Leftover Turkey for Thought

Here goes with another unpopular post.

First, a disclaimer: My family and I ate turkey this past Thursday, and on our table we proudly displayed Thanksgiving decorations made by my children in school over the years.

I stipulate that Thanksgiving is not a Christian holiday.

I further stipulate that celebrating a day of thanks is not a problem of Chukot Akum.

I further stipulate that a Jew in the USA is halachically and philosophically required to support the government of the USA, and to engage in activities that help strengthen this wonderful country.

That said, I am uncomfortable celebrating Thanksgiving.

My problem is that celebrating anything along with the rest of the country, for the sake of being part of the rest of the country (and if that's not why we do it, then why have a Thanksgiving meal on that day in particular?), is a step, even if a small one, toward losing separate identity.

This is not a Jewish issue – it’s an ethnic issue, in general. The more you blend into the land in which you live, the more the distinctiveness of your own ethnicity is lost.

Look at Daniel Patrick Moynihan’s “Beyond the Melting Pot” – he understood it.
Look at the proponents of multiculturalism – they understand it.
Look at the way the sages explained the issue of dressing like, and imitating, the nations around us – they understood it.

Think that celebrating Thanksgiving is just having a day to say Thank You for what we have, and not a celebration with the rest of the country? Then why not do it next Thursday, instead of this past one?

When I try to explain this to people, though, I am told, “I’m not going to assimilate out because I eat turkey on Thanksgiving.”

No, you won’t. But your kids will, or your grandchildren will. Your starting point in life, your ideological center, is that you are a Jew, and the limit of your assimilation is to eat turkey on Thanksgiving. But for your kids, the Thanksgiving turkey is their starting point, their ideological center – so how far will their radius of travel go? And so on for their children.

Don’t believe me? Think I’m alarmist?
Then you try explaining the rate of marrying out.
The rate of Jewish children who are not sent to Jewish schools.
The rate of Jewish philanthropy that specifically avoids supporting Jewish institutions.
The number of parents who have to specifically tell their children, “You must marry a Jew” – because that’s not the message those kids got from their families all through their youth, in the course of day-to-day life.

I don’t think the answer is to avoid Thanksgiving – witness my own family’s annual celebration. But I think that anyone who is going to celebrate Thanksgiving is responsible to do her utmost to simultaneously educate every member of her household, particularly her young children in an age-appropriate way, that we are Jewish, that we have a Jewish identity, that we love America and are grateful for what we have received and are supportive of the country and its government, but that we retain our own ethnicity, our own family, our own identity.

Flame away.

The Jewish Community as Employment Agency

Keep this story in mind:
A young student explained to Rav Chaim Brisker that he wouldn’t take a train to visit his parents far away, because a child is not obligated to spend his own money in order to honor his parents. Rav Chaim replied that the student was correct, he didn’t have to purchase a train ticket - instead, he should start walking.

We’ll come back to that story later.

One of the downsides of the rabbinate is that you know who’s out of work and who’s in need of a second job, even if they are trying to keep it quiet; well-meaning people just volunteer this information. Worse, though, some of these out-of-work people come to you for a job.

I’m glad to help people with my Discretionary Fund; a gift, a loan, a gift disguised as a loan, all of these are readily available. But sometimes they want to answer phones in the office, work in the Youth department, teach a class or do some other odd job around the shul. People often have the impression that shuls have the money to pay for these positions, and that their own skills match the job descriptions, so they ask.

This isn’t only a synagogue phenomenon - I know it goes on at schools, too, and I imagine it may go on at Jewish Family Service and other institutions, as well. "I can’t afford tuition, but I’d be glad to work as an aide." "I can’t pay for membership at the JCC, but I could work odd hours as a receptionist." And so on.

Of course, providing a job rather than outright financial assistance is ideal tzedakah, per the Rambam and per common sense. Tzedakah is not only about restoring the person’s cashflow, it’s also about restoring his pride (להחיותו). However, that pride cannot come at the expense of Jewish community institutions, and therein lies the rub.

We are forced to say No, and not just because of budget. The positions these people request - receptionist, teaching, even landscaping - are important for the face and function of our institutions, and cannot be assigned to people based on their need for a job.

At this point, it may sound as though I advocate turning these applicants away - but not quite. Here’s where Rav Chaim’s point from the story above becomes relevant: If we cannot fulfill tzedakah by hiring these people, then we must try to help them find other jobs.

The solution is not for us to turn people away, in the name of saving our institutions. Rather, our obligation is to find another way to help them, through Jobs databases (such as the one developed by the OU), through personal connections, through any and every available means. We are well-positioned to do this, with our community connections. It would be better if we knew how to give job counseling and training, but even without professional experience in that area, there is much we can do.

Jewish institutions may not be welfare-to-work sites, but they can be Employment Agencies - and I believe they should.

My Bronfman idea: Restoring Peoplehood

All right, so the term “peoplehood” is lame, but let me explain the idea itself.

As is explained here, the Hornstein Jewish Professional Leadership Program at Brandeis University is holding a competition to produce a major work in the English language that aims to change the way Jews think about themselves and their community. Based on interviews I have read, they seem to be looking for a way to identify and approach the challenges facing Jews today.

I actually have an idea I’ve been mulling, but it’s missing what I consider a critical step: A really good Practical Solution. So I’ve decided to blog it instead.

The Crises to be solved
I would single out three major crises from the host of troubles facing Jewry today:
Strife between Jews;
Disaffection of many Jews, who don’t see a point in Jewish continuity;
Decline in Jewish philanthropy to Jewish causes.

The Cause of the Crises: The Death of Particularism
All three of these problems transcend geographic and demographic boundaries, and are visibly eroding our future. And as I see it, much of this comes from the loss of a true feeling of Peoplehood. (There's that annoying word again. Get used to it; if you read on, you'll be seeing it a lot.)

Particularism, a focus on ourselves and those who shared key elements of our lives, enables Peoplehood. Particularism has a proud history in biblical thought, secular political philosophy, and Jewish tradition; I could bore you with many pages of sources on this, if you wished. Particularism was the glue that welded together many nations, not only our own, through harsh times.

But Particularism has gained a bad name for the past few, post-Enlightenment centuries, to the point where it is considered an embarrassment. We are Universalists! We worry about global warming, population growth vs. scarce resources, human rights violations around the globe. We fight for the planet, we believe that individual nations must sacrifice for the greater good! Who wants to be saddled with an illiberal national identity, in this most liberal of eras?

Particularism could be balanced with Universalism - one need not eliminate the other, this isn't Yaakov and Esav - but it isn't working out that way. Universalism is all the rage; Particularism is toast.

The result is that Jews young and old fail to see the survival of the national entity as a meta-goal superceding personal beefs and desires. Hence the strife, hence the intermarriage, hence the refusal to give primary concern to sectarian causes.

A Practical Solution
The solution to these problems will have to come from a major project which will restore a positive sense of Peoplehood. And that’s where I'm stuck.

I did think up a project, and it is of the birthright:Israel scale Mr. Bronfman says they seek, but it sounds too pie-in-the-sky to me. Essentially, it’s a project of drawing on our past to unite a people in the present. Restoring Peoplehood, I call it.

