A New Kiruv Approach: Blame Non-observant Jews for the Holocaust

(I hope to get around to responding to a week's worth of comments and email soon; life's just been a little crazy.)

I think I need a reality check, so please help me out here.

A major Kiruv organization is advertising a video for Tisha b'Av. I watched their preview, and I'm not sure I can use the video.

The opening segment of the preview includes the following declaration: “…but there’s something quite harsh and that is that HaShem has demands. HaShem made demands on Klal Yisrael, Europe was destroyed because of the spiritual state of Klal Yisrael there, and if that happened then, it's very scary as to where we are holding today. If we understand that what the Holocaust did was, destroyed what Gedolei Yisrael called a business that was running bankrupt, because Klal Yisrael was really falling part, the minority, just the minority was still Torah-true, if that happened there, well, what's going to happen to Jewry today? And that's scary.”

The same theme runs throughout the preview.

I am a big, big fan of this kiruv organization, which has done an incredible amount of good with a high degree of professionalism. I know and respect quite a few of their personnel, and I like a great many of the programs they put out. But is this a kiruv message, or a richuk [distancing] message?

As a relevant aside, the accuracy of the message is debatable. Suffering is, sometimes, Divine punishment; it's clear in Tanach and Gemara. I have written as much in this post, a response to Rabbi Emanuel Feldman's article in a recent issue of Tradition. But it's equally clear in Tanach and Gemara that suffering, sometimes, comes about for reasons other than Divine punishment; see my post here for examples.

But beyond the debatable accuracy - is this something to disseminate? Is the Jewish public ready to use the Holocaust as a kiruv tool? “Gd punished you sixty years ago, so you had better shape up now before you get whacked again?”

Perhaps the makers of the video weren't hearing the screams of tortured Jews when they taped those words. Perhaps they weren't thinking about the raped women of the liquidated ghettoes, the rabbis whose beards were torn off and who were otherwise disgraced before they were killed. Perhaps the staff that reviewed the film didn't, during their work, call to mind the thousands of babies who were brutally massacred.

Or the opposite - perhaps they did call all of those things to mind, and that's exactly what motivated them to call Jewry to Wake Up, in a Kahanaesque attempt to wake the masses with harsh truths... but I'm not sure that Kahanaism works as good kiruv. My experience is that it does not.

The key questions:
Is the message going to make a single Jew commit herself to greater observance?
Or is the message going to turn off a single Jew who feels that the memory of her parents, grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts is being sullied?

My gut feeling is that the Holocaust is still אבילות חדשה (mourning for recent loss), an open and fresh wound; I think that calling it Divine punishment would be a turnoff. Rabbonim far greater than I have balked at that approach.

What do you think?

My post for today appears at the Muqata

Today I'm guesting over at Jameel's, so you'll have to go over there to read my inanity of the day.

But it relates to this list of special occasions celebrated in June:

Donut Day June 1
Tennessee Statehood Day June 1
Kentucky Statehood Day June 1
Yell "Fudge" at Cobras Day June 2 (huh?)
Festival of Utter Confusion Day June 2
Tattoo Day June 3 (Any other d'oraysa issurim get a special day? how about National Shave Your Peios Day?)
Repeat Day June 3 (huh? huh?)
Egg Day June 3
Cancer Survivor's Day June 3
Frozen Yogurt Day June 4 (see June 27 below?)
Cheese Day June 4
World Environment Day June 5
D-Day (Display U.S. Flag) June 6
Cake Day June 6
Bonza Bottler Day June 6 (Bonzai, or Bonza?)
Chocolate Ice Cream Day June 7
Best Friend's Day June 8 (that's yedid to you)
World Ocean's Day June 8 (are there other kinds of oceans?)
Yo Yo Day June 9
Children's Day June 10
Philippines Independence Day June 12
Juggling Day June 13
Kitchen Klutzes of America Day June 13 (no comment)
Flag Day (Display the U.S. Flag) June 14
Smile Power Day June 15 (smile power! smile power!)
Fly A Kite Day June 15
A Friend In Need Is A Friend Indeed Day June 15
Father’s Day (Observed the third Sunday in June) June 16
Juneteenth (U.S. Emancipation Proclamation 1863) June 19
Sauntering Day June 19 (does swaggering get a day, too?)
Vanilla Milkshake Day June 20
Bald Eagle Day June 20
West Virginia Day June 20 (Why do they get a day? Just because of Tennesee and Kentucky?)
Cuckoo Warning Day June 21 (is this about warning cuckoos, or about being warned by cuckoos?)
Chocolate Eclair Day June 22 (now, there's one I can sink my teeth into)
Auto Race Day June 22
Discovery Day (Canada) June 23 (Sure, now that West Virginia has a day, Canada needs to have one too)
St. Jean Baptiste Day (France - Canada) June 24
Take Your Pet To Work Day June 24
Teddy Bear Day June 24
America's Kid's Day June 24
Strawberry Parfait Day June 25
Independence Day in Slovenia, Croatia and Mozambique June 25 (Didn't know they were independent, so I didn't get them a card. better luck next year.)
Beautician's Day June 26 (isn't it politically correct to call them aestheticians now?)
Rose Day June 26 (as in Pete, presumably)
Columnist's Day June 26
Captain Kangaroo's Birthday June 27
Frozen Yogurt Day June 27 (didn't we see this one earlier?)
Cheese Day June 27
Helen Keller's Birthday June 27
Happy Birthday to the Happy Birthday Song Day June 27
Gettysburg Civil War Heritage Day June 28
Panama Canal Day June 29
Gay and Lesbian Pride Day (International) (Observed the last Sunday in June) June 30
Sky Day June 30
Ice Cream Soda Day June 30
Log Cabin Day June 30
Superman's Birthday June 30

