I don’t believe that I will ever again meet anyone like Bernie Lander. I’ve met two kinds of people best described as bigger than life: those of huge vision, and those of huge accomplishment. Both are essential to a forward-moving community. Each adds an invaluable element to the full picture. Each kind usually has a deficiency. Those with the necessary vision are often incapable of translating that vision into a reality, and those who are builders and doers often narrow their vision to the job in front of them, and no further. Rabbi Dr. Lander was the only person I ever met whose creative imagination was enormous – and whose vision was matched perfectly by his performance. Somehow, he managed to make all the dreams come true. He talked big, but there was not gap between the talk and the walk.

The dimensions of his accomplishment are breathtaking. Starting from the ground up, he built a university whose scope and scale swamp those of much older institutions. Learning programs, academic programs, vocational programs, day programs, evening programs, undergraduate, graduate and professional schools, in New York, across the country, and in foreign countries – if it could be imagined, Bernie Lander made it happen. He faced many obstacles, in the form of nay-sayers and kana’im. He ignored both. (He can serve as a role model for standing up against the myopia of the zealots, and prevailing against the bunch of them.)

To me, one of his most admirable traits was concentrating so much of his energy on people who did not even affiliate with his world. Dr. Lander identified primarily with the Centrist Orthodox community, and served as an office of the OU for decades. (His son, however, the Rosh Yeshiva of Ohr HaChaim, learned in Brisk.) Yet the most important beneficiary of his vision is the American charedi world. Certainly the dynamism of the Touro institutions is one of the reasons why American charedim are not mired in the financial despair of their Israeli counterparts. When enough students on the right would entertain some form of higher education, but would not set foot on a secular college campus, he tailor-made programs that they would consider. If they demanded frum teachers, he got them. If they wanted separate hours for men and women (or even separate evenings, to insure no mixing), he provided that as well. He offered his programs in ways that yeshiva bochrim would be subject to the least amount of bitul Torah to take them. He provided training in the areas most suitable to frum family life. In time, he developed programs even in Israel, so that long-time learners who wanted to pick up a skill set could do so, without grating on their life style. Bending over backwards became a fine art to him, not an irritation.

It will take decades to fully grasp his impact. When Avraham Avinu planted an eishel/ tamarisk tree, Chazal see an allusion to its acronym: achilah shesiah, levayah, a place of food, drink, and accompaniment. Avraham provided for the material needs of the wayfarer – and then instructed them to regard the Ribbono Shel Olam as their benefactor, rather than himself. Taking up that theme, we must regard Bernie Lander as planting an entire forest. There are thousands upon thousands of people today who are able to support their families through the dignity of their work only because of the training that he made available to them. Their mitzvos are his.

China used to bother me quite a bit when I was younger. A lot of people seemed to live there, but it was notoriously absent from the world view of Chazal. (At that point in life, I had assumed that if something was real, it had to be explicitly featured in the chief texts of our mesorah.) How could something that big escape the notice of Chazal? One could follow a thread in Chazal that reduced the course of human civilization to a clash between Yaakov and Esav (after a few minor intrusions). There were many supporting actors besides the ones with top billing, but the Chinese didn’t rate as understudies or even extras.

Years later, I would often be asked the same or similar question by talmidim. What purpose, they would ask, do the Chinese serve? (Those were the years in which they were the Bad Guy Commies, not our trading partners and major consumers of our debt, so the question made at least limited sense.)

As the years went by, I modified my expectation of what I should find explicitly mentioned by Chazal and what I should not find. It’s a pity, because I think I found the answer to a question I no longer have. It was somehow not a surprise to find it in a thought of Rav Samson Raphael Hirsch, as I was preparing my weekly The Timeless Rav Hirsch shiur for publication.

It wasn’t just the words of Rav Hirsch. Hashgacha, and my role on a beis din for gerus had plenty to do with it.

I just watched the YouTube of Chief Inspector Joe Sullivan of the Philadelphia Police Department explain what went wrong on that flight to Louisville Thursday morning. A cabin attendant, not familiar with the Jewish ritual device, became alarmed, etc. The plane was diverted to Philadelphia, where police determined that the device was no threat to safety. It is a black box worn on the forehead, with leather straps leading from it to another box worn on the arm. The device is known as an olfactory.

Something doesn’t smell right about the story.

The problem was certainly not with the Philadelphia PD. They couldn’t know about olfactories, having their hands full coping with all those late-night disturbances at the Philadelphia Yeshiva, one of the most notorious party-schools in the country.

The destination of the plane is cause for suspicion. Louisville is where the Presbyterian Church (USA) is headquartered. PCUSA was the first mainline Protestant denomination to approve divestment of its investment funds from Israel (although later repealed by its membership, which is not hostile to Israel, unlike some of its leadership). Its Israel-Palestine Mission Network routinely posts some of the worst anti-Israel – and, on occasion, anti-Semitic – material on the globe. I betcha they planted the olfactories, just to make Jews look bad. The seventeen year old passenger probably wasn’t even Jewish but evangelical, about the only people they hate more than Jews.