Essentially, the project would hire a team of genealogists to trace back as many generations as possible for any Jew who wishes to sign up. It would be like the old Beit haTefusoth idea, writ large. The project would give people back their past; all they would have to do is sign up on-line, answer some questions to help the researchers, and then, in the first stage of the project, receive their results on-line.

Genealogy is huge these days, and we now have the technology to do it better than ever. We could provide great instant results, and even better results with research over the time, and with the building of a web of information as more people sign up.

But that’s only the first stage, the Harrisons of Silver Spring discovering their Polish-Jewish ancestors, the Dubinskys of Oshkosh finding their Russian-Jewish past, the Meliko family of Santa Barbara reunited with their Moroccan-Jewish heritage. The second stage is the ambitious part: To connect people with their fourth, fifth, sixth cousins, today.

Create a huge database of all people who sign up, store all of their genealogical information, and use it to cross-link to all related families. (Yes, participants would have to agree to this upon signing up.) Each participant would receive a special email address from the Peoplehood Project’s own ISP (so that individuals wouldn’t need to give out their personal contact information). That address would then be given to anyone who turned out to be an X-degree cousin.

The idea is to give Jews a sense of present-day Peoplehood by linking them with their cousins of today.

A child growing up in Kansas City would have a much stronger sense of Jewish peoplehood if he could identify cousins in Moscow, Tzfat, and Brooklyn, and perhaps - just perhaps - some sustained communication between them could help give the child in KC feel like he is a part of something bigger than himself. Something that might help him see past superficial differences and feel kinship to Jews of various stripes. Something that might help him think about giving tzedakah to a Jewish aid project in Moscow, a school in Tzfat, a soup kitchen in Brooklyn. And something that he might feel is worth continuing when he makes a dating decision.

I know it has holes. What would happen to Jews-by-choice? What about people who think they’re Jewish, until the genealogy search finds it’s a mistake?

It would likely be tough to get people to sign up at first, I think, before it caught on; as a nation, we have an innate fear of being registered that doesn’t only come from the Nazi era. But I think it would catch on, because the genealogy craze is hot, because the barrier to entry is so low as to be invisible, and because others will be doing it.

What would be the success rate? How many Jews would be united by this? I don't know, but even birthright:Israel, as great as its success, can't boast that it has solved the problem of Jewish connection to Israel and re-thinking Jewry as a land-based people.

The result could be a few Jews here and there changing their orientations. But, perhaps it could be far greater: A nation united.

Perhaps you can come up with a better application, a better way to resurrect Peoplehood. If so, go here and submit it. You have nothing to lose, and we - as a people - have everything to gain.

CWAC: Chef Without a Cause

I like to imagine myself a machine of sorts, focussed, requiring little but the bare necessities to go on. But reality is somewhat different. Here’s another RWAC secret: I am a Foodie.

A largely unfulfilled Foodie, but a Foodie nonetheless.

I tell myself I am fulfilling the famous doctrine of the last Yerushalmi in Kiddushin, admiring Hashem’s world and sampling as much of it as possible, the better to be able to thank Hashem for its bounty.

I remind myself that Rabbi Yochanan was a בעל בשר, a "person of flesh," and note that the gemara is replete with stories of the feasts various sages attended - even if their normal diet was a measure of carobs and water for the week.

I love the taste of food, especially unusual food. Sweet, sour, sharp, salty, even bitter, vegetable and fruit and starch and dead animal, there’s little, if anything, I won’t try.
I enjoy looking at well-prepared food; bright colors, interesting shapes, unusual textures grab my eye and hold it. Even just pictures draw me in.
I read recipes during meals, and I imagine the way the food would taste.
I go to a simchah and people grab my arm to talk, and all I want is to hit the buffet. It’s hard to concentrate when your eyes are constantly drawn to the food.
When sent to the supermarket, I stroll the aisles glancing at every interesting package, searching hopefully for a hechsher.

This food-obsession is bizarre, given that (1) I have a decades-old history of skipping meals, and (2) the foods I do eat tend toward the monotonous and mundane. Lots of tuna, lots of cream cheese and jelly, lots of plain roast chicken and hamburgers. And daily high-protein shakes. Then again, perhaps my foodishness is simply a reaction to my skipping meals and to the routineness of my diet; my psyche is crying out for more.

Regardless of its genesis, I long to eat. Only three things keep me from trying out every recipe I see on-line or in a cookbook: Time, Materials and Family.

First: Time. I find the time to read recipes while eating, when I can’t do much real work anyway. But execution requires far too much additional time – shopping time, set-up time, time to prepare the food, time to watch it cook, time to eat it. Even the so-called Five Minute Recipes require a much greater investment than I and/or my wife are able to make.

Second: Materials. The cool ingredients all cost money, and this is an investment I’m hard-pressed to justify. With tuition what it is, with the basic costs of life, I can’t see spending extra in order to provide myself with this gastronomic entertainment. I survive just fine on bread and tuna and a few other condiments; how could I justify spending on balsamic vinegar and special sauces, mixes and powders, not to mention different cuts of meat and the like?

Third: Family. My children and rebbetzin are not gastronomically adventurous, so that my cuisine wouldn’t provide for them. How could I justify the expenditure of time and money for something that would just be for me?

So I leaf through cookbooks and gain some minimal vicarious pleasure, and that will have to satisfy me. But in my next life, I plan to come back as a chef. Viva le CWAC – Chef Without a Cause!

The Malleability of Halachah and the Dropped Third Strike

Disclaimer 1: I seriously dislike baseball. It’s too slow, the element of strategy involved is overrated, and the sport’s fans are too enamored of the game’s history. That said, דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם (Torah speaks in the vernacular), so I’ll adopt a baseball metaphor for the moment.

Disclaimer 2: I know I’m not going to convince the naysayers with this new approach to explaining the malleability of Jewish Law, but I like banging my head against the wall.

I recently thought of a new metaphor for the malleability of Halachah, and the limits of that malleability. It's a baseball metaphor – the Dropped Third Strike.

In baseball, you get three strikes and then you are out. So if you swing and miss three times, your turn is over.
However! If the catcher drops the third strike, you can run to first base. If you make it there without being tagged with the ball or thrown out, you are safe on first.

There are two ways we could understand this rule:
Method A: We feel bad for the poor player who has just struck out. We want to give him another chance, so we look for a way to get him to first base.
Method B: One of the rules of striking out is that the catcher must hold on to the third strike. Otherwise, the player is not out.

What makes Method A or Method B any more authentic as an explanation? Only a knowledge of the way baseball evolved, and of the underlying principles of the sport, will inform you. Once you see the way that baseball treats players in general, and once you see when different rules came into effect and why, you get a much better picture of what’s going on.

When you look at the various ways in which batters are placed at a disadvantage, you realize that baseball has no interest in helping out batters in particular.

Further, if the Dropped Third Strike were a rule to help the batter, why wouldn't it extend beyond this particular case? For example, why couldn't the batter always run to first, even if the catcher caught the ball?

Clearly, the concept is not about helping the batter. Rather, something else is involved.