Why Modern Orthodoxy does not produce a Chabad

In a recent comment, Ari Kinsberg faulted Modern Orthodoxy for not creating a Chabad-style outreach organization. I responded glibly in the comment section, but some elaboration is due.

I see three ideological reasons why Modern Orthodoxy will not create a Chabad-style organization:

1. Modern Orthodoxy is made tentative by its sophistication.
By virtue of its ideology, MO does not do ‘outreach’ to proselytize for its particular vision and movement. Simply put, MO does not see itself as the only way or the right way to be Jewish. There is more than one correct approach, within the bounds of halachah, and so we need not convert others to our approach.

Reaching out to extra-halachic movements is done with caution, and more as an education initiative (let’s give them an opportunity to learn) than a kiruv initiative (let’s encourage them to change their lives).

2. Modern Orthodoxy still does not enthusiastically support teaching as a way of life.
The tone is not as negative as it was twenty years ago, but I can still safely say that most MO households do not look forward to having their children become teachers or kiruv professionals. MO families prize a balanced, religious/secular outlook as an ideal, and encourage their children to learn about different paths and try different careers. Overshadowing everything is an emphasis upon how you will support your family.

Contrast this with Chabad, in which becoming a shaliach is a goal and honor and prize, equivalent perhaps to what military service meant to a former generation of Americans.
Given that this is so, where will MO find the manpower to create a Chabad-style outreach organization?

3. Modern Orthodoxy is self-obsessed.
Is there any other Jewish group that spends as much time as MO picking lint out of its navel? The time and money and brainpower expended annually on questions like “Where did MO come from?” “Is the line between MO and the Yeshiva world shifting?” “How does MO respond to crises in Israel?” “R’ Shimshon Raphael Hirsch and Rav Soloveitchik: The roots of MO” “Is Rabbi XYZ really MO” “The role of women in MO” is staggering, when compared to the resources expended in MO on anything larger than the movement itself. It’s a very baby-boomerish self-centeredness; we are fascinated by ourselves.

Granted, I don’t know all there is to know about Chabad, so I’ll defer to anyone who wants to correct me, but: I have a hard time imagining Chabadniks staging a seminar on “What it means to be a Chabad Chasid in the 21st century” or “Women in Chabad: Where does the future lie?” They may discuss the future of Judaism, or the identity of Mashiach, or how best to reach out to others, but they don’t seem to spend a lot of time on introspection.

Until MO, as a movement, feels comfortable enough with its identity that it can begin to look outside its shell, no serious outreach will take place from MO.

Final Note:
I don’t know that any of this is bad, per se, with the possible exception of #2. And #3. But if you want to know why MO has not produced, and will not produce, a Chabad-style outreach organization, I think that the heart of the matter is not practical, but rather ideological.

Of new mothers, VA hospitals, and the limits of humility

Ani maamin be’emunah sheleimah (I believe completely) that it’s really, really, really hard for a person to have too much humility. As the Rambam wrote, arrogance is so appealing and so destructive that it must be entirely crushed.

At the same time, I’ve seen the other side – being too easily humbled (perhaps ‘intimidated’ would be a better term) can lead to problems. Let me explain:

In my first year as a rabbi, I served as a part-time chaplain at a Veterans Hospital. At one chaplains meeting, the head chaplain complained that the medical staff didn’t take the role of the chaplains seriously (reminding me very much of Father Mulcahy in the process). I couldn’t help thinking to myself, “If I were a doctor, I wouldn’t really take us seriously, either. Doctors are trained and evaluated based on tangible results; what tangible results do we as chaplains provide?” And ever since, I’ve been somewhat intimidated by hospital doctors.

