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Monthly Archives: April 2012

In Memorial – Howard Epstein – 20 Years Ago Today

30 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, American Politics and Life, Stories

≈ 4 Comments

Note: See updated memorial titled: “In memorial – Howard Epstein – 30 years ago this week” published in April, 2022

The day after the Rodney King verdict twenty years ago I received a call from long-time Temple Israel members, Lillian and Marty Epstein, that their son Howard (who was about my age) was missing. As soon as the rioting began, Howard flew from Oakland Airport near his family home in Orinda to attend to his business located in South-Central Los Angeles. He had owned and operated a factory there for a number of years and employed 20 workers. These were people he knew and about whom he cared. He knew all their families, and so, when the riots erupted Howard felt it his duty to be with them.

He landed at LAX in the late afternoon, rented a car, and commenced his 15-minute drive to his place of business. Along the way, somewhere, he vanished. By evening no one had heard from him. Given the tumult in the city, his wife Stephanie and parents were worried.

The following day, exactly 20 years ago today, the police contacted Lillian and Marty with the news. At a stop-light Howard was approached by two men who murdered him at point blank range and took everything of value in his car. The police were able to identify Howard only by tracing the car to the rental agency.

Howard deliberately moved a couple of years earlier with Stephanie and their two small children out of Los Angeles because he felt the city was no longer safe and he did not want to raise his children in this environment.

When the rioting stopped, we honored Howard’s memory in a memorial service in our synagogue Sanctuary where he became bar mitzvah. His family and friends described Howard as among the most kind, community conscious and caring of men, a true rachaman ben rachmanim, a compassionate son of compassionate parents.

I remember Howard every year at this time, and especially today, 20 years and a day after his tragic death.

Zichrono livracha. May his memory be a blessing.

Yehuda Amichai Poems on this Yom Haatzmaut

26 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Poetry, Quote of the Day

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No nation in the world honors its poets as does the State of Israel, and Yehuda Amichai is among Israel’s greatest poets.

An Arab Shepherd Is Searching For His Goat On Mount Zion

An Arab shepherd is searching for his goat on Mount Zion / and on the opposite hill I am searching for my little boy. / An Arab shepherd and a Jewish father / both in their temporary failure. / Our two voices met above / the Sultan’s Pool in the valley between us. / Neither of us wants the boy or the goat / to get caught in the wheels / of the “Chad Gadya” machine. / Afterward we found them among the bushes, / and our voices came back inside us / laughing and crying. / Searching for a goat or for a child has always been / the beginning of a new religion in these mountains.

Jerusalem

On a roof in the Old City / laundry hanging in the late afternoon sunlight: / the white sheet of a woman who is my enemy, / the towel of a man who is my enemy, / to wipe off the sweat of his brow.

In the sky of the Old City / a kite. / At the other end of the string, / a child / I can’t see / because of the wall.

We have put up many flags, / they have put up many flags. / to make us think that they’re happy. / to make them think that we’re happy.

Wildpeace

Not the peace of a cease-fire, / not even the vision of the wolf and the lamb, / but rather / as in the heart when the excitement is over / and you can talk only about a great weariness. / I know that I know how to kill, / that makes me an adult. / And my son plays with a toy gun that knows / how to open and close its eyes and say Mama. / A peace / without the big noise of beating swords into ploughshares, / without words, without / the thud of the heavy rubber stamp: let it be / light, floating, like lazy white foam. / A little rest for the wounds – / Who speaks of healing? / (And the howl of the orphans is passed from one generation / to the next, as in a relay race: / the baton never falls.)

Let it come / like wildflowers, / suddenly, because the field / must have it: wildpeace.

The Truth About the Palestinian Christian Populations of Israel and the West Bank – a serious study

25 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism

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In September I posted on my personal blog a link to a background paper recently published on the Palestinian Christian population. This study was an eye-opener for me and I recommend it to you (see link below).

In my own journeys to the Israel and the West Bank I was left with the same impression reported on CBS 60 Minutes this past weekend, that over the past 100 years [1] that the Palestinian Christian population is dramatically shrinking, and [2] that it is shrinking because of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank on the one hand and Muslim extremism on the other.

After reading this excellent paper by Ethan Felson at the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) – “JCPA Background Paper – The Palestinian Christian Population” I was surprised to learn that both impressions are substantial distortions of the truth.

This paper is a careful analysis of the demographics and politics around this controversial issue. It is well worth reading and sharing with any Christian Ministers, Priests and Christian friends you might know.

