Why Kosher Restaurants Fail

Note: I’m going to be scaling back on blogging in the next couple of months. I still expect to post twice a week or so, but I’m working on a sefer and want to put some real effort into it, when I can find the moments.

The percentage of general restaurants that fail is very high; the percentage of kosher restaurants that fail is so close to 100% that you couldn’t squeeze a limp Burger Nosh french fry through that gap.

Why do so many Kosher restaurants fail? Three reasons: The owners, the customers, and the food.

The owners: Let’s get real; most kosher restaurants, certainly those outside of New York, are started by people who have already failed in other businesses and who figure that this niche should be an easy hit.

Actual thought process inside a would-be entrepreneur’s head: “Look, they love food. And they for sure want to eat out, who wants to cook every night? And there are no options locally, people have to drive XX minutes to get to the nearest kosher place. I could even do catering. I’ll have them eating out of my hand!”

The result is that these restaurants are run by people with little business acumen, people with no business plan, people who don’t understand in the slightest just how much work they are going to have to put into the place. They often don’t understand the importance of aesthetics, or even basic cleanliness (that “eating out of my hand” reference above is pretty literal). Fresh vegetables? Fresh out of the freezer, maybe. Service with a smile? With a snarl, more like.

The customers: Now we’re really talking the stuff of nightmares.

Actual conversation in a kosher deli:
Customer: There isn’t enough pastrami on this sandwich.
Waiter: It’s a turkey sandwich.
Customer: What, you ain’t never hoid of putting pastrami on a turkey sandwich? They always used to do that in the old kosher delis.
Waiter: You ordered a plain turkey sandwich, and we don’t put pastrami on a plain turkey sandwich.
Customer: Hey, don’t you know the rule, the customer is always right?

Okay, so maybe that’s exaggerated, but not by much. Line-cutting, rudeness to the wait staff (you know, it’s not the waiter’s fault that it takes them forever to prepare your food), kids racing around under the tables, complaints galore…

And, of course, the food.

There’s only so much you can do to kosher food when you are trying to prepare it in large enough bulk to feed a large crowd but not in such a large bulk that you throw 75% of it into the trash.
Cold deli sandwiches are easy, and certain standbys freeze well, but how fancy can you get when you’re expecting five to fifteen people to order a given dish on a given night? In New York you’ll have larger volume, but outside of New York, forget it.

Often, the restaurateurs think they’ll make it by appealing to a non-Jewish clientele as well. “Everyone loves pizza,” they say, neglecting the fact that the sentence really goes, “Everyone loves pizza with treif cheese and an assortment of treif toppings.” Ditto for Middle Eastern, Chinese, TexMex and every other kosher crossover they dream up.
It’s a simple matter of variety, as well as profit margin and economies of scale. Memo to these owners: You. Can’t. Compete. With. Treif.

So there you have it, folks: The Owners, the Customers, and the Food. All of it adds up to lots of failed restaurants, and lots of wannabes in hock up to their eyeballs to pay for their dead ventures.

Hmmm. Come to think of it, we could apply the same principles to why synagogues struggle/fail: The Board/Rabbi, the Congregation, the Davening… something to think about there…

Tom Brady: A real mensch

Note: Soccer Dad is out with Haveil Havalim #147 here.

Watched the first and fourth quarter of the Patriots/Giants game, and was not disappointed. It’s rare that I get to watch a game, but I’m glad I saw this one; it was action-packed to the end, lots of heroics, a good adrenaline builder. A fun watch - even though I didn't want the Patriots to make that perfect, 16-0 season.

My favorite moment didn’t come during on-field action; it was in the aftermath, when Tom Brady was interviewed about the game. This was before he got to the locker room, before he could have had much time to breathe, let alone think. At this point we were getting as close as possible to his unvarnished, unedited reactions to the game.

The interviewer asked about a key fourth-quarter series of plays. The Patriots were down, and Tom Brady had thrown a long bomb down the right sideline to Randy Moss – who had dropped it. On the next play, Brady, undaunted, had tried the same play again, and this time Moss had caught the ball and scored the go-ahead touchdown. The interviewer asked Brady to comment on going back to Moss after Moss had dropped the first pass.

And Brady’s response, sounding as natural and uncoached as could be, included this aside: “He didn’t drop the ball; I threw a bad pass.”

Now, in truth, it wasn’t a bad pass. It wasn’t 'on the numbers', but it also wasn’t uncatchable by any stretch of the imagination. Even the announcers, who were pro-Moss all evening, described it as a drop. But Brady is a leader – he took responsibility, even to his own detriment, even when that wasn’t the question the reporter was asking in the first place. He protected his receiver, a man of notably fragile ego, by taking the blame.

Is this on the life-and-death level of Yehudah’s “Tzadkah mimeni”? No, of course not. But a superstar playing a game before many millions of people, and earning many millions of dollars for doing it, didn’t need to humbly accept the fall himself. And he chose to shoulder it for himself anyway.

You go, Tom. I’m not a Pats fan, and I rooted for the Giants on principle (if I can’t be perfect, neither can anyone else!), but I tip my yarmulke to you for that interview answer.

Interdenominational smackdown

From time to time I am solicited to participate in interdenominational panel discussions. My policy is to refuse, for a simple reason: The possible cost does not outweigh the possible benefit.

The benefits:
1. An evening of entertainment;
2. A better understanding of each other;
3. A chance for the audience to hear all sides and decide for themselves.

Don’t get me wrong, these all seem like good reasons for rabbis to sit at a table and tear each others' throats out for an hour before a live studio audience.

But the cost is high: Either the integrity of Orthodoxy or the unity of the Jewish community will pay the price. I will either sell out Orthodoxy or bash everyone else.

Let me unpack that a bit.

Stipulation:
The major self-segregated streams of Judaism – Conservative, Orthodox, Reconstructionist, Reform – are all adamantly different from each other.

Example:
Ask a mainstream Orthodox rabbi why we observe Shabbos, and he’ll tell you it’s because G-d told us to do so.
Ask a mainstream Conservative rabbi and you’ll receive the same answer, although likely with the caveat that various halachot may be overridden by modern needs and views.
Ask a mainstream Reform rabbi and you’ll be told we observe Shabbos because we gain by doing so - witness Eric Yoffie’s declaration at the recent Reform biennial. (Reconstructionism is an entirely different ballgame; I find that one cannot easily typecast the “mainstream” of Reconstructionism, so I’ll leave that one alone.)

