The Derusha Notebook

"A Life Worth Living" + 15% Off

2011-05-20T11:35:00.000-04:00

                                                                                
                                                                                              
                      The Derusha Update                      This Weekend's Portion:
                       "If You Will Go Within My Rules..."
                        [ Lev 26:3-27:34 ]
                      read on Sat May 21, Shabbath Iyyar 17                        [ get candle-lighting times for your home ]

                      Shalom to all,
                      This week's Torah portion, "If You Will Go Within My Rules," contains twelve biblical precepts, spelled out over two main narratives. The first narrative is an outline of a covenant between the people of Israel and God. If we cherish and follow God's instructions, then we'll enjoy security, stability, and the bounty of the land. If we despise and dismiss God's instructions, then we'll face war, terror, and utter poverty. The second narrative explains the Torah's system for supporting the Sanctuary, mainly through tithing and personal endowments. What is the connection between these two segments - and why does the third book of the Torah conclude with them? Click here for an answer.
                      Wishing you a Shabbath Shalom,
                      Gil & Elana
                      Derusha Publishing LLC
                      www.DerushaPublishing.com
                      PS - Looking for a good book? For the next six days only, enter coupon code BHUQ5771 at checkout and get 15% off your order on DerushaPublishing.com!
                      
                      News and Views                      Why Jews need to talk about the Nakba
                      [ memories @ 972mag ]
                      Kevin Schultz's Tri-Faith America
                      [ review @ Book of Beliefs and Opinions ]
                      In defense of autonomy
                      [ reaction @ Jewschool ]
                      Independence and mourning
                      [ reflections @ Velveteen Rabbi]
                      RHR Celebrates in Chan El Achmar with PA Prime Minister Salam Fayad
                      [ schools @ Rabbis for Human Rights ]
                      When Pigs Fly: Firing Up the Grill at a Kosher BBQ Competition
                      [ summertime @ the Jew & the Carrot ]
                       
                        Looking for Something Good to Read?                        Try WE ARE ALL GOD'S CHILDREN by Joseph Haddad:
                        "An American-Israeli businessman explores what it means for every human being to be a child of God.
                        In the Hebrew Bible, humanity is asked to live according to a sound moral code, and the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are further called upon to live according to a highly-structured format — in order to be role models and teach their fellow human beings.
                        Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, We Are All God’s Children takes a modern look at an ancient book. After reading it, you will never look at the Bible the same way again."
                        Enter coupon code BHUQ5771 at checkout and get 15% off your order!
                        
                        Would your friends like this Update?
                      Then do us (and your friends) a favor and forward this email to them!
                                                      
                                                                                            
                                                                                                                                  
                      

A Life Worth Living

2011-05-17T15:45:00.003-04:00

לק"י

This week's Torah portion, "If You Will Go Within My Rules," contains twelve biblical precepts, spelled out over two main narratives. The first narrative is an outline of a covenant between the people of Israel and God. If we cherish and follow God's instructions, then we'll enjoy security, stability, and the bounty of the land. If we despise and dismiss God's instructions, then we'll face war, terror, and utter poverty. The second narrative explains the Torah's system for supporting the Sanctuary, mainly through tithing and personal endowments. What is the connection between these two segments - and why does the third book of the Torah conclude with them?

The first narrative of this week's portion references the covenant made on Mt. Sinai in giving us a choice. We need only value the instructions given to us - instructions for living with integrity, for realizing human potential, for embracing reality - and dedicate ourselves to fulfilling them in everyday life, in order to experience a life truly worth living. When we abandon those instructions - or worse, hold them in contempt - then we experience a life of frustration, fright, and suffocation. The difference isn't found in God's turning away from us, but in our choice of trust in the source of all things or trust in something else, our turning to or away from God. When we choose to hide from God, we only bring upon ourselves our own misery, a fog of frustration through which the skies seem frozen and the earth seems barren. When we confront God with a sincere heart, our world lights up in a dazzling spectrum of spiritual and material gifts.

After this outline of the choice before us and the value of dedication to fulfilling God's will, the Torah "brings it home" with a concrete social program for dedication to God. In the ancient world, it was common for human beings to be dedicated to manual labor within the central religious and military institutions. This form of "soft" slavery was publicly justified as a worthy way of sanctifying the lives of the dedicated, serving the heavenly rulers here on Earth. On the one hand, the ideal is noble: human beings giving of themselves in service of spiritual values in the earthly realm - is this not the very basis of charity? Don't the institutions which engage in and promote these activities deserve society's support? On another hand, the reality of this ancient arrangement is barbaric - human beings held in bondage, sacrificed by powerful rulers on questionable grounds.

The Torah's answer to the dilemma is profound. It's true that charity is a laudable act, a sincere imitation of the compassionate God who sustains all life, and in whose house all may find shelter and sanctuary - and therefore you can and should give of your flocks and your fields to support those who are dedicated to those ideals. Yet the manual labor God desires is not in the Sanctuary itself but out in the world, labor in the marketplace and in the courthouse, a labor of social justice and fulfillment of God's instructions. If you want to dedicate yourself to God, you may contribute some money to the public Sanctuary funds - and then promptly dedicate yourself to doing God's work in the world, to revering the word of God, to respecting the sanctity of God's home, land, and children. It's for this service that the people of Israel were selected to receive God's instructions - that those instructions should be fulfilled and appreciated among human beings.

