In yesterday’s NYT, Paul Krugman, Nobel Prize winning economist and voice of conscience, stated very clearly the current divide in American politics.
One side of American politics considers the modern welfare state — a private-enterprise economy, but one in which society’s winners are taxed to pay for a social safety net — morally superior to the capitalism red in tooth and claw we had before the New Deal. It’s only right, this side believes, for the affluent to help the less fortunate.
The other side believes that people have a right to keep what they earn, and that taxing them to support others, no matter how needy, amounts to theft. That’s what lies behind the modern right’s fondness for violent rhetoric: many activists on the right really do see taxes and regulation as tyrannical impositions on their liberty.
Unfortunately, this is a very old debate, and its not only between Democrats and Republicans. This is the argument of the Sodomites who, according to the prophet Ezekiel, hoarded their resources and refused to allow outsiders in. The Rabbis saw Sodom as the epitome of small minded, harmful greed—greed that eventually leads to its own destruction.
Since the New Deal was passed, when America seemed to recognize its responsibility to its needy citizens as part of its political obligations, the forces of ownership and greed have been pushing back. The politics of Sodom have been gaining ground. Todays “radical” policies, as Krugman points out, are policies that Republicans proposed three decades ago. It is time then, it seems to me, for a primer on the politics of Sodom.
In Pirkei Avot the rabbis said (5:10):
There are four [character] types:
One who says “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours”…this is the character of Sodom.
“What is mine is yours, and what is yours is mine,” this is an ignorant person.
“What is mine is yours, and what is yours is yours,” this is a righteous person
“What is mine is mine, and what is yours is mine,” this is an evil person.
Why is the one who says “What is mine is mine, and what is yours is yours” a Sodomite? The Bible supplies the answer. The prophet Ezekiel (16:49) describes Sodom as follows: “Only this was the sin of your sister Sodom: arrogance! She and her daughters had plenty of bread and untroubled tranquility, yet she did not support the poor and the needy.” Sodom was punished for hoarding rather than distributing her resources. For the Sages, the apparently legal justification that ownership is the ultimate basis for the distribution of resources was insidious. That is, according to the Rabbis, there is more to collective life than asserting that what is mine is mine.
I spoke about this topic with Debbie enough times to know that she wasn’t interested in this aspect of her private life being discussed in print.
I knew about it, other writers knew about it, and respected her privacy. There was enough to write about her — and Shlomo Carlebach, for that matter — without getting into what they did or whom they called when they were lonely.
Did some closeted Jews feel that closeted lesbians would benefit from her talking about sex?
And it continues from there. Regardless of whether you think Friedman herself should have been out or not–and outed or not–there are a couple of problems here. First, this rehashes the whole notion that being out and queer (as @itsdlevy noted on Twitter this morning) is all about what happens between the sheets (as opposed to, say, what happens under the chuppah, what happens when one brings a date to events, what happens at daycare pick-up, and so forth.) This isn’t (‘just?’) about “bedroom stuff.” It’s about life stuff. And though Marks seems to cast the story as one in which Friedman herself framed the issue as about sex, I’m not so sure I consider him a reliable witness.
But more than that, Mark appears to be making the analogy between Friedman’s (or anyone’s) non-het sexuality and the sexual abuse that Shlomo Carlebach is said to have perpetrated.
Being gay is like sexually assaulting your congregants and followers? Really?
(And if you want to talk open secrets, from Blustain’s Lilith article, linked above: “We do know that certain segments of the progressive Jewish world, until the day Rabbi Carlebach died, distanced themselves from him because they were aware of reports of his sexual behavior. Leaders at ALEPH, and its sister organization, a retreat center called Elat Chayyim, told Lilith that during Rabbi Carlebach’s life they refused to invite him to teach under their auspices or sit on their boards.”)
I take umbrage at the idea that sexual assault and harassment is about “call[ing someone] when.. lonely.” I take umbrage at the idea that the perpetuation of sexual assault and harassment is something that should not be discussed. I take umbrage at the even merest implication that being queer and perpetuating sexual harassment and assault are even remotely analogous.
If you want to argue that Friedman had a right to privacy about her life, you can argue that. But do not bring in this disgusting analogy, and do not imply that sexual abuse should ever be left a private matter.
Yesterday, I was at Makom Hadash for the first time. Makom Hadash is a shared office in New York City, operated by Jewish environmental organization Hazon. It also currently houses GLBTetc organization Nehirim, Jewish learning conference of awesomeness Limmud NY and probably some other groups.
