Yesterday afternoon, as Passover came to a close for many of us, I had the opportunity to be part of a “Ba’al Shem Tov Meal”, a Jewish ritual very different from what I’m used to. My friend ML is a 10th- or 12th-generation direct descendant of Reb Yisrael Ba’al Shem Tov, itinerant mystic and 17th-century founder of Hasidism, and as such, has inherited a unique practice which has been observed in her family meticulously and without fail each year: They cook exactly 31 matza balls, with one larger than the others, and sit around to hear the recitation (in Yiddish or in partial English translation) of the story of Reb YBST’s attempt to bring the Mashiach by travelling to Israel to meet The Ohr HaChaim, Rav Chaim IbnAttar, with whom he believed he shared King David’s reincarnated soul.
So about twenty of us friends of ML sat around her studio apartment, munching on Matza Lasagna, salads, and 31 matza balls sponsored by Moishe House Silver Spring, and listened to ML read her cousin’s recently completed translation of the entire story. It was good times, and there was a lot of joking about the historicity of the improbable tale, but what struck me more than the fun, the lively company, or the food, was the devotion and persistence with which this Passover custom had been passed down through the generations. Its power was such that ML, one of my most cynical friends, could not imagine letting the last day of Pesach pass without making a Ba’al Shem Tov Meal of her own, complete with all 31 matza balls, and an (irreverant but) attentive audience.
For the past 260 years her extended family members have gathered in their homes yearly to keep this story going, and despite its different variants (was the daughter named Udel or Adel? Was Reb Yisrael attacked by ghouls or pirates?)Â the tale is remarkably cohesive. It seems like Reb YBST was successful when he started this practice so long ago. If you could make sure your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandchildren were telling a story about your life more than two centuries from now, what story would you want them to tell? And how would you see to it that they did?
An extremely-truncated version of the story told at the Ba’al Shem Tov Meal can be found here.
There were many times when we worried that one move too far into the mainstream, one step beyond the very traditional bounds of the Orthodox world, could bring a ban on a certain very tall Hasid. We took a lot of questions to the Bet Din at 770 and respected the answers they gave, but always, always, I had this concern. Seems in another part of “the Jewish music jungle” (Thanks frumhouse, i love that term), just such a ban has been decreed. Does anyone care? Will anyone follow it? I just find this too intriguing not to share…
Have you heard of The Big Event? If so, for the love of Hashem, write a comment and chime in. I love how the Ultra-Orthodox world can randomly swing into Madison Square Garden and it flies totally under the radar of the rest of the Jewish world. Apparently, it is/was a concert planned for March 9th featuring frum music favorites headlined by Lipa Shmeltzer. Lipa really is a King. A wedding singer and simcha entertainer, he gained prominence with his lighthearted rewrites of secular tunes as newly Kosherfied hits in both Yiddish and English. He performed at a friend’s wedding and while his “Yo Ya” was good, he really got me with version of Melanie C’s “I turn to you.” Apparently you can make it Jewish simply by adding “Hashem” before the phrase. ANYWAYS…
I’ll let the frum bloggers explain from here: Frumhouse:Basically, the current king of the Jewish music jungle, Lipa Schmeltzer, has been deemed too wild by certain factions of the orthodox community. Furthermore, these factions believe that current Jewish music has become goyified (my word, not theirs). Songs that stem from non-Jewish melodies, even if the words and taam have been changed to elevate their kiddusha, are deemed inappropriate for kosher Jewish entertainment.
This concert and future Jewish music concerts have been banned by a group of about 35 rabbanim. They also prohibit people from hiring any performer who participates in the Big Event Concert.
Lipa speaks out: I have recently started learning Bichavrusa with a leading Rosh Yeshiva, and I promised him that I will never sing any songs which were composed by non-Jews. Being true to my word, I have sang at more then a dozen Chasuna’s since I made that decision - and I have not sang “Yiddenâ€, “Abi-Mileibtâ€, or “Numa†(Rabbi Nachman M’uman) or any other song that is questionable as to its origin.
The really ironic thing to me about this is many Hasidic niggunim, and most Jewish music in general, doesn’t come from exclusively Jewish sources. We are a people with a tradition of song as a vital form of expression in our lives. But with the exception of Torah cantillation as a system of musical notation and musical modes of prayer, as a Diaspora people our appropriation of the culture of our various host communities is inevitable. What makes Klezmer more Jewish than pop songs about Hanukkah? What makes pining for Hashem to the tune of a French Revolutionary War March more Kosher than pining to Hashem to the tune of an ex-Spice Girl?