In this way, these two narratives are a fitting end to the third book of the Torah, which outlines the different facets of the Sanctuary, its services and its staff, and its place in the heritage of the people of Israel. When all is said and done, all the rituals, institutions, and spiritual tools we're given won't help us sanctify our lives without a key ingredient - personal dedication. What's more, this dedication is found in our attitudes and in our actions, in the degree of their connection to God's instructions for us. Whether we choose to love or despise God and the gifts given to us, God's request of us remains the same: to be holy people, charitable and compassionate, worthy partners with God in creating the world every day.

We hope that this weekend we'll all find strength and renewed dedication in our spiritual and worldly lives.

Shabbath Shalom!

Independence Day + "Godly Ecology & Economics" + 15% Off Any Order

2011-05-12T15:27:00.000-04:00

                                                                          
                                                                                      
                  The Derusha Update                  This Weekend's Portion:
                   "On Mt. Sinai..."
                    [ Lev 25:1-26:2 ]
                  read on Sat May 14, Shabbath Iyyar 10                    [ get candle-lighting times for your home ]

                  Shalom to all,
                  On the 4th of Iyyar (this past Monday) many Israelis observed Yom ha-Zikaron (Memorial Day) - a time dedicated to recalling those who made the ultimate sacrifice in defending their families and neighbors.  This somber day was immediately followed by the joyous festivities of Independence Day, a day fixed in most Israelis' minds as a time to celebrate life, freedom, and national achievement.  Rav Shu Eliovson, a close friend of ours and the director of In-Reach, likened the experience of these two holidays to the experience of the emotionally tense Fast of Esther followed by the cathartic exuberance of Purim.  Without the preceding day of sober reflection, the day of communal celebration would lose some of its depth and meaning.
                  This week's Torah portion, "On Mt. Sinai," contains 24 biblical precepts and discusses three themes in tandem - ecology, property rights, and workers' rights. Unlike other portions which discuss each of these issues independently (or in connection with other subjects), this week's portion treats all three as a single, organic unity. While many economists have linked workers' rights and property rights through the principle of (self-)ownership, philosophies of private capital ownership often seem at odds with ecological concerns which affect the entire community. To further complicate matters, this week's concluding reading from the book of Jeremiah (32:6-22) - giving the details of a specific acquisition which God advised the prophet to make - seems at best only loosely connected to the issues of this week's portion. What is the unifying element of this week's Torah portion, and why did the members of the Great Assembly conclude the reading with this particular narrative from Jeremiah? Click here for an answer.
                  Wishing you a Shabbath Shalom,
                  Gil & Elana
                  Derusha Publishing LLC
                  www.DerushaPublishing.com
                  PS - Looking for a good book? For the next six days only, enter coupon code BHAR5771 at checkout and get 15% off your order on DerushaPublishing.com!
                  
                  News and Views                Kate Braestrup on marriage, God, and love
                [ book review @ Velveteen Rabbi ]
                  Women in Jewish Media
                  [ public opinion @ Hirhurim ]
                  Happy Independence Day wishes from a Palestinian
                  [ outreach @ 972mag ]
                  Eretz Yisrael / The Land of Israel In Rabbinic Thought
                  [ audio @ YUTOPIA ]
                  Our Future is Where our Past is
                  [ reflections @ Lazer Beams ]
                  Future of Legendary Essex Street Market Uncertain
                  [ community @ the Jew & the Carrot ]
                
                    Looking for Something Good to Read?                    Try WE ARE ALL GOD'S CHILDREN by Joseph Haddad:
                    "An American-Israeli businessman explores what it means for every human being to be a child of God.
                    In the Hebrew Bible, humanity is asked to live according to a sound moral code, and the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are further called upon to live according to a highly-structured format — in order to be role models and teach their fellow human beings.
                    Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, We Are All God’s Children takes a modern look at an ancient book. After reading it, you will never look at the Bible the same way again."
                    Enter coupon code BHAR5771 at checkout and get 15% off your order!
                    
                    Would your friends like this Update?
                  Then do us (and your friends) a favor and forward this email to them!
                                          
                                                                                    
          

Godly Ecology, Property Rights, and Workers' Rights

2011-05-08T18:16:00.001-04:00

לק"י

This week's Torah portion, "On Mt. Sinai," contains 24 biblical precepts and discusses three themes in tandem - ecology, property rights, and workers' rights. Unlike other portions which discuss each of these issues independently (or in connection with other subjects), this week's portion treats all three as a single, organic unity. While many economists have linked workers' rights and property rights through the principle of (self-)ownership, philosophies of private capital ownership often seem at odds with ecological concerns which affect the entire community. To further complicate matters, this week's concluding reading from the book of Jeremiah (32:6-22) - giving the details of a specific acquisition which God advised the prophet to make - seems at best only loosely connected to the issues of this week's portion. What is the unifying element of this week's Torah portion, and why did the members of the Great Assembly conclude the reading with this particular narrative from Jeremiah?

