Mazal tov to Rabbi Jill Jacobs!! The Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards (CJLS) today passed Rabbi Jacobs’ teshuvah outlining the responsibilties of Jewish employers toward their employees. Check out our friends over at Jspot for a summary of the teshuvah’s conclusions; we’ll post a link to the full text once it’s available. This teshuvah has been several years in the making– yashar koach!
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My bad, the Conservative movement has come out with a new statement that, um, well, I’m not sure exactly what it suggests: I think it says that I might perhaps maybe consider taking into account the halachot on obligations to workers, treatment of other human beings, dina d’malchuta dina and the like and consider maybe perhaps possibly not buying Rubashkin’s. If I want to.
In a joint statement released Thursday evening, the movement’s Rabbinical Association and the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism declared themselves “shocked and appalled†at working conditions at AgriProcessors, which is under federal investigation for employing illegal aliens. The groups asked their members “to evaluate whether it is appropriate to consume Rubashkin products until this situation is addressed.â€
Well, I am being a little harsh.
I had such high hopes for Hekhsher Tzedek, and even though we haven’t really seen much on that happen in the last year and a half I still do. I just really want to see the Conservative movement stand up and do something to show their seriousness. Of course, specific rabbis are absolutely taking stands on this, including advising their congregants not to buy Rubashkin’s brands and not allowing it in their synagogues. And this is true for both Conservative and Orthodox rabbis.
So maybe the truth is that the boycott will have to be, for the institutions, puk chazei; go out and see - that the movement will have to be grassroots, led by local leaders who really deserve the name by showing their communities what it means to take a serious moral stand on something. It may simply be that institutions aren’t really set up to make moral stands.
So perhaps it’s time for the leaders of movements simply to follow. So I’m going to echo Josh Frankel’s excellent suggestions (Please read for yourself) and repeat this part myself: don’t buy from Rubashkin brands until they straighten up their act. I want to see them put standards in place to protect their workers: find a way to make legal all those people whom they’ve brought in illegally, since they deliberately sought out illegal workers so that they could be treated with less care and paid less; unionize their entire operation - no arguments; fire the abusers and replace them with people who receive training in the ethical halachot and to understand that if it isn’t all followed the meat is no good - and this should absolutely include the mashgichim.
When they’ve done tshuvah (repented) by apologizing to both their consumers and their employees, made reparation to their employees, and fixed the problems that led to the abuse in the first place, then we should forgive them and go back to buying from them. But not until then.
Here is the full text of the Conservative movement’s statement: More »
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Week Five, Day One
Chesed of Hod
Since the most recent debacle at Rubashkin’s, documented widely, with a focus on the huge immigration raid detaining nearly 400 of the slaughterhouse’s 968 employees and sending many of the remaining into hiding (and not to mention so many other violations of so many varieties of American law and halachah that the mind boggles), the Postville Plant has reopened on essentially a skeleton crew.
SInce, according to the Forward, it is producing less than half its usual output, and Agriprocessors produces more than half of glatt kosher beef in the USA and the greatest share of glatt kosher poultry, and Postville produces 85% of that beef, instead of American Jews wondering how we’ve come to such a pass; that after several years of people reporting violation after violation of Jewish law, human rights, and American law, how is it that the Orthodox Union hasn’t revoked its supervision; how is it that there isn’t an outcry against such practices, against the kosher meat industry from within the Jewish community - and for that matter - why haven’t we been more carefully examining the actual kashrut of let us say, the organization behind the meat (cf. Rabbi David Berger, author of The Rebbe the Messiah, and the Scandal of Orthodox Indifference)?
How is it that we are actually even thinking about whether or not we’ll get enough meat?