Today was Shushan Purim Katan here in Jerusalem. That is, in a year with two months of Adar, the first month we don’t celebrate the full holiday, but we maybe drink a little bit, and a day later than non-walled cities.
I wanted to tell y’all about the new Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo Podcast - you can subscribe here, or click here to add the podcast to itunes.
So far, we have a special talk on R’ Shlomo Carlebach’s music with Ben Zion Solomon, probably the world’s most knowledgeable person on that topic, as well as Reb Chaim Kramer of the Breslov Research Institute giving over a teaching of Rebbe Nachman on Purim.
I had no idea the depths of Purim until recently - and these talks should help you reach the heights of the highest day of the year.
Last week, one of my teachers remarked to me before class that he’d almost had a heart attack when he looked at my facebook page, due to one of my friends wearing a bikini in her profile picture. He then picked up the theme and taught this Torah from the Mei Hashiloach (at the end of the PDF) all about Purim and nudity. Gevaldt.
Purim sameach to everyone!
(also, there’s a shiur here from Aish Kodesh in New York on Purim Katan that’s probably worthwhile)
Richard Kaplan, the mystically-inclined world-music hazzan from the East Bay, reports that tomorrow night’s episode of House, MD will feature his rendition of the Niggun of the Alter Rebbe. He writes:
The episode begins with an Hasidic bedeken, to the davvening sounds of yours truly. They have asked for 2 1/2 minutes of the recording from my 2nd CD “Life of the Worlds.” There is a very long chance that in the final editing last Thursday, something may have changed, but in all likelihood the song is “in.”
Daniel Burstyn, over at Sustainable Judaism, on the jumbotrons during davvening at the recent URJ Biennial:
Jumbotrons are all well and good for large gatherings of non-Halakhic Jews, like the Biennial and Craig Taubman’s Friday night live kind of things. They might be ok for other environments, like camp. Maybe when the Temple is rebuilt, there will be Jumbotrons.
But they really go against the grain of the “do it yourself” aspect of Judaism, as it has developed since the publication of the Jewish Catalog in the early 1970s.
…
If Joe or Jane Jew can’t walk onto the bima and run a worship service as well as s/he can run a committee meeting or an awards dinner, then something is broken. There should be no “little man behind the curtain,” nor flashy light show on the bima in Judaism.
Editor’s Note: This is the third in a series meant to both present excerpts from the introduction to a new book — The Inner Journey: Views from the Jewish Tradition — as well as spark discussion among Jewschool readers about the nature of Jewish tradition. The first two excerpts are here and here. We encourage you to read on to see the excerpt and share your comments.
The Jewish people have a love affair with the Torah. The Torah is not
simply the Five Books of Moses, or even the entire Bible. More
correctly, it is the whole gamut of Jewish teaching and wisdom
contained in the written law (Torah sheh B’chtav) and oral law
(Torah sheh Ba’al Peh). While Torah has all too often been
translated by the word law, its literal and etymological meaning is
more appropriately translated as direction, instruction and teaching.
The Torah is the prism through which one strives to understand the
significance of one’s self, the Jewish people, the world and the
Divine. It is that body of teaching that transforms Jews into seekers
of the truth that permits them to connect as a self to their people,
to the cosmos, and to the Divine. It embodies an ethic that directs
behavior toward all human beings, other creatures and the environment.
One sage goes so far as to say that for the sake of the study of
Torah, human beings were created. But what is of interest here is
that Torah must be received and understood in our own unique way.
Rabbi Jose’s statement, (Pirke Avot 2:17) “…What knowledge of
Torah a man acquires is personal to himself. It cannot be inherited
or bequeathed.”
This comes courtesy of my friend Alisha, who is awesome. And which goes to show you, those kiruv organizations — and those insistent concert promoters — have something; more people do look at fliers on the ground than fliers that are handed out:
Yesterday I was walking to the supermarket, when I saw a guy selling books on a blanket on the sidewalk. Normally, I would walk by, but I decided to stop for a moment. And I’m glad I did. One of the first things I saw was a tiny book with ‘Zohar’ written in Hebrew letter on the front cover. The guy wanted 30 RMB (about 4 USD) for it and was not willing to budge on the price. I asked him how he came to be in possession of such a book, because I know that they are not exactly allowed here. His only response was ‘I own a book shop, these books come from there.’ As if that answered my question. After I bought it, I read the introductions in English and saw that the book was originally part of something called the Zohar project, which intended to distribute copies of this small book for free. It seems that this book has had a very interesting life before it came to my home.
