There is a famous story in the Talmud (Men 29b) that when Moses ascended Mount Sinai to receive the Torah, he found God still finishing up, putting crowns onto the letters.
“God,” says Moses, “‘sup? You don’t need these!”
“Aha,” God replies, “but after many generations, a scholar by the name of Rabbi Akiva will arise who will derive from them mountains of laws.”
Mount Sinai is the original Mountain of Law, and on top of the Mountain of Law are squillions of crowns which are all themselves mountains of law, and so ad infinitum. I’m sure there’s a spiritual word for “fractal,” but I can’t think of it at the moment – anyway, it suggests the move from the first mountain, the physical realm, into the mountains beyond, the metaphysical realm.
Sefer Yetzirah (trans. Aryeh Kaplan; 3:7) says These crowns represent the higher spiritual nature of the letters. If the letters themselves are in Assiyah, then the crowns on top bind them to Yetzirah – that is, if the letters are in the lowest sphere of existence, the physical world, the crowns form the link into the next sphere of existence, that which shapes the physical world.
The letters shin, ayin, tet, nun, zayin, gimel, and tzaddi are the ones with crownlets. Actually, what the Talmud says is that these letters are zayinified (why is it that a Jewish blog can’t write Hebrew?; sheva otiot tzarikhot shelosha ziunin), and indeed the crownlets approximately resemble zayins, being a little stick with a lump on the top, which fundamentally is what makes zayin. Of course if you put zayins on a letter, the zayins have zayins, and so on, which is why I made the animation above. (Heh. I’ve been wanting to do that for ages.)
Part of the kabbalistic apparatus is the set of sefirot, sort-of divine levels of understanding. The ultimate one is Infinity, the utterly-unknowable-unless-you’re-God, then you get revelation and understanding (the intellectual realm, apparently), then a bunch of things like mercy and grace (the emotive realm), but this is a very bald rendering and properly it is terribly nuanced and subtle. And there are ten altogether.
Zayin is the seventh letter in the alef-bet, and it has three taggin. That makes ten sefirot! So one interpretation of a zayin is that the seven part, underneath, corresponds to the seven sefirot in the emotive realm, and the three part, the three higher.
In which case, the three taggin correspond to Keter (Infinity), Hokhmah (Wisdom), and Binah (Love). The middle one is the tallest, and represents Keter, which is the highest possible state of being; Hokhmah is the next tallest and the next most important so it sits on the right, and Binah is the shortest and sits on the left (Understanding the Alef-Beis, Dovid Leitner).
Talking of wisdom and understanding, what was the deal with Rabbi Akiva earlier? Rabbi Akiva represents a period in rabbinic history when scholars were looking at the day-to-day Judaism which had evolved with the societies it was part of, noting that in some places it didn’t much resemble the original Torah, and doing something about that. To wit, tracing the exegetical paths that ran between the Torah and the current Judaism. Depending on your attitude towards rabbinics, you may find this more or less evidence-of-divine-planning or contrived-post-facto – logical processes leading to everything we do or customs given authenticity by retroactive and unlikely links to biblical authority. It doesn’t really matter; whichever way you swing, Rabbi Akiva and his successors were engaged in an activity that shaped Judaism. That’s not relevant to crownlets per se, except that it was an activity directed at Keter which required Hokhmah and Bina…anyway, I like it.
This is Shabos Zmiros post, done a day early in honor of Shavuos. The video below comes to us from the JTA Telegraph. The Jewy-ness in question begins about two minutes in. Check out the original post for the full story.
Hillary Clinton just said that despite Bibi Netanyahu’s diplomatic defense of “natural” settlement growth, NO EXPANSION will be tolerated by the Obama Administration. Holy moley, it’s music to my ears. I’ve read the article ten times over.
The Administration needs to know that American Jews support the President and don’t support Netanyahu’s right-wing views. BTShalom has launched a campaign to just that effect: “We’ve Got Your Back, Mr. President” (full pledge text below the fold).
So though I’ve said it elsewhere, I’m going to reiterate it here: I’ve got Obama’s back. The (however modest) dedicated political pressure of American Jewish doves will give the President the room to use all methods at his disposal, including various pressures on Israel. In a better world, Bibi would not be leading a right-wing coalition dedicated to Greater Israel and punishing Palestinians, and such concerted support would not be needed.
But we’ve waiting for an American government with the balls to take decisive, fair-handed steps towards getting concessions out of both sides. The public opinion polls of both Jews and Americans at large support it.
