Latest Chabad Round

Failed Messiah has links to mp3s of the recent on-air debate between R’ Yitz Greenberg and R’ Sholom Ber Kalmanson of Chabad [of Cincinnati], over the usual stuff. Meanwhile, R’ Shmuley Boteach and R’ Dr. David Berger post their usual positions on Lubavitch messianism (Boteach – wrong but not non-Jewish; Berger: non-Jewish and dangerous by slippery slope). Gil Student reviews the Boteach-Berger exchange, drawing commenters from the usual positions. Mad Messianism is in the air. Let’s hope Moshiach is on the way.

Listening to the program - boy, it's like Jon Stewart’s critiques of the media. The media claim that the candidates are "lashing out" or "erupting", when really it's the media figures who are full of hysteria in talking about the candidates.

Kalmanson goes on about "haters", but really, the only unreasoning hatred was coming from him - treating Greenberg as some kind of representative "anti-lubav", where really he was agreeing with Kalmanson on the big question (should L messianism be written out of Judaism, as it seems the Israeli conversion court has). People can disagree without being "haters", but Kalmanson's worldview can't encompass that idea.

Kalmanson also carries on about the Rebbe being a big enough godol to have a respectable position - never mind that EVERY other godol who has considered the issue in the past 1000 years has disagreed, even those sources which Lubavitchers quote, such as Rashi and Abarbanel. He carries on about kovod to gedolim, claiming that Greenberg is an "am haaretz" who doesn't respect gedolim, yet he repeatedly denigrates other gedolim who happen to disagree with him. And it's not as if the Rebbe ever stated explicitly that he was Moshiach. So how does the reputation of the Rebbe as a godol protect the position that he’s still Moshiach even after death?

Then he starts with a dreh about Beis Hamikdash Bimkomo - in HIS (Moshiach's) mokom, not the Mokom haMikdash - supported by the [false] claim that Bayis is a feminine noun, and "mimkomo" refers to a masculine referent, therefore, it must be Moshiach's place. This is meant to fulfill the Rambam’s stated requirement that Moshiach rebuild the Temple “bimkomo”, in its place. But as eny fule no, both Bayis and Mikdash are masculine nouns. So the whole pilpul is flat-out wrong.

Afterwards he brings out the usual claims of “the gemara says ee min mesaya, which validates a dead messiah,” which, contrary to the claims of many Lubavitchers, is not understood by Rashi, by anyone who approaches Rashi honestly, to justify a dead messiah. And he carps on the Rambam’s statement that “if he is killed, he was not the promised Messiah”, eliding the previous clause: “if he was not successful, or was killed, he was not…” Once he dies, it’s clear he was not successful. So even if one takes the Rambam’s narrative as the definitive rule on who is or is not the Messiah, as the Rebbe did repeatedly, the Rebbe cannot be the Messiah, because he’s dead, niftar, in the Olam haEmes, not below 10 tefachim, etc.

Now, I'm not here to offer an opinion whether Lubavitch messianism is heretical or not; there are respectable opinions on both sides. But almost everyone outside of Lubavitch knows that it's wrong, or even foolish, to believe in a messiah who dies in an unredeemed world, and returns to complete his mission. That opinion I've even heard from a Lubavitch rabbi before 1994. It's the weakness of the arguments, from people who proclaim such dedication to Torah and the intellect, that bothers me.

These guys, these guys, they carry on at great volume, undermining their own arguments in their vehemence to prove the other guy wrong, bad, hater. Clearly they don't have the law or the facts on their side, if they have to go so far into arguing ad hominem.

10 10 Wins Commands

This past Shabbos I was in Park Slope, my old community for a bar-mitzvah. We ate bei the rabbi, and davened (in part) at his shul. Both the rabbi's 10-year-old son at dinner, and the past president at shaleshudis, mentioned the L. Rebbe's idea that the 10 Statements (Aseres haDibros) correspond to the 10 Stateements (Maamaros) of creation, such that the 10 Commandments as they are called, are a tikun, a repair, for the Fall of Man which was the final incident in the Creation story.

It occurs to me, that one bit of evidence that links the two concepts, other than the simple coincidence of numbers (10-10), is that God creates the world with only 9 explicit statements. Only 9 times does the first Creation story use the verb "Vayomer", "and [G0d] said". The tenth statement is implicit in the first verse: Bereshith bara Elokim et hashamayim v'et haaretz. In the beginning, created God, -> the heavens and the earth. How does God create? Clearly, through speech. So there is an implicit act of speech that began the creation.

Similarly, in the 10 Commandments, there are only really nine that are phrased as commands: Honor your parents, Keep the shabbos, Don't murder, Don't kidnap, etc. The First Command, which we heard directly from the Mouth of God as it were, as a mass revelation at Sinai, is more of an existential statement, the grundnorm of the Torah system: I am the Lord your G0d, who took you out of the land of Egypt, the house of bondage. There we have mandated the entire basis of Torah - our dependence on God, and our need to follow what He says.

