"Top Texts" for Beit Midrash Hillel International General Assembly 2015

Rollo May, The Courage To Create

When we engage a painting…we are experiencing some new moment of sensibility. Some new vision is triggered in us by our contact with the painting; something unique is born in us. This is why [the] appreciation of … [a] painting … is also a creative act on our part.

Taanit 20a-b

Our Rabbis have taught: A man should always be gentle as the reed and never unyielding as the cedar. Once R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon was coming from Migdal Gedor, from the house of his teacher, and he was riding leisurely on his ass by the riverside and was feeling happy and elated because he had studied much Torah There chanced to meet him an exceedingly ugly man who greeted him, ‘Peace be upon you, Sir’. He, however, did not return his salutation but instead said to him, ‘Empty one, how ugly you are. Are all your fellow citizens as ugly as you are?’ The man replied: ‘I do not know, but go and tell the craftsman who made me, "How Ugly is the vessel which you have made".’ When R. Eleazar realized that he had done wrong he dismounted from the ass and prostrated himself before the man and said to him, ‘I submit myself to you, forgive me’. The man replied: ‘I will not forgive you until you go to the craftsman who made me and say to him, "How ugly is the vessel which you have made".’ He [R. Eleazar] walked behind him until he reached his native city. When his fellow citizens came out to meet him greeting him with the words, ‘Peace be upon you O Teacher, O Master,’ the man asked them, ‘Whom are you addressing thus’? They replied, ‘The man who is walking behind you.’ Thereupon he exclaimed: ‘If this man is a teacher, may there not be any more like him in Israel’! The people then asked him: ‘Why’? He replied: ‘Such and such a thing has he done to me. They said to him: ‘Nevertheless, forgive him, for he is a man greatly learned in the Torah.’ The man replied: ‘For your sakes I will forgive him, but only on the condition that he does not act in the same manner in the future.’ Soon after this R. Eleazar son of R. Simeon entered [the Beth Hamidrash] and expounded thus, A man should always be gentle as the reed and let him never be unyielding as the cedar. And for this reason the reed merited that of it should be made a pen for the writing of the Law, Phylacteries and Mezuzoth.

Major Themes and Ideas: Some of the greatest works from the 20th century are the

products of artistic collaboration Bill Jones and Arnie Zane¨ John Lennon and Paul

McCartney¨ Walt Disney and Salvator Dali What might famous collaborative partnerships in Jewish and contemporary art tradition teach us about this special relationship Conversely¨ what is best achieved in solitude.

I. Solitude

Susan Cain, Quiet The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking

“Checking too often with someone else pausing for feedback with each bit of output can inhibit or confuse us. We can lose our natural trajectory, intuition, or instinctual aim. When psychologists examine the lives of the most creative people, they almost always find individuals who like to go off by themselves who can tolerate the solitude that creativity requires. They are extroverted enough to exchange and advance

ideas, but introverted enough to gestate them on their own.”

Joe Sola

Eleven reasons why I work with myself:

I am easy to work with

I show up on time

I usually give good feedback about the project

I am very critical of the project

I take good direction

I work on a sliding scale

I will work for beer

I am extremely sensitive to others when working in public spaces

I don’t have to do much paperwork for image release, personal liability, etc.

I won’t sue myself, if something goes wrong

I never complain about the food during the project

Rabbi David Wolpe

“When he was a child, the Seer of Lublin (later a famous Hasidic master) used to go off into the woods by himself. When his father, worried, asked him why, he said “I go there to find God.” His father said to him, ”But my son, don’t you know that God is the same everywhere?” “God is” said the boy, “but I’m not.”

II. Collaboration

Keith Haring, on the collaborative paintings of Andy Warhol and Jean-Michel

Basquiat

“[The Collaboration Paintings are] a physical conversation happening in paint instead of words. Andy loved the energy with which Jean-Michel would totally eradicate one image and enhance another... They worked on many [canvases] at the same time, each idea inspiring the next. Layers and layers of images and ideas would build towards a concise climax. The sense of humor, the snide remarks, the profound realizations, the

simple chitchat all happened with paint and brushes.”

Babylonian Talmud Bava Metzia 84a

Rabbi Yochanan and Resh Lakish

​

Part I:

One day Rabbi Yochanan was bathing in the Jordan River when Resh Lakish[1] saw him and leapt into the Jordan after him.

Said R. Yochanan to him: Your strength should be for Torah.

Resh Lakish replied: Your beauty should be for women.

He said to him: If you repent, I will give you my sister, who is even more beautiful than me. He decided to repent.

Resh Lakish wished to return to the river’s bank to collect his armor and weapons, but lacked the strength and could not. R. Yochanan taught him Bible and Mishnah, and made him into a great man.

Part II:

One day, there was a dispute in the Beit Midrash (the house of study). The question was about a sword, a knife, a dagger, a spear, a handsaw and a scythe — at what stage of their manufacture can they become impure? When the manufacturing process is finished was the agreed upon answer.

And when is their manufacture finished?

R. Yochanan said: When they are formed in a furnace.

Resh Lakish said: When they are polished in water.

R. Yochanan said to him: A robber knows his trade.

He replied: And how exactly have you benefited me? There (as a robber) I was called Master, and here (as a Rabbi) I am called Master.

He said to him: By bringing you under the wings of the Shekhinah (God’s holy presence)

R. Yochanan felt deeply hurt. Resh Lakish fell ill.

His sister [wife of Resh Lakish] came and wept before R. Yochanan.

“Forgive him, for the sake of my son,” she pleaded. He replied with a verse: ‘Leave your fatherless children. I [God] will preserve them alive.’ (Jeremiah 49:11)

“For the sake of my widowhood then!” He replied with a verse: ‘And let thy widows trust in me [God].’ (Jeremiah 49:11)

Then, Resh Lakish died, and R. Yochanan was plunged into deep grief.

Said the Rabbis: Who shall go to ease his mind? Let Rabbi Eleazar ben Pedat go. His teachings are very subtle.

So he went and sat before him and on every dictum uttered by R. Yochanan he observed: There is a Braisa (teaching) that supports you.

R. Yochanan said: You are not like the son of Lakish! When I stated a law, the son of Lakish used to raise 24 objections, to which I gave 24 answers, which consequently led to a fuller comprehension of the law. You say, “A teaching has been taught which supports you” – do I not know myself that my statements are correct?

R. Yochanan would go and tear his clothes and cry, “Where are you, bar Lakisha! Where are you, bar Lakisha?” and he screamed until his sanity wore away from him.

The Rabbis prayed for mercy on him, and he died.

[1] A highway robber at the time.

Components of a Healthy Relationship

Love. Respect. Equality. Pride in each other. Communication. Friendship. Safety to be vulnerable. Healthy disagreements. Commitment. Comfort. Compatibility. Appreciation of difference. Listening. Openness to growth. Honesty. Compatible goals. Healthy boundaries. Laughter and humor. Healthy habits. Support. Encouragement. Empathy. Flexibility. Intimacy. Understanding. Trust. Admiration. Constructive criticism. Independence. Realistic expectations. Consensual sexual activity. Safety, physically and emotionally. Generosity. Similar values. Ability to compromise. Self-awareness. Giving and taking. Caring.

Definitions and Guiding Questions

What do we mean by Chesed?

Chesed is translated in the Torah alone as graciousness, kindness, goodness, loyalty, mercy, loving-kindness...the list goes on. These are all good things, but how does chesed relate to how we love ourselves and others?

What do we mean by G'milut Chasadim?

G'milut Chasadim is very often translated to mean acts of loving-kindness. It is used to describe everything from the work done by synagogue bikur holim committees [that visit the sick] to the service we do on Alternative Break trips. The dictionary meaning of the root g-m-l that is most supported by Talmudic usage is "reciprocal acts." We'll come back to that concept later.

Why are we talking about this? What does this have to do with Shmita?

Engagement Institute (and your Hillel) is all about relationship-building, and the theme for this year’s Beit Midrash gathering is inspired by the concept of Shmita. Commonly translated as the ‘Sabbatical Year,’ Shmita literally means release. Of biblical origin, this is the final year of a shared calendar cycle, when land is left fallow, debts are forgiven, and a host of other agricultural and economic adjustments are made to ensure the maintenance of an equitable, just, and healthy society. As we enter the Shmita year and think about finding equilibrium in our environment, how are we doing that for ourselves? How are we doing self-care, and planting the seeds for healthy relationships? Do you need one to have the other?