At the Hazon food conference late last year, Rabbi Yehuda ben Chemhoun, a prominent shochet of 27 years, and Rabbi Seth Mandel, the senior mashgiach at the Orthodox Union, both spoke of how they limited their own intake of meat, and Rabbi Mandel said plainly that he felt that the kosher meat industry in this country was broken, at least in part because people were expecting to eat too much meat. Instead of meat being something to have occasionally, for shabbat and holidays, people -because of its easy availability- are eating meat every day, sometimes at every meal. And this is sick: it is sick beause it leads us to an industry of waste and cruelty, and to health problems from over indulgence and also to health problems from eating the flesh of animals being treated badly throughout their lives - and through their deaths.
Although I rarely eat meat, I am not a veg. But how can we continue to support an industry that causes this much pain not only to animals, but to human beings. Our sages argue about what the purpose of our kashrut restrictions of meat and shechita are: some say it is because animals feel emotionally as we do, and it is wrong to be cruel to them; some say that it is because we are to learn from the example of our care with animals that all the more so we need to take care of other human beings, to teach compassion.
What Rubashkin’s has revealed is that it cares about neither. So, the only question left is: how long will we allow it to continue, and what will we decide to do now?
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Today is the 35th anniversary of the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade.
These years have not been easy years, and certainly for many of them, we have had to spend our energy trying to fight those who would overturn it. But it is a struggle we must continue with. To go back to the days before Roe v. Wade would be a disaster: in the dark days in which abortions were outlawed in most states, women died, regularly, of botched abortions. I don’t suppose it’s news to anyone that that’s the case, but just in case, let’s review a current case: Nicaragua.
Since Nicaragua outlawed abortions once again in 2006, we know of - for certain- over 100 women who have died. Keep in mind those are the ones who were reported, who made news; we will probably never know how many women really.
Over at Human Rights Watch, check out their report, from which I quote:
A medical doctor at a large public hospital in Managua, however, testified to one case:
Here [at this hospital] we have had women who have died.… For example, [name withheld] came here and had an ultrasound. It was clear that she needed a therapeutic abortion. No one wanted to carry out the abortion because the fetus was still alive. The woman was here two days without treatment until she expulsed the fetus on her own. And by then she was already in septic shock and died five days later. That was in March 2007.
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…Also, the goats.
We all have a huge amount to say about the goats. I’m not sure that this was planned, but in some ways, this topic has nearly taken over the Hazon Food Conference. And I do not think that this is necessarily a bad thing. The questions that have arisen throughout the past years, regarding the ethics of eating meat - especially kosher meat produced in factory farms, slaughtered in places like Agriprocessors, where the heart of kashrut seems to have bled right out are questions which are just right for the people of this new Jewish sustainable food movement to address.
And while there is a lot going on at this conference, your intrepid livebloggers (YehuditBrachah, KungFu Jew and KRG) have set aside an entire post to talk about the shchita and the conversations surrounding it.
Thursday night, the first night of the conference, Nigel Savage of Hazon started out by explaining how it came about that it was decided to shecht a goat this year at the food conference. Last year during the conference, Nigel asked meat eaters if they would still eat meat if they had to participate in the death of the animal: some said yes, others: no; he then asked the veggies if they would eat meat if they were part of its slaughtering: again, some said no, but others, yes. From this arose the idea to try to humanely schecht a goat at the Hazon Food conference.
That is how Nigel introduced the first panel of the conference: a panel including a shochet, Rabbi Yehuda ben Chemhoun, Rabbi Seth Mandel of the Orthodox Union, who oversees all American slaughterhouses, the shepherd who raised the goats Aitan Mizrahi, the woman who continued to shepherd them when the shepherd separated them from their dams (he is a dairy farmer, and this is how female goats are kept giving milk) Rachel Gall, Dr. Shamu Sadeh of Adamah and Simon Feil.
More »
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Greetings from the Hazon Food Conference. Your live blog team is furiously typing away between the Latke Vs. Hamentaschen debate and the contra dance.