The same situation pertains when I deal with women who are in the late stages of pregnancy or taking care of newborns and infants. (Yes, this very much includes my rebbetzin.) They are providing life to a fragile human being; what can I do that compares? I feel like I’m intruding and bothering them when talking to them, even about important matters.

But, as I noted above, too much humility can lead to problems. To cite Samuel’s rebuke of King Saul: “You may be small in your own eyes, but you are the head of the tribes of Israel! Gd has annointed you to be king over Israel!” No, rabbis are not identified by Divine declaration, and if anyone annoints a rabbi with oil he would do well to beware of burning matches, but you get the point – the rabbi does have a certain standing that he must not forgive, a kavod he cannot be mochel.

To illustrate via the cases above:

I have had occasions when physicians wished to impose non-halachic advice on the families of terminally ill patients, and sought to intimidate the families into going along with their advice. Had I not stood up to the physicians, they would have carried the day.

When I am asked a shailah by a nursing mother – say, for example, regarding eating on a fast day or chametz on Pesach – I have to be able to confidently respond with accurate halachic advice, without being intimidated.

So the next time you think your rabbi is taking an arrogant stance or unhumbly imposing his will on the community, you might ask yourself what it looks like from his perspective. He may feel this is one of those cases of “You are the head of the tribes of Israel.”

In honor of the 3rd of Tammuz: On meshichists, the Rebbe and shlichim

(for those who don't know - The 3rd of Tammuz, this past Tuesday, was the yahrtzeit of the Lubavitcher Rebbe, zt"l)

First order of business: Mazal Tov to AnonymouS, one of my first readers ever, who delivered a baby boy today. May you bring him to a timely bris, and to Torah, Chuppah and Maasim Tovim!

Second order of business: Jameel has given me the keys to his blog. I’m trying to figure out what I want to say there, my first time blogging from Israel. A true Nefesh b’Nefesh moment! Suggestions welcome…

And finally, Lubavitch:

Confession Time (and please don’t tell Rabbi Dr. David Berger): I don’t care about the meshichists. I don’t care that there are Lubavitchers running around who think the Rebbe never died, or is going to be resurrected as Mashiach.

Why don’t I care? Because despite all of the vitriol and propaganda, they aren’t going to grow and influence the masses. They will remain a weird fringe, and will ultimately disappear. The circumstances that allow for the birth of a new religion just don’t exist in the Jewish world today.

On the other hand, the Rebbe fascinates me.

I met the Rebbe once, briefly, on a Dollar line on Erev Rosh HaShanah some twenty-five years ago. He fascinated me then, and he does to this day. The man accomplished so much, saw with such sweeping vision and yet paid attention to such minute details, changed so many lives for the better…

Why didn’t he speak out against the meshichists at the end of his life? I don’t have a clue. Maybe he was too infirm. Maybe he was hoping to become mashiach. Maybe he thought no one would take them seriously. A whole lot of maybes. All I do know is that I wish he had been Mashiach.

And then the shlichim, the Lubavitch emissaries who set up shop anywhere they can, whether in the heart of New York City or the outskirts of Bangkok.

These shlichim are a mixed bag, and my feelings about them are likewise mixed. I’ve known a few in my day, and some were great and some were less than great. Some spoke with an authenticity I admire, and some were hucksters who would say anything in the name of Torah to persuade people to light Shabbos candles. Some were honest and straightforward, some published essays in newspapers in their own names even though the essays were lifted verbatim from Chabad materials. Some were community-minded, some focussed only on their own well-being. Some taught the breadth of Torah, some quoted only the dynastic Rebbes.

But why is that different from what goes on in the rest of the world, Jewish and otherwise? I’ve known some great pulpit rabbis, and I’ve known some who would have better served their communities by retiring. That’s the nature of things.

I do wish that individual Chabads had boards, or some system of fiscal responsibility beyond the internal Chabad structure. Any money they take in can go to their family or to programming; the associated lack of financial transparency is inappropriate for a tzedakah organization.

And finally: One thing I particularly like and respect is chabad.org; they’ve done a great job with that. Not long ago I needed to send someone a text for the funeral kaddish, and I didn’t need to re-write it – it was right there on chabad.org. When people come to me to discuss conversion, the ones who have looked at articles on chabad.org tend to be the best prepared. Their divrei torah are succinct and clear. It’s good material, presented well. Would that more of the Torah world operated with that level of professionalism.

Happy Male Mother's Day! Happy Father's Day!

Update: My wife has now read this and declared it, and I quote, "Stupid." She believes it buys into stereotypes. All I can say is that over many years of counseling, I have found these stereotypes to be accurate. So there.