One who studies baseball law and lore will realize that purists want ‘outs’ to depend on defensive skill as well as offensive mistakes. Therefore, they require that the defense play a role in any given out. Hence the requirement that the catcher must, at least, hold on to the ball. It's an underlying principle (Method B), not an across-the-board generosity (Method A).

And so within halachah.

There are [at least] two ways to explain cases in which Halachah accomodates human need:
Method A: “Halachah is trumped by need.”
Method B: “The Halachic approach incorporates a degree of malleability to meet people's needs, based on values within Halachah itself and guided by specific rules.”

Method A cannot be correct - we can come up with all sorts of cases in which Halachah trumps need (just as we can come up with all sorts of cases in which batters are placed at a disadvantage).

Further, if Method A were correct, then we would have more cases of Halachic accomodation (just as we would have more cases of batters being permitted to run to first after a third strike). Treif meat could be rendered kosher for the needy. The Four Cups at the Seder could be water. Etc.

Rather, as in the Third Strike case, Method B is correct: There is an underlying philosophy that explains each case of malleability. All of the standard examples of Halachic malleability, from Prozbul to Shemen Akum, fit into this system.

But the only way one could know this and understand its application is by learning the Halachic system as a whole, and seeing which Method matches the way the system works.

Lecture over; now, go enjoy your turkey (if you believe turkey is kosher).

The Hagiography of RWAC: The chapter Artscroll wouldn't print

Here’s one that will never appear in my Artscroll Biography.

(Apology: It's perhaps on the crude side, but I believe in the value of the lesson.)

Not long ago I was sitting in a small airport, waiting for my flight and preparing a shiur, when a woman about 15 feet down the row of empty seats began to nurse her baby.

Mind you, I didn’t know this by seeing her doing the actual nursing; my holy eyes could never have viewed a part of the body which is usually covered. (I imagine that had I looked at her directly, she would have disappeared so as to avoid corrupting my כח הראייה.) I knew it because I am, after many years of children, attuned to the noises that accompany the start of nursing – an inconsolably crying child, a mother walking back and forth trying to quiet said child, the mutter of said woman to the baby’s unhelpful father, the shifting of blankets and clothes, and then the child’s sudden silence.

I have no problem with a woman feeding her child in the airport, so long as she obscures the view for everyone else. It wouldn’t be fair for her to force others around her to leave a public place, but if the skin is covered, why should they need to leave? It’s not as though an airport is a room dedicated to learning or davening (see Shulchan Aruch Orach Chaim 151 for a whole list of fun things you can’t do in such a location!). So I have no problem with it.

My problem was different, stemming from the sefer I was holding. Could I continue to learn, with her nursing the baby right nearby? The answer, I thought על רגל אחת, depended on the skin exposed. But I didn’t want to get up and leave, lest she think I was doing it because of the nursing; I didn’t want to create a Chillul HaShem by reinforcing the inappropriate stereotype associating traditional Jewish beliefs with those of the Catholic church.

I chanced a brief glance to my left and noticed that she was, indeed, fairly well covered. I sat and continued to learn. So far, so good.

But then I ran into a problem: I needed to get up, and I don’t mean to stretch my legs. Just as her baby’s needs had summoned her to her sacred calling of nurturing young life, so my own needs were summoning me for a rather different purpose. But what of the Chillul HaShem I mentioned above! I was determined that she should not think badly of Torah-observant Judaism… but I couldn’t see mumbling aloud, “I wonder where the men’s room is” to alert her to my true destination.

I waited patiently, no longer learning but simply holding on patiently until she finished.

The minutes crawled by.

I wondered hypochondriacally whether I might damage my appendix this way. I could see the chapter in my “Making of a Gadol” biography – “When RWAC suffered abdominal surgery to avoid embarrassing a nursing mother.” The gemara talks about remaining in a shiur rather than go to the bathroom; one isn’t supposed to do that (בל תשקצו, you know), and some amoraim damaged themselves badly by doing so...

And still I held on.

Finally, she finished, and after an extra few minutes I rose and departed. I was proud to have done as I did, but relieved that it didn’t involve suffering mortal harm.

The Life of RWAC: Always an adventure.

I am BEOWULF!

I [think I] am Beowulf!

My Rebbetzin is laughing at me, but she has the decency to do it quietly.

The other day I heard a radio commercial for the new film Beowulf, and I can’t get the key line out of my head. The lead actor shouts, “I – AM – BEOWULF!” I love it.

It’s the primal scream thing.
It’s a thousand film heroes screaming unintelligibly as they launch themselves at their foes.
It’s Bruce Willis shouting something unprintable that starts with “Yippeekayay” in Die Hard.
It’s Rocky staring at Apollo as he impossibly picks himself up from the canvas, a silent primal scream if there ever was one.
It’s Harrison Ford in “Air Force One” shouting, “Get off my plane!”
Well, maybe not.

[Note for Jack: Batman is a member of the Maimonidean school of anger, and refuses to be goaded into the primal scream state. He only pretends to be angry only for the sake of educating, but he never permits the rage to permeate his being. When he shouts, "Swear to ME!" at the crooked cop, he is doing it for effect; his temper, one can see, is calm as ever.]

I so want to see this Beowulf film, although I know I can’t. My wife tells me there’s some woman named Angelina Jolie in the movie, and apparently she has a bad fabric allergy because she runs around with nothing on.

But I love those adrenaline movies. They make me want to cry out, “I – AM – RWAC!” at the top of my lungs, charge into a board meeting and slice a few heads from their shoulders.

It's a guy thing, to a certain extent; a testosterone thing.

And it's a frustrated-stressed-out-rabbi thing; I spend a lot of time holding back, and I envy the actor who is licensed to scream at the top of his lungs. At one point in my career I would actually listen to metal music in my car and scream when the 'singers' did, but that got old, especially when I started damaging my voice. I have my punching bag instead, but that's not the same.

It's a good thing I've learned, in recent years, to calm down and stop taking everything as end-of-the-world-seriously as I once did.

As to Beowulf: I'll have to content myself with the radio commercials for as long as they last... and hope and pray that when "The Dark Knight Returns" comes out, its starlets keep their clothes on.

The Changing of the Rabbi, Part II: Severing Relationships

Note: Part I was here.

Imagine this: You arrive for an appointment with your therapist, whom you pay well and whom you have come to trust over the years. Not weeks or months, but years. You sit down in her office, ready to spill your guts about the tough week that has passed and the progress you believe you have (not) made, and she tells you, “Sorry, but I’m transferring your case to a new therapist. A committee will choose the new therapist, and she – whoever she is - will be glad to see you.”

Or this: Your rabbi announces at a class, after services or when meeting with you privately that he is moving on, and the shul board will be setting up a search for a new rabbi. Your whole relationship of X number of years, the happy occasions and the bereavements, the classes and speeches and Yamim Tovim celebrated together - it's all over.

A rabbi who does a good job becomes a teacher for some, an advisor for some, a confidante for some, and an informal therapist for some. Moving to another shul erases all of those relationships; former congregants may stay in touch after he leaves, but the relationship will never be as helpful as it had been.

There are no two ways about it: A well-received rabbi who leaves a community is committing a cruel act.