Click to access JCPA%20Background%20Paper%20on%20Palestinian%20Christians%207%202.pdf

Yom Haatzmaut – Reflections 2012

24 Tuesday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Holidays, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Who could have imagined 64 years ago that Israel would become as economically viable, politically and militarily strong, technologically advanced, and creatively cutting-edge as it is today?

Who would have dreamed that Israel’s Jewish population would grow from 600,000 souls in 1948 to 5.5 million today?

Who would have thought that after having had to fight seven wars, endure two Intifadas and bear-up against ongoing terrorist attack that the Jewish state would remain democratic and free despite little peace with its neighbors and no resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?

All told, even with her imperfections and challenges, Israel is a remarkable nation, testimony to the spirit, will, ingenuity, aspiration, creativity, and sacrifice of generations. Today Israel is like none other in the world, more culturally, linguistically, and religiously diverse, more intellectually and academically productive. The depth and breadth of her accomplishments are nothing shy of breath-taking.

On the occasion of Israel’s 64th Independence Day, Jews the world over are well to take stock, celebrate her accomplishments, mourn and honor her dead, and ask what unique place the Jewish state holds in the innermost heart, mind and soul of the Jewish people.

This is no easy task. Permit me to offer some thoughts as I reflect on Israel’s meaning:

Israel is far more than a political refuge as envisioned by political Zionists. It is more than the flowering of the Jewish spirit as dreamed about by cultural Zionists. It is more than the fulfillment of Jewish memory and religious longing.

Israel starts with the land, with Jerusalem at its heart, for the land has been a key focus of Jewish consciousness for three millennia. The land of Israel is at the center of our history and is an essential element of our Jewish faith. But Israel is far more than land.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel put it this way in his moving volume Israel – An Echo of Eternity: “Israel reborn is an answer to the Lord of history who demands hope as well as action, who expects tenacity as well as imagination.” (p. 118) “The inspiration that goes out of Zion today is the repudiation of despair and the example of renewal.” (p. 134)

In this spirit the Zionists sought to create a new kind of a Jew, at home in the land, self-activated, self-realized, independent, creative, and free. They understood, however, the limitations of their state-building endeavor. Heschel said it this way: “The State of Israel is not the fulfillment of the Messianic promise, but it makes the Messianic promise plausible.” (Ibid. p. 223) In other words, the political state is not and cannot be regarded as an end in itself. Rather, the Jewish state represents a challenge and a promise that will rise or fall based on how our people and Israel’s government uses or misuses the power that comes with national sovereignty. With this in mind a Jewish state worthy of its mission must challenge our individual and communal ethics, our nationalism, our humanity, and our faith.

May Israel be an or lagoyim, a light to the nations, and may her citizens and all the inhabitants of the land know justice and peace. 

[Yom Haatzmaut is celebrated on the 5th of Iyar which falls this year on Friday, April 27. We will celebrate at Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles during Kabbalat Shabbat services on Friday evening beginning at 6:30 PM in song and poetry, led by our clergy, volunteer choir, quartet and instrumentalists. All are welcome.]

Yom Hashoah – Tel Aviv – April 19 2012

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Holidays, Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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Take a moment to experience a national 2 minutes of silence throughout the state of Israel in commemoration of Yom Hashoah – Holocaust Memorial Day.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PgLdTgiriCY

The Soul’s Yearning to be Near God – D’var Torah Parashat Sh’mini

19 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Life Cycle, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

≈ 1 Comment

Our sages debate the nature of the sin that was so grave that Nadav and Avihu, Aaron’s sons, died after they offered alien fire before God. The text says of their fate Vatetze esh mi lifnei Adonai va-tochal otam vayamutu – “And fire came forth from God and consumed them, and thus they died.” (Leviticus 10:2)

Some commentators conclude that Nadav and Avihu were guilty of excessive drinking, arrogance and disrespect of their High Priest father when they offered a sacrifice in the holy precinct in his place, based on juxtaposition of events and midrashic thinking.

Others, however, assert that Nadav’s and Avihu’s sin wasn’t a sin at all. Their death, they say, came as a consequence of  their excessive passion for God (Hitlahavut) and of their yearning for unification with the Holy One and annulment of their individual selves into the greater Divine Self (Yihud – Bitul Hayeish).