Yet the right-wing pro-Israel lobby will cry foul and do their best to prevent any Israeli concessions unless Palestinians become the Care Bears first. They accept the status quo of deprived Palestinian rights and safety without question. They accept the deaths of Israel’s soldiers in ongoing flare ups rooted in a lack of diplomatic relations. They care nothing for the lives of innocents in their desire to crush a wish for independence — such crushing has never succeeded.
We want the Palestinians to have a state, to join Israel as a nation as promised in 1948 by the UN. We want Israel to regain a place of rightful respect on the world stage, to move on with perfecting its social needs. We want the chance for negotiations with Syria and Lebanon to succeed also, for Iran’s misuse of the conflict to be curbed.
This isn’t a blanket support of whatever Obama does. It’s clear, principled support for American even-handed engagement in bringing both sides (however reluctantly) to the negotiating table and monitoring progress towards a fair agreement. Sign the online petition, join the Facebook cause, and learn more.
According to WHO, Israel apparently ranks amongst the healthiest of nations.
This appears to be based on the life expectancy of 81, low rankings of infectious diseases, low newborn mortality rate, comparatively low numbers of people dying of cardiovascular disease and lots of doctors.
Weird. I don’t know quite what to make of it. I’m sure our readers will fill me in. And what does all this say about my family history of heart problems.
I just got back from Toronto where I spent two days at a small and exciting conference reading Moslem and Jewish medieval legal texts with a wonderful group of scholars. One of the highlights of this annual pilgrimage to the northern climes is that I get a chance to hang with my grad-school hevruta Rachael Turkienicz (and, of course, her partner Vadim).
Rachael has created an amazing makom torah/place for Torah study in Toronto called Rachael’s Centre. As the website says:
Rachael’s Centre for Torah, Mussar and Ethics is a not for profit, charitable organization that focuses on sharing and applying Jewish wisdom from a woman’s perspective.
It used to be that you had to live in or around Toronto to be able to study with Rachael, but now that the Centre has a very robust presence on-line you can live anyplace and still benefit from Rachael’s Torah. Check it out.
I arrived at Kutz, where I will remain until the middle of August, from Limmud Colorado on Monday evening. To follow up on my post last week, I was pretty much right. Demographically, it was not as old as what I experienced at Limmud Philly and not as young as Limmud NY. There was this whole lovely cohort of young families as well, mostly crunchy-Orthodox from Boulder. Indeed, as I had guessed, there was a great spirit of cooperation and pluralism endemic to the Colorado Jewish community.
I attended one panel discussion in particular that hilighted this quality. The discussion was called, “What really happened at Mt. Sinai?” The three Rabbis on the panel were the three Rabbis of Boulder; Josh Rose (Reform), Marc Soloway (Conservative) and Gavriel Goldfeder (Modern Orthodox). I was delighted to see that they were all clearly very close friends. They study together and share meals together. The discussion was great. Although each announced fervently at the beginning that they would not toe their movement’s line, they kind of did. But more fascinating than the discussion, was the glimpse into a small Jewish community where everyone seems to go to everyone else’s programs.
There was also a panel that featured Professor Ari Kelman (studies twenty- and thirty-something Jews), Josh Fein (co-founded Denver traditional egalitarian Minyan Na’aleh), and Naomi Soetendorp (co-founded “post-philanthropic” London minyan Wandering Jews). The panel was called “DIY Jewish community,” and promised to feature a discussion by these folks of how Jews are creating these sorts of independent prayer communities. Also in the room, to see the discussion, were a number of Denver and Boulder rabbis. Though one rabbi expressly stated he was there because he likes the feeling at indy minyans and merely wants to see if there are ways he can bring that feeling to his shul, two others took a rather different attitude.
These two, one more vehemently than the other, were stone-cold baffled by why Jews that go to Minyan Na’aleh weren’t going to their established, institutional Denver shuls. They essentially asked what they could do to bring the Na’aleh folks “back” to shul. The panel unanimously said, of course, “If we’re not there, but we’re getting what we need at our minyanim, what are you concerned about? Why define success as getting more Jews to come to your shul than any other?”
Josh, as it turns out, has a kid. Aside from helping to organize Na’aleh, he belongs to a coulple different Denver shuls. One is were his kid goes to Sunday school and another one has a Tot Shabat that he and his wife like. The panel begged the question, “Why do we have to choose one? Why not daven at an indy minyan on Friday nights, go to one shul on Saturday morning, and send our kids to another for school?” Naomi suggested a sort of Jewish community Oyster Card.
