Married mere days, David found himself seated at the head of a table with his new wife, in-laws and a host of strangers, including some rabbis with long beards.

He wasn’t nervous around rabbis; his personal journey from California teen-age martial-arts aficionado to 20-something Orthodox yeshiva student had been fueled by things he had learned over the years from just such rabbis, and by the inspiration he gleaned from the lives he saw them living.

But this Sheva Brachot – the term for the festive meals traditionally served during the week after a Jewish marriage – was different from the ones that had preceded or would follow it. He was in a city he had never visited before, his parents weren’t able to be present and the only people he knew at the table were his new wife and in-laws.

The bride, seated to his right, had been looking for a young man with just David’s combination of brights, calm, sincerity and religious commitment. Although Chana came from an observant Orthodox family and knew that it was not common for someone with her background to marry someone who had not grown up observant, she knew when she first met David that she had (if David agreed) found her husband. She in fact saw much of the sincerity and commitment that had so impressed her as directly related to the fact that David had had to make choices in his life that she had been spared.

I recently had an opportunity to speak at length with someone who has a broad familiarity with most of the institutions created in Israel to deal with chareidi kids who are outside of any regular educational format. In the course of the conversation, I mentioned a recent column, in which I noted that the dropout phenomenon is even more severe in all chareidi communities than in mixed communities.

The explanation of everyone to whom I spoke, including two major talmidei chachamim, was that such communities generate a degree of social pressure that proves unbearable for many youth, especially those who have their own “issues.”

My conversation partner, however, offered a very different explanation. In his opinion, it is the higher percentage of ba’alei teshuva drawn to the all chareidi cities that explains the differential. He claimed that at least 70% of the drop-outs in one such community are children of ba’alei teshuva.

If that is true (and that remains a big “if”), then we as a community should be asking some hard questions about the conduct of all our kiruv efforts. One immediate question would be: Is it better for ba’alei teshuva to move to all chareidi enclaves or would it be better for them to either join existing communities or form their own in the places they are already living?

We’ve all heard the accusation that President Bush “lied” about Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction, and did so in order to lead the nation to war. We’ve heard people argue it was grounds for impeachment. John Kerry made it a campaign issue (while admitting that we might still find them), and on that basis very nearly became the leading mortal custodian of our safety.

Now, Hussein’s interrogator has gone public with his interrogation. In reality, it tells us nothing we didn’t already know. Iraq had WMDs in the past — it used WMDs in the past — and the conclusion of every intelligence agency in the free world was that Hussein still had them. The interrogation only tells us why we all thought so: because Saddam Hussein deliberately locked the doors to Iraq and kept it secret that all his WMDs were destroyed.

Bush was not lying. He, the US Congress, the CIA, MI6, the Mossad, and all the rest unanimously believed what Saddam intentionally led them to believe. That’s not lying — at least, not for those of us still cognizant of what a lie is. [I suppose we shouldn't be surprised at this "Bush lied" campaign. His predecessor, whom Bush opponents supported, was truly a world leader in the redefinition of truth and falsehood.] Saddam only got rid of his WMDs because he had to, he continued his research into new and better ways to kill us, and in the meantime — to keep Iran at bay, and under the mistaken impression that Bush Jr. would merely launch a Clintonesque air campaign — made sure all believed that he still had them.

Why is this a Jewish issue? There are both practical and philosophical reasons for this otherwise off-topic post. On the one hand, all too many are seriously considering putting another Clinton in the White House. If you want to know why no one knew what Hussein was thinking, you need to ask the one who decimated the CIA. And, on the other hand, call it hakoras hatov, simple gratitude. I was in Israel when Saddam sent his Scud missiles raining down upon us. He sent large financial payments to the families of suicide bombers, to encourage more of them to kill innocent Jews. And for all the lives lost in the Iraq War, let’s be honest. “The hearts of Kings are in G-d’s Hands” — George Bush didn’t make that decision on his own. We truly have no idea what Hussein could have done if his weapons program had been allowed to continue, but I, for one, thank G-d we never shall.