I was pleased that Agudah very quickly sent out a message pointing people to suitable agencies to which to donate. (I was frankly horrified that they included Oxfam, the virulently anti-Israel NGO. More suitable agencies are not in short supply.) It was understandable that Agudah did not mount a campaign of their own – they do not have a website. The OU does have one, and within a short period of time it had put a donation mechanism in place. Funds collected will go directly to the American Joint Distribution Center, which has already helped defray the cost of the Israeli relief mission. This is where I made my donation.

To a large extent, charitable giving in times of catastrophe is related to feelings of commonality. As of this writing, contributions in the US are ahead of those after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004, despite the much higher death toll then. Haiti is America’s neighbor, and Americans therefore feel more of a bond.

For frum Jews with scores of needs competing for our tzedakah funds – some of them life-threatening – the issue is more complicated. I have nothing to say to those who could be completely indifferent to human suffering. ורחמיו על כל מעשיו.
Anyone who is not moved by the pictures of pain and privation cannot be a decent human being, let alone a decent Jew. To paraphrase Shakespeare, “Hath not a Haitian eyes? hath not a Haitian hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer, as any other person is? If you prick us, do we not bleed? if you tickle us, do we not laugh? if you poison us, do we not die?”

Beyond the necessary heart-felt compassion, I believe that our response will show how well our minds have internalized the notion of Tzlelem Elokim. There are few ties between ourselves and Haitians – despite Haiti’s welcoming Jews fleeing from Hitler, and its voting the right way during the UN partition vote in 1947 that allowed the creation of the Jewish State. We still see Haiti as primitive country, the poorest in the Western hemisphere. We regard it as lawless and chaotic, not a place we would even want to visit. Its culture does not impact upon ours; there are few, if any, shared interests and experiences. If we take Tzelem Elokim seriously, however, we have all the commonality we need to have.

While Rabbi Dovid Batzri’s first attempt to drive the dybbuk out was not apparently successful, R. Elyashiv, shtlit”a, reportedly refused to allow it in in the first place, according to the account in Chadrei Chareidim. “Go away from here. I have no business with a dibuk.”

Assume, for the sake of argument, that the account is accurate. (My own practice is to follow R. Elyashiv’s own directive, and assume that nothing quoted in his name is accurate, unless heard directly from him. Even then, I would be skeptical if any background information regarding an issue that was delivered to him by one of his more notorious gatekeepers, who are known to color, filter, and distort.) Was R. Elyashiv dismissive of the possibility that the unfortunate young man from Brazil was possessed by a dybbuk? Did he, like R. Moshe Sternbuch, shlit”a, see mental illness as the cause of the aberrant behavior, rather than a freeloading spirit? Or did he dismiss the dybbuk because he had nothing to say to it, and didn’t particularly relish its company?

The same account claims that R. Elyashiv certainly did not rule out the possibility of a real case of possession. Shlomo Kook, the editor of HaShavua B’Yerushalayim, attended the ill-fated attempt at a videoconferenced exorcism, and reported on its details in his paper. He then looked back at the celebrated predecessor to today’s dybbuk, the infamous dybbuk of Dimona, a bit over a decade ago. Kook reports that R. Elyashiv was asked at the time whether the story should be told to children, since not everyone believed that it was an actual dybbuk they were up against. According to Kook, R. Elyashiv responded:

“Can you say for certain it wasn’t genuine?” adding, “If some are encouraged (receive chizuk) by this, why not tell?”

Simple instructions often claim “three” as their magic number. Think, “It’s as easy as A,B,C,” or “ready, aim, fire,” or “liberté, égalité, fraternité.” So it shouldn’t be surprising that someone telescoped the rules of justifiable speech into three simple questions: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it necessary?

It may not be surprising, until you read a bit more in a lovely article in the Wall Street Journal (January 6), and thereby discover that this formula is attributed to Socrates, or perhaps Buddhist tradition. Either way, the authors apparently came up with program for civilizing and uplifting speech civil with very little help from Sura, Pumbedisa, or Neherda’a.

Did they scoop us? Maybe not. There is no question that society would be in a better place if more people would use this tripartite litmus test before speaking (or blogging!). Under closer scrutiny, however, the program turns out to be unworkable. Seen from a Torah perspective, it is not only unworkable, but inaccurate as well!

