by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Saturday, May 10th, 2008
Week Three, Day seven
Malchut of Tiferet
Week Three, Day six
Yesod of Tiferet
This past weekend, Be’chol Lashon (In Every Tongue), a project of the Institute for Jewish and Community Research sponsored a conference in San Francisco of Jews and Jewish identified ethnic groups from around the world. Many of these groups are not formally Jewish, the descendants of anusim and xuetas. Some are Jews officially, although not always accepted with open arms by the so-called “mainstream,” such as the Ethiopian Jews, or the Abayudaya. And then there are the Jewish communites whose faces and color don’t fall within the stereotypes of what a Jew looks like - as if there was any such thing: the Jews of India, Jews who are of color who converted, or whose parents did.
“The Jewish community keeps talking about the crisis of intermarriage and the crisis of declining numbers, but meanwhile you’ve got people with Jewish heritage, spiritual seekers, Jewish communities of historical significance, and the Jewish community is doing nothing to help them,” says Gary Tobin, the institute’s president and a longtime advocate of greater openness to those outside the Ashkenazi mainstream.
According to institute research, at least 20 percent of American Jews are racially and ethnically diverse. But old stereotypes about what “real Jews” look like persist, Tobin says.
“Instead of worrying about people being ‘lost’ to intermarriage,” he wonders, “why aren’t we extending our ideological borders to include all these people who are so interested in joining us?”
Personally, I think it would be completely fabulous if the descendants of the anusim made a formal return, and the Ibo and Lemba formally converted. Welcome! Join the party!
And of course, for those that are us, we should move mountains to bring them close and help them.
On a humorous note:
Safed’s Chief Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu wrote in an article … “it turns out that Olmert is more corrupt than we thought.”
“So what shall we do? Elect another prime minister without faith? Another one without credibility? Another one without values?…when will we wake up and realize that we need a prime minister with a kippa?”
“We need a prime minister who acts based on genuine faith and values.
Um. Hey, I’m a rabbi myself, and I even occasionally wear a kippah (rather than a hat), but I’m just not quite sure this would solve the problem. Especially since I’m pretty sure that Rabbi Shmuel Eliyahu wasn’t promoting say, Rabbi Andy Sacks, or R. David Golinkin, as a solution to the problem.
I dunno. I could be wrong. PM Sacks, has a kind of a nice ring to it….
Yeah, okay. A PM with a kippah. That would definitely solve all our problems. No more corruption. (Anyone want to do a quick google on rabbi, Israel, corruption charges?)
by chillul Who? · Friday, May 9th, 2008
Remember when Yom Ha-atzma’ut used to be easy?
Nowadays it seems like you’ve got three choices..
You can follow our co-blogger Chorus of Apes and go all Nakba on us. You can go all “neo-Zionist” instead and lose yourself in congratulatory paroxysms of pride and militaristic extremism. See here for example. Or finally, you can waffle and prevaricate between the other two alternatives, watching any tribal joy you once felt drain out through myriad cuts of national guilt and historical revision.
The last option seems most popular in progressive Jewish circles these days. My roommates objected to my proposal for a Yom Ha-Atzma’ut House Party by saying they wanted to avoid propaganda or the appearance of it. “Maybe we should have something about the nakba too.” “We don’t want to look right wing.” “How about we go to a Brit Tzedek talk instead.” Something about Independence Day made us uncomfortable.
Yom Ha-atzma’ut looks a little funny these days. Between the alliance of Electronic Intifada and Kahane Chai to forever tarnish the word “Zionism,” and the casual abuse of patriotism by fear-mongering Republicans in the US, the idea of “national pride” has become suspect. Every 60th Birthday congratulation needs a “but..”, and every praise of the Jewish State re-born in the Jewish Homeland comes with a “however..” We’re cynical and jaded, and don’t want to buy into anything that smacks of conservative forces or creeping 21st century totalitarianism.
So we want to kill the myth of the Third Comonwealth, scuff the shine on the Zionist dream, give us nothing-but-the-facts-ma’am and add another social justice cause to the bottom of the list.
