by guestpost [➚] · Tuesday, January 26th, 2010
Editor’s note: The following is a guest post by Dvora Meyers. She usually blogs at Unorthodox Gymnastics.
I saw Srugim for the first time over the summer. Ever since then I’ve been hooked on the Israeli television show that follows the romantic travails of four Modern Orthodox singles in Katamon, Jerusalem’s equivalent of the Upper West Side, as they search for partners and meals on Shabbat.
Since the program does not air on any channel in the U.S., I was forced to download it illegally on the Internet thus opening my computer up to a whole host of viral threats. But it was definitely worth it.
Apparently, I am not alone in my fandom. The [spoil alert]Jewish Week has just run this cover story about the show’s popularity stateside. The show has just begun its second season in Israel (and on my computer in Brooklyn). If you’d like to watch it without endangering your hard drive, the JCC in Manhattan (in conjunction with Jewschool) will be screening the first season (two episodes a week) starting Wednesday, Feb. 3 at 7:30pm.
In addition to being entertained, it’s the perfect opportunity to sharpen your Hebrew comprehension skills. Or if you are seated next to a particularly cute man/woman, you can pretend to not understand what’s transpiring on-screen and ask for help. I’m sure that the show’s characters would approve. Or you can tally the number of halachic inaccuracies you can find throughout the two episodes. Sounds like a good idea for a drinking game to me… Though I suppose the alcohol part will have to wait ’til afterwards, when the Jewschool crew heads next door to Amsterdam Alehouse. Join us! Bloggers and readers alike will be toasting pints and sipping cocktails in the back party room.
SRUGIM COCKTAIL CONTEST: We’re taking suggestions for drink specials in the comments field of this post. The only rule is that you must include the name of the drink, its ingredients, and, of course, the name of the drink must be related to a character, place or theme of the show. The top three favorites will be served at the Jewschool after party on Wed. Feb. 3 – and those three lucky winners will suck down their first drink on Jewschool. RSVP on Facebook now!
by shamirpower [➚] · Sunday, January 10th, 2010
Looking for an opportunity for full time study in an egalitarian setting? Yeshivat Hadar in New York City offers a chance for both summer and year ’round study for women and men to study together – and you even get a living stipend. I’ve been to a bunch of classes, lectures, and more than a handful of weekday services. It’s quite an eclectic bunch of of students – and their teachers are excellent. Want to learn more? Check out this Wednesday night’s event – in person or online.
The Cairo Geniza: Crumpled Papers, Revolutionary Prayers
A Taste of Yeshivat Hadar — open to all
Considering applying to Yeshivat Hadar’s 2010 Summer or Full-Year Program?
Interested in experiencing learning at Yeshivat Hadar and asking your questions?
When: Wednesday, January 13, 2010, 7:30-9:00 pm
Where: Yeshivat Hadar, 190 Amsterdam Avenue (at 69th Street), NYC
Cost: Free
Taught by Rabbi Elie Kaunfer
In December 1896, Solomon Schechter traveled to the “Ben Ezra Synagogue” in Old Cairo and discovered 200,000 Hebrew manuscripts, some from as early as the 9th century. Among them were alternative liturgies that will astound those used to the standard Ashkenazi prayerbook, including alternate versions of the weekday Amidah. In this class, we will study how crumpled papers in a forgotten attic can change our understanding of prayer.
RSVP to info-at-mechonhadar.org
Prospective Applicants to Yeshivat Hadar are especially welcome to this program, which will end with Q+A about Yeshivat Hadar’s full-time programs.
Can’t come to NYC? Join us on the phone or on ustream. Here’s how:
Go here to watch a live broadcast. Register for a free account ahead of time, and login to chat your questions.
Have specific questions? Email Aryeh Bernstein, Director of Recruitment, at bernstein-at-mechonhadar.org.
You can download our applications here: Summer (2010) and Full-Year Program (2010-11).
by guestpost [➚] · Sunday, January 10th, 2010
The following is a guest post by Yisroel Bas. He blogs at אומשלאָף.