I’m not sure that this story has a purpose, but feel free to share it with others.
(Side note from matthue: does anyone have a photo of the mock-vodka ad posters all over Crown Heights? They say “Drink Responsibly” in Absolut-text, and, beneath it: “It’s the Chassidish thing to do.” Kol ha’kavod to whoever’s watching out for their brothers and sisters.
OK, well not so much, really. Apparently the Bobov sect has been commanded by a rabbinical court to hold elections to decide who their next rebbe will be. Interestingly, single yeshiva students are not permitted to vote (and I’m assuming, although the article doesn’t state explicitly, that women also do not vote).
Quoted in Ha’aretz, one person said, “Something like this has never happened in the history of the Hasidic movement, that a Hasidic rabbinic leader would be elected by a vote - our forefathers never dreamed of such a thing.”
A rather curious statement, actually, since although there were not , in the past, a voter’s registry with a list of those eligible to vote; the requirement for voters to present valid identification; and fierce campaigning, originally chassidic sects formed simply because some person formed a group of followers around themself and became acknowledged as leader. It was only after chassidism became more institutionalized and formal that dynasties formed, handed down father to son. So, perhaps in a certain sense this is a very American way of returning to an older tradition.
Well, maybe not for ruining it but certainly for injecting a sour note.
In a response to my post earlier today about Yidcore’s new “shteller” (position) you wrote; “That’s all fine. What, however, do you think about Obadiah Shoher’s criticism pf Rosh Hashanah as a holiday that has nothing to do with New Year?
Nikol, Nikol, Nikol. I’m not really sure what your comment has to do with my post other than the fact that the topic is Rosh haShanah. But think. Do we really need to spend our time paying attention to what far right doomsday prophets are saying about Rosh haShanah? I think not but I sensed that you were upset and followed your link despite myself and that’s where the sour note entered my day.
Obadiah Shoher’s post about Rosh haShanah is so offensively ignorant that if he didn’t seem to be a radical supporter of Israel I would think he was an Anti-Semite. His post even includes the prerequisite Anti-Semitic cartoon! But you’d be proud of me Nikol. I made up my mind not to let this get to me and I’ve decided instead to have some fun with his post!
I propose a little game. I put together a list of 9 quotes from his post that are blatant and completely ignorant errors. The rules are as follows: Read his post. As you’re reading come up with a mental list of errors. Then compare your list to mine and if we agree then you win!
As for not hiring you…dude…think about it…a big professional firm needs to look professional. Big bushy frum beards don’t portray that image. Granted, we aren’t suits, etc….but it is business casual. Beards are out of fashion in the professional world. Not to say you wouldn’t get the job…but it’s the equivalent of showing up in jeans and a t-shirt.
You know — when Brando* was cast in Streetcar Named Desire, they told him he had to grow three days’ worth of stubble. He refused because he said it’d make him look trashy. He said, “I’ll act the stubble.” And, so the story goes, he did.
I guess that’s how I’ve been in the business world. Three-piece suit, tie in the straightest Windsor you ever did see, and my wedding shoes, and I’m set. I wasn’t getting jobs when I first moved here, and I thought that was why, and then it turned out the companies I applied to just weren’t getting jobs — 2 out of 3 of them went out of business. My new temp company is great. They’re like “you can type fast, and you look good” and that’s all they need.
Yeeah…I look good.
In Chicago, people are much more upfront about staring at you when you’re obviously Jewish — I haven’t been around that in a while. Everyone’s so whitebread and middle-American. I thought I was losing it, “it” meaning whatever I had, and then today this dude in a bar was like “Are you a Jew? I thought that was what y’all look like!” and everyone started becoming friends with me. I didn’t pay for a drink for 2 hours straight.
                                     Â
We often cite Isaiah 60:3 which talks about non-jews being attracted to us as we act as a light unto the nations. I wonder if this is what Yishiyahu was talking about:
“Jewish style†restaurants are serving up platters of pirogis, klezmer bands are playing plaintive Oriental melodies, derelict synagogues are gradually being restored. Every June, a festival of Jewish culture here draws thousands of people to sing Jewish songs and dance Jewish dances. The only thing missing, really, are Jews.
“It’s a way to pay homage to the people who lived here, who contributed so much to Polish culture,†said Janusz Makuch, founder and director of the annual festival and himself the son of a Catholic family.
