by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Monday, October 8th, 2007
Exodus 23:10-11: “Six years you shall sow your land and gather in its produce, but the seventh year you shall let it rest and lie fallow, that the poor of your people may eat; and what they leave, the beasts of the field may eat. In like manner you shall do with your vineyard and your olive grove.â€
This year is a shmita year, described above. It only applies in Eretz Yisrael. In modern Israel, the teleology of the shmita year (arguably to benefit the poor) seems to crash up against the halachic practice of the law: some of the country’s poorest are having to pay exorbitant prices for produce. The New York Times today has an article on it. [Note: heter mechira is the ruling that allows eating produce grown and harvested on the shmita year. See Kol Ra'ash Gadol's recent pieces on the controversy of the rulings.]
The chief rabbinate, which controls the vital kosher certificates for food, declared this year that heter mechira was the rule, but it also said rabbis of local cities and towns could decide for themselves. The announcement resulted in confusion, anger, an unresolved suit before the Supreme Court, a rabbinical revolt and a declaration by the agriculture minister, Shalom Simhon, that he will forbid imports that compete with Israeli produce.
In Jerusalem, Israel’s poorest city, heter mechira is not supposed to be recognized. But while the Supreme Court is deciding on a petition against the chief rabbinate’s ruling, some supermarkets are selling produce under the heter mechira dispensation.
Since the ultra-Orthodox make up at least 30 percent of the city’s population, shops in areas like Geula and Mea Shearim are paying prices two or three times higher than normal for cucumbers and tomatoes grown only by non-Jews in the West Bank. The community is already among the poorest in Jerusalem, but the rulings of their rabbis matter far more to them than money.
More »
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Sunday, October 7th, 2007
Slacker Prophet Te’ De Van carries a sign: one side says he does energy healing, the other side says he free-styles. He started offering not only on-the-spot freestyling if you see him on the street, but also pre-ordered raps for various events. If you are looking for the latter but are not in the downtown Manhattan area, or wherever he happens to be at a given time, you are now in luck: you can apparently hire Te’ De Van to create an original freestyle rap-o-gram for you that he will put on YouTube. The lack of obvious holidays coming up might force you to be creative in the purpose of your rap: Rosh Chodesh Heshvan, anyone?
Here’s what he has to say about it, straight from this piece of paper he wrote out for me on the bus, about why you should hire him:
1.) I’m an endangered species
2.) Presidential candidate
3.) 6 foot 7 inch freestyle rapping chi-gong healing jew
4.) Great way to make a first and lasting impression
5.) Living proof that we can be tall and not a lawyer and good with words
6.) Because Chanukah could use some chutzpah
7.) Because how many Tiffany bracelets with a heart can you really buy
8.) Because I’m a modern day fiddler on the roof
9.) Because Barbara Streisand and Bette Midler would be proud
10.) For Passover dinner you could say at least this time I brought home a Jewish boy
You can reach him at tedevanthehealer at yahoo.com, rapograms at gmail.com, or www.myspace.com/rapogram.
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Sunday, October 7th, 2007
Okay, I’m not even going to pretend to have a larger, philosophical point to this post. I just find it to be funny, and I think you might too. Hey, at least he wanted to know what I like, as well… do I like the Police? Do I like concerts? how often do I talk to my family? What trip was my favorite? Which movie theater do I like? … This email basically left nothing for us to talk about if we ever did get together. (A friend also pointed out that he said he taped his grandparents talking without their knowing, in paragraph 125. I hadn’t even noticed, because at that point I was just skimming, but it was quite puzzling, I must admit…)
A Jdate email I received:
hello
It’s unusual for someone to have been to San Salvador. this detail caught my attention. so i thought i would send you an email. i went there for the wedding of a friend mine 4 years ago. it was a lot of fun. i went 6 times to south and central america actually. my trips have taken me to Guatemala, El Salvador, costa rica, ecuador, chile, argentina, and Brazil…
But ok, i admikt, i am writting to you because you are extremely attractive, so now I simply would love to know more about you…I would love to know the events / experiences that have shaped your personality, and what makes you dream for instance. But ok, let’s be fair, I need to tell you more about myself first… More »
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Wednesday, October 3rd, 2007
So I’m waiting for the Lucky Star bus at South Station to get to New York City for Yom Kippur (I just love Hadar‘s davenning for YK), and this extremely tall dude with blond dreads and two Big Brown Bags of stuff takes a seat next to me. We start talking; he’s been in Boston visiting a friend. He mentions he’s a healer.