The office is not finished yet, but here are the plans, which I perused while I was poking around:
Notice the bike next to it. One of Hazon’s big programs is a series of annual bike rides. So it was nice to see a couple bikes laying around the office, not to mention a clear attention to sustainability in the office kitchen area.
But it gets better. In the final plan, there will be an office bike rack!
It’s gonna be a pretty cool office when they finish it. And the point is that it’s great to see an organization’s values reflected in its offices. I was thinking about this while I was at home in Austin over break, when I discovered that the synagogue where I grew up currently has no recycling. Which is even more troubling than it would be on its own, given that the congregation makes a lot of noise about environmentalism. More »
When I heard that Debbie Friedman had passed away, I was sitting in a conference room at the San Francisco Federation, participating in a board meeting for Keshet, a nonprofit organization working for the full inclusion of GLBT Jews in Jewish Life. I learned of Debbie’s passing via a message posted on Twitter by a lesbian Jewish educator with whom I used to work. The news hit our meeting hard. We stopped for a moment of silence. After all, she was one of us.
Sadly, Debbie Friedman was not a member of the Keshet board of directors. She was, however, a lesbian Jew. But reading the press asking for healing prayers during her recent illness, or the overwhelming displays of grief and affection in both the Jewish and mainstream press since her passing, you’d never know it.
I didn’t know Debbie personally. But like most liberal Jews my age who have been even the slightest bit involved with organized Judaism, I’ve been touched by her melodies. Most of those songs came to me second- or third-hand, learned at summer camp and USY events from song-leaders and enthusiastic youth leaders who taught their friends to sing “Not By Might” or her havdalah niggun as though they were as old and as central to Judaism as the Torah itself. Although I eventually became familiar with Debbie Friedman’s name, I still prefer to hear her songs shouted by enthusiastic teenagers over her considerably more polished renditions. And it wasn’t until I reached graduate school that I learned that the havdalah melody I had been singing since the fifth grade came from her wellspring of melody.
I didn’t know Debbie personally. But as someone who’s been a leader in the Jewish GLBT world for a number of years, I’ve heard persistent stories about her life as a lesbian. It seems that Debbie’s sexuality was an open secret; everybody knew about it, but no one spoke of it. This made me angry. Was she ashamed? Did she fear for her career? From all accounts, Debbie was incredibly humble – is it possible that she didn’t realize how central and beloved she was to not only her Reform Movement, but to contemporary American Judaism as a whole? I can’t imagine a single synagogue refusing to sing her prayer for healing because the love of her life was a woman, but maybe Debbie could.
I don’t bear any ill-will towards Debbie for staying in the closet. But her life in the closet was double-barreled tragedy: how sad that Debbie could not live her life with wholeness, and how sad that so many queer kids were deprived such an important role model. How ironic that the tyranny of the closet overpowered the woman whose songs let us let go for a moment of what the world might think of us, just long enough to shout “Nutter butter peanut butter” or sway with our arms around our friends and not worry if we looked gay.
My friends who knew Debbie tell me that she had a life-partner. I don’t know her partner’s name, because all the press around Debbie’s illness and passing only asked for prayers and comfort on behalf of Debbie’s sister, family and friends. I hope this did not add to the unbearable pain and loss her partner must be experiencing now, but how could it not?
My friends who knew Debbie tell me that she struggled against the closet, that as recently as this year she expressed a desire to come out and a loss as to how to do so. It saddens me to think of her life ending, prematurely, with this business left unfinished. I hope whoever becomes the guardian of her legacy will follow through on this wish of Debbie’s, so that her life can be a blessing to future generations of GLBT Jews, and to all Jews.
So Debbie Friedman has passed away. JTA has an article and the URJ has issued a statement. Her passing has been really sad for me and thousands of others. I will write a longer post in the coming days but I thought I would invite those of you who were touched by her music and dedication to the Jewish people share your Remembering Debbie stories in the comments here as well as on Twitter with the Hash Tag #rememberingdebbie.
Here is mine: Once in the late 1990s Debbie preformed at House of the Book at the then Brandeis-Bardin Institute and she told us that Jews can’t clap on 2 and 4 and proceed to prove it to us. It was funny. It was sad. It was classic Debbie Friedman.