Lest we be seen as intolerably persnickety, let us give credit where due. The article is a pleasure to read. It is good to hear that many people are aware of the damage done by gossip – both to the target and to the gossipmonger. It is a pleasant surprise to learn that some employers are so serious about banning it, that engaging in gossip can be grounds for dismissal; that some are teaching elementary school children to avoid socially damaging speech; that an old Aish HaTorah project (not identified as such in the article) called WordsCanHeal.org, succeeded in attracting the backing and support of an impressive number of major celebrities.

Dovid HaMelech prided himself in speaking enthusiastically and unabashedly to foreign royalty about Hashem’s Torah (Tehilim 119:46). Too many of us react, “Gee, if I were in that position, what would I say? Why would they be interested?” We have lots to say, but we haven’t always thought carefully enough about what parts of the Torah’s message are most accessible and stimulating to others. Because of our reluctance to intelligently showcase Torah (and increasingly, the sorry state of our communications skills), we lose opportunities to influence our friends and neighbors, whether of royal lineage or not.

When a good friend of mine excitedly told me about a successful presentation to a non-Orthodox audience, I asked him to send me the transcript. Rabbi Meyer May is the Executive Director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) in Los Angeles, where I work. He was asked to speak in Dublin at an event over the New Year’s weekend co-sponsored by iACT (SWC’s campus outreach wing) and the European Center for Jewish Students. The students from Liverpool, Manchester, Leeds, London, Dublin, Marseilles, Lyon, Paris, Antwerp, Brussels, Amsterdam, Russia, the Ukraine, Brazil, Berlin, Dusseldorf, Sweden and Gibraltar. The speech was met with rousing and sustained applause, and led to much further interaction with the students.

Most of the ideas will not be new to our readers, but I present it for its elegant balance, as a model of how to reach across the divide. It combines the right amounts of history, contemporary name-dropping, inspirational material – and divrei Torah that are not watered down. (Humor, too, but I deleted the joke, since you’ve all heard it .)

We should be doing more of this kind of thing.

An avid reader and commenter (who shall remain unnamed) put us on the trail of a professional who has been guiding yeshiva men entering the workplace. Said professional put together some of his reactions based on his significant experience in helping frum men find positions. After some prodding, said professional revealed his name. It turns out that he, too, is an avid Cross-Currents reader. Daniel Rubin has a Masters in Human Resources from Rochester Institute of Technology and has made the transition from Jewish education to corporate training and development. He has been involved in both of these fields for over a decade each and actively mentors young professionals. We thank him for this contribution, which is must reading for the inexperienced job seeker.

As an employee for a large corporation within a mainstream Jewish community, I’ve had the opportunity to respond to many requests for job search assistance from both individuals and Jewish organizations dedicated to this effort. As a result of this experience, I feel compelled to share a few thoughts on what I believe to be a significant concern. Several of the candidates who have approached me have a number of critical issues they need to address before actually applying for a job. They prepare poorly written resumes which reveal very active Jewish lifestyles, ambiguous advanced degrees, and “work experience” which is debatable and irrelevant. I have tried to delicately communicate the following ideas to these candidates:

• A resume is not a recorded history of extra-curricular activities from 9th grade and onward. Each statement has to send a powerful message that is meaningful to the non-Jewish reader and will make he/she want to distinguish your resume from the other thousand on the pile.

• Identifying yourself as an Orthodox Jew (or a member of any other religious or ethnic group, for that matter) is not to your advantage. It is not wise to encourage the reader to believe you are different than the rest of the world and may have special needs. Either make an accomplishment religiously neutral or exclude it.

If you don’t know what it stands for, skip the rest of this piece. I am not going to rehash the whole sordid affair.

For what it is worth, I will offer one man’s opinion, written as a bit of an insider in the world of gerus, since I sit from time to time on a respected beis din for gerus. The opinions expressed herein are my own; they were not vetted by my colleagues.

I have come neither to praise EJF, nor to bury it. If I believed that EJF was worthless, I wouldn’t bother writing. It is only because I see the potential for accomplishment that I pen these thoughts, in the hope that others will feel the same way.

The chief problem with EJF is not its recent scandal-ridden past. The problem is that to date, it has not done enough to insure that the past will not be repeated. The way in which it has addressed the past hardly inspires any confidence.

Los Angeles yidden lost one of their most beloved yesterday. I lost a cherished friend. It will take a long while to remember and reflect. What I offer here are just a few early thoughts, more cathartic to me than a proper tribute.

I have lost friends, close relatives, and even students before. I have witnessed the sudden, unexpected loss of young people. I have grieved for my own losses, and shared in the grieving of others. Something was different here. Charlie Abbott was not supposed to die. Sure, everyone gets called back to the Yeshiva Shel Ma’alah. But nobody thought it would happen to Charlie.