The following is not terribly profound, but you know not to expect profound here. It’s just an observation that came to me today, pretty much יש מאין (out of nowhere).

A few weeks back, a woman came in to talk about her kids’ marriage. As part of the conversation, she described the husband in the marriage as a decent father; he spends some time with the kids, they love him, he’s not abusive. She wishes he would spend more time with the kids, though, and less time on his work.

These complaints make me uncomfortable, because I see myself in that picture. While much of the time I am out of the house as a necessary function of work, not all of my time out fits that bill. And then sometimes I am home and I work on projects that could really wait for the kids to go to bed. So I feel guilty, and particularly when a mother-in-law complains about her son-in-law and I nod my head sympathetically.

Reality check: I’m not that bad, I know. I spent Father’s Day today doing fatherly things, mowing the lawn and setting the kids up in a wading pool and taking the kids to a petting zoo so they could catch parasites from the cute animals. And as I type this, I’m holding my two-year-old on my lap. So, no, I’m hardly a neglectful father. But I know that I’m not around as much as I could be. More, I’m not nearly as devoted as my wife is to the basics of child-rearing.

Then, this afternoon, I had a revelation: What if I’m not supposed to be my wife? What if a father is not a male mother?

Okay, that sounds like an obvious concept to you, and to me as well - but I must admit that I haven’t been functioning with that understanding. For years, I’ve felt the guilt of not being my wife, of not being the perennial diaperer and bather, bedtimer, homework helper and co-reader. But that wasn’t a reasonable expectation; a father is not a male mother.

The father has his expertise and his tasks, and they aren’t as much a part of the nurturing side of things. That doesn’t mean he can’t or shouldn’t cross over, but it isn’t appropriate to expect the crossover to occur regularly. [Note: This is not meant to exonerate fathers from their basic responsibilities, and from taking seriously the family dinner, bedtime, homework, and general serious parenting.]

Of course, there are exceptions. There are men who are more maternal, and women who are less so. I speak in generalities because I fit the general pattern.

The split of father and mother roles is noted in the Torah as well. The midrash (cited in Rashi to Vayyikra 19:3) points out that the Torah says “Honor your father and mother (Vayyikra 19:3)” but reverses the order in “Have awe of your mother and father (Shmos 20).” The midrash explains, “Gd knows that a child has greater awe of his father than his mother… and that a child will honor his mother more than his father, for she nurtures him with words.” [That’s actually a poor translation, but I’m writing on the fly here. Look up the Rashi yourself.] [I should also advise you to look at Kerisus 28a, which gives a different explanation of the reversed order.] It’s an observation of fundamentally different capacities and roles for fathers and mothers.

So when someone tells me that he always resented his father for not being the one to tuck him in at night, or when a wife complains that her husband isn’t as attentive to the kids as she would like, or a woman criticizes her son-in-law for being insufficiently involved in his kids’ birthday parties, I’m going to keep this in mind.

And to all of you guys out there: Happy Male Mother’s Day. Happy Father’s Day!

Post 250 - In which RWAC sees his reflection in the mirror/blog

With the publishing of Post #250 and as I close in on a year of blogging, I must observe that this blog is not working out as I had expected. (as though anything else ever does…)

When I started blogging, I thought I would use this venue as a place to vent, to say things I couldn’t diplomatically say in my normal life, to make observations and crack jokes that don’t belong in my off-line rabbinical, community leader existence.

Here and there I’ve done that, but for the most part I’d have to say my blog has conformed to my off-line persona. (Of course, none of my readers can contradict that assertion …) I look at my posts and see, well, the same old me that I see everywhere else.

I pride myself on trying to be תוכו כברו, the same inside and out, whenever that is permissible. Now, though, I find I am also בלוגו כברו, the same on my blog as I am in interacting with the off-line world.

Botttom line: Instead of being a refuge from the pulpit, my blog has turned into a second pulpit.

I see a few reasons for this:
1. Fear of being outed - If my identity were to be revealed, or if I were to want to take credit for the blog someday, I’d have a lot of explaining to do.

2. I’m no longer truly anonymous - You don’t know my name, but in many ways you already know me, or my personality. That personality has value to me, and on some subconscious level I don’t want that personality to lose the respect it has garnered.

3. Most of all, I find that my inhibitions really are me.

This last realization is not truly a shock; I observe it in others all the time. People say that they have an external persona and an internal persona, the internal being the more legitimate and the external being a face they show the world, but that’s often untrue. For many people, the external face is their highest goal, the identity they wish were theirs, the person they would like to become.

So I’ve seen it in others, but I didn’t realize it was happening to me. The part of me that is snarky and irreverent, the part that I thought would come out in the blog, really isn’t me anymore. I don’t know where I lost it - sometime in the early years of my marriage and rabbinate, I suspect - but it’s gone. I’ve grown up, or perhaps I’ve dulled down.