So we have a strong parallel: the grundnorm of existence is that God created the universe, so it was stated indirectly. The purpose of existence is to fulfill G0d's will as expressed in the Torah, so the First Statement at Sinai was just that, an existential statement of God's relationship to us, the basis of our purpose in fulfilling the Torah, the grundnorm of the mandatory nature of Torah.

Bey Ano Rochitz twice

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin
Why "Bey Ano Rochitz" twice?

I'm sure you've questioned why we, who are so careful generally not to repeat words in davening, repeat Bei Ano Rochitz twice while taking out the Torah. Other shuls have already dropped the repetition. As with everything I do, I have thought this out carefully.

This melody was written by Chazzan Zeidel Rovner (actually, Maragowsky),1856 -1943. He was a bearded, religious Chassidic Jew, born in Radomyshl, Kiev, who served in prestigious European pulpits, the last of which was in Rovno, the place that became his last name when he moved to the USA in 1914 because of Czarist persecutions. Here, he became a sought-after choir-director, writing many beautiful choral compositions that were very popular.

This melody, Bei Ano, comes from a very lengthy Brich Shmei that he wrote. (At the Belz School, in YU, we have the collection of all of his hand-written manuscripts.)

Whereas it is a problem to repeat words in the Amidah or the Blessings of the Sh’ma, it is NOT a problem, halachically, to repeat words while taking out or returning the Torah to the Ark. Since most of the melodies we sing at this point were written by Reform synagogue composers, this one written by a religious Jew is very meaningful to me. If Zeidel wrote it, I feel that in this one instance I wish to honor him by at least singing this melody as he wrote it, repeats and all. As a model of what a true Shaliach Tsibbur should be, Zeidel deserves to have his melody sung the way he sang it.

Daven Well and Sing Along!

&copr; 2008 LSS and Sherwood Goffin

Law & Order Gets Jews Right

Or, more right than is usual for TV depictions of religious Jews. I mean, who can forget the Sefer Yetzirah episode of The X-files, where a woman sits shiva for her fiancee, the Sefer Yetzirah when disinterred from under the head of the dead husband bursts into flame, and a golem is made from the earth of the grave (the depth of impurity) rather than the earth of a riverbank (constantly washed with living waters, the heights of purity). And the shul doesn't seem to have discovered electric lights.

Last night's episode of Law & Order: Special Victims Unit, about a boy who rapes smaller children, starts out with some suspicion of the victim's Chasidic tutor and his supervisor. There are various scenes set in Williamsburgh, and in "Kiryas Moshe" (clearly a stand-in for Kiryas Yoel). Munch, as the staff Jew, interacts with the Chasidim in various contexts, using Hebrew terms (yehareg v'al yaavor, pikuach nefesh, lifnei iver) more or less correctly in interpreting between the Chasidim and Stabler.

In the Kiryas Moshe scene, a local cop talks with his supervisor on the radio, both using what sounded like a chasidish pronunciation of Yiddish, and clearly enough that I could tell that Munch interpreted the Yiddish right (not that I know much Yiddish either).

Munch's and the father's pronunciation was from Mars, like they were reading bad transliterations, but they must have gotten permission to shoot in a Chasidic suburban area and use at least one guy who really speaks Yiddish. I've never been to Kiryas Joel before, so I don't know if they were really shooting there or in some other development in Monsey, but the locals were dressed right for Willyburg or Boro Park - biber hats for the men, sheitl+pillbox for the women.

Further, they were going to put the victim into a yeshivah Torah Veyireh in Willyburg. I don't know if there's a TvY in Willyburg, but there's one in Boro Park, and it's a Satmar yeshiva (I went to a wedding there once).

They were trying to portray Satmarers without actually using the name, and I think they succeeded without making them an object of ridicule, and without making themselves an object of ridicule for their poor rendition. It's a big improvement over other episodes where they've tried to portray Orthodox or Chasdic Jews.

Yiddn Ein Mishpoche

In the well-known Lubavitcher datebook, Hayom Yom, the entry for 24 Tevet reads as follows:

On this day the Alter Rebbe passed away in the village Piena on Saturday night of parshat Sh'mot 5573 (1813). He is interred in the city of Haditz.

My grandfather (R. Shmuel) asked the Tzemach Tzedek: What did Grandfather (the Alter Rebbe) intend with the "ways of Chassidus" and what did he intend with Chassidus?

The Tzemach Tzedek answered: The "ways of Chassidus" are that all Chassidim are to be like one family, with affection, as Torah teaches. Chassidus is vitality. Chassidus is to bring life and illumination into everything, to shed light even on the undesirable - to become aware of one's own evil exactly as it is, in order to correct it.

"alle Chasidim zolen zein vi ein mishpacha al pi ha'Torah b'ahava" - Chassidim (meaning, at least in current Lubavitcher parlance, all Chabad Chassidim) are one family, joined in joy and love of all Israel, such that we can self-correct.

Perhaps that kind of unity is only possible in a group joined for a moral/spiritual purpose, such that one person won't get massively offended when another tries to correct their behavior or attitudes. Perhaps part of that is the secret of real Kiruv, bringing others close enough so that they can be brought to proper Torah-dig behavior and ideas.