This past spring I decided that I wanted to start wearing tsitsis, at least on Shabbos. This decision came out of an embrace on my part of biblically-based Jewish symbolism/self identification. However, I was not attracted to the traditional undershirt variety and I wanted something a little more special. So I designed a T-shirt style beged to wear on Shabbos. I chose blue ribbons to match the color of tekheles. Although it took some time, I convinced my mom to make it for me. I wanted the garment to be as square and shirt-like as possible, and a preliminary look at the Torah yielded no problems with my design.
When my mom finished the garment, I spent an afternoon figuring out and eventually tying the tsitsis (Ramban Teymeni style). I was really happy with the final project and decided that I would wear it for the first time at Yugntruf‘s Yiddish Week retreat. While there, several people asked me why I had tsitsis on a shirt with closed sides. I was told that the majority of the beged needs to be open in order for it to be khayev tsitsis. I asked for the source of such a rule and was met by a lot of “I’m not sure”s and “gemora”s. After the retreat I started on a journey to find the source of this “rov beged” injunction. I would walk around on Shabbos with the shirt on and go from shul to shul asking the rabbis if my beged was khayev tsitsis. One told me that the source as Manakhos in the Gemora. Another had no clue. And yet another was convinced that as long as it has daled kanfes, it’s khayev tsitsis.
I went home, found a translation of Manakhos, read it, and found no mention of “rov beged” or even the slightest hint of a definition of kanfe. Finally the Chabad Shliakh in my building found the injunction in his Shulkhan Orukh, but he did not know where the Shulkhan Orukh got it from. Finally after asking the shliakh at my school a million times to look up the source, he put me on the phone with the chief librarian at the Chabad library. He found the source: the students of the Maharam of Rothenburg (d.1293).
Okay, so my shirt is fine according the Torah and Gemora, but not the Maharam (nor anyone who thinks that the Shulkhan Orukh is from Sinai). On top of my own doubts and uncertainties, I now had several rabbis telling me that I can wear it all I like, but just not on Shabbos (because if the beged isn’t khayev tsitsis, then I am “carrying” them about when I wear the beged). I’ve been wearing it anyway, partly because I like how I feel when I wear the beged, and partly because I am not sure of how much the Maharam and what he supposedly taught matters to me. For all I know the beged is khayev tsitsis in that the majority of the beged is open (sleeves and bottom), just not contiguously. Right now I am getting ready to make another similar beged and I think I’m going to stick with “closed” sides.
ראה הפֿקדתיך היום הזה על־הגױיִם ועל המלכות
זע, איך האָב דיר געשטעלט הײַנטיקן טאָג איבער די פֿעלקער און איבער די מלכותן
לנתוש ולנתוץ
אױסצורײַסן און אײַנצוּװאַרפֿן
ולהאביד ולהרוס
און אונטערצוברענגען און צו צעשטערן
לבנות ולנטוע
צו בױען און צו פֿלאַנצן
by TheWanderingJew [➚] · Wednesday, December 30th, 2009
Last week, a discussion was organized at Yeshiva University in NYC called “Being Gay In The Orthodox World: A Conversation with Members of the YU Community.” 
The event, which took place on December 22, was sponsored by the YU Tolerance Club and the Wurzweiler School of Social Work. It was an open event; people from the YU and Stern communities were invited to attend, as were members of the Jewish communities at large. (I received several invitations to go but was unable to make it.) Many of you found out about it on twitter; our most popular tweet, which more of you clicked through than any other, was a link to The Curious Jew‘s transcript of the panel discussion, which Chana posted within a couple hours of the event’s conclusion. This transcript has been as close to hearing about it as those of us who weren’t there could get, since Rabbi Yosef Blau said in his opening remarks:
What we WILL be doing is addressing the pain and the conflict that is caused by someone being gay in the Orthodox world. Our four panelists, one present student and three alumni of Yeshiva, will be speaking about their own lives and experiences. I would ask you not to take pictures of them and not to record to respect privacy. Recordings have an unfortunate tendency to enable someone to take out a snippet and then use it for various and sundry purposes.
Each speaker then went through his own personal story of being gay in the Orthodox world. Dr. Pelcovitz, a psychologist on faculty at YU, presented a psychological/Orthodox perspective; he made sure to emphasise that there is a difference between “feeling” and “doing” gay, and said that “nobody has the right to judge a feeling,” regardless of halakhic understanding. Questions were then taken from the audience of 800 people, and the event ended more or less on time.