I’m not sure how I feel about that. I’m glad to be able to pass as a mature, diplomatic, politically savvy adult, but I’m not sure I actually want to be one.

And what does it mean for the future of the blog, if these posts are really just an extension of my off-line identity?

Don’t know.

RWAC loses it (in a good way)

First, a big THANK YOU to Mr. Bagel for his work on creating the new masthead and layout for this blog. The generous Mr. Bagel emailed me with his offer of a masthead graphic several weeks ago, and then, following the sages’ dictum of אמור מעט ועשה הרבה (Say a little and do a lot), he surprised me with a brand new blog!

I’m still adjusting to it, and I am in the midst of making a few changes (your input is most welcome!), but WOW. Mr. Bagel, thank you very much for your many hours of work.

Now: How, exactly, did RWAC lose it this week? In a big way.

The past two weeks have been pretty close to impossible, even for a guy who likes to think of himself as The Indefatigable One. It started with my friend’s illness and associated crises, snowballed with the discovery that major repairs will be required for Chateau RWAC, mushroomed with a renewed rumor that RWAC might be headed to points unknown (news to me!) - and then came mid-June.

Every organization with the word “Jewish” in its name or job description holds a banquet, end-of-year seminar, fundraiser or graduation between June 5 and June 25th; it’s just the way life goes in these parts. I’ve lost track of how many I’ve been to in the past week, and how many more I’ll attend before the season ends. It’s this way every year, and every year it drives me over the bend. It’s like Tishrei all over again.

Part of the whole thing is burnout, too. Just when chagim great and small are over, it’s time to plan summer education opportunities, work on the calendar for next year… and plan Rosh HaShanah and Yom Kippur and Succos drashos. And I haven’t been on any sort of vacation in many, many, many months.

And part of it is just general weirdness. I serve as local halachic authority (I cringe at the word posek) for several institutions, and a few of them have seen crises this week, and that’s eaten up time, and – more to the point – nerves. Total acetylcholine overload.

And then, one night, I was attending a school commencement and the speaker, representative of a major Jewish organization, began to have serious microphone trouble. Audio from some other program, located somewhere in the building, crossed with the audio in our room, so that the amplifiers began playing strange sounds - babies crying, bagpipes, all sorts of weird dialogue. All while he was doing his best to Charlie Mike a serious charge to the graduates.

That was when RWAC lost it. I just started to laugh… and laugh… and laugh. I covered my mouth, but I must have been beet-red from earlobes to forehead to bearded chin. Tears rolling down my cheeks, nose running, I could hardly breathe, the whole bit. Two weeks of panic-level tension burst out; it was all I could do to keep from guffawing. I can only wonder what the people sitting around me thought; I mean, the audio-cross was funny in a sophomoric, ‘80s movie sort of way, but it wasn’t really laugh-out-loud-with-a-handkerchief-over-your-face funny.

Except to me.

And, yes, I feel better now.

Teshuvos haRWAC 1:3 - Why is my rabbi not funny?

[First: Apropos of my previous post on rabbinic leadership, see Taylor Mali’s poem on “What teachers make”.]


Question: To the honored and beloved RWAC, Shlit”a,

I have long been confused by the rabbinic sense of humor, or lack thereof.

My rabbi makes so-called jokes like “How do we know that Yaakov wore a hat? Because the pasuk says ‘And Yaakov left Beer Sheva,’ and we know he wouldn’t have gone out without a hat!” and “How do you know G-d is a baseball fan? Because the Torah starts, ‘In the big inning!’”

And my current rabbi is not the exception; I have heard similarly un-funny jokes from my yeshiva rabbis as well as shul rabbis since my childhood. Why is this? Why do none of the rabbis I meet have a sense of humor?!


Teshuvah:


You ask a very good question, my son. When I listen to my rabbinic friends repeat the same joke they have been telling for years, I am reminded of Bruce Wayne’s comment to Alfred regarding party guests: “Keep them happy until I arrive. Tell them that joke you know.” (Batman Begins, 2005, naturally)

Allow me to first build up your question, before attempting to respond. You see, the rabbinic paucity of humor is all the more surprising in that it is a modern phenomenon. Back in the days of the Gemara, rabbis engaged in all manner of humor:

Slapstick - Bar Kappara in Nedarim 50b-51a does the talmudic equivalent of dancing with a lampshade on his head.

Sarcasm - Rav Nachman in Eruvin 36a tells Rava, “Sure, I’ll answer you when you eat a barrel of salt!”

Puns - Rava in Pesachim 9b asks, “Is a chuldah [rodent] a prophetess?” This is a play on the name of Chuldah the Prophetess.