Of all the stereotypes of charedim, probably none leaves us so shaking our heads as that of mindless, interchangeable automatons, marching lockstep to the commands of our rabbinic leadership. Because we view our friends and neighbors, not to mention ourselves, as individuals, with unique strengths and weaknesses, we assume the stereotype must be the product of malevolent hatred.

Yet some recent experiences suggest that judgment is off base. As I was waiting for my luggage in Heathrow Airport recently, some chassidim proposed making a minyan for afternoon prayers. I pointed out another four or five from their group who could complete the minyan, but the latter preferred to wait for their bags.

I found myself perplexed that six of the group wanted to do one thing and four something else. Subconsciously, I had assumed that all those wearing the same “uniform” must think alike. What I had done was no different than what secular Israelis do when they see a yeshiva student in a black suit and fedora, and assume that his entire life is guided by remote control.

The error of this type of thinking is apparently one that we must relearn all the time. When I mentioned my own stereotyping at the Shabbat table recently, one of my sons pointed out that I had written a column on the subject a few years back, after attending the final session of a Dale Carnegie course made up almost entirely of young chassidim.

Dear Sean,

I know this might sound strange coming from a father who’s far from a religious Jew, but now that you’re dating, there’s something I need you to understand.

The single most important decision you’ll ever make in life will not be about your education or career but about whom you’ll marry.

Because who your wife is will determine, more than anything else in your adult life, the person you become, the family you’ll raise, what you’ll leave on earth when it will be time to go. I know the end of life isn’t something you probably give much thought to. Not many of us do, at least not until we became sick or old enough to see it hovering on the horizon. But a final day does arrive, sooner or later, for each of us. And when it comes, very few of the things we thought made such a big difference will seem to matter at all anymore. And other things we never gave much thought to will suddenly be very important. We’ll want to look back at our lives and feel that, in those areas, we pretty much did the right thing.

According to a report in the Jerusalem Post, Israeli teens are turning to alcohol because their lives are empty.

A national program to get teenagers interested in productive ways to spend their time is needed to reduce the “emptiness” that causes a growing number of them to drink alcohol, according to a Bar-Ilan University sociologist.

Dr. Yossi Harel-Fisch, director of the International Research Program on Adolescent Well Being and Health at BIU’s School of Education’s criminology department… told The Jerusalem Post in an interview this week that he is very concerned about the phenomenon… “I have been saying for years that Israeli society is running after risky behaviors rather than dealing with causes and trying to prevent them. The rise in alcohol use comes comes from a lack of positive content in children’s lives. School should become a positive experience; clubs, youth movements or volunteering can help fill the void. We don’t offer them alternatives, so instead of offering something constructive, they look for new risky behaviors and things to occupy them.”

The observation about teenagers turning to alcohol when they feel emptiness in their lives is not surprising. That’s something we all know — or should know — and must address. The unexpected part of this report is the blunt recognition that this emptiness is such an endemic part of Israeli adolescent life. The early Zionist dream was all about meaning and purpose. It’s all gone, and Israelis know it. With tens of thousands of Israelis searching the mountains of Tibet for enlightenment, this is also not surprising in and of itself — the surprise is that they recognize the problem.

Tu B’Shvat provides an annual opportunity to examine our Sages’ understanding of the general purpose of life.

Fruits are man’s soul food. In the original plan of Creation, fruit was to be the exclusive food for mankind. Every time a person eats of the fruit tree, says the Vilna Gaon, he absorbs a power that lies in the potential within the fruit and is capable of being realized by man.

The Torah specifically tells us that there is a connection between man and a fruit tree, and it is this connection that makes fruits uniquely suited to sustain man.

When laying siege to a city, we are forbidden to destroy the fruit trees surrounding the city: “Is the tree of the field a man that it should fall before you during a siege?” the Torah asks rhetorically (Devarim 20:19). But the words were read by our Sages as a statement of fact as well: man is like the fruit tree.

