Always leave 'em laughing

I made someone smile the other day, and it was the best moment I’d had in weeks. It’s so much more rewarding for me to make people smile than to commisserate in their grief or make them cry with a hesped (eulogy).

I was in a shivah house (house of mourning) – I’m spending entirely too much time in such places lately – and I made a small comment to a non-mourner on my way out, a little nothing of an incidental follow-up to an earlier conversation, nothing funny or deep, but she gave me a broad grin.

She was transformed; where a visibly unhappy person had stood moments early, a strikingly alive person now presented herself.

On one level, I was reminded of the power that some people invest in their relationship with the rabbi, such that even a little attention from the rabbi can make them light up. [No, I’m not puffing up the importance of the rabbi; I’m just noting that there are people who take their rabbinic relationships very seriously, and so I am able to accomplish some good for them with, frankly, very little effort. My attention matters.]

But on a broader level, it also reminded me of the famous gemara about people earning a share in the next world for making others laugh. People often take that gemara as a surprise; they ask, “How could it be that one earns the next world just for making others laugh?” To which I would reply that there is no “just” in that sentence – to make another person smile is a huge deal, it transforms him.

Hence the mitzvah of gladdening a bride and groom on their wedding day.
Hence the mishnah’s advice – from Shammai, no less – to greet everyone with a pleasant face.
Hence the gemara that one who feeds his parents the finest food with a frown is committing a horrible sin, but one who makes his parents grind their own flour, but does it with a smile, is properly honoring his parents. Ditto regarding tzedakah, per the gemara.
Hence the gemara that one who is upset is not truly living life; the ones who are happy are the ones who are truly alive.
Helping others to smile is a huge deal; it gives them life.

Speakers sometimes focus on this theme of helping others to smile, in discussing our gedolim. When they do, it always makes me laugh (not in a good way).

I can’t stand lines like, “Rav X stopped to compliment the house painter on the job he was doing. A house painter! And Rav X stopped to compliment him, on his way into an important meeting! That’s a gadol!” Or, “Rabbi Y always made sure to say Good Morning, with a big smile, to everyone he met. What a gadol!”

Yes, it’s true, the gadol is very busy with communal issues and a hundred shailos and people’s personal needs, and so he could be forgiven for not noticing someone, painter or otherwise. But the gadol stops to compliment people or to say Hello with a smile because he understands that compliments and smiles are important. He is a human being and he recognizes that this is the way human beings are supposed to interact, to make each other feel good. It's not that the gadol is great, it's that the smile is great!

To pirate the Yerushalmi in Peah, it’s far better to make someone smile than to provide him with tzedakah; one can do this for the wealthy as well as the needy, and one can do it even if he is personally poor. A smile of our own, and a little bit of attention, goes a long way toward spreading the joy.

Rabbi as “Sin-Eater”

[Warning: This is one of the depressing, whining, Woe-is-RWAC posts. If that annoys you, don't bother reading on.]

Certain societies have developed, over the centuries, the role of a Sin-Eater – a person who absorbs the sins of the deceased. In one version, the Sin-Eater eats bread and water at a funeral, and declares that he accepts, upon himself, the sins of the deceased.

[Of course, the Jewish quasi-parallel that comes to mind is the שעיר לעזאזל, the scapegoat of Yom Kippur. This is not a true parallel - for many reasons - but the idea of transferring sin is present in both cases.]

Lately, I’ve been feeling that the rabbi in American Judaism has become something of a Sin-Eater. Or, really, a Suffering-Eater.

Come to the rabbi and spill your agonized guts, the rabbi listens and absorbs the suffering, and – if the rabbi does his job well - you walk away with your burden somewhat lightened. The rabbi, on the other hand, walks away with an increased load.

As regular readers know, the past month has been filled with suffering WACvillians. The tide is not abating, either. In the past fifteen hours, I have added to the mix a couple whose son is being evicted because of his violent friends, a post-surgery patient who is suffering bad complications, a child who has to leave yeshiva for social reasons, a family needing tuition assistance and another case I can’t risk discussing. Yes, in the past fifteen hours.

And, of course, I ask for it. Literally. I want to be there to help people, and for me, as I mentioned a few posts back, listening to people means being transformed.

This has also become harder lately because of developments in my own life:
I am now facing a serious professional difficulty, because of something that a relative of mine did. If I ever do decide to seek another rabbinate, this could affect me in a real way, and there isn’t anything I can do to correct it.
And, my closest non-family friend has suddenly become unavailable to me, for an indefinite period. So no yedid to talk with, either.

I actually found myself, late last night, lying awake and staring out the window of my bedroom and asking myself, “How did I end up here? What decisions did I make, and did I know what I was doing? Am I now stuck with the results, or is there anything I can do about it?” It’s bad when I get to that point, because it leads to some depressing thoughts...

Of course, this Suffering-Eating is no different from what happens in any dysfunctional therapy situation; call it dysfunctional therapy with religious overtones. If I were a better therapist, perhaps a better-trained therapist, I could probably find ways to distance myself from the pain of others, without it diminishing the comfort I offer. But I don’t know how to do it, I haven’t found any books that tell me how to do it in a way that I can respect. And, yes, I've read a bunch.

So I eat the sins and suffering of the community, as surely as the Sin-Eater downs his bitter bread and water. I suppose the Sin-Eater, foreign as the concept is to me, feels he is serving his community, too.

Rabbinic Search: Do's and Don'ts

Ah, the Rabbinic Search Season. Many synagogues will begin this process of looking for new rabbis this week, now that Tisha b'Av is past. Others will wait until after Succot, when their rabbis inform them that it's time to seek a replacement.

A Rabbinic Search can be a great time for a shul; it can unite a congregation around a vision, it can give people hope for the future. Or, it can be a debacle; entire demographics might feel excluded and taken for granted, candidates might be frightened off, leadership might be demoralized.

As a veteran of both sides of the table - part of a search-committee family twice in my youth, and on the other side professionally - I have a few opinions about what makes a search succeed or fail.

My most memorable case was the time I interviewed for a rabbinic position and was contacted first by Search Committee 1, who arranged a Shabbat visit, and then by Search Committee 2, who wanted to arrange time with me during that Shabbat. Search Committee Chairs, now hear this: If you have a Search Committee 2, give up now. It's all over.

A few thoughts, then, on Do's and Don'ts of the Interview Process. Some are probably obvious, some are less so:

Mitzvot Lo Taaseh (Prohibitions)
-Eliminate cute questions and silly tests
"What is your greatest weakness?" "What don't you like about the rabbinate?" "Do you remember my name from when we last spoke?" These are not insightful questions. They are simply annoying for their 'look how unusually smart I am' character.

Questions are worth asking if they shed light on the rabbi's personality and his fit for the job.