It seems unethical, this decision to walk away. People who have just converted to Judaism, parents dealing with their teenagers, families who have fallen on economic hard times, individuals laid off from work, couples going through difficulties, college students trying to remain in touch with Judaism while away at school, bereaved spouses and children - all of them are suddenly forced to accept someone new, someone who is not necessarily of their choosing, to help them through their trouble.

Worse, there may not be anyone to fill in the gap the rabbi leaves behind. פנה הודה, פנה זיוה, פנה הדרה - If this rabbi is particularly good at counseling, there’s no guarantee the next one will be good at it. And even if the next one is good at it, it’s going to take him a while to get adjusted to the community and build the relationships that will help him do it.

The same may be said for a few other fields of work, of course. Schoolteachers come to mind, as do physicians; patients and students have no say in who will be available to them after their doctors/teachers leave.

But there’s another element here, which transcends what happens in other professions: Individuals within the community invest time and effort, not to mention money, in helping the rabbi get settled and, ultimately, succeed. Examples:
They lend their political muscle to help him make connections and to smoothe over squabbles.
They arrange financial assistance for him personally (as much as I have noted that I refuse such assistance, I know it goes on elsewhere), or for the shul.
They participate in programs that don’t interest them much, just to support the rabbi’s efforts.
They send their children to his youth programs, for the same reason.

And now he’s leaving,and they’re back to Square One.

I know many rabbis who ask halachic counsel before moving into their communities; I certainly hope they ask such counsel before they leave, too.

Religious Zionism, not Zionism-based-on-Religion

I’ll come back to complete the “Changing of the Rabbi” series, G-d-willing, but the thrust of the current campaign for Yerushalayim is really bothering me.

Several traits of the Religious Zionist camp (to which I readily acknowledge allegiance) irk me, but the greatest current annoyance is the way that the "Religious" part is used as a justification for claiming land and heritage, a proof of entitlement, instead of as a mission statement and motivator for practice.

In a nutshell: Altogether too often, the argument of Religious Zionism is presented as:
1. We believe in the Torah;
2. Torah says that Israel is ours;
3. Give Israel to us.

In the letter and 37-page .pdf file I received advertising the OU’s Shabbat Yerushalayim, there was plenty of mention of why we, as Jews, deserve to hold a unified Yerushalayim. To be fair, they also included Tehillim and reversing Sinat Chinam (baseless hatred) as 2 items out of the 20 “Practical ways synagogues can help Jerusalem,” but I was still disappointed. As RELIGIOUS Zionists, we should have a list of 20 ways we can use mitzvos to earn Yerushalayim, before we get to the first way we can convince the nations of the world to allow us to have it.

This is "Zionism based on Religion" instead of "Religious Zionism," and in my mind, this type of Religious Zionism is not what HaShem has in mind when He says (Bereishis 18:19), “I have loved Avraham, for he will instruct his children and his household to follow him, to perform righteousness and justice.” Avraham’s right to Israel, and our consequent claim, are not an accident of birth but are, rather, a product of worth.

We earn our right to Israel by performing righteousness and justice.
We earn our right to Yerushalayim, as we stated a few weeks ago, by performing righteousness and justice. If we can read far enough into Yeshayah to find “למען ציון לא אחשה ולמען ירושלים לא אשקוט (For Zion I will not be mute, for Jerusalem I will not be silent),” surely we can also note “ציון במשפט תפדה ושביה בצדקה (Zion will be redeemed with justice, and her returnees with righteousness)” in the first chapter?

We earn Yerushalayim by giving selflessly to others. The gemara (Bava Metzia 30b) says that we lost Yerushalayim because we demanded our due, our letter-of-the-law rights, from each other. Then the way to earn Yerushalayim is to give to others, to follow the model of Avraham and Yitzchak at the Akeidah and of Yaakov at Beit El and pledge to give of ourselves.

We can find many more ways we earn Yerushalayim, if we look at Tanach, Gemara and Midrash. It's all there, and it's the authentic meaning of Religious Zionism.

Religious Zionism ought not to mean a policy of history-as-cudgel, of beliefs-translate-to-rights. Rather, Religious Zionism ought to be a motivator for practice, driving us to earn Israel, and to earn Yerushalayim. Let’s put the Religious back into Religious Zionism.


Note to sabine613, if you still read here: Mazal Tov! If you’ll send me a review of the experience afterward, I’ll be glad to post it.

The Changing of the Rabbi, Part I: Timing

It seems to me that rabbis are like sports coaches – they rarely leave at the right time, but instead go on and on until someone comes with a crowbar and forces them out of their chairs on the mizrach vant.

This isn’t true of all rabbis, of course. Some rabbis die in the pulpit. Some rabbis retire, due to burnout or age. Some rabbis break the communal heart by leaving on their own. But a remarkably high percentage of rabbis, disproportionate when compared to other fields, leave by "mutual agreement" – not mutual meaning agreeing with him, but rather that the board and the congregation mutually agree that it’s time to run him out of town.

In all of the above cases, timing the departure is fairly straightforward for the rabbi:
Death – Not exactly in his control.
Retirement – When he feels like it.
Chased out of town – When they change the alarm codes and neglect to tell him.

But I’d like to discuss the particularly complex problem facing a rabbi who just wants to move to another position, on his own schedule. The timing here is much more difficult, for two reasons:

1. The difficulty of finding a new position
At any given time there are only a few shuls looking for rabbis, and not necessarily in the type of community this rabbi will fit well. His timing must depend on the availability of an appropriate new community.

2. His own shul’s need to search for a rabbi
The rabbi who cares about his shul allows them enough time to complete their search before he leaves – but that means giving them several months’ notice, likely informing them even before he has actually found a new position.
This is incredibly thorny – how do you tell people they should start a search, before you have found a new job yourself? In what field of employment do you do that?!
And what if you don’t get that new job, or you don’t find a community that suits – how do you relate to people after you’ve told them you’re leaving?

This is why many rabbis break their contracts. They wait until a likely shul pops up, then apply and interview and wait until the last minute – right before they go for an Interview Shabbos - to inform their own shul that they are leaving mid-contract. This is entirely legal for a personal services contract, both from a secular and Halachic perspective, but boy, does it stink; the shul now is stuck without a rabbi, often with little notice. How can you do that to people you care about, and who care about you?

But the nice-guy approach is terrible, too.
Many rabbinic contracts are renewed in the late spring or early summer, because shuls often hire rabbis in time for Rosh HaShanah, and because of school schedules. This means that if you are going to leave at the end of your contract, you will have to start looking the preceding summer/fall, to allow enough time to find a shul, interview and be hired – but you also want to let your own shul have the same period of time, for their own search. This means that somewhere between June and November you tell your president you are looking elsewhere, and your president starts a search… while you don’t know whether you have a new shul yet.

The bottom line: All of the options stink.

And then you wonder why rabbis, even very good ones, often overstay their welcome?

In which RWAC gives a questioner serious attitude

Teshuvos haRWAC 1:5

Question:
What is the halachic status of a semichah from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT)?

Answer:
You ask me a very interesting question. It is truly a perplexing matter, with perilous and labyrinthine twists, requiring significant analysis of all underlying issues and overlying applications.

Had you asked me about, say, a Chafetz Chaim Semichah, I could have easily and speedily replied to your query. I could have reminisced about the history of various Chafetz Chaim rebbeim, as well as musmachim I have known from that illustrious institution, and what they did with their lives after being ordained.