Now, Shabbat is at the Torah’s foundation, tying in to Judaism’s most basic beliefs about Gd and the universe and mentioned several times biblically. Shabbat observance is cited in the Talmud (Chullin 5a) as the very definition of observance, along with rejection of idolatry. And each of these major approaches to Judaism and Torah charts its own path on this most basic mitzvah.

Given this wealth of diversity regarding such a basic Jewish issue, how much greater is the diversity on less-fundamental issues? And so, there is little room for panel participants to agree with each other; even though we do have much in common, the discussion is generally about our disagreements.

So we enter our debate, and one of two things happens:
1. I am respectful of the others’ views, leading onlookers to assume I think all opinions are equally viable, or
2. I go Rambo and tear down opposing views, in establishing my own.
The cost of the former is the integrity of Orthodoxy; the cost of the latter is Jewish unity.

So you’ll have to find your entertainment elsewhere, we’ll have to come to understand each other by hearing individual presentations rather than debates, and people will have to make their decisions on some basis other than debates.

Debates? Not for me.

Memo: Rabbis enjoy attention

Note: My birthday is not near. I’ve been waiting for months to post on this, but I've pushed it off as other topics have come up.

True, I moan about being constantly on display, and I whine occasionally about my lack of privacy. On the other hand, if I truly wanted to be left alone I wouldn’t be a rabbi, would I?

My appreciation of attention comes through once a year, as my birthday nears, and I encounter the Party Problem.

The Party Problem: My sainted, wonderful, amazing rebbetzin wife has just one flaw: She refuses to make a big deal out of my birthday. Part of that is because she knows my fear of aging, so she figures she won’t do anything for the occasion, but let it slide on by. Part of it is probably that she thinks the whole birthday fetish is absurd; she's a very practical-minded person. And, of course, the biggest part of it is my own pride, which keeps me from requesting the celebration of another year’s passage in the life of RWAC.

So as the day nears each year my anxiety builds, as I wonder whether this will be the year when she reads my mind and realizes I would appreciate being feted. A surprise party, perhaps, maybe some friends and a cake? I read into little signs; she suddenly has to go out at night, and she says it’s to take someone to mikvah, but who knows? She could be going to the party store.

I don’t peek into the way back of our refrigerator, lest I notice a cake hiding there. I assiduously avoid mentioning the birthday to our kids, lest one of them accidentally spill the beans. I schedule my normal classes and meetings, and wait.

And the day goes by, hour by hour. Relatives call to wish me a happy birthday, always much appreciated. My office manager also offers good wishes. Sometimes I get a card or two from relatives who spare the time and attention and money…

…and that’s it, for another year.

I don’t feel pathetic for wanting a party; it’s normal to enjoy others’ positive attention and their statement that they value you Sure, I already know I matter to lots of people, but still - it’s different to have people rearrange their lives to make and attend a party.

I don’t feel pathetic for refusing to tell my wife, either; what good is it to have a party if you have to ask for it? (besides… she reads the blog…)

But there is one thing I have learned from my party jealousy - I’ve learned to make “parties” for others. That doesn’t mean full-scale celebrations, but I make sure to drop in on people every so often, not necessarily on a birthday or at some special time, electronically or verbally or in person, and so let them know I value them.

Black-Hatted Travel

It's been a very long few days; I'm in the mood for trivialities. So, with that in mind, here is a post about nothing: The difficulty of traveling with a hat.

I don't fly much, first because I don't travel much and second because the preparations are such an unwieldy mess that I'd rather walk than fly:

Plan your flight weeks in advance, picking specific dates and times which you can't change at the last minute without taking out a mortgage? For a rabbi, this is pretty much impossible; deaths, hospitalizations, and Gd-knows what else, come up at the last minute and make schedule-changes the norm.

Pack only small bags as carry-on to avoid luggage mis-handling and mis-direction? I'd much rather drive and have the luxury of fitting in pretty much whatever I want. Not to mention, I can then have little things like a nail clipper, spray deodorant, toothpaste, etc.

Squeeze into a tiny seat next to someone who seems to have been observing shiva for the past three months, based on his shower-free natural body odor, and sit there for hours, all while waiting for the plane to lift off the tarmac? Sure.

So I go by car, or if need be by train. When I do fly, though, I face the Hat dilemma. How do you handle a Borsalino on a long flight?

Wearing the chapeau is not preferred; "hat hair" is guaranteed, and it makes you sweat. Further, it makes the other passengers uncomfortable; they tend to look over not-so-subtly every few minutes, trying to figure out what cult your headgear represents.

Putting a hat in the overhead bin is certainly not a good option; items tend to shift while the plane is in flight, as they say. If you want a felt frisbee, that's the way to go. Otherwise... find another way.

So I end up balancing the hat on my lap and on the fold-down table - not the best choice, but generally the only choice.

Let's not overestimate the trouble, though; there are a few positive points-
1. I can use my hat as a pencil holder;
2. It's better than having to carry my wife's hat box;
3. No barf bag? No problem.

So if you see someone wearing a Borsalino on a plane, here's my advice:
A. Don't stare at him;
B. Walk up close to him and whisper, "Try your lap, instead of your head."
C. If you feel nauseous, go for it. No need to ask first; he'll understand.

Hug the Rav haMachshir

If anything could have persuaded me to leave the rabbinate, it would have been the several years I was responsible to serve as Rav haMachshir (certifying authority) for a small, non-metropolitan kosher certification. This was, without a doubt, the worst nightmare of my entire rabbinic career.

I could devote an entire blog to this and have enough posts for several years – it was that involved and that bizarre an experience. I can’t understand how I managed it as long as I did.

The problem, in a nutshell: When you supervise Kosher certification, you are working against many of your clients, many of your consumers and many of your Mashgichim (on-site supervisors). [And all of this has nothing to do with the financial end of running a vaad hakashrus; don’t get me started on that.]

Clients
Sure, the business owner comes to you with a smile and a request for certification, and perhaps some business owners are even sincerely interested in helping the Jewish community, but many/most of them are simply in this for cold business purposes: the benefit of reaching the kosher consumer. They have little desire to invest anything in the cost.

This means that you, as certifier, spend significant time hearing, “Can we do it that way instead of this way,” “I have a cousin who runs a kosher business and his rabbi lets him do it that way,” “You can trust me not to mess this up,” “Why do you need to visit that often,” “What could be wrong with this ingredient,” “I’ll get you that Schedule A soon,” etc.