In a 1938 essay, Mohandas (“Mahatma”) Gandhi, the spiritual and political leader of the Indian independence movement, counseled Jews in Nazi Germany to neither flee nor resist but rather offer themselves up to be killed by their enemies, since their “suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy.”

When all hope is lost, a Jew about to be killed “al Kiddush Hashem” — as a Jewish martyr — is indeed to reach for serenity, even happiness, at the opportunity to give up his life because of who he is. When Rabbi Elchonon Wasserman, the great Lithuanian Jewish religious leader and scholar, was murdered by Hitler’s henchmen in 1941, he reportedly told the students about to be killed with him that “In Heaven it appears that they deem us to be righteous because our bodies have been chosen to atone for the Jewish people… In this way we will save the lives of our brethren overseas… We are now fulfilling the greatest Commandment… The very fire that consumes our bodies will one day rebuild the Jewish people.”

But Jewish martyrdom is not something to be courted. And so Mr. Gandhi’s advice for Jews during the Holocaust was, even if consonant with his personal beliefs, from Judaism’s point of view profoundly wrong.

And Gandhi’s advice was even more disturbing in light of his admission, in that same essay, that the “cry for the national home for the Jews does not make much appeal to me.” Jews, he said, should “make… their home where they are born.” It is, moreover, he went on, “inhuman to impose the Jews on the Arabs.”

In many circles, it is common to daven on Tu BiShevat for a beautiful esrog to use during the coming Sukkos. There is even a special tefillah composed just for this purpose.

The New Year for trees first appears in the Mishnah in the context of agricultural Mitzvos that are observed in Eretz Yisroel. One needs to know the dividing line between one growing season and the next, so ensure that the correct tithes are taken in any particular year. The New Year for trees is this dividing line. The Mishnah tells us:

The first of Shevat is the New Year for the tree, according to Beis Sham’ai. Beis Hillel say that it is on the fifteenth of Shevat. (Mishnah Rosh HaShanah 1:1)

Although much of the winter is still to come, since the majority of the rain has already fallen by this time (Rosh HaShanah 14b), the fifteenth of Shevat (the halachah is decided accorded to Beis Hillel) is chosen as the New Year for trees. At this time, at least in Israel, the sap begins to rise in the trees and the first formation of the buds commences (Rashi to Rosh HaShanah 14b).

It is still very much the elephant in the room. We can pretend that it didn’t happen, but it won’t go away that quickly. News sources are still writing new pieces, and the prosecutor has pledged new indictments. If you think it is one of the worst cases of chilul Hashem in memory, you are in good company. If you think that the story is all about sordid sleaze, you might have overlooked some points that were not picked up by conventional outlets. Not all the news was bad.

No one but the accused know whether the allegations are true, but no one can be sure that they are not. A few generations ago, an important Rosh Yeshiva visiting from Europe needed to borrow a small amount of cash for a short time. His would-be creditor embarrassedly asked him to sign an IOU. “It’s not that I don’t trust you, but I’ve been burnt before by others dressed like you who borrowed and disappeared.” The Rosh Yeshiva broke down and cried, that a talmid chacham should even be suspected of such a thing. Whether the current allegations hold up in court or not, I haven’t met anyone who finds them surprising. This itself is tragic.

The good news starts with some people who instantly got it right, who knew how to make a contribution to the effort to decrease the likelihood of waking up to a different scandal in the future. The rov of my shul - home to none of the accused – spoke about the need to reexamine issues of personal honesty and integrity. He did this not once, but three times. A prominent mechanech in town did not wait for students to ask questions. He dedicated his shmuess to issues of chilul Hashem and how to avoid it. As far away as Riverdale, where talmidim are kept so busy learning B”H that they have very little awareness of the scuttlebutt of the Orthodox world, R. Avrohom Ausband shlit”a seized the opportunity to give talmidim a litmus test in addressing subtle and not-so-subtle moral challenges. “Would you act the same way if you knew that your actions will be splashed across headlines the next day?” This was superb pedagogy, making the best educational use of a bad moment.