I came here to the conference not sure what to expect. I had sponsored some friends in Hazon bike rides over the years, had read the Jew in the Carrot occasionally when it linked to Jewschool, but didn’t know exactly what Hazon did. I came because someone donated conference fees for several rabbinical students, because I love hanging out at Izzy F, and because I love food.
What I’ve realized is that I am part of a new movement: the New Jewish Food Movement. I already belong to an organic vegetable coop in Boston, avoid processed foods, buy at Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods, buy organic as much as I can. I try to buy food and products with good labor records, and I spend hours cooking food in my kitchen in a given week. I grew up picking apples in the fall and hearing stories from my mother about how she would go with her grandfather in a truck out to Western Mass to get vegetables from the farmers for his fruit and vegetable store in Dorchester. Connecting to food just makes sense to me.
Here this weekend are Jewish farmers, chefs, organic entrepreneurs, ritual slaughterers, CSA champions, homesteaders, bobo Whole Foods shoppers, amateur foodies, and everything in between. What we all have in common is that we are concerned with what has happened to our food in the past 50 years: the agribusiness meat producers that now cage animals and pump them full of hormones to prevent them from dying from their living conditions; the destruction of indigenous communities by factory farms’ clear cutting rain forests for monoculture and paying workers slave labor wages; the huge environmental cost of shipping exotic products from around the world; the basic disconnect between people and their food. There’s a palpable excitement here. People can taste the future, and it tastes organic, it tastes local, it tastes healthy and just.
I had wondered, honestly, about whether this food movement could really take hold. Having done work in the labor movement and having studied poverty in America, I couldn’t help but think how Whole Foods and the like are way out of many people’s price range. Chef Dan Barber of Blue Hill at Stone Barns restaurant addressed the question of sustaining the organic food market this way: one person asked during his talk, in a rather roundabout way, how could people afford to eat organic and local on a daily basis.
“You’re really asking am I an elitist snob, aren’t you?” The woman answered “no…”
“The answer is yes, I am an elitist snob. I realize that many people cannot afford to buy this food. But I’m not trying to reach them. I’m trying to reach the people who think that they can’t afford to buy it, but who really can. More »
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On Monday, the Supreme Court refused to reexamine a new York court ruling upholding a state law that forces religious-based social service agencies to subsidize contraceptives as part of prescription drug coverage they offer employees.
Since New York is one of 23 states that require employers that offer prescription benefits to employees to cover birth control pills as well,this refusal to hear the case will actually have quite wide effect. I suppose I should mention that I am very surprised by this, given the current makeup of the court. The original law was made in 2002, called the “Women’s Health and Wellness Act” and requires health plans to cover a number of services aimed at women, including contraception, mammography, cervical cancer screenings and bone density exams.
According to AP,
Catholic Charities and other religious groups argued New York’s law violates their First Amendment right to practice their religion because it forces them to violate religious teachings that regard contraception as sinful.
“If the state can compel church entities to subsidize contraceptives in violation of their religious beliefs, it can compel them to subsidize abortions as well,” the groups said in urging the court to take their case. “And if it can compel church entities to subsidize abortions, it can require hospitals owned by churches to provide them.”
Other Catholic and Baptist organizations are part of the lawsuit. Seventh-Day Adventist and Orthodox Jewish groups signed onto a brief filed in support of Catholic Charities.
Three years ago the court rejected a challenge to a similar law in California….