-Throw out the resume
Unless you are hiring a rabbi fresh out of school, so that you need to know that he has any experience at all, the resume won't tell you much. Resumes can't possibly contain real indications of the five, ten, fifteen or twenty years that a rabbi spent in a community.

Use the resume to see that the rabbi is professional and that the rabbi has experience that should prepare him for your job. Let the in-person interviews do the rest.

-Ditch the free-for-all first-interview conference call
These conference calls are useful if the search committee doesn't trust its leadership... but if you're in that situation already, then you're in trouble. Better to take a few trusted people and have them do the first interview. Give them questions in advance, even record the call if you must - but don't have ten people in the room when you call.

Why? Because it's havoc for the poor rabbi on the other end who can't see you, and who can't tell your voices apart. It's hard enough to interview for a rabbinic job by phone: people are asking you serious questions, and you can't see their faces and you can't express yourself beyond the words you say. Don't make it worse by forcing the candidate to do this to ten strangers by phone.

-Don't try to hire the Rebbetzin.
Yes, it's fashionable to consider the Rebbetzin a part of the team. Yes, the Rebbetzin will play a major role in your community, both in the counsel she gives her husband and in interacting with the shul, and possibly even in teaching. But making that a part of her job, and her husband's job, is a big mistake. And telling the rabbi and rebbetzin on the interview that this is part of the job is an even bigger mistake; let them tell you that they want it, but don't demand it of them.

-Don't fight ancient fights
This is a constant on interviews, as I noted here in one of my favorite all-time posts. "Rabbi, what would you say if a woman wanted to know whether she would be allowed to serve home-baked cake at a bris held in her home?" "Rabbi, would you agree to convert a child if the family lived 1.2 miles from the synagogue?" "Rabbi, would you visit a congregant's third-cousin twice removed if he was in the hospital half an hour away from town?"

This is counterproductive; most such questions are so specific that answering them requires real knowledge of the community.

Mitzvot Aseh (Commandments)
-Establish responsible communication with your candidates
Upon receiving a resume, email the candidate immediately to apprise him of your schedule. This has nothing to do with the candidate's viability; it's simply menschlichkeit. And for the professional, serious candidate, it shows you are professional and serious.

Expect the same from your candidate, of course. If he isn't getting back to you now, when he's looking to be hired, think of what it will be like once he's your rabbi!

-Request an audio copy of a class or speech
This shows technical adaptability, and gives real examples of the rabbi's work. I would suggest asking for this even before you bring the rabbi out for a shabbos, when you are still deciding whom to bring out.

-The most valuable questions
"How have your previous positions prepared you for our community?" and "Would you have to change anything about your style in order to meet our community's needs?"

Answering well will show that the rabbi has taken the time to learn about your community, and that he considers himself a good fit for the job. He's not simply looking for anyone who will hire him.

Further, the rabbi's answers will indicate how well he understands your community at this stage.

-Provide each candidate with a profile of the community and its Jewish institutions
This is valuable for two reasons: It gives the candidate a sense of whether he will fit in, and it also sells the candidate on the town.

Remember, the candidate you want might be someone you will have to convince to come to town. The one who is throwing himself at you might not be your best candidate.

Lots more to say; there may be a part 2 in the future... in the meantime, happy searching!

OU Endorses Women’s Tefillah Groups?

Note: I’m not agreeing or disagreeing with the OU on this, I just think it’s very interesting.

In the latest Jewish Action, a writer describes “The Amen Phenomenon,” in which:
*Women gather to recite berachot out loud so that others can reply Amen.
*Women also daven as a group, although apparently without a Chazan (“Shacharit is finished individually”).
*Women recite Hallel together on appropriate days, apparently led by a female Chazan ( “offering an opportunity for women with beautiful voices to lead the singing”).
*Women recite berachos on food, and other women answer Amen.

At first read I thought this was just a neat way to recycle the now-verboten Kiddush Clubs:

Good citizen, encountering a group huddled over schnapps in the coatroom: I thought the OU banned Kiddush Clubs!
Group: We’re not a Kiddush Club; we’re an Amen Group!
Good citizen: Oh. Carry on, then.

But then I realized it's even better than that - this is an OU-certified Women’s Tefillah Group! Yes, it's true; the Women's Minyan has finally gained acceptance.

Lest one suggest that the Jewish Action article doesn't represent OU policy, OU Chairman Gerald M. Schreck writes in his own article, “In this issue we also examine how more and more groups of women are getting together each morning to respond Amen to each other’s blessings. Known as Amen groups, these gatherings, which can be found in Jewish communities around the world, is rapidly generating a sea change among Orthodox women. Writer Gael Hammer gives us insight into this extraordinary phenomenon by visiting with a New York Amen group and speaking with the founders as well as the participants.” Only an attorney could parse these words as anything other than approval.

So what made the OU say Amen to the Amen Corner? Did no one read the article before it went to press? Or do the standard arguments against WTGs not apply to the Amen Phenomenon?

Let’s look at a few of the usual arguments against WTGs:

1. WTGs keep women from attending minyan, answering Amen to many more berachos and fulfilling davening ברוב עם, with a larger community. This concern should apply to the Amen Phenomenon, too.

2. WTGs are innovative customs, and do not fit traditional models of prayer. Ditto for the Amen Phenomenon; anyone know if Rashi’s daughters got together with other enlightened women of their day to make berachos on their tefillin each morning?

3. WTGs are perched on a Slippery Slope; women attending these WTGs will soon be unsatisfied with this innovation and want more. Again, that should apply to the Amen Phenomenon, too. (Next issue: “Baruch Hu Uvaruch Shmo: A Chassidic Response to the Amen Phenomenon”)

So why is the OU comfortable endorsing the Amen Phenomenon in its flagship publication?

A few possible theories:

1. Calling these “Amen groups” rather than “Women’s Tefillah Groups” or “Women’s Minyanim” makes them less frightening.

2. This is an attempt at compromise with the WTG movement.

3. My leading guess – This sentence is the key: “Rebbetzin Sara Meisels, the daughter of the late Bobover rebbe, Rabbi Shlomo Halberstam, decided to share the importance and power of the word Amen with others. With the encouragement of Rabbi Chaim Kanievsky from Bnei Brak, a group of women in that community began to recite the Morning Blessings together to enable each other to respond Amen.”

The association with names like Rav Chaim Kanaievsky is strong enough to erase the somewhat-tendentious halachic considerations of ברוב עם, incomplete prayer and innovative customs. The fear of the slippery slope is ameliorated by the presence of serious halachic weight behind the movement.

I can see two ways this might go:

1. The opponents of WTGs read Jewish Action and discover the Amen Phenomenon, and label it for what it is - WTG-lite. Hasta laVista, Amen-ers!

2. Thesis, Antithesis, Synthesis - The Amen Phenomenon becomes the Synthesis, an Orthodox compromise with the WTG movement.