If you decide not to certify the business, you are the victim of communal lashon hara from people who remember the last rabbi, who certified what they are certain was an identical business in an identical situation. And, of course, you hear from the people who spoke to the business owner and heard from him just how rigid and intractable you are.

If you do decide to certify the business, you then spend your nights lying awake in bed, wondering what you might have missed, and what your on-site Mashgichim aren’t catching.

Consumers
The consumers aren’t much of a treat, either. Aside from the ones mentioned above who complain about the businesses you don’t certify (“Hey rabbi, that vegetarian place would be easy to certify! What could be wrong with lettuce?”), you have to deal with the ones who complain about the businesses you do certify.

Some people think you are responsible for quality control. “That challah is too dry.” “Why don’t you tell them to bake it for a shorter period of time.” “They didn’t have enough hamantaschen for Purim this year, and they put them out too late.” Aside from the fact that our businesses wisely ignored most of our supervisors’ advice, people should realize that quality control isn’t really in the certifiers’ bailiwick.

Some think kashrut is all politics. “I know the Albania-K is really fine, my cousin is a rabbi and he told me all about how these things revolve around politics.” “I know the Hexagon-K is fine; he just went to the wrong yeshiva.”

And there's the alleged shift to the right, too, alleged by people who don't spend the time to actually investigate the topics they are discussing: "I've never seen a bug in lettuce," "My bubbe ate strawberries without washing them, let alone examining them," " “Glatt, shmatt; it was good enough for my grandmother, it’s good enough for me.”

And let’s not forget the consumers who are passing through the area, see your name on the Teudah (certificate of supervision) and call you, seeking to somehow vet your bona fides over the phone. What they really want to know is, “Can I trust that you know what you are doing,” so what they ask is something like, “I was just passing through here and I stopped in and saw your name on this sign. It sounds familiar; did you go to yeshiva with my neighbor’s cousin’s chavrusa X, at Yeshiva Y? No? Oh, I was sure you did. Where did you go, then?”

Mashgichim
Sad to say, you are also working against your mashgichim.

I’m not going to discuss my own mashgichim, in case my identity ever becomes known, but I will discuss the general issues one can encounter:
Mashgichim who don’t do their jobs, because they think they know better;
Mashgichim who don’t know how to relate to the workers at their businesses;
Mashgichim who take food for themselves with a wink and a nod at horrified workers;
Mashgichim who never want to pull a hashgachah (certification);
Mashgichim who always want to pull a hashgachah.

And, bottom line, you’re always working against the mashgiach anyway, because either you ar adding a business, which means adding more work, or you are dropping a business, which could ultimately result in a drop in salary.


So please – particularly if you live in a non-metropolitan Jewish community – find your Rav haMachshir and give him a verbal hug; he can probably use it.

The Persian Gulf, Darfur and Steroids walk into a bar. Who gets served first?

Let’s see:
The Persian Gulf is still the scene of daily carnage;
The Middle East is a mess beyond compare;
People are still suffering in Darfur;
Climate change (whether human-engineered or not) is altering entire ecosystems;
Millions of children in the richest country on earth live below the poverty line, and go hungry regularly;
Children are kidnapped and raped and killed in this country on a daily basis;
Gas prices are through the roof, hurting blue collar workers, small business owners and even large corporations in myriad ways;
The stock market is going to crash early next year, according to many if not most commentators;

…and we’re worried about Roger Clemens, Barry Bonds and the legitimacy of a few baseball records?

People have asked me whether I’m going to devote a drasha to steroids. The answer is NO. But I will devote a rant to it:

How many hundreds (thousands?) of hours has the United States Congress spent on this issue?
How many serious minds, like that of former Senator George Mitchell, have spent how many hours on this issue?
How much public attention has been invested in this issue?

On days when I’m in a bad mood (no, not every day), I sit at certain meetings wondering why I am spending an hour or two hours of my life sitting there. You know the meetings I mean – the community-organization meetings at which I play no real role other than to show that I am interested in the goings-on and results.

Yes, I know I belong at those meetings and I am doing “important things” by being involved, but it still gets to me. How many hours do I have left in this world, that I’m going the waste the next 90 minutes in this room?

Well, now we have the steroids scandal, and hour upon important hour is devoted to this nonsense. It’s a GAME, folks. A GAME.

Entertainment is important. Social releases are important. But when the hobbies take permanent residence on the front page, it's time to wonder.

You might as well change the rules to permit performance enhancement, so as to level the playing field and let them all dose themselves to death if they so choose. Or change the rules to test the players before, during and after every single game, practice and press conference. But quit wasting time discussing this.

I’d like to look at this as a noble (or at least justifiable) pursuit, and say it’s not about the Baseball part, at all.
-It’s about the ethics of paying players to harm themselves.
-It’s about having these players as role models for our kids.
-It’s about honesty vs. fraud, regardless of the sports context.

But, in truth, I don’t think that’s the issue here. I think it’s simply that talking about steroids is a whole lot less painful than talking about Darfur. Thinking about baseball is a lot less demanding than pondering climate change. Blaming the celebrity “them” is a lot easier than identifying blame in the Middle East.

But this we know: The cost of failure in handling the steroids crisis is going to be a lot lower than the cost of failure in Darfur, the environment, and the Middle East. So maybe it’s time we moved steroids to the sports section, what do you say?

[end rant]

Accepting Alternative Lifestyles

Housekeeping first:
Thank you to Soccer Dad for this week’s Haveil Havalim!

And in line with last week’s post on the White House Chanukah Celebration, here are some more articles on that feast:
Chanukah at the Bushes - OU
My Trip to the White House Chanukah Party - An entry from a new blog, from my friend Rabbi Mordechai Torczyner
My White House Chanukah - Cross Currents
A White (House) Chanukah - Jewish World Review
The White House Menorah - Boston Globe


And now, on to alternative lifestyles.

No, not specifically those alternative lifestyles - I’m talking about all of the multifarious ways in which people’s approaches to life differ.

At the barber last week, I was in queue (I love that word, it makes me feel so sophisticated) behind two children. I’d guess their ages at 6 and 3, respectively. Their mother, by all appearances, was a sane and sober human being, granted that she was juggling two kids whose vocabulary seemed to be limited to epithets for private bodily functions.

One of the chairs opened up, and it was the six-year-old’s turn. He immediately began crying at the top of his lungs, refusing to enter the chair. The barber, who seemed to know the family well, picked him up and put him in the chair. The mother angrily if ineffectually ordered her son not to cry; the barber did the same, with the same results. The child refused to let the barber fasten the smock around his neck.

