Jewish Birthday Primer 03/07/2010
One's Jewish birthday is, of course, the date upon which one was born according to the Jewish calendar (to find out when your Jewish birthday is click here). Far from considering it incidental, Jewish tradition regards one's Jewish birthday to be brimming with meaning and relevance and, in some ways, even a mini-Rosh Hashanah! The Talmud informs us that on our Jewish birthdays our mazel (good fortune) is dominant. The Jewish birthday is the perfect day for reflection about our lives as Jews and is an auspicious time to make new resolutions to perform good deeds and to deepen our commitment to Torah and the role it plays in our lives. On one's Jewish birthday it is customary to get together with family and friends to celebrate Jewishly. At the celebration one should say a prayer of thanks to G-d, give money to charity, and learn some Torah. What’s so special about your Jewish birthday? Be Grateful First and foremost, a birthday is a day to feel grateful. It's a day for parents to be grateful to G‑d for the precious gift He granted them. A day for the Jewish nation to be grateful for the addition of a new member of the nation-family. And, of course, it is a day for the birthday celebrant to express gratitude to G‑d for the gift of life. This is the day when you were given the mandate to change the world. The day when G‑d entrusted you with the mission to challenge a world that is hostile to spirituality and transform it into G‑d's private sanctum. And in accomplishing this goal, you, too, were given the ability to achieve incredible spiritual heights—heights unimaginable to the soul before it was dispatched from its lofty heavenly abode to inhabit a physical body. Celebrating a birthday is also a demonstration of confidenceCelebrating a birthday is thus also a demonstration of confidence. Confidence that you are and will continue to be worthy of G‑d's trust. No matter the obstacles, you will persevere and live up to G‑d's expectations of you. This day takes on additional significance if you are above the age of bar or bat mitzvah. The word "mitzvah" means commandments, but is also related to the word "tzaveta," which means "connection." Fulfilling G‑d's commandments is the vehicle through which we connect to G‑d. Until bar and bat mitzvah, mitzvot are primarily an educational experience—the commandment element kicking in upon adulthood. That means greater responsibility, but an infinitely greater connection, too. Your birthday is also the anniversary of that momentous occasion. Another reason to be grateful... Déjà Vu Time is like a spiral. Annually, on the anniversary of any momentous event, we have the ability to tap into the same spiritual energy that originally caused that event (hence the concept of Jewish holidays). When you were born, G‑d invested within you a soul abounding with talents and qualities. Your mazel was shining and at full strength. That same energy is present once again every year on the anniversary of that date. On this day you have the ability to accomplish that which would perhaps be very difficult on another day. Rosh Hashanah is so special because it is the birthday of humankind—it is the day when Adam and Eve were created. Your birthday is your personal Rosh Hashanah—utilize it to its utmost! ABC's of Passover 03/07/2010
Passover is brimming with symbols of slavery and freedom. by Rabbi Shraga Simmons Passover (Pesach in Hebrew) is known as the "holiday of freedom," commemorating the Jewish Exodus from Egypt following 210 years of slavery. Passover is regarded as the "birth" of the Jewish nation, and its lessons of struggle and identity continue to form the basis of Jewish consciousness 3,300 years after the event. Passover is an 8-day holiday (in Israel, seven days). The name derives from the fact that during the final plague -- the slaying of the first born -- God “passed over" the Jewish homes. SEDER NIGHT - The holiday is marked by the celebration of an elaborate Seder on the first two nights (in Israel, on the first night only). The Seder is designed to give each Jew the experience of "going from slavery unto freedom." As recorded in the Haggadah, we tell the Exodus storyand recount the Ten Plagues. We eat symbols of slavery and freedom, and the festive meal includes many delicious recipes for foods that people look forward to all year (think matzah balls!). We recite the Hallel prayer of praise, and end the Seder with the hope of “Next year in Jerusalem!” The Seder is a special tie of family bonding and children are a particular focus of the night. They enjoy a variety of Passover songs like the Four Questions (Ma Nishatana), tell of the Four Sons, sing the “Dayenu” song, try to "steal" the Afikoman, and open the door for Elijah the Prophet. MATZAH - At the Seder, it is a special mitzvah to eat matzah, the Seder’s main symbol. Everyone should try to eat 2/3 of a square matzah (or 1/2 of a round matzah) within 4 minutes, while leaning to the left. The most common reason for eating matzah is that on the morning of the Exodus, the Jews were so rushed in getting out of Egypt that the bread didn’t have time to rise. At the end of the festive meal, the special “dessert” is another piece of matzah, called the Afikoman. FOUR CUPS - At the Seder, we drink four cups of wine -- corresponding to the four expressions of freedom mentioned in the Torah (Exodus 6:6-7). Everyone should have their own cup, which holds minimally 98cc (3.3 oz). Try to drink the entire cup for each of the Four Cups (or at least drink a majority) within 4 minutes. And as an expression of freedom, we lean to the left and back while drinking the Four Cups. KARPAS - Toward the beginning of the Seder, we eat karpas -- a vegetable (e.g. celery, parsley, potato) dipped in saltwater, to commemorate the tears of hard labor. BITTER HERBS - Later in the Seder, we eat Marror, the bitter herbs. Though many have the custom of using horseradish, Romaine lettuce is also used. (“Red horseradish” in jars bought from the stores should not be used, since it’s a mixture of mostly beets with some horseradish.) The Marror is dipped into Charoset, a bricks-and-mortar mixture of dates, wine, nuts and apples. SEDER CHECKLIST - Seder means "order" because there are so many details to remember. Your Seder table should include:
SEARCH-AND-BURN - On the evening before Passover, we conduct a careful search of the home for chametz. It is done by candlelight and is a memorable experience for the whole family. Any remaining chametz is either burned the next morning (in a ceremony called Sray'fat Chametz), or is sold to a non-Jew for the week of Passover. The sale must be serious and legally binding; it should be done only through the assistance of a qualified rabbi. Any food that is sold must be put in a cabinet and taped shut. This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/h/pes/t/g/48959286.html My Syrian Friend 03/07/2010
A story narrated by my Rebbe, Rav Noach Weinberg zt'l. Rabbi Akiva Tatz: Body Electric 03/03/2010
Abraham taught the world how to express the highest level of consciousness in fingers and toes of flesh. It is commonly understood that Abraham's major contribution was the doctrine of monotheism. He taught an idolatrous world that there is only one God, and that idea is synonymous with Judaism. But I have to tell you that that picture is not accurate. The idea of one God was very firmly established before Abraham. (Idolatry, as we have seen, is the practice of relating to intermediaries as if they have independent power, not the failure to recognize God altogether.) Knowledge of God was standard... What did Abraham bring to the world as the amazing novelty that started the Jewish people and changed history forever, if Shem and Ever were already teaching spirituality at the highest level? What exactly was new about him? What was the revolutionary nature of his enlightenment if others had already shown the way? Why was he a groundbreaking initiator and not simply a talented pupil? The answer is this: Abraham did not begin the path of the spirit; he began the path of bringing spirit into flesh. His contribution was not in the sphere of knowledge. Others had already explored the higher reaches of the spirit and were well versed in the highest wisdom when Abraham began his journey. What he pioneered in the world was the process of bringing that wisdom down into the physical, showing how to express the highest level of consciousness in fingers and toes of flesh. That is the radical idea of Judaism. The absolute uniqueness of Judaism is not its God-consciousness; it is the teaching that the body can be drawn up into sanctity. It is not the teaching of the holiness of spirit; it is the teaching of the holiness of the physical. Examine the world's spiritual systems; you will see that they grasp the conflict between spirit and flesh, the primal battle between soul and body in which body seeks to dominate soul and bring it down to serve its animal agenda. And they define a solution to this most basic of all conflicts: abjure the flesh, discipline the body by starving it of its sensuous feed, become an ascetic, celibate, enter the monastic mode. The highest exponents of the world's spiritual systems are monks and nuns, celibates and ascetics who have renounced the body in order to transcend it. Holy Vehicle But Judaism requires engaging the body; requires marriage, requires the experience of bodily pleasure, regards permanent celibacy as a sin. Our path is not to separate body and soul but to engage the body and elevate it to the level of soul. For us, the body is not the point of departure for the spiritual voyage; it is the vehicle. The body must not be left behind while mind and spirit transcend. It must be made to serve mind and spirit. And that is the meaning of the mitzvot, the commandments. The mitzvot are physical actions (there are very few mitzvot that are performed in consciousness alone) that express spirit. Every part of the body is commanded to act; each limb and organ performs an action that expresses Torah. Mitzvot are to Torah what body is to soul. Abraham did not bring the idea of pure spirit to the world; he brought to the world the radical idea that the body, that fallen, subversive, treacherous and lecherous body can and must be elevated to purity. Its functions and actions are not to be suppressed; they are to be expressed as holy. The world perceives the shame and the problem of male-female intimacy, its potential to erode spiritual refinement; we perceive its holiness. The world perceives the danger of alcohol, its tendency to replace mind with earthy physicality; we use it for elevation. The world understands that the body must be renounced, that is the only way to free the soul; we give the body full expression in actions that are harnessed to serve spirit. That is how we discipline the body; we do not command it to be silent, we command it to serve. That is the basis of the mitzvot... Wine Tasting You can see how fundamentally misunderstood all of this is today. We are Jews in our observance of the commandments; all of them, with each movement of each part of our bodies. We are not Jews because of Jewish wisdom and generally moral behavior; that is fine and well, of course, but it is not Judaism. We are children of Abraham because we work to sanctify our bodies; what marks us off from the community of the world's wise and moral adepts is primarily the way we eat our food and drink... You see this sharply in our