Left to my own devices, I’d probably root for the latter, that this Amen Phenomenon becomes a ‘mainstream’ (whatever that means) version of a WTG. But my Rebbetzin thinks it's sad that the women involved don't see attending shul as a better option. She and I would both rather see shuls make efforts to encourage women to come to daily minyan and feel comfortable there. This halfway house of a minyan takes away from that possibility.

In the end, it all boils down to one question: The Amen Phenomenon - Kiddush Club, Women’s Tefillah Group, or something else entirely?

[Update: Thought I was original on this, then saw this. Hat-tip: Steg's comment below.]

Do not go softly

[I want to give the following as a speech in shul on Tisha b'Av, but I'm too self-conscious of the raw emotion involved. With all of the stuff I've been handling lately - two more people in the hospital now, in addition to the dozen already ill - I'm too fragile. Still, I have to say it somewhere, so here it is, for whatever it's worth.]

There’s no way to read the abuse that is Chazon (Isaiah 1) without crying.

When you come to visit Me - who asked for this, for you to trample in My yard?

Your new moon celebrations, your holidays, I hate them, they are a burden to Me!

When you spread your hands, I will turn My eyes from you. Although you will increase your prayers, I will not listen.

It’s horrible, just horrible, a chapter of abusive bile the likes of which no person should ever say to another, no parent should ever say to a child, no Gd should ever say to humanity. It’s a verdict of utter rejection.

The verdict kills me, so much so that by the time I get to Tisha b'Av, I have nothing left; I can’t cry anymore. The only tears I shed on Tisha b'Av are at the Chazon-like moment when the chazan skips the Kaddish line, May the prayers and requests of all of Israel be accepted before their Father in Heaven.

The chazan skips this line, per Rav Soloveitchik, because on Tisha b'Av we are informed that Gd will not accept our prayers. On Tisha b'Av, we must accept that verdict.

It’s horrible.

But it’s not over.

True, on Tisha b'Av we are forced into a funereal Tzidduk haDin, an acceptance of judgment, and we cannot challenge it. On Tisha b'Av Gd can say I don’t want to see you, I don’t want to hear from you, I don’t want to know you.

But after Tisha b'Av there comes Yud Av, the tenth of Av, and then the eleventh and twelfth and so on. Never make the mistake of thinking that because we accepted the verdict on Tisha b'Av, therefore we must accept the verdict the next day.

I cannot accept such a verdict. As Avraham fought the verdict for Sdom, as Moshe fought the verdict after the Golden Calf, as Chanah fought the verdict of her childlessness, so I must fight the verdict of isolation from Gd.

Noach accepted Gd’s verdict, and the world died. I am not interested in being another Noach.

So after Tisha b'Av I will fight on. I must fight on. I will not be isolated, I will not be left alone in this universe.

I will visit. If Gd doesn’t like it, that’s His problem.
I will celebrate those New Moon and Holiday celebrations. If it’s a burden to Him, let Him take a giant aspirin.
I will spread my hands and I will increase my prayers, I will fill the universe with noise until He cannot avoid my words.

I will press my own goal of becoming closer to Gd, through Torah, through kindness to others, through introspection and correction. Wherever He turns His face, He's going to see me.

This is what it means to be Yisrael, to be willing to do battle.

Tomorrow evening I will be forced to accept the unacceptable. The next day, I will press the fight.

The Power of Christian Prayer? A challenge in three parts

Part 1:
Somewhere in this past week’s endless parade of hospitalized WACvillians, a woman who was hospitalized with a fairly serious condition was visited by two friends of hers, who are born-again Christians. They asked if she would mind if they prayed for her. She permitted them to do so. They held hands, right there in her room, and did their thing.

Stop the story there, for a moment. What do you think of their offer? Anything wrong with it?

Personally, I am not terribly bothered by their request. If we follow the Rama's ruling that Christianity is not classified as avodah zarah for non-Jews, why not permit them to do what they want?

Other WACvillians have a different take; they view these “friends” as preying rather than praying, attempting to convert her.

What do you think?

Part 2:
The WACvillian told me that after they were done praying, she felt something. She felt healed.
“Feeling healed” can mean any number of things, of course. It can mean that she felt touched that others cared about her. It can mean that she felt some peace of mind. It can mean that she passed gas.

As I see it, “feeling healed” probably had to do with feeling loved. People who are hospitalized for extended periods of time will often feel quite lonely. Even if friends and relatives visit daily, there are long stretches of time when the patients are without close companionship. It’s easy to see that she might feel strengthened by her friends’ display of love.

Of course, if we write off the effects of this prayer as emotional and psychosomatic, the same may be said for any prayer - Christian, Muslim, Jewish, etc. Personally, that doesn’t bother me: I don’t think that the function of Jewish prayer is to make the ill person feel “healed.”

One is supposed to pray in front of the patient, if it will help the patient gain confidence and comfort (and because the Shechinah is present - Shabbos 12a). I have no problem saying that “feeling healed” is more a result of psychology than a result of the prayer’s efficacy.

Again: Your take?

Part 3:
The WACvillian wants to know what I think about her feeling healed.

This is the trickiest part. I don’t think this is the time to say, “You didn’t feel healed, you felt loved.” On the other hand, I’m not really into endorsing Christian beliefs to Jews. Some answer in between, perhaps?

Rabbinic Government: Good Intentions, Bad Idea

(I am still in a bad, pre-Tisha b'Av, too-many-people-in-the-hospital mood; please excuse me if I am too harsh.)

I know that the concept of Rabbinic Government in Israel is well-intentioned:
1. It is supposed to provide Judaism for Israel’s secular government, and
2. It is supposed to provide unifying religious leadership, and
3. It is supposed to set standards for marriage and divorce, kashrut and conversion, so that Jews will be able to trust that these laws are being enforced properly.

But it doesn’t work.

Forget the stories of incompetence and the rumors of bribery. This isn’t about the alleged abuses of power and the accounts of rudeness to people who apply for marriage and divorce. Even if all of these were to prove unfounded, the bottom line would still be that having rabbinic government over a secular society is a bad idea, and has always been a bad idea.

I have three reasons for this belief:

1. First, such a Rabbinic Government requires many layers of heirarchy, administering a complex system that meets the needs of millions of people. Even if the heads are great Talmidei Chachamim, the best of the best, how will they have the time to manage all of the administrative levels, rooting out incompetence and making certain that the system works?

It’s not for nothing that Rabbi Akiva counseled his son (Pesachim 112a) against living in city governed by Talmidei Chachamim. As Rashi explains, if they are true scholars then they will not be involved, as needed, in administration. That will lead to breakdowns in the system, people will be poorly served, and chillul HaShem will be created.

2. Second, Rabbinic Government working hand-in-hand with Secular Government is never going to be accepted within the Torah observant community, let alone the secular community. Observant Jews will always suspect the רב מטעם, the rabbi appointed by “the system.” Remember the challenges to Rav Kook on that basis, 80 years ago?