Naomi also made an interesting point about her group, Wandering Jews, which she called at one point an “existential minyan.” By this she meant that they have often explicitly given thought to the fact of their group’s existence. The name refers to the fact that the minyan has never been hosted in the same house or flat twice–it wanders. And Naomi said that they don’t try intensely hard to organize the potluck dinner that follows or to make sure there’s a host for next month. “If people need it, they will take care of it, hosting it and bringing food for the potlock. I’m not going to get worked up about the existence of Wandering Jews. If no one needs it, let it slip away,” she said. And she said the same goes for shuls.
A final aside: Everyone on the panel was a child of a Rabbi. Hm.
The social justice agenda and the Israel agenda overlap awkwardly. They are kept separate in our activism, our communities and often in our own thoughts. When they do, we are left with conflicted thoughts, bruised feelings, and shortcomings of priority, loyalty, knowledge. Rightly so, they’re described as two separate “worlds” of Jewish life.
Do they need to be separate? How do they impact our communities? Are the two issues incompatible? Do we end up choosing one over the other, when and why? And can we envision a future Jewish community which integrates social justice with Israel, Israel with social justice, together and elsewhere?
This is why Jewschool is co-sponsoring Love, Hate, and the Jewish State: A Conversation on Social Justice and Israel on Thursday, June 18th at 7 pm. This evening dialogue is brought to you by the folks you trust: social justice leaders who have grown frustrated at being unable to discuss this conflict openly. This is this first attempt at creating an open space where we can hear each other, air our personal qualms, celebrate our similarities, and perhaps think anew about what to do.
This agenda-free, apolitical, open and non-persuasive conversation has one goal: to hear you, to hear each other. Come and leave your mark — full sponsors list below the fold.
News outlets have been buzzing about Obama’s nominee for the Supreme Court as the first Hispanic nominee to this position. But who counts as Hispanic? Turns out, this question is just as tricky as who counts as a Jew, and as NPR pointed out yesterday, these two debates converge around the figure of Justice Benjamin Cardozo, a Sephardic Jew whose family came to the US from Holland, although they likely ended up there following the expulsion of Jews from Portugal. Was he the first Hispanic Supreme Court Justice?
I can already hear the chorus of “who cares?” bubbling up in the comments, and to a certain extent, it doesn’t really matter at all. We certainly don’t want to take any ounce of honor away from Sonia Sotomayor. But I can also imagine that rethinking Cardozo as a Jew of color could create a very powerful role model for kids who don’t often see Jews like themselves represented on their Hebrew School classroom walls.
Staff Sgt. William D. Vile, 27, of Philadelphia, Pa. died of wounds suffered when insurgents attacked his unit using direct fire May 1 near the village of Nishagam, in Konar Province, Afghanistan.
Spc. Shawn D. Sykes, 28, of Portsmouth, Va., died May 7 at Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Landstuhl, Germany, of wounds suffered from an accident that occurred May 5 at Combat Outpost Crazy Horse, Iraq.
Staff Sgt. Randy S. Agno, 29, of Pearl City, Hawaii, died May 8 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, of wounds sustained Apr. 27 from a non-combat related incident at Forward Operating Base Olsen in Samarra, Iraq.
Pvt. Justin P. Hartford, 21, of Elmira, N.Y., died May 8 at Joint Base Balad, Iraq, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident
Maj. Matthew P. Houseal, 54, of Amarillo, Texas. He was assigned to the 55th Medical Company, Indianapolis, Ind.;
Sgt. Christian E. Bueno-Galdos, 25, of Paterson, N.J. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Grafenwoehr, Germany;
Spc. Jacob D. Barton, 20, of Lenox, Mo. He was assigned to the 277th Engineer Company, 420th Engineer Brigade, Waco, Texas; and
Pfc. Michael E. Yates Jr., 19, of Federalsburg, Md. He was assigned to the 3rd Battalion, 66th Armor Regiment, 172nd Infantry Brigade, Grafenwoehr, Germany.
Commander Charles K. Springle, 52, of Wilmington, N.C., died May 11 from injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident at Camp Victory, Iraq.
Spc. Omar M. Albrak, 21, of Chicago, Ill., died May 9, in Baghdad, of injuries sustained during a motor vehicle accident.
Spc. Lukasz D. Saczek, 23, of Lake in the Hills, Ill., died May 10 in Nangarhar Province, Afghanistan, of injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident.
Commander Charles K. Springle, 52, of Wilmington, N.C., died May 11 from injuries sustained from a non-combat related incident at Camp Liberty, Iraq.