But I’m thinking that Yom Ha-atzma’ut is not something to do half-assed. Righteous foundation myths and tribal pride aren’t just kids’ stories: they’re the moral stories that give us our ideals.
Remember (if you’re American) when you first learned what really happened when the Pilgrims hit Plymouth rock. When that cartoon fantasy of harmony and shared wealth dissolved into the broken treaties of the colonists, and the cold hard earth they dug into to rob Native graves. I think that a large part of that sting, that rage, (that righteous indignation, if you will) was the disappointment that the reality did not live up to the myth.
People we’d been taught to honor had let us down. The founding parents of institutions we’d be taught to respect and identify with had behaved in despicable ways. Which is sort of ironic, I guess. Or at least depressing.
But the real, glorious irony is that the myths never did let us down. These lies are the tales that taught us what to believe in. The myths are the prosecutor’s finger. When we hear about Israeli crimes and mistakes, whether during the War of Indepedence or today, it’s the myths that shout loudest “this was wrong. This must be remedied.” It’s the Declaration of Indepedence which was never fulfilled which kicks us in the gut and demands more effort on our part.
Our myths are our moral foundation, and I believe, something to celebrate whole-heartedly. So this is a (slightly belated) Yom Ha-Atzma’ut Same’ach from me to you, with no ifs, ands, or buts. Happy Independence Day. Make the dream a reality.
by chillul Who? · Monday, April 28th, 2008
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?) 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.
by Josh Frankel · Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
So, here’s a different source for a news story on this blog. HaTzofeh, the national religious newspaper in Israel, reports on extensive abuse of the few remaining Jews in Yemen. The newspaper reports that recently many Jews have been attacked, including the Rabbi of the community whose home was recently destroyed. The article also mentions ongoing human rights abuse, including forced conversions, and a law that makes marrying a Jew punishable by death. Strangest though, the article reports that the only organization working to help these Jews is Satmar. The flat-hatted chassidim want them to emigrate, not to Israel of course, but to the UK and America.
Yikes. That’s scary stuff, happening to our own brothers and sisters, and I had no idea. I don’t know what to do to stop this, but the first step must be making sure that people know. It’s a shame that I heard about it first from a religious rag which I usually only read for laughs.
Update: I found a Christian Science Monitor article about the abuse.
by shamirpower · Thursday, April 10th, 2008
If you have ever dreamed of opening a nonprofit, Jewish specialty camp, now is your chance! The Foundation for Jewish Camp is proud to announce its newest initiative: The Specialty Camps Incubator.
Through an $8.4 million grant from the Jim Joseph Foundation, the Specialty Camps Incubator will provide consulting and financial support over five years to four entrepreneurs, organizations or camp professionals as they develop and open their new camps in non-traditional settings such as school or college campuses. The Incubator will launch in November 2008.
Recent studies estimate that there are hundreds of thousands of Jewish children between the ages of 11-16 in the United States who are currently not attending Jewish summer camp, but are increasingly attracted to secular specialty summer programs. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to provide an exciting Jewish alternative.
What are you waiting for? Your great idea could be the “hottest” new Jewish specialty camp, and the Foundation for Jewish Camp is ready to help!
Your Letter of Intent is due by May 1st, so apply today.
Find out more about the Incubator and the application process at www.jewishcamping.org/incubator. Please email incubator-at-jewishcamping-dot-org with any questions.
by BZ · Sunday, February 24th, 2008
In this happiest month of Adar, we look back in history at all the joyous events that have taken place in Adars past. Can you believe that it has been 18 years (and 24 Adars) since Digital Underground released their album Sex Packets, on 29 Adar 5750?
On Thursday night at a “Def Adar Jam” in southern Jerusalem, I performed a folk version of “The Humpty Dance” on acoustic guitar in honor of this milestone. Yes, there are other versions floating around the Internet, but if I may say so, my rendition is better. (And no, my version isn’t on YouTube and never will be. By day, I teach high school, and I don’t need my students googling me and hearing me sing about how I’m still getting in the girls’ pants.)