“Wait a minute,” I say; somewhere in the deep recesses of my mind I conjure a Jewschool post from December. The vivid image of him on the street in New York City, energy healing passersby, was hard to forget. (You should watch the video if you haven’t yet.) “Do you have like a YouTube video?”
“Yeah,” he says.
“I’ve seen it.”
Te’ De Van tells me how he went to U Michigan for philosophy and now lives by choice on the streets of New York, travels the country by bus or ride, visiting, healing, freestyling. We talk about energy and spirirtual healing, the Chi Gong master he learned with, his Jewish roots, Ram Dass, philosophy. I’ve just finished Kerouac’s Dharma Bums, and sitting there, I think to myself, here is a real dharma bum. And, some things do not change. The impulse to separate from material culture, to find an existence below the radar of marketing, individualism, consumerism, to forge an existence based on generosity, good will, and relationship has always walked beside our Western culture, whether in the 50s or today. Reading Kerouac, I recognized the lifestyle, the people, the impulse–from an intimate space of knowing, not by stretching to create analogous situations I could relate to.
“The secret,” Te’ De Van says, “is to not care how you end up. If you don’t care how you end up, no one can harm you.”
I know a lot of people, perhaps myself included, who practice Vipassina, talk kabbalah and hitbodedut and Buddhism, follow festivals, have opening heart experiences, wander in and out of cities and countries, aim for freedom. But few of us, I think, are really unincumbered with the material objects of our culture. (When I say material, I do not mean we should shun experiences of this world for transcendent ones of a “higher,” because spiritually I am in this world and awareness and gratitude for it, but rather it’s the object-owning-consuming that’s the problem.) I have my nesting impulse, the one that collects and owns, the one that needs stability and my own stuff, the one that likes costly clothing and electronic conveniences. And then I have an impulse to drop all my objects, my succcess-based goals, and follow the path the universe or God lays out for me moment to moment–strengthened when I’m wandering through Jerusalem’s streets or when I meet people like Te’ De Van.
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Monday, October 1st, 2007
This guy has been emailing me and for some reason got on a roll about knitting. I think he was trying to prove how multifaceted he was: “I knit! I know it’s odd, but how many boxing coaches do you know who knit!” WOW! Color me charmed. I mentioned that I crochet, to keep conversation going (why? why?). He sent me this email today:
i was in portsmouth nh for wedding sat
went to AMAZING knitting store 
want to get together for a craft circle?
hope all is well
[first initial]
Just had a little JChat with him. I thought it might shed some light on… something. Well, at the very least, all you male JDaters out there (and regular daters for that matter) can learn a little something about how NOT to approach someone.
Him: Hi, Crochet Queen
[Why doesn't he try to find out something else about me instead of just hammering down this dead end path about getting together for a craft circle?]
Me: hey there. thanks for your email. i was just looking at your profile, and i’m actually really looking for someone who shares my political beliefs — i’m pretty left wing
[I just finished a workshop on mutually satisfying relationships at Sukkahfest which helped me to clarify what I'm really looking for in a relationship. He is not it. Oh, also, why on earth am I telling you all this? I have no idea.]
Him: why do you base everything on one line of a ciomputer profile?
Him: i HOPE I am more than that!
[Well, since you've only been writing me two line emails that say nothing except update me on the progress of your knitting hobby, I'm actually not sure there is more than that.]
Mer: i’m absolutely sure you are!
Him: so
Him: let’s focus on what bring sus togetrher More »
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Tuesday, September 25th, 2007
For all you out there in the “Maybe Rabbis Club,” as my friends and I affectionately titled it (I left the club a few years later to join the “Future Rabbis Club”), now is the time to check out Hebrew College Rabbinical School.