But, of course, it didn’t actually end there. More »
by Justin [➚] · Sunday, December 27th, 2009
Shabbat at the Hazon Food Conference is an exceptional experiment in pluralism. I wish I had the time to comment on it, but perhaps that will be saved for reflections tomorrow evening once I’m back home. For now, I will report on the sessions I sat in on today. The first involved a private meeting with current and future rabbis (and the occasional educator) and Nigel Savage, the director of Hazon and a true visionary. The second session, titled “The Vegetable Monologues,” after “The Vagina Monologues,” focused on the stories of three Jewish, female farmers. Before Havdallah, I attended a session of the status of Genetically Modified Organisms in Halakhah put on by Zelig Golden, an environmental lawyer with the Center for Food Safety and Rabbi David Seidenberg. More »
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Monday, December 21st, 2009
You might think we would be getting tired of this topic by now. But, no, we need to revisit it periodically just to forget about how many other worthwhile problems we could be addressing.
An Orthodox Jewish school in London was found guilty of violating UK racial discrimination laws. The problem at hand was that a 12 year old was refused admission to the Orthodox school because his mother had converted under the auspices of the Masorti movement. The problem lies in the fact that there apparently isn’t any other Jewish school available. It’s that one or none.
Now, technically, there really isn’t any good reason for the Orthodox to refuse to recognize Masorti conversion – like all halachic conversion, Masorti Judaism requires mikveh and milah (for males) and profession of a belief in one, unified, God. Much of the brou-ha-ha is about extra-halachic matters. But despite my opinion that the Orthodox are wrong not to recognize Masorti conversions, I still think that this is a bad idea.
Do we really want secular courts deciding who gets to be considered Jewish (or any other religion, for that matter)? I know that Europe views government interaction with religion quite differently than my government here in the USA (or in theory ought to, anyhow), and there are certainly circumstances in which it makes no sense for us to try to separate our opinions from the religious sensibilities that formed them (or not), as long as we try to be honest about where those sensibilities come from. But having a presumably secular government decide that the Orthodox have no right to exclude Masorti Jews is just a recipe for trouble.
The potential for other decisions to go awry is just too great. Now, if they want to rule that no school has a right to exclude anyone of any religion from enrolling, okay then, as long as they also grant that the school gets to insist on its curriculum without outside interference, and the enrolled student has to follow along if he (or she) enrolls.
In Israel, government participation in religious business has caused just no end of trouble. The founding fathers of the USA were more than right when they noted that a healthy religion is not going to be helped by having government promote it. Reading Steven Waldman’s book Founding Faith made me think a lot more of how religion developed in the USA — and why our secular government, with all its problems, works much better in the arena of helping religion by ignoring it than nearly any other in the world. Which is not to say that doing so hasn’t had its own problems. Certainly the idea of an agora for religious ideas has also resulted in people treating at least Judaism as if it were something one could choose in pieces, treating it as any other product, to evaluate on, say, whether it makes you happy, or is fun, rather than Judaism as something to which we might have to submit ourselves in order to make ourselves better, or our community better. Further, we need to realise that we might not be better off for choosing our community according to whom we like to hang out with, rather than being stuck with the lumpy mess that is true community. But overall, we are better off with a hands-off policy from the government.
Let the argument commence.
by Aryeh Cohen [➚] · Wednesday, December 9th, 2009
The new Sh’ma is out. It’s got some great articles about the intersection of Judaism and “the law of the land” (i.e. this land), and responses to a wonderful passage from Agnon about Hanukkah — its not what you would think.
Check it out:
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Look Inside >> |
| December 2009, The Law of the Land is the Law |
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by HatamSoferet [➚] · Wednesday, December 2nd, 2009
Some people see halakha as a sort of calculator into which you enter circumstances and from which you obtain answers. Some people see it as a great tide sweeping across time and space and carrying the Jews willy-nilly with it. And some people see it as a language, rising from the common experience and shared past of those who speak it and used to communicate matters of current concern.
However you conceive of halakha, rabbinic Judaism has always needed people who understand how it works. The computer scientists, the linguists, the navigators, depending on your model of choice.