Here’s the thing though. It’s not really my version. I first heard it at Hillel Leaders Assembly in 1999.
In Megillat Esther, an Adar classic, after Mordechai uncovers the plot to assassinate the king, Esther passes this information on to Achashverosh in Mordechai’s name (Esther 2:22). The rabbis of the Talmud derive from this that anyone who says a thing in the name of the one who said it brings redemption to the world (Megillah 15a). Wait, no. Rabbi Eliezer taught it in the name of Rabbi Hanina. That’s better.
So I’d like to give proper credit to the person from whom I learned this acoustic folk version of the Humpty Dance, and thereby bring redemption to the world. There’s only one problem. I never got his name. I’ve been chasing Humpty ever since.
Then I realized that there’s really no good reason that this mystery hasn’t been solved yet. The Jewish world just isn’t that big, especially the subset of it who were Hillel student leaders in 1999 and play guitar. This person shouldn’t be more than a couple degrees of separation away from me. But he (yes, I’m pretty sure about the gender) has remained at large for 8.5 years. So I’m bringing in the big guns and asking the blogosphere. If you played the acoustic Humpty Dance at Hillel Leaders Assembly in 1999, please identify yourself so that the world can be redeemed. And if it wasn’t you, but you have a hunch of who it might be, please forward this post to them, so that together we may usher in an era of peace and humptiness forever.
Thanks in advance!
by BZ · Wednesday, February 20th, 2008
Pluralism is one of the most significant trends in 21st-century Jewish life. Hillel is creating pluralistic Jewish communities on college campuses during many Jews’ formative years, and producing a generation of leaders committed to Jewish pluralism. The Limmud franchise is spreading to new cities every year. The National Havurah Committee is experiencing a boom led by a new generation. New communities are sprouting up outside of the institutional movements, and many of them are committed in one way or another to pluralism. Even decidedly non-pluralistic organizations like Chabad and Aish are using pluralistic rhetoric as a marketing tool.
But what is Jewish pluralism really about? Mah Rabu’s Hilchot Pluralism series examines the theory and practice of creating pluralistic Jewish communities, but focuses entirely on the “how”, not on the “why”. Hilchot Pluralism takes it for granted that the reader is interested in creating a pluralistic community (why else would s/he be reading it?), and doesn’t address the question of why pluralism would be desirable (other than bringing up some situations in which pluralism isn’t desirable or isn’t possible).
A new article in the Columbia Current starts to ask these other questions. Dov Friedman looks at different philosophical approaches to Jewish pluralism.
For those who believe that law is fundamentally correct and that other conceptions of Judaism are incorrect, their theology precludes them from creating and joining in communal practices that deviate from their understanding of Jewish law.
Alternatively, those who believe that Judaism houses an infinite number of truths are always at risk of losing a coherent foundation upon which to build their community; they may build a pluralist community, but what would tie such a community together? It would have nothing to rally around except pluralism itself—making pluralism the end instead of a means to a more harmonious community.
For those who believe in the value of pluralism, it is an ominous reality to be faced either with traditionalism that may stamp out pluralism, or with pluralism that may stamp out tradition. In order to understand what a fully “pluralist” perspective entails, we must examine the ways in which the term is used.
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by Kung Fu Jew · Tuesday, February 19th, 2008
Want to be eligible to win a $500 American Airlines travel voucher?
A group of NYU Wagner students are surveying young Jews as part of our capstone project, and they need your help!
Please visit www.youngjewsandtheworld.com and complete our short, simple survey. Also, please forward this link to the survey to your friends, their friends, and your family. We want to reach as broad a sample as possible.
To learn more about NYU Wagner, and the capstone project in particular, visit www.wagner.nyu.edu/capstone
Thank you in advance for your help!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Sunday, February 17th, 2008
Recent postings on the uterus problem (see here) have been right to question the tshuvah that recently was issued from the bowels of the CJLS. I’m sorry that I got scooped on this because it’s a long standing argument that I have been having with my teachers (whom I respect very much, despite our disagreements) for years now. First of all, here is the URL for the actual tshuvah. I recommend reading it.