Self-Love and Self-Care

If the Buddha Came to Dinner, Hale Sofia Schatz

With more Americans overweight and obesity at epidemic proportions, it's become clear that physical health isn't enough of an impetus for people to make changes. I don't know anybody who wants to be regarded as just a mechanical, physical body. So, too, we need to shift our awareness of health from the physical to the total person- body, heart, mind and spirit. Only then can we make the connection that food we ingest directly feeds all parts of ourselves, thereby profoundly influencing the quality of our lives.

• How do you currently relate to food? How do you make choices regarding what to eat? What memories do certain foods evoke? From where does your food typically come?
• How would you eat differently if you were not only feeding your body, but also your soul?
• What is holding you back?
• In what ways can you be more intentional about your food choices?

Quote from a Humans of New York portrait

"I’m losing my eyesight. It’s a condition called retinitis pigmentosa. It starts with your peripheral vision and moves inward. It’s not too bad for me yet. Sometimes I don’t notice when somebody is trying to shake my hand. And sometimes it can be hard for me to keep track of what line I’m reading. But I got the disease from my father, and he went completely blind in his 40’s. So I try to spend as much time as possible looking at things like the colors of the leaves and cool cloud formations."

"Jerusalem's a place where everyone remembers

he's forgotten something

But doesn't remember what it is."

- Yehuda Amichai

Tourists, by Yehuda Amichai

Visits of condolence is all we get from them.
They squat at the Holocaust Memorial,
They put on grave faces at the Wailing Wall
And they laugh behind heavy curtains
In their hotels.
They have their pictures taken
Together with our famous dead
At Rachel's Tomb and Herzl's Tomb
And on Ammunition Hill.
They weep over our sweet boys
And lust after our tough girls
And hang up their underwear
To dry quickly
In cool, blue bathrooms.

Once I sat on the steps by agate at David's Tower,
I placed my two heavy baskets at my side. A group of tourists
was standing around their guide and I became their target marker. "You see
that man with the baskets? Just right of his head there's an arch
from the Roman period. Just right of his head." "But he's moving, he's moving!"
I said to myself: redemption will come only if their guide tells them,
"You see that arch from the Roman period? It's not important: but next to it,
left and down a bit, there sits a man who's bought fruit and vegetables for his family."

Midat Sdom

Bal Taschit

Shulchan Aruch Harav H.M. Rules of Guarding One’s Body and Bal Tashchit: 14

Just as one has to be careful with their body not to break or hurt anything... so to does one have to be careful in everything else to make sure that they don’t break or hurt anything. And anytime that someone breaks a vessel or rips a garment or destroys a house or covers over a well or destroys food or drink or anything else that a human can benefit from has broken a negative commandment as it says, “do not destroy a tree...”

Kitzur Shulchan Aruch 170

One must be careful not to destroy or waste or damage one’s money...

Rabbi Emanuel Rackman, “Torah Concept of Empathic Justice Can Bring Peace,” The Jewish Week, April 3, 1977: 19

"Judaism teaches an “empathic justice,” which seeks to make people identify themselves with each other—with each other’s needs, with each other’s hopes and aspirations, with each other’s defeats and frustrations. Because Jews have known the distress of slaves and the loneliness of strangers, we are to project ourselves into their souls and make their plight our own".

• How does this text define empathy? How does this definition compare with your understanding of empathy?
• Do you think it is possible to identify with others based on a very ancient history of oppression?
• What are the limits of an empathic response? How can they be overcome? Is empathy enough?

Levertov, Maamar Nigun p. 3

The essence of the nigun is that of awakening- re-awakening the essential life-concept and bringing it forth, whether from the victory or from the humiliation, and re-awakening the essence of humankind and the life-forces that are buried in the depths and not revealed to the person for one reason or another.

Ludwig van Beethoven

Music is the mediator between the spiritual and the sensual life.

Plato

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.

Rumi, When things are heard

The ear participates, and helps arrange marriages the eye has already made love with what it sees.The eye knows pleasure, delights in the body's shape: the ear hears words that talk about all this. When hearing takes place, character areas change; but when you see, inner areas change. If all you know about fire is what you have heard see if the fire will agree to cook you! Certain energies come only when you burn. If you long for belief, sit down in the fire! When the ear receives subtly, it turns into an eye but if words do not reach the ear in the chest, nothing happens.

George Steiner

This study will contend that the wager on the meaning of meaning, on the potential of insight and response when one human voice addresses another, when we come face to face with the text and work of art or music, which is to say when we encounter the other in the condition of freedom, is a wager on transcendence,

On Being by Krista Tippet with Indigo Girls

MS. EMILY SALIERS: Music is, um, it's physical, it's got, you know, your heartbeat, it's got rhythms, it's got space, it's a physiological reality along with a mystical reality. So it's metaphysical. There's not many things to in life you can point to and go that's metaphysical, but music is.

MS. AMY RAY: It's funny 'cause you can find God in music when you're gathered together singing a song, but also there are moments that I've had seeing people perform where it's just: that's God. It's like they're not God, but God's there. It's like Patti Smith at Red Rocks, Prince's Purple Rain tour… There's just these moments and it's not the personality of the musicians anymore. Something's disappeared and the music and the audience and everything is merged and there's no separation between performer and audience. That is what spirituality is supposed to be.

A Syrian Christian named Aphrahat

I write you my beloved concerning virginity and holiness because I have heard from a Jewish man that insulted one of your brothers, members of our congregation, by saying to him: You are impure (Tamin) you who do not marry women: but we are holy (kedoshim) and better, (we) who procreate and increase progeny in the world.

• How is he defining holiness?

• How should holiness be achieved?

Avoth de rabbi Nathan: 2:3

This is one of the things that Moses did on his own and his opinion matched the opinion of God… He separated from his wife, and his opinion agreed with the opinion of God. How so? (Moses) said,” Concerning Israel, that did not purify except for the hour and were not prepared except to receive upon themselves the ten commandments from Mount Sinai, the Holy Blessed One said to me,” Go to the people and purify them today and tomorrow.” (Exodus 19:10): and I, who am prepared for/called to this every day and every hour, and I do not know when He will speak to me either in the day or in the night- how much more so should I seperate from my wife!” And his opinion agree with the opinion of God.

• How does this text define holiness?

• How does this contradict with the above Jewish idea of holiness?

• How is it similar and different to monastic practice?

• What is the relationship between purity and revelation?

The Mekilta, exegeting Exodus 19:15

And (Moses) spoke to the people-” Be ready,” etc. (Exod 19:15) But we did not hear that God said “separate/abstain from the women,” Rather “Be Ready.” (V 11) (They) are analogy, “Be Ready (vs. 15) here signifies “separate/abstain from the women.” Rabbi says, from its own context it can be proven. (God said) “Go to the people and qiddashtam today and tomorrow” (v. 10) If (the command) concerned bathing only they should have bathed on the fifth (day) and they would have been )physically pure (tahor) by the evening sun. But why does the text say “Go to the people and quidashtam today and tomorrow? (v. 10) To indicate that God said to Moses, “separate/abstain from the woman.”

• How does this text differ from the above text?

• What is the connection between abstinence and purity?

“Gaga challenges multi layer tasks. It is fundamental for gaga users to be available for this challenge.

At once we, the users, can be involved in moving slowly through space while a quick action in our body is in progress. Those dynamics of movement are only a portion of what else might go on at the same time.

We are letting our mind observe and analyze many things at once, we are aware of the connection between effort and pleasure, we connect to the “sense of plenty of time”, especially when we move fast, we are aware of the distance between our body parts, we are aware of the friction between flesh and bones, we sense the weight of our body parts, we are aware of where we hold unnecessary tension, we let go only to bring life and efficient movement to where we let go…

We are listening, seeing, measuring, playing with the texture of our flesh, we might be silly, decorating our inside, we can laugh at ourselves.

We learn to love our sweat, we discover our passion to move and connect it to effort, we discover both the animal in us and the power of our imagination.

We learn to appreciate understatement and exaggeration, we discover the difference between joy and pleasure and use both to protect ourselves from injuring and hurting our body, we learn to apply our force in an efficient way and we learn to use “other” forces,

We become more delicate and we recognize the importance of the flow of energy and information through our body in all directions!

We discover the advantage of soft flesh and sensitive hands, we learn to connect to groove even when there is no music.

We become more aware of people in the room and we realize that we are not in the center of it all. We never look at ourselves in a mirror, there are no mirrors. We become better aware of our form. We connect to the sense of the endless of possibilities.

We explore multi dimensional movement, we enjoy the burning sensation in our muscles, we are ready to snap, we are aware of what we are made of, we are aware of our explosive power and some times we use it.

We change our movement habits by finding new ones, we can be calm and alert at once.