Nicknames - Students called Rav Hemnuna “cold fish” for being unable to answer their questions, on Kiddushin 25a. It’s a play on המנונא Hemnuna, which is close to חמנונא Chamnuna, or “warm fish.”

Black comedy - Perhaps the most famous Talmudic joke, the declaration in Berachos 64a, “Torah scholars increase peace in the world!”

I can just see your sides splitting from all of these witticisms - and there are more like them! So the question, really, is not why Torah scholars have no sense of humor. Rather, it is why today’s rabbis have not passed along the tradition from earlier times.

1. It is appropriate here to quote a certain scholar, חכם אחד, who has alleged that the lack of humor is only found in Orthodox rabbis. He contends that it is not so much that the rabbis are not funny, as that they are using only old jokes, out of fear of creating something new. However, this is not a logical position, for we find that the lack of humor extends even to graduates of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah.

2. The Kura d’Milcha sought to provide an answer based in halachic principles. He pointed out the traditional belief that נתקטנו הדורות, the generations have shrunk, and argued that this applies to the rabbinic sense of humor as well.

It is true that some apply "generational reduction" only to spiritual stature, but the Kura d’Milcha pointed out that this is clearly not the case, for the Tzlach applied this axiom to physical stature in his comments to the last chapter in Pesachim.

3. The Levi Tzedek, on the other hand, considered the Kura d’Milcha’s answer legitimate proof that the rabbinic sense of humor is not entirely dead. Barely concealing a guffaw, he told his talmidim, “Had the Kura d’Milcha lived in our day, between his bizarre understanding of Torah and my laughter we might have brought Mashiach!”

After calming down, the Levi Tzedek pointed out that the answer lies in an explicit Gemara (Berachos 31a): “One is not permitted to fill his mouth with laughter in this world [post-Temple]… until the nations say, Gd has acted greatly with these people.”

As far as the post-Temple cases of humor in the Gemara, those sages did not live “in this world” - their holiness was such that they felt as though they were living in the time of the Beis haMikdash, and so they could laugh.



In closing, I must pay tribute to one of the few rabbis I have known who could tell a funny joke. Ontario Rabbi Philip Kaplan told me the following joke many years ago:

A yeshiva student gets married, moves into a home with his wife, and comes to his rabbi before Succos to ask how to build a Sukkah. The rabbi points him to certain pages in Gemara Succah, and to a long comment of Rashi that digests the discussions on those pages into a set of clear instructions.

The student follows the instructions to the letter, spending days meticulously acquiring the proper materials, then building and decorating his fine Succah. The first night of Succos, though, a mild wind demolishes the entire structure.

On Chol haMoed the student re-builds the structure, only to have it again collapse at the first gust of wind. The student tries a third time, but again meets with failure.

The student, devastated, comes back to his rabbi and tells him the story. The rabbi listens patiently, then smiles knowingly and tells his student, “Yes, you're right - Tosafos asks that question!”

What is Rabbinic Leadership?

After a commenter last week asked why we need rabbis (a question I often ask myself, I must admit), and after Jameel’s post on leadership and Parshas Sh’lach, I resolved to post a thought or two about Rabbinic Leadership.

To me, the guts of rabbinic leadership is in Moshe’s challenge to G-d in Parshas B’haaloscha. Moshe asks: Did I conceive this nation, or did I birth it, that You tell me, ‘Carry him in your bosom, like a nursemaid carries a nurseling, to the land I swore to give his ancestors’?

That’s rabbinic leadership in a nutshell, as Moshe understood it. Although Moshe wasn’t happy about it in Parshas Behaaloscha (and I imagine he couldn’t have been much happier in Sh’lach to hear that his tour of duty was extended from eighteen months to forty years!), he knew this to be his task.

Curious Jew’s quote from Rav Soloveitchik, who was himself citing Rav Chaim Soloveitchik, says it all: “However, the main role of the rabbi is to help the needy, protect the persecuted, defend the widows, and sustain orphans. In a word, it is acts of loving-kindness [gemilat hasadim]. (The World of Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik, 193)”

This is not meant to infantilize the congregant; rather, it is meant to maternalize the rabbi.

This type of care is leadership, because it enables the rabbi to lead. Per Dale Carnegie’s “How to win friends and influence people,” the rabbi who shows people that he cares about them is the rabbi who will be able to lead them and help them grow.

This, then, is the rabbi’s job description: To care for each individual, and thereby lead the community. Examples:

In many communities, there are people who can give deeper or clearer shiurim than the rabbi - but will they give those shiurim daily? And will they offer more shiurim when people need more? And will they offer shiurim in varied topics, as people need? And will they arrange chavrusas for people? And will they go after people who are not learning, to find ways to match them up with learning opportunities?