The barber and mother responded to the child by arguing sarcastically, and then by pointing to the younger child, who was now entering another chair perfectly calmly. The barber insulted the child; the mother seconded the insult. The barber pretended to call the child’s father, and told the child that his father had said it would be okay to “put him in a headlock” to get him to cooperate.

This went on for about fifteen minutes; finally, the child ran out of steam, and the haircut proceeded.

I was horrified, but I didn’t know what to do. This wasn’t physical abuse, and it wasn’t really what I could call verbal abuse, although I can’t see how the parent/barber approach would inculcate self-esteem, communication skills and a positive attitude, the sort of things I’d like to introduce into my children’s life. I wanted to suggest some positive way for them to handle the child, but had no idea how well it might work, or how my advice might be received.

(Note to anyone who says she might have just been a parent at the end of her rope after a hard day or days - The kids’ language before their turns in the chair, the mother’s language, the fact that the barber knew he could make that pretend-call to the father, all indicate otherwise. This was likely part of an established pattern.)

The situation reminded me of a meeting I attended several years back. I sit on an ethics committee counseling in-home healthcare nurses, and one of the nurses told us about a home she had visited, in which she had found piles of filthy clothing, the linens were rarely changed, the house smelled, there was trash in the kitchen, dirty dishes filled the sink, etc. The patient was in a state of not-quite neglect; there were no bedsores, and nutrition was being provided (if somewhat sloppily), but the overall situation just didn’t seem healthy. We were asked to weigh the advisability of intervention.

The committee chair counseled that we really cannot judge how other people choose to live their lives; there is a range of acceptable alternative lifestyles. The home conditions were not beyond the bounds of safe human existence, even if they weren’t what we would choose, and so we had no grounds to intervene.

That’s how I feel about the barber situation; I don’t know what else goes on with those kids, but I can tell that their environment - day-to-day language and entertainment, at least - isn’t what I would provide for my own children. And yet, I felt I had no grounds to intervene.

The Torah provides two mechanisms for direct intervention in others’ lives:
1) Lo Taamod al dam reiecha, don’t stand by your brother’s blood, but rather intervene to save him.
But do I really know that this approach is going to harm the child for life? And even if I do, what sort of action should I take to save the child?
2) Tochachah, rebuke, which we’ve discussed many times before.
But where was there room for tochachah? Would my words have done anything other than earn that child sterner treatment after they left the barber shop? I think not.

There is no happy ending to this story. The kids finished their haircuts and left. I had my turn in the chair and left. I doubt I’ll ever see the mother again. I actually do see the barber some days at the gym, but I can’t think of anything I might tell him. It looks like I just have to accept what the head of the ethics committee said: There are such things as alternative lifestyles.

I want to be Batman and save the world… but some days, I don’t have the slightest clue how.

The Mad Lib Eulogy

Warning: Extremely poor taste and funeral-related humor below.

I know what it means to deal with a lot of funerals – we’ve hit a busy season again lately. Nonetheless, I have no patience for canned, formulaic, unimaginative, dry-as-the-Sahara rabbinic eulogies; listening to them embarrasses me, as a rabbi.

The Gemara says that a eulogy is supposed to induce tears; this is why we don’t offer true eulogies during periods of national celebration. It certainly shouldn't put people to sleep.

Herewith the words of the RCA Lifecycle HaMadrikh, 1995 edition, on the value of a good eulogy: “It must be a heartfelt lament of the great loss that is felt by family and friends, through conveying a true refletion of the deeds and virtues of the deceased.”

So what do you do if you don’t know the deceased, or even the family? Find Out. Talk to them (the family, not the deceased). Talk to their friends. Talk to your shul president. But find something out.

What if everyone hates the person? Yes, I’ve had those. So speak more generally, perhaps focusing on the family itself.

What if the person was an utter recluse? I’ve had the case of people who were developmentally disabled and had little-to-no social interaction… but there is always something to be said.

To demonstrate the barebones, formula eulogy that is frustrating me, I am going to visit the outer limits of taste… and beyond. I will herewith provide the ultimate in poor funeral taste - The Mad Lib Eulogy – in order to demonstrate what really riles me.

First, before you look at the eulogy text below, come up with the following terms. Go ahead, try it:

(1) A Name
(2) An Adjective
(3) A Year
(4) A 20th century tragedy
(5) An Emotion
(6) An Adjective
(7) An Adjective
(8) An Adjective
(9) A Nationality
(10) A Relation
(11) A Relation
(12) An Emotion
(13) A Hobby
(14) A Figure from the Torah
(15) A Relation
(16) One of the sacred books of Judaism

Here, then, is a result showing the kind of boiled-out, pareve boilerplate I despise:
(1) John was a (2) menschlich person his entire life. Born in (3) 1939, in the middle of (4) the Holocaust, he knew the meaning of (5) sadness. Despite challenges, he developed into a (6) kind human being, a (7) good friend and a (8) supportive son to his (9) Belgian parents.

(1) John was a good (10) son, but his greatest affection was reserved for his (11) children, in whose presence he was always (12) happy. He enjoyed (13) fishing with them, whenever he had time.

(1) John’s love for his (11) children is reminiscent of the love displayed by (14) Avraham for his (15) son. The (16) Midrash tells us that (14) Avraham displayed the greatest love for a (15) son that anyone has ever known – and (1) John built his life around that model.

Even as we mourn (1) John's passing, let us also be grateful for the years we had with him, and for his love for his (11) children. May it be a model for us and for our children, and may his memory be a blessing for us all.


And here is a somewhat-less-serious result:
(1) John was a (2) green person his entire life. Born in (3) the Year of the Monkey, in the middle of the (4) Hindenburg Disaster, he knew the meaning of (5) ennui. Despite challenges, he developed into a (6) stringy human being, an (7) absorbent friend and a (8) pungent son to his (9) Mongolian parents.

(1) John was a good (10) cousin, but his greatest affection was reserved for his (11) stepmother, in whose presence he was always (12) agitated. He enjoyed (13) making tortillas with her, whenever he had time.

(1) John’s love for his (11) stepmother is reminiscent of the love displayed by (14) Lot for his (15) family dog. The (16) Zohar tells us that (14) Lot displayed the greatest love for a (15) family dog that anyone has ever known – and (1) John built his life around that model.

Even as we mourn (1) John’s passing, let us also be grateful for the years we had with him, and for his love for his (11) stepmother. May it be a model for us and for our children, and may his memory be a blessing for us all.