Therefore, any ruling that does not hew to the farthest-right line in the community will face the challenge that it is “political” rather than halachic. Witness the fact that thousands upon thousands of observant Jews will not trust the kashrut of the rabbinic government, and will not trust the rabbinic government’s conversions.

3. Third and last, Tanach offers us a long history of ineffective Rabbinic Government over secular society. Think of the long line of Neviim, and many righteous kings, who could not persuade Jews not to worship idols, among the most grievous sins. From Shlomo and Chizkiyah to Yeshayah and Yirmiyah, it never worked. What makes us think that this will work now? People will always find ways to thwart the rabbinic system, even if its administration is of impeccable righteousness. That's why people go to Cyprus for their weddings, and why we have falsified conversion and ordination, etc.

The only example in Tanach of a Rabbinic Government that successfully led people to Torah was that of Ezra, and Ezra’s case was unique in that his society was already committed to abandoning secularism. These were the few – roughly 42,000 - who left Bavel, and they were prepared to follow Ezra’s lead. Translate that to millions who have no intention of following any Ezra, and we see the problem.

Lest anyone think that the Jews of Tanach were uniquely difficult to lead, look at the Jewish communities of Europe, even in the days of government-authorized rabbinic leadership. Read the responsa of every major authority, from the times of Rashi and the Rashba through the modern day. It never worked; there was always strife, there were always allegations of impropriety, there were always rebellions against rabbinic authority and breakdowns in the system – and that was in small towns and cities, not in a country of millions.

The bottom line is that the Rabbinic Government structure, however well-intentioned, is doomed to failure.

It would be better to have a system in which we have private rabbinic authority, in which we have unity among the Torah-observant community without the allegations of politics, and in which we have to check into every marriage and divorce, every hashgachah and conversion, than to have the mess of incompetence, of strife and of people evading the system that we currently face.

If we want Judaism to have a real role in government, we will have to market it to the secular leadership, convincing them of its place.
If we want to have a trusted system of marriage and divorce, conversion and kashrut, we will have to win people over to it.
And if we want to create unifying leadership, we will have to do it the hard way: Not by imposing it, but by earning it.

Sending suicidal people form letters

[Warning: This is one of those self-indulgent RWAC-navel-gazing posts. Feel free to skip in favor of lighter reading. You might go here and read Neil Harris’s elegant haiku.]

I’ve been unusually depressed lately - beyond the normal dips and bottoms in my normal state of harried/anxious/depressed/exuberant.
Some of it is the Nine Days.
Some of it is miserable anticipation of Haftarat Chazon coming up this Shabbos; I never get through that without bawling like a baby.
Some of it is from lack of music during the Three Weeks of mourning.
And some of it is the rising tide of illness and bereavement I’ve been dealing with, in one of those morbid swings of the pendulum that happen from time to time.

I’ve been reading segments of Alan Alda’s autobiographical “Never have your dog stuffed,” and I just found two paragraphs that sum up the problem perfectly. [Note: I cannot recommend the book, because parts of it are too vulgar to be halachically permissible. Frankly, the early part is wandering and poorly put together. On the other hand, some of the later parts are great. And, it is Alan Alda, after all.]

On page 168 he describes becoming famous as a result of MASH:
I began receiving letters from people on the verge of suicide, asking me for help - help they felt for some reason I was qualified to give them. I wanted to answer these lettes before the people carried out their acts of despair, but after I struggled with what I should say in answer to the first letter I received, I realized I had taken a week. That was too long. At a certain point, even the right words might be useless. I couldn’t take that long with every letter.
Finally, I wrote a draft of a note that could be tailored to anyone who wrote me in desperation, and I checked it with a friend who was a psychoanalyst. In each letter, I included the number of the local suicide prevention clinic. I tried to make the letter seem personal and genuine, hoping they wouldn’t choose a permanent solution to a temporary problem, but each time I sent out one of these letters, and there were a number of them, I felt strange. This is what getting famous does to you, I though. You wind up sending suicidal people form letters.

That’s a big problem in the rabbinate. Members, non-members, locals and people from far away, they come to you looking for answers, for comfort, for a listening ear, and you can’t afford to send them form letters. They need, they deserve, more than that. They deserve someone who will listen.

Which brings me to an earlier paragraph in Alda’s book, page 160-161, discussing his evolution as an actor in doing MASH:
When I started out as an actor, I thought, Here’s what I have to say; how shall I say it? On MASH, I began to understand that what I do in the scene is not as important as what happens between me and the other person. And listening it what lets it happen. It’s almost always the other person who causes you to say what you say next. You don’t have to figure out how you’ll say it. You have to listen so simply, so innocently, that the other person brings about a change in you that makes you say it and informs the way you say it…
Real listening is a willingness to let the other person change you. When I’m willing to let them change me, something happens between us that’s more interesting than a pair of dueling monologues. Like so much of what I learned in the theater, this turned out to be how life works, too.

To be a good listener means to be transformed: To sit and listen and absorb the other person’s experiences and point of view, and let them become your own, so that you can respond with a real sense of the other person. You can’t have an answer until you know what the other person is saying, until you’ve heard him out and absorbed her view.

I’m experienced enough to know the danger this poses during an intense period like the one I’m enduring. I know the warning signs and the pitfalls, and the need to step back and take a deep breath. But I’m a rabbi. I’m the rabbi. They come to me.

This is one of the reasons I don’t blog much about the “big issues” facing the Jewish community. All community is local; it’s the woman with breast cancer, the man with a suicidal son, the couple having marital difficulties. What Olmert will and won’t do, whether Lubavitch messianists are going Christian or not, asking if the Gedolim are given too much credence - I don’t have the patience, let alone the time, to play pundit on that these days. I’m trying too hard to avoid sending suicidal people form letters.

Rabbi as Action Hero, Revisited

Okay, so the last post was me in hypomanic Peter Pan mode, confident that I could do much to change my small corner of the world.

Reminds me of something that happened when one of my daughters was 5 or 6 years old. She had a cheap dress-up bracelet, probably a party favor from a Five and Dime (back when there were such stores; now the same stores with the same merchandise are called Dollar Stores). One of her siblings “borrowed” it and snapped it. Couldn’t have been too hard; the string looked and felt just like dental floss, only weaker. Infinitesimally tiny beads, literally 1/64 of an inch in diameter or thereabouts, scattered all over her room.

It was silly, but I insisted on putting the bracelet back together for her. I don’t know how much time I wasted on threading these practically microscopic pieces of plastic back on the fragile dental floss, but I was determined to make things right for her.

Jack asked a short while back what traits a rabbi needs. One trait, for sure, is that desire to set things right, to help people, to make everything better. Whether visiting someone, counseling or just listening, helping arrange medical care or chesed assistance, providing a loan or gift from the Discretionary Fund, arranging political intervention, whatever – a rabbi must feel an innate desire to provide anything he can to correct a situation. It’s what I once labelled the “Rabbi as Action Hero” syndrome.


