04 Monday Feb 2019
Watching the Super Bowl, likely the last time I do so, I felt alienated from my own country for the Super Bowl and football generally present a world that is contrary to my Jewish values.
To understand why, go to my Blog at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/the-super-bowl-a-reflection-of-a-violent-america/
31 Thursday Jan 2019
This Times of Israel blog by Deborah Lipstadt is must-read for any Jew and liberal who thinks that antisemitism comes only from the right-wing in American politics and from a bunch of insignificant crazies in Europe. Not so, Deborah states – and she is right.
Just yesterday, I met with a young Polish Jewish woman who told me that antisemitism in her native Poland is today similar to what it was like before World War II.
We Jews cannot bury our heads in the sand, but we also have to be careful to distinguish, as Deborah does, the difference between legitimate criticism of Israeli policies vis a vis the occupation of the West Bank and antisemitism. It is anti-Semitic if a critic of Israel goes so far as to say that the Jewish people do not have the right to a state of our own or that the State of Israel is not legitimate.
Read Deborah’s article and pass it around. It has already gone viral at the Times of Israel Blog
29 Tuesday Jan 2019
Posted in American Politics and Life, Uncategorized
Howard Schultz, should he run for President as an Independent, would likely take more Democratic votes away from the Democratic nominee than from the Republican Trump, and that could be the difference that elects Donald Trump to a second term.
Schultz should run, if he wants, as a Democrat. That he wants to do so as an Independent is not only self-centered and likely to be a failure (no Independent candidate has ever won for President including Teddy Roosevelt in 1912 – remember John Anderson in 1980 and Ross Perot in 1992), but it’s a cowardly act because, in my view, it seems that he doesn’t want to run competitively in the primaries against other far more politically experienced than him, despite running an international company with a strong concern for ethics and fair treatment of employees.
I hope that Schultz decides to drop this potentially disastrous run and do the responsible thing – step aside altogether or run as a Democrat in the primaries just like the 20 or so other potential candidates will do.
If he runs as an Independent, I will never step foot in a Starbucks again – and neither should any of us because we will likely be able to blame him for a 2nd Trump term!
25 Friday Jan 2019
The first letter of the Hebrew Aleph-Bet and the the first letter in the first word of the Ten Commandments (lit. “words” – aseret ha-d’varim) is the Aleph (Exodus 20:1).
Commentators find deep meaning in the form and construction of the Aleph. It is made of two yuds, one pointing up (i.e. towards heaven) and the other pointing down (towards earth). The connector between these two yuds is a vav (the sixth letter of the Hebrew aleph-bet). The gematria (the number equivalent for the letters of the aleph-bet) of the three letters yud + yud + vav (10 + 10 + 6) equals 26. 26 is the number equivalent as well for the holiest Hebrew Name of God, known as the four-letter tetragrammaton (Yud-Heh-Vav-Heh — 10 + 5 + 6 + 5 = 26). Therefore, the number equivalent of the three internal letters that form the Aleph carries the same number equivalent as the holiest four-letter name of God.
The upper Yud of the aleph represents the absolute and transcendent realm of God. The lower Yud represents the corporeal and physical world of humankind. Moses’ role as chief among the prophets is represented by the Vav which connects the lower Yud of humankind and the upper Yud of God. Moses therefore connects the lower and upper worlds, the transcendence immanence of God, the spiritual and metaphysical realm as opposed to the material and the physical world.
The number equivalence of the Hebrew vav (6), represents the six directions (north, south, east, west, heaven, and earth) signifying God’s ever-presence.
Thus, in the letter Aleph is the intimation of God’s unity with creation, the joining of the implicate and the physical, the merging of the world to come and the world that is, God’s pathos and Moses’ prophetic empathy.
Sources: I am grateful to Reuven Matheison and his article “The Inner Meaning of the Hebrew Letters” from Visions of the Psalms Through the Gate of Colors, by Moshe Tzvi HaLEvi Berger, p. xix. I am grateful also for the notes of the artist, Moshe Tzvi Berger whose primary sources were The Hebrew Letters by Rabbi Yitzchak Ginsburg; Sparks of the Holy Tongue, by Rabbi Matityahu Glazerson; and Secret of the Holy Letters, by Rabbi Yehudah Ashlag (z’l)
23 Wednesday Jan 2019
This week is the 5th Torah portion in the Book of Exodus – Parashat Yitro – in which the Ten Words are uttered, inscribed in the tablets of the law, and brought down from Sinai by the prophet Moses to the people of Israel. As we consider this singular event in the history of Judaism and western religion, it’s worth our while to pause for a moment to consider the nature of the first and most transformative event in Moses’ life.
He was in Midian tending sheep when he came upon a bush that burned unconsumed. The sight of it was so unusual that Moses stopped to ponder the miracle. Then he heard God’s voice charging him to go to Pharaoh and free the Hebrew slaves and take them out of Egypt.
The portion begins by telling us about Jethro, a Midianite Priest and Moses’ father-in law, who rabbinic commentators suggest enjoyed a close mentor/mentee relationship together.