Another seemingly-out-of-place passage in this week's portion may offer some light in which to read the preceding themes: at the very end of the portion, we are again instructed not to substitute any authority for God, be it a concrete object or a social institution. While the shift in theme may seem like a shift in message, careful reading of the Torah portion indicates otherwise. Again and again throughout the Torah portion, God is named as the direct authority behind everything from letting the land rest to treating workers fairly to guaranteeing citizens' real estate rights. We must treat workers fairly and decently not to bolster our self-images as benevolent employers, but because each and every worker is a human being made in the image of God, demanding our respect and our love - and if the worker is Jewish, our recognition that he or she is actively "employed" by an authority higher than our own. We must respect the rights of individuals to own real estate and other capital not because these are gifts or privileges awarded by human fiat (and which may be repealed by further fiat), but out of respect for God, who truly owns the entire Earth and everything within it - especially the land of Israel - and who annually assigns property to each and every person to use as his or her personal resource. Such a concept of land ownership effectively prevents a feudal society from arising in the land, a society in which all the land is considered the property of a central human authority and all residents are considered vassals or tenants of said authority. So long as God is respected as the sole legitimate owner of the Earth, no one can ever be truly disenfranchised or unduly evicted from their homes.

The same thinking underlies the ecological theory developed in this week's Torah portion. As God is the one who created and sustains the Earth, God is the one who owns the Earth, and our use of the Earth rests upon our acceptance of that property claim. God allows each of us to reap the benefits and bounty of the land so long as we respect the rights of others to do so as well - and so long as we use the Earth's resources in a sustainable fashion, regularly giving the land (and all the creatures it supports) time to regenerate and grow. As with the use of human labor, the Torah cautions against our use of the land turning into abuse - which would be a crime against both God and humanity!

The unifying element of this week's Torah portion - God's authority as owner of everything and as guarantor of our rights - is clearly evident in the concluding reading from the book of Jeremiah. The narrative begins with Jeremiah's acquisition of the property by God's word, and ends with Jeremiah's recognition that all property is acquired by God's word. Yet a theme unique to the concluding reading adds a new light to the Torah portion - that of liberation. Jeremiah was told to buy the property as a sign of God's continued control of the land and its occupants, a beacon of confidence in God's active authority despite the attempts of human emperors to claim authority over the land, and everything on it, for themselves. The theme of liberation is tied directly to the opening of this week's Torah portion, which describes the marriage of ecology and economics in the institution of Jubilee. This celebrated culmination of the land's agricultural cycle marked the liberation of nearly all property and laborers in Israel, a communal testimony to the authority of God over all facets of life on the land.

We hope that this weekend, in all the lands we call home, we will find a deeper recognition of God's presence in the special relationship between the community, the individual, and the Earth we all share.

Shabbath Shalom!

Remembrance Day + "Every Life Counts" + 15% Off Any Order

2011-05-05T11:29:00.001-04:00

                                                                          
                                                                                      
                  The Derusha Update                  This Weekend's Portion:
                   "Declare to the Priests..."
                    [ Lev 21:1-24:23 ]
                  read on Sat May 7, Shabbath Iyyar 3                    [ get candle-lighting times for your home ]

                  Shalom to all,
                  On the 27th of Nissan (this past Monday) many Israelis observed a day of remembrance to honor the memory of all those who experienced the Holocaust - those who survived, those who did not, and those who risked their lives to save other human beings. Many people are unaware that the original proposed date of the remembrance was thirteen days earlier (Nissan), to commemorate the start Warsaw ghetto uprising.  The uprising, spurred by efforts to transfer the population of Warsaw to a death camp, ended tragically but left a lasting impression on humanity: we are all made in the image of God, and every life is precious and worth defending, in the face of any catastrophe, no matter what the odds.  What an inspiration!
                  This week's Torah portion, "Declare to the Priests," contains 63 precepts, ranging in subject from the requirements for spiritual service in the Sanctuary to the cycle of celebrations connecting every participant to the natural world of God's creation.  These two themes comprise the majority of the Torah portion, and yet seem - at first blush - entirely unrelated.  They are relevant to two very different groups of people - the ministers and the laborers - working in two very different domains - the Sanctuary and the field.  Moreover, the closing episode of this week's portion - a tragic tale of unnecessary alienation and its social consequences - seems equally unconnected to either the priestly service or the agricultural cycle.  Why did the members of the Great Assembly teach that these three narratives together form a single unit? Click here for an answer.
                  Wishing you a Shabbath Shalom,
                  Gil & Elana
                  Derusha Publishing LLC
                  www.DerushaPublishing.com
                  PS - Looking for a good book? For the next six days only, enter coupon code EMOR0771 at checkout and get 15% off your order on DerushaPublishing.com!
                  
