Notes:
--Responses to College Campuses?
--Parker Palmer, "Don't conspire in your own self-diminution"--“no punishment anyone might inflict on them could possibly be worse than the punishment they inflict on themselves by conspiring in their own diminishment.” Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
--Humility=talking up the right amount of space (Salanter Mussar)
--Responses to College Campuses?
--Parker Palmer, "Don't conspire in your own self-diminution"--“no punishment anyone might inflict on them could possibly be worse than the punishment they inflict on themselves by conspiring in their own diminishment.” Let Your Life Speak: Listening for the Voice of Vocation
--Humility=talking up the right amount of space (Salanter Mussar)
A Letter in the Scroll by Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks (pg. 193, 197-198)
In many cases our parents and grandparents were not absolutely sure that they wanted their children to be Jews. They didn't want them to marry out, but they also didn't want them to stand out, to be conspicuous. They wanted them to be secular marranos, outwardly like everyone else, inwardly and privately Jews. They wanted them to be visible as human beings but invisible as Jews. They were haunted by the specter of anti-Semitism, and they were not wrong to be. But it left them deeply conflicted. They were Jews, but they were dedicated to proving that Jews are no different from anyone else. And we, whether we know it or not, have inherited that deeply conflicted world
In many cases our parents and grandparents were not absolutely sure that they wanted their children to be Jews. They didn't want them to marry out, but they also didn't want them to stand out, to be conspicuous. They wanted them to be secular marranos, outwardly like everyone else, inwardly and privately Jews. They wanted them to be visible as human beings but invisible as Jews. They were haunted by the specter of anti-Semitism, and they were not wrong to be. But it left them deeply conflicted. They were Jews, but they were dedicated to proving that Jews are no different from anyone else. And we, whether we know it or not, have inherited that deeply conflicted world
Sources of Zionism
A. JABOTINSKY from “Before the Palestine Royal Commission” (1937)
We are not free agents. We cannot “concede” anything. Whenever I hear the Zionist, most often my own Party accused of asking for too much–Gentlemen, I really cannot understand it. Yes, we do want a State; every nation on earth, every normal nation, beginning with the smallest and the humblest who do not claim any merit, any role in humanity’s development, they all have States of their own. That is the normal condition for a people. Yet, when we, the most abnormal of peoples and therefore the most unfortunate, ask only for the same condition as the Albanians enjoy, to say nothing of the French and the English, then it is called too much…We have got to save millions, many millions. I do not know whether it is a question of rehousing one-third of the Jewish race, half of the Jewish race, or a quarter of the Jewish race; I do not know; but it is a question of millions. Certainly the way out is to evacuate those portions of the Diaspora which have become no good, which hold no promise of any possibility of a livelihood, and to concentrate all those refugees in some place which should not be Diaspora, not a repetition of the position where the Jews are an unabsorbed minority within a foreign social, or economic or political organism.
B. A.D. GORDON From People and Labor (1911)
What are we seeking in Palestine? Is it not that which we can never find elsewhere–the fresh milk of a healthy people’s culture? What we are come to create at present is not the culture of the academy, before we have anything else, but a culture of life, of which the culture of the academy is only one element. We seek to create a vital culture out of which the cream of a higher culture can easily be evolved. We intend to create creeds and ideologies, art and poetry, and ethics and religion, all growing out of a healthy life and intimately related to it; we shall therefore have created healthy human relationships and living links that bind the present to the past. What we seek to create here is life–our own life–in our own spirit and in our own way. Let me put it more bluntly; in Palestine we must do with our own hands all the things that make up the sum total of life. We must ourselves do all the work, from the least strenuous, cleanest, and most sophisticated, to the dirtiest and most difficult. In our own way, we must feel what a worker feels and think what a worker thinks–then, and only then, shall we have a culture of our own, for then we shall have a life of our own.