However, in a larger sense, Jews are one family. The Rav Yosef Dov Soloveitchik has made the distinction between the Covenant of Destiny (Brit Goral), a covenant of shared fate and restoration made with Abraham, and the Covenant of Meaning (Brit Yi'ud), made with Moses at Sinai, and binding all Jews to the Jewish religion. Jews opt out of the Jewish religion, but they cannot opt out of the covenantal community of destiny.

As R' David Hartman has said, extending R' Soloveitchik's vision into an ideology of kiruv:

"Religious Jews who are deeply concerned about the fate of all Jews must not only share the burdens of survival but also strive to build spiritual bridges among Jews. The sense of community that preceded mitzvah must also influence one's approach to the observance of the commandments. Halakhah is addressed not to the singular individual, but primarily to the individual rooted in the historical destiny of community" (Conflicting Visions, p. 27)

I have seen Jews be the fate community.

In Adar 2002, when Debbie & I last visited Israel, we had spent a shabbat with friends in Ramat Gan. After Shabbat, we heard on the TV about an attack on guests attending a bat-mitzvah in Geulah, a religious neighborhood in Jerusalem. It was terrible - people killed as they went to the party.

The next day, we were on a bus to the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv. Traffic was terrible - with attacks coming every 2-3 days, the police were inspecting vehicles on the bridges over the Yarkon. The driver had his radio on, as usual, tuned to a news station. At one point, the announcer said he would read the names of the dead from the previous night's attack. The driver turned up the radio, and as name after name was slowly read out, you could see people all over the bus sobbing, putting their heads down, personally hurt by this attack. Didn't matter that the dead were mostly religious and the bus-riders mostly not, the death of cousins always hurts.

So more than the Tzemach Tzedek said, that (his) chassidim were one family - we Jews are all one family, all of us in the covenantal community of fate.

Female Orthodox Rabbis?

Feminist Credential Disclaimer: I see no halachic obstacle to women becoming lower-level Orthodox rabbis, based on the Pischei Teshuvah in Choshen Mishpat 7:4 (note 5), and the Tosfos explaining how Devorah the prophetess functioned. However, it is just not done.

There is a confusing article in the Jerusalem Post today, claiming (or not claiming) that the Hartman Institute is starting a program to train women, regardless of denomination, for ordination as Orthodox rabbis. But it's not a normal ordination, in that it doesn't look like they'll have the title "rabbi". And it's not a normal ordination program, being based, not on Talmud and halacha, but on a Masters in Jewish Philosophy and extra teacher training.

R' Aviner, often thought of as a posek for Modern Orthodoxy, isn't happy, but is less happy about Orthodox women studying side-by-side with heterodox women, than he is about the semi-ordination.

So: is this a Great Step Forward for Orthodox Feminism, or is it another non-issue that's trying for a bit of publicity, like the non-denominational (if Orthodox in practice) Kehillath Orach Eliezer hiring a non-Orthodox woman to be a non-rabbi?

Three Days

One big puzzle strikes many people who read this week’s parasha – why does Moshe ask Paroh to let the Israelites go into the desert for three days? Isn’t that deceptive, since Moshe surely knows that he’s taking Bnei Yisrael out of Egypt altogether? How can Moshe act deceptively?

R’ Sokol brings three approaches from the meforshim.

1. The Ibn Ezra (12^th century) in Bo gives a lawyerly interpretation. “Send my people out so they can worship me in the desert for three days.” He doesn’t say what the people will do after the end of three days. He leaves it to Paroh to assume they will return, but really he’s not saying anything actually untrue. Also, it allowed them to borrow the gold and silver vessels from the Egyptians – after all, it seems reasonable that they’d want to borrow nice things to use in their God-worship. And when they weren’t returned, it provided a nice pretext for the Egyptian soldiers to follow on, allowing them to be killed at the Sea. Nechama Leibowitz criticizes this approach, noting that deception is in the ear of the hearer, not in what is actually said. If it sounds deceptive, it probably is.

2. The Abarbanel (15^th century) (and the Akeidas Yitzchak, R’ Isaac Arama) understand it more diplomatically. Moshe is testing the waters. He’ll ask for three days, if Paroh says yes, they have a basis for continuing discussions until Paroh agrees to full liberation. And if he refuses, well, he deserves all the punishment he’ll get. R’ Sokol’s problem with this is, why did Paroh have to fail the test a dozen times? After 4-5 repeated attempts to get him to let the Jews out failed, it should have been obvious that Paroh was never going to come around, and it was time for the big punishment and release.

3. Shada”l (Sammuele David Luzzatto, 19^th century) suggests that since Paroh had enslaved the Jews, and embittered their lives, and tried to kill them, he had instigated a state of war. And in war, deception is permitted. R’ Sokol doesn’t like this approach either, because while that may work for a human leader, like Moshe, this was God setting the plan, so why is God mandating untruths?

R’ Sokol resolves the issue by changing the way we conceptualize God’s role. Instead of God as war-leader, or political leader, we should look at God as pedagogue. God is not in this case acting against the Egyptians, but acting on Moshe, to teach him a lesson. After all, Moshe’s attribute is Truth. Moshe Emet veTorato Emet.