I like understanding how things work, which is why I like halakha. I also like applying that understanding for practical effect, which is why a) I write Torahs b) I will be spending this Sunday at…
Mechon Hadar’s Halakha Yom Iyyun
Halakhah as a Language of Applied Values:
Theory and Practice
Sunday December 6
at Yeshivat Hadar
190 Amsterdam Ave, NY
(@69th St – West End Synagogue)
A whole day with other people who think halakha is a living language. And who speak that language and use it to talk about everyday things and also those things which other languages cannot reach. And who are making rabbinic Judaism once more about halakha, in these days when “rabbi” chiefly means “pastoral adjunct.”
And lunch.
by Justin [➚] · Friday, November 13th, 2009
“We are all mediators, translators.” -Jacques Derrida
There have been three distinct moments since I began learning in the Jewish legal tradition that have significantly altered my perspective on the goals and intent of what we apply the blanket term, Halakhah. It is something that I struggle with on a daily basis and has a direct effect on my faith, my practice and my identity. More »
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Friday, October 9th, 2009
Nathaniel Popper writes in the Forward that the Conservative Movement does not seem to be living up to their push for better wages for workers. I’m not entirely sure what the point of the article is; is it to point out that some congregations (and not just Conservative ones) underpay their workers? Is it say that the whole Magen Tzedek enterprise is hypocritical because not everyone in the movement lives up to it already?
If it’s the first, he’s a little behind – we already knew that; if the second, again, he’s a little behind the curve; I certainly have not backed off from critiquing the Conservative movement in the past – it certainly has plenty to critique, but I’ll have to say, I disagree. I don’t disagree because it’s not true, but because I think he’s missing the point.
As Rabbi Jill Jacobs says in the article, “It’s always easier to look slightly outside yourself rather than to look inside… There certainly hasn’t been any large-scale change.”
That’s true – but it’s a little premature to write off the whole project becasue it hasn’t been perfectly realised prior to beginning. Having Magen Tzedek has spurred some shuls to reexamine their own policies towards their own workers; Rabbi Jacobs is part of a movement of many people who turned to rabbinical school not necessarily because they loved to give sermons, but because they were driven to repair the world, and thought that a uniquely Jewish vision could help to do so. Rabbi Jacob’s tshuva is not the end; although it has gotten less press than Magen Tzedek, over time, I think both will be understood as the fulcrum for major change in the Jewish community as a whole.
Of course, there are still people like those quoted in the Forward citing the same tired arguments for why we shouldn’t do the right thing (they could work somewhere else; we’re doing important work that couldn’t get done if we paid our employees more; another variant of the “businesses might have to close and pay nothing at all if you made them provide benefits”…), but having Rabbi Jacob’s tshuva and the Magen Tzedek will help rabbis do their job better – and that job is to teach – to help people become knowledgeable, practicing Jews, and to have a relationship with God – which we achieve through mitzvot which include paying the matzah bakers enough to eat, and the people who clean the shul enough to not have to work two jobs or go on welfare. If we haven’t achieved it yet, well, even Moses couldn’t get Israel to quit worshiping idols. It’s a start and Baruch haShem it’s starting rather than not!
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Tuesday, September 22nd, 2009
Although most modern Jews have abandoned the practice of Kapores, in some parts of the community, it is still common. I’m not sure what the Masorti movement thinks it will accomplish by joining with the SPCA -Tel Aviv, ince the parts of the community that are practicing kapores aren’t the parts likely to care what the masorti movement does, but all in all, it can’t hurt.
In the story from which I took this post’s name ( an adapted tale based on the original story by Sholom Aleichem) the author in fact points out that the practice of taking a chicken (male for men, female for women) swinging it over one’s head to “catch” one’s sins, and then slaughtering it, is not exactly halacha ( Jewish law). And while in general one ought not to depend on fiction for accurate portrayals of Jewish law, in this case, it happens to be correct. Not only is “Where is it written?” a good response, but where it is written, the rabbis aren’t too happy with it, considering it (Like many folk customs which have become embedded in Jewish practice) akin to idolatry, or at lest very improper.