We all reacted to the news of his melanoma just slightly differently than Esav. The day that he yielded the bechorah to Yaakov, Esav had been guilty of the three cardinal sins of Yiddishkeit – the worst of the worst. It was the day of their grandfather Avraham’s levaya. The ba’alei mussar explain that Esav recoiled in shock at his zeide’s death. He wasn’t supposed to die. Shouldn’t a tzadik like Avraham weather any storm or crisis? The magnitude of his merit was immeasurable. Wouldn’t G-d hold him in the palm of His hand, and protect him from ageing and infirmity? If all his mitzvos and merit couldn’t do that, then who needed them? He was ready to live his life free of any constraints.

None of us is going to throw off the yoke of mitzvos. I expect that many will, at least for a while, turn to them with even greater resolve – some of us because we will keep Charlie’s image in front of us, and others to try to offer something to his pure neshamah. But we all thought that if anyone would be pulled out of his medical straits, it would be Charlie. Gedolei Yisrael, upon first hearing of his illness, reportedly reacted the same way. He had so, so many zechusim. How would they not stand by him in his hour of need? There was a huge outpouring of tefilah in Los Angeles and elsewhere. We never know how Hashem will receive our tefilos, but we thought to ourselves that this situation was different. We weren’t so much asking Hashem to change His midah so much as calling upon Him to make a small withdrawal from a huge account of merit.

(continued from Part One)

No one else there was particularly interested in asking questions of Dr Meyer, so I had open road ahead of me. Very politely, I let go with all the reservations I had, relating to the frum community setting sail on the ID ship. I wasn’t going to argue whether the ship was seaworthy. Then – and now – I can’t say I know enough about the issues to develop an opinion without doing much more reading than I have time for. My questions had to do with whether the ship was heading for a destination that was good for us.

Were the social implications of Darwinism a concern to us in the frum community? Arguably, Darwinism has been used by some to destroy any sense of the specialness of being human, and any moral message that might go along with that election. We who stood at Sinai ought to be immune to that. Evolution (the G-d initiated kind I wrote about in the last posting) cannot put a dent in the historical relationship between Hashem and Klal Yisrael, from which we draw out emunah and our resolve to lead a Torah life style. Non-Jews as well ought to be able to draw on their faith in G-d and belief in His message to all of mankind to offset the cynical and narrow vision for mankind that some draw from evolution. We don’t need a challenge to evolution, as much as more G-d consciousness. Why would we need ID?

Why had much of Dr Meyer’s very powerful presentation dealt with what he called the new “friendliness” of science to theism. What could ever be unfriendly about science to true belief? Showing areas of overlap between science (e.g. the Big Bang with Creation) and the Bible seemed almost sacrilegious. Torah doesn’t need corroboration from science, not can it offer any. (As Rav Reuvein Leuchter, shlit”a, talmid muvhak of R Wolbe zt”l once put it to me as we tried to outdo each other in our antipathy to the Bible Codes, how can Torah, which completely transcends all teva, be secured by something within teva?) Worse yet, to me, was the notion of pointing to phenomena that some believe are not yet satisfactorily explained by evolution (abiogenesis, the Cambrian explosion, irreducible complexity, etc.), and yelling, “Eureka! We’ve found it! That’s where G-d has been hiding, and that’s where we really need Him!” It sounds far too similar to “G-d of the gaps” for comfort. (“G-d of the gaps” refers to any one of a number of arguments for His existence that start out with “How else are you going to explain…?” The problem with it is that if the gap narrows or disappears through discovery and enlightenment, so does the reason for belief. Unfortunately, much belief around the globe is built on such arguments, reinforcing the stereotype advanced by the New Atheists that religion is only for the undereducated and ill-informed. A posting of three years ago examined more sophisticated objections to “G-d of the gaps.” ID’ers believe that their approach is not “G-d of the gaps,” but we don’t want to get ahead of ourselves here. At this point, I was asking the questions, and not yet listening to answers.) Why would frum Jews want to get involved with a “G-d of the gaps” approach, which will make us look silly when the gap is filled in, as has happened several times before?

Winds blew some Intelligent Design folks into town, and I wasn’t quick enough to catch the last stage out before they arrived. As a confirmed contrarian, I immediately moved into defensive and skeptical postures. Nonetheless, I came away with a different attitude than before. Given where I started off, I even surprised myself.

Many of my friends greeted the ID people with open arms. After all, everyone “knows” that ID people give a hard time to evolutionists, and everyone knows that properly Orthodox people blanch at the very mention of the e-word. So if the ID people give evolutionists a hard time, they must be our friends.