I know I’ve written a little about the school and what we do, and I have a post I need to write about Art Green’s amazing convocation speech [you can listen to him talk about kabbalah on NPR's Fresh Air here], but here’s the deal: Hebrew College Rabbinical School is where the jam is. Seriously.
And for those of you contemplating service as your life path, but who might be nervous about lacking denominational affiliation, joining a new endeavor, job prospects, blah blah blah all the things I thought meant I couldn’t apply to Hebrew College, think again. It took major pushing from my mentor (you can see us celebrating her installation as Dean of the Rabbinical School below) to get me to apply, and now I couldn’t imagine going anywhere else to prepare myself to be a revolutionary in the empowerment-based, text-saavy, joyful, meaningful, creative, independent Jewish future I (and I suspect many of us) are working to build.
“What does a transdenominational rabbinical school look like?” many people wonder. It’s surprisingly simple. For those of us who have ever been to a pluiralistic Jewish retreat, gathering, or celebration, it looks like that. Period. People come, we learn together, we argue, we challenge, we try new things, and we are challenged to define our own spiritual and professional paths not according to denominational dogma but according to our own searching, through intensive education and with mentors and teachers from all backgrounds. It looks like any pluralistic day school, or yeshiva, or retreat. It looks like Limmud, it looks like National Havurah Institute, it looks like Jews in the Woods. Except all year long. And with common mission among students to change the world for the better and to bring about a new kind of Jewish communal life.
See for yourself. Come and learn with us, sing with us, pray with us, share with us.
Details on the flip. More »
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Wednesday, September 19th, 2007
I’m realizing that sometimes it’s hard to negotiate my desire to live fully in the mainstream (Jewish) America while also dedicating my life to the Jewish tradition. Maybe some dear readers have known this for ages, but as a self-described baalat teshuvah, I only became observant and Jewishly learning about six years ago. I have these various visions of myself, and I want to say, “Yeah, totally, let’s go to that punk show on whatever night, Friday is fine, I’m not some looney religious person” which is partly a past voice, and also I want to say, “Hey, I’m going to be hosting a post-havdalah new moon drum circle in my house and chanting some prayers and melodies, let me know if you’re coming early so I can leave the door open so you don’t have to buzz up before Shabbat ends…”
For example, not so sure about finding someone on JDate in Boston. With all appreciation and awe for Ruby-K and General Anna, and with thanks to my mother for recently purchasing a three month subscription to JDate for me and then checking in with me incessantly about it (“So… meet anyone new lately?”), I’m just not sure this is going to be a goldmine for me looking for the specific subset of Jewish man who digs religion, intelligent women, feminism, humor, and fruitiness. (Ugh, this is starting to sound like my profile… Hey, if you fit the above description you can leave me a message here and you don’t even have to pay a membership fee!) It’s the religion part I’m thinking about tonight.
Some examples of philosophical/theological disconnect from my JDate tonight: More »
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Tuesday, September 18th, 2007
It’s hard enough being a young female rabbi without inadvertantly offending the key master of the entire Boston Jewish community. [I'm late in posting this, I blame the holidays.]
For those of you who haven’t been following football, the uproar in Boston right now is over charges that Patriots coach Bill Belichick knowingly had a Patriots employee videotape opposition plays to get the scoop on their offense before the game. Belichick has been fined $500,000, and it’s pretty disgraceful for the Pats (who nonetheless creamed the competition on Sunday without videotape help, go Pats!). Many of you know the name Bob Kraft from Kraft stadium in Israel, from his great philathropic work in the Boston Jewish community and around the world. You should also, then, know that he is the owner of the Patriots and a davenner in Newton, MA.
Well, seems that on Rosh Hashanah, the rabbi at Kraft’s shul decided to use perhaps an unfortunate metaphor in her sermon — as covered by Jason Schwartz on the Boston Daily Blog of Boston Magazine.