I could have told you all about the Chafetz Chaim and his fine works, his Mishneh Berurah and his Shmiras haLashon and his Kuntrus Ahavas Yisrael, and, of course, the global effect of the Chofetz Chaim Heritage Foundation^TM upon Tisha b’Av, Global Warming... and perhaps upon lashon hara as well-

What? You didn’t ask me that question? True, true.

I received a similar question once regarding a Yeshiva University Semichah. The question was put to me by a delightful young lady who wished to apply for the semichah program at Yeshiva University’s affiliate, the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary, but she wasn’t sure whether it was worth her while since, as she put it, “most of the shuls I like want the Ner Yisrael and Torah vaDaas musmachim these days.”

I responded by explaining the origin and nature of Semichah, emphasizing the need for a combination of consistent study, commitment to practice, insight into both halachah and human nature, fealty to tradition, and, of course, a Y chromosome, for it is obvious that all of these equip a human being to properly issue halachic rulings and hashkafic guidance for individual and community-

What was that? You didn’t ask me that question either? Yes, of course.

The real question, I suppose, is whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of an outraged populace, or to hide thy left-wingness beneath the enormity of a stone, or, then again, to take up arms against a sea of black hats and trumpet thy radicality from upon the highest mountain-

Oh. Yes. I haven’t answered your question. Quite right.

NOR DO I PLAN TO, SO STOP ASKING ME THE QUESTION.

(Side note: If you liked “Back to the Future,” go here. Enjoy Biff’s “The Question.” Then come back.)

In case you have not noticed, let me explain outright that I am following a time-honored rabbinic method of dodging questions we don’t like: If you can’t answer, change the question. It’s easy to answer if you just change the question. (Note an important political correlary: If you can’t win, change the game. It’s easy to win if you just change the game.)

Rabbis do this - all. the. time. We like doing this to you, because you deserve it. You ask us about some contentious philosophical issue with no practical ramifications at all, and we don’t see any percentage in staking out a tenuous, tendentious position which will insult and upset – so we simply don’t answer.

We’ll tell you how we would have answered a different question. We’ll tell you about other questions we have answered. We’ll tell you about the real question involved. But we won’t answer your question.

And you can’t make us. To quote Bill the Cat: Thbbt.

(And if you can't see that I'm joking in the post above, please don't tell me; I don't want to know. I'll go back to being serious and sensitive in the next post. Bli neder.)

You take him, you’re the rabbi!

My kids come home from school at this time of year wildly enthused by Avraham and Sarah’s open tent. Four doors facing four directions, any passerby gets to come in and be welcomed with food and a place to rest, it’s wonderful. They’re ready and raring to go; bring on the strangers!

HOWEVER: Clearly, Avraham and Sarah lived in a world without criminals, without unstable people and without people who would just plain take advantage of them. Or, perhaps, all-purpose Eliezer was not only CEO, shadchan, travel escort and warrior, but also formidable bouncer. Either way, Avraham and Sarah didn’t have any qualms about dealing with the guys who show up at ten o’clock at night asking for a place to stay. Me, I’ve got some qualms.

Don’t look at me that way; I have a wife and children to worry about.
And our home is generally not in a state for hosting, largely because of said children and because I heave so many household duties upon my rebbetzin’s shoulders that she can’t possibly do it all.
And yes, all right, I don’t feel particularly disposed toward having certain people stay with me; I’d much rather put their motel stay on my credit card.
I love everyone, really I do, but I can’t say I’d like to host the world in my home overnight.

I know most of you out there are on my side in this. I know this because you send these visitors my way when they show up at your door. But for you that is an acceptable out; no one expects you to host five Ukrainians from Brooklyn who need a place to use a base while they make the rounds of Jewish homes, or a down-on-his-luck elderly gent who happens to have a lady thirty years his junior with him as he passes through.

But I’m the rabbi! Of course my wife and I should be ready to host them!

Similarly: We have a hospitality committee in our community, and they regularly arrange for visitors and passersby to spend Shabbos in people’s homes. It seems like a given that we will be asked to host random wayfarers, but where a meal is easy, a full Shabbos is harder.

I work over Shabbos, and when I get home I’m tired.
Again, it’s not fair to my wife to put all the caretaking duties upon her shoulders, but I just don’t have the time.
And, yes, I feel the need to have a little bit of space in this world that I can call ‘private’ at times. I have little private space in my schedule, less in my brain, and none in my heart; let me at least have it in my home.

I do feel the guilt. I wonder what kind of message I’m sending my community, not to mention my children, by going the motel route. But I don’t feel guilty enough to bring them into my home to sleep. Especially the ones who ring the bell at 10 PM, with a faint smell of alcohol about them.

At least not until my gun permit comes through, anyway.

A Tale of Two Blogs

I admit it: I don’t really read blogs.

That’s not a statement of snootiness, it’s just reality - I don’t generally have time to read other blogs, even the ones I truly enjoy. Jack, Jameel, I get to you about once a week. It’s a good thing RenReb's husband has hidden her keyboard, or my blog-surfing would be altogether too much.

But this past week, thanks to comments on my blog, I found two blogs I really enjoy:

Everyone Needs Therapy
The title alone is worth the second to check it out, but I stayed for the mix of insight and personality.

The good doctor seems to take her blogging far more seriously than I do; she’s got a whole bunch of awards and blogrings, and a blogroll significantly longer than my attention span. She’s also clearly put a lot of work into her sidebar topical index of posts.

But all of this is with good reason - her posts, consistently well-written, are packed with good material. Some of the posts have reminded me of ideas and strategies I have used over the rabbinic years, others reflect information that I have won through bitter experience, and still others have exposed me to new ways of thinking.

A couple of particularly good pieces (and I haven’t come anywhere close to reading the whole blog):
Falling asleep in shul
and
Borderline Personality Disorder and the DSM

I have to admit that I’m likely to stop reading this blog in a matter of weeks, just because it’s so healthy; nutritious reading tends to tire me out, just because I do so much of it in the course of my day job. Still, in the meantime I’m really enjoying it.


Chassidishe Yingerman
This guy’s just plain fun; that’s the attraction for me.

He has a great combination of yiddishisms and witticisms and Berrishisms, and he’s having a good time. My favorite reads are always people who are enjoying what they are doing.

Of course, that’s true in general in life - human beings, from my own experience, tend to gravitate to people who are enjoying themselves. A job applicant who smiles and jokes will be more apt to get the job; a store is more likely to get business if its employees are smiling and having a good time. We like being around people who smile.

One down note: He doesn’t have any sort of index down the side, which makes it hard to find older posts.

But here are a couple of posts I’ve enjoyed (and no, I’m not endorsing the particular content, just the style):

Movies
and
Mikva Appointments

Unfortunately, he doesn’t post too often, which means I’m likely to stop reading his blog, too, but for the time being it’s a winner.


Added note: Please don't send me names of other blogs to consider; I will never get to them, and I'll just feel guilty about it. Thanks.

Shiva-Lite and Pain Management

Today is an Ugly Tie Day for me.