And reasonably so, while it might be a midat chesed (act of mercy) to buy a chicken which one will then donate to the poor to eat (although that does raise some questions about how that came about… really? We’re giving our sins to the poor to eat? Hmmm. I hear a sin eater story in here somewhere for those of us familiar with that southern custom), the problems with the ritual as a whole are numerous. For now, let’s set aside the problem of tzaar ba’alei chaim – the requirement not to be cruel to animals (in this case, by packing them in itty bitty crates sitting around in the sun all day until it’s time for them to be grabbed and swung around by the feet) and concentrate on the symbolism of the custom itself.
While there seems to be some kind of yearning for authenticity as played by certain elements of the Jewish community which favor dress styles not native to Israel, but rather early modern Europe, I’ve never been able to fathom why people attach their sentiments to these kinds of customs (including within the community, but without it as well). There’s somehow a sense that it looks or feels more authentic – but how could it be? If Judaism and our peoplehood is based upon our connection to God through God’s commandments, as the Torah tells us, then one couldn’t possibly repent by swinging a chicken around.
I far prefer the formulation of the Talmud (Brachot 17a) (See the bottom of the post) which likens the fat that one loses during a fast to the fat offered as a sacrifice in the times when the Temple stood. That makes far more sense to me.
Most importantly, if w are repenting, we cannot hope to shed our sins elsewhere without the ful act of teshuvah that goes with it. Whether we are speaking of ourselves as individuals, our individual communities, or Israel as a whole, our own sins cannot be displaced by any symbolic act, whether we’re talking about swinging a chicken or saying that the other party involved has done bad things and so they have to repent first. NO, we are responsible for the sins of ourselves, and the sins of our people. If we wish for peace, we have to act first to recognize and admit our sins; to make reparation to those whom we’ve harmed; to confess to God – because in doing so, we humble ourselves and take into our hearts that our acts, whether accidental or intentional, whether preemptive or retaliatory, were wrong; and then to not do it again when the opportunity presents itself.
Stop building settlements, stop demolishing homes, stop blaming others for acts over which we have agency. Goldstone isn’t our enemy, and taking on against him, as the Rabbinical Assembly has just, entirely ridiculously, done, will not bring peace.
As long as we treat acts for which we need to repent as thought they were public relations bloopers which can be addressed if we only change our spin, there will not be kaparah, atonement, no matter how long we fast on Yom Kippur, no matter how many chickens we swing. We have to do the work ourselves.
(From the Yom Kippur Haftarah Isaiah 58:2-7)
They ask Me for the right way,
They are eager for the nearness of God:
3 “Why, when we fasted, did You not see?
When we starved our bodies, did You pay no heed?”
Because on your fast day
You see to your business
And oppress all your laborers!
4 Because you fast in strife and contention,
And you strike with a wicked fist!
your fasting today is not such
As to make your voice heard on high.
5 Is such the fast I desire,
A day for men to starve their bodies?
Is it bowing the head like a bulrush
And lying in sackcloth and ashes?
Do you call that a fast,
A day when the Lord is favorable?
6 No, this is the fast I desire:
To unlock the fetters of wickedness,
And untie the cords of the yoke
To let the oppressed go free;
To break off every yoke.
7 It is to share your bread with the hungry,
And to take the wretched poor into your home;
When you see the naked, to clothe him,
And not to ignore your own kin.
When R. Shesheth kept a fast, on concluding his prayer he added the following: Sovereign of the Universe, Thou knowest full well that in the time when the Temple was standing, if a man sinned he used to bring a sacrifice, and though all that was offered of it was its fat and blood, atonement was made for him therewith. Now I have kept a fast and my fat and blood have diminished. May it be Thy will to account my fat and blood which have been diminished as if I had offered them before Thee on the altar, and do Thou favour me.. (Brachot 17a)
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Thursday, September 17th, 2009
I apologize for being such a slacker this past year in posting. (New job and all that- not an excuse, but still).
Still, this morning I find myself with an embarrassment of riches, which I will try to cover over the next few days.
Today’s topic: a terrific post reflecting on tshuvah, and using the teachable moments recently offered us in public by politicians sports figures and musicians for how not to apologize.
I’ve noticed, myself, the spreading plague of people who “apologize” if I have hurt your feelings, implying that it is the victim who is oversensitive to a rather minor slight, or worse yet, implying that they have done nothing wrong at all, and the victim is to blame.
I actually blame the politicians for this one – the non-apology! It all started as a way for them to seem to apologize without actually taking responsibility for what was done wrong.