Try it out, and send in your results.

Feel free to expand this to Chuppah speeches, Bar/Bat Mitzvah speeches, etc. The only requirement is that you read them aloud in a rabbinical sing-song, punctuated appropriately with sighs and smiles along the way.

[end rant]

“Flipping Out” - A Worthwhile First Effort

Picked up a copy of “Flipping Out - Myth or Fact: The Impact of the Year in Israel,” the new offering by Gil Student’s Yashar Books, and gave it a quick read. (I should also note that Yeshiva University’s S. Daniel Abraham Israel Program sponsored production of this book.)

My feeling, after some reflection, is that this is a worthwhile first effort at understanding the issues of teenage metamorphosis in Israel, and its role in the perceived "shift to the right" in the American Jewish community.

My favorite part is YU President Richard Joel’s introduction, in which he notes that the period of study in Israel, however long or short, should be planned and executed as part of a young student’s educational continuum. This means, of course, that parents and students ought to do their due diligence in choosing a school, but it also means that the goals/timeframe/outcome for this program should be clear, and that this is neither the pinnacle nor the termination of a student’s Torah growth. Such a view helps the student grow properly through the experience.

The three central parts of the book are of varying focus and tone; the first two-thirds attend to issues of change in Israel, while the final third turns to American Zionism and Aliyah.

The First Third: The Impact of Post-High School Study in Israel
Rabbi Dr. Shalom Z. Berger authored the first third, focussing on data from sociological studies on the changes undergone by American students in Israel. I found the numbers interesting, although I would have liked a more detailed explanation of method, particularly the “factor analysis” approach to interpreting answers.

Rabbi Berger’s main find seems to be that day-school graduates in Israel programs change more lastingly than secular students attending year-abroad sojourns, and that the changes tend to be consistent with the ideals taught in day school.

This section could have used some tighter editing, but the overall result is an interesting study, especially for those who like numbers.

The Second Third: Psychological Perspectives on Change During the Year in Israel
Rabbi Dr. Daniel Jacobson wrote the second third, analyzing the psychological/emotional/sociological factors which influence religious change. This is the part I enjoyed most, as it provided, for me, the most direct food for thought.

Rabbi Jacobson’s points include a cogent distinction between “inspired changers” and “distressed changers,” a look at radical growth vs. intensification of existing traits, and an emphasis on parental communication before, during and after the Israel experience. I came away wanting to read much more of Kenneth Pargament’s work, cited liberally and effectively by Rabbi Jacobson.

If I have any complaints with the second third, it’s (1) that the writing really could have used more editing to make it an easier, non-technical read. (In other words: Dumb it down for me, please.), and (2) that, as the author notes, the information is really reflective of male study in Israel, not women’s study.

The Third Third: American Orthodoxy, Zionism and Israel
Dr. Chaim Waxman provides a fascinating historical read in the third part of the book, looking at the evolution of Zionism and Aliyah in America.

Some of the history in this section was new to me, and I enjoyed the brief insights into the way Israel programs have impacted Aliyah. The writing here was the best in the book; it flows very well, and eschews jargon in favor of well-written prose. Too, Dr. Waxman does an excellent job of collecting the factors that encourage and discourage Aliyah.

My only complaint is that this section really didn’t seem to fit in this book; the notes about change in Israel and its effect on American Judaism (pg. 168-9) are disappointingly brief and don’t match the depth of the rest of Dr. Waxman’s analysis.


Overall, then, I would recommend this book as a start to addressing the very real, very pressing issues facing parents and students before, during and after the Year in Israel. In a follow-up, work, though, I would like to see the following:

1. A section of hard, specific advice, general enough to fit most situations but specific enough to be helpful.
2. A stronger focus on women’s studies in Israel, perhaps bolstered with the results of Dr. David Pelcovitz’s study, not yet complete, of women’s experiences.
3. A section looking at the goals of the Israel experience from the perspective of the schools themselves.

Good job, Gil; I look forward to Volume Two.

Achashverosh’s White House Chanukah Party?

Managed to get a few moles into the White House Chanukah Party last night, and it was well worth it.

First, the gossip column:
All sorts of Jewish celebrities were present. Aside from the family of Daniel Pearl הי"ד, who were there for a special pre-party lighting and stayed at the White House overnight, there were plenty of big names present. Malcolm Hoenlein and Senator Lieberman were spotted. I’m told there were Vizhnitzers and Satmar present, as well as a few Chabadniks, including the famous Rabbi Levi Shemtov.

Among the OU/RCA community, the IPA’s Nathan Diament was very visible, as were several OU/RCA synagogue rabbis, including the illustrious Rabbi Yaakov and Peshe Neuberger. Nachum Segal, of “JM in the AM” fame, was spotted there as well.

The food is reported to have been excellent – sushi, lamb chops (yes, fish and meat on the same buffet), meat, lots of desserts. All under two hashgachos, Lubavitch and a fellow from Bergen County. All the food was served without knives, I should note, presumably for three reasons:
1. Security;
2. The difficulty of kashering knives when the staff won't let you stab them into the dirt in the Rose Garden to clean them;
3. To give a good laugh to the protocol officers watching people try to eat without cutting implements.

But now down to tachlis:
How does this Chanukah Party differ from Achashverosh’s party, described in Megilah 12a?

In that discussion, the Gemara says that the Jews of the time of Purim were liable for destruction because they attended Achashverosh’s party, even though the commentators note that the food was kosher, and even though the gemara says the Jews only attended out of fear of what would happen if they refused to attend!

(And no, this isn’t just sour grapes over not being personally invited…)

After some thought, I might offer two differences:
1. Rabban Shimon bar Yochai is the author of that condemnatory statement nin Megilah 12a. Rabban Shimon bar Yochai is known for his position that all pursuits outside of Talmud Torah are to be shunned; one should not even work for his living, but rather one should depend on G-d for support. So, perhaps, this comment about the feast of Achashverosh, and about not attending even for political purposes, is consistent with the Rashbi’s view that such parties, and such political activism in general, are worse than worthless. We don't seem to pasken like Rashbi, as the gemara in Berachos notes.

2. Additionally: The Gemara notes that Achashverosh’s meal was a celebration of the fall of Jerusalem, and the captivity of the Jews. Perhaps this is why attending that meal was so heinous. The White House party last night, on the other hand, was a celebration of the resurgence of the Jewish community, its survival and its strength, such that the leader of the free world considers it worth his while to celebrate Chanukah and to invite hundreds of Jewish leaders to shake his hand and smile for a photo with him.