My wife (and most objective observers) consider many of my ties to be ugly, and there are a few regarding which even I must agree: The silkworm must have been thinking truly horrible thoughts while gestating those eggs.

These horrors of haberdashery are not flashy, so-bizarre-they’re-devil-may-care-cool ties; they are just plain ugly. Today’s example is a pale yellow reminiscent of cold secretions, with a geometric pattern that alternates between silver and gold. I would put a picture on the blog, but I’m afraid no one would be able to read any further.

Why do I wear these ties, if even I can perceive their ickiness?
Because I have no big appointments today for which I need to impress.
Because I’ve worn my cool ties entirely too often.
Because if I’m going to get a food stain on a tie, it might as well be one of these.
Because I bought them and I want to get my money’s worth.

If the clothes make the man, boy am I in trouble today.

But on to business:

I rarely speak on-blog, and pretty much never in shul, about non-traditional Judaism. I don’t see any point in criticizing other communities; if we can’t show the value of tradition through touting our successes, then we’re bankrupt anyway.

Nonetheless, I'll take a moment to vent about a few aspects of non-traditional shiva.


First: Mourners are not supposed to feel responsible to Feed the World.

Often, when my less-traditional congregants suffer a loss their first question is, “Where can I get kosher food to put out for visitors?” NO, NO, NO! Well, yes, I’m glad you are thinking about kashrut, but the world is supposed to feed you, not vice versa! You should have the time to think about the deceased, and not have to go catering.


Second: Let the mourner sit in a chair and talk quietly, for G-d’s sake.

I can’t tell you how many shiva houses I’ve seen that seem like wakes, with people standing around having drinks, schmoozing and laughing, encouraging the family of the deceased to stand with them and joke about the latest goings-on, even entertain them with funny stories about work or their children. It’s a wonder there’s no movie showing on the TV in the background.


Third: What are “calling hours” and why does anyone have them?

I’m not talking about setting hours that avoid mealtimes or late nights, and I’m not talking about setting hours for ill or aged shiva-sitters who can’t deal with a day full of visitors. I’m talking about people who decide that shiva visits should all be limited to minyan-time, so that the rest of the day will be free for them to run errands and generally go about their lives.


To me, these phenomena all emerge from one central problem: A Flight from Pain. Afraid of pain, people dull the emotional reaction to death by engaging in other business - feeding others, schmoozing or going to work. And if the mourners don’t flee from pain themselves, then their relatives and friends urge them to do it and drag them out of mourning "for your own good."

It reminds me of a Reconstructionist synagogue I know where they don’t beat their hearts and say “Al Cheit” on Yom Kippur, but instead pat themselves on the shoulder for good things they’ve done. No, I’m not kidding.

This flight from pain is not limited to non-traditional Jews, though – it’s very much a part of the traditional community and its practices as well.

I see people laughing and schmoozing on Tisha b’Av afternoon, and even morning, because they “can’t take the intensity of the day.” People joke around just before and just after Slichos, for the same reason. People decline to attend a program on Darfur, because of the pain of seeing starving children and hearing the accounts of rape victims.

Yes, pain hurts; that’s why they call it pain. But when handled properly and in healthy circumstances, it’s also a therapeutic stimulant – in reaching acceptance after a loss, in absorbing the lessons of a day of mourning, in coming to repentance, in being motivated to improve ourselves and the world around us.

Yes, healthy people [as opposed to rabbis] avoid pain – but if it comes in a healthy context, then use it.

Healthcare Futility

The other day I arrived early for a medical appointment and then spent an annoyingly long time in a doctor’s office waiting for the doctor to see me. I eventually walked out, disgusted. I know they book appointments at absurdly short intervals because they have to do this for the sake of their insurance companies, but it still angers me.

The next day, in an unrelated conversation, a physician friend complained to me that “Medicine in the US” is broken.

My own feeling: Medicine in the US is not broken. Broken implies that there is such a thing as a repaired state, that if only we would take certain steps, the system would work. And I disagree – as both logic and the Torah (סברא and קרא) tell us directly, no human system of healthcare can provide for the needs of all people.

First, it's logical.
Imagine four teams: A, B, C and D.
A starts with $10.
B starts with $100.
C starts with $100.
D starts with $50.
There is only one rule for this game: All of the teams will spend as much time as possible trying to acquire money from all of the other teams. There is no deadline, there are no “out of bounds” zones, there is no referee.
I can tell you right now that this system of four teams will never reach equilibrium [or, to use the NFL term, parity] – they will all keep trying to acquire money for themselves.

This, in a nutshell, is why healthcare cannot be “fixed” – because we have four groups, each trying to grab for itself, and they cannot reach equilibrium.
Team A are the needy of society, who cannot afford to pay doctors. They are jobless, or they are handicapped in some way that keeps them from earning money.
Team B are the wealthier part of society, who can afford healthcare, and who are called upon – through taxes or through higher premiums – to subsidize the healthcare of Team A.
Team C are the healthcare funding organizations, HMOs, etc, who put up money to pay doctors but expect to be paid back, and paid back well, by Team D.
Team D are the doctors, who need to be paid by Team C, and who consistently need more money for themselves.

All of these teams constantly need more money – especially if Team A, the needy, are receiving quality healthcare.
If Team A receives quality care, then they grow and multiply – and therefore need more money for quality care.
Team B, the wealthy, can’t afford to pay for the growing needs of Team A, and yet remain wealthy - and so they end up joining Team A, growing it still further.
Team C needs more money in order to pay more doctors to take care of the growing Team A.
Team D, the doctors, have to spend more time on the growing Team A, and therefore they need more money as well.

So it’s not that the system is broken, it’s that there is no such thing as a complete, whole, perfect system. One of the following things must happen:
Team A receives inadequate care and therefore does not grow, or
Team B collapses under the weight of providing for the needs of Teams A and C, or
Team C collapses, unable to pay Team D, or
Team D collapses because its doctors all end up in Team A, and no one wants to join Team D.

And the Torah says it, too.
The Torah presents two contradictory passages regarding poverty:
Deuteronomy 15:4 - “There will be no pauper among you, for Gd will bless you in the land…”
and
Deuteronomy 15:11 – “For the pauper will never disappear from the midst of the land.”

Which is it? Will the needy disapppear, or not? To which the sages answer that 15:4 refers to a case in which we are doing what Gd tells us to do, such that Gd intervenes to end poverty, and 15:11 is when we do not merit Divine intervention.

In other words: Poverty, and healthcare, can only be solved entirely by Divine decree. Not by Hillary or Barack, and for sure not by Rudy and the rest of the GOP.

BUT! RWAC is not preaching hopelessness and helplessness. Even if we cannot solve the problem, we are still bound by Deuteronomy 15:7-8 – When there is a pauper among you… you shall open up your hand.

It’s the old starfish line – I can’t solve everyone’s problem, but I can solve your problem, so let me start there.

The Rabbi's Nuts

The following conversation between RWAC and an adult congregant took place, pretty much word for word, eight years ago. It was after a Tanach class. We’ll name the congregant “Frank.”

(Explanatory note for readers who are not Jewishly educated: Rashi was an 11th century commentator on the Torah, Ramban was a 13th century authority.)