A. JABOTINSKY from “Before the Palestine Royal Commission” (1937)
We are not free agents. We cannot “concede” anything. Whenever I hear the Zionist, most often my own Party accused of asking for too much–Gentlemen, I really cannot understand it. Yes, we do want a State; every nation on earth, every normal nation, beginning with the smallest and the humblest who do not claim any merit, any role in humanity’s development, they all have States of their own. That is the normal condition for a people. Yet, when we, the most abnormal of peoples and therefore the most unfortunate, ask only for the same condition as the Albanians enjoy, to say nothing of the French and the English, then it is called too much…We have got to save millions, many millions. I do not know whether it is a question of rehousing one-third of the Jewish race, half of the Jewish race, or a quarter of the Jewish race; I do not know; but it is a question of millions. Certainly the way out is to evacuate those portions of the Diaspora which have become no good, which hold no promise of any possibility of a livelihood, and to concentrate all those refugees in some place which should not be Diaspora, not a repetition of the position where the Jews are an unabsorbed minority within a foreign social, or economic or political organism.
B. A.D. GORDON From People and Labor (1911)
What are we seeking in Palestine? Is it not that which we can never find elsewhere–the fresh milk of a healthy people’s culture? What we are come to create at present is not the culture of the academy, before we have anything else, but a culture of life, of which the culture of the academy is only one element. We seek to create a vital culture out of which the cream of a higher culture can easily be evolved. We intend to create creeds and ideologies, art and poetry, and ethics and religion, all growing out of a healthy life and intimately related to it; we shall therefore have created healthy human relationships and living links that bind the present to the past. What we seek to create here is life–our own life–in our own spirit and in our own way. Let me put it more bluntly; in Palestine we must do with our own hands all the things that make up the sum total of life. We must ourselves do all the work, from the least strenuous, cleanest, and most sophisticated, to the dirtiest and most difficult. In our own way, we must feel what a worker feels and think what a worker thinks–then, and only then, shall we have a culture of our own, for then we shall have a life of our own.
|
Maimonides, Mishneh Torah, Hilchot Chanukah Maimonides on Chanukah [Part 1].mov. 4:5, 7-8 |
|
|
שֶׁתִּשְׁקַע הַחַמָּה אֶלָּא עִם שְׁקִיעָתָהּ לֹא מְאַחֲרִין וְלֹא מַקְדִּימִין. שָׁכַח אוֹ הֵזִיד וְלֹא הִדְלִיק עִם שְׁקִיעַת הַחַמָּה מַדְלִיק וְהוֹלֵךְ עַד שֶׁתִּכְלֶה רֶגֶל מִן הַשּׁוּק נֵר חֲנֻכָּה מִצְוָה לְהַנִּיחוֹ עַל פֶּתַח בֵּיתוֹ מִבַּחוּץ בַּטֶּפַח הַסָּמוּךְ לַפֶּתַח עַל שְׂמֹאל הַנִּכְנָס לַבַּיִת כְּדֵי שֶׁתִּהְיֶה מְזוּזָה מִיָּמִין וְנֵר חֲנֻכָּה מִשְּׂמֹאל בִּימֵי הַסַּכָּנָה מַנִּיחַ אָדָם נֵר חֲנֻכָּה בְּתוֹךְ בֵּיתוֹ מִבִּפְנִים וַאֲפִלּוּ הִנִּיחוֹ עַל שֻׁלְחָנוֹ דַּיּוֹ |
5. Chanukah lamps must be lit at sunset—neither later nor earlier. If one forgets or deliberately fails to light the lamp at sunset, he may light it up to the time when people cease to walk about in the street. 7. One should place the Chanukah lamp over the door of his house, on the outside… the Mezuzah being on the right and the Chanukkah lamp being on the left. 8. In times of danger, one may place the Chanukah lamp inside the house—it is even enough to place it on the table. |
-
According to Maimonides, when and where do we light candles and what is the purpose of lighting the Chanukiah?
-
How would you define “times of danger” today?
-
When do you think we should “wear our Judaism out in public?” How public should we be with our Judaism?
-
When do you feel most proud to be Jewish? What is healthy Jewish pride?
Talmud Bava Metzia 33a
Questions:
Questions:
|
A. Rav Yehuda said in the name of Rav: your (property) comes before others. B. Rav Yehuda also teaches: Anyone who strictly fulfills this principle of “me first” ultimately will become needy. |
-
Do you agree that people should put themselves first?