Look at how he approaches things. The first incident after he leaves the palace, he sees an Egyptian hitting a Jew. Justice demanded that he kill the Egyptian. A few days later, he sees a Jew hitting a Jew, and justice demands that he try to intervene and stop him. At the Golden Calf, he comes down from the mountain full of righteous anger, grinds up the Calf, makes a potion and forces thousands to drink it, killing them, in the name of Truth, Justice [and the Torah Way –jjb].

Aaron, on the other hand, is all about compromise. He temporizes on the Golden Calf, tries to direct the feeling in a proper way, delays making it, etc. Aaron’s attribute is Peace. He knows you sometimes have to act deceptively to achieve peaceful resolution of tense situations. This is sometimes necessary in running a civil society. Sometimes one needs to act deceptively for the greater good. Hashem was trying to tell Moshe this lesson, by pushing him to deceive Paroh.

There are two types of people – those who have trouble telling the truth, and those who have trouble telling lies. Moshe clearly fell into the latter category, but sometimes one needs to deceive for the greater good, in running a real political system.

[Sermon delivered by R’ Moshe Sokol, Yavneh Minyan, Shabbat Parshat Va’era 5768. Summarized by Jonathan Baker].

Bitsy Bas Paroh

Bithia “Bitsy” Bas Pharaoh

(summary of R' Moshe Sokol's sermon for the sedra Shmot)

The Torah text is opaque on the character of Bat Paroh, Pharaoh’s daughter. It doesn’t even give us her name (that is only mentioned much later, in Chronicles). Who is this woman who saved and shaped the savior of the Jewish people?

The Midrash gives us three main approaches to understanding her. R’ Sokol, liking alliteration lists:

· Seeker

· Sufferer

· Stam

Rashi, describing Bat Paroh, gives a medrash that everyone with some Jewish education knows – that she extended her hand out, several metres, into the river to retrieve the basket with the baby Moshe. Think about her position. She was the daughter of Paroh, the daughter of a god whose word is law. Her father has decided that the national interest involves killing all the Jewish male babies. She goes against the national interest, the word of her father, the word of her god, and extends herself to this Jewish baby. She was a seeker, a rebel, looking to grow beyond herself, beyond her upbringing, to do the right thing.

A Medrash in the Yalkut Shimoni tells us, on the other hand, that Parohs daughter was a sickly child, covered with boils, ugly, ill much of her life. She was going down to the river to bathe and try to cure herself. She somehow got the idea that the baby in the basket would cure her, and sure enough, touching the baby Moshe cured her. Now, someone in pain is usually wrapped up in it, to the exclusion of outside concerns. However, Bas Paroh was able to use her suffering, to find empathy with the cry of the baby she heard from a distance, and through her pain she eased the babe’s pain, and thus was cured.

In another story, she was Bas Paroh, used to the life of privilege, stam a Princess. She went down to the river to have a beach party with her friends. But then she hears a baby cry. What does she have to do with abandoned babies? That’s not her business, that’s Somebody Else’s Problem. (Think about the self-centered heiresses of today). But she transcends her shallow nature to help another human being.

So too should we all seek to grow beyond the assumptions of our nature, and empathize with, and help, others.

Milah for non-Jews

An article in the Forward about Cantor Phil Sherman's milah services to non-Jews caught my eye. Bear in mind I've known Phil since high school, when he was Youth/Outreach Director at Lincoln Square Synagogue and later Hazzan at the Spanish and Portuguese Synagogue. He's one of maybe two mohalim living in Manhattan, so his milah business keeps him quite busy.

He also does milah for intermarrieds, where the child is not Jewish. I was a witness at such a milah (you'll notice I'm not using the English word - there are anti-milah crusaders out there who will pounce on any site that talks about it), the son of friends. He's Jewish, she's not, they consider themselves neo-pagans. But his parents pushed for a milah. And a milah, like a wedding, requires two valid witnesses to establish the nature of the life-changing event (entry into the Jewish people, marriage, entry into mitzvah observance for a Jewish baby boy).

When they asked me, I was hesitant, and asked who the mohel would be. They told me it was Phil. Big sigh of relief - Phil wouldn't do anything halachically wrong/questionable. When we went to their home, Phil did the procedure as usual, but said it was "lesheim giyur", for the sake of conversion, and use the brachot one uses for milah at a conversion. The excuse was: if at some point in his life the boy decides to convert, that's one painful [for an adult] step he won't need to do.

My big question, and I never really got a good answer aside from repeated assertion, was that the first chapter in Hilchot Milah (Yoreh Deah 260) in the Shulchan Aruch consists of one sentence: "It is a mitzvah for the father to mal his son, and this is a greater mitzvah than any other positive mitzvah". That's it. The Shach says that the second clause is because if the boy grows up without milah, he has a threat of kareit, spiritual excision, hanging over his head if he dies before having it done. Fine, but what about the first half - it seems absolute, so that even the father of a non-Jewish son should do milah. The Gemara on Kiddushin 29a doesn't seem to be any more dispositive, even quoting the verse commanding milah as "you shall mal all males". And yet, when I've asked before, everyone takes for granted that this is only for Jewish sons. Why was the father, in the case where I was witness, not doing a mitzvah of malling his son?