                  News and Views                What pushed Hamas and Fatah into each others arms?
                [ speculation @ 972mag ]
                  Remembrance
                    [ memorial @ Velveteen Rabbi ]
                    Sathya Sai Baba and Rabbi David Zeller
                    [ six-degrees @ Book of Beliefs and Opinions ]
                    Economics and Social Justice in Jewish Law Class Series
                    [ lectures @ YUTOPIA ]
                    Jewish Community Members Against Jews Against Divisive Leadership calls for the end of divisiveness through a divisive public statement
                    [ satire @ Jewschool]
                    Aliya: Like Cleaning for Pesach
                    [ encouragement @ Lazer Beams]
                    When the Rabbi Meets the Imam
                    [ neighborliness @ Rabbis for Human Rights]
                
                    Looking for Something Good to Read?                    Try WE ARE ALL GOD'S CHILDREN by Joseph Haddad:
                    "An American-Israeli businessman explores what it means for every human being to be a child of God.
                    In the Hebrew Bible, humanity is asked to live according to a sound moral code, and the children of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are further called upon to live according to a highly-structured format — in order to be role models and teach their fellow human beings.
                    Printed on 100% post-consumer recycled paper, We Are All God’s Children takes a modern look at an ancient book. After reading it, you will never look at the Bible the same way again."
                    Enter coupon code EMOR0771 at checkout and get 15% off your order!
                    
                    Would your friends like this Update?
                  Then do us (and your friends) a favor and forward this email to them!
                                          
                                                                                    
                                              
                                                                                                                  
                  

A Holy and Inclusive Society

2011-05-02T03:45:00.000-04:00

This week's Torah portion, "Declare to the Priests," contains 63 precepts, ranging in subject from the requirements for spiritual service in the Sanctuary to the cycle of celebrations connecting every participant to the natural world of God's creation. These two themes comprise the majority of the Torah portion, and yet seem - at first blush - entirely unrelated. They are relevant to two very different groups of people - the ministers and the laborers - working in two very different domains - the Sanctuary and the field. Moreover, the closing episode of this week's portion - a tragic tale of unnecessary alienation and its social consequences - seems equally unconnected to either the priestly service or the agricultural cycle. Why did the members of the Great Assembly teach that these three narratives together form a single unit?

Upon considering the biblical precepts found in the first two narratives in greater detail, a connection slowly emerges. The priest, acknowledged as a minister charged with mediating disputes between individuals, must be able to speak to the people from a position of integrity and clarity, unconfused by the curveballs which are inevitably thrown at us in life. Personal dedication and aesthetic perfection characterize true service of God, creating an experience of profound empathy and awe which is the priests' gift to the people. Yet just as God instructs the priests to psychologically and spiritually sustain the people (farmers included!) through their service in the Sanctuary, God also instructs the common laborers to sustain the people (priests included!) through their service in the field. A balance is struck between the ministers and the laborers, between our words and our deeds, between the inner dimension of spirit and the greater world all around us, and recognition of this all-pervasive unity is truly a national treasure.

Living as if we were oblivious to this unity - as if our lives were not interdependent, as if we did not together form something tremendously significant which transcended our individual shortcomings and limitations - we would only be able to build a pale imitation of the holy social dream of this week's Torah portion. We could achieve only an abysmal society of alienation and exclusion, where a lone stranger, made in the image of God yet born into a home of cruelty and abuse, finds not comfort and acceptance but rejection. An unbalanced society that does not know that it needs each and every individual just as much as they need it. A broken society where justice must step in to protect what compassion has failed to embrace - all too often, far too late to stop the weight of despair and bitter resentment from warping the hearts and minds of precious human beings. As tragic as the concluding episode in this Torah portion is, perhaps it's inclusion alongside the priestly service and agricultural calendar is intended as a stark reminder of the stake we each have in building a society with unity, integrity, and empathy. We hope that as we celebrate and relax this weekend, we will all find reason to draw closer to our fellow human beings.

Shabbath Shalom!

Draft Share: "Introducing: God"

2011-02-24T14:47:00.000-05:00

לק"י

from "The Garden of Delight: An Open Discussion About God's Children and God's People"

Intro. "Introducing: God"

"The foundation of the foundations and the pillar of the wisdom sciences is to be aware that there is an ultimate Reality. It reifies all that is real, and all that is real in heaven and earth and what is between them is only real by virtue of Its reality. If it were considered that It is not real - nothing else could be real. If it were considered that all realities except It were not real - It alone would be real and would not be negated by their nonexistence; for all realities require It and It (be It appreciated!) does not require them, not one of them."
- Maimonides, Restatement of the Law (The Rules of the Foundations of the Law 1:1)

One thing which perhaps all things share is a connection to reality: we share a common source of existence in which we interact, communicating and creating and connecting. We each experience existence on many levels, as composites of elemental arrangements and as passionate savants, as members of families and communities and a species, as individuals and sometimes even as the universe itself. The continuity of our experiences points us to the continuity, the underlying unity, of the common "object" of all our experiences - reality.

Reality is known in a myriad of ways. We "name" our experiences of reality in our own personal languages, according to the particular qualities of every moment of our encountering the truth of reality's ultimate nature - "God," "the Compassionate One," "the Gracious One," "the Patient One," "the Protector," "the Savior," etc. All are "names" of reality, all are concepts of God which are tangibly experienced in the lives of countless human beings. There are ways of relating to reality which all humans have in common, and there are ways of relating to reality which are completely personal and unique to each of us. There are also ways of relating to reality which we create and celebrate in groups, sharing in the common outpouring of the soul, testifying to the reality of our own lives.