Maj. Steven Hutchison, 60, of Scottsdale, Ariz., died May 10, in Basrah of wounds suffered when an improvised explosive device detonated near his vehicle in Al Farr, Iraq.
Cpl. Ryan C. McGhee, 21, of Fredericksburg, Va., died May 13 from wounds suffered when his unit came in contact with enemy forces while conducting combat operations in Central Iraq.
1st Lt. Roslyn L. Schulte, 25, of St. Louis, Mo., died May 20 near Kabul, Afghanistan of wounds suffered from an improvised explosive device.
Background here is I’m going to Montreal this weekend to meet my current Torah shul (Dorshei Emet), write the first bit of Bereshit with them, and a few other things, one of which is a workshop where we shall use Easy Calligraphy to create mizrachim, thingummies you put on the wall to indicate in which direction lies Jerusalem. And I just did a set of worksheets, which I am sharing here for those who can’t be in Montreal this Sunday. Here you are.
They’re 8.5*11″ jpgs because it’s half an hour before Shabbat and I don’t feel like fiddling about converting them into pdfs or web pages or whatever. Clicky for the full-size versions. Send me a pic if you make something pretty, it makes me happy.
I sat down to write a review of Dan Fleshler’s recently published book Transforming America’s Israel Lobby ahead of schedule because I’d heard the Jerusalem Post had dismissed it as irrelevant. The primary criticism JPost levels against the book is that the ideas of Fleshler’s many involvements — IPF, APN, BTShalom, J Street — have “failed gain traction” because those ideas are unpopular. Giving up land to bloodthirsty Palestinians who “reject peace” is the reason Israel has no choice (no choice!) but to pursue her own security single-mindedly.
But those of us who do the work that Fleshler does, building the pro-peace movement, know the real dynamic. The real dynamic is an American Jewish public that has slowly, over the past 20 years, come to realize that Israel is slowly rotting from within, that her politicians are Bushes and Cheneys, and that her military is beginning to lose its professionalism. The year 1948 is over already, and Israel is the dominating power in the region, her military expenditures and GDP are higher than all her neighbors combined.
This is not 1967 either. The Arab League and the Islamic League (72 nations in total) have offered her sweeping acceptance and diplomatic ties in exchange for the one thing Israel should want the most: freedom from managing an occupied territory. Egypt and Jordan, once Israel’s chief enemies, constantly barter her security in the form of ceasefires and intervene diplomatically.
This is not even 2002. The Second Intifada is over. Terrorism is at an all-time low, even counting Hamas’ rockets. Meanwhile, Palestinians are more impoverished, disconnected and ghettoized than ever before — particularly in Gaza. The barrier, checkpoints, and settlements are more pervasive than ever. The failure to produce concessions from Israel via Fatah’s negotiations has yielded newfound support for Hamas’ terrorism. The real question is, when does the Third Intifada start?
American Jews know this, or rather, they couldn’t give you a list like I just did. But they can feel it. The bellicose bluster emanating from the Conference of Presidents feels…odd. Each time Israel overreacts and directs tanks, helicopters, laser-guided precision bombs, airborne drones, cluster munitions, and white phosphorus against a guerrilla terrorism network that relies on bomb belts and home-made rockets, American Jews squirm inside. The discontinuity is palpable. It’s like wearing an itchy sweater.
The left is growing. We’re already the dominant segment of American Jewry. But translating numbers into political power is the subject of Fleshler’s book. The right wing is deeply single-minded about Israel and they represent the old guard of American Jewish leadership. The new leaders of today are rarely found in the organized mouthpieces that speak in Congress.
Just Wednesday, I participated in a feedback session at the White House organized by J Street and Jumpstart in which 30 representatives of grassroots, innovative Jewish nonprofits met Obama’s office of faith-based initiatives. The 30 orgs in the room represented just 10% of the 300 small orgs founded in the past ten years.
This is the future of the American Jewish community, particularly the 58% of unaffiliated Jews (according to J Street’s poll). This burst of orgs share 400,000 members and a budget over $100 million — if you were the White House, wouldn’t you want to meet an org of that size?
Consider specifically the cornucopia of more progressive groups that exist now that didn’t 20 years ago: Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, JustVision, UPZ (now a part of J Street), J Street and its PAC, Encounter, Jewish Voice for Peace…not to mention over 25 Israeli civil and human rights organizations like Yesh Din, Gisha, ACRI, Breaking the Silence, Ir Amim and B’Tselem. We must learn to become bigger than the sum of our parts, not less, as Fleshler suggests we presently do.