Her main trope was that people should act as as though God is always watching them. Not a bad lesson, except that in making her point she must have made an endless number of references to acting like you’re being videotaped. This was awkward… The guy sitting next to my dad leaned over and whispered, “Does she even know Bob Kraft goes to this Temple?†and a hefty portion of the congregation craned their necks over to Kraft’s pew toward the front. To his credit, he didn’t have any sort of discernible reaction. But, about five seconds after that sermon mercifully ended, he was up and out of there. In fairness, it was toward the end of the service and plenty of other people were leaving too, but trust me, there was no hesitation in his step.
Funny in its own right. What isn’t funny are some of the posts in response. Mostly they are other members of the shul rebuking Schwartz for his opinion/for exposing the incident. Some good stuff there. Some, however, focused on the rabbi:
“Saul” wrote:
The more important question here is why the rabbi of your congregation is a woman. There’s no way a male rabbi would have not known about the sensitive situation Mr. Kraft is in. This is just another example of what happens when a woman does a MAN’s job.
And “Bob” (presumably not Kraft) wrote:
The blogger did not embarrass Bob Kraft – the rabbi did that all by herself. And the blogger didn’t embarrass the rabbi – she did that all by herself, too. After years of her silly sermons where she tries to find spiritual messages to share with the congregation in tales of her daughter’s poop-filled diapers, and all the other stories of her kids, her mother-in-law, her cooking, her…. on an on…. she is clearly beyond feeling embarrassment. This is not the first time she stumbled into inflaming the sensitivities of the community. Maybe next sermon she can talk about harming people through acts that are intentional vs reckless vs simpleminded and uninformed. That would make for a good Yom Kippur sermon, as long as she doesn’t include more stories about her kids.
Errr… Does this mean that all stories of family and home-based experiences should be left off the bimah, while sports analogies are encouraged as long as they are sensitive to the feelings of sports celebrities??
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Monday, September 17th, 2007
But I got the goods right here!
The National Havurah Committee just began soliciting submissions for courses for next year’s Summer Institute. Because the info isn’t yet on their website, I’ll give you the abbreviated sneak peak version here. Institute 2008 will be August 11-17 at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, NH. Proposals are due Nobember 26, 2007, and you get to go to Institute for free (excluding $36 membership dues) as appreciation for your teaching dedication. Quoting the course committee’s materials:
The theme for the 2008 Institute is *Baruch she-amar v’hayah ha-olam* Blessed is the One who spoke the world into being (or, as ArtScroll translates it: Blessed is the one who spoke, and the world came into being). The Institute planning committee notes that this phrase resonates with our overall interest in turning speech into action and learning into doing, connecting torah with social and environmental justice. It resonates with creation themes, both ecologically and metaphorically, and opens the door to courses about worlds we create with our words. While we invite proposals for courses that speak to or draw upon the theme, we welcome proposals in all topics relevant to our community. Every proposal receives full consideration.
Include course title and 75-100 word blurb, lesson plan, bio/CV. For more info and details on submissions, write to courses at Havurah.org or call the NHC office at 215-248-1335.
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Monday, August 27th, 2007
If you cared about Hineini, the documentary about Shulamit Izen and her coming out process at the New Jewish High School in Boston, you’ll want to get on board with helping reach even more people. Thursday night, August 30, will be a great time to get out and support the work that Keshet is doing to make Jewish educational institutions and communal organizations safe spaces for LGBT Jews. Grand old Reform synagogue Ohabei Shalom at 1187 Beacon St in Brookline (you’ll feel the 50s in the stained glass, although the dome roof kind of reminds me of a mosque!) is hosting Keshet’s Benefit Folk Concert featuring P.J. Shapiro, Mark Lipman, and Rebecca Katz. Tickets range from $15-$25. Chip in for equality, there’s so much work to be done to make our Jewish spaces ones in which all Jews feel included and respected. Concert starts at 6:30pm, 617-524-9227 for questions.
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Thursday, June 14th, 2007
I remember when gay marriage was being debated back in 2004. All day long, the tv’s in my college student lounges were showing local access to catch the debates going on over at the State House. Impassioned speeches about daughters and siblings who wanted simply to marry their beloveds, Bible-brandishing arguments, reasoned and not so reasoned appeals. It was inspiring — civics at work in an intelligent, nuanced way.