We become available…”

-Ohad Naharin, March 2008

Submitted by Erica Frankel

Nicole Krauss’s Beautiful Letter to Van Gogh on Fear, Bravery, and How to Break the Loop of Our Destructive Patterns

“Feeling helpless and confused in the face of random, unpatterned events, we seek to order them and, in so doing, gain a sense of control over them,” the great psychiatrist Irvin D. Yalom wrote in his magnificent meditation on uncertainty and our search for meaning. But as our terror of losing control compels us to grasp for order and certainty, we all too often end up creating patterns that ultimately don’t serve us, then repeat those patterns under the illusion of control. These patterns of belief — about who we are, about who others are, about how the world works — come to shape our behavior, which in turn shapes our reality, creating a loop that calls to mind physicist David Bohm’s enduring wisdom: “Reality is what we take to be true. What we take to be true is what we believe… What we believe determines what we take to be true.”

To keep repeating a baleful pattern without recognizing that we are caught in its loop is one of life’s greatest tragedies; to recognize it but feel helpless in breaking it is one of our greatest trials; to transcend the fear of uncertainty, which undergirds all such patterns of belief and behavior, is a supreme triumph.

That triumphant transcendence of the pattern is what novelist Nicole Krauss explores in an exquisite response to Vincent van Gogh’s 1884 letter to his brother about fear and risk-taking. Her piece is part of an exhibition by the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, in which twenty-three contemporary artists and writers respond to the letters of Van Gogh in paintings, sculptures, letters, poems, photographs, and videos.

Krauss writes:

Dear Vincent,

You write about fear: Fear of the blank canvas, but also, on a larger scale, of the “infinitely meaningless, discouraging blank side” that life itself always turns toward us, and which can only be countered when a person “steps in and does something,” when he “breaks” or “violates.”

It’s extraordinary that I should have been given your letter now, because it is exactly that act of breaking that has been on my mind this last year, and which I feel has everything to do with how I want to make art, and how I want to live.

It’s a strange thing about the human mind that, despite its capacity and its abundant freedom, its default is to function in a repeating pattern. It watches the moon and the planets, the days and seasons, the cycle of life and death all going around in an endless loop, and unconsciously, believing itself to be nature, the mind echoes these cycles. Its thoughts go in loops, repeating patterns established so long ago we often can’t remember their origin, or why they ever made sense to us. And even when these loops fail over and over again to bring us to a desirable place, even while they entrap us, and make us feel anciently tired of ourselves, and we sense that sticking to their well-worn path means we’ll miss contact with the truth every single time, we still find it nearly impossible to resist them. We call these patterns of thought our “nature” and resign ourselves to being governed by them as if they are the result of a force outside of us, the way that the seas are governed — rather absurdly, when one thinks about it — by a distant and otherwise irrelevant moon.

And yet it is unquestionably within our power to break the loop; to “violate” what presents itself as our nature by choosing to think — and to see, and act — in a different way. It may require enormous effort and focus. And yet for the most part it isn’t laziness that stops us from breaking these loops, it’s fear. In a sense, one could say that fear is the otherwise irrelevant moon that we allow to govern the far larger nature of our minds.

And so before we can arrive at the act of breaking, we first have to confront our fear. The fear that the blank canvas and the blank side of life reflects back to us, which is so paralyzing, as you put it, and seems to tell us that we can’t do anything.” It’s an abstract fear, though it finds a way to take on endless shapes. Today it may be the fear of failure, but tomorrow it will be the fear of what others will think of us, and at a different time it will be fear of discovering that the worst things we suspect about ourselves are true. My lover says that the fear, which seems always to be there when one wakes up in the morning, and which he feels in the hollow between his ribs (above his stomach and below his heart) comes from the “other world,” a phrase that always brings tears to his eyes, and by which he means the awareness of our finitude, our lack of the infinite and eternal. I think he’s right, but I would also add to that that fear, being anticipatory, is always without knowledge. It is a mental calculation based on the future unknown. And yet the experience of fear is the experience of being in the grip of a sensation that seems to possess an unassailable conviction in itself. To be afraid that the plane will crash is, in a sense, to assume that the plane will crash. And yet even if we could scrape away the many forms our fear takes and get to the underlying source-our mortality, our division from the infinite — we would still discover that our fear is not based on actual knowledge, unlike the part of us that chooses to be free. Bravery is always more intelligent than fear, since it is built on the foundation of what one knows about oneself: the knowledge of one’s strength and capacity, of one’s passion. You implied as much in your letter: “However meaningless and vain, however dead life appears to be, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, and who knows something, doesn’t let himself be fobbed off like that,” you wrote. “He steps in and does something, and hangs on to that, in short, breaks, “violates.”

And so we find ourselves, once again, in front of the blank canvas. The blank canvas, which reflects both our fear and our opportunity to break it. In Jewish mysticism, the empty space — the Chalal Panui, in Hebrew — has tremendous importance, because it was the necessary pre-condition for God’s creation of the world. How did the Ein Sof — the being without end, as God is called in Kabbalah — create something finite within what is already infinite? And how can we explain the paradox of God’s simultaneous presence and absence in the world? And the answer to this, according to the Kabbalah, is that when it arose in God’s will to create the world, He first had to withdraw Himself, leaving a void. To create the world, God first had to create an empty space.

And so we might say: The first act of creation is not a mark, it is the nullification of the infinity that exists before the first mark. To make a mark is to remember that we are finite. It is to break, or violate, the illusion that we are nature that goes around in a loop forever. But it is also a confirmation of our knowledge and freedom, which is all we have in this world.

Sincerely,

Nicole Krauss

Submitted by Mollie Andron

A Stony Heart

From Hishtapchut HaNefesh (Outpouring of the Soul)

Rebbe Nachman of Breslev

Translation by Rabbi Joshua Bolton

There is a story of a king who sent his son a great distance to study all the wisdom of the world. The son went, studied, and returned wise.

And then one day the king asked his son to take a massive rock and place it up on the roof of the house. But the rock was too huge, and the king’s son was unable to even budge it a little bit. Unable to fulfill his father’s request, the king’s son was terribly upset.

When his father found him sulking in his room the king said to him, “You thought I was asking for you to lift that giant stone? Even with all your wisdom, you thought I asked you to do something as impossible as that!? All I intended was for you to take a hammer and break the stone up into a bunch of little pieces – then you could have placed the stone on the roof!”

And so it is with us. God commands us to lift our hearts up to heaven. But our hearts are these massive, heavy stones – sometimes impossible to even budge. All you can do is take a hammer – which is speech – and shatter the stony heart. And it is in this manner that you can lift your heart up to heaven.

Reflection Questions

• What in this text is compelling / challenging / inspirational for you?

• How does a person with a “shattered heart” behave?

• How can we read this text into the experience of going to college in today’s America?

• Is today’s Judaism “heart oriented” enough?

Submitted by Josh Bolton

On Children
Kahlil Gibran

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them,
but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children
as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might
that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Submitted by Rebecca Stone

Midrash Exodus Rabbah 5:9

It says (in Exodus 20:15) "All the people witnessed the voices..." It doesn't say "voice," but rather, "voices." Rabbi Yohanan taught, "There was one voice that went out and split into 70 voices, 70 languages, so that every nation could hear it. Each nation heard the voice in the language of that particular nation.
...
How did the voice go out to all of Israel? Each individual according to their individual strength. The elderly according to their strength, the young men according to their strength, the little ones according to their strength, the nursing infants according to their strength, the women according to their strength and even Moses according to his strength, as it is written (in Exodus 19:19) "As Moses spoke, G-d answered him in a voice" - in a voice he could handle.

Submitted by Jessica Lott

“Honor God with your wealth. (Proverbs 3:9)” If you are good-looking, don’t be morally loose, lest people will say, “So-and-so is good-looking, and he exploits it by having inappropriate sex.” Instead, honor God with your wealth.

Another interpretation: Honor God with your wealth, so you don’t come to honor God without any wealth.

Yet another interpretation: If you have a sweet voice, use it to lead the congregation in prayer.

The verse says, “Honor God with your wealth,” meaning, whatever you are graced with, use it to honor God.

—Midrash Tanhuma, Parashat Re’eh, 12

Submitted by Jessica Lott

The True Meaning of Friendship

What is it that makes a true friend?

Alex Lickerman, M.D.

The Japanese have a term, kenzoku, which translated literally means "family." The connotation suggests a bond between people who've made a similar commitment and who possibly therefore share a similar destiny. It implies the presence of the deepest connection of friendship, of lives lived as comrades from the distant past.

Many of us have people in our lives with whom we feel the bond described by the word kenzoku. They may be family members, a mother, a brother, a daughter, a cousin. Or a friend from grammar school with whom we haven't talked in decades. Time and distance do nothing to diminish the bond we have with these kinds of friends.