The problem, of course, is that you can’t do everything, you can’t provide all the help. Some days, you can't do anything at all.

I have more sick people at the moment than I can count on two hands – heck, now our local hospitals have taken to importing them from other towns! - and for some of them it’s becoming hard to pretend that they’re going to get better. Political crises I can’t mend, financial situations I can’t Band-Aid, hurting people I can't comfort. To return to the Tisha b'Av motif, שנאת חנם (baseless animosity between parties) I can't quell.

And so I’m drawn back to my daughter’s childhood bracelet. After who-knows-how-much time, I actually got pretty good at threading the beads back on. I got back all the beads we could find, and I started to tie the top – and blew it. The thing fell apart, all the beads scattered. And that was it; I gave up.

I can’t do it all... but I can't accept that.

Yes, I know Rabbi Tarfon’s dictum, as we used to sing it umpteen years ago in NCSY, “לא עליך המלאכה לגמור, לא עליך לגמור או בייבי! ולא אתה בן חורין להבטל ממנה, ולא אתה בן חורייייייין...” “It’s not upon you to finish the job, not upon you to finish (oh, baby), but you are not free to keep from doing it, you are not free(eeeeeeeee)” So I know that I have to just do my best, thanks for the clichés.

A rabbi cannot accept the clichés, not if he is to succeed. I can say without arrogance that I am good at what I do - that’s not self-assessment, it’s the evaluation I receive from others – but one of the things that makes me good at this is that I’m not interested in going halfway. I’m not interested in saying, “Well, I did my best.” I want to make a difference, I want results, and I want them now. That’s the job. If the rabbi won’t catalyze change, who will?

Foolish arrogance, of course. If I could really change the world, the world would look very different by now. I know I can’t really do that. I know that the best I can hope for is to change myself a la Reb Zushe, and maybe have an impact on a few people around me.

But the depression that can come with recognizing futility and inadequacy is deep, and dangerous. If everyone believed they could do nothing, then we’d never get anywhere at all.

One of the greatest athletes I ever saw play was Mark Messier. He was a Team Captain like no other; when he said he was going to do X, he did it. Every teammate of his described him the same way: laser-focused, iron-willed, and entirely confident. And that was how he got things done.

So I do my best to stay in hypomanic mode, Miles Vorkosigan’s forward momentum taking me from minute to minute. A rabbi must make a difference.

Tisha b’Av, and the True Power of the Rabbinate

There are lots of things I love about the rabbinate: Working with the community’s children, making a difference to people, the personal maturing I’ve had to do over the years, etc. But one of the main benefits is that in the rabbinate you can actually do something.

I’ve said before that the power of a rabbi is not in his speeches. The voice may be the voice of Yaakov and the hands may be the hands of Esav, but a rabbi should live more in the world of action than in the world of speechifying. Even for the greatest orator, a speech has too broad an audience (“he doesn’t mean me”) and too great a lagtime between inspiration and implementation (by the end of kiddush, the exhilaration has worn off) to be truly effective in catalyzing change.

On the other hand, a rabbi can trigger change by doing. No, this isn't pompous self-importance; rabbis have access to mechanisms that others don't, by dint of their position. Individuals are often exhausted by the Sisyphean task of trying to budge the wheels of community politics, but rabbis can outline projects, inspire people to take them on, build committees and get them going. And through this we can accomplish the central goal of uniting communities in growth as Jews.

This is particularly true as Tisha b’Av approaches, and rabbis the world over deliver heartfelt speeches about שנאת חנם, the scourge of baseless animosity. We all know that hating others for no reason is wrong and destructive. We know the hate-filled story of Kamtza and Bar Kamtza backwards and forwards. We know that we need to work together.

And yet, many of us are still guilty:
Guilty of hating you because of personal slights suffered ages ago;
Guilty of hating you because your lifestyle makes me doubt the correctness of my own;
Guilty of hating you because someone who looked like you or practiced Judaism like you offended me some time back;
Guilty of hating you because I assume a whole lot of things about you.
All of these qualify as שנאת חנם, but we do it anyway. Speeches may galvanize us for a moment, but after that we return to our basic state of knowing that שנאת חנם is wrong, but practicing it anyway.

Speeches and public awareness campaigns aren’t the way to go - actions are the way to go. It’s the doing that can really change the world, and rabbis are situated in such a position that they can initiate the doing.

Rabbis can create projects that bring people together. Examples:
Communal partner-learning initiatives
Chesed projects
Social gatherings
Cross-generational events
Outreach programs that force people to meet and talk
Dare I say it? Cross-denominational projects. For example: Why not create a community-wide project to bring people to this (if you live close enough)?

A rabbi can do a world of good by creating these opportunities. He can certainly do more good this way, than with a speech about Kamtza and Bar Kamtza.

If, per one edition of the Kamtza/Bar Kamtza story, the major sin of the rabbinate was that they were at the infamous party and failed to act, today we can reverse that by taking the initiative and acting.

This is certainly the way I plan to mark the Nine Days, and Tisha b’Av. May this be the last one on which we mourn.

The Latin Mass: Who's afraid of the big, bad Pope?

This week was one of those: We had 5 cancer cases, 3 heart cases, a pneumonia and two cases of serious fractures. Every time I came into shul I was like a sports announcer, filling in concerned parties on the day’s DL.

In any case: I’m fascinated by the hullabaloo over the Pope’s reinstatement of the Latin Mass, possibly including references to the Jews as “blind” and calling on G-d to life the veil from our eyes.

On the one hand, I think Jewish reaction has been relatively muted. Other than the ADL, Jews are more or less sitting back and watching, perhaps remembering how the outrage over “The Passion” made a box office mountain out of a bad film.

Imagine, on the other hand, if the Mass called the Muslims “blind” - then, we’d really see fireworks!

But on the other hand, I don’t really think there should be any reaction at all.

1. Is the Pope not entitled to believe that Jews are blind, and to pray for our conversion? He’s the Pope, he’s Catholic, he thinks he’s 100% right and non-Catholics are 100% wrong. Does any of that really come as a surprise?

2. Further, it’s not as though such language is absent from our own liturgy. While we don’t seek the conversion of the nations, we do say שהם משתחווים להבל וריק, identifying foreign gods as emptiness. As far as we are concerned, they are a bunch of idols, in fact a detriment to the spiritual development of the world. So why get all upset about the Latin Mass?

About the only reason I can see to be upset is the historical role of the Latin Mass, and similar Christian prayer, in inciting the masses against. Call Jews blind often enough, pray publicly for their conversion often enough, call them “perfidious” often enough (an expression which has not been reinstated, I should note), and people begin to believe it, and to believe they should act on it.

