Rising Moon: Unraveling the Book of Ruth By R. Moshe Miller

I try my hardest to stay away from common tropes while giving sermons. Not only do you lose a chance to broaden the minds of those listening, but it can easily lack the passion necessary due to its somewhat cliche nature. One of the hardest times to do this is Shavuot. Having few rituals and rules, Shavuot (especially a three day holiday - as it is this year) can be difficult. One of the few unique characteristics is Megillat Ruth which is read during the day. However, the idea of chessed (acts of kindness) is usually discussed. While Rabbi Miller discusses this idea at times, he gives the reader access to a much broader and deeper understanding of the story.

Understanding Rut in its context between the times of the Shoftim and the times of Kings, Rabbi Miller shows how the Rut story displays the transition between these two types of leadership. Shoftim ends saying “Everyone did what was right in their eyes”. All was not wrong in Shoftim, however, there was no central authority to bring everyone together. It is in this framework that Rut happens where values are cultivated (pun intended) that leads to kingship. Seeing Rut in this light, it becomes an important work for our time. We have become more and more splintered as a community, everyone doing what is right in their eyes. Learning from Rut could be our key to redemption.

I do not usually judge a book by its cover, but here the cover gave high hopes. With quotes from R. Jonathan Sacks, R Berel Wein, R Emmanual Feldman, Dr. Elisheva Carlebach, and Dr Shatz, praising the book, the material had a lot of pressure to live up to. It did.

You can still get it before Shavuot on amazon here.

Reading Back: A Perspective from Rabbi Freundel’s Rabbinic Intern

    When looking for Rabbinic internships last year, I was particularly interested in synagogues that would give me a different experience. Very quickly, I saw how Kesher Israel in Washington D.C. could become that unique place for me to grow. The people of Kesher are unique and eclectic; since most of the congregants are in Washington D.C. for their professions, no two people have the same story. Everyone was strong and resilient, but for different reasons.

     Similarly, the Rabbi of Kesher Israel was unlike other Rabbis I’d grown to know. In some ways, I was excited to learn under a Rabbi that was radically different then the way I saw myself: an academic who was a leader from on high, unwavering in his convictions, and willing to speak out and do whatever he believed to be correct. Even while in the epicenter of politics, he didn`t play the game or care. I always saw myself as a small town Rabbi, who would end up in a place like Kansas City. D.C. was about as far away from that as possible. 

     I learned a different lesson from Rabbi Freundel than I had anticipated. Through my internship, I learned the importance of making people, specifically converts and women, comfortable in shul. In order to do so, Rabbi Freundel walked a tightrope between modern and Orthodox. Believing a woman could say Kaddish at a minyan as long as a man was saying it as well, Kesher always has a pre-designated man to say Kaddish just in case there was a woman there. While the Rabbi took a mental account of the men that were there, the Rebbetzin (Rabbi Freundel’s wife) took account of the women, because they were expected to be there as well. A special misheberach (prayer for the sick) is said for non-Jews because the converts that were praying wanted a place to specifically pray for their loved ones that were sick. When the news about the Rabbi broke I was shocked, not just because he was a mentor of mine, because it was also against everything he stood for. 

      I went back and reread this book to try and gain some understanding. I didn’t. The arguments he makes in this book are surprisingly vanilla. They are straightforward and well thought through, but it makes you understand how different things were ten years ago. Strong in his convictions, his positive influence on our community will be felt for a long time. Incredibly, Rabbi Freundel did so much good for the same people that he violated later on.
      I refuse to believe, as one article posed, that Rabbi Freundel is like Frank Underwood from House of Cards. Caring only about and his own power, Frank Underwood lies and manipulates people for his own glorification. Beyond being located in D.C., the analogy falls flat and is one I cannot even entertain. Instead, all I can imagine is a different protagonist from a different drama, Walter White from Breaking Bad. Over the course of years a high school teacher turns into a drug lord by taking one step at a time. White`s slow transition on the screen as each step takes him farther and farther away from those he cares about is not only fantastic television, but also displays the concept of aveira goreret aveira (one sin leads to the next) in a powerful way. I spoke with Rabbi Freundel about “practice dunking” and he told me its purpose was to make the converts feel more comfortable later on. The sincerity in his voice makes me sure that was its original purpose.