These commentators based their view on their reading of Leviticus 16:1 describing the scene after the fact; Vayidaber Adonai el Moshe acharei mot sh’nei b’nei Aharon b’karvatam lifnei Adonai vayamutu (“The Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron who died when they drew too close to the presence of YHVH.”)

Noting the difference between the verbal Hif’il causative form b’hakrivam (“when they brought close their offering”) as opposed to the Pa’al activist form b’karvatam (“when they came too close”) Rabbi Isaiah Horowitz (Prague – 17th century) emphasized that it was not that they brought an unauthorized sacrifice that sealed their fate, but rather, that they themselves entered into the holy inner precinct where God’s Presence “dwelt” and no Israelite except the High Priest Aaron was permitted to step foot.

Corroborating this view, Rabbi Abraham Saba, who fled Cordoba during the years of the Spanish Inquisition, and who in that tragic period in Jewish history suffered the loss of two of his own sons, said that Nadav and Avihu’s plight was similar to that of Rabbi Ben Azzai, one of the four Talmudic sages who entered into the garden of mystical speculation (Talmud, Hagigah 14b). In that famous legend it’s written that “Ben Azzai looked and died” because in coming too close to God’s fiery Presence, he was spiritually unprepared and perished.

Rabbi Horowitz is quick to say, however, that the souls of Nadav and Avihu (and by extension Ben Azzai) were not destroyed nor denied a place in Eternity; only that their souls and their bodies separated, as occurs at death.

For me, I prefer the view that Nadav’s and Avihu’s deaths were not caused by their sin, but by their soul’s yearning to be close to God. Their fatal flaw was in their naivete about the consequences. The inner sanctum is a place of great danger to any mortal being, which is why God warned Moses Lo tuchal lirot et panai ki lo yirani ha-adam va-chai – “You cannot see My face, for the human being may not see Me and live.” (Exodus 33:20)

Back to Aaron. His response following his sons’ deaths was as any parent who suffers the loss of a child.  Vayidom Aharon – “And Aaron was silent.” (Leviticus 10:1-3). The sense of the Hebrew connotes an especially devastating silence. Vayidom is more than mere quiet and passive speechlessness, so says Professor Andre Neher (France, 20th century), who described Aaron’s silence as total “petrification.”

Moses, however, did not understand. He said to Aaron, allegedly quoting God, that “through those near to Me I show Myself holy.” We have to ask, what kind of a message of consolation is this to a man who just lost his children?

For the first time Aaron rejects Moses’ explanation. Dr. Neher explained this way: “We can accept God’s silence, but not that other people should speak in God’s place.” Not even Moses. In other words, avoid theological justifications for God when tragedy strikes.

For consolation Aaron turned away from his brother and directly to God because Moses didn’t understand Aaron’s suffering.

Rashi says that soon thereafter Moses “admitted his mistake and [to his credit] was not ashamed to say, ‘I didn’t know.’” The midrash elaborated emphasizing Moses’ humility and contrition, saying that  “Moses issued a proclamation throughout the camp and said: I misinterpreted the law and my brother Aaron came to put it right.”

Despite Moses’ exalted position in Judaism, tradition ascribes to Aaron, the man who knew grief, to be the one who would set the laws of mourning for generations to come.

Among the most important mitzvot listed in the Talmud is Mitzvah b’shtika – The mitzvah of mourning and visiting mourners is silence mirroring the response of Aaron himself.

Shabbat Shalom.

 

 

 

 

“One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish Conversation” by Rabbi Larry Hoffman – Highly Recommended

15 Sunday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Book Recommendations

≈ 1 Comment

I have known Rabbi Larry Hoffman for 35 years as my teacher and friend – and like fine wine, he just gets better with age. Larry is as comprehensive a scholar and as keen an observer of the contemporary Jewish condition as there is in America today.

His most recent book (his 32nd) is One Hundred Great Jewish Books: Three Millennia of Jewish Conversation (published by Blue Bridge, 2011). Larry has read so much and seems not to have forgotten anything he has ever learned. An excellent writer, Rabbi Hoffman is a superb synthesizer of the vast corpus of Jewish material available.

This book excites even as it exhausts. Larry’s list is a veritable guide to among the greatest Jewish books ever written over the course of 3500 years. As he reviews each work in 3 or 4 pages, he shines a light not only on the importance of the book itself as a representative of an aspect of the Jewish whole, but articulates the most important ideas and developments each brought to the fore in its respective time and place. Throughout this work Larry asks serious questions about what we have been as a people, from where our greatest ideas have come, who we are today as a result, and what we must do going forward.