Secondly, I want to give kudos to Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ and Rabbi Jason Miller’s comments on the post at jspot. Both of them note that there need to be more social supports put in place for people to have children, Rabbi Jacobs noting:
–Would rabbinical students be more willing to have kids while in grad school if the rabbinical schools offered on-site child care?
–Would it be easier for Jewish women professionals (and men) to participate in professional conferences (such as the RA, from which I just returned, and where I bumped into a few poor women trying to nurse on the floor of the bathroom), if these conferences offered nursing rooms, child care, or other accommodations? (a shout out to the Wexner Foundation for being a leader in this regard)
–Would Jewish women professionals be able more easily to “have it all” if more Jewish institutions offered flex time, family health insurance, on-site child care, and paid for child care when the mom or dad is on the road?
And Rabbi Miller adding:
— not just for the women. As a 26-year-old rabbinical student whose wife was working full-time, I often felt the challenge of sitting in a class while bottle-feeding my baby son. An on-site day-care facility at JTS would have been an important resource.
He also on his own blog made some comments.
(Although I do want to note that I can’t imagine why any women were nursing on the floor of the bathroom, since the hotel in question is luxurious to the point of ridiculousness, and the WC had an anteroom with, I’m told, quite comfortable chairs and, I’m told by a nursing friend, the heat turned way up so that it was a perfectly comfortable place to strip down and nurse if necessary. Of course, the very luxuriousness of the hotel was apparently rather a sore point amongst the many, many Conservative rabbis who lack large convention stipends or, indeed, any, such as those who aren’t pulpit rabbis, or who are, but whose pulpits are more modest, say, under 500 members. A sore point indeed).
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by YehuditBrachah · Friday, February 15th, 2008
Props to Hannah Farber over at jspot (Jewish Funds for Justice’s blog) for her short, pithy piece entitled “I’m Going to Count to Three, and Then All Rabbis Need To Get Out Of My Uterus” on the hysteria (pun intended) about Jewish women reproducing, as the RA explains it to make up for the Holocaust.
Since I began working in the Jewish community, I’ve heard this advice again and again, and it never fails to get my ovaries in a twist, not least because of the implied (or explicit) criticism of professional women (never of professional men) who postpone childrearing to accommodate their career goals. I say: if the rabbis are so committed to making this a communal issue, the rabbis should raise the children. In fact, given their comfortable salaries and high communal status, they have no excuse: they should be adopting and converting children by the dozen.
Also contains links to good refutations.
by chillul Who? · Thursday, February 7th, 2008
Michael Steinhardt didn’t do it. Lynn Shusterman didn’t do it. Edgar Bronfman didn’t do it. Your Hillel director would have shit his pants. And let’s not talk about what your synagogue’s board would have thought about the idea.
The idea? Tossing your money - hundreds of thousands of dollars of it - at a group of twenty-somethings with no strings attached.
The prerequisites to receive this generosity? Live in a house, with other young Jews. Open your doors to the community. And call your home by the name of Morris “Moishe” Squire, the wealthy Jew from Santa Barbara who began bankrolling these houses two years ago for the purpose of invigorating young Jewish communities.
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by Kung Fu Jew · Wednesday, January 23rd, 2008
(X-posted from Judaism Without Borders.)
I just got off the phone with a leftist student group who wanted to partner on the Israel-Palestine project I’m coordinating. They were ready to sponsor events on their campus, publicize it widely, etc. They’ve enthusiastically done it before. But when I told her that they couldn’t be seen associating with us, my poor heart ached as I heard the disappointment in her voice. She managed to not sound upset, but considering I’ve never met this person before, I feel like I’ve just betrayed a friend.