The New York law contains an exemption for churches, seminaries and other institutions with a mainly religious mission that primarily serve followers of that religion. Catholic Charities and the other groups sought the exemption, but they hire and serve people of different faiths
This is all pretty amazing in my eyes, but a welcome respite from the usual (at least recently) hijinks of the high court. While, I sympathize with the religious organizations that don’t want to offer services that their faith group opposes, I have to say frankly, that if you can’t stand the heat, get out of the kitchen. Catholic hospitals are now a juggernaut in the American health care system, and if they decide tomorrow that arterial plaque is holy, I don’t want to have travel possibly to another state to get treatment for heart disease. This reminds me of the entire brou-ha-ha over the D&X procedure, in which Congresspersons were shown doctors performing dilation and extraction abortions, and obviously it looked yucky; well, that’s because when you do surgery, there’s blood. Open heart surgery isn’t all that pretty either. Nevertheless, sometimes people’s lives are at stake, and according to Jewish law, when one’s life is at stake one not only may, but must, take action. Thus, if I live in a place where I can’t get services because all the hospitals are run by Catholic institutions, my religious beliefs are being violated. And that holds, according to the groups pursuing this case, even if I can find a Jewish doctor to perform my bypass surgery, or whatever.
Yay to New York, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Rhode Island, Vermont, Washington and West Virginia (the other states with similar laws).
If you don’t live in one of these states, consider it a good idea to get a law like this passed in yours. One should be able to consult one’s own religious teachers and guides for instruction on what is permissible, and not have to obey someone else’s. Your doctor and you should be making your health care decisions, not the pope, or some reverend so-and-so somewhere.
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From JewsOnFirst
As director of pastoral care for a community hospital in Maryland, the Rev. Kay Myers halted the placement of sectarian Christian books in patients’ rooms.
Myers said her decision was one of the carefully measured steps she had taken during her seven-year tenure to move her department to a professional level of pastoral care. The hospital’s response was not so measured. The CEO immediately countermanded Myers. Within months she was forced to resign.
The Presbyterian Rev. Myers, in her seventh year directing the chaplaincy at Peninsula Regional Medical Center in Salisbury, had objected to some specific problems: the Gideons had been placing Bibles by going room to room, and she was concerned that this was a violation of HIPAA, moreover, the infection control center at the hospital had sent out an email recommending against placing the books in patients’ rooms because they might harbor long-lived pathogens, which CEO Alan Newberry simply ignored, even after Myers also forwarded him a report from an onlne chaplain bulletin board discussing the same topic.
Rev. Myers also felt that since the Bibles that the Gideons were distributing were only a New Testament and Psalms, and the hospital is a community hospital, significantly supported by public funds including Medicare and Medicaid, and hospitals with such finding must declare that they do not discriminate, it was inappropriate to have such sectarian emphasis, particularly since the facility is the most advanced in the area and locals do not have an easy alternative to Peninsula
Rev. Myers remains adamant that that a “market-place ministry” such as a hospital chaplaincy must be nonsectarian. “It needs to be carried out with best practices, with professional standards,” she said. “I do believe that people in the hospital need spiritual support. But you need to meet them where they are — not try to pull them along to where I am.”
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Two important reminders for those who are fasting on Yom Kippur:
1. Hydrate! Drinking a lot of water right before the fast is a good idea, but not sufficient. It’s best to start hydrating a day or two earlier. In fact, it’s not a bad idea to drink a liter of water RIGHT NOW. This can make a big difference in being able to have a meaningful day me-erev ad arev (from evening to evening), and having the strength at the end of the day to appreciate Ne’ilah rather than count the minutes until dusk.
2. Fasting isn’t always a choice. MAZON: A Jewish Response to Hunger encourages everyone to take the amount they would have spent on food and donate it to feed those whose fast is involuntary.
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Looking for another fulfilling aspect to add to your sukkot repertoire? You’re in luck, because Ari Johnson, who you might know from such projects as Jews in the Woods and Moishe/Kavod House Boston, is organizing a great new initiative combining celebrating sukkot and social action.
Sukkot hearkens back to a time when Jews were harvesting and had substantially less protection from the elements in their lives, an era when natural disasters and disease threatened. In this present day, many Jews no longer feel the insecurity our ancestors did, but we can all help fight disease and help people who sleep in sukkot, not as a spiritual choice/obligation but as a necessity.