Hirschensohn III

R' Adam Mintz has a full lecture on R' Hirschensohn. He more or less agrees with R' Brill, but he goes a bit farther into the nature of, and reactions to R' Hirschensohn's halachic program.

R' Hirschensohn's critics are right - he did want to find lots of leniencies. However, the critics are wrong about motivation. It was not simply a search for leniency (and anyone who does all the kulos is a fool), but part of his program to make religion a part of life, rather than something in tension with daily life. There is a sequence of letters in the short-lived periodical HaMetzapeh, available at Hebrewbooks.org, in which he lays out his desire to find leniencies, and is roundly criticized by many correspondents. And he couldn't really find all the leniencies he might have liked - as R' Soloveitchik says, sometimes one must surrender to the halakhah.

R' Mintz did a Bar-Ilan search for Hirschensohn, and only found one reference, in a Mishpetei Uziel. Clearly, then, halacha has rejected R' Hirschensohn's approach. But he's a major figure in American Jewish history, as well as Zionist history, as an approach that was not taken, but had such promise.

Sefasai Tiftach

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin
Chanting “Hashem Sfatai” and “Yihyu L'ratson” Audibly

As your Chazzan, why do I recite out loud the six words before the Amida: "Hashem Sfatai Tiftach, etc.," as well as the final ten words: "Yihyu L'ratson, etc."? It seems that most people do not do so. Indeed, according to the Magen Avraham, those verses should be recited "softly." Furthermore, the Shulchan Aruch says that they "need not be recited out loud."

However, as you know, early in our shul history we took upon ourselves many of the customs of the Vilna Gaon, as taught by Rabbi Joseph B.Solovietchik, the late, great Rosh Yeshiva at Yeshiva University, who ordained both Rabbi Riskin and Rabbi Berman. As the spritual guide for most "modern Orthodox" synagogues today, he followed the tradition of the Vilna Gaon (Minhag Brisk), that requires both of these sentences to be chanted audibly, because they are an integral part of the Amidah. Just as the Chazzan recites the Amidah out loud, he is required to recite these verses out loud as well. I encourage all our Baalei Tefillah to follow this minhag when conducting services at LSS. Of course, when in doubt you should consult with our present Rabbi Robinson on any issue of Halacha.

Daven Well and Sing Along!

A Taste of the Past

R' Yosef Dov Soloveitchik was known to have felt a strong connection to R' Hayyim Heller, in part because R' Heller had studied with RYBS' own great-grandfather, the Beis Halevi, with the Netziv, and other greats of the late-19th-century Yeshiva world. He was a link with the past, making the past real for the present.

Similarly, my camp rav R' Bernard Berzon z"l had met my great-grandfather's brother, Joseph H. Cohen, who subtly influenced the shape of American Modern Orthodoxy.

I had such a moment today, at Biegeleisen's bookstore in Boro Park. I asked for David Zohar's recent reprint of R' Chayim Hirschensohn's Malki Bakodesh Vol I, a responsa collection. R Hirschensohn has recently drawn a good deal of attention, not least because his books were put online. His program of working out the halachic background for running a modern democratic state started a conversation that, by the time of Dr. Yeshayahu Leibowitz, seems to have disappeared, on drawing halacha out of a ghetto mentality into its full flowering as the legal system of a Torah-based state.

The store is run by two old men, brothers I think, I don't know their names. The shorter one's ears perked up when I mentioned "Malki Bakodesh, the one by the rav of Hoboken"

"You mean Hirschensohn? Wait just a few minutes, I have some of his old books. You interested in the originals? I have one with his signature. Wait, have a seat." He does some business, goes in the back, digs around, and comes out with two books: Malki Bakodesh Vol 3-4, and vol. 1 of Eleh Divrei haBrit, on the various types of covenants in the Bible. He shows me the signature in the teshuvah collection: "That's his John Hancock! Maybe I have another, let me look."

He goes back, I start reading through the book, it has correspondence with all the greats of the early 20th century - fascinating stuff on running a modern business, political realities, apparent conflicts between civil and religious law. R' Adam Mintz has noted that part of Hirschensohn's program was to show how halacha and modern life don't necessarily conflict, as most other rabbis posit, rather, halacha goes with modern life, they work together.

He comes out, I chat with the taller brother about the dedication in one of the books to Hirschensohn's son-in-law R. Dr. David de Sola Pool, later to author the RCA Siddur, rabbi of the Spanish/Portuguese Synagogue in New York. My mother remembers Dr. Pool as a tall, dignified somewhat forbidding character, very much the old Spanish grandee.

"You know, he used to shop here!" "Hirschensohn?" "Yes, I remember when I was a boy, he would come into the store." Wow. "Here, let me figure out a price, if you want it, or not, if you want it later, I'll put it back for now."

Not only did I buy a book by an interesting rav, I found a memory of him in the store. The people in the past are not gone as long as people remember.

