By Guest Contributor, on April 28th, 2009 [Rabbi Dovid Landesman is a veteran mechanech and the mechaber of a sefer on Netziv.]
Today – Yom ha-Zikaron L’chayalei Tzahal - is one of the most difficult days for me in the calendar year. Every year the day accentuates the fact that I am really not sure who I am – a chareidi, a chardalnik, a dati leumi. Truthfully, my lifestyle and more certainly that of my children, would cast me in the first group. However, while I served in the IDF and did miluim for almost twenty-five years, I am in many ways a proponent of the Eidah ha-Chareidis, for I respect their uncompromising fealty to halachah and their intense efforts to achieve kirvat Hashem.
But, today, when a significant portion of am yisrael mourns the chayalim who gave their lives enabling a Jewish community to be built and thrive in Eretz Yisrael, I find myself angry – nay, overwhelmingly perturbed – by the fact that the overwhelming majority of chareidi Jews ignore this day. It is not my intention to debate whether or not a non-halachic state has any standing. Rather, I simply wonder what happened to elementary hakarat ha-tov. I can accept that standing at attention while … Read More >>
By Shira Schmidt, on April 28th, 2009 “That’s a premier Israeli folksong,” claimed someone from the audience when my co-translator and I showed a video of a Sanz hassidim singing a piyut sung at Seudah Shlishit on Shabbat. I ruminated on this tune today, as I recited Psalms during the “minute of silence” on Remembrance Day for Israel’s fallen soldiers. This piyut came to my attention because it is mentioned on the last page of Rav Haim Sabato’s autobiographical novel on the Yom Kippur War, Adjusting Sights. A Yom Hazikaron radio interview with Rav Sabato is in the archives of Galey Zahal (scroll to the bottom and go to p.6), Remembrance Day, “V’Chai Bahem: Faith and Memory.”
The comment, “That’s a premier Israeli folksong” was made when my co-lecturer and I analyzed how Hillel Halkin handled challenges in translating into English the final passage in Adjusting Sights. (The book was also made into a movie ) In the book’s final page the aforementioned nigun to the piyut E-l Mistater is the thread that connects Rabbi Haim Halberstam of Sanz (b.1793), with his great grandson, the late Sanz-Klausenburg … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on April 27th, 2009 You won’t read about this in conventional media.
My dear colleague, Rabbi Abraham Cooper, was one of three senior officials of the Simon Wiesenthal Center to attend last week’s “Durban II” United Nations conference on racism in Geneva. Once again, an event many years in the making, and that could have addressed the real needs of millions of people suffering and dying around the globe, was sabotaged by hatred of Israel. Any chance to get groups from all over the world to work together was torpedoed by Ahmadinejad’s tirade against the United States, Israel, and Jews. The conference never recovered from the circus on its first day. Delegates decamped a few days later hailing the accomplishment of a single document that spoke of the rights of individuals. The number of people subject to torture in North Korea, beheading in Iran and Saudi Arabia, terrorism in Southeast Asia, and programmed starvation in Africa has not, however, declined since last week. This itself is a human tragedy.
While it lasted, NGO’s tried to salvage the opportunity, with so many representatives of governments and civil society gathered in one location. At one meeting, the Wiesenthal Center joined with two (non-Jewish) groups to focus … Read More >>
By Jonathan Rosenblum, on April 27th, 2009 Few concepts are so closely with the Jewish people as that of the “Chosen People.” That singularity is reiterated constantly in the Torah. We are referred to variously as “a kingdom of priests, a holy nation,” “My special treasure among the nations,” “My son, my firstborn son, Israel.” Though our travails will be many, we are promised that G-d will never abandon us completely.
A strong sense of distinction has characterized the Jews from our earliest days as a nation. The ancient Greek and Roman historians noted the Jews’ refusal to intermingle freely with other peoples, their strict endogamy — and despised them for it.
Until our own day, the clannishness of the Jews is a frequent theme of anti-Semites (even as others attack us for our attempts to penetrate every area of gentile society. Anti-Semites of a Hegelian bent synthesize the two claims: Jews attempt to enter everywhere to advance their group interests.)
Those who accuse Israel of war crimes often attribute those “crimes” to the Jews’ belief that only their lives are of value and gentile blood may be freely shed. (In reality, no army in history has shed so much of its own blood to preserve that of enemy civilians … Read More >>
By Eytan Kobre, on April 26th, 2009 Last week’s news of a healthy 14% first-quarter profit for Apple Computer stood out as a ray of hope in an otherwise gloomy economic landscape. The company’s strong sales were due largely to the continuing popularity of its innovative iPhone. But there’s at least one well-to-do American who isn’t buying it, literally.
His name? Bill Gates, and his demurral isn’t due to lack of funds, but, precisely because the Microsoft founder is ultra-wealthy. I do not refer here to Mr. Gates’ considerable monetary fortune, which, despite dwindling by tens of billions during the past year, still qualifies him for the top spot on Forbes list of the wealthiest Americans. I use the prefix “ultra”, instead, in the way it is often used in the media to label many people who are near and dear to us – or, indeed, often are us. In this usage, “ultra” is nothing more than a code word for “extremist.” Come to think of it, perhaps it would be kinder if we’d just refer to Bill as being “fervently” wealthy.