Maybe I’m not properly Orthodox, but evolution is just not an issue for me. (I know what you are thinking, but spare me. I’ve written this before. Much of what follows is an abbreviated form of an exchange with David Klinghofer in this forum in November 2006.) I recognize that I am in the minority in this regard (although not so sure if this is true for frum folks with scientific background), but I made peace with evolution years ago. I’m neither convinced of its truth (although it explains volumes of collected phenomena that no one in the frum community even begins to deal with) nor convinced of its untruth. Of course I reject one small assumption made by some evolutionists, including the most strident and vocal ones. They believe that not only did G-d have no part in it, but that having adequately explained the Great Mystery of Life, there is no need to believe in G-d, c”v. My belief is that if the Ribbono Shel Olam set up the original conditions, including the physical constants of nature in such a way as to produce the world as we know it, using natural selection and about 15 billion years (a span of time so large I simply can’t wrap my mind around it to decide whether the scenario is plausible or ludicrous), I for one would have no objection. As R Samson Raphael Hirsch wrote in the infancy of the theory – well before he could, in all fairness, properly analyze it, but also before over a century of corroborating evidence – if the theory turns out to be true, we will stand in even greater awe of the wisdom of HKBH. There is wondrous elegance in reducing all of existence to what was contained in the singularity that preceded the laws of nature as we know them. Reducing all there is to a mysterious oneness has great appeal to me.

In other words, it makes no difference to me whether Hashem created the world in six days of miraculous intervention, or telescoped all of the miraculous into some moment preceding Big Bang. As long as the results are attributed to the Will of HKBH, I can live with either scenario, and I don’t really need to know which of these – or some other alternative – is correct.

Intermarriage should never be cause for celebration, even if the partner-to-be is Chelsea Clinton. Every intermarriage – at least for a Jewish male – is the end of a line stretching back millennia. It means that a human chain of commitment to act as a vehicle for G-d’s teaching has come to an abrupt end.

Some in the heterodox world encourage and embrace intermarriage. Others don’t approve, but frequently find a silver lining in the dark cloud of a Jewish family that will cease to exist. They understand that intermarriage sometimes leads to sympathy, influence and power through the non-Jewish spouse on behalf of the people with which he or she now identifies.

Thus it is no surprise that the Los Angeles Jewish Journal had this to say about the news that Chelsea will tie the knot with her long time boyfriend Marc Mezvinsky:

No word on whether Clinton will convert before the marriage—or at all—but as political royalty, her close affiliation with Judaism is certain to delight America’s pro-Israel supporters.

Hiddush means something new, but there is nothing new at all in Hiddush, the organization. Even the dramatis personae are just warmed-over stock characters.

Hiddush is the latest in a series of attempts to bring the Orthodox community in Israel to its knees. The only thing different about this attempt seems to be the addition of a website, and a broadening of the agenda. Previously, the issues were Mi Yehudi (defining Jewishness), and participation (i.e. funding) of the non-Orthodox streams in Government-funded activity. For Hiddush, the very existence of a haredi world is now also an issue, as it tries to alter its lifestyle by curtailing government subsidies to large families and military exemptions for yeshiva students.

The new organization is born of an old device: joining an old ineffective Israeli voice to American money.

Uri Regev has a long record of success in saying nasty things about Orthodox Jews, while remaining unsuccessful in getting Israel to further erode its definition of Jewishness to include Reform conversions performed in Israel. Indeed, he must be particularly miffed in the singular lack of success of Reform to draw more adherents in a country that has very strong anti-haredi feelings. For most Israelis, the shul they don’t daven at continues to be Orthodox. Reform in Israel remains a very small phenomenon. If Regev cannot persuade more secular Israelis to find spiritual fulfillment in his brand of Judaism, the least he can do is make life miserable for Judaism’s most enthusiastic adherents.

Everyone who knew the difference between a basketball and a watermelon talked about the impossible shot. At the end of the first quarter of Sunday night’s game between the Lakers and the Oklahoma City Thunder, Kobe Bryant simply ran out of room as he charged the end of the court. He was already past the net and had nowhere to go but out of bounds, when he managed to get the ball loose. Despite Kobe’s great control and aim, he had a small problem. Between him and the net was something that typically does not get in the way of a clean shot – the backboard. This proved to be no problem for Bryant, as he directed the ball over the backboard and into the net. Momentum had different plans for his body, which continued out of bounds.

The Rebbe Maharash, the fourth Lubavitcher Rebbe, might have approved. His epigram of choice was lechatchilah aribber. Loosely translated, it means that when an obstacle blocks you from getting where you have to go, refuse to be fazed. If you can’t go through it, simply go over it. Go over it with confidence and impunity. Don’t let a backboard get in the way. More importantly, don’t let anything, no matter how formidable it seems, get in the way of your avodas Hashem.

Readers, I am sure, can come up with many examples of this principle. At the late hour that I write, two (from the “snag” world) come to mind.

The Chofetz Chaim was reportedly moved by the way a town rumor destroyed the life of a young rov. The toxicity of lashon hora was well established millennia before the Chofetz Chaim. It was a problem that everyone knew had no solution. After all, the gemara itself conceded that everyone was guilty of at least avak lashon hora. The Chofetz Chaim refused to accept the obstacle. He went over it, writing his seforim that did not instantly cure the problem, but created the tools to make great progress in addressing it.