relationship with wine. We have noted in many of the world's spiritual systems alcohol is forbidden entirely, certainly for the priestly and monastic individuals who would reach holiness. But in Judaism wine is a central feature in all movement from physical to spiritual. We use wine at occasions of connecting the two: at a wedding, where two physical bodies will elevate their relationship to the spiritual; at a circumcision, where we begin the process of sanctifying the body; at kiddush, the blessing sanctifying the first moments of Shabbat where the mundane domain of the week meets the transcendence of Shabbat; four cups of wine at the Passover seder, where we celebrate exile's transition to redemption, slavery to freedom. Wine powerfully represents the danger of the physical; if taken in excess it converts consciousness to unconsciousness, dehumanizes to the extent that the drinker becomes entirely part of the physical, nothing more than a mindless body. And yet, used correctly, it has the capacity to open consciousness, to facilitate a state of elevation. The deeper sources note that although wine is a physical substance it obeys the rules of the spiritual: all physical things degrade and disintegrate with time; this is the rule for all things in the material and biological world no matter how carefully those things are handled and nursed. Conversely, things of the spirit improve with time; wisdom deepens with age -- even as the body of the sage sags, his wisdom gains. But unlike other physical things, wine improves with age. Uniquely in the world of the material, wine reflects the quality of the deeper, the secret hidden within the material (the Hebrew word for wine has the same numerical value as the word for secret). You know that at havdala, the ceremony that marks the exit of the Shabbat, we also take a cup of wine. At that moment of sensing the departing spirit of Shabbat, that moment of descent, we use wine. Now we have been saying that wine is used at moments of elevation. What is the meaning here? The idea is this: certainly the week begins with the sadness of sensing Shabbat fade. The relinquishing of sanctity is palpable. We smell spices to revive the spirit. But the week's beginning means a new opportunity to build, to elevate our present status towards another Shabbat that will be higher than the last, that will reflect another week of work and growth added to the previous ones. This is a "descent for the purpose of ascent," a higher and greater elevation than before. That is exactly the Jewish idea -- we descend into the mundane and the material, but we do so only for the purpose of elevation. Torah lives only in its application; even its most rarefied wisdom is real only when it has some attachment to the world of action. Excerpted from "Letters to a Buddhist Jew,Targum Press. This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/sp/ph/84691407.html Other People's Shoes 03/03/2010
Absolutely sure someone else is wrong? You just might be in for a surprise... by Sara Yoheved Rigler Before I left for my college year in India in 1968, my friends warned me not to act like a Western imperialist and impose my lifestyle on the Indians. "Don't worry," I joked. "I won't buy shoes for the natives." But four months later, I found myself doing precisely that. Twelve-year-old Mundju was the daughter of the family of servants who attended on the International Ladies' Hostel, where I lived. While the rest of the women and girls in her family were congenial and beautiful, Mundju was morose and homely. She rarely spoke and never smiled. Like everyone else in her family, she went barefoot. Unlike everyone else, she had deep cracks in her feet. One day she came to my room limping. When I asked her what was wrong, she silently showed me a deep gash in her left foot. I whisked her off to a doctor in the nearby clinic. He pronounced her foot infected. He prescribed some antiseptic cream, and a pair of shoes. "If she doesn't wear shoes to protect her feet," he warned, "the infection will never heal. She'll be crippled." "Do you want shoes?" I asked in simple Hindi. Mundju's eyes lit up and she grinned. I hailed a bicycle rickshaw and took Mundju to the Bata shoe store in the center of the city. She happily picked out a pair of patent leather Mary Janes, which cost twice what I had expected to spend. Remembering my mother's dictum, "No use buying you something you don't like, because you won't wear it," I forked out the price of the Mary Janes from my meager student allowance, and handed the shoebox to Mundju. "Wash your feet when you get home, and put them on," I instructed her. "I never want to see you without them." I was exasperated. "Why aren't you wearing your new shoes?!" The next day, she came to my room barefoot. I was exasperated. How could she be so heedless?! "Why aren't you wearing your new shoes?!" She lifted up her heel and showed me a huge blister. It had not occurred to me that a girl who has no shoes has no socks. I dropped what I was doing, found a rickshaw, and took Mundju back into the center of town. I bought her two pairs of white socks. Now we were "all systems go." I didn't see Mundju for the next few days. Then, riding home one day, I saw her in the distance. She was walking barefoot. I felt indignant. Here I had spent time, money, and energy trying to help her, and she was flaunting the doctor's orders and not wearing her shoes. How ungrateful! How reckless! I went straight to the servants' quarters and accosted Mundju's mother. She looked at me sadly and said, "Don't you understand? These are the only pair of shoes Mundju will ever own. She's saving them for special occasions." BEFORE WE CONDEMN A couple decades later I learned about one of the Torah's most