The Torah describes how Jethro taught Moses to govern the people – to delegate and decentralize, to appoint judges and give up control over smaller cases, to allow others to act, judge and lead, to relinquish many of the burdens he carried as prophet, judge, and military chieftain.
Moses did as Jethro advised and we might imagine that Moses became calmer, more intentional and self-reflective. In this relaxed state Moses could heard God’s voice – not as an audible sound but as an intuitive quiet murmuring sound, much like the sound that breath makes as it passes through the lips, like Elijah’s kol d’mama daka, the voice of conscience.
One commentary notes that we can read “Mi chamocha ba-eilim Adonai – Who is like you, Adonai, among the mighty?” another way – as “Mi chamocha ba-ilmim Adonai – Who is like You, Adonai, among the silent ones.”
This reading of the text suggests that Moses entered into a quiet internal dialogue with God!
We don’t know the exact location of the sacred mountain of Sinai, but where ever it was the experience of the divine transformed each individual there and the Jewish people as a whole.
Each time we learn Torah and interact with the sacred text, tradition teaches that we reenact the Sinai experience, that we join our ancestors as our people received Torah. If we listen carefully, perhaps we may be able to hear God’s voice echo from the mountain top through time to us.
To hear, however, we first must rid ourselves of the noise in our lives, pause, and listen. Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel said: “Only when we’re able to share in the spirit of awe that fills the world are we able to understand what happened to Israel at Sinai.”
Yitro teaches that the revelation of Torah filled the world with limitless potential for holiness and spiritual uplift.
Tradition teaches that whenever the Ten Words are read, the congregation stands in memory of the experience at Sinai when Moses brought down Torah.
22 Tuesday Jan 2019
22 Tuesday Jan 2019
I have written a response to a rabbinic colleague whose child is a supporter of Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) and who, I believe, has set aside moral standards when evaluating Jewish organizations in their relationship with Zionism and the State of Israel.
To read my blog at the Times of Israel, go to https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/a-response-to-the-parent-of-a-jvp-child
21 Monday Jan 2019
Posted in American Politics and Life, Ethics, Human rights, Social Justice
Dr. Martin Luther King spoke from the bimah of Temple Israel of Hollywood in Los Angeles on Shabbat evening, February 26, 1965, only five days after the assassination of Malcolm X.
Security was tight around the synagogue on that evening. Sharpshooters were placed on the apartment building across the street on Hollywood Boulevard. Dr. King delivered his sermon with two large body guards standing directly behind him.
The Sanctuary was filled to capacity with 1400+ congregants. Rabbi Max Nussbaum reminded the congregation that since it was Shabbat, applause following Dr. King’s remarks would be inappropriate. He said: “You will wish to applaud, and you will not do so!”
This existence of the recorded speech was discovered by the wider Los Angeles Jewish community and was noted in the Los Angeles Jewish Journal before Martin Luther King Day in 2007. National Public Radio learned of it from the LAJJ article and requested permission to air it nationally that year. It was aired both in 2007 and 2008.
The speech borrows from many other addresses Dr. King delivered over the course of his career and is an example of the eloquence, passion, and deep intellect that was Dr. King. He was 35 years old when he delivered it.
You can listen here – http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlktempleisraelhollywood.htm
20 Sunday Jan 2019
It is clear from the statement and video (see link) that “Jewish Voice for Peace” (JVP) is an anti-Zionist and anti-Israel group that distorts Israel’s history to justify its antipathy to Zionism and Israel, attacks Israel’s mission as a Jewish and democratic state, and chooses facts selectively while providing no historical or political context to its assertions.
…. JVP is not only anti-Zionist and anti-Israel, but because it denies the right of the Jewish people to a state of our own, it qualifies as anti-Jewish.
For the full statement see my blog at the Times of Israel – https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-jewish-voice-for-peace-is-anti-jewish/
18 Friday Jan 2019
This is an important perspective for American Jews vis a vis BDS.
Jeremy Ben-Ami is the founder and President of J Street, the largest Jewish PAC in the United States.
“Like the vast majority of American Jews, I oppose the BDS movement, as does J Street, the organization I lead. And I believe that our overwrought communal response to BDS is doing far more damage to American Jews and to Israel’s reputation than the movement itself could ever hope to do. This obsession is harming Jewish institutions and eroding important relationships with other communities, particularly communities of color. It is undermining our core values and distracting from far more important challenges — both in Israel and at home. It is creating an atmosphere of paranoia and censorship….While the Jewish community continues to pour staggering resources into the BDS fight, we have neglected far more urgent challenges. It is the current Israeli government’s continued creeping annexation of the occupied West Bank, not BDS, which seriously threatens Israel’s future as a democratic homeland for the Jewish people. It is the rise of white supremacism and authoritarian nationalism, not BDS, which seriously threatens the future of American democracy and American Jews. We can’t let the bogeyman of BDS undermine our community’s true ideals and interests. We have to end this obsession — and turn our attention and resources to the fights that truly matter for our country, Israel and the Jewish people.”
See entire article here – https://bit.ly/2FMlAo2
Rabbi John Rosove's Blog 