For those who might be worried about the viability of the Jewish people – Don’t! We are not an “ever-dying people” (as the Jewish philosopher Simon Rawidowicz once suggested). To the contrary, Larry’s book attests that the life of the Jewish heart, mind and soul is ever vital.

The Song of Songs – An Allegory of the Love Between God and Israel

12 Thursday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Divrei Torah, Holidays, Inuyim - Prayer reflections and ruminations, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life, Poetry, Quote of the Day

≈ Leave a comment

“The world is not as worthy as the day on which the Song of Songs was given to Israel, for all the writings are holy, but the Song of Songs is the Holy of Holies.”

So said Rabbi Akiva, who regarded The Song as an allegory of the love between  God and Israel.

On first reading The Song is a secular poem celebrating young, sensuous, erotic love, a “love stronger than death.” Read more deeply, it holds the Presence of an Ineffable Other.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Cook expressed the mystic’s longing with these words:

“Expanses divine my soul craves. / Confine me not in cages, / of substance or of spirit. / I am love-sick — / I thirst, I thirst for God, as a deer for water brooks. / Alas, who can describe my pain? / Who will be a violin to express the songs of my grief? / I am bound to the world, all creatures, all people are my friends, / Many parts of my soul / are intertwined with them, / But how can I share with them my light?” (Translated by Ben Zion Bokser)

The Biblical Song of Songs is read on the Shabbat during the festival of Pesach.

Gunter Grass, Eli Yishai and Israel’s Policy of “Nuclear Ambiguity”

11 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in Israel/Zionism, Jewish History

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It is not often that I agree with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but I do regarding his reaction to German Nobel Laureate Gunter Grass’s poem “What Must Be Said” that has taken media by storm in the past two weeks. In this poem printed in The Atlantic http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2012/04/gunter-grasss-controversial-poem-about-israel-iran-and-war-translated/255549/, Grass repeats the canard that Israel is the most dangerous nation in the Middle East because of its threats of a first strike on Iranian nuclear facilities. He charges hypocrisy given Israel’s own alleged nuclear capability. Netanyahu called such a comparison a “shameful moral equivalence.”

For good reasons Israel maintains a policy of “nuclear ambiguity.” The Jewish state is thought to have begun developing nuclear capability decades ago because of threats by her neighbors to destroy “the Zionist entity” and drive the Jewish people into the sea. Most Arab nations now accept the existence of Israel even if they do not have formal peace treaties with her. However, threats to destroy the Jewish state have not stopped. Today, Iran is the chief culprit.

Given Iran’s denial of Israel’s right to exist, we cannot ignore the significant differences between Iran and Israel when it comes to their each having nuclear weapons. First, Israel is a democracy and Iran is a military theocratic dictatorship. Second, Israel has never called for wiping any other nation off the map as Iran repeatedly does concerning Israel. Third, no other nuclear nation (e.g. Israel, Pakistan, India, Russia, or the United States) has ever threatened genocide against another people as Iran has done towards Israel. And fourth, no other nuclear nation has repeatedly denied the historicity of the Holocaust as has Iran, which leads a reasonable observer to conclude that fanaticism drives Iran’s foreign policy.

To complicate matters, a report in Haaretz this week reveals that there have been secret meetings between Israeli and Finnish officials on the issue of the International Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty conference scheduled for Helsinki in December, and that the Obama Administration wants to discuss a Middle East nuclear-free-zone at that gathering. Should this conference result in a demand to inspect Israel’s nuclear facilities, the ambiguity that is at the core of the Jewish state’s deterrent strategy would be destroyed. I would hope that the United States would push for an indefinite delay of this conference until such time as the Middle East stabilizes following the Arab spring.

All this being said, for Israel’s Interior Minister Eli Yishai to take the step as he did last week to bar the poet Gunter Grass from physically entering Israel is an overreaction, and is unbecoming of the only democracy in the Middle East that values free speech. Alan Dershowitz, who does not make a habit of criticizing Israeli officials, made an exception with Minister Yishai when the Harvard professor wrote that Yishai’s decision was “both foolish and self-defeating,” and that the “ridiculous poem doesn’t pose any security threat to Israel that would justify his physical exclusion from the country.”

In truth, there are two main security threats to Israel. The first is Israel’s actual outside enemies who threaten harm, and the second is the anti-democratic trend promoted regularly by the current Israeli government. If left unchallenged, this official intolerance and demagoguery will chip away at Israel’s own democratic traditions and leave it just like the other oppressive nations in the region.

