her landmark "A Return to Modesty" (Free Press/Simon & Schuster, 1999):

 

This is becoming our great modern divide, his commitment problem and her hang-up problem. These two problems have re-emerged together for a reason. A society, which sees her modesty or her "hang-ups" as a problem, is necessarily a society, which will not get him to commit.  

The time has come for a new order in the world of love. We must realize that our vulnerability is the very point at which we break through the barriers separating us from one another.

We must embrace our vulnerability. For it is only then that we can live, and love, without fear and without thoughtlessness.

 



This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/sp/pg/48898307.html

by Libi Astaire

Why Purim best expressed their loyalty to their Jewish heritage.



It’s a holiday that is marked by fasting and sincere regret over one’s past mistakes. But if you think that day is called Yom Kippur, think again. And meet the Purim of the Anusim – Spanish Jews who were forced to convert to Christianity, and who became the target of the Spanish Inquisition because of their secret loyalty to the Jewish faith.

Why was Purim such a solemn holiday for the Anusim? And why did they single out Purim as the holiday that best expressed their loyalty to their Jewish heritage? To answer these questions, we must travel to a world where it was forbidden to light Shabbos candles, pray in a synagogue, or have a Pesach Seder: the world of medieval Spain.

A World Turned Upside Down

No one knows when the first Jews set foot on the Iberian Peninsula, but we do know that by the 800s Spain’s Jews were experiencing a Golden Age that was to last for approximately 500 years. During that fabled era Jews were prominent in business, government, science, and the arts. Flourishing Torah centers produced some of Judaism’s greatest scholars and leaders: the Rambam (Maimonides), the Ramban (Nachmanides), Yehuda HaLevi, the author of The Kuzari, and many others.

The good times began to sour in the 1200s, when the Jews were forced to wear yellow badges and live in Juderias, Spain’s equivalent of the Italian ghetto. Things went from bad to worse in the century that followed, culminating in the Massacre of 1391, when mobs burned down Seville’s Juderia and murdered any Jew who refused to be baptized.

Many of these “New Christians” turned out to be “Old Jews.” The riots spread throughout the Iberian Peninsula, and thousands of Jews were forced to convert to Christianity to save their lives. But this turned out to be a pyrrhic victory for the Catholic Church, since many of these “New Christians” turned out to be “Old Jews” in disguise. On the outside they pretended to be like their Christian neighbors, but within the privacy of their homes their secretly clung to the customs and traditions of their Jewish faith.

During the 1400s, both the clergy and the Spanish nobility were flabbergasted to see that the New Christians had once again risen to the top of Spanish society, where they filled important roles in government and commerce. And so when Ferdinand and Isabella ascended the throne of a newly unified Spain, the Church and the State joined forces to solve their “Jewish Problem” for once and for all. Those who had remained Jews were expelled from the monarchs’ kingdom in 1492, while the Spanish Inquisition was established to take care of the “heretics.”

A Jew by Any Other Name

The Spanish Inquisition was relentless in its efforts to hunt down the Anusim, who were also known as Marranos and crypto-Jews. But by whatever name they were called, they responded by stubbornly going further under cover.

Was it too dangerous to have a Jewish prayer book in the house? No problem. They would memorize the prayers.

Was it too dangerous to openly light Shabbos candles? No problem. They would hide the lit candle in a cupboard, the chimney, or an earthenware jar.

Was it too dangerous to celebrate the Jewish holidays on their real dates? No problem. They would trick their pursuers by celebrating a few days – or months - before or after the real date.

The Anusim became accustomed to living in a world of secrecy. The Anusim therefore gradually became accustomed to living in a world where secrecy was the norm and disguise was a way of life. But despite their efforts and good intentions, they did have a problem. Their connection to the rest of the Jewish world had been severed. Without access to Jewish books, or even a Jewish calendar, it became harder and harder to remember all the prayers and laws. And there were many commandments that they couldn’t perform or were forced to transgress because the danger was too great.