Not all rabbonim and mechanchim were so enterprising, but we can hope that they too will realize that they can contribute to a solution.

From the Jewish Council for Public Affairs:

January 19th is one of the most important contests in the Democratic and Republican quests for their parties’ nomination for the presidency. It is also Shabbat.

This year, the Nevada Democratic and Republican parties have decided to hold their primary caucuses on a Saturday, with citizens required to report by 11:30 and 9:00 AM respectively, right during morning religious services. When I called the political parties in Nevada to inquire as to whether or not there were measures being taken to help accommodate those observant Jews who wished to participate in the caucuses, I received mixed results… Neither had an adequate answer as to why the caucuses had to take place on a Shabbat morning.

Nevada has one of the fastest growing Jewish populations in the country, and its 65,000-80,000 Jewish community members are expected to have a disproportionate impact on the results. I do not know how many of these Jews are observant enough to be effectively barred from participating in the caucus. I do not know how many of these Jews will be pushed into the uncomfortable position of choosing between attending synagogue and participating in a cherished American civic tradition. I DO know that it is highly unlikely that the state’s political parties would choose to hold these caucuses on a Sunday morning during church services.

After the failed Camp David summit of 2000, George Will pronounced then prime minister Ehud Barak “perhaps the most calamitous leader any democracy has ever had” for the way he had succeeded in “delegitimizing all previous [Israeli] positions….”

By that standard, our current Ehud is worse.

Prime Minister Olmert too is dead to the importance of national will and belief in the justice of one’s cause in the life of nations. In his “new year” interview with The Jerusalem Post, Olmert uttered nary a word about Israel’s “red lines,” paid passing lip service to Jewish “rights,” and mentioned only illegal Jewish outposts - no Palestinian failures to keep their promises (such as the murder of three Jews by PA security personnel in the last six weeks). Nor did he stress the limits of what he can do without bringing about a civil war more ruinous than any Arab terrorism.

In his most demoralizing comment, Olmert portrayed Israel as desperate for peace: He spoke of the end of Israel’s existence as a Jewish state unless it can realize the vision of two states for two peoples. He thus confirmed Yasser Arafat’s old boast that the “Arab womb” will prevail, and, with his demographic determinism, strengthened the Palestinians in their view that time is on their side.

Winter might conjure pleasant memories of playing in the snow, but it is hardly a season most of us would consider symbolic of childhood. We more naturally associate the “winter of life” with a time when it is only our hair, if we even have any, that is snowy.

Yet, the earliest stage of life is precisely what winter represents, according to the Maharal of Prague (Rabbi Yehudah Betzalel Loewe, 1525-1609) in his supercommentary to Rashi’s on the Torah (Genesis 26:21).

There the celebrated Jewish mystic and philosopher assigns a stage of human life to each of the year’s seasons. A Western mind might associate nature’s annual coming-to-life in spring with childhood, the warmth of summer with youth, autumn with pensive middle age and cold, slow moving winter with life’s later years – think “Old Man Winter.” The Maharal, though, described things differently. He regards autumn, when leaves are shed and nature seems to slow down, as corresponding to older age; summer’s warmth and comfort to represent our middle-years; spring to reflect the vibrancy and energy of youth. And winter to evoke childhood.

Winter? Childhood?

Apparently this was the first time the Council president, Ambassador Luis Alfonso de Alba of Mexico, ever rejected a speech as “inadmissible.” So after you watch, you can have a look at the various comments which he admitted with thanks to the delegates.

This week Jerusalem Post health reporter Judy Siegel reported that Samuel Golubchuk, the 84-year-old frum Jew from Winnepeg, whose doctors seek to remove him from his ventilator and feeding tube, had awakened. Mr. Golubchuk is now described as “awake, alert, has returned back to his baseline, sitting up in a chair at times, more interactive, and shaking hands purposively.”