I would like to note that this is not really an apology. More »
by Reb Yudel [➚] · Thursday, September 3rd, 2009
ylove passed on a link to a fascinating article about the future of in-vitro meat, that is, meat grown in a test-tube:
It starts with cells—it could be a stem cell or something called a myoblast, a precursor to muscle. You proliferate these cells in a kind of nutritious soup that’s filled with vitamins and amino acids and salts and sugar. This is the biochemical equivalent of blood. In order for the cells to grow into tissues, they need this medium. And, it turns out, the most promising approach to producing this medium is to use microalgae, which are photosynthetic organisms even more efficient than plants. We recently funded some research at Oxford University to examine how meat cultured with this medium compares to conventional meat in terms of energy impact, and the study showed that it uses 90 percent less land and water, all while producing 80 percent fewer greenhouse emissions.
Development is being spearheaded by a non-profit whose goal is reducing the resource footprint of the world’s appetite for meat.
Growing hamburgers in vats solves some halachic problems: No tzaar baalei hayim, cruelty to animals, as in endemic in contemporary factory farming. No need to hire rabbis to oversee the slaughter.
But it raises other questions.
Does meat cloned from a cow’s stem cell count as ever min hachai — meat (ultimately) from a live animal, which is prohibited to be eaten? Can a tissue culture be said to chew its cud if it has no cud, or to have cloven hoofs if it has no hooves? Could it conceivable be parve and permitted to be served with milk?
Ten years from now, McDonald’s may boast that its serves low-carbon, cruelty-free in vitro burgers. As Jews, should we eat them?
by renaissanceboy [➚] · Friday, August 7th, 2009
Hi everyone. My name is Harpo Jaeger. I’m a new poster on Jewschool. I’ve been blogging for a little over a year now at my personal website, harpojaeger.com. I’m really excited to start blogging here! Some of the other Jewschoolers I know from the NHC Summer Institute, some I don’t know at all.
At some point in the future I’ll be updating my biographical information, but right now I am here with the intention of posting about something very specific.
Being a pluralistic community, the Summer Institute (which I’m currently at) has some interesting halakhic quirks. For the members who don’t carry items on Shabbes, we create an eruv
, a quasi-physical boundary around the campus that halakically turns the campus into one building, thus allowing those people to carry siddurim, a talit, and so on, between buildings. For several years, I’ve been a coordinator of this construction process, and I’ve learned a lot from it. BZ suggested I write a post about this, as a sort of “DIY eruv”, which is a very good way of putting it, so here it is.
The essential idea of an eruv is a series of simulated doors. To do this, we use a series of lecha’in (singular lechi, which translates as “doorpost”), with string run over the tops, representing the header of the door frame. There are various other components of the eruv in addition to sticks and string. For instance, a hill can act as a natural boundary around an area if it is steep enough. Part of the campus here is on a steep hill, so we can place a lechi at either end and use the hill as a go-between. Additionally, an existing cable such as a telephone wire can be used if a lechi is placed below it and the cable sags less than about eleven inches (inaccuracy due to conversion from biblical units of measure).
What’s interesting about the process we’ve gone through is that neither myself or my friend with whom I coordinate have a great deal of experience with this halakha. We’ve learned it from those who do, we’ve internalized it, and at this point it’s become a DIY ritual more than anything else. 
Without having a pre-existing complete grasp of the spiritual and traditional elements of the eruv, we are able to create one that is completely in line with all of the requirements. Also, it’s pretty fun. We stay up late drinking tons of caffeinated beverages, drive around in a golf cart with lumber and power tools, drive around the perimeter with one of the halakhic experts to verify the whole thing, and then sanctify it by saying a blessing (al mitzvat eruv) over a “communal meal” (in today’s case, half a bagel left over from yesterday’s sunrise hike up Mt. Monadnock). That meal is then eaten after the eruv no longer needs to be sanctified (although I anticipate the bagel being rather stale by then).
So, starting from a mere interest in construction, and with the counseling of some persons with more halakhic knowledge, we’ve learned a lot about the practice, had a bunch of fun, and helped some of our co-Institute-goers observe Shabbes more easily.