I would be hard pressed to come up with two names in the recent public limelight that make my blood boil as much as Donald Bostrum and Richard Goldstone. They have both set off waves of anti-Israel activity and imperiled the lives of Jews around the globe. If given the chance, I would not hesitate to heap derision and contempt upon them, treating them as beyond any possibility of civil treatment. I would be utterly wrong, at least in one case.

Bostrum is the Swedish journalist who reported that the IDF might be stealing the organs of Palestinians and offering them for sale. He noted persistent claims of Palestinians that bodies came back from the Abu Kabir forensic institute with parts missing (a claim that would have resonated with many Israelis, including many in the Torah community, who have complained of its chief pathologistDr Yehudah Hiss and his disregard for the sanctity of the body). He conflated these claims with the recent arrest of a frum person charged with brokering the purchase and sale of human organs. Bostrum’s story in the Aftonbladet tabloid spread virally throughout the Muslim world, and morphed into a report that gangs of Jews kidnap Algerian children, ferret them out of the country, kill them, and then sells their organs. Think of what this factoid will do for the next Major Hassan.

The Goldstone Report, headed now for the Security Council and from there to the International Criminal Court, may soon make it possible for governments to pick up Israeli government officials and IDF officers anywhere in the world and charge them with crimes against humanity. It has turned the Gaza incursion earlier this year into a complete public relations victory for Hamas, and compromised the ability of any democracy to defend itself against terrorism.

Both Bostrum and Goldstone have had time to reconsider their actions. An Israeli media conference invited Bostrum to Dimona to defend his views. Bostrum accepted. He admitted that he had nothing to back up his story, but defended it nonetheless as worthy of writing because it could and should spark an investigation. He admitted that he had not anticipated – and would not have wanted – that his story be taken as the source of a new blood libel.

Marriage is, well, so retro. All the latest research shows that it doesn’t make much sense for most people, so why bother trying? Read on.

The article (“Let’s Call the Whole Thing Off“) in August’s The Atlantic disturbed me like few others in memory. It also left me intensely proud to be a frum Jew.

Sandra Tsing Loh is a witty and engaging writer. Rummaging through the debris of her failed marriage, however, has its pitfalls, including the very human reaction of wanting to look good to others and to herself. In a manner reminiscent of Esav’s disparaging the birthright he had sold of his own free-will, Tsing Loh tries to convince us that the institution of marriage itself runs counter to our biological heritage and to our contemporary life styles. It may have worked in the past, but it is futile to live with the expectations of earlier generations.

She lets us know from the get-go that she terminated a long marriage with a rather decent chap after an extramarital amorous fling of hers. This fleeting affair left her desirous of the romance she once had experienced in her marriage. Trying to restore it, alas, would be futile, leaving her little option but to call it off. Between her various apologias she deftly weaves reviews of five books on marriage into her chronicle of discovery.

Imagine taking the entire universe of Jews and money – Madoff, lavish bar mitzvahs, money laundering, etc – and reducing it to three words. Credibly. In Yiddish.

Now imagine coming up with a global solution to Jewish impropriety. Convincingly. In three words. In Yiddish.

Rabbi Mitchell Wohlberg of Beth Tfiloh in Baltimore managed to do this in his Rosh Hashanah derashah, which is now spreading virally across the internet. I thought it was one of the most powerful messages I have seen in some time, so Cross-Currents will do its share by bringing you the entire text. We thank Rabbi Wohlberg (a Cross-Currents reader) for permission to reprint.

For Queen Elizabeth it was 1992. With troubles from Prince Charles, Princess Anne anda fire at Windsor Castle, Queen Elizabeth called 1992 an “annus horribilis” – a horrible year.

I often find the thoughts of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch utterly exhilarating in their relevance a century and a half after they were written. (Biased I am. During the great controversy around the bicentennial of his birth, I spelled out my belief that his writings were some of the most useful to contemporary thinking Jews.)

Several passages in parshas Bereishis always excite me. In one of them, RSRH detects not only meaning in the names in the geneologies of both Kayin and Shais, but treats them as a pattern that governs the pendulum swing of societies. That pattern invites comparison with our own times.

Here is the basic sequence. Forgetting the special relationship between G-d and Man, (אנוש) even while retaining belief in Him, must lead to dissatisfaction with religious life. This leads in a following generation to an excessive preoccupation with material things simply for the sake of possession (קינן). Finding this vacuous and devoid of meaning, the next generation tries again to connect with G-d by asserting His existence and honoring Him with pious proclamations (מהללאל). Alas, the service of G-d through praise of the lips without subordinating one’s life to His dictates is bound to fail, so the next generation declines (ירד) once more. Detecting the stumbling, some look to educating a new generation (חנוך), ennobling them with something more meaningful. Such intensive education, however, remains the province of only a minority. The next generation is therefore one of “giving up the masses,” מתושלח.