The question then arises: why do we have the kind of chemistry encapsulated by the word kenzoku with only a few people we know and not scores of others? The closer we look for the answer the more elusive it becomes. It may not in fact be possible to know, but the characteristics that define a kenzoku relationship most certainly are.

WHAT DRAWS PEOPLE TOGETHER AS FRIENDS?

1. Common interests. This probably ties us closer to our friends than many would like to admit. When our interests diverge and we can find nothing to enjoy jointly, time spent together tends to rapidly diminish. Not that we can't still care deeply about friends with whom we no longer share common interests, but it's probably uncommon for such friends to interact on a regular basis.

2. History. Nothing ties people together, even people with little in common, than having gone through the same difficult experience. As the sole glue to keep friendships whole in the long run, however, it often dries, cracks, and ultimately fails.

3. Common values. Though not necessarily enough to create a friendship, if values are too divergent, it's difficult for a friendship to thrive.

4. Equality. If one friend needs the support of the other on a consistent basis such that the person depended upon receives no benefit other than the opportunity to support and encourage, while the relationship may be significant and valuable, it can't be said to define a true friendship.

WHAT MAKES A FRIEND WORTHY OF THE NAME?

1. A commitment to your happiness. A true friend is consistently willing to put your happiness before your friendship. It's said that "good advice grates on the ear," but a true friend won't refrain from telling you something you don't want to hear, something that may even risk fracturing the friendship, if hearing it lies in your best interest. A true friend will not lack the mercy to correct you when you're wrong. A true friend will confront you with your drinking problem as quickly as inform you about a malignant-looking skin lesion on your back that you can't see yourself.

2. Not asking you to place the friendship before your principles. A true friend won't ask you to compromise your principles in the name of your friendship or anything else. Ever.

3. A good influence. A true friend inspires you to live up to your best potential, not to indulge your basest drives.

Of course, we may have friends who fit all these criteria and still don't quite feel kenzoku. There still seems to be an extra factor, an attraction similar to that which draws people together romantically, that cements friends together irrevocably, often immediately, for no reason either person can identify. But when you find these people, these kenzoku, they're like priceless gems. They're like finding home.

HOW TO ATTRACT TRUE FRIENDS

This one is easy, at least on paper: become a true friend yourself. One of my favorite quotations comes from Gandhi: "Be the change you wish to see in the world." Be the friend you want to have. We all tend to attract people into our lives whose character mirrors our own. You don't have to make yourself into what you think others would find attractive. No matter what your areas of interest, others share them somewhere. Simply make yourself a big target. Join social clubs organized around activities you enjoy. Leverage the Internet to find people of like mind. Take action.

As I thought about it, there are four people in my life I consider kenzoku. How many do you?

Dr. Lickerman's book, The Undefeated Mind: On the Science of Constructing an Indestructible Self, is available now.

Submitted by Julie Roth

Empowerment through
good points

Rabbi Nachman of Breslov's teaching ofAZAMRA (Likutey Moharan I:282)

Azamra l'Elokai be-odee!
"I will sing to my God as long as I live!" (Psalm 146:2).

Find the good in others...

KNOW that you must judge all people favorably. This applies even to the worst of people. You must search until you find some little bit of good in them. In that good place inside them, they are not bad! If you can just find this little bit of good and judge them favorably, you really can elevate them and swing the scales of judgment in their favor. This way you can bring them back to God

This teaching is contained in the words of King David in the Psalms: "And in just a little bit (ve-OD me-at) there's no sinner; when you think about his place, he won't be there" (Psalm 37:10). King David is teaching us to judge everyone favorably. Even if you consider someone to be totally bad, you must still search until you find some little bit of good in him. There in the place of this tiny bit of good, that person is notbad! This is the meaning of the words, "And in just a little bitthere's no sinner..." In other words you must seek out the littlebit of good that is still in him. For in that place he is not a sinner. Maybe he's a bad person. Even so, is it really possible that he is totally devoid of even the slightest modicum of good? How could it be that all his life he never once did anything good? By finding one tiny good point in which he is not bad and thereby judging him favorably, you really do raise him from being guilty to having merit. This will bring him back to God. "In just a little bit there's no sinner!"

By finding this little bit of good in the bad person, this place inside him where he is not wicked, through this "...when you think about his place, he won't be there." When you examine his "place" and level, "he won't be there" in his original place. For by finding some little bit of good in him and judging him favorably, you genuinely raise him from guilt to merit. And "when you think about his place, he won't be there". Understand this well.

Find the good in yourself
You must also find the good in yourself. A fundamental principle in life is that you should always try to keep happy and steer well away from depression. When you start looking deep inside yourself, you may think you have no good in you at all. You may feel you are full of evil, and the negative voice inside you tries to make you depressed. Don't let yourself fall into depression. Search until you find some little good in you. How could it be that you never did anything good in your whole life?

When you start examining your good deed, you may see that it had many flaws. Maybe you did it for the wrong reasons and with the wrong attitude. Even so, how could it be that your mitzva or good deed contains no good at all? It must contain some element of good.

You must search and search until you find some good point inside yourself to give you new life and make you happy. When you discover the good that is still in you, you genuinely move from being guilty to having merit. Through this you will be able to come back to God. "And in just a little bit there's no sinner; when you think about his place, he won't be there."

Earlier we saw that we have to judge other people favorably, even those who seem totally bad. We must search for their good points in order to swing the scales in their favor. The same applies to the way you look at yourself. You must judge yourself favorably and find the good points that still exist in you. This way you won't fall into despair. The good you find inside you will give you new life and bring joy to your soul.

The Melody of Life
In just the same way you must carry on searching until you find another good point. Even if you feel that this good point is also full of flaws, you must still search for some good in it. And so you must continue finding more and more good points. This is how songs are made.

In essence, music is made by sifting the good from the bad. The musician has to find the "good spirit" and reject the bad. A musical instrument is basically a vessel containing air. The musician produces the sounds by causing the air to vibrate. His task is to move his hands on the instrument in such a way as to produce good spirit, "good vibrations", while avoiding the "bad vibrations" - the dissonant winds of gloom and depression.

When a person refuses to allow himself to fall into despair but instead gives himself new life by finding and gathering his positive points, this makes melodies. He can then pray, sing and give thanks to God.

When a person recognizes the wrong he has done and how grossly materialistic and impure he is, it can make him so depressed that he becomes completely unable to pray. He simply cannot open his mouth to God. This is because of the deep sorrow and heaviness that come over him when he sees the overwhelming distance that separates him from God.

But finding your good points can give you new life. Even if you know you have done wrong and caused damage and that you are far from God, you must search until you find the good that is still inside you. This will give you new life and make you truly happy. You are certainly entitled to feel the greatest joy over every good point you find in yourself, because each good point comes from the Jewish soul in you. The new life and joy you will have from following this path will enable you to pray, sing and give thanks to God.

Azamra l'Elokai be-odee, "I will sing to my God as long as I live". The phrase "as long as I live" is a loose translation of the Hebrew word be-ODee, which refers to the good that still (OD) remains in me. For as we saw earlier, "In just a little bit (OD)the sinner is not." In virtue of this good point I can sing and give thanks to God. I will sing the songs and melodies that are created by collecting my good points, as explained above.

[Rabbi Nachman's closest student, Rabbi Noson, writes:

The Rebbe told us emphatically to go with this teaching. It is a major foundation for all who want to draw closer to God and not lose everything, God forbid.

Usually when people are far from God, the main reason is because of sorrow and depression brought on by the negative view they take of themselves when they see the damage caused by their behavior. Each person knows his own inner pain. Some people take such a low view of themselves that they fall into complete despair. As a result they put no effort into prayer and do not even try to practice what they are still capable of.

One must fight this in every possible way. When a person takes a poor view of himself, it may well be true that this is because of bad things he really did. But the depression that comes over him as a result is nothing but the work of the devil, who tries to weaken a person's resolve until he throws him down completely. You must therefore be very firm and always go with this teaching of AZAMRA and search for your good points at all times. This is the way to give yourself new life and make yourself happy, knowing that God will help you. You will be able to pray and sing and give thanks to God and return to God with all your heart, as the Rebbe explains.]

The Prayer Leader
And know that the one who can create these melodies by finding the good points in every Jew, even the worst, is fitted to be the prayer leader. The leader of the communal prayers must represent the whole congregation. He must find and gather all the good points in each of the worshippers. All these good points must be joined together in him so that when he stands before God in prayer he comes with the power of all this good. The prayer leader must have the power to attract all this good and gather together all the good points so that they are joined together in him.