But I'm not sure the reinstated passages constitute that sort of threat. So, if you ask me, I’m just not that exercised about it. I’d be more worried about the serious missionary efforts.

Besides, who outside of Latin America will understand the Latin Mass, anyway? (yes, that’s a Dan Quayle joke; I'm that old)

Have a good Shabbos.

Banned from Shul, Banned from the Blog

First, a bit of housekeeping-

A big THANK YOU to RenReb for deigning to post, and doubly so for linking to some of my material. I could almost forgive you for listening to music during the three weeks.

Thank you, Ezzie and Juggling Frogs for linking to my post on divorce. That one has produced as much interesting private email as it has interesting comments…

Go here to see Steg’s Carbon Monoxide warning.

And finally, Logan J. Kleinwaks would like to make sure you know about his site helping reunite Holocaust survivors.


And on to the blog…

We all know the story of the kid who comes into shul and doesn’t know how to daven, so he either whistles, plays the flute or recites the Alef-Beis to express his longing to approach Gd, depending upon the preference of the tale-teller. A wonderful story, filled with meaning for anyone who has ever felt religiously inadequate.

But let me ask you: If someone were to come into shul, ascend to the amud (lectern) and lead the davening that way, how would you feel? How accomodating would we be of variation?

Me? Not very accomodating, no. Notwithstanding the story that Rabbi JJ Schacter told about Rav Soloveitchik, I don’t allow the Chazan to do things his own way.

Similarly, what if someone were to come into shul and put out propaganda materials for his personal cause, noble or otherwise, for people’s perusal? Would you tolerate someone dumping a stack of flyers in your lobby for some rally he was holding? Most shuls, I believe, would not – whether Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, or anything else.

Shuls tend to want their views represented in their lobby propaganda. I'm still smarting from certain people's reaction to a pamphlet from a couple of years ago, which decreed eternal darnation - and worse - for people who think about possibly talking during kaddish!

So here we have an interesting paradox. On the one hand, I believe strongly in the right of free expression, and particularly the right of free religious expression. On the other hand, I would limit that free expression for shul.

And, surprisingly enough, a similar paradox applies to my blog.

I never thought I would end up banning someone from my blog, short of for lashon hara or obscenity. And yet, yesterday I removed someone’s posts and blocked him from posting further. It wasn’t for obscenity; it was for insulting people on the blog, and for trying to co-opt the blog for his own purposes, to the extent of vituperatively attacking anyone who didn’t follow his approach. For those who didn't see it, we're talking along the lines of "You're not a real rabbi if you don't talk about THIS and you're not a real rabbi if you don't say THIS," except with worse grammar. Give me a break, pal.

But I am a believer in free expression, and I hear out people with whom I disagree all the time (around WACville, we call them “congregants”). So why did I ban him?

I think it’s because I subconsciously distinguish between Public Place and Home – and, surprisingly enough, I view blog, as well as shul, as Home. In Public, I’ll defend anyone’s right to say almost anything. In my Home, though, I choose what I want to hear. If I don't like it, I'll turn it off.

People who daven in a shul come in with certain expectations. I wouldn't belittle it by calling it politics; this is their shul, their place to daven, and the davening will be led their way. It's the home they built. Others may daven as they choose, but they may not impose that choice upon the community/homeowners.

And on the blog, I'll decide what I want to discuss, and when I'll discuss it. And, yeah, I guess I'll ban someone who tries to force me to do otherwise.

Anger is a weakness, not a weapon

Blame it on the cartoons and comic books and action movies, and their equivalents in generations past. Somewhere along the line, young human beings acquire the notion that anger is a weapon.

Think of every action hero who was trampled, stomped and beaten down, and who then, in his moment of rage, fought back and demolished his persecutors. A berserker rage energized him and drove back the foe, and he triumphed. He was galvanized by his outrage, he shouted from the rooftops, and he won over the crowd. From John McClane to my beloved Rocky Balboa to Popeye (“That’s all I can stands, I can’t stands no more!”) to even Mr. Smith in Washington, the lesson has been the same down the line: Get angry enough, and you’ll win. Anger is your weapon.

So children assume that if they display enough anger, shout loud enough and long enough, say enough nasty things or hit hard enough, people will listen to them.

But the world doesn’t work that way. In fact, it’s quite the opposite: Angry people are a turn-off. Very few people listen to them.

Shlomo said it in Mishlei 15:1: מענה רך משיב חמה, A soft reply turns back rage. Abayye quoted this in Berachos 17a, saying that one must always speak softly to everyone, Jew and non-Jew alike.

As the Gemara, Rambam and Shulchan Aruch all stress, rebuke must be worded in a way that it will be accepted; otherwise, one has not fulfilled the mitzvah, but has actually sinned.

The last experiences of Eliyahu haNavi on earth are instructive in this regard. It was in Melachim I, chapter 19, that HaShem sought to teach Eliyahu to tone down his rhetoric, and when HaShem saw that He was not getting through, He told Eliyahu it was time to retire, and appoint Elisha as his successor.

Recently, I was told in a rather angry comment that rabbis should be like Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in rebuking others and setting things straight. Herewith are the words of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch, in Horeb (paragraph 380), “But if you turn into a sharp and lethal weapon this word which is destined to bring life and blessings; if you seek pleasure in mocking the inexperienced and less intelligent, in deceiving and embarrassing him instead of teaching and correcting him; if you ridicule the unfortunate whose troubled mind is longing for comfort from your lips; if you put your brother to shame in front of others even for the purpose of correcting him; if you degrade your brother’s personality by calling him bad names; if with icy scorn and fiery disdain in your barbed words you shoot sharp arrows into your brother’s heart and rejoice in his discomfiture - oh then, do not dare to look up to heaven! Gd sees your bother’s heart convulsed by the daggers of your words, frozen under your icy scorn, humiliated under your ridicule. With Him the rejected soul will find refuge, to His Throne tears always find the door open. And you? The Almighty is just!”

And, anger doesn't work, for any number of reasons. Among them:

1. Anger makes people defensive.
2. Anger makes you fight sloppily.
3. People who disagree with you are not compelled to agree simply because you show you are sincerely committed to your position.
4. Anger doesn’t address the core disagreements.

And, perhaps most of all, an angry approach doesn’t allow the listener a way out. If I want to convince someone to change his stance, I need to provide him with a way to change his stance without looking foolish. If I get angry and yell at him, how can he change without looking like he was beaten into submission?

So anger is no weapon; it’s useless.

And worse, anger is a result of weakness. Anger is nothing more than frustration with the universe; things aren’t going the way I think they should.

The Rambam famously wrote in Hilchos Deios that only anger and arrogance must be entirely eliminated. Both of these appeal to basic human weaknesses, arrogance to our ego’s fear and anger to our ego’s frustration.

The Gemara says as much when it declares that anger leads a person to ignore G-d (Nedarim 22a-b). Why? Because anger indicates that I think the world should be different, should match my plan... instead of that of G-d.