-
Do people who always put themselves first become needy and impoverished?
|
Anyone who [strictly] puts him/herself first: Even though the Torah didn’t require a person to put others first, one can go beyond the letter of the law and not be so precise in putting himself first if it is proven there is no loss. And if he is always exacting in putting himself first, he will throw off the yoke (obligation) of gemilut hasadim (loving kindness) and tzedakah and in the end will need others. |
-
What do you think Rashi means by a “proven loss”?
-
How much can we give away without experiencing a significant loss?
-
What can we do to expand our capacity to give to others?
וְרַבִּי יוֹחָנָן, הַאי ״וְחֵי אָחִיךָ עִמָּךְ״ מַאי עָבֵיד לֵיהּ? מִבְּעֵי לֵיהּ לְכִדְתַנְיָא: שְׁנַיִם שֶׁהָיוּ מְהַלְּכִין בַּדֶּרֶךְ וּבְיַד אֶחָד מֵהֶן קִיתוֹן שֶׁל מַיִם, אִם שׁוֹתִין שְׁנֵיהֶם – מֵתִים. וְאִם שׁוֹתֶה אֶחָד מֵהֶן – מַגִּיעַ לַיִּשּׁוּב. דָּרַשׁ בֶּן פְּטוֹרָא: מוּטָב שֶׁיִּשְׁתּוּ שְׁנֵיהֶם וְיָמוּתוּ, וְאַל יִרְאֶה אֶחָד מֵהֶם בְּמִיתָתוֹ שֶׁל חֲבֵירוֹ. עַד שֶׁבָּא רַבִּי עֲקִיבָא וְלִימֵּד: ״וְחֵי אָחִיךָ עִמָּךְ״, חַיֶּיךָ קוֹדְמִים לְחַיֵּי חֲבֵירֶךָ.
The Gemara asks: And Rabbi Yoḥanan, what does he do with this verse: “And your brother shall live with you”? The Gemara answers: He requires the verse for that which is taught in a baraita: If two people were walking on a desolate path and there was a jug [kiton] of water in the possession of one of them, and the situation was such that if both drink from the jug, both will die, as there is not enough water, but if only one of them drinks, he will reach a settled area, there is a dispute as to the halakha. Ben Petora taught: It is preferable that both of them drink and die, and let neither one of them see the death of the other. This was the accepted opinion until Rabbi Akiva came and taught that the verse states: “And your brother shall live with you,” indicating that your life takes precedence over the life of the other.
בֶּן זוֹמָא אוֹמֵר, אֵיזֶהוּ חָכָם, הַלּוֹמֵד מִכָּל אָדָם, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תהלים קיט) מִכָּל מְלַמְּדַי הִשְׂכַּלְתִּי כִּי עֵדְוֹתֶיךָ שִׂיחָה לִּי. אֵיזֶהוּ גִבּוֹר, הַכּוֹבֵשׁ אֶת יִצְרוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (משלי טז) טוֹב אֶרֶךְ אַפַּיִם מִגִּבּוֹר וּמשֵׁל בְּרוּחוֹ מִלֹּכֵד עִיר. אֵיזֶהוּ עָשִׁיר, הַשָּׂמֵחַ בְּחֶלְקוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (תהלים קכח) יְגִיעַ כַּפֶּיךָ כִּי תֹאכֵל אַשְׁרֶיךָ וְטוֹב לָךְ. אַשְׁרֶיךָ, בָּעוֹלָם הַזֶּה. וְטוֹב לָךְ, לָעוֹלָם הַבָּא. אֵיזֶהוּ מְכֻבָּד, הַמְכַבֵּד אֶת הַבְּרִיּוֹת, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר (שמואל א ב) כִּי מְכַבְּדַי אֲכַבֵּד וּבֹזַי יֵקָלּוּ:
Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? He who learns from every man, as it is said: “From all who taught me have I gained understanding” (Psalms 119:99). Who is mighty? He who subdues his [evil] inclination, as it is said: “He that is slow to anger is better than the mighty; and he that rules his spirit than he that takes a city” (Proverbs 16:32). Who is rich? He who rejoices in his lot, as it is said: “You shall enjoy the fruit of your labors, you shall be happy and you shall prosper” (Psalms 128:2) “You shall be happy” in this world, “and you shall prosper” in the world to come. Who is he that is honored? He who honors his fellow human beings as it is said: “For I honor those that honor Me, but those who spurn Me shall be dishonored” (I Samuel 2:30).