To compensate, over time the Anusim began to develop their own unique culture, complete with special prayers and customs. Nowhere do we see this more clearly than with the holiday of Purim.

The “Fast” Lane to Redemption

Traditionally, the Purim holiday is comprised of two parts: the Fast of Esther, a one-day fast that takes place the day before Purim, and Purim itself, a busy day filled with lots of mitzvot (commandments) and noise and laughter. But what is good fun for us was a day fraught with danger if you were a Hidden Jew.

Drown out Haman’s name with noisemakers during the public reading in synagogue of Megillat Esther? Not in a community that scrupulously kept the location of their underground synagogues a secret.

Get so drunk at the festive Purim meal that you can’t tell the difference between “blessed be Mordechai” and “cursed be Haman”? Not unless you wanted to wake up the next day to a personal invitation to appear before the court of the Spanish Inquisition.

So what could the Anusim do? In a word, fast. They looked into the megillah and saw that when the Jewish people were threatened with annihilation, Queen Esther ordered a three-day fast for everyone. So the Anusim – who lived with that threat every day of their lives - decided to fast for three days, too.

The Inquisition’s records provide us with some fascinating details about this unique custom. For one thing, the fast was mainly done by women, who felt a special connection to the heroine of the Purim story, Queen Esther. But since a three-day fast could be dangerous to a person’s health, the women found ingenious ways to observe the fast without endangering their lives.

Gabriel de Granada, for instance, a thirteen-year-old boy who was interrogated by Mexico’s Inquisition in 1643, revealed that the women of his family would sometimes split the three days between them. Some members of the family would fast on the first day, others would fast on the second day, and the rest on the third day.

Leonor de Pina, a Portuguese woman who was arrested in 1619 for being a “Judaizer,” offers another explanation for how the three-day fast was observed. She told her interrogators that she and her daughters fasted for three days “without eating if it was not dark, or else eating things other than meat.” In other words, they fasted during the day, but ate at night, or their fast consisted of refraining from eating meat for three days.

Whether the women fasted the entire three days, observed a partial fast for three days, or split the days of the fast between them, what is clear from the historical record is that the Fast of Esther was taken very seriously. But why did they feel a need to fast for three days, when the rest of the Jewish world felt that one day would do?

Scholars who have studied the Anusim and their customs suggest various reasons. The fast, which could be done in the privacy of one’s home, was perhaps a substitute for the mitzvot that they couldn’t observe, such as having a public megillah reading or sending gifts of food to friends.

In addition, Professor Moshe Orfali, dean of Bar-Ilan University’s Department of Jewish Studies, has pointed out that the Anusim tended to fast quite often. He surmises that since the Anusim were forced to violate the laws of the Torah every day, they felt they needed to fast frequently to be cleansed of their sins. On a special holiday like Purim, they tripled their efforts in the hope to achieve a personal redemption, as well as the Final Redemption for all the Jewish people.

Of course, Purim wasn’t an entirely solemn holiday. The family most likely gathered together to hear the megillah read, quietly. They would also have a special meal, behind locked doors. But as the centuries passed, Purim took on a surprising character that was unique to the Anusim.

Holy “Saint” Esther

The Spanish Inquisition hunted down the Anusim for more than three centuries, and it was a chase that was carried out not only in Europe, but also in Central and South America and the wild territories that later became the American Southwest.

When the Spanish Inquisition came to an official end in the year 1835, one might think that the Anusim heaved a collective sigh of relief and returned, en masse, to the Jewish people. But even though some did convert to Judaism, a surprising number of them chose to remain hidden in their villages, where they clung to their secret customs.

How did Judaism’s Queen Esther turn into a Catholic saint? While many Anusim living in Spain and Portugal retained the memory that they were descended from Jews, those who settled in the New World gradually forgot who their ancestors were. All they knew was that they had customs that were different from those of their neighbors – for instance, they didn’t eat pork and the only “saint” to whom they offered prayers was the Holy “Saint” Esther.