The very idea that reality is something which we all share implies that reality is not limited to any one of us. Reality appears to us in many forms and guises from the worlds around us and within us, but reality is never limited to just one (or any number) of those patterns and elements. Our "names" for reality can never capture the truth of what reality is, or what it means to be truly Real - though they help us to meaningfully connect to reality, moment to moment, throughout our lives. The ultimate reality is not a rock, or a bull, or a statue, or a man, or a star, or a being, or an idea, or a thing like any thing which we normally see or hear or consider - but we can see the reflection of reality and we can hear the echo of real events in all those things.

Comments, thoughts, suggestions?

"Deconsumption Versus Dematerialization: How to protect the environment by doing more with less"

2011-02-15T14:22:00.000-05:00

Reason's Science Correspondent Ronald Bailey offers a solid analysis of the distinction between Ludditism and ecologically-sound economics:

Markowitz and Bowerman found that Oregonians were, however, happy to cut the consumption of the rich, favoring a 5 percent luxury tax on private yachts, airplanes, and motor homes (61 percent for). In addition, 76 percent are for utility rates structured so that the per unit charge goes up with increased energy consumption; 75 percent approve of making energy efficiency standards on new buildings stricter, and 57 percent favor boosting automobile fuel efficiency standards.

Taking into account the fact that their poll respondents don’t seem much interested in policies aimed at encouraging deconsumption, Markowitz and Bowerman mildly observe that other policy avenues besides taxing consumption might be more fruitfully pursued. They suggest publicity campaigns. “If consuming less of nonessential goods and services is beneficial or necessary for long-term survival of our species, then it seems it would be prudent to publicize the widely held ‘consume less’ disposition,” they write. They hope that if people knew that their neighbors favored deconsumption, a cultural shift in attitudes would lead to lower consumption.
Markowitz and Bowerman define deconsumption simply in terms of making do with less. In other words, deconsumption means becoming materially poorer. They view increased material poverty as necessary to protect the natural world from a rapacious humanity. But if using less somehow protects the environment, wouldn’t using less to produce more do so as well?

Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University and Paul Waggoner at the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, show that the world economy is increasingly using less to produce more. They call this process "dematerialization." By dematerialization, they mean declining consumption of energy or goods per unit of GDP. In a 2008 article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Ausubel and Waggoner, using data from 1980 to 2005, show that the world is on a dematerialization binge, wringing ever more value from less material. It turns out that dematerialization achieves many of the same environmental goals as deconsumption.

Ausubel and Waggoner demonstrate that the global economy dematerialized (got more outputs from fewer inputs) steadily in the production of crops, use of fertilizer and wood, and carbon dioxide emissions. For example, while global per capita income rose by 40 percent between 1980 and 2005, farmers around the world raised crop yields 57 percent. Had farming productivity remained stuck at the 1980 level, farmers would have had to plow down an additional 1 billion hectares (about half the land area of the U.S. and six times current U.S. cropland) to produce the amount of food grown in 2005. Instead cropland expanded by less than 100 million hectares and farmers so boosted their productivity that they could produce the same amount of crops on only 60 percent of the amount of land they used in 1980.

The world economy emitted more carbon dioxide in 2005 than it did in 1980, but nearly 30 percent less than it would have had emissions grown at the same rate as the world economy grew. Using European Carbon Exchange prices per ton of carbon dioxide, Ausubel and Waggoner calculate that this dematerialized carbon would be worth nearly $400 billion dollars per year.
How far might dematerialization go? In earlier work, Ausubel and Waggoner calculated that if the average productivity of the world’s farmers were raised to the current level of productivity of a corn farmer in Iowa, a world of 10 billion people could be fed an American diet on about half the farmland being used now. This means that an area the size of Amazonia could revert to nature. Similarly, energy production could dematerialize as well. Ausubel and Waggoner show that between 1980 and 2005 a French consumer enjoyed 50 percent more affluence but used only 20 percent more energy. In addition, switching electricity production from coal to nuclear power dematerialized each French consumer’s annual carbon emissions by a ton.

Not all trends are toward dematerialization. For example, between 1980 and 2005, China used a lot more cement per capita as its citizens increasingly could afford and then demanded better housing. But this is a one-time building boom that will subside as Chinese housing stock and infrastructure reaches modern standards.

Oddly, many ideological environmentalists favor highly material-intensive ways to produce food and fuel. For example, organic agriculture uses more crop land than conventional farming, and current versions of solar and wind power production occupy a lot of land and take more material to build than do conventional power plants.

(full article)

From Ukraine to Egypt: Don't Betray the Revolution

2011-02-10T14:47:00.001-05:00

Yuliya Timoshenko, former prime minister of Ukraine, gives the Egyptian revolutionaries sage advice on the importance of inner spirit and personal commitment in every revolutionary's heart:

From snowy Kiev, I have watched the revolutions in Cairo and Tunis with joy and admiration. Egyptians and Tunisians are right to be proud of their desire to peacefully overthrow despotic governments. But, as someone who led a peaceful revolution, I hope that their pride is tempered by pragmatism - because a change of regime is only the first step in establishing a democracy backed by the rule of law. Indeed, as my country, Ukraine, is now demonstrating, after revolutionary euphoria fades and normality returns, democratic revolutions can be betrayed and reversed.