      Every time Rabbi Freundel did something that I attended, he asked me to describe what I could learn from it. I see no reason why this should be any different.

1. Every single one of us is susceptible to very bad behavior. This doesn`t happen right away but after a long period of time lines can be crossed slowly until you are at a place you never expected to be. There is no wonder why Religious leaders only fall into these troubles after years and years in the Clergy. One doesn’t go into it ready to abuse power, but the power itself can slowly deteriorate your resolve.

2. There needs to be supervision in places where there is too much weighted power, both for the converts sake and the Rabbi`s sake. I hope this new committee will take this function for conversion, an HR of sorts, not to be a pain, but to stop people before they even get to lines they would never want to cross. This is not a distrust of Rabbis, but an understanding of human nature over a long period of time.

     I am still distraught that it came to this. For the victims who I hope can eventually regain their trust in their religious leaders. For Rabbi Freundel, who, while he deserves to be prosecuted, got into a situation he never intended to be in. And for our community, which lost a revolutionary, a teacher, and a mentor.

The Guinea Pig Diaries by A.J. Jacobs

In some ways, A.J. Jacobs and I are from the same cloth. We both enjoy taking on projects for limited periods of time, allowing them to seep into our souls. This project is one such idea. Granted, I have never done anything nearly as ridiculous and interesting as the experiments Jacobs does with his life. Trying to outsource your life, living a year based on the literal translation of the Bible, and reading the entire encyclopedia are unique and etravagent experiments (although I have thought about reading the entire Encyclopedia Judaica). During each of his experiments, Jacobs changes one thing about his life, seeing how it changes his time and in turn changes him. Spending a month living like George Washington allowed him to see things from a more polite and regal point of view, and spending a month listening to every whim of his wife showed him how much time is wasted bickering and overthinking. He does not go into the experiments with expectations as to what he will see but allows the difference in his life to show itself. In some ways, this is precisely what can be so powerful about the writing experience. Writing allows you to think through your own thoughts as you try to immortalize them on paper. Jacobs particularly has a self-reflective nature of writing, as he is self-aware of his own ridiculousness.

                  I think there is a lot to learn from these type of experiments. One, making changes in our actions effects our feelings and changes us, for good or bad. Two, only by making a change does one understand what was happening beforehand. That jolt helps us see what was occurring all along, a broader version of “you’re gunna miss me when I’m gone”. 

                  For those religiously inclined, it seems that these two lessons are a main part of the High Holidays and the days in between. The focus on the Shofar as a sounding to wake us up from our slumber reminds us to not live our lives the same way we have by rote. We must be physically shaken in order to achieve this affirmation, extra prayers are not enough. During the intermittent days between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur we are told to live this week like we would want to live the year, using each day of the week as a model for the next 51 times they come up in the calendar. In essence, this is an experiment. It is an experiment of living your religious life the way you would in an ideal world as a way of waking up your soul. Other holidays have this as well. On Passover, we experience what it was like to leave Egypt as slaves, and on Shavuot we stay up studying all night, experiencing what it was like to receive G-d’s command. These experiences inculcate the values that are inherent in them. Jacob’s method is a Jewish one (he is Jewish after all-classic) of learning and understanding through experience. May we all have the experience we are looking for these next couple of days and weeks.

Story by Robert Mckee

Story has changed the way I look at books, movies and communication in general. Using examples from a variety of genres and mediums Mckee goes through the building blocks of story. He does more than explain the structure but speaks to the ebb and flow necessary to make a story interesting and meaningful. Some points stuck out to me.

   1. Story is the backbone of society. It is more than entertainment but how we communicate with each other. How we tell it, frame it and explicate it is integral to our worldview.

  2. Every character must have a struggle (protagonist may/should have more than one) that you go back and forth between throughout the book. Each scene must be there to put on display a part of that struggle for the character. The reader needs the character to be complex, to almost feel like they are reading about a real person with whom they can share in their hopes and dreams. Scenes that elucidate plot without vacillating between sides of the conflict inside the characters will become boring and tedious. On a value level, this structure turns a plot into an understanding of a human experience as we watch a complex character go through an extreme situation.

     
     3. Stories don’t write themselves. An outline is so important not just for knowing where you are going but for seeing in front of you how your chosen values are being looked upon at different points and how they are progressing. It allows for concentration on what the book is actually about, and not a focus on what will happen next.