Poland’s Jewish community fell on hard times during the Holocaust:
Probably about 70 percent of the world’s European Jews, or Ashkenazi, can trace their ancestry to Poland — thanks to a 14th-century king, Casimir III, the Great, who drew Jewish settlers from across Europe with his vow to protect them as “people of the king.†But there are only 10,000 self-described Jews living today in this country of 39 million.
The article goes on to address where the Jewish cultural revival among polish gentiles came from.
Sometime in the 1970s, as a generation born under Communism came of age, people began to look back with longing to the days when Poland was less gray, less monocultural. They found inspiration in the period between the world wars, which was the Poland of the Jews….
The revival of Jewish culture is, in its way, a progressive counterpoint to a conservative nationalist strain in Polish politics that still espouses anti-Semitic views. Some people see it as a generation’s effort to rise above the country’s dark past in order to convincingly condemn it.
It is fascinating to think of cultural appropriation as a progressive response to nativist, nationalist authoritarianism. It makes a lot of sense but it must be weird to show up at a mock Hasidic wedding or their Festival of Jewish Culture and be the only Jew.
This year, the festival had almost 200 events, including concerts and lectures and workshops in everything from Hebrew calligraphy to cooking. More than 20,000 people attended, few of whom were Jewish.
That 20,000 people, Jews or not, show up for a festival of Jewish culture really is an amazing thing. Is it because Poland has such deep wounds to heal? Perhaps because it’s mostly free? Because klezmer is similar to other traditional Polish music? Frankly, I have no idea.
Today (if you’re in Australia — Monday night and Tuesday, I mean) is the birthday of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, the coolest Jew ever…please ignore the background music and groove on this.
Happy birthday, Rebbe Nachman. And mazel tov, sis-in-law and about-to-be bro-in-law.
I’ve been thinking lately a lot about rebbes. being as though right now we’re all gathered for the impending wedding, i’m surrounded by Lubavitcher Chasidim, and it’s both beautiful and creepy how they talk about the Lubavitcher Rebbe — as if he’s right around the corner, waiting, each of their best friends who is both loving and stern, ready to do anything for htem and ready to kick their asses if they need it. which, you know, is kind of what G*d is for me.
Yeah — it’s a hard, weird thing, using a person as an intermediary (or even, sometimes, as a stand-in) for g*d. but in a certain way, it’s a beautiful, powerful thing. the function of a rebbe is half parent and half rock star, except that we don’t choose our parents (and, therefore, we give them hell and run away from them and ignore what they say sometimes) and we do choose our rebbe. more than anything else, it’s a mark of respect that i feel sort of violated whenever my Lubavitch friends always talk about the Lubavitcher as “The Rebbe,” as if nobody else in the universe had a rebbe — and, dammit, that’s why Rebbe Nachman is my rebbe.
Hisbodidus (see video) is the most amazing thing in the world. One day, I was talking to Rabbi Davide and he was like, “do you pray?” I said yes, but that praying was getting on my nerves lately. He told me, “That’s because you aren’t doing it enough. You need to pray constantly — when you walk down the street, when you’re fighting with people, when you’re in a mosh pit. Just take yourself out of it for a second and say ‘hey’ to G*d.”
These days, I live in Chicago. There aren’t too many deserted fields around to run away to and do hisbodedus. But Rebbe Nachman teaches us that hisbodedus is as far away as your brain is — and that’s as far away from us as his teachings are — you just have to remember they’re there. Selah.
Cannabis chassidis is about to retire, as I’m pretty sure I’ve said
most of what I want to say with it. I’m probably going to keep writing
something somewhere else, but before it folds: Is there anything that
still needs to be explored on it? I’ve taken the questions of religion
and drugs as far as I think I can without getting redundant too often,
but if there’s anything else anyone wants explored there, post a
comment on www. cannabischassidis.blogspot.com. I’ll do one more big
post in a month or so based on whatever feedback I get, and then one
more after that to tie it all together.
Otherwise, feel free to rifle the archives, they should be up for at
least a little bit longer, and if you want, feel free to save, print
them out, and translate or distribute the Torah there as needed. I’m
commenting here now and again, and also on this one raw, unkempt blog
called sevenfatcow.wordpress.com, amongst others as needed.
Zai Gezunt, happy redemption, and Stay High.