In Mali, and many other places, due to the heat of the rainy season it is important to sleep where the outside breezes cool people down. However, those same places have ample mosquitoes many of which carry malaria and are especially prevalent during that season. Without nets people die of an alarmingly preventable disease. Ari thought to link our sleeping in sukkot with theirs and the Sukkathon is a project where folks will (safely) sleep in sukkot to raise money to buy mosquito nets for places where so doing is unsafe. Sukkathons being organized in communities in Toronto, Providence, Waltham, Worcester, Newton, New Haven, and Philly thus far, will you be the next to step up?
Get the details on the flip…
More »
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According to a recent study at Hebrew University, shulgoers have a longer lifespan than non-shulgoers. Haaretz reports,
Data showed that the death rate was 75 percent higher among the group that did not attend synagogue than it was among the group that attended synagogue regularly.
Litwin said that there is no clear-cut explanation for the synagogue attendance effect, but outlined two main possibilities.
“One explanation is spiritual, that is, the individual faith factor,” he said. “A series of studies that have been conducted in recent years,
especially in the United States, argue that faith helps people deal with psychological pressure. People who believe and pray apparently survive
longer,” said Litwin.“Another explanation is the connection between attending synagogue and belonging to a supportive community,” he added.
Litwin said that in late old age decreased social activity is a common problem.
“A person who goes to synagogue has a function: He is called to the Torah, and he has a network of social ties in the community.”
It’s fair to note, though, that there is some chance that there’s a chicken-and-egg thing happening in the data reporting, as well. For,
Litwin also noted that since religious Jews do not drive on Shabbat, a person who goes to synagogue regularly must be able to walk, and hence is
healthier.
In any case, full story here.
(Thanks to Uri for the tip!)
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The Forward reports on “highest-level case in American history involving the right to circumcision is slated to be heard this fall, when the Oregon Supreme Court rules on whether a father can have his 12-year-old son undergo the procedure.”
The basis of the case is a nasty custody battle, with the father a recent convert to Judaism. The mother claims that the boy is afraid to tell his father that he does not want to be circumcised. I note that there is no mention of whether the boy has an opinion on the conversion (at least none in this article) itself. The mother also claims that the child would be psychologically and physically harmed by the procedure (I wonder what our Muslim fellow citizens think of that?)
.
The thing that’s unusual about the case is that generally American courts stay out of cases involving religion such as this. The Forward comments:
The acceptance of the case by Oregon’s highest court is surprising, because judges generally grant a wide degree of latitude to custodial parents — so much so, in fact, that the state’s Court of Appeals rejected the mother’s case without issuing an opinion. If the Oregon Supreme Court decides to review the merits of the father’s plan for circumcision, it will almost inevitably weigh in on two related issues: the right of custodial parents to guide their children’s religious upbringings, and the weight that religious considerations should be given when considering the welfare of a child.
Because of this, the stakes are generally conceded to be high by everyone, and so badvocates for both sides of the story are getting their elbows in the door.
All I have to say: It doesn’t bode well for the poor kid - Ms. Boldt (the mother) may be full of concern for her son’s psychological health, but I wonder if maybe they could iron out some of these other matters first - like what his name is.
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What? Again? Can’t these people get it together?
Believe it or not, AgriProcessors is in the news again.
According to the Forward, in March and September of 2006 the USDA sent the AgriProcessors plant manager a “Letter of Warning†reviewing a series of problems, including: receiving 250 non-compliance records from the United States Department of Agriculture during 2006, five of them for inadequate safeguards against Mad Cow disease, and at least 18 records for fecal matter in the food production area (Including one, on December 26, in which the inspector wrote that during multiple checks of 10 chickens “fecal contamination varied between 70 and 80%.†and another, similar, citation a day later).