Those are my thoughts, at any rate; feel free to suggest others, as always.

After the Federation, le déluge

The signs of the demise of the Federation/UJC/UJA system are everywhere, commented upon so ubiquitously in recent years that they have become cliché:
The rise of donor preference for earmarking,
the rise of transparency and the shunning of overhead,
the rise of news sources and business education and informed donation,
the rise of local causes,
the rise of small-scale, donor-directed endowments, a wave UJC is attempting to ride too late,
the rise of universalist philanthropy among Jewish donors.
All of these and more have generated this philanthropic commonplace: Umbrella philanthropy is dead.

I believe it. I think it will take many years for this dance of death to play itself out, given the size of many Federation endowment funds. I predict it will be a layered demise, affecting Israel, the Former Soviet Union, other international needs and local needs in different ways and at different paces in the next few decades. But it will happen – and I’m scared of what will come next.

I see three major problems: A Blizzard of envelopes, the Death of small local agencies, and the Disappearance of supporting services.

First, and most obvious, the blizzard of envelopes.

Currently, Federations keep many local community institutions in fundraising check, paying them off with annual allocations to keep them from running fundraising drives that might compete with the Federation campaign. This, though, will end with the demise of the campaign itself.

The result will be small fundraising campaigns galore, for everything from Hillels to Jewish Family Services to Jewish Scout troops to JCCs to Mikvaot to immigrant re-settlement programs to local Holocaust museums to you name it, everything currently supported by your Federation dollar.

This, in turn, will lead to the second problem: The demise of many small agencies.

Donors will not give to every one of the causes which will suddenly be at their door. Further, the age of earmarking will mean that donors will target those causes they like best, and other causes will be left out in the cold. Hillels will do all right, if their alumni networks are strong. The observant community, I hope, will support local vaadim and their various arms. JCCs are doomed anyway, in most parts of North America, even with Federation help. And Jewish Family Service, a scout troop? Lots of luck, folks.

And then the third problem: The supporting services.

Does your Federation currently run a community newspaper, advertising programs from around the community, bringing people together and unifying the community?

Does your Federation have a Community Relations Council, offering a response to anti-Semitism and to biased media coverage of Israel?

Does your Federation do demographic studies, analyzing the needs of the community?

Does your Federation maintain a community calendar, so that organizations plan events without competing grossly with each other?

Does your Federation counsel synagogues on their endowments?

All of that will be gone. And who will replace it?

I am seriously worried about what’s coming down the pike, folks. The umbrella philanthropies are, I believe, in their last decades; it’s time for us to plan for the next step.

Bronfman idea, anyone?

What the Rabbi and Britney Spears have in common

I had a Britney moment, or what I imagine was a Britney moment, this past week.

It started with some information about me, which I had shared with one other person. It wasn’t an OH MY G-D secret or something that could be used against me, it was just a piece of personal information, something about me that I hadn’t shared with people. It was personal but trivial, something comparable to “RWAC sleeps with a teddy bear.” (This is just an example. RWAC does not sleep with a teddy bear. So enough of that rumor.)

In any case: The person with whom I shared this information, “Ploni” (I’ve thought of some much better names over the last few days, but we’ll let it go with Ploni), let that information slip to another party.

I was upset… and Ploni didn’t understand why.

This wasn’t harmful information, and it wasn’t released maliciously. But it still bothered me.

One reason it bothered me is that I place a premium on confidentiality, and I have a hard time with people who don’t do that. Congregants and relatives tell me things they won’t tell other people, knowing that I won’t share it with anyone. My own wife doesn’t know many of the things I see and hear. Frankly, she holds quite a few secrets from me, in her role as Rebbetzin. People need to know they can trust us.

Another reason it bothers me is that the Gemara makes it very clear that information should be kept quiet. The Torah instructs לא תלך רכיל בעמך, Don’t peddle, which we understand as a prohibition against going around spreading stories - regardless of whether the stories are negative or positive. Further, the Gemara (Yoma 4b) says one may not repeat information he has heard, unless he has specifically been told, “Go repeat that to others.”

But there’s another layer here, which goes back to the title of this post.

I share a lot of myself, talking to people about how I feel, personally. It’s an approach that works for me; I like being open, and I think people respond well to it. So I speak personally at funerals as well as at semachot; when discussing world events I frequently refer to my own personal feelings; when counseling or sitting by hospital beds I react from the heart. I cry during speeches from the bimah two or three times a year, when discussing sensitive issues. Before Yom Kippur I ask for mechilah openly, admitting the wrongs I can recall. I’ve discussed my own illnesses, frustrations and joys from the bimah. I “let it all hang out” as much as I feel I can. In a sense, much of my soul is communal property - and I’m all right with that.

But as a reaction to that openness, I feel like whatever I don’t choose to make public is a small private reserve. If I dole that private information out to friends, if I bring friends into that reserve, it’s on my own terms, and it’s a meaningful thing for me to do, even if the information is trivial.

This isn’t a planned thing; I don’t explicitly think, “This is public,” or, “This is something I’ll share with X, but not with others.” But it’s going on, somewhere in my head. And that is what disturbs me when someone chooses to share my private reserve with another person, even innocuously.

So to return to Britney Spears: When I see Britney and other celebrities on tabloid covers and in articles exposing their substance issues, their family strife or even their shopping lists, I wonder if this is one of the reasons they act like lunatics, throwing things at photographers, racing their cars at a million miles per hour with their kids unbuckled to get away from reporters, etc. They have no reserve, they are deprived of the right to have a “self” that isn’t shared.

My own privacy issue is small-scale; I could drive 100 miles away from home and find plenty of people who have never heard of me, who don’t know anything about me. These celebrities can’t do that. Yes, I think that would be enough to drive me insane.

Ploni finally apologized, and I’ve forgiven. But I’ve learned a lesson I won’t soon forget; if I want to keep a reserve, I have to be more selective about how I share it.

The Miracle of the Oil, Defended

One of my congregants forwarded to me an article from the Jerusalem Post, in which the writer, one Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg, calls into question the historicity of the Oil miracle of Chanukah.

His claims are these (presented slightly out of order for reasons of clarity):
1. The Book of Maccabees doesn’t mention the miracle of the oil.
2. The menorah should not have been usable in the re-dedication.
3. There is no record that oil for the menora was ever sealed by the high priest.
4. It would have been impossible to produce fresh pure olive oil in that time.
5. Why should the high priest’s seal have been important to the Hasmoneans, given the corruption of the high priest of the day?