Nevertheless his doctors still seek to kill him, and are contesting the matter in court, including moving to exclude the affidavits of experts on the grounds that they arrived too late. Apparently winning to them is more important than Mr. Golubchuk’s life. Indeed in a similar case recently in Calgary, involving an elderly Chinese man, whose family contested the doctors’ decision to cut off life support, and won, the patient eventually improved so much that he was able to walk out of the hospital and return home. Nevertheless the doctors continued to pursue an appeal. Presumably they wanted to bring him back to the hospital and kill him.

There is a hearing this afternoon that might well determine Mr. Golubchuk’s fate. His name is Chaim Shmuel ben Pinya. His son Percy can be reached at sgolubchuk@shaw.ca

The following is an unretouched verbal snapshot of an international NGO gathering in Europe:

An Israeli is at the podium. He is young, bright, Western trained, and served a prior Israeli administration as an Oslo negotiator. He tells those assembled that he is prepared to give Europe a taste of what it is like to like as a Palestinian under the Occupation. He will gather other like-minded Israelis dressed in IDF uniforms. They will from human barricades across some of Paris’ busiest arteries, turning them into “checkpoints.”

Two Arabs sit in the audience. Arab1, wearing a confused look on his face, turns to Arab2, and asks, in Arabic, “Who is this guy?” Neither Arab even suspects that one of the people sitting within earshot works for the Simon Wiesenthal Center and, more importantly, speaks Arabic.

Arab2 responds, “He’s Israeli. But it’s OK. He’s on our side.”

Last week, I was asked to make a shidduch (dating) enquiry, something that occurs on a very regular basis. For the uninitiated, a shidduch enquiry happens after someone I advise has been proposed a date by a friend or matchmaker. Before helping the person to decide whether to proceed, I contact the ‘suggestee’s’ references to check that he or she is stable, pleasant, solvent, etc.

The particular man under consideration (who had been suggested for a woman I know well) had declared his outlook as ‘Modern Orthodox’ on a dating website for religious singles. In the course of my phone conversation with a very helpful rabbi, I asked him to describe the fellow’s religious outlook. Without hesitating, he said ‘Chassidic’. Assuming that I’d misheard, I asked him again; this time he said, ‘well quite open and engaged in the modern world, but definitely ultra-Orthodox’. I continued the enquiries for a while and then steered the conversation back to his outlook. I asked him again, ‘when you say that he is Chassidic, is he affiliated with group X?’ to which he responded in the affirmative, noting that he had also studied in their educational institutions.

As an aside, the entire system works on trust: it is reasonable to assume that the information supplied is accurate. It would be frustrating, to say the least, to discover that a man who describes himself as 26, six four and athletic, is actually 43, five three and heavy-set. While of course, this is an extreme and unrealistic example, ‘massaging’ the truth in these matters is not unknown!

Returning to my phone conversation, I then asked the rabbi to explain why, if the fellow is ‘Chassidic’, he might choose to describe himself as ‘Modern Orthodox’. His answer is what I want to share with the readership of Cross-Currents: ‘well, he needs to give himself a broad range of options to ensure he actually gets to meet someone’. What do you think of this? Please tell me in the comments to this article.

According to a recent study by the Institute for Jewish & Community Research, “Jewish individuals and foundations in the United States gave 95% of their dollars from gifts of $10 million or more to secular causes and 5% to Jewish causes between 2001-2003.”

“While Jewish organizations do a reasonable job attracting smaller mega-gifts, those from $1-2 million, they are failing dramatically to attract the biggest gifts that Jews make to non-profits. The trends over eight years are remarkably consistent – Jewish mega-gifts exceeding $10 million to Jewish organizations were rare eight years ago and remain notably infrequent,” according to Gary A. Tobin, president of IJCR.