Oh, yeah! MMM. Take that, all you folks who buy kosher “because it’s healthier.” Granted, IMO, this is not a place whose products I would be easily able to call kosher, as we’ve seen reported here on Jewschool several rounds of violations of actual kashrut, as well as violations of other halachic obligations, including the acceptable treatment of workers. See: öÄéÌåÉï” title=”http://jewschool.com/2006/12/19/11635/\”>öÄéÌåÉï” target=”_blank”>jewschool.com/2006/12/19/11635/”>öÄéÌåÉï áÌÀîÄùÑÀôÌÈè úÌÄôÌÈãÆä åÀùÑÈáÆéäÈ áÌÄöÀãÈ÷Èä, Where’s the beef now? Kashrut update on Rubashkin’s, Another beef with kashrut in the news, and Kashrut Brouhaha Has Legs; just one month ago, Mobius added this gem to the treasury: Agriprocessors: Still trayfin’ it up,
and Failed Messiah continues to do a wonderful job documenting this unbelieveable, interminable scandal.
In case that all hasn’t turned you veggie yet, just compare: the entire beef, poultry and egg industry had 34 recalls in 2006, AgriProcessors had two during the last eight months, both of them Class I, the highest risk level.
In case there’s any doubt, I’d like to note that these items are not disconnected. As the Forward reports,
The documents were released in response to a Freedom of Information Act request by the United Food and Commercial Workers, which has been attempting to unionize the workers at the Postville plant. The documents all stem from incidents between January 1, 2006 and January 24, 2007. They are being released to the public by the UFCW at a press conference later today…
Jim Blau, assistant director of strategic resources at the United Food and Commercial Workers, said that workers at the plant tipped the union off to food safety problems. Blau said his organization, which represents close to 300,000 food production workers, was interested in dealing with the issues at AgriProcessors as a matter of protecting the industry.“When you see things like this — it’s not good for the industry that there is a company that’s out there behaving like this,†Blau said.
Way back when, I spent some time working to organize workers in another industry. I want to emphasize that one of the reasons that it’s so important to do so is because unions don’t just protect the workers themselves. Unionized workers are able to report problems with lesser fear of reprisal. I myself know of several individuals who after whistle blowing, were protected by unions when their employer tried to fire them. It’s not just a matter of some people you didn’t really care about all that much who you’ll never meet, and maybe who don’t even speak your language.
That’s pretty important according to Jewish law: they are to be protected, and paid honestly, and treated with respect. It’s a Jewish obligation, and one which a kosher slaughterhouse ought to be obliged to meet before it can call itself in compliance with Jewish law. And let’s not even review the problems of the slaughter itself, which fails to follow the law it claims to follow in order to make its ginormous profit off the wallets of jews who are, essentially a captive audience (just try to find an independant shochet these days. I know of one, I’m sure there must be a few others - is there one in your city?). But since self-interest is the cornerstone of progress, let’s just say what’s really going on: these folks have no qualms about doing whatever they want to increase profit. The limitations don’t seem to be laws of kashrut directly pertaining to the meat itself, nor to the laws pertaining to the treatment of workers. Now it’s apparent, they don’t even care about the safety of the people eating the meat. It’s in the best interest of the Jewish community to make sure that workers are safe and able to report on what’s going on behind the scenes without threat of reprisal.
I don’t know when the Tzedek Hechsher will be making its now long-promised appearance, but Baruch Hashem, it couldn’t be too soon.
But don’t worry, I’m sure this will all be brushed off as a plot by the liberal Jews or the anti-semites to harm Orthodoxy.
Whoa. I think steam is coming out of my eyeballs. Wait, I need to go have some sweet tea or something. Hold the burger, willya?
hattip to Arieh Lebowitz at the JLC
Cross-posted to Kol Ra’ash Gadol
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Guest post by Jason Pollens
The Nalgene bottle is a ubiquitous accessory among members of the progressive Jewish community. Nalgene bottles branded with institutional logos are also commonly offered as promotional items by Jewish organizations. However, there is a dirty little secret about the safety of this bottle. It turns out that most Nalgenes (the ones which claim they are indestructible) can actually do a lot of harm to you. If you look on the bottom of your Nalgene and see it has a number 7 in the triangle that means that it is made with polycarbonate plastics which are suspected to leach endocrine disruptors. (For info on other types of plastics click here.) The most worrisome chemical is bisphenol-A, a known hormone disruptor.