When a Tzaddik has the power to make melodies by judging everyone favorably, even the worst, through constantly searching for their good points, this Tzaddik is fitted to be the prayer leader. For he has what is needed to be a truly fitting representative of the people. The good in them is drawn to him, for he has the power to gather all the good points in each and every Jew, even the worst.

A Holy Sanctuary
And know that every generation has its shepherd, who is the Moses of that generation. For Moses was "the faithful shepherd". This shepherd makes a sanctuary. And know that little schoolchildren receive the undefiled breath of their mouths from this sanctuary.

When a child first learns to read and starts studying the Torah it is customary for the child to begin with the words, "And He called to Moses" (Leviticus 1: 1). The reason why the child begins here is because the book of Leviticus opens at the point when the building of the Sanctuary (as described in the book of Exodus) was complete. It was then that God called Moses and started speaking to him from the Sanctuary: "And He called to Moses." The children begin studying from here because it is from here that they receive the breath of their mouths. This is where they start to read, therefore, and enter into the study of Torah.

And know that each and every one of the tzaddikim in each generation plays the role of this shepherd. Each one is a Moses, and each in his own way builds a sanctuary from which the little children receive the breath of their mouths. Every tzaddik according to his nature and the nature of the sanctuary he builds has children who receive from there. Each tzaddik has a certain number of children who receive the breath of their mouths from him - each in accordance with his nature.

But to know all this - to know of each and every Tzaddik, which are the children who depend upon him and how much they must receive from him, to understand all that is involved in this and the generations that will come from them until the very end - know that the one who can compose melodies can comprehend all this.

Rabbi Noson adds:
Understand these words well. It is impossible to explain everything. Each person's life is unique, but this teaching is universal: it applies at all times in life, in youth and old age. The lesson of AZAMRA can always revive us. Happy are those who take it to heart.

Submitted by Daniel Silverstein

I therefore turned to an important Chassidic text from Rav Nachman of Breslov (18th - 19th century Chassidic Master from Ukraine) which talks about singing, holiness and will hopefully give us a way to begin processing the events of last week.

The text is found in Likutei Moharan 282 and is called “Azamra” (I will sing).

Rav Nachman has three main points that build one on the other.

Point 1 -

דע, כי צריך לדון את כל אדם לכף זכות , ואפילו מי שהוא רשע גמור, צריך לחפש ולמצא בו איזה מעט טוב, שבאותו המעט אינו רשע, ועל ידי זה שמוצא בו מעט טוב, ודן אותו לכף זכות, על-ידי-זה מעלה אותו באמת לכף זכות, ויוכל להשיבו בתשובה

“Know that you must judge everyone favorably. Even if someone is completely evil, we must search and find a little good, a small part of him that has not been touched by evil. And through finding that little good and judging him favorably (i.e. focusing on that small part), you can raise him in truth to the good side and assist him in doing repentance.”

This first point might be difficult when thinking about the kind of evil that we saw this week. But think about someone in your life who you struggle with. You immediately think about the bad (and there might be a lot of bad). Now try to search and come up with something good about them. Focus on it for a second. Remind yourself that they have that good quality. Rav Nachman is teaching us that if we did that more often for more people, we could try bring them to teshuva and perhaps change the world. That is point #1.

Point 2:

כמו כן הוא אצל האדם בעצמו, שצריך לדון את עצמו לכף זכות, ולמצא בעצמו איזה נקדה טובה עדין, כדי לחזק את עצמו שלא יפול לגמרי, חס ושלום, רק אדרבא יחיה את עצמו, וישמח את נפשו במעט הטוב שמוצא בעצמו, דהינו מה שזכה לעשות מימיו איזה מצוה או איזה דבר טוב

Similarly, a person must judge himself favorably. One must find something good about himself in order to strengthen himself not to fall [in depression]. but be happy with the good...

Rav Nachman’s second point is that sometimes we get down on ourselves. We think that nothing is going right, we are not succeeding and there is no point. When this happens, Rav Nachman reminds us that must immediately search and find something that we are good at and focus on it. Meditate on it. Allow us to feel good about ourselves and this will truly allow us to regain our joy and then in turn be better people. This is point #2.

And then Rav Nachman, with point three, ties this to song and holiness and hopefully it will bring us back to Boston.

Point 3:

וכן יחפש וילקט עוד הנקודות טובות, ועל-ידי-זה נעשין נגונים...והכלל כי נגינה דקדושה היא גבוה מאד מאד כידוע, ועקר הנגון נעשה, על-ידי ברור הטוב מן הרע, שעל-ידי שמבררין ומלקטין הנקדות טובות מתוך הרע, על-ידי-זה נעשים נגונים וזמירות, עיין שם היטב].

When one gathers these good “points,” one makes song... The general principle is that holy song is very lofty. Song is created through separating out the good from the bad. Through separating and collecting the good from the bad, song is created.

Submitted by Daniel Silverstein

from Rumi:

"A Community of the Spirit"

There is a community of the spirit.
Join it, and feel the delight
of walking in the noisy street,
and being the noise.

Drink all your passion,
and be a disgrace.

Close both eyes

to see with the other eye.

Open your hands,
if you want to be held.

Sit down in this circle.

Quit acting like a wolf, and feel
the shepherd's love filling you.

At night, your beloved wanders.

Don't accept consolations.

Close your mouth against food.
Taste the lover's mouth in yours.

You moan, "She left me." "He left me."

Twenty more will come.

Be empty of worrying.
Think of who created thought!

Why do you stay in prison
when the door is so wide open?

Move outside the tangle of fear-thinking.
Live in silence.

Flow down and down in always
widening rings of being.

Submitted by Julie Sugar

Submitted by Shana Zionts

An eruv is the mixing of two domains, usually between public and private. In Jewish law, on Shabbat, it is prohibited to carry items from the private domain to the public domain, such as from your home to a friend's home. An eruv, often comprised of natural boundaries and artificial connections (such as a wire connecting two buildings), mixes public and private domains together and makes it possible to carry permissible items from one private domain to another on Shabbat. In Los Angeles, the eruv is comprised of 3 highways that form a triangle around a portion of the city, making the area between them within the eruv.

Thinking more broadly about the eruv as a boundary, there are two perspectives to think about. What are the eruvim (boundaries) that separate us from our comfort zones to things that are new an unfamiliar. It could be that you are comfortable with your small group of friends, but participating in a big social gathering is a big step outside of your comfort zone. Similarly, within relationships, what are the boundaries between what is appropriate and not appropriate, whether between friends, colleagues, teachers, students, etc. Some actions may be appropriate, or within the eruv, while others are inappropriate, outside the eruv. The trick with any eruv is to know where the boundaries are, which is not always evident.

Submitted by Susannah Sagan

The 4 Matriarchs

"What It feels Like For A Girl" - MADONNA

[Spoken:]
Girls can wear jeans
And cut their hair short
Wear shirts and boots
'Cause it's OK to be a boy
But for a boy to look like a girl is degrading
'Cause you think that being a girl is degrading
But secretly you'd love to know what it's like
Wouldn't you
What it feels like for a girl

Silky smooth
Lips as sweet as candy, baby
Tight blue jeans
Skin that shows in patches

Strong inside but you don't know it
Good little girls they never show it
When you open up your mouth to speak
Could you be a little weak

Do you know what it feels like for a girl
Do you know what it feels like in this world
For a girl

Hair that twirls on finger tips so gently, baby
Hands that rest on jutting hips repenting

Hurt that's not supposed to show
And tears that fall when no one knows
When you're trying hard to be your best
Could you be a little less

Do you know what it feels like for a girl
Do you know what it feels like in this world
What it feels like for a girl

Strong inside but you don't know it
Good little girls they never show it
When you open up your mouth to speak
Could you be a little weak

Do you know what it feels like for a girl
Do you know what it feels like in this world
For a girl

In this world
Do you know
Do you know
Do you know what it feels like for a girl
What it feels like in this world

If I Were A Boy Lyrics - Beyonce

If I were a boy even just for a day
I'd roll out of bed in the morning
and throw on what I wanted and go

Drink beer with the guys and chase after girls
I'd kick it with who I wanted
and I'd never get confronted for it cause they stick up for me

If I were a boy I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man
I'd listen to her Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

If I were a boy I would turn off my phone
Tell everyone it's broken so they'd think that I was sleeping alone

I’d put myself first and make the rules as I go
Cause I know that she’ll be faithful,

waiting for me to come home, to come home.