Here I find his words particularly compelling. “They believe they have achieved their goal if they have saved themselves and elevated themselves only. To them the masses were מתים whom they שלח, abandon.”

Almost.

The 400th yahrzeit of the Maharal just passed, which means we are still in a prime time to motivate ourselves to study one of the most important Torah thinkers of all times.

A good friend and beloved Los Angeles figure needs a refuah shelemah, and many people here are finding things to do in his merit. My tentative contribution is to offer a four or five week series on Maharal to some group that can constitute itself, find people (men and women) who will commit themselves to the series, and agree on an evening in which to do it. Participants would have to be able to handle Hebrew text, albeit with accompanying translation.

I’m prepared to offer this either in the Los Angeles area (logistically easy), or a remote location through web-conference, if the local group has some facility in using the appropriate software and access to webcams.

Beware of Egyptians bearing gifts.

Coming from different circles, the archeological news last week would have been intriguing and welcome. Finding physical evidence of events in Chumash is always exciting. This is all the more so in the face of the previous certainty of many archeologists that the stories in Bereishis did not match what they thought were the established conditions of the times. Al-Ahram last week (cited by MEMRI) announced that what had previously been thought to be charms were actually coins, proving that Egyptian culture in Pharaoic times had advanced beyond barter commerce to a system of currency. Remarkably, the Egyptians reported that these coins included some that bore the name of Yosef.

The researcher identified coins from many different periods, including coins that bore special markings identifying them as being from the era of Joseph. Among these, there was one coin that had an inscription on it, and an image of a cow symbolizing Pharaoh’s dream about the seven fat cows and seven lean cows, and the seven green stalks of grain and seven dry stalks of grain. It was found that the inscriptions of this early period were usually simple, since writing was still in its early stages, and consequently there was difficulty in deciphering the writing on these coins. But the research team [managed to] translate [the writing on the coin] by comparing it to the earliest known hieroglyphic texts…

Joseph’s name appears twice on this coin, written in hieroglyphs: once the original name, Joseph, and once his Egyptian name, Saba Sabani, which was given to him by Pharaoh when he became treasurer. There is also an image of Joseph, who was part of the Egyptian administration at the time.

Oscar Hammerstein applied the words differently in South Pacific in 1949, but they ring true today. “You’ve got to be carefully taught,” for the most part, to take responsibility for the general community. Reflecting back on a wonderful month of experiences, I am left with one bitter realization. We are not doing enough to teach our children about the need to work for the klal, to move in to a problem and take the initiative to find solutions.

Some people are somehow disposed towards it, and will take leadership roles without much prodding. They are born with – or develop – personalities that demand of themselves that they devote themselves to a cause. Most people need to experience the joys of contributing to the general good before they can become contributors.

I lost little time after graduating college to apply, successfully, to PhD programs. My rebbi and Rosh Yeshiva, Rav Henoch Leibowitz zt”l, had different ideas. He pushed everyone in his yeshiva to devote themselves to harbotzas haTorah – to disseminating Torah as far as it would reach. I had escaped the message. He said nothing. One day, however, I asked permission to leave the yeshiva for a few days. (The yeshiva was extremely regulated, and its students tended to obey the complex rules and regulations.) I had become close with Joel Paul, who today heads the most important Jewish executive search company. Back then, he worked in Youth Bureau of Yeshiva University. We would spar in shul about his programs. Coming from a more yeshivish background, I insisted that too much of what he was doing was halachically dicey. He invited me to see for myself by joining a week-long kiruv event as an advisor. I told him I would, if I could get permission to leave yeshiva. I never expected that it would be granted.

The Rosh Yeshiva readily agreed, offering no reason. It started me on many years working with YU Youth Bureau (as about the only non-YU staff member) and NCSY. Those years put me firmly on a path of teaching and communal involvement. Years later, the Rosh Yeshiva told me that he allowed my furlough because he figured that if I would experience first-hand the exhilaration of making a meaningful contribution to others by teaching Torah, I would be hooked for life.

The Jewish community in Prague almost immediately set off an association in my mind with a gemara in Menachos. Menachos 53B has Avraham almost at the point of despair for his people, after hearing from HKBH the extent of their iniquity. Hashem corrects him, by pointing to a pasuk comparing them to a luxuriously foliated olive tree. The latter it seems, can go for long periods before bearing any fruit, after which they come back with a vengeance. The communists did too good of a job suppressing religion. They would have appeared to have snuffed it out. Instead, the sap in the tree of Jewish life behind the Iron Curtain lay dormant, ready to rise again when the right springtime would arrive.