None of these claims are news, although the writer, from the way he goes on about #5, seems to think he’s discovered America. Sadly, it is in #3-5 that the writer’s certainty betrays an arrogant ignorance.

#1 (the Book of Maccabees issue) has been pretty much debated to death, as has #2 (the acceptability of the impure Menorah), but because the latter three issues are not often discussed, I’ll go through them here. The reason they are not often discussed is that they are predicated upon ignorance of a basic Talmudic passage.

Rosenberg claims (#3) that there is no record of sealing Menorah oil – but sealing for purity purposes was certainly common in Temple times. Stephen Gabriel Rosenberg would do well to look at Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 69a-71a, among other sources:

Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 69a re: sealed barrels of wine and concern they may have been touched by idolaters.
Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 69b re: concern that sealed barrels might have been opened and re-sealed.
Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 70a re: thieves who opened seals on barrels
Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 70b re: comparing the laws of wine and idolatry, and wine and impurity
Babylonian Talmud, Avodah Zarah 70b re: the status of sealed/open barrels after soldiers invade a city

The message of this discussion is that sealing barrels was a routine procedure, in order to determine that the contents had not been contaminated. So much for claim #3.

And so Rosenberg’s lengthy comments in claim #5 regarding the impiety of the High Priest fall apart as well – the credibility is in the seal, not the high priest. Either the barrels are sealed or they are not; I don’t need to care about the high priest.

As for claim #4, since all they wanted was pure oil, they didn’t need fresh oil. All they needed to do was to reach Tiberias and get sealed pure oil – no need to make it from scratch.

I am not bothered by Rosenberg’s skepticism; his skepticism is his right. I am bothered by shoddy scholarship, though; an explicit Talmudic passage about sealing and impurity should not be overlooked when making authoritative statements for publication.

In the Navy... I wish

Several years ago I received a great US Navy recruitment mailing, which I’ve kept on my office wall ever since. It’s a simple slogan on a black radar-screen background:

You know the little voice that says,
“Go make a difference in the world”?
It just got louder.

I love that.

I’ve always wanted to be a soldier, ideally in the IDF but, if not, even in the American armed forces. I believe in military force in many situations, I’m very into patriotism, and – to be honest – I covet the uniform.

As a kid, on a summer tour in Israel, I joined all of my friends asking the uniformed chayalim for kadurim (which , back in those naïve days, they actually gave us!). I’ve never stopped being that child, looking up to the soldier; I’m one of those guys who claps for returning soldiers in the airport and in train stations.

When I was in semichah I attended a talk on military chaplaincy, and I did look into it. I found it didn’t go well with marriage and family plans, though, and the chaplains with whom I spoke were generally pretty negative about the experience, and I dropped it. I’ve felt a good deal of regret about that ever since, and not just for the great benefits package I passed up.

A couple of weeks ago I received a new Navy mailing, this one for Reserve chaplaincy. This one has many slogans all over it, none particularly compelling. ("A life line for them to hold on to” “Many are called. Few find their true destiny.” “What better place to practice a worldwide religion than in a worldwide ministry?” etc.) Still, I am drawn to the military, and as my kids get older I wonder about doing it.

My commitment, according to the brochure, could be as little as two days per month, and an additional two weeks per year. Not a huge number of days…

Although… you’d have to figure in Basic Training of some kind, as well as the fact that I don’t even have those few days to give up.
Athough… those couple of days per month are probably Shabbat, if I had to guess.
Although… as a chaplain explained to me when I investigated this decades ago, “You are working against the military if you try to teach people and raise their level of observance.”
Although… my minyan would likely be three or four people, none of whom may be Jewish.
Although… I have children to raise and a wife to be with.

I still want to do it.
I want to hold my head high when I pass uniformed soldiers in the airport, knowing that I have made that commitment, that I have also served.
I want to not feel like a chicken hawk when I support troops, whether Israeli or American.
I want to know that my service makes a life-and-death difference to someone who doesn’t have another shul elsewhere to attend, another rabbi to call, even another Jew with whom to talk about beliefs and ideals.

Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines, I don’t particularly care, although my temperament is probably best-suited for the Marines. I just want to serve. I wish I had given it a shot back in Semichah.

Next time round, perhaps I will.

Sixx:A.M. - Life is Beautiful

This is one of those posts I write hoping that my kids will see it one day. It's an Ethical Will sort of thing. (The rest of you are free to read it as well, though.)

You already know about my death obsession. I spend a lot of time managing death-related matters, visiting people who are suffering from serious illness, counseling children about death… and contemplating my own death.

One of my age-old death-worries was stirred up the other day when I heard a song, "Life is Beautiful," by Sixx:A.M. (Nikki Sixx’s new band). The lyrics include this line: “Will you swear on your life no one will cry at my funeral?” It reminded me of my fear of beatification.

I’ve always thought I would die young. As I’ve aged I’ve changed the definition of “young,” but I still believe it to be true. I think I’ll die at an age at which people will say, “He was cut down in his prime.”

When a young person passes away people tend to say things like, “Only the good die young,” and “Why does G-d only take the good ones?” Eulogizers quote Nevuzaradan’s cry (Gittin 57b), “Zecharyah, Zecharyah! I’ve destroyed the best of them - do you wish for me to destroy all of them?”

I’m a decent rabbi, a non-abusive father, and a kind and caring human being to all appearances. If I maintain my current mode of living, and if I’m right that I’ll go young, then people will say those sorts of kind things after I go. So out will come the tears, and out will come those who grant me posthumous honors I never deserved.

And I worry that some person, such as one of my children, is going to buy into this nonsense, and feel that G-d has been unjust, that the suffering of the young and innocent is evidence that goodness doesn’t pay.

So I want my children to know: I’m no saint. If G-d chooses to take me, it will be with a full record of legitimate reasons for taking me. I know my own insufficiency. (Aside from Rava's comment in Moed Katan 28a.)

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not labelling myself a “sinner.” I know the sins of many other people, and I know that I am not evil by the standards of human depravity. I know that this world would be a much better place if more people were decent, non-abusive, and kind and caring. I’m not minimizing what I do. I’m not a bad person.

But I also know my potential, all the things I could have accomplished already, the heights I could still achieve if I ever managed to focus. There’s a lot I could do.