How did Judaism’s Queen Esther turn into a Catholic saint? According to Professor Janet Liebman Jacobs, who made an ethnographic study of descendents of the Anusim who live in the American Southwest, sometimes the only way that an oppressed people can survive spiritually is to disguise their own religiously important figures within the garb of the dominant religious culture. Since the Spanish settlers brought both Catholicism and the Inquisition with them to the New World, Queen Esther had to go into hiding along with the Anusim - and the holiday of Purim was turned into the Festival of Saint Esther.

One of the women that Prof. Jacobs interviewed, who lives in New Mexico, explained that the Festival of Saint Esther was mainly a women’s holiday that was dedicated to mothers teaching daughters the way to run a home according to their unique customs. It was also a day where an elaborate meal was prepared, which was probably a distant memory of the special Purim meal that their ancestors had eaten back in Spain or Portugal.

As for why Queen Esther was chosen as the symbol of Purim, and not her uncle Mordechai, who was the leader of the Jewish people at that time, the answer is simple. Esther had to keep her Jewish identity a secret in the royal palace; but once the wicked Haman put into motion his plan to annihilate the Jewish people, her life, too, was in great danger. Queen Esther therefore became an inspiring role model for the Anusim, both for her courageousness and because she also was a Hidden Jew.

These Days of Purim ...

Although much of their Jewish heritage was lost over the centuries, the Anusim never forgot their connection to Queen Esther. And so in one way or another -- and in unexpected places such as New Mexico or Peru -- the words of the megillah are still being fulfilled: “These days of Purim will never leave the Jews, nor will their remembrance ever be lost from their descendants.”



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by Rabbi Yonason Goldson

It's the little details that count.
Rabbi Yossi used to say: Any person who honors the Torah will himself be honored before others. But any person who disgraces the Torah will himself be disgraced before others. (Ethics of Fathers 4:8)

What goes around comes around. As ye sow, so shall ye reap. You made your bed, now sleep in it.

 

The notion of “measure for measure” permeates the world of literature, folklore, and conventional wisdom, tracing its origins back as far as the Book of Judges, wherein the captured Canaanite king Adoni-bezek attributes his treatment by the Jewish conquerors to the way he treated the kings he had once conquered himself.

In fact, this concept is so familiar that the casual scholar might find himself wondering why Rabbi Yossi deemed it necessary to teach this lesson at all.

To appreciate the depth of Rabbi Yossi’s lesson, however, we must momentarily shift our focus away from his overall message and redirect our attention to the most innocuous of words: "any."

The flexibility of Biblical and Talmudic Hebrew allows for multiple, simultaneously authentic layers of meaning. Consequently, although the simplest reading of Rabbi Yossi’s words translates as “any person who honors the Torah,” we might legitimately understand them to mean “a person who honors the Torah in any way.”

 

What constitutes honor and disgrace? In contemplating their definitions, we might reasonably conclude that our mishna refers primarily to grand gestures of one or the other. Donating large amounts of money to Torah institutions, attending lectures by rabbinic leaders or public tributes to Jewish philanthropists, and recognizing Torah scholars by according them the most distinguished honors in synagogue – these seem the kinds of honor of which Rabbi Yossi speaks. Conversely, any public violation of Jewish law or public insult to a Torah personality would constitute disgrace.

But Rabbi Yossi does not limit his messages to these; rather, he alludes to the kinds of practices that, on the surface, seem pedestrian and even mundane. To stand up in the presence of a Torah scroll or a Torah leader; to follow several paces behind the Torah when it is carried through the synagogue; to touch our fingers to its cover and then to our lips as a gesture of devotion; to remain silent and respectful when the Torah is read publicly; to keep ourselves focused and alert when we are learning Torah, whether alone or in the study hall – these are all examples of how we give honor to the Torah.

And what is disgrace? To leave a book of Torah literature open and unattended while we go off to conduct other business; to place a Torah book face down on the table or upside down on the shelf; to sit on a bench or table where books of Torah are resting; and perhaps worst of all, to neglect its study in favor of trivial and meaningless pursuits.