When gay marriage was finally made legal a little later that year, there was a party down at Cambridge city hall. Couples showed up in wedding dresses and tuxes, bright and early in the morning, to be the first to wed. It was one long simcha, lasting throughout the day. I was stuck in my library cubicle writing my thesis while friends went over there, but the photos just made me cry with happiness for these folks, and to this day I really regret not making it down to Central Square to celebrate.
That was not the end of it, though. Although 8500 couples have wed since then, for those of you following the debate, today was the constitutional convention to vote on whether or not to bring an ammendment banning gay marriage in Massachusetts to a referendum in 2008. Basically, this was a vote on whether gay marriage, which has already been made legal in Massachusetts, should be open to being outlawed.
Well, we won! Gay marriage is safe from challenge, at least for now, in the fine state that brought you the American Revolution, JFK, the Red Sox, universal health care (if only they would fund it), and lots of other good things promoting freedom and justice.
We remain the only state in the union in which gay marriage is legal.
Keshet did a great job of organizing the Jewish community.
See more in the Boston Globe here or, if you have to get it from the NYTimes, here . By the time you read this, there may be updates, so check the Globe for more detailed anaylsis later here. For more info on the issues, see the MassEquality website.
[And congrats to Leah featured in the photo below!]
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Thursday, June 14th, 2007
So my friend Barefoot told me a few weeks ago, “The most amazing thing has happened. I am a bone marrow match for a girl in the States, and I am going to donate my bone marrow.” I didn’t quite get it. I asked, “What does that mean to you? I’m not sure what to say, is it like ‘Congrats’? Tell me about it.”
“It’s probably one of the most amazing things I will ever do in my whole life. I have the capacity to save another person’s life, and I’m going to do it.”
I don’t know why it took her basically repeating what she’s said a second time in order for it to sink in. I don’t know why I didn’t immediately understand that actually saving another person’s life by your actual actions could be one of the most amazing things you’ll ever do. I guess we talk a lot about “saving lives” in the activist world, and so maybe I’ve become desensitized to it. But I’m not sure I can say that I’ve ever actually saved a person’s life.
Well, now Barefoot can. And you can too.
GesherCity Boston, along with the JCRC, Harvard Hillel, Kavod House, Tremont 20s and 30s, Tufts Hillel, Workmen’s Circle, Havurah on the Hill, Young Leadership Division of CJP, are holding a bone marrow drive in which they test you with a simple cheek swab and add you to the national registry of bone marrow donors. As if the chance of saving another person’s life is not enough, the event will also feature
GOLEM!!!!
who just absolutely rock the house with their fierce and cheeky Klezmer fusion. Also speakers, food, giveaways, a JP Licks Sundae bar, activities, a raffle (including Red Sox, Patriots and Blue Man Group tickets, restaurant gift certificates and movie passes!), and lots of other good stuff.
WHAT: The GesherCity Bone Marrow Drive and Community Celebration of Life made possible by the Winn Family, in partnership with North America’s only Jewish bone marrow donor registry, the Gift of Life Bone Marrow Foundation, and Combined Jewish Philanthropies.
WHEN: June 24, 2007 2:00pm to 6:00pm
WHERE: 52 Mount Auburn Street, Cambridge MA (at Harvard Hillel, Red Line to Harvard Square)
TO SIGN UP, CLICK HERE.
Also check out the pretty:
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Friday, June 8th, 2007
I walked into HaTav HaShmini, a record store on Rechov Shammai, for my last purchases in Jerusalem before catching my Nesher to the airport to return to Boston. I had a short list of recommendations from LastTrumpet of Jewy hippie music to pick up, and I wanted to listen to whatever was good. (Unlike in the States, in Israel they still let you listen to the music before you buy it.)
I flipped through the Jewish music section, picked out a couple of disks, listened to some, put some back. I found a disc called something like music of the kabbalah, which turned out to be an overly Orientalized cantorial selection of kabbalistic poetry, most of it liturgical. I had bought a disc by Ein Od Milvado during a clothing excursion to the Bat Ayin store (I know, I know, but they have the best selection of clothing for my style and body type), so I was looking through some other of his discs. I saw a disc put out by the Bat Ayin community and was really curious what would be on such a thing. (The first song was a strange ballad to Bat Ayin…) There were some other religious CDs too. The guy at the counter, a large guy with curly Jew hair and a scraggly beard and mustache, politely switched discs for me; I must have listened to like 5 or 6. Finally, I selected the three I wanted and handed them over to purchase.