Musaf Kaddish

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin
The Regal and Majestic Musaf Kaddish

Almost lost in the sounds of flapping seats of rising congregants and mumbled short discussions of points in the Rabbi’s sermon is the unique Kaddish that is sung before the silent recitation of the Musaf Amidah. This ancient Kaddish is one of a corpus of holy, immutable melodies that were sanctified by the Chief Rabbi of his generation, the Maharil, Rabbi Jacob Mölin of Mayence in the Rhineland (1365-1427), and confirmed as unchangeable minhag by the Shulchan Aruch (o.c. 613). This majestic melody of the Kaddish is often repeated as a theme throughout Musaf, subject to the choice of the individual serving as the Chazzan. It is estimated that this melody is more than 1,000 years old. Those who mistakenly substitute the Kaddish that is sung at the end of the reading of the Torah for the Kaddish of Musaf are making a major error and should be corrected. The mark of a true Baal Tefillah is the one who zealously preserves the prayer tradition as bequeathed to us by our ancestors. No one should ascend the bimah who is not willing to adhere to the musical halacha of Tefillah!

Daven Well and Sing Along!

Cross Currents Rhetoric

I have some problems with R' Yitzchak Adlerstein's final response to R' Marc Angel on the current Israeli-American conversion crisis. Not so much halachically, which I am not qualified to judge, but rhetorically. R' Adlerstein uses several cheap tricks to make his points, tricks used forever by less-than-scrupulous Internet posters. I would hope that a Rav would not need to resort to such underhanded tactics.

It seems that in order to construct a "timely" response (read: immediate), R' Adlerstein took a bunch of shortcuts that undermined his whole argument.

I initially submitted this as a comment to the original post, but it was rejected.

* * *

I do not find R' Adlerstein's argument persuasive. Not on the halachic merits, which I am not qualified to dispute, but on structural and rhetorical grounds.

First, R' Angel plays the "race card", which is all too common: Ashkenazi rabbis look down on, or don't even know about, Sephardi poskim, beyond the sages of the current generation. R' Adlerstein tries to counter with "well, this lone Ashkenazi posek was greater than that lone Sephardi posek", but is that necessarily so? Don't we more often go with "halacha kebatra'i", because the later one knows all about the earlier one AND knows his current situation, so can rule more effectively for the current situation?

Second, R' Adlerstein admits he does not know the literature:

"Rabbi Angel asserts that Rav Uziel was not a daas yachid – an isolated voice – swimming against the current. I do not have immediate access to Prof. Shilo’s article; this handicaps me in this part of the discussion. I will venture a guess, however, that my colleagues and I (and yes, I consulted some important ones!) would have heard of many of them if they were among the most important halachic luminaries."

Loosely: I don't know the literature, I can't be bothered to look up your references, but based on the gut feelings of me & my friends, your references don't count, so your guy remains a daas yachid.

Which is a pretty weak argument for the superiority of one's position.

R' Adlerstein further dismisses R' Angel's position (and the position of other supporters of R' Uziel) as a possible conspiracy theory, hence weak:

"the feeling that there was some sort of conspiracy abrew, in which Rav Uziel was unfairly targeted, or moved aside in favor of more politically correct poskim like the Beis Yitzchok and R Chaim Ozer, who somehow ingratiated themselves with that famous cabal, the Elders of Bnei Brak."


I don't think that needs further comment.

Finally, R' Adlerstein pulls a trick common with some unscrupulous Internet posters: it's not me, it's my higher-authority sources. No longer is the Mishpetei Uziel arguing with his near-contemporary R' Shmelkes, he's arguing with Rishonim such as the Meiri and the Nimukei Yosef.

Surely R' Uziel's rishonim (who writes a teshuva today without invoking Rishonim?) should stand up against R' Shmelkes' rishonim. It's a disingenuous argument - you're not arguing against X's analysis, you're arguing against X's sources, who are by definition greater authorities. But of course, he's not arguing against Rishonim without help from his own Rishonim. "My guy's better because he uses rishonim" is pretty disingenuous - everybody uses Rishonim to bolster their positions, and as grist for analysis.

Full disclosure: I know the Rabbis Angel, pere et fils; have davened in their shul many times, but I don't know R' Adlerstein except through the Internet and his occasional articles.

Yosef, Politics and Us

(my understanding & summary of R’ Moshe Sokol’s sermon)

So, Yosef, you think you’re all that. But maybe you’re not.

Yosef, once empowered by Pharaoh, displays complete autonomy in reforming and transforming Egypt’s political economy. He brings all production and labor into personal property of Pharaoh, he transfers populations across the land, he brings the country to its knees in an effort to survive the seven years’ famine.

But in his personal life, he completely defers to Pharaoh. He marries at Pharaoh’s behest, to Pharaoh’s priest’s daughter. He asks permission for his family to move in. He asks his family to treat with Pharaoh directly, rather than through him. He asks for permission to go to Canaan to bury Yaakov. Is this any way for the viceroy of Egypt to need to behave?