What makes Bill ultra, I mean, fervently wealthy, is not, however, his extreme wealth. I invoke the term after reading a news report in Britain’s Daily … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on April 26th, 2009 A scant few hours after Rabbi Goldberg posted his essay , I showed up at a school where I teach, only to discover that my class was preempted by some visitors who were going to address the entire school. I recognized one of them as Rabbi Benny Lau, since I had debated him on the conversion issue a few months ago in Toronto. We parted on more than good terms despite our differences, so I made a point of listening to his presentation instead of ducking out and returning to my office.
It was a good decision. Rabbi Lau related a beautiful thought, that took him back to his yeshiva days. A group of his fellow students accompanied Rav Amital shlit”a to Neot Kedumim, the famous nature preserve, a bit off the Tel Aviv-Yerushalayim road, not far from what today is Modi’in. They were met there by Nogah HaReuveni, the secular botanist who spent years putting together the park that makes not only Tanach, but Mishnah and Gemara come alive. (My favorite parts are the road lined with about every sukkah described in the mesechta, and the live demonstration of threshing on an actual threshing floor using reconstructions … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on April 24th, 2009 confusing libertinism with liberty, free-for-all with … Read More >>
By Hillel Goldberg, on April 23rd, 2009 My entire adult life I’ve been hearing about the coming demise of the American Jewish community.
The first such prediction, some 40 years ago, went like this:
The Orthodox and the Reform define a Jew differently; intermarriage is rampant; therefore, the American Jewish community will be flooded with people whom the Reform recognize as Jews and the Orthodox do not.
This will lead to an irreversible split. There will be no mutual recognition of each other’s children; therefore, American Jews will be at each other’s throats; the community will eat itself up in infighting and disappear in the smoke.
The second such prediction went like this:
The Orthodox are reproducing; the non-Orthodox are not. Now, by “reproduction” was meant not just a number of children, but a number who would stay Jewish and identified.
The graphs and charts that accompanied this prediction showed many, many Orthodox Jews (I forget the exact number) for each Reform Jew 50 years from now. Orthodox Judaism will thrive; all others will disappear. Overall, the American Jewish community will shrink drastically because the rapidly growing Orthodox community starts from a very small point.
Now I read a third prediction, based on a recent study.
It runs like this:
Spirituality is growing among two segments … Read More >>
By Yaakov Menken, on April 22nd, 2009 Those moving from America to Israel on aliyah are predominantly Orthodox, while Reform and Conservative Jews are staying put in America. Most of us would attribute this to Orthodox “willingness to pay a personal price, both in quality and comfort of life,” for the sake of the “mitzva of settling the land,” compared to the 88% of Sunday School graduates who don’t feel a strong connection to Israel. But if you’re the executive director and CEO of the Masorti (Conservative) Movement in Israel, the obvious (and obviously correct) answer is unacceptable. Thus readers of the Jerusalem Post were recently treated to an alternative theory authored by Yizhar Hess: the Orthodox make life nice and comfy for their own, and miserable for everyone else. Yes, the reason Reform Jews don’t immigrate to Israel can be traced to the Chassidic Rebbes of Meah Shearim.
The article is notable primarily for the petty nature of its grumbling against the Orthodox. Hess spends two paragraphs documenting the financial advantages of children’s Jewish education in Israel vs. the United States. Besides the laughable assertion that a chareidi classroom is “more comfortable, less crowded” than a secular one, he’s clearly missed the obvious: anyone moving … Read More >>
By Sarah Shapiro, on April 21st, 2009 [Sarah Shapiro, noted Orthodox writer and daughter of literary icon Norman Cousins, would be a welcome permanent addition to Cross-Currents if I can finally talk her into it - YA - Updated Apr. 29 to attribute this article to our newest Contributor...]
A big writer’s block showed up one day and settled down right in front of my laptop. Generally speaking, I try to ignore this phenomenon. My philosophy is: don’t say its name out loud, since that affirms its reality and encourages it to stay. You’re better off preserving its illusory cloud-like status as a passing figment of the imagination, like an ice floe that will drift off to sea if you keep looking the other way.