The guy at the counter looked at what I’d chosen and said, “You know what you’d really like? There’s this album Orange Days? that’s really good; it has all the best Chassidic singers. You should listen to it.” He gestured to a dreadlocked dude to get the CD.
Dreadlocked dude got me the disc and set it down in front of me while counter guy rang someone else up.
“Yamim Ktumim: Shirim shel Tikvah v’Emunah” was the title. (“Orange Days: Songs of Hope and Faith.”) The album cover was black and orange, with a huge photograph of young religious people marching in a line with instruments somewhere in Gush Katif. Against the disengagement. It was an album memorializing the fight against the disengagement.
WHAT? What kind of demographic had I unintentionally projected by my music choices and clothing? Where did I go wrong and appear to be a right wing fanatic? I mean I guess the Bat Ayin album might have falsely incriminated me, but really, why are religious hippies in Israel predominantly right-wingers? What IS that? Why can’t I have hippie religious experience without right wing politics? What do I even mean by hippie anymore.
OR… In other words, I realized my naivite. How could I blame counter guy for his assumption? Up til a certain point, I am apparently okay patronizing stores that support settlements, hanging out at Nachlaot gatherings and minyanim with people who wish that all Arabs would be shot, considering learning at a place closely tied with Yeshivat Bat Ayin, buying music by right-wingers because it’s good, but somehow buying an album called “Yamim Ktumim” was just one step over the line. Visiting Bat Ayin or another settlement is one step over the line.
(It’s an intriguing step over the line though, like buying designer clothes or renting an SUV on a vacation or not recycling. There’s something naughty and thrilling in stepping to the other side for a little while.)
The counter guy took the CD and started unwrapping it to put it in the CD player for me to listen to it.
“Ah, no. No thanks, I don’t want to listen to it,” I said.
“You sure?” I nodded my head. He shrugged, clearly bewildered. “Okay,” and rang me up.
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Tuesday, May 29th, 2007
I began to do serious Jewish learning six years ago. I grew up Reform and failed by the Hebrew School system, and discovered Jewish learning through a fellowship at my college Hillel. When that fellowship ended, I was looking for somewhere else I could continue to learn and ask questions. I wanted to immerse myself in Jewish learning and to understand the laws of Shabbat, to learn Jewish texts, to learn how to daven.
That’s when I found Lishma.
It’s sort of the secret missing link in the collection of programs that many of the young progressive Jewish professional types go through along the way. No Bronfman program or Jews in the Woods, Lishma nonetheless has had a profound impact on many up and coming Jewish leaders. Learning all day long in the Beit Midrash at Camp Ramah Ojai (CA), davenning 3x a day, guest speakers, chevruta discussion, excellent teachers, and nice group housing by an orange grove separate from camp cabins. Lishma is a joint program of the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies (Conservative) and Camp Ramah.
Here’s the blurb:
LISHMA is an extraordinary Jewish learning experience– a 4-week,intensive summer yeshiva for young adult Jews (18-26) located at Camp Ramah in California. Lishmaniks live among the orange groves in the beautiful LISHMA house, learn traditional Jewish prayer, study daily with renowned Talmud scholar from Bar Ilan University, Aaron Amit, engage in weekly social action projects , and hear lectures from prominent rabbis and scholars throughout the summer. Lishmaniks also enjoy the recreation facilities of Camp Ramah, including an Olympic sized pool, tennis and basketball courts, art, ceramics, hiking and more. Other highlights include a weekend camping trip to the Channel Islands, as well as ongoing spiritual mentoring with LISHMA Directors Lizzi Heydemann and Jordan Gerson, both students at the Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies. This summer’s dates are June 17-July 16, 2007.
Check out our website at www.ramah.org/lishma and download the application. The application deadline is May 31st.