 

 

 

Readings for Your Home Seder – 5772

04 Wednesday Apr 2012

Posted by rabbijohnrosove in American Jewish Life, Ethics, Holidays, Israel and Palestine, Israel/Zionism, Musings about God/Faith/Religious life

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I offer 4 items to include in your Seders with suggested placement in the ritual. Why 4? Because the #4 and multiples (i.e. 40 – 400) occur repeatedly in Jewish tradition, cross-culturally and in the Seder itself. The number “4” is symbolic representing sh’lei-mut (wholeness, completion, stability, continuity, and renewal).

Examples of “4”:

In Jewish literature the flood lasted 40 days and nights signaling at once a return to primordial darkness and to new beginnings. There are 4 matriarchs and 3 patriarchs (plus 1, if we include Joseph, as suggested by some commentaries) who embodied all human virtues and vice. Tradition holds that the Hebrews were enslaved for 400 years and wandered for 40 years before entering the land of promise, time-spans representing long periods that closed generations and ushered in new ones. Moses received the Torah including the Written Law (the Hebrew Bible – Tanakh) and the Oral Law (Rabbinic tradition – the Talmud and subsequent rabbinic law and lore) in 40 days and nights representing the complete Revelation at Mt. Sinai. There are 4 poles of a chupah symbolizing the beginning of a new generation and a fulfillment of the old. And the holiest name of God (YHVH) is composed of 4 letters. Mystics teach that this four letter Tetragrammaton represents the entirety of existence; the lower and upper worlds, the hidden and the seen, the concrete and the abstract, the physical and metaphysical, eternity and infinity.

The number 4 is significant cross-culturally, as well, suggesting the totality of existence: 4 directions, 4 seasons, 4 elements.

In the Seder we ask 4 questions, tell of 4 kinds of human beings and we drink 4 cups of wine symbolizing all the ways God inspired the Hebrews to be freed from bondage. For Jews, freedom is not the endgame. It is, rather, a necessary precondition for a covenantal partnership with God that will usher in the messianic era. In the “time to come” tradition teaches that the Jewish people will be gathered from the 4 corners of the earth to Jerusalem (Y’rushalayim, also known as Ir Salem, the city of wholeness, a city possessed of 4 quarters, like the 4 chambers of the heart).

4 suggested additions to your Seders:

1. Say a blessing for the people and state of Israel – place following the recitation of the 15 steps of the Seder ritual:

Eternal God, receive our prayers for the peace and security of the state of Israel and its people. Spread your blessings upon the Land and upon all who labor in its interest. Inspire her leaders to follow in the ways of righteousness. Awaken all to Your spirit. Remove from every heart hatred, malice, jealousy, fear, and strife. Let the Jewish people scattered throughout the earth be infused with the ancient hope of Zion and inspired by Jerusalem as the eternal city of peace. May the Jewish state be a blessing to all its inhabitants and to the Jewish people everywhere, and may she be an or la-go-yim, a light to the nations of the world. Amen!

2. Affirm that to be pro-Israel means to be pro-Palestinian – after Halachma Anya (“This is the Poor Bread”):

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a tragedy because it is a struggle between two rights. Therefore, to be pro-Israel must mean also to be pro-Palestinian, for as long as the Palestinians are an occupied people without a state of their own, not only are they not free but neither are the Israelis free. Peace will require painful concessions from both sides of this conflict for each people to find peace, security and fulfillment. Amos Oz has warned that those who refuse to compromise will be doomed to destruction for “the opposite of compromise is fanaticism and death.”

3. Include the olive on the Seder plate – read following Ba-shanah Ha-ba-ah Biy’ru-sha-la-yim (“Next Year in Jerusalem”):

The olive embodies our prayers for peace in the Middle East and in every place where war destroys lives, hopes and the freedoms we celebrate this night. Today, in the land of Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Hagar, and Ishmael, living olive trees bring sustenance and roots to their families. Where they are uprooted, let them be replanted, for the sake of life, for the sake of justice and peace.

Next year, wherever we may be, may we be whole and at peace.

4. Offer these words as the final statement in the Seder:

May I recognize my failure to understand those who oppose me. May I be able to look at the face of my enemy and see the face of God. May we all be instruments of peace. (Rabbis for Human Rights, North America)

Chag Sameach!

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