Bottom line: We need to learn another way for convincing other people. If the best we can do is raise our fists and voices in rage, then there is no hope at all.

Rabbis and Divorce

I was notified today about a new blog, Shalom Bayit, a forum for women who are living in difficult marriages.

I find that marriage counseling is one of the hardest things for a rabbi to do; see my post here for some discussion of the difficulties rabbis face.

We want to help, but we generally don’t know enough about the relationship to be able to help. To make matters worse, each party enters with assumptions about what the rabbi will think, with whom the rabbi will agree, what kind of advice he’ll give, and that makes it hard for the rabbi to get down to the bottom of things and help the couple rebuild. And, quite frankly, most of us don’t have the training we’d need to do the job right. For myself, I generally farm it out.

I do want to respond to a particular comment on the Shalom Bayit blog: “Most of us have sought rebbinic authority in regards to our marriages, and have decided to stay married. That being said, most rabbis are delighted at the decision and that it is for them.”

I’ve heard this theme before: “The rabbi just wants the couple to stay together.”

I will acknowledge that there are several reasons why a rabbi might be biased against divorce:

Practical reasons
For the sake of the kids.
For the sake of the couple’s emotional stability.

Philosophical reasons
Whether the rabbi realizes it or not, he may be biased by certain philosophical considerations.
1. Divorce has a historical stigma, because it was often a response to infidelity (see the gemara at the end of Gittin on grounds for divorce, as well as commentaries on the prohibition against marriage between a kohen and a divorcee). As such, the rabbi may fear the creation of that stigma for this couple.
2. And then, of course, there is the perception that people divorce more easily today, requiring less impetus for divorce and putting less work into repairing a marriage. Therefore, the rabbi may instinctively push for the couple to work harder before opting for divorce.
3. More than that, rabbis - like any counselor - are guided by the שב ואל תעשה, “First, do no harm” mantra. Divorce is action, staying in the marriage is inaction; there is a temptation to choose the path of inaction.
4. Finally, divorce is an irrevocable step, so that the rabbi will feel a need to caution against making such a drastic decision. If they were married originally, it might be possible to return to that state.
For these philosophical reasons, a rabbi may subconsciously be biased against recommending divorce.

Psychological reasons
And then I must suggest a final point, although here I am going out on a limb.
Rabbinic marriages weather a great deal of strain, probably more than most. The hours, the physical exhaustion, the emotional exhaustion, the separate lives of raising the family vs. raising a community, the rabbi’s connections to various congregants, all of these weigh heavily on the marriage of rabbi and rebbetzin.
Perhaps, then, the rabbi unconsciously feels that if he and his wife have managed to deal with their problems and remain together, this couple should be able to do likewise.

That last point, as I said, is a bit dicey, but the general theme is true: Rabbis might well be biased against recommending divorce, for any number of reasons.

Nonetheless: To the best of my memory, I have never blindly urged couples to stay together and not divorce. I have urged that they go for counseling before divorcing, but I have never pressed people to simply stay together and tough it out.

Rabbis are, as a class, smart enough to know that sometimes divorce is the answer.

Movie Calms the Savage Rabbi

Jack, this one’s for you, and for all Batman Begins fans out there.

Yesterday (Thursday) was a day of end-to-end stress. It started nicely enough with one of the more accessible daf in Yevamos, but it all went downhill from there.

A good friend and WACvillian, away on vacation, suddenly needed bypass surgery. Another good friend and WACvillian has had a cancer relapse. A third went into the hospital on Tuesday, but didn’t want to bother me, so that I only found out yesterday morning. (You think you are helping the rabbi by not telling him, but the rabbi hopefully cares about you! Aside from the fact that he looks disconnected when other people know and he doesn’t.)

A very-politically-connected local family had moved from one synagogue to another last year, and now wants to hold a big simchah at my synagogue as something of a neutral zone between the two. (There’s lots more on this story, but telling it would constitute major lashon hara if anyone were to place the characters.)

A caterer is coming in for an event on Shabbos, and I don’t trust him at all. Whenever he comes in, there’s trouble. “I forgot you don’t accept ______” “I was sure that had a hechsher.” "Oh, is that dairy?!" “We didn’t have a chance to bug-check those vegetables before; would you mind checking them now, rabbi?” And so on. I did everything I could to make sure nothing would go wrong this time… but I’m sure something will. The gemara (Yevamos 63b) quotes Ben Sira’s advice that one shouldn't anticipate future trouble, but I can’t help it. (And besides, Tehillim says “אשרי אדם מפחד תמיד Fortunate is one who is always afraid.” See also Gittin 56.)

I taught a Tanach class at a nursing home. I have a very hard time teaching this class; I am incredibly uncomfortable in nursing homes and hospitals to begin with, and teaching a class to people who are hard-of-hearing and have various health problems makes it even harder.

Oh, and one of my “Fringe Jew” Wacvillians who I check on every once in a while told me he’s upset and disappointed that no one looked in on him and tried to help him after a recent illness. When I told him about five different people who had called him and not been called back, and who had gone to his house and he hadn’t answered the door, he just dismissed it. Nastily.

And I’m planning a major program for the end of the summer, and clergy from another synagogue tried today to take advantage of the naivete of my project chair to insert a most inappropriate co-sponsorship. Now I have to get all political – while avoiding lashon hara – and explain things to people without offending.

But to quote Dr. Seuss: That is not all, oh no, that is not all. An Eruv pole now has a problem due to construction work, and it’s a major shailah. I’m fortunate enough to get to the pole and take photographs (twice, since the first batch weren’t what I needed) and to get to our posek and get an answer, but this one was a very close call. My blood is churning.

And all of this while I’m trying to take care of preparations for fall and winter programming, navigating a giant calendar of conflicting events to, hopefully, schedule some classes and programs that will help people.

And so I finally arrive home just before dinner, hoping to spend a few minutes of quality time and then eat like a civilized human being for the first time that day, and I’m on the floor horsing around with an 18 month old, a 4 year old and a 6 year old (no, Ari, this won’t help the profile – they might be my own, they might be nieces and nephews, they might be grandchildren, they might be general WACvillians) when the glorious Rebbetzin pops her head in and says, “Don’t you have to write your derashah?”

My derashah. Right. The speech I outlined vaguely on Monday and then promptly forgot about. I've been in the rabbinate how many years, and I forgot about writing the derashah? This is bad.

So that after Maariv, about 9:15 PM, I plunked myself down in front of the computer and couldn’t think of a single opening line. My head was swimming. I wanted music… but no music during the Three Weeks of Mourning for this rabbi.

I summoned the glorious Rebbetzin who had so unkindly reminded me of this duty. “Batman DVD,” I requested, in the same tone that a surgeon might say, “Scalpel.”