If I were a boy I think I could understand
How it feels to love a girl
I swear I'd be a better man
I'd listen to her Cause I know how it hurts
When you lose the one you wanted
Cause he's taking you for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

It's a little too late for you to come back
Say it's just a mistake,
think i'd forgive you like that
If you thought I would wait for you
you thought wrong

But you're just a boy You don't understand
and you don't understand, ohhhh
How it feels to love a girl
Someday you wish you were a better man
You don't listen to her
You don't care how it hurts
Until you lose the one you wanted
Cause you're taking her for granted
And everything you had got destroyed

But you're just a boy

Take me for who I am – RENT

Maureen:
every single day,
i walk down the street
i hear people say 'baby so sweet'
ever since puberty
everybody stares at me
boys girls i can't help it baby
so be kind and don't lose your mind
just remember that i'm your baby

take me for what i am
who i was meant to be
and if you give a damn
take me baby
or leave me

take me baby or leave me

Maureen:
a tiger in a cage
can never see the sun
this diva needs her stage
baby lets have fun
you are the one i choose
folks would kill to fill your shoes
you love the lime light to now baby
so be mine and don't waste my time
cryin' 'oh honey bear are you still my, my, my baby?'

take me for what i am
who i was meant to be
and if you give a damn
take me baby or leave me

no way, can i be what i'm not
but hey, don't you want your girl hot?
don't fight, don't loose your head
'cause every night who's in your bed?
who?
who's in your bed?

Joanne:
it won't work
i look before i leap
i love margins and discipline
i make lists in my sleep baby
whats my sin?
never quit
i follow through
i hate mess but i love you
what do with my improptu baby?
so be wise 'cause this girl satisfies
you got a prize but don't compomise
you're one lucky baby

Joanne: take me for what i am
Maureen: a control freak
Joanne: who i was meant to be
Maureen: a snob yet over attentive
Joanne: and if you give a damn
Maureen: a loveable droll geek
Joanne: take me baby or leave me
Maureen: a anal retentave

both: thats it
Joanne: the straw that breaks my back
both: i quit
Joanne: unless you take it back
both: women
Maureen: what is it about them?
both: can't live with them or without them

chorus:
both: take me for what i am
Joanne: who i was meant to be
Maureen: who i was meant to be
and if you give a damn
Joanne: and if you give a damn then
take me baby, or leave me
Maureen:take me baby, take me or la-la-la-la-la-leave me
both: take me baby or leave me
spoken: guess i'm leaving i'm gone!

Yentl – Barbra Streisand - Where Is It Written? :
(In a time when the world of study belonged only to men, there lived a girl who dared to ask "why")
[Prayer]
God, our merciful father,
I'm wrapped in a robe of light,
Clothed in your glory
That spreads its wings over my soul.
Maybe I be worthy
Amen.

There's not a morning I begin without
A thousand questions running through my mind,
That I don't try to find the reason and the logic
In the world that God designed.
The reason why a bird was given wings,
If not to fly and praise the sky
With every song it sings.
What's right or wrong,
Where I belong
Within the scheme of things...
And why have eyes that see
And arms that reach
Unless you're meant to know
There's something more?
If not to hunger for the meaning of it all,
Then tell me what a soul is for?
Why have the wings
Unless you're meant to fly?
And tell me please, why have a mind
If not to question why?
And tell me where-
Where is it written what it is
I'm meant to be, that I can't dare
To have the chance to pick the fruit of every tree,
Or have my share of every sweet-imagined possibility?
Just tell me where, tell me where?
If I were only meant to tend the nest,
Then why does my imagination sail
Across the mountains and the seas,
Beyond the make-believe of any fairy tale?
Why have the thirst if not to drink the wine?
And what a waste to have a taste
Of things that can't he mine?
And tell me where, where is it written what it is
I'm meant to be, that I can't dare-
To find the meanings in the mornings that I see,
Or have my share of every sweet-imagined possibility?
Just tell me where- where is it written?
Tell me where-
Or if it's written anywhere?

Submitted by Susannah Sagan

I studied with Amy, a Jew by choice who has learned the tradition that a Jew does not remind a convert of her non-Jewish past. As we read the book of Ruth together, we noticed how welcoming Boaz is to Ruth – he seemed to recognize that she might need more hand holding in her new Jewish country than those who were born Jewish. Amy couldn’t understand how to reconcile Boaz’s inclusive behavior with the tradition that she had learned, with our culture that seems to prevent questions from being asked, implying that any Jew should already know her tradition.

Diane is a community leader and philanthropist in Western Massachusetts. Just a few years ago, on a holiday afternoon, she took a walk through her community. She wandered into synagogue services and picked up a book. The leader turned her book right side up, then closed it and gave her the right book. She says, “I had picked up something else and needed what I now know is a mahzor. I knew nada! Nothing!” She felt so illiterate, so separate from Judaism, that she discussed synagogue ritual as a “secret society,” explaining that she heard “mumbo jumbo” when she walked into the synagogue. In her words, Diane Troderman was the curtain puller but never the Torah reader.

I met Marina, a soviet émigré as a very young child, she was raised in an environment that distained religion. In Israel, she fell in love with Jewish culture. On Saturday morning Marina and I went synagogue hopping in Jerusalem. I was eager to show her the beauty and intensity of a Jerusalem Shabbat. As we went from synagogue to synagogue, I translated much of the Hebrew that we saw and heard. “Know before whom you stand,” we read on so many arks (that held the Torah). What do they mean, why are they written there, what is being commanded with these words, she asked. I explained the phrase as one of love, respect, awe, and humility. She saw it as one of power and fear. She became overwhelmed by its intensity, afraid of a tradition and a relationship that she could not grasp. Motivated by her excitement, I had forgotten the importance of moving at her pace, not mine.

I am probably the only Hillel professional who was raised as a Humanistic Jew. My parents created a committed Jewish household - I went to JCC day and overnight camp and to my congregation’s Hebrew school. But when they looked for a synagogue, my atheist father and open-minded mother had joined a Humanistic congregation. The Friday night services and afternoon religious school in which I participated, the holidays we observed and the blessings we said, were part of a different Jewish tradition in North America, one that omits references to God and teaches its children evolution, not creation. In high school, I discovered through the B’nai B’rith Youth Organization other Jewish traditions and how much of Judaism I did not know. At a summer youth group program, I participated in traditional services for what was only my third or fourth time. During one Shabbat service, I dropped my siddur, my prayerbook. As I reached up from the ground, book in hand, a friend told me to kiss the book. Not known for his serious nature, I thought he was joking – making fun of me. He told me three or four times before he reached over and finally just did it himself. I can still feel the shame and confusion that washed over me as I realized how familiar this act was to him and how foreign it was to me. I had been raised with a Jewish education, but had never learned this custom – and more significantly, I had never learned his love or his respect for text, for the canon of Judaism. I had never learned to kiss a book.

I remember coming back to school from the Seders and sitting around with a group of friends, laughing about our families. They were joking about the ten plagues, about dipping their pinkies into the wine. I sat in silence, unable to participate in this cultural reminiscence. Judaism seemed to me to be a secret society, a club of traditions and memories and feelings in which I would never find my place. I still continue to experience shame and fear – fear that my lack of knowledge will be exposed, shame that I can not live up to expectations, that I shake when asked to lead a ritual. This same embarrassment washes over me–when someone casually mentions a Biblical story with which I am not familiar, in a Torah service when someone offers me an honor, when I am teaching and I strive for a Hebrew word and cannot find it. As Jews, we casually use Hebrew, joke about moments in synagogue that only regulars would know, forget to announce page numbers of prayers, forget to explain the ritual, forget the value of such an explanation – and our Shabbat dinner guests, new to Shabbat– see the beauty of our community, but believe it not to be theirs.

How can we convey to a student new to Jewish learning and active Jewish living a sense of honor and empowerment because of their motivation rather than shame and embarrassment at what they do not know –how can we encourage and reward curiosity, rather than ostracize the unlearned. How can we unpack the ‘Jewishspeak’ that we revert to so often and make every moment a teaching moment, including all around us in our conversations. How can we take the hands of all of our students and say not just “baruchim habaim” but also “welcome” as we teach, explain, and include – as we open up a tradition that can seem so intimidating, as we teach people to kiss the book and to love and appreciate doing it.

Submitted by Susannah Sagan

Chief Lord Rabbi Jonathan Sacks (does he keep the Chief title?)

“If freedom means only that I can do what I want, then my freedom will inevitably conflict with yours. If I am free to steal, you are not free to own.... That is why Judaism sees the exodus as the beginning, not the end, of the journey to freedom. The culmination came in the giving of the Law. The biblical vision is of a society in which no one will be at the mercy of others. Its rules and institutions aim at creating a social order of independent human beings linked by bonds of kinship and compassion.... The freedom to do what we want creates individuals. It does not create a free society.”