If you have the opportunity, I’d highly recommend getting involved in the construction of a local eruv. It’s a fabulous way to learn about some very interesting halakha and its modern implementations, as well as explore a host of pluralistic issues. Great all around.
That’s all for now. It is time to light candles here, and I must away. I hope this first post is food for thought, and I’m really looking forward to writing here. Shabbat shalom!
by Rooftopper Rav [➚] · Tuesday, June 23rd, 2009
Also, is “halakhic progressive” the new designation for minyanim like Shira Hadasha? Is “partnership minyan” out?
JOFA (the Jewish Orthodox Feminist Alliance) invites submissions for its Seventh International Conference on Feminism and Orthodoxy to be held in New York City on March 13th and 14th, 2010.
Leadership within the Modern Orthodox community has, for too long, been the domain of men. Halakha has been used by those in power to exclude women from positions of authority. Traditional values and social conservatism have reinforced narrow interpretations of Jewish law. Despite this historic reality, over the past few years, we have begun to see a serious effort to change this monolithic male power model.
Halakhic progressive minyanim, such as Shira Hadasha in Jerusalem, where women lead parts of the service, have emerged as a viable alternative to traditional synagogues. A woman has recently been ordained as a member of the American Orthodox clergy and is serving in a rabbinic role in an Orthodox synagogue, and women are members of the religious staff of a number of Orthodox synagogues. More women are founding and leading serious schools of learning where women are being trained as halakhic decisors. And, in the home, more women and men are sharing responsibility for ceremonial and ritual practice, previously performed by men only.
The challenge we now face is to both accelerate these changes and at the same time make them an accepted part of the mainstream Orthodox experience. In this conference, we will explore historical precedents that can serve as models for women’s empowerment today. We will engage with texts to develop a balanced view of the halakhic dimensions of women’s leadership in communal and religious life. We will examine novel approaches to facilitate change within Orthodox institutions and traditions. We will hear from Orthodoxy’s young female leaders and scholars. Finally, we will discuss how to maximize the new facts on the ground to create a more vibrant, inclusive and democratic view of leadership within the Modern Orthodox community. We hope to address these issues through diverse perspectives and especially welcome proposals for interactive sessions, as well as those that focus on innovations in life cycle events.
Please submit a short abstract of your proposed presentation, as well as a brief CV via email to: conference@jofa.org. The final date for proposal submissions is October 15, 2009.
by Kol Ra'ash Gadol [➚] · Wednesday, June 10th, 2009
I admit it. The reason I haven’t posted up until now on the amazing new book by Rabbi Jill Jacobs is only partly because I’ve been reading it slowly. Really, a big part of it is that books this good just don’t come around all that often, and I’m feeling kind of 1st grade-ish about sharing. But we all have to grow up sometime. Or at least, if we don’t someone will come along and make us share our toys. Ahem.
So, Rabbi Jill Jacobs wrote, There Shall Be No Needy: Pursuing Social Justice through Jewish Law and Tradition (Jewish Lights 2009) for all of us. Framed by a foreword from the utterly menschlikh gadol Rabbi Elliot Dorff, and prefaced by Simon Greer, Jacobs wrote the book during her tenure at Jewish Funds for Justice as rabbi-in-residence.
Grounded deeply in Jewish text, Rabbi Jacobs begins with her own journey to understanding how Jewish canonical texts are actually far more deeply invested with the everyday experience of poverty and need than most of us will (God willing) ever be, and how allowing the midrash, the talmud and other of our classical works to really enter us, not as something which we read for fun or education just because they’re important texts, but to really become doors to a perception of God and our fellow human, can cause us to be transformed through those texts, in the way that the rabbis meant us to be.
While she does this, Rabbi Jacobs also takes on the imprecise… well, let’s be honest, the complete meltdown of “Jewish” terms such as “Tikkun Olam,” “Tzedek” (as in the ubiquitous, and so therefore now nearly empty, verse “Tzedek, tzedek tirdof,” the favored phrase of Jewish organizations that don’t know – or at least can’t be bothered to find – any other text, no matter what the topic under discussion) and “Prophetic Judaism” into the utterly meaningless and restores them to a Jewish and more faithful context. (And can I say, thank you thank you thank you.)