But months were going by and it wasn’t drifting off. Since I’d grown accustomed over the years to the glow of the computer screen, I continued showing up for “work” each morning at my desk, and continued exercising my civic duty (as I had since the start of the Democratic primaries) keeping track online of the ongoing American Presidential campaign. Attacks and counter-attacks, prophecies and predictions, polls, blogs, bulletins, headlines, breaking news and shaking news, updates and pundits and Op-Eds…a lot of words … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on April 21st, 2009 Seldom since the years immediately following the War has so much attention been paid to Yom HaShoah, thanks to Ahmadinejad’s tirade at the UN yesterday. Few news sources resisted the irony of the world’s most famous Holocaust denier urging the world to finish the job he claims Hitler never started, in an address just a few hours before Yom HaShoah would be observed throughout Europe. Regardless of whether or how you usually relate to Yom HaShoah, we perhaps have a special obligation today to think of those Ahmadinejad denied, the UN delegates mocked, while representatives of other countries – not all of them friendly to Israel – participated in an unusual show of decency by walking out. Besides the seven countries that refused to attend the UN conference on racism in the first place, like the US, Canada, Italy, and Australia, those who walked out yesterday included Austria, Belgium, Britain, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Czech Republic ,
Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, St. Kitts and Nevis. (In polls of the populace, Greece and Spain are the most anti-Semitic countries on the globe outside of the Arab world. Go figure.) And … Read More >>
By Shira Schmidt, on April 8th, 2009 I was at a study-seminar in Nahariya when I received a phone call 1 am Friday, erev Shabbat Hagadol from New York. “We have an emergency,” said one of the editors of Mishpacha Magazine. Could I help them find an expert translator to translate from English to Hebrew the cover story of the Pesah issue, which had to go to print Motzei Shabbat. It was a cover story, an interview with the current Satmar Rebbe, Rabbi Aharon Teitelbaum. After a flurry of transatlantic phone calls a translator was found – the very scholar, Rav Yitzchok Frankfurter, who conducted the interview and wrote it in English. He worked for twelve hours straight, and translated it himself. I found the interview fascinating – and you can read it in English (and in Hebrew) in the Pesah issue #254 of Mishpacha:”A Glimpse of Greatness.”
My narrow view of Satmar has completely changed after reading this cover story. Especially impressive is the fact that the Rebbe wears two streimels (streimlach?), that of Rosh Yeshiva deeply involved in teaching and learning, and that of the leader of his community. In the same … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on April 7th, 2009 If you made it this far without doing the reading, you are probably not going to get to it before the event. For a quick and easy presentation, try the summary written by the one who wrote the book, mori ve-rabi Rabbi Dovid Bleich, shtlit”a. It appears in the online version of the OU’s Jewish Action Magazine.
To make it even simpler for those pressed for time (and who isn’t today?), I will excerpt it, and include the sections that draw a straight line between Birchas Ha-Chammah and Pesach:
Although the celebration of Pesach commemorates the Exodus from Egypt and Birkat haChammah recalls Creation, the two share a singular common motif.
“Chayyav adam lirot et atzmo ke’ilu hu yatza miMitzrayim—a person is obligated to look upon himself as if he exited from Egypt.” On Pesach a Jew is obligated not simply to recall a historical event but to imagine himself an actual participant in that event. Rambam’s formulation is “Chayyev adam leharot et atzmo—a person is obligated to show himself” as one who departed from Egypt. A fantasy, to be sure. It is difficult enough to enter into a fantasy, yet Rambam requires not only that we enter … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on April 6th, 2009 My recent Am Echad Resources essay “Bernie, Sully and Me” has generated substantial criticism from many readers, including people whose opinions I deeply respect. I have come to the conclusion that that there were errors in both the content and tone of the essay, for which I apologize.
My main goal in publishing these essays is to help people understand eternal Jewish truths. Unfortunately, here I chose unsuitable examples for the concepts I sought to impart, failing to accomplish that goal and offending many people in the process.
I am grateful, as always, for the constructive comments and feedback I received
from my readership, whose confidence I hope to retain going forward.
By Eytan Kobre, on April 5th, 2009 Anyone looking for a takeaway lesson from the amazing tale of US Airways Flight 1549 would do well to ponder the striking opening line of an Associated Press piece on the episode: “Chesley Sullenberger spent practically his whole life preparing for the five-minute crucible that was US Airways Flight 1549.”
The article goes on to relate that the story’s hero got his pilot’s license at 14 and was named best aviator in his class at the Air Force Academy. He then embarked on a 29-year airline piloting career, mastering glider flying along the way, and had studied air disasters, even starting a firm that taught companies to apply to other fields the latest safety advances in commercial aviation.
But “Sully” hadn’t just gained, through decades of experience and study, the technical expertise that he needed, when the unthinkable happened, to skirt numerous potential calamities and land that plane safely in the Hudson. With a degree in psychology from the Air Force Academy, he had actually studied how airline crews react in crises precisely like the one in which he found himself on the afternoon of January 15, 2009.
Only that kind of serious premeditation could have led to the astonishing calm the … Read More >>
By Yitzchok Adlerstein, on April 5th, 2009 A colleague expressed displeasure with my citing a story about a call to violence by a rabbinic figure. He argued that, at least in America, he has never come across an instance of a legitimate rov calling for violence, and that I should have investigated the story further before publishing it.
He turned out to be correct. Checking with people who were there, it turns out that he did not urge people to burn down the store. He was agitated by what he saw as he approached the nearby shiur, and expressed that concern. He than added that he didn’t know if it was worthwhile going to jail for burning it down. It was also understood by people in the audience that he was expressing his pain, not a real doubt about a possible course of action.
Unlike abuse (and its cover-up), we can perhaps still lay claim to a rabbinate that is violence-free.
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