Submitted by Michelle Lackie

The Limits of Empathy
David Brooks, The New York Times, September 29, 2011 (excerpt)

“[Empathy] has become a way to experience the illusion of moral progress without having to do the nasty work of making moral judgments…

People who actually perform pro-social action don’t only feel for those who are suffering, they feel compelled to act by a sense of duty. Their lives are structured by sacred codes. …If you want to make the world a better place, help people debate, understand, reform, revere and enact their codes. Accept that codes conflict.”

Submitted by Michelle Lackie

If it Feels Right…
David Brooks, The New York Times, September 12, 2011 (excerpt)

“Many [18 – 23 yr olds] were quick to talk about their moral feelings but hesitant to link these feelings to any broader thinking about a shared moral framework or obligation. As one put it, “I mean, I guess what makes something right is how I feel about it. But different people feel different ways, so I couldn’t speak on behalf of anyone else as to what’s right and wrong.” Morality was once revealed, inherited and shared, but now it’s thought of as something that emerges in the privacy of your own heart.”

Submitted by Michelle Lackie

Into the Fire: A Hasidic Tale of Forgiveness & Renewal

As Retold by Or N. Rose ([email protected])

A devoted hasid once visited his rebbe, Rabbi Elimelekh of Lizensk, during the Aseret Yemei Teshuvah with a special request:

“Master, as a devoted member of the holy community of Lizensk, I have been blessed to witness you perform many of God’s sacred commands. However, I have never seen you perform the ritual of Kapparot. Would it be possible for me to do so this year?”

Reb Elimelekh replied, “While I am honored that you want to observe me perform the mitzvah of Kapparot, I must tell you that my enactment of this particular command is rather unremarkable. If you want to see someone carry out this ritual in a special manner, go to Moishe the innkeeper.”

And so, on the morning before Yom Kippur, the young hasid made his way to the home of Moishe the innkeeper to observe a special performance of this sacred rite.

Moishe began by sitting in a wooden chair in front of the small fireplace in his living room. After positioning himself comfortably in the chair, he asked his wife to bring him his “two books of repentance.” Moishe’s wife dutifully brought her husband two tattered notebooks from his study.

Moishe opened the first book, read its contents carefully, and then began to weep. The young hasid listened intently as Moishe read a list of (rather minor) sins the innkeeper had committed the previous year. After completing his reading, Moishe took the tear-soaked book, swung it over his head and threw it into the fire.

He took a deep breath, repositioned himself in his seat, opened the second book, and repeated the ritual. This time, however, he read a somewhat longer list of sins – sins that God had committed the previous year. After completing his reading, Moishe took the tear-soaked book, swung it over his head and threw it into the fire.

Submitted by Or Rose, Hebrew College

Artist: Songs: Ohia

Album: The Magnolia Electric Co.


The whole place is dark
Every light on this side of the town
Suddenly it all went down
Now we'll all be brothers of the fossil fire of the sun
Now we will all be sisters of the fossil blood of the moon

Someone must have set 'em up
Now they'll be working in the cold grey rock
In the hot mill steam...
Now they'll be workin' in the concrete
In the sirens and the silences now
All the great set up hearts
All at once start to beat

After tonight if you don't want this to be
A secret out of the past
I will resurrect it, I'll have a good go at it
I'll streak his blood across my beak and dust my feathers with his ashes
I can feel his ghost breathing down my back
I will try and know whatever I try
I will be gone but not forever

The real truth about it is
No one gets it right
The real truth about it is
We're all supposed to try
There ain't no end to the sands
I've been trying to cross
The real truth about it is my kind of life's no better off
If I've got the maps or if I'm lost
The real truth about it is there ain't no end to the desert I'll cross
I've really known that all along
Mama here comes midnight
With the dead moon in its jaws
Must be the big star about to fall
Long dark blues
Will-o'-the-wisp
The big star is falling
Through the static and distance
A farewell transmission
Listen

Submitted by Charlie Buckholtz

Jonathan Sacks, The Home We Build Together (2007)

…I have argued for a metaphor of society as the home we build together. It focuses on our individual and collective responsibility for the social order. We did not make the country house: we were guests there. We did not make the hotel: we were visitors there. Both of these models locate responsibility for society somewhere else, and that is a disempowering way of seeing things. The home we build together is one in which I have the dignity of co-authorship. I helped plan and build it. I invested my time and energies into it. Because of this it holds a special meaning for me. It is where I belong. It is home. (p.133)

Submitted by Abi Dauber Sterne

The Heritage Of All Israel'

Founder of Tel Aviv's secular yeshiva, also a Knesset member, leads Israel's parliament in study and prayer.

Thu, 02/14/2013

Ruth Calderone

Editor’s Note: Ruth Calderon, founder of a secular yeshiva in Tel Aviv, spent several years living in New York recently, teaching at the JCC in Manhattan and other venues. This was her inaugural speech in the Knesset this week as a member of Yair Lapid’s Yesh Atid party.

Mr. Chairman, honorable Knesset, the book I am holding changed my life, and to a large extent it is the reason that I have reached this day with the opportunity to speak to the Knesset of Israel as a new member. The copy in my hands belonged to David Giladi – a writer, journalist, editor, man of culture, and the grandfather of the head of our faction. He was mentioned here yesterday, too. I had the great honor of receiving it from his daughter, writer Shulamit Lapid.

I did not inherit a set of Talmud from my grandfather. I was born and raised in a quaint neighborhood in Tel Aviv. My father, Moshe Calderon, was born in Bulgaria and immigrated to this land as a young man. After the difficult war years, he began studying agriculture at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, and was immediately conscripted to defend Gush Etzion during the War of Independence.

Eventually he specialized in entomology, the study of insects, and became a global expert in grain storage. My German-born mother, who had the combined misfortune (at that time) of being Jewish, left-handed, and red-haired, made aliyah as a teenager, and met my father courtesy of the British siege of Jerusalem. By the time the siege ended and they went to meet the families as a match that had already been made, the Bulgarian neighbors could not say anything but, “She’s really nice, Moshiko, but are there no Jewish girls left? You have to marry an Ashkenazi girl?”

I am recounting all of this in order to say that I grew up in a very Jewish, very Zionist, secular-traditional-religious home that combined Ashkenaz and Sepharad, [Revisionist] Betar and [Socialist] Hashomer Hatzair, in the Israeli mainstream of the 60s and 70s. I was educated like everyone else my age – public education in the spirit of “from Tanach to Palmach”. I was not acquainted with the Mishna, the Talmud, Kabbala or Hasidism. By the time I was a teenager, I already sensed that something was missing. Something about the new, liberated Israeli identity of [Moshe Shamir’s] Elik who was “born of the sea”, of Naomi Shemer’s poems, was good and beautiful, but lacking. I missed depth; I lacked words for my vocabulary; a past, epics, heroes, places, drama, stories – were missing. The new Hebrew, created by educators from the country’s founding generation, realized their dream and became a courageous, practical, and suntanned soldier. But for me, this contained – I contained – a void. I did not know how to fill that void, but when I first encountered the Talmud and became completely enamored with it, its language, its humor, its profound thinking, its modes of discussion, and the practicality, humanity, and maturity that emerge from its lines, I sensed that I had found the love of my life, what I had been lacking.

Since then I have studied academically in batei midrash [Jewish study halls] and in the university, where I earned a doctorate in Talmudic Literature at the Hebrew University, and I have studied lishma, for the sake of the study itself. For many years I have studied daf yomi, the daily page of Talmud, and with a chavruta [study partner]; it has shaped who I am.

Motivated by my own needs, and together with others, I founded Alma – Home for Hebrew Culture in Tel Aviv, and Elul, Israel’s first joint beit midrash for men, women, religious, and secular. Since then, over the course of several decades, there a Jewish renaissance movement has begun to flourish, in which tens and hundreds of thousands of Israelis study within frameworks that do not dictate to them the proper way to be a Jew or the manner in which their Torah is to become a living Torah.

I am convinced that studying the great works of Hebrew and Jewish culture are crucial to construct a new Hebrew culture for Israel. It is impossible to stride toward the future without knowing where we came from and who we are, without knowing, intimately and in every particular, the sublime as well as the outrageous and the ridiculous. The Torah is not the property of one movement or another. It is a gift that every one of us received, and we have all been granted the opportunity to meditate upon it a we create the realities of our lives. Nobody took the Talmud and rabbinic literature from us. We gave it away, with our own hands, when it seemed that another task was more important and urgent: building a state, raising an army, developing agriculture and industry, etc. The time has come to reappropriate what is ours, to delight in the cultural riches that wait for us, for our eyes, our imaginations, our creativity.