LISHMA is the perfect experience for the interested beginner, for someone with text study background, or for someone considering rabbinical school or a career in Jewish education. For more information write to lishma@ramah.org, or call 314-324-8124
If you want to take some time to do some good learning and you’re maybe at the beginning side of this stage of your Jewish journey, check it out. Deadline for applications has been extended until May 31.
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Wednesday, May 23rd, 2007
Shavuot in Jerusalem is a wild night. It’s like a pub crawl, but with Torah. Each place you go has a different flavor: maybe you’ll start out with some neo-Chassidic talk on cleaving to God and then walk to your next stop at a Freudian exploration of the parasha with Dr. Aviva Zornberg, after which maybe you drop in on a discussion on Jewish law.
This year, I started at the Shalom Hartman Institute, which was founded by Rabbi David Hartman. For those who don’t know Rabbi David Hartman, he is a real gadol in Jewish philosophy, pluralism, and Israel-Diaspora relations. He’s also not afraid to push the envelope. So I was delighted to hear the second half of his lecture on the meaning of Shabbat, in which he was looking at the Shabbat of the land of the Sabbatical and Jubilee years. (What can I say, I was eating dinner with friends and had some sheva brachot to celebrate with the new couple–can’t cut that short!)
He was talking about how the Torah’s laws on the Sabbatical and Jubilee years didn’t quite play out right. The main element of them is letting the land go fallow for one year out of seven, giving it a Shabbat of its own. There was also an economic aspect: the Jubilee year included the remission of debts, return of land to original owners, and freeing of slaves. The laws can be seen as preventing the accumulation of wealth into only a small number of hands.
The Talmud presents a discussion of the laws in which the rabbis notice that people are not lending to the poor before the Sabbatical year — in effect, the laws are doing the opposite of their intention, keeping the poor starving instead of enabling them to eat. Therefore, Rabbi Hillel of blessed memory instituted the prosbol, basically making these laws inapplicable so that people would continue to lend to the poor even when approaching a Jubilee year. In other words, Hillel makes a blanket proclamation that laws from the Torah are no longer in effect in order to accomplish what seems to be the spirit of the law.
Rabbi Hartman concluded by giving a table-pounding speech about the need to do this today in the context of agunot, women whose husbands have left them but refuse to give them a get (a Jewish writ of divorce) that they need in order to remarry. This is a really hot topic in Orthodoxy today, because there are thousands of women at the mercy of their deadbeat husbands, who refuse to give them a get either trying to extort money from them or simply because they have disappeared and can’t be found to issue the get. Rabbi Hartman said this is a time like that of the Jubilee year when we need to look at the spirit of the law and ask, “Did God really want one group of Jews to be exploiting another group and keeping them powerless? No.”
It was really electrifying. I was totally with him. But I turned to fellow rabbinical student Danya and said, “Okay. This is great stuff. So when is he going to start ordaining women?” She nodded knowingly.
Maybe ten minutes later, Rabbi Hartman was walking past us out of the auditorium. “Now’s your chance to ask him your question,” Danya said. I made sheepish excuses, so instead she marched up to him.
“Rabbi Hartman, I really enjoyed your drash, especially what you were saying about agunot. So, I just wanted to know, what do you think about ordaining women?”
“No problem,” Rabbi Hartman said immediately. “Absolutely.”
Which leaves me still wondering: when the Hartman rabbinical program that is rumored to be in the works does actually start up, do I get to come and learn?
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Monday, May 21st, 2007
“Indulge your creative side with GesherCity as we present Jewish art and media from New York City blended with Boston’s local scene” the postcard ad says. It’s a GesherCity Boston event on June 12 called HaMisiba (“the Party”), framing itself as a night of hip young Jew scene, at Phoenix Landing in Cambridge. I’m kind of irked. Don’t we have enough Jewish hip things going on in Boston that we don’t need to import it from New York?