I could write sefarim. Gemara. Tanach. Hashkafah. History. Even fiction.
I could teach more people, influence more people, help more people. I could devote more time to the social castaways I know.
I could spend better time with my children. Not more, but better, more focused time.
I could prepare my shiurim better; what kind of an idiot teaches Daf Yomi without looking at the gemara first? It’s a combination of laziness and chutzpah, and the result is that I don’t get the sugya across nearly as well as I could.
I could take a real role on the national Jewish scene, beyond my shul, with those organizations I am so quick to criticize.

So this is my message for my kids: I hope that when I do go - G-d-willing not for many years, despite my skepticism - my suffering won’t be cause for anyone’s religious doubt. When G-d takes me, whenever that is, She’ll have her reasons.

In which RWAC loses it

I have already posted about the need for sensitive speech, and particularly about the problem of sarcasm. I still believe everything I wrote in those posts. But tonight I simply lost it with someone… and it felt good.

As a child, I was very sarcastic. My sharp tongue lost me a few teeth and a lot of fights, because I was good at using it and not so good at restraining it. As I got older I kept it, because it got me laughs with those who tolerated it, and, I suppose, because it felt like a good defense mechanism.

Then, when I was at the start of learning for semichah, a rebbe of mine offered to set me up with a certain girl. He described her as extremely sweet, and so I demurred. I explained that I have a tendency toward sarcasm, and that I thought this wouldn’t be such a good match. He replied softly that he, too, had once harbored a sarcastic tongue, and that he had thought it a sign of chochmah (mental sharpness) to be able to shtoch (zing) someone… but that eventually he had grown up.

In the years since then, I, too, have grown up - at least somewhat. I don’t find pleasure in insulting others, and I’ve tried to teach my children the same distaste for putting down other people. To me, at this stage in my life, sarcasm is not even humor; it’s a verbally violent reaction to a situation, and its use begs the question of why the speaker has gone that route.

With that as background, here’s the story:

One of my newer congregants has become comfortable around me in the last few weeks, as we have gotten to know each other. I have great respect for her, and I think she respects my Torah as well. But she has become increasingly sarcastic as she has become increasingly comfortable. It seems to be her habitual mode of speech.

Tonight, during a shul event, she took three separate shots at me. After the second one I started to think that it was time to say something to her, perhaps to comment politely that this sort of approach doesn’t work well with me. I was shaping a line of discussion in my head, when she blindsided me with the third - so before I could even think I turned to her and said, “You know, one of these days you’re going to come up to me and say something nice.”

I knew instantly that I had hit too hard; as I said here, I’m in a different weight class from others, which I sometimes forget. A line like that from a buddy means nothing; a line like that from The Rabbi, particularly if it’s a certain kind of rabbi in a certain kind of community, is much more.

I was immediately annoyed with myself for unleashing my tongue, and moreso when she approached me twice to - in her own way - apologize.

And yet, and yet, it felt good. That’s a problem; worse than sinning is enjoying the sin. Cf Shmos 21:5 - If the slave says, ‘I love my master,’ that’s the time to pierce his ear and remind him that his slavery is unbecoming for him.

I am yet slave to my tongue. I wish it didn't feel so good.

Seeking my brother, getting slapped in the face

[Joined Facebook on Friday. No clue what I'm doing, couldn't even tell you how to find me, but I'm there. Update: I know how to find myself; click here.]

In a parshah filled with dramatic moments and impassionated declarations (טרוף טורף יוסף, הכר נא!, etc.), my favorite line belongs to Yosef. On the way to visit his hostile brothers he encounters a stranger, and explains his mission: "את אחי אנכי מבקש, I seek my brothers."

Yosef knows his brothers hate him. Yosef, for that matter, is not a big fan of theirs, either; he considers them wicked, and he resents the way they treat him. Read Rashi, Ramban, Ibn Ezra on the beginning of the parshah for just a small piece of it.

Yosef doesn’t get along with his relatives, his brothers are not truly ‘brotherly’ to him. Yosef is seeking a relationship that doesn’t exist. But Yosef seeks it anyway. This resonates for me, and particularly because of a painful situation I currently face.

First, on a national level:
I believe that none of us - Orthodox, Conservative, Reform, Reconstructionist, Secular Humanist, Postdenominational, Transdenominational and all of our subvarieties and hybrids - do enough to seek our brothers. We are so busy dividing ourselves, like hyper-aggressive amoeba unhappy with binary fission and going for mass production, and we spend little energy on bonding with each other.

"What about Outreach," you ask? Outreach is not the same as seeking our brothers. Outreach is seeking to absorb our brothers into ourselves.

Seeking our brothers means seeking a relationship with them as they are, without demands and stipulations. With some, perhaps, this is impossible; perhaps some are simply too far apart, their actions so far beyond the pale that we cannot accept them. But I find it hard to believe this is true of all of them. We must seek those we can.

Second, on a personal level:
I have relatives with whom my relationship isn’t what it should be, and I don’t really look to build it. It’s just a disappointment, that’s all. I don’t seek the relationship. Yosef seeks the relationship - to the point that he rigs an absurd game with them, when he finally has the chance, all to bring them into that relationship.

And third, because of my current problem:
You can seek your brothers as Yosef did at first, trying to meet them on his father’s orders. You can hold meetings, sit at a table, even break bread. And perhaps that will help.

You can try to unite with your brothers by helping them understand your situation, which is what Yosef did in the end. Putting Shimon in jail, endangering his brothers in a foreign land, having them face the same situation of pitting themselves against one of their own (Binyamin), but this time with greater maturity and perspective… I believe all of this was geared toward enlightening them, and giving them the chance to re-join him.

Me? I recently “sought my brother” in a very painful way, and the effects are going to hurt for a very long time.

I have a friend who, I believe, is suffering from a psychological condition. He and I have been talking about this for many, many months - years, if I remember correctly - and all along I've advised him to seek a professional opinion. We've talked around and around the issue, and he occasionally admits it's an issue, but he hasn't taken the step of getting help.

Lately I've been growing increasingly scared about what might happen if he doesn’t get help - so last week I finally addressed him directly. I told him he had to get help, and immediately. I was as blunt as I could be.

He won’t talk to me anymore.

Maybe one day he will, but he hasn’t yet. I knew he would be upset at me for it, and I thought I was ready for that. I wasn’t. It hurts.

I know I did the right thing. I know I had exhausted all other reasonable options. I know what I did will be good for him, if he follows through. It still hurts.

But I gain inspiration from Yosef’s result. It takes slavery, imprisonment, intricate intrigue and a period of 22 years… but, ultimately, Yosef and his brothers reunite. He finally found them.

May all of us who seek our brothers also merit to find them.