Instead of telling you about this book’s beauty, I wish to tell you a story from Talmud, one small story, the story of Rabbi Rechumei, which appears in Ketubot 62b, and through it to say some words about this moment and about the tasks I will set for myself in the Knesset.

I have brought the text. Anyone who wants, we can pass it out – but only to those who want it.

Page 62b – I will read it once in Aramaic, for the music, and then in Hebrew, so we can read it. [An English translation of the original text is followed by Dr. Calderon’s interpretation.]

Rabbi Rechumei was constantly before Rava in Mechoza. He would habitually come home every Yom Kippur eve. One day the topic drew him in. His wife anticipated him: “Here he comes. Here he comes.” He didn’t come. She became upset. She shed a tear from her eye. He was sitting on a roof. The roof collapsed under him, and he died.

Rabbi Rechumei – a rabbi, a rav, a whole lot of man [“rav” can mean “rabbi” or “much”]. “Rechumei” in Aramaic means “love”. Rechumei is derived from the word “rechem”, womb, someone who knows how to include, how to completely accept, just as a woman’s womb contains the baby. This choice of word for “love” is quite beautiful. We know that the Greek word for “womb” gives us the word “hysteria”. The Aramaic choice to take the womb and turn it into love is a feminist gesture by the Sages.

He was constantly, he could be found before Rava, the head of the yeshiva at Mechoza…

Chairman Yitzhak Vaknin (Shas):

Rechem also [has a numerologically significant value of] 248.

Calderon:

Thank you. Yasher koach.

Calderon:

Thank you for participating. I am happy…

Vaknin:

I think the idea she is saying is wonderful…

Calderon:

I am happy about this participation in words of Torah.

He could be found, that is, he studied, he was accepted for study, in the great yeshiva, one of the four yeshivot, the Ivy League, of Babylonia: Nehardea, Mechoza, Pumbedita, and Sura. He studied at Mechoza; he studied in the presence of Mechoza’s rosh yeshiva, who was so well known that he was called Rava. In Aramaic, an aleph at the end of a word denoted the definite article. Rava was “the Rav”, “the Rabbi”.

He would habitually – I suggest that the Sages do not like people who do thinks out of habit; in general, when someone in the Talmud does something regularly, someone dies within a few lines. He would habitually come home – in Aramaic, “home” also means “wife”. It is both wife and home. That is, a man who has no wife is homeless. A woman who has no man is not, but a man without a wife – no home. He would habitually come home every Yom Kippur eve. Notice that the Gemara says “he would habitually come home every Yom Kippur eve.” There is a certain rabbinic irony here. What does “every” mean? Once a year. Not very often.

You are probably thinking: what kind of date is that to choose to come home? Yom Kippur eve? It is not exactly a day of intimacy. It is generally a day of prayer, and not even at home.

One day, one time, one year, the topic drew him in. The study in the beit midrash so fascinated him that he forgot. He did not leave in time. He could not abandon his studies and he did not go home. His wife anticipated him: “Here he comes. Here he comes.” One can hear the aspirant tone of her words in Aramaic: “Hhhashta atei; hhhere he comes.” This expectation, that every text message, every phone call, every footfall, every knock at the door, you are certain is him. Here he comes. Here he comes.

He didn’t come.

At some point, she realizes that he is not coming this year. Perhaps the shofar blast announcing the onset of Yom Kippur was sounded, after which nobody would arrive, due to the sanctity of the holiday. She becomes upset. This woman, who waited all year, who for many years has waited all year for one day, cannot stand it anymore. She becomes upset. She is disappointed; she is sorrowful; she loses control. She sheds a tear from her eye – this is an active verb, not a passive one. She allows one tear to leak out of her eye onto her cheek, after years of not crying.

Now we must imagine a split screen: on one side is a close-up of a female character, a woman with one tear running down her cheek. On the other side, sitting on a rooftop in Mechoza, is Rabbi Rechumei, dressed entirely in white and feeling holy. You know, after several hours without food we feel very exalted. He studies Torah on the roof, under the stars, and feels so close to the heavens. He sat on the roof, and as the tear falls from the woman’s eye, the roof caves in under him and he falls to the ground and dies.

What can I learn about this place and my work here from Rabbi Rechumei and his wife? First, I learn that one who forgets that he is sitting on another’s shoulders – will fall. I agree with what you said earlier, MK Bennett. I learn that righteousness is not adherence to the Torah at the expense of sensitivity to human beings. I learn that often, in a dispute, both sides are right, and until I understand that both my disputant and I, both the woman and Rabbi Rechumei, feel that they are doing the right thing and are responsible for the home. Sometimes we feel like the woman, waiting, serving in the army, doing all the work while others sit on the roof and study Torah; sometimes those others feel that they bear the entire weight of tradition, Torah, and our culture while we go to the beach and have a blast. Both I and my disputant feel solely responsible for the home. Until I understand this, I will not perceive the problem properly and will not be able to find a solution. I invite all of us to years of action rooted in thought and dispute rooted in mutual respect and understanding.

I aspire to bring about a situation in which Torah study is the heritage of all Israel, in which the Torah is accessible to all who wish to study it, in which all young citizens of Israel take part in Torah study as well as military and civil service. Together we will build this home and avoid disappointment.

I long for the day when the state’s resources are distributed fairly and equally to every Torah scholar, man or woman, based on the quality of their study, not their communal affiliation, when secular and pluralistic yeshivot, batei midrash, and organizations win fair and equal support in comparison to Orthodox and Haredi batei midrash. Through scholarly envy and healthy competition, the Torah will be magnified and glorified.

I want to mention my mentor, Rabbi David Hartman, who passed away this week, who opened up the doors of his beit midrash for me, and who built the language of a courageous and inclusive Judaism. May his memory be a blessing.

I want to conclude with a prayer composed by my colleague Chaim Hames, the prayer for entering the Knesset:

May it be Your will, Lord our God, God of our fathers and mothers, that I leave this house as is entered it – at peace with myself and with others. May my actions benefit all residents of the State of Israel. May I work to improve the society that sent me to this chamber and cause a just peace to dwell among us and with our neighbors. May I always remember that I am a messenger of the public and that I must take care to keep my integrity and innocence intact. May I, and we, succeed in all our endeavors.

I add a small prayer for my faction, Yesh Atid, that we maintain our unique culture of cooperation and brotherhood, that we remain united, that we remain in the plenum, and that we realize our dream to make things better. Thank you.

Translated by Elli Fischer. Based on the transcript available on the Knesset website.

Submitted by Abi Dauber Sterne

Two Giant Fat People (Hafiz)

God

and I have become

Like two giant fat people

Living in a tiny boat.

We keep

Bumping into each other

And laughing.

On Being Podcast with Rabbi Lawrence Kushner – May 15, 2014

Transcript:

RABBI KUSHNER: I was leading a tour of the sanctuary, of the prayer hall with the children in the congregation’s preschool. And then I figured as a piece de resistance I’d have them come onto the bima, or the little prayer stage up in front of the room, where there was an ark where we kept the scroll of the Torah. It was accessible via a big floor-to-ceiling curtain. And I got them up on the stage, and I was about to call them—’Open the ark,’ but I saw the teacher at the back tapping her wristwatch, which as you may know, is an old Talmudic gesture, which means your time is about up, bucko. So, I said, ‘I tell you what, boys and girls. We’ll come back when we get together again in a couple of weeks, we’ll come back here and I’m going to open that curtain there and show you what’s behind it. It’s very special.’ You know, and so they all say, “Shalom, Rabbi,” and like little ducklings, follow the teacher back to the class.

Well, the next day, the teacher shows up at my office with the following story. Apparently the preceding day’s hastily-concluded lesson has occasioned a fierce debate among the little people as to what is behind the curtain. They didn’t know. [Laughs]. And, the following four answers are given, which is, I think, pretty interesting. One kid, obviously destined to become a professor of nihilistic philosophy at a great university, opined that behind that curtain was absolutely nothing. [Laughs]. Another kid, less imaginative, thought it had a Jewish holy thing in there. A third kid, obviously a devotee of American game show television subculture, guessed that behind that curtain was a brand new car! [Laughs].

MS. TIPPETT: [Laughs].

RABBI KUSHNER: And the fourth kid, and that’s what brings us back to Gershom Scholem and Kabbalah, said no, you’re all wrong. Next week when that rabbi man comes and opens that curtain, behind it, there would be a giant mirror.

From a four year old. Somehow, that little soul knew that through looking at the words of sacred scripture, he would encounter himself in a new and a heightened and revealing way.

Submitted by Brandon Bernstein

connection

there came a moment in the middle of the song
when we suddenly felt every heartbeat in the room
& after that we never forgot we were part
of something much bigger

Submitted by Megan Goldman