Read Dan Fleshler’s book for a primer on how AIPAC is “not the 800 pound gorilla in the room…just the 400 pound gorilla in the room.” Learn from the past mistakes and triumphs of the pro-peace camp and see how AIPAC’s relations with government have begun to fray over the years. Kick ‘em off their pedestal and consider anew the size of the left and why it’s growing.
Fleshler — a life-long advocate of peace since the beginning — is providing a young person like me invaluable perspective on how far we have come. Now the question for us is, what book are we going to write when we’re 50?
Dear readers, Jewschool has a new home! Our friend and tech guru Aryeh Goldsmith has moved us to a new host with vastly more appropriate resources. This means faster loads and no downtimes! Hooray!
We’ve also begun revisiting our contributor list and rebuilding our editorial team. If you’ve ever wanted to guest post to Jewschool, become a regular contributor, or help guide the direction of content and recruitment, drop an email with your credentials to editor@jewschool.com.
Thanks for sticking with us during our bumpy past few months — we’re due for smooth sailing now.
Despite the one foot I still have somwhere in the Reform door, I think it would be safest these days to call myself a Limmudnyk. I’ve been to the last two Limmud NY conferences, spent the last six months or so working for Limmud NY, attended the first Limmud Philly, and I’m taking off tomorrow for Limmud Colorado.
A question has been floating around in my head as I’ve been gearing myself up for LCO in the last few days. In North America, we have several Limmud groups now (NY, LA, CO, Chicago, Atlanta-SE, Toronto, and I know of at least one other in development). Only three have been able to achieve the critical mass necessary for a multi-day event–NY, LA, and CO.
In NY and LA, it’s unsurprising that these groups have blossomed the way they have, given the sheer size of the Jewish populations in the area. Colorado, however, baffles me abit. Denver and Boulder are both known to have sizable Jewish populations, but even combined they can’t be comparable to NY or LA.
So I’m throwing my hypothesis as to how this conference has achieved the size it has out here on Jewschool for y’all’s thoughts and I’ll make sure to follow up on it after or during the conference.
Here’s my hypothesis: Pluralism is a hard word to swallow for American Jewry and Limmud, in all of it’s forms, depends on its participants buying into pluralism for it to work. In LA and NY you can find enough people to buy into it for a weekend because of the sheer number of Jews that live in the area. In Colorado, it would have to hinge on a significantly smaller community of Jews already being predisposed toward pluralism.
Given what I’ve heard from people who’ve spent time in Colorado’s Jewish communities, this sounds like the case. I guess I’ll find out tomorrow afternoon.
Just a couple of days following the first official meeting between PM Netanyahu and President Obama it has become clear that Obama demanded that outposts be evacuated.
Just today Israel forcibly evacuated the outpost of Maoz Esther (pictured to the right), removing the seven metal caravans-turned-homes and forcing the youth present to leave–there were no accounts of violence.
During the Clinton years, Israel would evacuate such outposts while rapidly expanding other settlements. This is still holding true as just in the last few months settlement expansion has been seen at settlements such as Eli, Rechelim, Ma’aleh Michmash and Kochav Hashahar. When I was in Kiryat Arba I also witnessed new housing construction, and likewise while in Bethlehem I could see what appeared to be new homes being built in Har Gilo and Neve Daniel.
So it is clear that Netanyahu is doing the same thing he (and Barak and Sharon and Olmert) did in his last tenure in office, acceding minimally to American demands of evacuating outposts while simultaneously expanding settlements. It will be interesting to see if Obama and Clinton can hold Israel to fulfill American demands or if Israel will be able to continue actively changing the “facts on the ground” and further their grip over the future Palestinian state.
You may have seen this one [youtube] making the rounds lately: former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman (and Super Bowl champion) Alan Veingrad became BT and is living the life of a seriously observant Jew. (Love the sportscaster’s patter at the end: “he studies, he prays, the whole nine yards…”)
Actually, given the abundant opportunity for silly shtick, I think it’s a lovely, respectful piece.
Mount Sinai is the original Mountain of Law, and on top of the Mountain of Law are squillions of crowns which are all themselves mountains of law, and so ad infinitum. I’m sure there’s a spiritual word for “fractal,” but I can’t think of it at the moment – anyway, it suggests the move from the first mountain, the physical realm, into the mountains beyond, the metaphysical realm. 
Wonderful news: Rabbi Brian Walt is now officially a blogger. 
…how to make pretties like this!
I sat down to write a review of Dan Fleshler’s recently published book Transforming America’s Israel Lobby ahead of schedule because I’d heard 
Just a couple of days following the 
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