We can say that he wanted to maintain personal probity, avoid conflict of interest, but the commentators look deeper. The Ramban suggests that perhaps Yosef could have sent food out to his family, rather than forcing them to pick up and move to Egypt Why? Had he started sending food out of the country, he might have been suspected of selling it on the open market, at the higher prices food would command in Canaan which did not have its own food reserves, then pocketing the profits in his Swiss bank account. He would have been suspected of engaging in trade for profit (a common occupation for Jews in Ramban’s time –jjb).

The Meshech Chochmah, on the other hand, published in the 1920s, theorizes that Yosef was worried about the charge that he was putting his homeland, Canaan, his father’s house, above the needs of Egypt. So he made sure to join his father’s destiny to that of the rest of the country. This is the age-old charge of dual loyalty, first seen at the end of the Exile in Egypt, where the new Pharaoh says, “Come, let us deal craftily with them, lest war come, and they rise up and join with our enemies to destroy us.” Yosef, second in command of the most powerful country in the world, almost fully assimilated into their culture, the ultimate Court Jew, still thought his behavior might be suspected of betraying his host country.

We see this today – we live in the most beneficial host country in the world, perhaps ever. We have two men in the Cabinet who are yeshiva educated, one a self-proclaimed Orthodox Jew, and a powerful Senator who also calls himself a traditional Jew, who ran for President and Vice President. Still, we hear charges that the “Jewish Neocons” got us into the war in Iraq to benefit Israel, we have Walt and Mearsheimer accusing the Israel lobby of unfairly manipulating government policy – we are never free of such suspicion.

Even in Israel, you wouldn’t expect this sort of thing to happen – the host country is us, is Jews. But to certain secularist elements, particularly among the so-called “Post-Zionists”, there is suspicion of the Dati-Leumi (national-religious) Jews in government. Perhaps they have dual loyalty as well, to Judaism which would conflict with loyalty to “Israelism”.

Yosef’s story warns us, as the Meshech Chochmah warns us, no matter where we are in history, we must behave with probity in political and government affairs, because there will always be those who suspect us. Perhaps the only solution, is to come to the Rabbi’s Shiur after Kiddush, where we’re studying the Rambam’s Laws of Moshiach.

Who is Hirschensohn, What is He

Having recently acquired a presentation copy of R' Chayim Hirschensohn's commentary on Horios (inscribed to R' Y. Sheinkman; other owner signatures Avraham Goldberg and Ishmael (?) ben Esther Hinda; wonder who they all were), I thought I'd write up notes on R Alan Brill's lecture on Hirschensohn.

R’ Chaim Hirschensohn was born in 1857 in Sfat; his daughter Nina Alblum wrote a biography of life in Sfat in the early days. He visits the Berlin Rabbinerseminar, moves back to Israel, and by 1901 was the chief rabbi of Constantinople. He responds to R’ Reines call for allies, and in 1903, he moves to become rabbi of industrial Hoboken, NJ.

What makes him interesting is his vision for a new era, expressed in a shelf of seforim. This is a new era, wherein to found a new kehillah based on democracy – Judaism, Halacha, Dayyanut to be based on consent of the governed.

· Eleh haBrit: different covenants within Tanach where for each we get more and more obligations.

· Commentary on Horios expresses political theory.

· Responsa collection Malki Bakodesh on how to run a government.

Nobody has really analyzed this material yet. Eliezer Schwied put out a volume on him in English; he and David Zohar have gone through and pulled out punchlines, without analyzing if this is a good read of Horios, how he relates to Rambam and earlier teshuvos.

1) we all have to be democratic, all Jews are part of the universal democratc Ben Noah covenant of complete equality between Jew and nonJew.

2) Halacha empowered by people. In HaBrit, explains that we have many covenants, and Judaism is about Kiymu veKiblu.

He works through “what about Marah” “what about Mishpatim” “what about kiymu vekiblu” which others had not yet done. Hirschensohn talks about a future Israel where halacha and democracy have to work together. Things are solvable, if you use your ingenuity to reexamine texts under modern conditions. He’s not writing Wissenschaftliche history, but halacha of current and future needs. We’re not bound by, e.g., Deutoronomic laws to destroy 7 Nations or Amalek, since we’re now bound by international law. There’s a need to confront new ideas, like higher criticism, because you can’t say that the Torah is dated – it can handle all challenges.

Pg. 41-42 in Malki Bakodesh: While we’re in exile, you don’t have to tell us not to kill the 7 Nations, but as a free people, what will happen when the state is created? Keep ideas fresh, for new great leaders to answer. . We will have to cancel gentile-based minhagim since we don’t have to mix with them any more. Return to a pristine halacha. Return to spirit of shakla vetarya of the Tannaim.

A great undying principle: God is not a tyrant, religion is not based on Divine will, but on our acceptance of covenants of Sinai, Moab, etc. Freely-created covenants of the people. Even the mitzvoth are ultimately voluntary, we took them upon ourselves in response to God’s plan, but we took them – social contract description of Halacha. Individual election to observe the mitzvoth, not a collective klal-yisrael acceptance that most Religious Zionists would see it.

We don’t make up our own laws, we have elected representatives, etc., and halacha works the same way – individual covenants, which apply to our children, because that’s the way law works. To be a good citizen, or member of the Brit of Klal Yisrael, you have to take upon yourself the keeping of mitzvoth.