   While reading the book I noticed how this concept of story being so vital is extraordinarily far reaching. I first noticed this while on ESPN.com which is supposed to be a news website about sports, but it isn’t. Here is a screenshot of the top stories on the website as I am writing this (I could have chosen any time at all, now happens to be Friday at noon). 

Notice how only one, maybe 1.5 headlines, out of the 11, are actually about sports. “Worldwide leader in sports”, more like “Worldwide leader in stories related to sports”. The rest are stories that capture imagination and clicks. I don’t mean to pick on ESPN. 

     Here’s the headlines of si.com. They do somewhat better, but its still mostly stories that are interesting but not sports. In the book, Mckfee writes how hard it is to make people care about your story. We see so many every day that they blend together. Making something new, that is worth reading is incredibly difficult. ESPN and SI go to lengths to get away from the actual games because nothing in them is new and exciting. So many games have been played in the past that it makes it difficult to spin them. When they finally get an exciting one, it is beaten to death. Tim Tebow and Michael Sam are just two recent examples.

I was curious if this could be true in news reporting as well. I looked through all the stories the NYT has done on the Israel-Gaza conflict (found here), and thought: “What is the best, most interesting story that could have been written on this topic?” It held true. The take was almost always the more interesting one, the one that held your attention more. In some ways this is unsurprising. In order to get readership, you must choose topics they are interested in. If articles on Israel will get more attention it would behoove a paper financially to focus more attention onto it. What I am referring to here though is choosing which side to focus on within the topic. If the NYT has a clear bias, it’s a story bias. I don’t know what the answer to that is.

Things to think about.

Eulogy for Bubbe Reinstein

The following was the Hesped (eulogy) that I gave at my grandmother funeral this afternoon. 

(Bubbe, Margot and me with her three sons)

Before I begin I would like to apologize if I start tearing up. I couldn’t stop myself from crying at my wedding so I probably have no chance here. 

The beginning of Shma, probably Judaism’s most foundational prayer, is peculiar. In this past Shabbos’s parsha we are commanded to:

  Veahavta et hashem elokecha bechold levavcha bechol nafshecha UVechol MeOdeacha. 

This sentence is normally translated as “You shall love your G-d with all your heart, your soul and your possessions based on Rashis commentary. According to this translation, these three things are disconnected. Three paths that we are able to show G-d our love that are discrete and separate. However, if we look at the etymology of the Biblical words through the ancient language, Akkadian and biblical Hebrew we receive a different message. Lev still means heart, but the heart in the ancient world is not just a place for passion, it is the holder of our inner thoughts. Nefesh does not mean soul, but throat and Meodecha from the word meod means your abundance. In this translation, we should love Hashem our G-d with all our heart meaning our thoughts and desires, our throat, meaning our words and Meodecha meaning what we do with our extra possessions. Esther Malka Bat Yisrael Zalman or as we knew her as Bubbe was an expert on these three ways of loving G-d and those around her. 

Her Heart and thoughts: Bubbe is a bastion of hope and determination. After the horrors she went through when she was a young adult. Bubbe quickly rerouted and started a family again, beginning to create what you see in front of you now. We only found out afterwards, but it was an honor to find out I got married on the same day she did to my grandfather, just 68 years later. In case you were wondering the chance of that happening by coincidence is .274%. Her hope was indeed rewarded. 

When we asked her about he experience in the Holocaust, Bubbe replied and I quote:

     “I lost my whole family. I’m the only one who survived. No brothers, no sisters. Nobody. Thank           G-d I’m here, G-d gave me years.”

Her confidence was inspiring. As a Jews we like to complain but it makes it difficult to worry about your own troubles when you have “Thank G-d, I’m here, G-d gave me years” ringing in your head. 

Her thoughts never left G-d and they allowed for her ability to create her extensive family and life in America. She defined her family as good and religious. The traits she always said Margot and I must have in a spouse. 

Somehow, people with the most complicated lives are able to understand things in the most succinct way.

Her words: In the spirit of Midbar sheker tirchak (stay away from falsehoods), Bubbe always said her mind. Whether about how she was feeling, our job prospects, or different parts of our personal lives: it didn’t matter. I used to joke that she was such a religious woman that she never had a filter even on the Sabbath. It was for this reason I brought Hannah to meet Bubbe even before she met most of my friends. Friends want to like your future wife. Bubbe would say what’s what. 