I’m third generation Jewish Bostonian. Born and raised in the land of baked beans and frappes, Patriot’s day and the packie, the T and the Sawx, and I love that dirty water. Boston’s Jewish community is vibrant and even innovative. The Combined Jewish Philanthropies is a thriving arm of the federation that single-handedly created the position of synagogue educator by making community education a funding priority. Kosher restaurants, synagogues of every kind throughout the Boston area, young Jews and old Jews, indie minyans and enormous centuries old stained-glass structures — Boston’s a place in which you can make a Jewish life without a struggle.
Now, it may have to do with the Red Sox-Yankees battle of good over evil (and we will prevail, Ruby K, check those standings!), or it may be the smog, or it may be stubborn pride mixed with thinly veiled jealousy, but I really hate it when people act like the only thing cool and Jewish going on in America is in New York City. True, a huge number of American Jews live in New York City, and I think I still don’t fully understand the Jewyness of the place even after having visited it countless times, but still: we’ve got our own thang over here. And so do they in San Fran, Hotlanta, D.C., Miami, Philly, not to mention L.A. Why do we always have to be looking over our shoulder at what New York is doing? Do we really have to import Jewish culture from New York in order to be cutting edge?
And yet… as I write this from an apartment in Jerusalem, approaching my first Shavuot at the Kotel, I do know that it feels like the center of the universe here sometimes. Many times. Maybe because it is the center to my Diaspora. And I know that sometimes sheer quantity of people makes innovation happen, and although we are robust, we in the Hub of the Universe (that’s Beantown for those not in the know) don’t have the several million Jews crammed into one place to birth some of the stuff happening down in New York or happening here in Israel.
Maybe the difference is how we consider our Diasporas? What we consider their centers to be? For many Jews whose families come from New York or who grew up in New York, New York is the obvious Jerusalem to their Ann Arbor, or Washington, or even Boston. As someone who appreciates Israel but has no intention of making aliyah, who values both center and Diaspora equally and defines her role in the Jewish world as being completely tied up in the Diaspora, I submit that when we start appreciating and highlighting the unique contributions of all our many Diaspora communities, both can only become richer.
Oh yeah, and this GesherCity event, HaMisiba? It looks pretty cool. Check it out. Jewschool may show up to wow the crowd, stay tuned.
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Monday, February 12th, 2007
[Update] As a Bostonian member of the Jewschool crew, I’m making sure that people know where the action is over here in Beantown. In case you haven’t heard Minna Bromberg sing before, since she’s hitting the stages less often now that she’s full time at Hebrew College Rabbinical School, her folky style and soaring voice are really something. Her songs are bright and clever, and she has some serious heart.
Minna’s playing a rare concert this Saturday night (7pm, $18+ suggested donation) at the Moishe/Kavod Social Justice House in Brookline. It’ll probably be a little squishy, but that’s okay because you’ll get to meet other progressive young Jewish types that typically flock to Kavod House events. The concert is a benefit for the American Jewish World Service’s Darfur Action Campaign. Having just returned from an AJWS delegation to El Salvador, I can say that if you are going to contribute to one organization this year that knows what they are doing and is doing the maximum amount of good, give to AJWS.
Every day, people are dying in Darfur. In this season of approaching Purim, remember that, just as Mordechai tells Esther when the Jews face genocide in Shushan, “Who knows? Perhaps for this very crisis you have [attained your position],” so too are we called on to stand up in the face of genocide.
More »
by YehuditBrachah [➚] · Sunday, February 11th, 2007
Talk about democratizing religion! Wouldn’t it be nice, you say to yourself, to have a website compiling Jewish musical traditions and songs from all over the world, sorting them by geography, liturgy, and historical period, providing free music recordings and the accompanying texts, so that I can learn new songs from the Jewish tradition that are only available usually if you know an old guy from Bukhara or Morocco? Well, look no further than Invitation to Piyut.
Last Wednesday night, I went to “Currents of the River: An Evening of Piyutim — Sacred Jewish Poetry and Music,” a concert and presentation of Invitation to Piyut website by Israeli Tefillalt Ensemble hosted by Temple Beth Zion in Brookline, MA (best known perhaps as “Moshe Woldoks’s Shul”).
Let me tell you, I left so excited I could barely contain myself.
It’s a very simple idea really, which is why it is so revolutionary. More »
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