Hazon has created an amazing resource for Tu Bi’Shvat where anyone can register for free and download a haggadah or customize your own, a leader’s guide and even a song book! It’s an incredible source for information and resources for running your own Tu Bi’Shvat seder or supplementing one which has become a tradition. Definitely head over and check it out because it really is something special. It’s all digital and it’s all free!
For those in NYC, you can join Hazon and Romemu for a Tu Bi’Shvat Seder and see this amazing resource in action!
Wednesday, January 19th
JCC Manhattan – 76th and Amsterdam
Doors open at 7:00pm, Seder begins promptly at 7:30pm
Celebrate Tu B’Shvat with the Hazon and Romemu communities as we experience the “new year for the trees” with song, spirit, and supper. This seder will be a kosher dairy meal including seasonal, gluten-free and vegan options.
Green Ticket- $30 (bring your own plate, bowl, cup and cutlery)
General Ticket- $36 (plate, bowl, cup and cutlery provided)
Lawmakers, Jewish leaders and kosher businesses are lobbying New York’s new governor Andrew Cuomo to restore the state’s kosher law-enforcement division.
Budget cuts and retirements over the last year have left the division with one employee, the division’s director, according to The Wall Street Journal.
The cuts in the department, which once employed 11 kosher inspectors, will save up to $1 million a year in salary, benefits and services, according to the newspaper, citing a state Department of Agriculture and Markets spokesperson.
So New York can either save $1 million a year, or it can get back into the business of government-sponsored certification of religious claims. Is this a hard choice?
The Masorti movement (the Israeli and generally non-North American arm of the Conservative movement) is bringing out the snark a bit with a new ad campaign to address the issue of government stipends for yeshiva students in Israel.
They’ve put up big ads all over Jerusalem (including on the back of buses) with the statement, “Torah that is not accompanied by a worldly trade will in the end amount to nothing and will lead one into sin” (Pirke Avot, chapter 2) and an index of the occupations of some of the tradition’s great sages–Maimonides was a physician, Rashi was a vintner, R. Yehoshua ben Hananiah made needles, and so forth.
I, for one, am amused, and glad they’re throwing down on this one.
You can see a close-up of the ad here.
There’s a bit of history that you need to know to clarify the situation. Kadima, a Jewish community in Washington, wanted to buy a Torah written by a woman. After making inquiries, they learned that there were no Torahs written by women. So they decided to commission six women to write one.
Since the time that this Torah was commissioned, in 2003, several women have become Torah scribes (or sofrot) is and completed the writing of a Torah on their own. (In fact, one of those is Julie Seltzer, an MJL writer who bakes a different challah for every Torah portion {here’s this week’s — not that it has anything to do with the movie; it’s just independently cool}.)
Perry explains a bit of the background:
Since the time the Women’s Torah Project began, nearly 50 women have become Torah scribes, and one woman, Jen Taylor Friedman, has written 3 sefer Torahs by herself. Not only has Kadima created a beautiful Torah for their community, they have also opened doors for women to take their places in Judaism one step further.
Now that the community has this Torah, what are they going to do with it? The next step is, of course, decorating it — other women from the community are already starting to work on the crown, mantle and yad. But really, the next big step is Shabbat — like any other Torah, they’re going to read the eternal story of our people’s history each week.
by Aryeh Cohen [➚] · Thursday, December 23rd, 2010
From Gershom Gorenberg over at South Jerusalem:
At 10:03 on Monday morning, Osama Rusrus phoned from Beit Umar in the West Bank with wonderful news: His wife Sunya and daughter Dalal had crossed through the checkpoint into Jerusalem, on their way to Alyn Hospital.
It took nearly two months of wrangling with the Israeli authorities, especially the agency that never signs its name, and it was touch and go till the last moment.
Before I tell the story, let me note that this is just an early chapter. The next chapter is getting Dalal the full treatment she needs at Alyn, in order to allow her to live as fully as a girl with brain damage can. Right now she is unable to walk, has use of one hand, and has a vocabulary of one word. Treatment, according to Dr. Eliezer Be’eri of Alyn Hospital, will allow her “to develop to her potential, whatever that is” and enjoy a greater quality of life. It will require a lot of money. If you want to help, read on, or just go here.