His unique approach to, e.g. autopsies: Pikuach Nefesh is not sufficient to allow autopsies, because the individual is already dead, but Nivul haMet only deals with memory and honor, not with the actual body,. He has to sit and think about different halachic approaches to problems.

Where others have small-scale pragmatic agendas, he has an overarching vision driving his approach to psak.

In terms of the Bible, he can give you an answer about any narrative, such as miracles, that they are not parables, but historical accounts, similar to Shada”l, but he intimates that we should use the best tools available for analyzing the Bible. He doesn’t want to run through philosophy or kabbalah in America, because people in America don’t really understand this any more. If you want to do Judaism and halacha, you have to know the whole Gemara and all interpretations and all Poskim.

Some of his stuff is translated on Meimad and/or Kibbutz haDati websites, that regard him as a bit of a hero, but only excerpts, not full analyses of issues.

Melodies of Shabbat Chanukah

Musical Note By Cantor Sherwood Goffin
The Melodies of Shabbat Chanukah

This Shabbat Chanukah lends itself to many creative possibilities that I would like you to be aware of, so that you can join me and sing along!

Shacharit:
Mimkom'cho - the well-known melody of "Hanerot Hallolu"

Hallel:
B'tset Yisroel - the classical "Chanukah O Chanukah"
Shuvi Nafshi - The Italian "Maoz Tzur" by the master renaissance composer Benedetto Marcello (18th Century) 1724.
Hodu - The ancient 15th Century ( c.1450) German "Maoz Tzur - traditional throughout the world.
Ono Hashem - For the first two lines: from the Israeli Chanukah song,"Nerot Dolkim,” to a melody by Felix Mendelsohn.

Musaf Kedusha:
Begins with the 18th Century oratorio from "Judah Maccabeus" by F. Handel: "See the Conquering Hero Comes" or "Hineh Ba" in the Hebrew version. Most important is, that it is in the Major mode, and it therefore fits into the nusach structure that is traditional for Naaritzcho.
I will then use the beautiful niggun "Bilvavi" (which we often use for Kedushah) by Rabbi Shmuel Brazil for Mimkomo. The theme is the internalization of building a sanctuary, the altar, and the eternal light within the Holy Temple-appropriate for Chanukah.
Al Hanissim: The traditional 100 year old melody, sung by many generations of Jewish families.

Daven well and sing along

Feast of Women's Liberation

Dr. Yael Levine wrote a fascinating piece in today's Ma'ariv, on some little-known midrashim that suggest that the Hasmonean resistance movement was inspired by Chana, the daughter of Matityahu the high priest. She resisted the Greek-Syrian decree of Jus Primae Noctis inspired by the story of Dinah and Shechem, and the resulting two battles won by her brothers initiated the resistance. Further, the Pri Etz Chaim of R' Chaim Vital, based on the teachings of the Ariza"l, attributes the success of the Hasmoneans to Chana's resistance, among other successes attributed to righteous women (Purim - Esther, the Exodus - Bitya Bat Pharaoh, etc.)

Dr. Levine goes on to draw a message from the story, suggesting that all of us work hard to resist infringements on the persons and selves of women, fighting prejudice, rape, prostitution and human slavery, drawing on Chana bat Matityahu's example.

The story is found in the Midrash Chanukah, which one can find in Jellinek's Beit haMidrash or Eisenstein's Otzar Midrashim, and also alluded to in the Oxford ms. (and more explicitly told in the Mishmash Nusach [what Vered Noam calls the Nusach haKilayim]) of the scholion to Megillat Taanit.

Go read Dr. Levine's editorial, linked above.

Creation of Katz

And on the 2,106,042nd day of creashun, teh Intarwebs created lolcats:


moar funny pictures

More on Lavan

On the other mailing list, four interpretations of Lavan's apparent ignoring of God's command to leave Yaakov alone, emerged:

• I: Never underestimate the human will to be stupid and worship AZ in the teeth of the evidence.
  
• II: Hashem was only first among equals, so the message was only one factor in Lavan's actions.
  
• III: Anthropological: terafim were symbols of household power, so keep them with the major family unit.
  
• IV: Magickal: fortune-telling talking head would give away their position.
  

On yet another mailing list, the following uncensored comment of Efodi to Maimonides' Guide 2:46 was mentioned (from the Sabbioneta 1553 edition of the Guide, courtesy of Jewish National University Library):

In it, Efodi maintains that Maimonides' theory of visionary experiences extends also to major events, such as the Akeidah and Jonah in the Whale.

The difficulty with Lavan was raised because, how could he ignore the power of God's message? Avraham Avinu didn't ignore it at the Akeidah. But if the Akeidah was visionary, then there has to be another factor at play besides simple power of the message. I suggest that Avraham did what he did because he was attuned to God. Lavan, however, was a polytheist. Whether he recognized God's message or not, it was either not important to him (I), or only one factor to be counted in the theological equation (II) of figuring out what to do.

If the [non-Mosaic] revelation to Lavan was visionary, he could easily discount it, since he wasn't attuned to God-talk. This might be a fifth reading, or a support to the first two.