I inserted the DVD, and it was like magic. As Bruce Wayne duked it out in the mud in some Chinese prison, as Batman-to-be met the mysterious Ducart, a calm descended upon me like I usually experience only during (lehavdil) ה' שפתי תפתח. A calm, and a focus, and I could breathe. A few more minutes, and I was ready for the derashah.

Strange? Perhaps. Why should an adrenaline-packed film neutralize my neurotic mania? I don’t know, but it did; I was transported into an entirely different realm. But the derashah was completed, and I was able to wake up as a new man this morning for the gym and for another day of stress.

Have a good Shabbos.

Teshuvos haRWAC 1:4 - Is the value of love really $4,802?

Question - Lichvod RWAC: What is love worth?

Teshuvah -

You ask a very good question. I must admit that it is somewhat extraordinary among the usual halachic questions I receive.

The Cookuver Jury addressed this question recently. Reuven sued Shimon for stealing his wife’s affections, and the jury awarded Reuven 4,802 dollars. Therefore, it would seem that love is worth $4,802.

However, the Cookuver has left us some room for discussion, for we need to understand the logic behind this odd number. What is the connection between love and $4,802? What role does the Consumer Price Index play in this calculation? And how would this figure translate into zuzim?

1. The first approach I would bring is based upon a passage in Song of Songs (8:7, for those keeping score at home). There King Solomon warns, as Rashi explains, that “Even if a man were to give all of his wealth for love, his offer would be treated with disdain.” From this we deduce that one cannot buy love, as was ruled by well-known British posek Yochanan Lennon some years ago.

So perhaps the Cookuver concluded that Shimon must have offered something beyond his total assets in order to acquire Reuven’s wife’s love. Shimon’s assets being worth $4,801, they levied him a fine of $4,802. In theory it could have been more, but tafasta merubah lo tafasta - grabbing too much will get you nowhere.

If this was, indeed, the approach, then the answer is that Love is always worth one dollar more than your current estate.

2. A second approach would look to Shulchan Aruch Choshen Mishpat 382:1, in which we are taught, based on the gemara, that if a man steals a mitzvah from another, he must pay a fine of 10 gold coins. The Shach there comments that the judges may decide on another sum, having nothing to do with ten gold coins.

If we were to take the contentious position that marriage is a mitzvah, so that Shimon stole this mitzvah from Reuven, then it could be argued that the Cookuver Jury simply made up the number, per the Shach, and that any Jury may do the same.

So what is love worth? Whatever the Jury says it’s worth.

3. A third approach would be to argue, following the view of Rabbi Akiva, that love is sacred. Rabbi Akiva called Song of Songs, with its focus on love, “holy of holies.”

If love is holy, then one who steals love is in violation of meilah, abuse of sacred property. One who is liable for meilah pays the value of the item, plus an extra quarter (one-fifth of the total sum). As such, $4,802 represents 1.25 times the value of love.

If so, Love is actually worth $3,841.60.

4. And finally, a fourth approach may be offered: Gematria.

I turned to my Bar Ilan CD-ROM, which has a handy Gematria tool, and discovered that the gematria equivalent is the declaration of Avimelech to Avraham after he found out that Sarah was Avraham’s wife: עשית לנו ומה חטאתי לך כי הבאת עלי ועל ממלכתי חטאה גדלה, מעשים אשר לא יעשו עשית. A most interesting quote for this topic - “What have you done to us and what sin have I don’t to you, for you have brought upon me and my kingdom a great sin!”

Unfortunately, I then realized I had mis-typed the number, entering $4812 instead of $4802. $4802 yields nothing remotely as interesting.

So what is Love worth? Whatever Gematria is worth.


In conclusion, I add a cautionary note: Don’t bother suing RWAC for stealing your wife’s affections. I don’t have any assets whatsoever, certainly not $4,802.

We do it to ourselves

I have a million things to do, but this is the sort of topic that makes me drop everything.

Gil Student and Harry Maryles sent me scampering for my Sefer Chasidim this morning. They commented on an article that disparaged a talmid chacham; Gil wrote, “At the Agudah convention this past November, R. Chaim Dovid Zwiebel asked why we see on blogs, and in our community in general, the willingness to publicly denigrate great Torah scholars. I believe that the answer is evident in this post by R. Jonathan Rosenblum to Cross Currents and in the comments. When we see supposed leaders of our community throw nasty accusations at great Torah scholars, why do you think we will not act in kind?”

Sefer Chasidim 209 predicted this, in a post that is all too appropriate for Bein haMetzarim (the three-week period between the 17th of Tammuz and the 9th of Av, when we mourn the destruction of both Temples). He wrote:

לעולם לא יעשו הערלים רעה אלא אם כן יעשו ישראל תחילה רעה ביניהם זה לזה, ולא יתבזו תלמידי חכמים אלא אם כן יבזו זה לזה תחילה, או שמבזין את התורה ואין מוחין בידם.

Translation:
The uncircumcised will not cause harm unless Jews first cause harm among themselves, to each other. And Torah scholars will not be degraded unless they first degrade each other, or the Torah is degraded and they do not protest.

Res ipso loquitor; when will we learn?

Eight things about RWAC

First order of business: Haveil Havalim is here!

And on to business - I’ve been tagged to carry on a meme with the following rules:

Rules (with their inaccuracies of grammar intact):
1. Each player lists 8 facts/habits about themselves.
2. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning before those facts/habits are listed.
3. At the end of the post, the player then tags 8 people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

I’ll follow Rule #1 and Rule #2, but I’m not doing Rule #3.

Eight things about me:
1. I’m not following Rule #3 because part of me is still an insecure teenager, afraid that my target might decline the tag.

2. My day today included the following activities: Teaching Daf Yomi, Cleaning out our garden shed, preparing a Gemara shiur, Trimming our shrubs and weeding our sidewalk, Taking my daughter to a party, preparing a Bioethics class and having a Ritual Committee meeting. It was an ideal Sunday.

3. I rarely wear matching socks; it’s a good thing all of my pants are too long.

4. For all of my “Thank G-d” declarations, I am bizarrely ungrateful for the wonderful life I’ve enjoyed until now. I spend entirely too much time thinking about how my rabbinate/family would be better if only…

5. My favorite athlete was a US Olympian in 1980, and wore two uniform numbers during his distinguished athletic career: #16 and #40. He once scored five times in a single game.

6. I talk a lot about how I want time off to spend with my children, but when I get vacation time I spend most of it being nervous about how things are going in my absence.

7. I take my workouts very seriously. Jack, you think your long-lost washboard abs were something? My biceps are almost three times the size of my wrists, and you don’t want to get me started bragging about my waist/chest ratio.

8. My greatest wish is for people to stop taking me so seriously, which competes with my other greatest wish for people to start taking me seriously. But I imagine I’ve got a lot of company in this wishful boat.

Nothing in the list that you couldn't have figured out on your own, of course...