Reputation means everything. Breira was a 70s era Jewish peace group which aired to America the occupation opponents in Israel and even accompanied them to meet with Palestinian leadership…and quickly was accused of being non-Jewish posers or self-haters, and imploded. New Jewish Agenda of the 80s was another Jewish dove group which failed to cope with membership in the Jewish community when when “member” was defined by the arch-conservatives, and it collapsed from within. For both of those groups, their former leadership now quietly sits on the boards of present dove orgs, albeit after learning a costly lesson.
The lesson is simple as it is unfair. As much as we Jewish peace and coexistence activists want to partner with Arabs and peace-seeking goyyim, the cases where we can do so without being accused of treason are sparse. This is the reason in the early days of Brit Tzedek, the organization made the decision that to do it’s work inside the Jewish community, it had to play nice with the OJC, to pick its allies with care. Other organizations also make the same sacrifices on a regular basis. Those that weren’t careful, died. Or even worse, gained the title of the “irrelevant left.”
Reputation is all that we have sometimes in this work. It’s sad that to know that if I say “Such and such activist is kipah-wearing” or “served in the IDF” or “goes to shul” or “works in the OJC” suddenly gives that person a credibility boost. That credibility is built on stereotypes as flimsy and repugnant as any other. Yet we use them and even buy into them in order to open doors.
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by rokhl · Thursday, November 29th, 2007
(translated from the Yiddish by Sol Liptzin)
A Jew of my acquaintance sat down near me in a Warsaw park and asked me why I was so sad.
“Graetz is dead,” I answered.
“God’s will!” said my acquaintance. “One of our townsfolk, I suppose?”
This question, which 90 percent of the Jews would have asked in his place, is a measure of the abyss into which we have fallen…
When I informed my neighbor that Graetz was an historian who wrote the history of the Jewish people, he commented:
“Oh, history!” His voice had the same ring as if he were told that somebody had just eaten a dozen hard-boiled eggs at one time.
Just as I was about to get angry, he continued very naively:
“And what’s the use of history?”
by Eli · Saturday, August 18th, 2007
It happened yesterday:
I set out from my apartment off the main street in the Old Town of Vilnius for the Choral Synagogue. It is the one synagogue that survives and is still in use in a city that once supported over two hundred houses of prayer. During the war the Nazi’s used this synagogue as an ammunition storehouse. Today, it is a beautifully restored building in the ubiquitous Moorish style. It’s beige exterior glows at sunset. People wait for the bus on its corner. A man shlings some Brandy down his throat across the street. Passersby stare bamboozled at the small group of rugged men hobbling on canes towards the Synagogue’s rusted gates.
Inside, my friend Dovid is talking Yiddish to a very elderly man in the row across from me. Then Dovid gets up and says “Eli, would you mind accompanying this man home with me? He says his heart hurts.” Davening Mincha has not begun. I hop out of my seat and the old man wraps his left arm around mine. His other hand hold Dovid’s wrist. Dovid and I look at each other. Is this man going to die holding onto our arms? We will take him home, as he wishes.
We begin walking. He stops intermittently to rest. We ask him repeatedly in Yiddish if we should get him a doctor. We pass a cab. “Do you want a cab?” “Tonight is Shabbos!” he says, staring at Dovid. Then I remember my days learning in Jerusalem. “But sir, this is Pikuach Nefesh!,” I say. The Rabbis and the Rambam argued that it is permissible to break Shabbos if and when it becomes an obligation to save a life in jeopardy.
Then the old man leaned on Dovid and lifted his wrist, raised his thumb and said “Dos iz richtik!”. This is correct! A smile bore a gleaming graveyard of four teeth. A Jewish concept in a formerly Jewish world! He talked to the cab driver watching three generations of Jews in front of a Vilna hotel. The driver explained he couldn’t take the man three blocks up the hill. He was waiting for a customer to leave the strip club across the street. The old man grit his teeth. Dovid and I were angry. The old man decides to go by foot.