Frank: Rabbi, it’s not good for these guys when you quote their interpretations so much.
RWAC: Who do you mean by “these guys”?
Frank: You know… like, Rashi, Ramban.
RWAC: Why?
Frank: Because you give their words a lot of credence, and it inflates their egos.
RWAC (patient): Inflates their egos?
Frank: When you quote them a lot, they start to think that their view is the only way.
RWAC (patient): Who starts to think that?
Frank: Rashi. Ramban. These rabbis start to think that their way is the only way to read the Torah, and that’s not right. It inflates their egos.
RWAC (really patient): You’re saying that Rashi and Ramban are going to think their way is the only way, because I quote them?
Frank: Yeah.
RWAC (finally losing it): Frank - They’re DEAD!!

(Please don’t protest to me that the righteous are called ‘living’ even when they are in the grave, and that the lips of the righteous move when they are quoted; I am familiar with the sources, and they are quite beside the point.)

‘Frank’ really, sincerely, truly believed what he was saying, even though his sentiments were - to me - clearly out of touch with reality. It's like the fellow who, on a bet, knocked on the patient sage Hillel's door three times on Erev Shabbos to ask him bizarre questions - but he meant it sincerely.

We all encounter people like this in the course of our lives; they are our family members, our co-workers, our seatmates on the subway. You know the people I mean - their eyes are a little wider than most, perhaps some spittle is visible at the corner of their mouths, and they breathe a little quicker and heavier than seems natural as they explain their conspiracy theories about Jonathan Pollard, Berkeley Breathed, Caspar Weinberger, Barbra Streisand, the Iran-Contra Affair and the final passage in the book of Daniel. Roswell might make it in, too.

I get these people in my office all the time; I think of them as The Rabbi’s Nuts - and I say that not in a pejorative sense, but in an affectionate, protective, ‘these are my people even if they are bizarre’ sense. Please don’t be offended by the word ‘nuts,’ I just need to use it today, then I’ll go back to being more sensitive.

Sometimes they come in off the street and insist on showing me their tattoos, interpreting them to predict the coming Apocalypse. Other times they corner me at public events and warn me about labyrinthine schemes going on behind the scenes. One guy likes to pull me close (no, not that way) and whisper his vision of my special role in the coming of mashiach.

I’ll admit that some days this can be frustrating - when I’m racing to get a class finished in time to deliver it, for example, or in the Hillelian hour before Shabbos - but at other times, when I’m able to keep my sense of humor about me, it’s fun.

The Rabbi's Nuts are a welcome distraction when I’m nervous about some big deal coming up; they provide a touch of the surreal to brighten my day. I mean, who wouldn’t want to hear about the clandestine link between Grover, 9/11, Moammar Ghaddafi and Jane Fonda, rather than contemplate a board meeting?

So keep the nuttiness coming, my friends; the surreal is welcome here.

Rabbi, Get Your Shul a Doctor. Or Several.

Another post on Rabbinic Leadership:

People laugh as they say, “The secret to long life is not to get sick,” but in truth they are expressing a grim reality: Hospitals, assisted living facilities and nursing homes are very dangerous places.

I’m not even talking about picking up random staph infections; I’m talking about receiving inadequate or even harmful treatment.

I've seen many cases of ignorance, sloppiness, and outright malpractice in my years of visiting hospitals, nursing homes etc. Incorrect dosages, inattention to allergies, improper prescription of clotting agents or blood thinners, inappropriate administration of anesthesia, withholding of important information from patients and their families, you name it.

I’m not a doctor and I don’t pretend to have real medical knowledge, but I’ve seen the results of inappropriate care over, and over, and over again. It’s scary. And, mind you, the hospitals I usually frequent are considered good.

I'd never have believed I’d end up in the same camp as Michael Moore on any issue whatsoever.

The best advice I can offer patients is to make sure they have relatives who are with them constantly, looking in on them, asking questions of the nurses and doctors, and generally making it known that people are paying attention. Sad but true: It makes the staff pay closer attention.

I love health care workers, and respect their work on behalf of humanity; this isn’t a grudge against doctors. I’m just pointing out that the same problems of inefficiency and inadequacy that plague other professions afflict medical practice as well.

BUT – there’s something the shul can do, too: Get your shul a doctor.

I imagine our shul is not the only one to do this, but in case any shuls don’t already have this in place: Marshal your physicians, your nurses, your physician assistants, your physical therapists, specifically those who have hospital privileges or who actually work at the hospital, on behalf of your congregants.

I don't think this should be a formal program, lest you run into legal liability and insurance problems, but it's easy to create an informal network of physicians for congregants to consult when they are hospitalized.

The procedure is straightforward: When someone from your shul enters the hospital, ask the patient for permission to share his information with a physician from the shul who has hospital access and whose specialty will help him understand the case. Then, assuming the patient is cooperative, ask that physician to be on the case – to visit, to examine the chart, to speak with the treating physicians, to explain diagnoses and treatment options to relatives who have to make decisions. It makes a world of difference.

The rabbi is ideally placed to do this on behalf of his congregants, and it fits into a basic rabbinic leadership philosophy: Identify the assets of organizations and individuals, and harness them to aid each other.

The rabbi knows the doctors, he knows the hospitals, and he can make the shidduch. And in so doing, he can save lives.

Eliezer: A Lesson in Responding to Rejection

As I read the parshah Friday night, I realized I had never really thought about Eliezer, let alone understood him.

A solid 50-60 percent of Chayyei Sarah-related divrei torah ask why the Torah allots so much space for Eliezer’s story (Bereishis 24:1-67). Not only are we told in detail about Eliezer’s conversation with G-d at the well, his method of choosing Rivkah, and his encounter with Rivkah herself – but we are then re-told the entire story, with some variation, as he recounts his experiences to her family.

Why such verbosity? The Torah barely mentions many mitzvos, and here we have Eliezer’s story presented at length!

Answers abound – It’s the story of the succession to Avraham and Sarah, it’s the greatness of Rivkha, it’s to teach us various smaller lessons from those events, it’s to highlight Eliezer’s emunah, etc.

Rashi (Bereishis 24:42) quotes one midrashic approach which I understood in a new light this year. יפה שיחתן של עבדי אבות לפני המקום מתורתן של בנים – The regular speech of the servants of our ancestors was more beloved before G-d than the Torah of their descendants.

In the past, I understood that line to be about the reflected glory of the Avos – the Avos were really great, and so even their servants are treated with honor. That certainly does seem to be the grammatically correct read, since the line says של בנים and not של בני האבות – the emphasis is on the Avos themselves.

Nonetheless, I realized this year that Eliezer is truly a remarkable human being. Not only for his faith that G-d will help his mission succeed, but for his loyalty to that mission even as he has been harshly slapped.

Here is Eliezer, a local yokel who has served Avraham and Sarah for many years, who went off to war with Avraham against tremendous odds (Nedarim 32), who is the trusted head of Avraham’s household (Bereishis 15:2, 24:2), who accompanied Avraham to offer Yitzchak as a korban (midrash to Bereishis 22:3) who was even circumcised at Avraham’s insistence (Bereishis 17:23). And then we have Avraham saying to Eliezer, “Take a wife for my son – but whatever you do, don’t let her be one of you.”