intriguing mitzvot, the obligation to judge other people favorably. The Torah enjoins us: "Judge your fellowman justly." [Lev. 19:15] The classic commentators explain this to mean "judge your fellowman favorably and interpret his actions and words only to the good." [Sefer HaChinuch 235] Three thousand years before the advent of Cognitive Psychology, the Torah recognized that our attitudes (and consequently our words and actions) are formed not by what the other person said or did, but rather by our interpretation of what the other person said or did. Therefore, the Torah obligates us, whenever possible, to find or devise a favorable interpretation. Instead of condemning, whenever possible, devise a favorable interpretation. This mitzvah pulls the rug out from under the critical, condemning attitude that characterizes much of our interpersonal relations. In practice it looks like this:
Judging others favorably does not preclude self-protective actions or positive steps to redress wrongs. Judging others favorably doesn't mean to leave your $300 iPod on your desk when you go to the rest room. It does mean that if you don't find your iPod where you're sure you left it, check every drawer and pocket before you start suspecting your fellow workers. Often we are sure -- and wrong! Judging others favorably does not mean that when your child comes home in tears because her teacher yelled at and insulted her, you should refrain from taking measures to handle the situation. It does mean that before angrily calling the principal and demanding that the teacher be fired, you entertain the possibility that you haven't heard the full story and that, even if the teacher did act wrongly, extenuating circumstances may have caused a usually fair teacher to act out of character. STRATEGIES FOR JUDGING FAVORABLY One of my favorite books, The Other Side of the Story, by Yehudit Samet, offers strategies for judging others favorably. Here is a sampling:
THE PLUMBER Several years ago, we put in a new bathroom, complete with cabinets and new plumbing. A few hours after the workmen left, I turned on the new faucet. The water pressure was nil. The faucet was defective. The next morning, I called the plumber. Yes, Rami assured me, the faucet was guaranteed. He would replace it. He couldn't come that day, but he would come the following afternoon. I waited all afternoon, but Rami didn't show. At 4:30, I called his cellphone. He apologized, but said he couldn't come. "Why not? Where are you?" I asked, annoyed. "I'm at home," he answered meekly. "Well, then, just come. You can be here in half an hour." Rami refused. In reply to my entreaties and accusations, he promised to come the next day. The next day, no Rami. By now the water from the defective faucet was coming out in a trickle. It took three minutes to fill up a cup to brush my teeth. I was irate. What lousy service! But he was the only plumber who could make good on the guarantee. I called again. Again he promised to come and didn't. Over the next ten days, he failed to show up seven more times. By now we were filling up basins of water from the bathtub. During that period, I was studying The Other Side of the Story with a friend daily over the phone. One of the strategies the book teaches is to imagine extenuating circumstances that could account for a person's acting improperly. Since we have no way of knowing what the real story is behind the person's actions, the story we make up to judge him favorably is as likely to be true as the condemning version. I decided to judge the plumber favorably. After all, I told myself, even the worst plumber doesn't fail to show up ten times in a row. Something must be very wrong in his family, I concluded. Perhaps, God forbid, one of his children is seriously ill. Perhaps the child is in the hospital and Rami's wife is sitting by his bedside all day, so Rami, worried and grieving, has to stay home to take care of the other children. Once I concocted this hypothetical story, my anger cooled. I could fill up a basin of water from the bathtub to use at the sink without fuming. I continued to call Rami every day, but the bark was gone from my voice. One day the doorbell rang. There was Rami with the new faucet. I greeted him kindly, showed him to the bathroom, and stood there while he worked. Gently I asked him, "Is everything all right in your family?" He shook his head. With a choked voice he told me his story: His wife of 17 years had run off with another man, leaving Rami, stunned and stricken, with their six children. A few days later, his wife realized that her paramour was alcoholic and violent. He threatened her that if she tried to leave him, he would kill her children. After a few more beatings, she fled back to her family. While I was fretting about my faucet, Rami was home protecting the lives of his children. You don't have to be highly creative to imagine a story that puts someone else in a good light. You just have to want to do the mitzvah of judging others favorably. In the end, their truth may be stranger than your fiction. This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/sp/pg/48901502.html Behind Bars 02/28/2010
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 Purim Drinking 02/25/2010
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! Eat, Pray, Love, Then What? 02/23/2010
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:
This article can also be read at: http://www.aish.com/f/m/84558807.html Tefilla and Tequila 02/15/2010
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. | AuthorA group of young, motivated students and young professionals blogging Torah, inspiration, and our thoughts. ArchivesMarch 2010 CategoriesAll |
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