As Sierra Club magazine reports:
For years, scientists have been finding that endocrine disrupters like BPA can impair the reproductive organs of rats and mice, reduce sperm counts in rats, and bring about changes in tissue that resemble early-stage breast cancer, among other effects. But Nunc International, maker of Nalgene bottles, maintains that its products are “safe for use with human consumables”; cites other research that found no dangerous leaching; and points to a 2002 study in which rats fed a diet containing BPA at levels higher than those in Hunt’s laboratory suffered no apparent reproductive or developmental effects. Hunt counters that the rat study did not look at eggs or embryos. “The [plastics] industry says this is just rodent studies,” she says, “but we know that the human egg is more fragile than the mouse egg. If we wait for really hard evidence in humans, it will be too late.”
If you are using a number 7 plastic you are more at risk of birth miscarriages and defects along with breast cancer. For men the plastic can affect levels of testosterone in a negative way. The danger is most apparent when the bottle is showing signs of wear or has been exposed to heat.
There is an alternative which isn’t expensive (in some cases cheaper) and much safer. Of course there is an option of buying a water bottle with a number 2, 4, or 5 on the bottom; however the safest way to go is with a light weight stainless steel bottle. An example is the Kleen Kanteen which has served me well. In a world where we often don’t know what is best for us there is at least an easy solution for what type of water bottle we should use.
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According to Reuters, a new study from researchers at McGill University, published in The Journal of Sexual Medicine, have revealed what lots of people have known all along: circumcision has no effect on sexual sensation.
There’s lots of things I could say here, but the truth is, this study doesn’t much matter. For those who are determined to stop circumcision, this won’t make any difference - they’ll go on touting the flawed studies they’ve been using (one big problem that I noted a while back with those studies- they relied on men circumcised as adults, and also several of them on men who were unhappy with their circumcisions. Um, durr) and for those who are commanded to circumcise, well as they ought, they’ll go on circumcisiing. Because in the end, that’s the reason one does it. Not because it’s healthier for their sexual partners, or because it lowers the (relatively miniscule anyway) risk of penile cancer. Circumcision for Muslims and Jews is because God commanded it. That’s it. Move along now.
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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” title=”https://www.securejcrcboston.org/jcrcboston/events/geshercitybmd/details.tcl\”>HERE” target=”_blank”>www.securejcrcboston.org/jcrcboston/events/geshercitybmd/details.tcl”>HERE.
Also check out the pretty:
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Today: For those who were waiting for the sacrifice/purity stuff to end, here we are! Today’s list ends with civil law.