As I was leaving the hospital on the day before Bubbe had a breathing tube put in limiting her speech, her aid Jesse, came in the room. Bubbe asked Jesse who I was. Thinking Bubbe’s memory was fading Jesse said I was her grandson. “He’s a Rabbi” Bubbe replied, proudly. Even if I never actually use my degree, or even forget everything I learned, Bubbe made the time spent worth it with just 3 words.

Her speech was powerful, to the point, and full of wisdom that she gave to all of us that are here. 

What you do with your abundance: Bubbe did more than give her abundance, she created abundance so she could give it. The absolute worst thing you could do to Bubbe was not accepting food. Especially, when she had gone out of her way to get it or make it. It was good her stuffed cabbage and chocolate cookies were legendary, because not having them wasn’t exactly an option. 

She had nothing when she came to America but was determined to have her boys lead a Jewish life. She sacrificed so much to allow her three sons to go to a yeshiva day school. We worry about a tuition crisis today, but we have it great. She had no abundance to give to her children but created it all her own.

In these ways and so many more Bubbe exemplified loving G-d and her family through her thoughts words and actions. 

I wanted to end with a prayer but I couldn’t. How can mere good stand and pray for greatness? I can only hope she is sitting up there praying for us. 

When Bad Things Happen to Good People

For a graduate class this past semester, I wrote a paper on how the Talmud tries to resolve the problem of evil, more colloquially referred to as “why do bad things happen to good people." I thought this topic was interesting because the corpus of Talmud became my guide to this difficult question, rather than just one individual viewpoint. In the following post, I will weave a discussion of Rabbi Harold Kushner’s book When Bad Things Happen to Good People in-between my findings.

The problem of evil is one of the most ubiquitous questions in human history, specifically Jewish history. Taking the lead from Moses and Job, we have asked this question for centuries. We asked it most fervently last night when we exclaimed “Aicha?!”--G-d how could you have done this to us?! How could you not stop something so horrible from happening if you had the power to? The question hits home because it is so relevant to our daily lives. Genocide of Christians in Syria, the general distress in the Middle East, and what seems to be years of tsunamis, hurricanes and tornados leave much answered. That is even without looking on the more singular scale of a diagnosis of cancer, or a freak car accident.

I'll begin by saying that much of what I discuss here is not necessarily appropriate for someone who is going through a tragedy. As the Mishna in Avoth (4:18) says “Rabbi Shimon ben Elazar used to say: Do not appease your fellow in the time of his anger, nor comfort him while his dead lies before him.” Our theory can only go so far.

Modern philosophy has tried to deal with these issues, and those that have studied the problem on a meta-level have seen four basic answers. As I explain them I will show how they all are found in the Talmud albeit with a strong variation.

The first is the Denying approach. We deny the problem either by denying a traditional G-d or by denying that evil truly exists. This is found most strongly in Shabbat 55a:

Rav Ami said: There is no death without sin and there is no suffering without iniquity. There is no death without sin, for it is written, “The soul that sins, it shall die…(Ez. 18:20) There is no suffering without iniquity for it is written, “Then I will visit their transgression with the rod, and their iniquity with strokes.” (Ps. 89:33)

Why do bad things happen? Rav Ami answers unequivocally: because people sin. In this view, evil is not evil, it is punishment. Kushner disregards this answer immediately because it is not how we perceive the world. The righteous do not always have the easy lives the wicked do; it is therefore not emotionally satisfying. In some ways this is similar to what the Talmud itself does. Rav Ami is rejected because we know there are some people that did not sin but did die. Since Rav Ami was unequivocal, the mere existence of a counterexample makes his argument fall apart.

The Talmud in Horiyos 10b uses the same idea but adds in a more enigmatic piece: The world to come.

Rabbi Nachman ben Hisda made the following exposition: …Happy are the righteous men unto whom it happens in this world according to the work of the wicked in the world to come; woe to the wicked men to whom it happens in this world according to the work of the righteous in the world to come.