This isn’t to say the book is completely without flaw. Like the tradition of leaving in tiny flaws to prove that a human creation cannot be perfect, there are some minor quibbles I have here and there. Primarily, I think that Rabbi Jacobs occasionally slides between “we can say that…” and the assumption of the supposition. Or that there doesn’t seem to be much room for the individual and national relationship/communion with the divine in any context other than social justice. But these are minor quibbles in a book so terrific, that I will be buying it for all my friends. How can I make any complaints about someone who at least implicitly supports my observance that, while everybody loves Hillel, it is Shammai who in his grumpy stringency, is actually the one who is more concerned for the disempowered and helpless (p. 32).
Rabbi Jacobs’ book also includes an excellent, concise introduction to the canonical texts, meaning that even the beginner can make sense of what she writes, and, I hope, that in reading her work will come to see that Judaism and social justice cannot be untangled from Judaism and Jewish law – that the system is a holistic one, and that Judaism does indeed give us a mission.
As Jacobs herself states in the conclusion, wrapping up her fine book with a brief codicil about Judaism in the public sphere,
“What is missing… is a real public discussion about how Jewish law and tradition might address contemporary policy questions… when Jews engage in the public discourse as Jews, we should bring Jewish law and principles into the conversation in such a way as to enrich… discourse…The commitment to living our Judaism publicly should then push us to take public action on these principles, both as individuals and as a community… We will witness the emergence of a Judaism that views ritual observance, study and engagement in the world as an integrated whole, rather than as separate and distinct practices.”
As God and the rabbis meant it to be.
by chillul Who? [➚] · Wednesday, May 20th, 2009
Now we’re talking. Just in time for your Shavuot Night Torah Study, the American Jewish World Service has launched On1Foot.org, a user-editable repository of social justice-oriented texts from Jewish tradition.
If you were wondering where in the Jerusalem Talmud is the original source for the dictum “one who saves a single life has saved the world entire”, a simple search yields Sanhedrin 4:22.
If you’re looking for a well-spoken prophet of antiquity who railed against the exploitation of the poor — Amos pops up with some choice words.
If you are curious what statement was made by some Jewish leaders arrested working for civil rights in Florida in 1964, you can read a passage from it here.
It’s a veritable wiki-concordance of “tikkun olam”! Here is how it is described in an announcement from AJWS:
On1Foot is an online, open source database of Jewish social justice texts. We invite you to visit On1Foot to explore this exciting new resource for Jewish social justice education.
On1Foot allows users to:
- Search and browse hundreds of biblical, rabbinic and contemporary Jewish texts about social justice
- Upload new texts
- Comment on existing texts
- Create custom source sheets using the texts and suggested discussion questions
On1Foot is a project of American Jewish World Service and is co-sponsored by AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corps, Hazon, Tzedek, Mechon Hadar and Uri L’Tzedek.
As we say down here in the District: Happy learning!
by TheWanderingJew [➚] · Thursday, May 7th, 2009
Two guest bloggers from Bat Kol, an organisation for religious lesbians in Israel, have written a post over at Tirtzah, a blog by/for frum queer women that holds events in the NY-area, about Pesach Sheini as a time for inclusion for marginalised members of our Jewish communities.
In the past few years some of us have been crying out “Why should we be excluded?”. Religious gay men and women and aging single women would like to build Jewish homes, and take part in the mitzvah of procreation and to be, in the most basic sense, a part of the fabric of the nation; agunot would like to remarry
within the strictures of Jewish law, and find a halachic solution to their problem;
women would like to participate in mitzvot such as Torah study, and to be full
participants in their communities and synagogues. These cries, like the cries of the ritually impure men, stem from a sincere and truthful desire to obey the laws of the Torah, out of a deep understanding of the meaning of belonging to the Jewish people, but without the ability to find their own place in the current tapestry of mitzvoth.
The post asks good questions, offers textual background for those unfamiliar with Pesach Sheini and the rules for the Passover sacrifice, and leaves us with thoughts for the holiday we no longer celebrate.
The Fourteenth of Iyar, Pesach Sheni, is not celebrated today. Beyond the symbolic gesture of not saying Tachanun, the penitential prayer recited daily, the day is not marked. This is why we suggest turning the Fourteenth of Iyar into the day of religious tolerance.
Worth reading.
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