451. “On the seventh day he shall shave off all his hair — of head, beard, and eyebrows.” (Leviticus 14:9) = after someone recovers from tzara’at (mysterious skin disease)
452. The laws of tzara’at of garments (Leviticus 13:47-59)
453. The laws of tzara’at of houses (Leviticus 14:34-53)
454. The laws of tum’ah (ritual impurity) due to a menstruating woman (Leviticus 15:19-24)
455. The laws of tum’ah due to a woman who gives birth (Leviticus 12:2-5)
456. The laws of tum’ah due to a zavah / woman who has an abnormal discharge (Leviticus 15:25-27)
457. The laws of tum’ah due to a zav / man who has an abnormal discharge (Leviticus 15:2-12)
458. “If an animal that you may eat has died, anyone who touches its carcass shall be unclean until evening; anyone who eats of its carcass shall was his/her clothes and be unclean until evening; and anyone who carries its carcass shall wash his/her clothes and remain unclean until evening.” (Leviticus 11:39-40)
459. “The following shall be unclean for you from among all the things that swarm on the earth: the mole, the mouse, and great lizards of every variety: the gecko, the land crocodile, the lizard, the sand lizard, and the chameleon.” (Leviticus 11:29-30)
460. The laws of tum’ah due to a man who has an emission (Leviticus 15:16-18)
461. “As to any food that may be eaten, it shall become unclean if it came in contact with water; as to any liquid that may be drunk, it shall become unclean if it was inside any vessel.” (Leviticus 11:34) = this doesn’t mean that water makes food tamei (unclean); it means that water gives food the ability to become tamei
462. “He shall bathe his whole body in water and remain unclean until evening.” (Leviticus 15:16) = anyone who is tamei can immerse in a mikvah and become tahor (ritually clean/pure)
463. “When an ox gores a man or woman to death…” (Exodus 21:28-32)
464. “When a person lets his/her livestock loose to graze in another’s land, and so allows a field or a vineyard to be grazed bare, s/he must make restitution for the impairment of that field or vineyard.” (Exodus 22:4)
465. “When a person opens a pit, or digs a pit and does not cover it, and an ox or an ass falls into it, the one responsible for the pit must make restitution; s/he shall pay the price to the owner, but shall keep the dead animal.” (Exodus 21:33-34)
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Today: The end of the 142 Temple/sacrifice-related mitzvot and the beginning of ritual purity
436. “When she becomes clean of her discharge, she shall count off seven days … On the eighth day she shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons, and bring them to the priest at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting.” (Leviticus 15:28-29) = the offering of the zavah, a woman who has had an abnormal discharge
437. “On the completion of her period of purification, for either son or daughter, she shall bring to the priest, at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, a lamb in its first year for a burnt offering, and a pigeon or a turtledove for a sin offering.” (Leviticus 12:6) = a woman after she gives birth
438. “When a man with a discharge becomes clean of his discharge, he shall count off seven days … On the eighth day he shall take two turtledoves or two pigeons and come before God at the entrance of the Tent of Meeting and give them to the priest.” (Leviticus 15:13-14) = the zav, a man who has had an abnormal discharge
439. “On the eighth day s/he shall take two male lambs without blemish, one ewe lamb in its first year without blemish, 3/10 of a measure of choice flour with oil mixed in for a meal offering, and one log of oil.” (Leviticus 14:10) = someone who has recovered from tzara’at, a mysterious skin disease
440. “One may not exchange or substitute another for it, either good for bad, or bad for good.” (Leviticus 27:10) = an animal designated as an offering
441. “If one does substitute one animal for another, the thing vowed and its substitute shall both be holy.” (Leviticus 27:10)
442. “A firstling … of animals cannot be consecrated by anyone.” (Leviticus 27:26) = as a firstborn, it’s already consecrated, and can’t be given a different type of holiness (e.g. olah or chatat); likewise, something that is already consecrated as one thing can’t be turned into another thing
443. The laws of tum’ah (ritual impurity) due to a dead body (Numbers 19:11-16)
444. The procedure of the red cow (Numbers 19:2-10)
445. The laws of the ashes of the red cow (Numbers 19:17-22) = a person who was tamei (impure) due to a dead body can become tahor (pure), but in the process, the person who sprinkles the water containing the ashes becomes tamei
446. The procedures for diagnosing tzara’at (Leviticus 13:2-44)
447. “Be careful about an affliction of tzara’at.” (Deuteronomy 24:8) = don’t cut it off
448. “S/he shall not shave the scall.” (Leviticus 13:33) = scaly eruption in the hair or beard
449. “As for the person with tzara’at, his/her clothes shall be rent, his/her head shall be left bare, and s/he shall cover over his/her upper lip, and s/he shall call out, ‘Unclean! Unclean!’” (Leviticus 13:45)
450. The procedure for one who has recovered from tzara’at (Leviticus 14:1-8)
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