By adding in the world to come, Rabbi Nachman no longer has Rav Ami’s issue because we cannot have a counter example. However, if we look closely, we see how Rabbi Nachman only tries to see how we should react to bad things but not how they are. A righteous person should be happy to have bad things happen to him. This is less of a philosophical argument and more of a philosophy on life. We will see this continue throughout. In Berachot 60b, Rabbi Akiva tells a story of how many bad things happened but they ended up being good for him. He states based on this: “A person should always accustom himself to say, "whatever the merciful one does, it is for good."” Again, Rabbi Akiva denies the existence of Evil; however he only does so softly. It is not “whatever happens IS for the best”. Rather, that is what one should say frequently. It is a good way to live.

The skeptic accepts that evil exists but assumes that evil is inherently tied to good and the good outweighs the evil. For instance, something bad happens as a wake up call to do better in the future, or for people to come together to help out. This is found in Brachot 5a:

Raba, and some say, R. Hisda says: If a man sees that painful sufferings visit him, let him examine his conduct.

The way to repentance is to see evil and react to it by looking to see what you did wrong. However Raba’s statement need not be a general answer but a response to evil. Like Rabbi Akiva and Rav Nachman Raba is telling us how to react to evil.

The third type is the compatibilist. This is a theory that says something is necessary (i.e. free will) that must allow for evil. This is also found in the Talmud in Moed Katan 28a: “Rava said: [Length of] life, children and sustenance depend not only on merit but [rather on] mazal.” Rava states this based on an example of two Rabbis who were both great but one had an easy life while the other had a hard one. Mazal (perhaps the modern equivalent to natural law) exists and that allows for both good and evil. Again Rava is not certain in all cases. He merely gives a hypothesis as to why this discrepancy can exist.

We can see from all these cases that the Talmud is not interested in a full proof answer to the question but is trying to find a way for us to live our lives with meaning in a variety of ways. In the end of the day we must accept the 4th answer, the confident one, who accepts G-d’s goodness and understands evil exists but is not bothered by it. 

We see this in Menachot 29b when Moshe asks what will happen to the great Rabbi Akiva and is shown his martyrdom. When he asks G-d how this could be he is rebuffed. Man does not understand how the world works. We must be confident that G-d is in control. However, this can be unsatisfying. What are we to do with all the evil in the world? In the end of the day, the Talmud is less interested in the “true” answer, but tries to give a meaningful one. We can give meaning to suffering (ala Rav Soloveitchik and Viktor Frankel) while still understanding that we cannot fully understand. 

Kushner makes an argument similar to this but goes one step farther. Evil exists and we are to learn and give meaning to it. G-d does not do the evil, that just happens, but he gives us a space to make meaning out of it. While I enjoyed his book, I do not feel that his explanation is necessary. I do not need to deny the traditional G-d that is omnipotent to accept evil. I can give meaning to evil in my own right and understand in the end of the day, G-d has a plan.

Have an easy and meaningful fast, and may we have less and less evil to make meaning from in the future.

A Wolf in the Soul by Ira Berkowitz

There are a lack of Jewish novels. Aside from a couple here and there (As a Driven Leaf, Murderer in the Mikdash and The Chosen to name a few) There are certainly few and far between books to give our teenagers. A Wolf in the Soul tries to begin to fill that void. Greg Samstag is a regular teenager who went to a cultural Jewish day school. Throughout the book, Greg's life turns on its head when he begins to think more and more like a wolf until his transformation is near complete. During this time, his connection to Judaism is what is able to counteract this beastly transformation. A Wolf in the Soul has much of the same that you would find in a teenage novel., transformations, teenage angst, and family distress. In some ways, on a surface level, it even resembles Twilight. Once you start reading you see so much more. Aside from an infinitely better writing style, Berkowitz adds in Jewish and Kabbalistic ideas (albeit sometimes thickly) throughout. The book was entertaining and enlightening at the same time.  A Wolf in the Soul takes what is popular and makes it valuable and transformative.  In different ways we can all relate to Greg's struggle between body and soul, between what we want badly and what we know we need. Greg goes through this physically illuminating his existential crisis. In some ways, he is lucky. He is forced to confront his desires and must decide, rather than living on without real introspection. Reading through Greg's eyes we allow ourselves to confront our own issues in a positive and meaningful way.
While reading great literature in general has its place in understanding the human experience, there is a unique and important place for a book with a specifically Jewish edge. As I began, I hope this is only part of a trend.
It is a thick book and can be bought new on amazon here for 12 dollars.