So we walked up his hill. We learned on our frequent rest stops that he was nineteen years old in 1941. He was born in a shtetl two hundred kilometers from Vilna, close to what is today Belarus. He has the keys to the Vilna Gaon’s tomb in his apartment. He is the indigenous, Yiddish survivor who represents the world that much of world Jewry simply ignores. He stayed here. We arrive in a small building in a sprawling Soviet-era apartment block near the Vilnius train station. Blonde toddlers crawl in the dirt. He used to live with his son, but his son now works in Kaunas, formerly Kovno, over an hour away. He lives off a small pension and one check a month from a lady in America. A few people check up on him a couple times a week. He was born into the world of Lithuanian Jewry. In that world his heart, soul and feet have remained.
We ask him if we can get him some water, or if he needs help taking off his shoes. “What do you need?” He says “Tell that lady to write me a letter with her checks. A guten Shabbos. A Dank.” He shuts the door.
Dovid and I walk back to the Synagogue. We arrive. I’m sweating bullets. In a viscous Russian lilt, the minyan sings Lecha Dodi!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol · Thursday, August 16th, 2007
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.
by BZ · Sunday, May 6th, 2007
(Introduction.)
Today: Pesach! The old-school way.
406. “The fat of my festival offering shall not be left lying until morning.” (Exodus 23:18) = don’t leave the cheilev (fat that is not eaten but is offered on the altar), etc., of the pesach lamb overnight (rather, offer them on the altar before that)
407. “They shall offer it in the 2nd month, on the 14th day of the month, at twilight.” (Numbers 9:11) = the “pesach sheini” (second pesach), one month later, for those who weren’t able to offer the pesach at the proper time
408. “They shall eat the flesh that same night; they shall eat it roasted over the fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs.” (Exodus 12:8) = the regular (first) pesach, on the 15th of Nisan
409. “They shall eat it with unleavened bread and bitter herbs.” (Numbers 9:11) = the pesach sheini
410. “Do not eat any of it raw, or cooked in any way with water.” (Exodus 12:9) = the pesach
411. “You shall not take any of the flesh outside the house.” (Exodus 12:46) = the flesh of the pesach shouldn’t leave the “chavurah” (group of people) who is eating it
412. “No foreigner shall eat of it.” (Exodus 12:43) = an apostate may not eat the pesach
413. “No resident or laborer shall eat of it.” (Exodus 12:45) = a non-Jew living in the Jewish community who isn’t Jewish yet may not eat the pesach
414. “No uncircumcised man may eat of it.” (Exodus 12:48) = the pesach
415. “You shall not break a bone of it.” (Exodus 12:46) = the pesach
416. “They shall not break a bone of it.” (Numbers 9:12) = the pesach sheini
417. “You shall not leave any of it over until morning.” (Exodus 12:10) = the pesach
418. “They shall not leave any of it over until morning.” (Numbers 9:12) = the pesach sheini
419. “None of the flesh of what you slaughter on the evening of the first day shall be left until morning.” (Deuteronomy 16:4) = the flesh of the “chagigat 14″ (the extra animals offered on the 14th of Nisan and eaten at the seder, since one lamb on its own isn’t so filling when split among many people) shouldn’t be left over until the third day (the 16th of Nisan)
420. “Three times a year — on the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Shavuot, and the Feast of Sukkot — all your males shall appear before Adonai your God in the place that God will choose.” (Deuteronomy 16:16)
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 »
by Mobius · Sunday, February 4th, 2007
I’ve lived in Israel for nearly a full three years now. In that time, my political and religious perspectives have shifted from Right to Left a number of times, the roulette wheel most frequently getting bounced like a pendulum between political post-Zionism and religious anti-Zionism.
From a religious perspective, these days I think that even if you want to hold by the wholly legitimate belief that “the goyim dealing too harshly with us” invalidated the restriction against pursuing sovereignty in the land of Israel, to live here in anything other than utter righteousness, with the ultimate kavanah (intention) to sanctify this holy place with our words and deeds, is a grave offense in the eyes of G-d. The arms industry, sex trafficking, worker exploitation, police and government corruption, the occupation, Shoah survivors living below the poverty line, the prominence of rape and battery against women, etc. — these are just the major examples of desecrations of our covenant and defilements of the land.
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