The first of Ukraine’s lessons for Egyptian and Tunisian democrats is that elections do not a democracy make. After all, what if the enemies of freedom use elections to entrench their anti-democratic agendas? What if elements of the old regime, or the cadres of militant minorities, only pretend to embrace democratic norms in order to hijack the new democracy?

In Ukraine today, these are not abstract questions. Six years after our Orange Revolution, not only is my country’s democracy under threat - but the rule of law is being systematically perverted and our national independence bartered away. Indeed, the hybrid presidential/parliamentary system that Ukraine established as part of the settlement which brought a peaceful end to our revolution is being hollowed out in order to concentrate all political power in the hands of a supposedly democratically elected president.

Of course, Ukraine’s plight does not mean that the people of Egypt and Tunisia should spurn the call for free elections. Determining the will of the people does require expression through the ballot box. But elections alone cannot solve the fundamental political problems confronting Egypt and Tunisia. In particular, they cannot create a liberal order and open society.

To be effective, elections must be preceded by an extensive debate, in which political arguments are made, attacked, defended - and, ultimately, embodied in ideologically coherent party organisations. Democratic consent can truly be given only when voters know what they are consenting to. Whoever refuses to make a public case for what he or she intends to do when in power, or lies about it – as Ukraine’s president, Viktor Yanukovich, did during his campaign against me last year – is no supporter of the democracy that citizens risked their lives to establish.

Moreover, democracy must be rooted in the rule of law. There must be accepted rules that are binding on everyone in politics, so that whoever does not accept or obey them is disqualified. Yanukovich’s naked attempt to hijack the election that precipitated the Orange Revolution should have caused him to be banned from running in future elections. Yet he was not.

Now, as president, Yanukovich’s crude instinct is to treat the law and constitution as Karl Marx thought of them: as a mixture of sentimentality, superstition - and the unconscious rationalisation of private interests. Stealing elections, suppressing the vote, and behaving in contempt of the rule of law are negations of democracy. Those who engage in them must be seen as democracy’s enemies - and treated as such.

A second lesson follows from this. The fact that a government has been democratically elected does not mean that the cause of freedom has prevailed. The rest of the world must not turn a blind eye to authoritarian backsliding. Yet today, not only are many of Ukraine’s neighbours silent about Yanukovich’s strangulation of Ukraine’s democracy - but some openly celebrate the supposed “stability” that his regime has imposed. For decades, Egyptians and Tunisians paid a high a price in freedom for the stability of others. They must never be asked, or forced, to pay it again.

The need for strong civil society

One way to help prevent a democratic revolution from being betrayed from within is by building a genuine civil society. We in Ukraine learned this truth from harsh experience in the communist era. Although communism could, every now and then, coexist with private property - and sometimes with private enterprise - it could never coexist with civil society. The most fateful attack to accompany the installation of any dictatorship is an attack on civil society.

In Ukraine, freedom of speech was, on communism’s fall, restored overnight. But reviving civil society – the many mutually complementary ways in which citizens participate in public life – is a complicated task, as the peoples of Egypt and Tunisia will soon find out. The reason is self-evident: civil society is an intricate, fragile, even mysterious entity that evolves over decades, if not centuries. Its pillars – private, voluntary associations, decentralisation of the state, and delegation of political power to independent bodies – must be nurtured patiently and from below.

Where civil society remains underdeveloped, every problem filters up to the “Big Man” squatting at the top. So the more power is concentrated at the center, the more it becomes possible for anti-democratic forces to gain – or regain – control over a country.

As people around the world encourage the coming of democracy to Tunisia – and, one hopes, to Egypt – let us not be beguiled by its formal trappings. Let us celebrate the arrival in North Africa of the spirit of liberty and of solidarity, which brought Ukraine its liberty once and will do so again. And let us pledge that our solidarity does not end at the borders of our nations. Freedom – true freedom – is indivisible.

(full article)

The Commerce Clause and Congress in the 20th Century

2011-02-09T15:11:00.000-05:00

Reason.com columnist Jacob Sullum brings a bit of historical analysis of congressional activity to light:

The main advantage of drawing a line between activity and inactivity is that it does not require overturning any of the Supreme Court's Commerce Clause precedents. That is also its main disadvantage.

As the historical section of Vinson's ruling reminds us, the Court has strayed far from the original understanding of the Commerce Clause, which was aimed at eliminating interstate trade barriers. At the time the clause was written and for many years afterward, "commerce" was understood to mean the exchange of goods (as opposed to manufacturing or agriculture), while "regulate" meant "make regular" by removing obstacles. And believe it or not, "among…the several states" meant "among the several states," as opposed to the purely intrastate activities that Congress routinely regulates (or bans) nowadays.

This narrow understanding of the Commerce Clause prevailed well into the 20th century. It explains why the Supreme Court in 1918 overturned a federal ban on the interstate transportation of goods whose production violated child labor laws, concluding that the power to regulate commerce "is directly the contrary of the assumed right to forbid commerce from moving." It explains why the dry activists who achieved National Alcohol Prohibition in 1920 had to do so by amending the Constitution. It explains why the Court, as late as 1935, rejected federal regulation of employee hours and wages at businesses that were not engaged in interstate commerce.