In many communities, there are social workers and counselors who can take care of social services and counsel those in need - but will they seek out the welfare of every individual in the community, the sick, those with sick relatives, the needy, those with needy relatives, the bereaved, the depressed, and so on? Will they dedicate time from their schedules to call people and check in and make sure everything is all right?

In many communities, there are gabbaim and askanim who will make sure davening runs smoothly and distribute leining responsibilities - but will they go out of their way to convince people to come to minyan, not for the sake of the minyan but for the sake of those people’s personal development? Will they dedicate time to teaching new baalei tefillah and new baalei keriah? Will they sit down with people to explain how to put on tefillin, and perhaps encourage them to get tefillin in the first place?

And so on and so forth. The rabbi’s job is to help a woman get her husband’s pension. The rabbi’s job is to convince people to “go kosher” and to kasher their kitchen himself. The rabbi’s job is to encourage people to come learn parshah for an hour a week. The rabbi’s job is to arrange a loan so that someone can cover his son’s bail.

Why is this the rabbi’s job? Because, as Moshe explained, his job is to carry the nation as though each individual was his own son or daughter.

Again: This is not meant to infantilize the congregant; rather, it is meant to maternalize the rabbi. A particular congregant may not need anything at all - but the rabbi had better continue to look after that congregant, in case the day comes when the congregant does need something.

So you want to be a Rebbetzin...

When a certain well-known rabbi heard I wanted to enter the rabbinate, he put his hands on my head, gave the top of my skull a long look, and said something along the lines of, “That’s strange; I don’t see anything wrong.”

Personally, I think he had the wrong party; I think he should have done that to my wife. To be a Rebbetzin you have to be absolutely, positively, deranged. You must have a generosity gland that runs in twenty-four hour overdrive. You must have the patience of not just one saint, but several thousand of them. And you must lack any sense of self-preservation.

Think I’m exaggerating? Consider these points:

1. The rabbi will work 24/7 looking after the needs of people in the community, but will also receive the occasional Thank You and “Job well done” comment (yes, along with doses of righteous criticism…). The Rebbetzin will not have the rabbi’s help at home and will not have the rabbi’s companionship throughout that 24/7, but will receive far fewer Thank You and “Job well done” comments, if any.

2. People in the community will doubtless comment that they wish the Rebbetzin would teach more classes, attend more committee meetings, host more people and be involved in more projects. But because the Rebbetzin doesn’t function in an official capacity, she won’t have the opportunity to face those people and rebut them. The rabbi, at least, can attend a board meeting or speak from the pulpit; where is the Rebbetzin’s public forum?

3. The rabbi will certainly love his Rebbetzin, but he will equally certainly spend time talking to female committee members, counseling women, and even talking to women in the community who have become his friends (The rabbi should learn to take RWAC’s advice on platonic relationships!). It’s all part of the job, the rabbi will say when Spiritual Philette^TM calls. And this will be the truth … but it will still seem awfully suspicious…

4. The rabbi will wail and cry on his Rebbetzin's shoulder when things go wrong, when people get sick and die, when life in general becomes tough. The Rebbetzin, on the other hand, will generally not have the option of doing the same to him, because he will be out of the house taking care of other people who are wailing and crying on his shoulder.

I suppose it’s one thing for a woman to marry a man who then goes into the rabbinate, but I cannot fathom why a woman would actually marry a rabbi.

Of course, my rebbetzin did exactly that; go figure. I can’t understand women.

(originally written in honor of my wife and rebbetzin's recent birthday...)

Hug your rabbi (after his hangover wears off)

In a recently discovered letter, Ernest Hemingway explained to Ezra Pound why he prefers bulls over literary critics: "Bulls don't run reviews. Bulls of 25 don't marry old women of 55 and expect to be invited to dinner. Bulls do not get you cited as co-respondent in Society divorce trials. Bulls don't borrow money. Bulls are edible after they have been killed."

I’d substitute “congregants” for “critics” and find Papa’s comments right on target (particularly on the edibility front). And I’d add that bulls don’t expect the world and then forget to say Thank You when you deliver.

I should note that I am writing this post while “under the influence.” My dear friend has come through a battery of tests very well, thank Gd, and I’d say she may be removed from your Mi sheBeirach lists. I celebrated moments ago - after a meeting, Minchah/Maariv and a late chavrusa, naturally - with a Scotch that I would undoubtedly call splendid if I knew the difference between good and bad whiskey. (For the aficionados: It’s a Glenrothes Single Speyside Malt, distilled in 1989, bottled in 2002. I don't know what that means, but it's true.)