Be’eri met with Osama and his daughter Dalal in October to give an initial assessment of her condition and of whether Alyn could help her. Dalal is three-and-a-half years old and has suffered since birth from brain damage that has drastically slowed her development. (An account of that meeting is here.) Neither Osama nor his wife Sunya were able to enter Jerusalem, so Be’eri performed that initial examination on the patio of the Everest Hotel outside Beit Jalla in the West Bank.
Be’eri’s assessment was that Dalal not only could benefit from treatment, but needed to begin quickly. He arranged for a multi-disciplinary examination at Alyn, and made sure it was scheduled as “urgent.” With Alyn’s letter, Osama requested a permit to enter Jerusalem.
They brought you the Answers in Genesis ministry. They brought you the Creation Museum, showing that humans and dinosaurs coexisted on God’s 6-day creation 6000 years ago. Now, they are bringing you Ark Encounter–an 800 acre Noah’s Ark theme park complete with life-size replica of the ark and a model of the Tower of Babel. Crazy? Perhaps. But also lucrative!
The developers of Ark Encounter, who have incorporated as a profit-making company, say they expect to spend $150 million, employ 900 people and attract 1.6 million visitors from around the world in the first year. With the Creation Museum only 45 miles away, they envision a Christian tourism corridor that would draw busloads from churches and Christian schools for two- and three-day visits.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the article:
“It’s our opportunity to present accurate, factual biblical information to people about a subject that they’re really interested in,” said Mike Zovath, a senior vice president of Answers in Genesis.
this one makes me laugh because if it’s accurate and factual to the Bible, it’s not accurate or factual to those pesky things called history or reality! If it’s accurate and factual to history and reality, well, then it will likely not be so much in line with the Bible…
“We think that God would probably have sent healthy juvenile-sized animals that weren’t fully grown yet, so there would be plenty of room,” said Mr. Zovath, a retired Army lieutenant colonel heading the ark project. “We want to show how Noah would have taken care of them, taken care of waste management, taken care of water needs and food needs.”
that God, always thinking about practical matters! sounds like someone needs to do a little reading of some midrash! healthy juvenile-sized animals. hilarious.
Yesterday a good friend told me that according to her father, candy canes are supposed to be the bones and blood of Jesus in edible form, and for this reason, she was not allowed to eat them as a child. Before this conversation, I thought that the main thing that might cause parents to discourage/forbid their children from eating candy canes was the fact that if you suck on them long enough, they’ll form a sharp point that would be ideal for stabbing someone. Either way, I dislike Christmas.
When I was growing up, it was celebrate Christmas, fake it, or be extremely bored. The streets of the medium sized Northeastern city where we lived was desolate on all holidays and on Sundays after 5. I didn’t know anyone Jewish who wasn’t in some way in a Christmas situation (including my family), and so I’d buckle down and watch Christmas tv and listen to Christmas music and still feel deeply, intangibly lonely.
Jami Attenberg, one of my favorite writers, posted a piece on her personal blog last week about December being a month that’s always hard. I think that for me it has to do with my refusal to indulge tinsel and lights and pine smell anything infused by/with Christmas infused mirth. This is based in: a) feeling exhausted by the consumerism of the holiday season, b) trying to pretend I’m not assimilated, which is of course, false, being that I’m an American Jew. There’s no use in putting up this front at Christmas when it’s something that I have to deal with all year. Living in Manhattan is certainly a change from the days of yore, what with things being open and people roaming the streets, but even with all the movement, or perhaps because of it, something feels heavy and overwhelming and at the same time, empty.
Apologies for having been quite quiet for the past while. Much of it had to do with planning a wedding and getting life back to “normal” afterwards. As I reflected on that experience, I decided to write up some advice for people planning weddings or helping people that are. Crossposted at DiD. Since this is a manifesto in progress, your thoughts on topics for inclusion, changes, etc are all very much welcomed. Sorry for the technical mishap and resulting problems with readability in an earlier draft.
Wedding Manifesto
As we planned our wedding we came under pressure to spend obscene amounts of money on a variety of silly things–I suspect this is the American way. The pressure was real, came from many places, and thankfully was almost entirely resisted. If it can happen to us–it can happen to you! I’ll outline some of the things we did and why, including resources. My approach to weddings is that it’s critical to save your budget for things that will make your wedding match your goals. Since the budget is limited, spending on things you care about will necessitate ruthlessly cutting things you don’t. I’ll talk more about this throughout. My experience with wedding is a bit limited (though I’ve been to 30 or so I’ve only planned one).