But as Vinson notes, "everything changed in 1937," when the Court held that Congress can regulate purely intrastate activities if they have a "substantial effect" on interstate commerce. That doctrine has led the Court to uphold federal regulation of activities, including the cultivation of wheat andmarijuana for personal consumption, that are only remotely and hypothetically related to interstate commerce.

Since 1937, the Court has rejected just two provisions of federal law on Commerce Clause grounds: a ban on gun possession in or near schools, which it overturned in 1995, and a civil remedy for victims of gender-motivated violence, which it overturned in 2000. Those decisions were based on the Court's reluctance to "pile inference upon inference" in a way that would leave no activity beyond the reach of the Commerce Clause, thereby erasing the constitutional distinction between state and federal powers.

(full article)

An Egyptian Opportunity: "Why Not Freedom of All Persons Everywhere Now?"

2011-02-02T14:32:00.001-05:00

Economist Michael Rozeff sees in the recent events in Egypt an opportunity for citizens to secure real freedom for themselves, by recognizing that they do not need a state. Surely a significant approach to take to bringing Zionism into the next century, as well!

(h/t Lew Rockwell)

Why don’t Egyptians seize the moment and create freedom for themselves – their Persons – now? By freedom for Persons, I don’t mean democracy or a so-called free society or a society under some government, be it democratic or democratic-socialist or theocratic or autocratic or whatever. I don’t mean elections, coalitions, parties, votes, leaders, taxes, and so on. I mean freedom of each and every person.

And I do not mean to single out Egyptians. I raise the same question for Americans. Why not freedom for all Americans now? Why not freedom for any People anywhere now?

As Egyptians start to have their voices heard throughout the world, we are hearing what individual persons are thinking and assuming. We are given help in discovering why Egyptians and Americans and Chinese and Russians and all Peoples in the world are not creating freedom for their Persons now.

Suppose that the following Reuters report has some grains of accuracy to it:

"Initially unorganized, the protests against Mubarak are gradually coalescing into a loose reformist movement encompassing many sections of Egyptian society."

The words "reformist movement" mean that the idea that is spreading or forming among "many sections" is to reform the government. They would keep the State but alter it. This won’t produce freedom of all Persons.

I’m not denigrating what Egyptians are doing. Not at all. I’m not criticizing or judging them. They want to get rid of Mubarak. I am certain they will succeed. I am taking the opportunity provided by what they are doing to understand better, if I can, why, even if Mubarak goes, choices are flowing in some directions, toward maintenance of the State, and not others, to freedom of Persons. There are lessons to be learned here that are widely applicable throughout the world.

My concern is broader. The possibility of eliminating the State is present in every land. The masses can accomplish this at any time. We the People can accomplish this whenever enough of us decide to. Enough of us haven’t. Since Egyptians and any People are always on the cusp of eliminating the State altogether, we have to ask why they don’t do so. Why don’t Americans get rid of their State?

The same Reuters article quotes one person:

"‘We are calling for the overthrow of the regime. We have one goal, and that is to remove Hosni, nothing else. Our politicians need to step in and form coalitions and committees to propose a new administration,’ said Ahmed Abdelmoneim, 25, a computer engineer."

This opinion may or may not be typical of many other persons in Egypt. It sounds as if it could be typical. This is, after all, the same kind of thinking that goes on in America at every election and in between elections. Most everyone is after changing the government or changing its policies. They’re not after eliminating the government and State altogether.

We then hear in this article about another group, one which may form a type of voluntary society within Egypt, namely, the Muslim Brotherhood. I do not know for sure if it is entirely independent of the State or if it has links to the government, but we read that Mubarak banned it from politics. The important thing, from my perspective here, is the political view that Reuters attributes to this group:

"What will come after Mubarak if he steps down is not so clear. Egypt's opposition has been fragmented and weakened under Mubarak. The Muslim Brotherhood has the biggest grassroots network with its health and other social charity projects.
"The group, banned from politics under Mubarak, says it wants an Islamic, pluralistic and democratic state."

This is probably reasonably accurate. It is probably the case that the Muslim Brotherhood is not after freedom of all Persons. It is after a "pluralistic and democratic state." It is after politics as usual, i.e., a State. This is despite the fact that it is a "grassroots network" that carries out some functions ordinarily associated with democratic (or democratic/socialist) governments.

Confirming this conclusion is a quote from a person who is a member of the Muslim Brotherhood:

"‘The revolution won't accept Omar Suleiman, even for a transitional period. We went a new democratic leader,’ said Mohamed Saber, a member of the Muslim Brotherhood."

We then hear from another voice, namely, a lawyer:

"‘Our country has many people capable of being president,’ said Essam Kamel, 48, a lawyer, although he said he did not want Nobel Peace Prize laureate Mohamed ElBaradei, who has said he was ready to take on a role in the transition.
"But Kamel added: ‘We are Muslims, but we don't need an Islamic government.’"

This again underscores the same assumption: There is to be a State. There will be a transition to a different kind of State perhaps, but a State nonetheless. Kamel alludes to those who may want an Islamic government, such as in Iran. That group also wants a State.

One person who comments on this article speaks up for the pro-Mubarak contingent:

"They are not the majority! The majority approves Mubarak but their voices are not heard! The protesters are just more vocal activists, that is it."