—Yoseph Leib
We’re getting closer to secular New Year’s, and if anyone’s heathen enough to make New Year’s resolutions and holy enough to want to make them for something cool, the yearly cycle of reading daily Tanya has just started again, and it’s a great jumping-on point. (We’re on something like the third day — talkbackers, feel free to correct me — and just finishing up the Compiler’s Forward.) You know what that means — actual material coming up soon! Click above for the accurate (but somewhat uninspiring) commentary by the offical Kehot Lessons in Tanya book, or check out this daily drash by Rabbi Manis Friedman, of “Doesn’t Anyone Blush Anymore?” fame. Of course, the absolute best translation is Rabbi Y.Y. Jacobson’s, but ain’t no mp3s I can find. Go buy ‘em yerselves.
Excommunication of Hassidism
by Kalman Marmor “Jewish Life” Anthology, 1946-1956
Pious and powerful Christians burned their heretics at the stake. But pious Jews in “exile” [from Palestine] have had to be satisfied with burning only the heretics’ books. The Christians could place their dissenters behind prison walls. Jews could only place theirs under the ban–excommunicate them–“arainlegen in herem.”
So we find in the course of Jewish history that among those excommunicated were such esteemed Jews as the Tannai Rabbi Eliezar Ben Hyrcanus, the Gaon Rabbi Saadia, the Rambam (Moses Maimonides), the Cabbalist and moralist Moses Hayim Luzzatto, the free-thinker Uriel Acosta and the philosopher Baruch Spinoza. Not only were Jewish individuals declared anathema, but also whole sects of Jews, such as the Hassidim and their Zaddikim, who have been–and still remain–under the ban since 1772. The Hassidim were excommunicated by public pronouncements in the synagogues and the Houses of Study, in the streets and in the market-places to the accompaniments of shofar blasts and the gloomy shimmering of black candles.
The Hassidim and their rabbis were completely “cut off from Israel.” Their food was declared treif (unclean). A pious Jew was forbidden to “fraternize” with them or marry into their families. The Hassid’s children were regarded as non-Jews. The ban extended even to their dead, who were regarded as “Carcasses” and denied burial in Jewish cemeteries. The “Great Excommunication” on the Hassidim was renewed several times and has never up to now been officially rescinded.
The following is an excerpt from Mevo Shearim, the sefer of Rabbi Kalman Kalmish Shapira, the Piazcezcna Rebbe, Chief Rabbi of the Warsaw Ghetto. The “very rough and inadequate translation” has been provided by Rabbi Davide Lustigman of Yeshivat Simchat Shlomo — my chevruta.
It is my Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
***
When the Baal Shem Tov zt’l had his aliat neshama in 5507 (Rosh HaShana, 1746), he entered the chamber of Moshiach and asked him, “when will sir come?†Moshiach answered him, “when your wellsprings spread forth,†as is known from the Holy Letter found at the end of Porat Yosef. The teachings of chassidut are the final stage of revelation of Torah that precedes the coming of Moshiach, speedily in our days. They are the first rays of his holy light. The principal messianic revelation is described by the verse, “and the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God, like the waters cover the sea,†and the foundation of the teachings of the Baal Shem Tov is the simple meaning, which he revealed in his holiness, zt’l, of the verse, “and the whole earth is filled with His glory.†Many challenged him and attacked him for this, saying that he was “physicalizing†the glory of That Which is Above, but our holy one, the Baal Shem Tov zt’l knew that not only was he not physicalizing, God forbid (and taking away from God’s glory), but, rather, he was increasing and revealing His glory and honor, blessed be He, by this. He was not only teaching a simple understanding of, or intellectual insight into, the verse, but rather, he was awakening the dawn that precedes Moshiach (from above). If they will not make room for the dawn, and the world will not become habituated to the dawn, then the sun of Moshiach, God forbid, will be prevented from rising. Therefore he proclaimed, in his holiness, and said that not only is there in every thing of the world, a godly vitality, and surrounding this godly vitality there is a material crust hiding it, but that this material, which to us appears to be just that, is actually godliness too. All that is needed are eyes to see and a body that is sanctified. Then, when you look at the world around you, you’ll be looking at God and God will be looking at you, “the whole earth is filled with His glory,†even the earthiness of the garment; and vessels, also, are filled with the illumination of His glory, blessed be He. This is the beginning of the fulfillment of the verse “and the world will be filled with the knowledge…†which will be fulfilled in its greatest manner in Messianic times, speedily in our days, that even the earth will be filled with knowledge of God.
There were many times when we worried that one move too far into the mainstream, one step beyond the very traditional bounds of the Orthodox world, could bring a ban on a certain very tall Hasid. We took a lot of questions to the Bet Din at 770 and respected the answers they gave, but always, always, I had this concern. Seems in another part of “the Jewish music jungle” (Thanks 