But back to the theme at hand: I have no problem with helping congregants who are needy. If I didn’t want to help them, I wouldn’t be in this business. Tell me you need someone to listen, tell me you need help studying a topic, tell me you need advice or intervention with the consulate or mediation or anything else, I’m there. But is it too much to expect some recognition that you are demanding a lot, and receiving it?

Example: I have someone with whom I study fairly late at night, and I mentioned to him recently that I would much prefer to meet earlier. I had been under the impression that he didn’t finish work until very late, and that this was why we were meeting so late. Imagine my surprise, then, to find out that no, he actually finishes work by 5 PM, it’s just not as convenient for him to meet me then; he’d much prefer we learn from 9 to 10, thank you very much.
Again, I'm glad to help people - but, really, some degree of thought about what’s going on in my life might be somewhat appropriate.

There are other examples, but I'm afraid of straying past the line of propriety in my inebriation. I suspect I’d be best off stopping here, and perhaps picking up with a second part tomorrow, should I retain the mood.

I will say this, though: Jews are supposed to be big believers in hakarat hatov (gratitude); it’s all over our tradition. We express thanks to G-d in a thousand ways, from the standard davening to Birkat haGomel (a blessing on being saved from danger) to blessings for food, etc. But we ought also to remember to express that gratitude to other human beings.

As the Sefer Chasidim notes: What Shimi did to Dovid (Samuel II 16) was far worse than what Naval did to Dovid (Samuel I 25), but Naval was the one who died ten days after his deed, while Shimi survived. Why? According to the Sefer Chasidim, it’s because Naval's sin was one of ingratitude.

So go out and be grateful, particularly to your rabbi! And to your rebbitzen, I might add, which is another topic I may take up soon…

Added note: My rebbetzin, more sober than I, stresses that most people are grateful and do express it. I acknowledge the truth of her observation.

Idea for a rabbi who wants "out"

I've given a surprising (to me, anyway) amount of thought to my eventual exit from the rabbinate. Would it be a quiet farewell? A Sefer Devarim style verbose send-off? A Yaakov-style rebuke? A heartfelt tearjerker?

Well, here's one I admit I hadn't thought of. Maybe I won't even wait for a send-off, to use it; maybe I'll use it at the next board meeting... or if someone corrects me during Krias haTorah... or maybe just instead of a derashah if I run out of ideas one week.

In the meantime, I'm actually glad to have the rabbi thing to do, to take my mind off of other stuff (cf the earlier illness posts). A head-on political collision between community organizations over Shabbos, an almanah (widow) in crisis last night, a hakamas matzeivah (unveiling) this morning and classes to prepare at the moment.

Update: Forgot to note - This week's Haveil Havalim is here; go take a look.

Grammar Police weigh in

(Before I begin: I know most people don’t really care about grammar at all. Most people are as slovenly in their English as the authors I am about to mock. But the big day for my close friend Meira bat Chanah is Monday, and I need to spend a few minutes here and there babbling harmlessly. So let me do this.)

Today I received a letter advertising a new (and probably quite useful) sefer. The missive included the line, “Order only the exact amount of guides needed. [bold type added]”

English lesson: That which is counted (דבר שבמנין, if you will) is numbered; that which is weighed or measured accumulates to an amount. In other words: “Number of guides,” not “Amount of guides.”

Rabbis! You cannot teach Torah to an intelligent and linguistically sensitive audience if your words betray ignorance of the most basic grammar. Perhaps the AJOP Convention should offer a session on English composition.

When I was in the Katz Kollel at YU, Rav Schachter was rumored to grade exams for grammar as well as content. I say “rumored” because this never happened to me, but it would not surprise me in the least to know that it happened to others.

Another line from the same letter: “We believe that it is of utmost importance that the guide is distributed. [bold type added]”

Lest you think that today’s letter is an exception, I tell you it is not.

I regularly read divrei torah and articles that mangle words like “ironic” and “paradoxical” and Latin like "i.e." and "e.g." in flawed attempts to sound erudite.

“Different than” instead of "different from" seems to be the rule of the day.

“Any man or woman interested can do what they want.”

Perfect and imperfect tenses, such as if/when/was/were/should/did/had done, are a jumble.

Meaningless clauses like “very unique” (h.t. Sam Seaborne) and “truly honest” are freely sprinkled through essays that seem to be carrying much water weight in order to reach a pre-determined word count. Perhaps for the sake of Gematria? Who knows?

But I do know that spellcheck has saved the olam haTorah from a great deal of further embarrassment.

Of course, it’s dangerous to pick on the grammar of others; I write almost every blog post as a one-off, with just one re-read (to remove the offensive lines). I’m sure I commit atrocities of grammar in every essay, and this one is no exception. But those are my atrocities, so they are under RWACian protection.