Aside from the midrashic read (based on the dropped ‘vav’ on Bereishis 24:39) that Eliezer hoped his daughter could marry Yitzchak – even without that midrash, isn’t this a significant insult to the man who has been so loyal, for so long? Serve me, endanger yourself for me, get a bris milah for me – but my son cannot marry a woman from your family.

One lesson I learn here is that Avraham was no pareve kiruvnik, telling people what they wanted to hear; he told it straight. He states outright his preference for the family genes that had produced Sarah and Yitzchak, as well as himself.

But, also, I gain from here a new appreciation for Eliezer. That he could absorb this message and still follow Avraham’s instructions as fully as he did shows the character of this man. Eliezer was so committed to Avraham and Sarah's ideas, and to furtherance of their line, that even when he was personally hurt, he pushed forward.

It's hard to respond that way to personal rejection. Friends, employees, political supporters, even rabbis - when we are rejected by those we love and support, it's hard to resume the relationship. It's hard to be as loving and supportive as we were. Particularly here, where there is no apology, where the rejection was no accident, no slip of the tongue! But Eliezer believes in the mission, and so he moves forward.

And so I return to the midrash of יפה שיחתן של עבדי אבות לפני המקום מתורתן של בנים – The regular speech of the servants of our ancestors was more beloved before G-d than the Torah of their descendants. It’s not only that Eliezer was valuable because he served Avraham; it’s that Eliezer was, in and of himself, a giant.

The Frustrated Crusader

Blogging anonymously gives me the freedom to report on, and criticize, wrongs I can’t discuss otherwise; no one knows whom I am discussing, so no lashon hara or embarrassment is involved.

Off-blog, though, I am often a frustrated crusader. I represent a shul, a denomination, even Judaism as a whole to some people, and so I frequently cannot act on my impulses to correct things, lest there be a backlash. I rarely get to indulge my inner superhero.

If I could act anonymously, here are some of the things I would do:

-When a driver ahead of me at a traffic light drops a cigarette out his window, I’d get out of the car, pick up the cigarette and give it back to him.

-When a shopper in the produce section picks grapes off the bunches and surreptitiously pops them in her mouth, I’d loudly offer her the whole bunch.

-When a car in front of me in the passing lane is doing ten miles below the speed limit, I’d pass him, shift into the lane and then slow down to a crawl, just to frustrate him and force him out.

-When a local rabbi solicits funds from my congregant, in my own shul building, to support his “very valuable work, which is proving so successful but which desperately needs funding,” I'd confront him and ask when he is going to assemble a board to oversee the distribution of the funds he is collecting, since his organization’s funds are mingled with his personal funds.

-When a man at the kiddush table frowns at kids who take a handful of M&M’s, I’d take an over-sized styrofoam cup, fill it with M&M’s, and hand it to the kids – or down it myself, in one swallow.

Of course, there are always more subtle, passive-aggressive ways for rabbis to work out these frustrations. Controlling the tempo of davening, picking certain topics for speeches and classes, even honoring specific people for their contributions to synagogue life, these are all ways to get at the offending parties without leaving prosecutable tracks.

How can you get at someone by honoring him? A congregant sat on a committee, approved its project at the committee meetings, and then circulated throughout shul on Shabbos morning telling people how strongly he disliked the project. I watched it all morning, and could do nothing about it. So before my drasha I thanked all of the committee members by name - his own name most prominently mentioned - for their hard work in developing, approving and executing the project. I got a good laugh out of that one - but the direct approach of confronting him with his hypocrisy and slander would have been so much more satisfying.

And then there’s the story of the Baal Keriah who finally found a way to get back at a woman who was heckling him. (Sorry, but this story doesn’t translate into English; you need to get the Hebrew.)

He was leining Parshas Vayyeishev and reached Shishi, and ended the first sentence (Bereishis 39:7) ותאמר שכבה עמו, leading the offending woman to shout reflexively, with the entire shul in audience, ‘שכבה עמי! עמי!’

Sometimes, subtle does work.

Lead, and they will follow… maybe

I think I figured out something new today, about Leadership. It’s not really news, and it’s probably old hat to executive coaches, students of group dynamics and the like, but it is a new way for me to think about an old problem.

This post will likely bore people who don’t view themselves as leaders. You might note that all parents are leaders, though.

You might also look at this article in light of your own rabbi’s efforts; why hasn’t he successfully changed X about your community? Why do people still talk during davening, despite umpteen speeches about it? Why do people still eat the tuna at that treif diner? Why is verbal abuse still rampant even though the rabbi has launched a crusade against it?

This column might partially answer those questions.


Succesful rabbinic leadership – personal, not institutional
Someone asked me a question about gauging rabbinic leadership success, and that was what started me thinking.

I believe that the success of rabbinic leadership cannot be gauged by institutional change, but rather by the personal growth of individual congregants. Many great leaders have not accomplished massive institutional innovations, and yet qualify as great leaders for influencing the individuals around them.

Have people kashered their kitchens?
Have they decided to increase their Shabbos observance?
Have they worked on their speech and social behavior?

Did the rabbi help trigger these changes through his own modeling, through his personal interactions, through his speeches and classes? If so, then he has surely led successfully – even if the shul’s mechitzah is pathetic, even if the school doesn’t observe Yom ha’Atzmaut, even if the mikvah remains unattractive.


The question
Which leads to my question: Why might a rabbi be able to guide individuals to new heights, but not succeed in doing the same for communal institutions?

Surely, part of it is inertia; larger objects at rest are harder to shift. But I think it’s actually more than that – I think it’s a matter of group dynamics, and of what a leader actually accomplishes.


How leadership works
A leader convinces people to aim for a new goal.

You can lead people to a goal that they fear. Help them conquer their fear. Demonstrate that you are not afraid, act on that fearless, and let them see that you have not been harmed.

You can lead people to a goal they aren’t certain they want. Give them reasons to choose the goal you are promoting, and help them along the way.

You can lead people to a goal they know nothing about. Teach them about the goal, and show them that this is something they should want.

But you can’t, in my experience and thinking, lead people to a goal they flat-out don’t want. The best speaker, the greatest role model, will not be able to convince people to do something they don’t wish to do.


To return to the group issue
When dealing with individuals, opposition is mostly personal – fear or uncertainty or ignorance, quite often – and so they can be persuaded or educated into following. An energetic leader who cares about his people will be able to pull them along.

Sure, there are individuals who also flat-out resist change, but I have found that most individuals are open to change, if that change suits their goals.

But groups are a whole different animal. Because each party in a group is pulled by a different motivation in a different direction, the status quo, with its partial satisfaction of each demographic, has a solid, persuasion-resistant strength. No influence or set of influences will be able to persuade enough of the group to pull in the same direction. The result: The group rejects change, regardless of persuasion.

That resistance drops only when the group ceases to function as a unit – when enough factions are so frustrated that they abandon the group altogether. And in a stable group, that is unlikely to happen.


My advice for rabbis
So, to rabbis and to leaders of all kinds: Focus on the individuals, not the group. Gauge your success by the individuals, not the group.

You cannot change the group, but you can lead people to great heights, ignoring fear, overriding doubt and educating out of ignorance, and these are worthy accomplishments.