Intermarriage, I was told, still approaches the 90% mark. But there are also baalei teshuvah. In fact, I ran into quite a few seasoned baalei teshuvah at the Maharal Conference this week who had become rabbonim and are serving communities all over Europe. It gave me particular delight to meet several young people who hailed from the old USSR itself, who had learned and gotten semichah and now serve communities in Eastern, Central, and Western Europe.

Some of the baalei teshuvah are home grown, staying in the countries in which they were raised. One of those, Karol Efraim Sidon is the Chief Rabbi not of Prague alone, but the entire Czech Republic. Before he became observant, he had been involved with the pro-democracy dissidents during the Soviet era. This gives him special status with non-Jewish Czechs, and makes him an effective Jewish face to the general community.

The job of managing all the halachic requirements of observant life is far too great for one person. Rabbi Sidon is fortunate to have the assistance of one of the most impressive people I met in Prague, Rabbi Menachem Kalcheim. His father, R. Uzi Kalcheim z”l, was one of the original talmidim of Yeshivat Mercaz HaRav. He had a keen interest in Maharal, and it was he who introduced the serious study of Maharal to the yeshivah, beginning with bringing a lone copy (found after some hard searching in a sefarim store in Meah Shearim before the publication of the set that is now common) into the beis medrash. He continued learning and giving shiurim, as well as writing on Maharal. Largely because of him, the study of Maharal became a staple in the yeshivos of the Dati-Leumi orbit.

When a shul dates back to the thirteenth century, you have to take pains to preserve it. So you won’t find an active minyan in Prague’s Altneushul three times a day. Monday, Elul 18, was a special day, and there was heavy traffic. The shul was packed for mincha, on the occasion of the 400th yahrzeit of the Maharal, whose shul it was. I had the zechus of davening vor the amud, inches away from the Maharal’s seat. It was one of the most memorable experiences of my life.

Earlier, we, the participants in a special Maharal conference, had said Tehilim at his kever, including as is customary the letters of his name. (It was almost as if we, who had all gained so much from him, were this one time in a position to do something for him.) After mincha, many of us sat in the ezras nashim and learned his Torah b’chavrusa, followed by a shiur in his machshava by R Neriah Gutel.

Extreme fatigue after a long journey to Prague from Los Angeles leaves me the strength for only a few observations.

The fairy-tale beauty of Prague, its cobblestoned streets running between elegantly and exquisitely facaded buildings, is hard to describe. Four hundred years ago, when Jews were despised and downtrodden even in the best of times (they were expelled or killed in the worst), walking through the streets must have been very different. Then, the magnificent churches, each one architecturally different from the next, did not strike Jews as impressive so much as triumphal. They were marks of the temporal victory of the Church, in sharp contrast to the abject conditions of the Jews who clearly must have been rejected by G-d for their sins. Everyone knew that – except us.

Long before I helped begin Cross-Currents, the place my keyboard’s output called home was Jewish Action, the quarterly of the Orthodox Union. To the credit of the OU, its leadership encouraged the production of a serious Orthodox magazine that allowed different points of view on a given topic. In my mind, an appreciation of diversity remains one of the most sorely needed elements in contemporary Torah-true Judaism. Too many people are aware of the complexity of both life itself and the Torah’s response to it to be serviced by one-size-fits all approaches. Denying the legitimacy of different Torah approaches (to the exclusion of non-Torah approaches which indeed often have to be dismissed) rings hollow to many people; to others, it breeds contempt of anyone who does not think exactly as they do. Jewish Action remains one of the few places where people can see different opinions championed with equal skill and authority. I believe that this is the reason why quite a few people on JA’s Editorial Board maintain with alacrity an active role, even though they may personally be to the right of where much of the OU finds itself.

The new issue is of special interest to me. My one published sefer – an adaptation of Maharal’s Be’er HaGolah – was finally reviewed, in commemoration of the 400th yahrzeit of the Maharal next week. (BE”H, I will be flying to Prague to take part in a community-sponsored event to mark the occasion.) The review, like the Maharal’s work itself, is particularly deep, thorough, and incisive. I am delighted that the able reviewer – Rabbi Elyakim Krombein – liked my approach, and still found areas of subtle criticism. The Maharal is well-served by such exacting demands.

Another section of the issue gathers word portraits of modern day heroes: laypeople whose progress in Torah was not stalled by their entry into the work force. They continued galloping ahead in Torah learning and skills, not content to simply run in place. They accomplished enough to write Torah works of their own. One of those featured is a talmid of mine; another is my good friend Rabbi Hillel Goldberg.

A section on tefillah offers essays by both Rabbi Zvi Hirsh Weinreb and Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. The latter’s contribution is excerpted from his new Koren Siddur, vying to compete with Artscroll for the English speaking market.