At first it was a letter signed by 30 Israeli rabbis, primarily haredi and many in public positions, supporting a religious injunction against renting or selling property to non-Jews. The outrage perhaps was unnotable towards typical haredi extremism. Then the signatories to the letter reached 300 signers, including many more municipal rabbis on the public payroll. This has prompted calls for their resignation or firing them, and even Netanyahu to reject their call.
Now, Israeli rabbis rejecting this ruling have called on their Diaspora counterparts to support them in rejecting this abuse of Jewish texts. The New Israel Fund, the Conservative Rabbinical Assembly, Rabbis for Human Rights, and J Street‘s Rabbinical Cabinet have all circulated a joint letter that’s reached 165 signatures since Friday afternoon. Hundreds more are needed by the end of Monday, December 13 in order to present the letter Tuesday morning during the Knesset hearing on the issue.
Shaul Magid has an interesting discussion of Art Green’s new book Radical Judaismtogether with the reviews of the book, asking the question: “What does it all mean?” Here’s the punch-line:
These three reviews illustrate three levels of anxiety Jews feel about their theological future. The anxiety is not really about Green’s proposal as much as the realization that something must be done to create a theologically-relevant Judaism and no one really knows what to do. Mirsky’s questions about “survival” and the ever-present threat of the dissolution of the particular are well-placed and Green and others need to address them seriously. Wolpe’s anxiety about syncretism and the un-Jewishness of contemporary Radical Judaism is an instantiation of what I have called the paranoia of assimilation. If Judaism cannot learn to live with this syncretism, that is, with the normalization of un-Jewishness in its Judaism, it may be doomed. In America, Jews have learned to live comfortably with non-Jews in productive and mutually respectful ways. The next step may be learning to make the borders of Judaism more permeable. Landes seems to be threatened by everything that stands outside his own imaginative “Judaism.”
But you should read the whole thing here then come back and comment.
The correct answer should be that it isn’t, because Bibi Netanyahu fired all the 50 civil servants who, in their official capacity, excommunicated any Jew who rents to a goy.
So far, however, Bibi has condemned the psak din, but has not done anything to fire the rabbis who issued it. So too, the ruling has not been countered by the chief rabbis, or by any of the rabbis who guide Netanyahu’s coalition partners. In other words, while Netanyahu may profess outrage, this does seem to be the normative halachic ruling for the State of Israel.
Would 50 Israeli civil servants be so stupid as to piss off all 6 billion goyim on the planet, including over a billion Christians? You betcha!
After all, the Israeli Orthodox establishment has gone to great lengths to alienate 5 million non-Orthodox American Jews. They’ve declared the child of one of our top theologians to not be Jewish; they’ve arrested our religious leaders for the crime of carrying a Torah in public; and they’ve decreed that Sabbath observance is the only defense against forest fires.
They’ve kicked us in the face, and the leaders of American Jewry — the Jewish Federations and the Jewish organizations — did nothing but applaud and defend the government that empowered them. There was no price to pay.
Back in 1988, the Jewish establishment had balls (I’m looking at you, Shoshana Cardin). Yitzhak Shamir was on the verge of forming a coalition with the haredim by giving in to Habad-fomented demands to ammend Who Is a Jew. A high powered delegation of American Jewish machers flew to Jerusalem… and the result was Israel’s first national unity government.
But that was then. Now, not so much noise from American Jewry. No real push-back as the Israeli Foreign Minister announced, at the UN, his plan to remove the citizenship of Israel’s non-Jewish citizens. No, nothing but applause. This disastrous coalition of Lieberman and Ovadia, of racist nationalists and racist fundamentalists, doesn’t offend the American Jewish establishment.
The question is, will American Christians be so forgiving?
The attack ad practically writes itself:
“”My opponent voted to give billions of dollars in foreign aid to a country where government supported clergymen preach hatred toward Christians….”
If AIPAC leaders care about Israel (rather than the Republican party), they might want to look up from their porn and give Bibi a call. Because this time, Bibi’s buddies are playing with fire.
A Guest blog by Rob Kutner. Rob was a writer on The Daily Show and is currently writing for Conan on TBS
We can probably all agree Pharaoh’s vision of the seven fat/lean cows/corns is the most memorable dream about agricultural policy in history. But Pharaoh’s own recounting of the cow dream reveals one of the themes animating this week’s parsha.