This is an interesting and less-studied side effect of the decline in Jewish affiliation. The wealthiest Jews are passionate about their causes and passionate about giving — willing to donate over $10 million to their favorite causes. Their favorite causes, however, are less and less likely to involve Judaism.

Michael Bloomberg, for example, has given over $300 million to Johns Hopkins University, and in 2006 alone donated $165 million to 1,000 different organizations. The recipient organizations support arts, education, health care, and social services, with a special emphasis on reducing tobacco use. But none of the listed organizations is even a Jewish social services organization, much less one teaching Judaism.

Admittedly, I was as surprised as anyone to see “Gentile Lubavitcher refused conversion” in the Jerusalem Post. While it may be true that the belief that a deceased individual is the Messiah is foreign to normative Judaism, it is quite a step further to say that this belief alone disqualifies a potential convert. Note that this might have some bearing on the previous discussion concerning what is “Outside the Pale” — that although one cannot point to certain beliefs and label them “heresy,” one can still say that they place a person outside the mainstream community. [N.B. Comments regarding the aforementioned belief, as well as a continuation of the "Outside the Pale" discussion, will not be accepted in this thread.]

Whatever emerges from that discussion, one point has clearly been made: Rabbinical Courts have standards. It’s about complying with the standards, and not a matter of excluding people based upon politics. One can dredge up dozens of stories of dubious conversions held under Orthodox auspices that were allowed to get through — perhaps what is going on here is an elimination of loopholes of that nature. But it is as well-known as it is obvious that the Lubavitcher movement aligns itself with Orthodox Judaism, and supports the growth of Orthodoxy in the Holy Land. If the Court was interested in pandering to its chosen clientele, this is the last thing they would have done.

Contrast, if you will, the following:

“Orthodoxy” is not a separate religion from Judaism. If you have converted to Judaism, under the authority of any legitimate rabbinic authority, you are a Jew. Jewish law does not recognize a distinction between different branches, despite the refusal of orthodox authorities to accept non-orthodox conversions.

Winter, when my commute home from Manhattan on the Staten Island ferry is shrouded in darkness, provides me a singular opportunity.

That’s because the thousands of other commuters sailing along with me are more subdued than at other times of year. There is, of course, artificial lighting on the ferry, but the darkness outside seems to quell conversations somewhat; the boat is noticeably more subdued than when the sun sets later. And where the electric lights are most dim, in a certain part of the vessel unknown to many passengers, is where you will find me.

I use my commute to study Talmud and catch up on reading. In the winter, the study is particularly sweet in that poorly lighted, somewhat remote area, where the only other passengers are interested exclusively in napping or listening, eyes closed, to their iPods. A small, battery-operated booklight clipped to the cover of the tractate I study casts soft light onto the page, and, unless one of my neighbors is intent on annoying the rest of us by turning up the volume on his “personal” audiodevice so it sounds like an angry bee (and no doubt permanently damages his eardrums), all is quiet and dark, with the Hebrew words before my eyes drawing me in. I wouldn’t come home any other way.

At an Agudath Israel national convention several years ago, Rabbi Mattisyahu Salomon, the Mashgiach, or dean of students, of the famed Lakewood Yeshiva (Beth Medrash Govoha), delivered an address that I often recall as I settle into my ferry-seat. His topic had been the centrality of introspection and focused study to the essence of true Jewish life, dedication to the Divine. And then he bemoaned how chronically unconcentrated we all are these days.

No one in their right mind would knowingly ingest poison. Unless, of course, he or she was diagnosed with the dreaded disease and the doctors prescribed chemotherapy.

But even after the decision has been made that chemotherapy offers best hope of destroying the malignancy, doctors continue to monitor the effect of the toxins on the patient. There is no point to administering a “cure” that is worse than the disease.

And if the chemotherapy proves successful, the patient’s physicians do not simply ignore the adverse side affects. Everything possible is done to alleviate those side effects.

To what does this moshol refer?