At first blush, our answer appears to strengthen our original question: could not Rabbi Yossi have found a more substantive message than urging us to emphasize minutiae that seem trivial themselves? Can we not better spend our time and mental energy by focusing our attention on larger themes and more universal codes of conduct?

Returning to the Book of Judges, we find a narrative that answers our question with a resounding no!

THE POWER OF PIETY

During the two centuries after their entry into the Land of Israel, the fortunes of the Jewish people had declined until an 18-year long Midianite occupation had left them impoverished and despondent. Responding to the crisis, the Judge Gideon raised an army of 32,000 men – an impressive force, although still dwarfed by the enemy contingent of 135,000.

Despite these odds of four-to-one against, the Almighty informed Gideon that his army was too large and commanded him to send away every man who lacked confidence. 22,000 departed, leaving Gideon and his remaining soldiers outnumbered more than a dozen-to-one.

Yet again the Almighty declared that the army was too large, instructing Gideon to lead his men down to the riverside and observe how they drank at the water’s edge. Those who knelt down or put their faces to the water should be sent away. Only those who reached down their hands to lift the water to their lips should remain. In the end, Gideon was left with an army of 300 men.

To understand the Almighty’s logic, we must first understand why the Jewish people had fallen under the rule of the corrupt nation of Midian in the first place. After settling the land and becoming immersed in the pursuit of material prosperity, the Jews had forgotten how Moses had warned them against attributing the source of their successes to their own prowess and ability. For the nation charged with mission of bringing greater awareness of God to the society of all mankind, such self-indulgence was tantamount to open rebellion.

A conventional military victory by Gideon and his army would inevitably reinforce the Jews’ misconceptions about their own power. Consequently, the Almighty orchestrated a kind of victory that would force the people to recognize that success depends not upon physical strength or military might but on collective merit earned through divine service and spiritual refinement.

Only through miraculous intervention could 300 expect to defeat a hundred thousand, and only the most pious individuals could expect to merit a miracle on that scale. But how was the Almighty’s criteria for choosing soldiers indicative of piety?

The soldiers who knelt down to drink, although certainly not sinful in any way, nevertheless demonstrated a minimal lapse in spiritual sensitivity. On the one hand, bowing down before one’s own image reflected in the water bore the faintest resemblance to idolatry; on the other hand, putting one’s face to the water to drink bore the slightest resemblance to the behavior of an animal.

 

This does not imply that the soldiers who knelt down to drink had done anything wrong. But an individual sufficiently pious to merit a miracle as extraordinary as that which would save the Jews had to possess such an acute and constant awareness of the divine spark within him that he could never bring himself to commit any act that even resembled idolatry or animalism.

THE REWARDS OF REFINEMENT

Under cover of night, Gideon led his 300 warriors to the perimeter of the Midianite camp. There he waited for the changing of the watch, when the recently awakened guardsmen would not yet be fully alert, thereby producing the maximum potential for confusion. Positioning themselves at intervals, Gideon’s men awaited a prearranged signal, then blew their shofars and held their torches high, creating the illusion of a vast attack force sweeping out of the darkness.

The Midianite soldiers at the edge of the camp panic and fled from their imagined attackers, while the soldiers further in concluded that those racing toward them were the enemy. In the darkness, comrades slew one another until the morning light revealed that all but 15,000 had been killed, with those survivors having taken flight and scattered.

The way one bends down to drink water may seem a trivial detail. Nonetheless, when we give our full attention to the minute details of our lives, we cultivate the same kind of refinement and sensitivity through which Gideon’s army merited their miraculous victory on behalf of the Jewish people. Little acts of respect make us more respectful people, which leads us to become models of respect, which gains us respect in the eyes of all who are able to discern genuine quality of character.

And so Rabbi Yossi comes to teach us that by treating the Torah with honor in every way, small and large, we transform ourselves into people who will not only inspire others to honor us but will be truly worthy of their honor. And conversely, by neglecting even the most seemingly trivial expressions of honor, we bring disgrace upon the Torah and, ultimately, upon ourselves.

Either way, we end up sleeping in the bed we make.



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