In describing how the lean cows ate the fat cows (Gen. 41:21), Pharaoh adds an extra nuance not found in the original description of that dream: “v’lo noda ki va’oo el kirbenah u’mareyhen ra” – “You couldn’t tell that [the lean cows] had swallowed [the fat cows], they [still] looked bad.”
In other words, perhaps ravenous consumption doesn’t always cure what ails us.
That idea also comes at us in a different way through looking at the curious titling of the parsha. In the midst of a sea of Vav-parshiyot (Vayetze, Vayishlach, Vayesheve, and next week’s Vayigash), suggesting a continuous flow of events, Miketz (or, “on the edge/end”), suggests a radical break.
Rashi finds an analogue in “Miketz sheva shanim” (“at the end of seven years”) (Deuteronomy 15:1), when the Shmitta year would go into effect, and all debts would be cancelled.
The Shmitta was a time when all “receiving” of money stopped – another check on the notion of continuous consumption.
It’s also taught (see e.g. Rashi to Genesis 35:29) that, at this pivotal moment in the Joseph/Egypt narrative, when Pharaoh has the dream that ends up springing Joseph from prison and into Egyptian royalty, Isaac died. Quite a holiday card that year from the Jacob Family.
But in Kabbalistic terms, Isaac (with his life of acquisition and preservation) represents the Desire to Receive, whereas hospitable Abraham represents the Desire to Give – and Joseph is the kav emtzai (“middle column”) that balances the two.
However, before Joseph can come to play that pivotal role, his Desire to Receive must come to an end. The Zohar says that is the end that the word “Miketz” refers to.
And indeed, Joseph’s life can be seen as one of struggling between the desires to give and receive. As a youth, he publicly anounced his dreams of receiving adulation from others. As a servant in Potiphar’s house, he nobly refused to take his master’s wife. But after interpreting the Cupbearer’s dream, he still asked a price: Having the Cupbearer bring his case before Pharaoh.
Now, however, Joseph comes before Pharaoh and simply interprets, with no desire to receive anything – even describing his role in the process as “Biladi” (“without me”).
Joseph has finally become a person of pure giving. Even his machinations against his brothers take on this form: He sends their money back with them, literally unable to take anything. When he has them dine with him, he gives Benjamin five times the food he gives everyone else.
Paradoxically, the moment he renounces receiving is the moment Joseph begins receiving everything: freedom from captivity, career, power, wife and children, his own brothers and father back, and the opportunity to save the world (as he knew it) from starvation.
It’s a good lesson for us. Remember the place Joseph was in when he made this radical ketz: imprisoned, cast out by his family, abandoned by even the Cupbearer who’d been his one way out, two long years prior. Joseph’s response: set desire aside in full and dedicate yourself fully to giving.
How often do we feel imprisoned: in our careers, in our personal relationships, in traffic. What if we could seize hold of that moment by looking the Universe in the eye and daring to find something to give? A smile, to the jerk cutting you off in traffic; an unsolicited and undeserved compliment to your tormentor at the office; even “giving in” to a loved one with whom you’ve had a sustained argument. Begin the day with a token contribution to some kind of tzedakah, a nickel in the pushke, and end it with 5 minutes of time given to another or another’s cause. Just try it for one day, and at the very least, you’ll be reminded of your very real freedom to fashion yourself.
This isn’t turning the other cheek. It’s turning the tide of nonstop taking that our society, if not our world, seems to be built upon.
Nowhere is this more evident than in December – when the consumption parade of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, Even Further in Debt to China Tuesday, etc. beats our holiday of tiny beautiful miracles into a one-upsmanship of gift-giving.
So why not turn back the tide a little this Hanukkah? Change night 8 from a night of gifts to one of giving? Donate the intended presents to the needy or ailing. Hold a family discussion on a cause important to all, and make a plan to spend time together working on it between now and next year.
Obviously, we’ll never completely eliminate the desire to receive. It’s in part what makes us human. But by working a little harder at giving, we can make a “ketz” – an end – to desire’s crushing grip over us. And just possibly, like Joseph, a beginning of much greater things.
song book! It’s an incredible source for information and resources for running your own Tu Bi’Shvat seder or supplementing one which has become a tradition. Definitely head over and check it out because it really is something special. It’s all digital and it’s all free!
The Masorti movement (the Israeli and generally non-North American arm of the Conservative movement) is bringing out the snark a bit with a new ad campaign to address the issue of government stipends for yeshiva students in Israel. 
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