In sum, no one is quoted as wanting no State at all. The different groups cited here are all talking about an Egyptian government. It will be perhaps a different government, or if the pro-Mubarak contingent wins out, generally the same kind of government, but it will still be a government.

If there are anti-State voices, they have not made it into this press release.

Why do people think only of maintaining the State in one form or another? Why is it that after such a poor experience with their State, they don’t assign it to the trash heap of history? What is holding back the concept that people can live without the State and live better without it?

If I raise the possibility of living without a State to anyone, American or Egyptian, the odds strongly favor that they will look upon it as a crazy idea. I may elicit a condescending smile while they think to themselves that Michael’s a nice guy but he has a screw or two loose when it comes to politics.

I believe that most people cannot see beyond the status quo. They have been taught to accept it. It is very possible to accept slavery or various degrees of enslavement and not even know it. People accept death and taxes.

If we push them further in their thinking, they raise many objections. Who will make the laws? Who will run the army? Who will be our leader? Who will aid the old, the disabled, the sick, and the widows? Who will help in emergencies? Who will take care that our neighbors across the border do not invade us? Who will negotiate with them? Who will police us and stop the bad guys from looting the good guys? Who will protect us?

I strongly suspect that if we push Egyptians, Brazilians, Russians, Chinese, Americans, or any People, we will run up against the same kinds of questions. Who is going to do what the governments now do? Even if they do these things unbelievably badly or not at all, we are going to meet with the firmly-held assumption that the State is a necessary thing.

Why do people accept the status quo of poor government? The masses vastly outnumber those in government. Egyptians could dismantle government entirely if they chose to. They are in a position today to do exactly that, but they won’t. Why not?

Apprehension.

Apprehension does not exhaust the reactions to life without government. There are many other reactions, including those who think that an elite exists who are better equipped to rule the many, and those who want a State for pecuniary reasons, and those who like to rule, and those who want a powerful State that we can hail and that will rule the Seven Seas.

But I believe that most folks are simply apprehensive. My guess is that most people have an uneasy feeling about an uncertain future without government. Not fear, but apprehension. In finance, the concept akin to this is risk-aversion. This apprehension includes distrust of other people.

To raise one’s comfort level so as to conquer that apprehension takes education and familiarity, so that one can well-imagine a different future. This reduces the risk. One eliminates from one’s mind the possibility of the unrealistically bad outcomes that one at first imagines.

To gain familiarity with living without the State, one may look at the many examples where we live without the State very nicely and comfortably. Alternatively, one may consider the logical aspects of life with and without a State so as to become persuaded that life without a State is not only feasible but a worthwhile goal and better than life with a State.

Apprehension is rational, or at least it is a normal reaction. Apprehension is conquerable, however. As people learn to supply for themselves the things that government provides, the apprehension will diminish. Building up private self-help networks, the private economy, and private means of security is what is meant by supplying things for ourselves.

If people possess irrational and deep-seated desires to be ruled or led by leaders who tell them what to do, this is not the same as apprehension. This, if it is the reason why people demand government, is much more difficult to overcome than apprehension. I don’t believe this, however. I’ve never met large numbers of people that willingly would let themselves be pushed around by me or anyone else. If government pushes us around and people take it, it’s for other reasons. I am saying that they see no alternative that carries a low enough risk.

Once a government has a foothold and a place among a people, it has many tools to maintain itself and grow its power. It can use economic and other inducements. It can use force and repression. It can use spying and propaganda. After awhile, even if people believe that they’d be better off without the State, they can’t see a way to rid themselves of it. When that happens and the State becomes a Gordian knot, it has to be cut. The people in the Soviet Union cut the knot. The people in Egypt are doing some cutting of their own. The existing reality of life under these States becomes so bad that at least some of the apprehensions pale in significance compared to the potential gains. When one is starving and unemployed, these take priority. However, they don’t usually lead so far as to eliminate the government entirely.

After apprehension as an explanation for people’s political conservatism, I suspect that lack of imagination is an important reason. Most people simply do not think outside the box they are in. Before one can have apprehensions of life without a State, one must think about that alternative. Most people don’t even get that far. They simply accept some version of the status quo. But like apprehension of life without a State, the failure even to imagine life without a State can be overcome. Education and exposure to the ideas helps accomplish that. It introduces the possibilities.

What happened to the tortoise? One little goat, one little goat.

2010-11-22T19:32:00.003-05:00

Remy Ilona, author of the upcoming The Igbos and Israel, sent us the words to a traditional Igbo song to consider:

What happened to the tortoise? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

A breadfruit fell on the tortoise (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to the breadfruit? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

A staff pierced the breadfruit (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to the staff? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

Termite ate up the stake (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to the termite? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

A fowl ate the termite (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to the fowl? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

A kite/hawk carried the fowl (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to the kite/hawk? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

A gun killed the kite/hawk (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to the gun? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

Fire burnt the gun (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to the fire? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

Water quenched the fire (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to the water? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

The ground soaked up the water (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to the ground? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

The Lord (Chukwu Abiama) created the ground (The tortoise, the tortoise)

What happened to Chukwu Abiama? (The tortoise, the tortoise)

Nothing happened to Chukwu Abiama (The tortoise, the tortoise)

The song's progression through a chain of events - causes and consequences - which finally ends with the direct actions of God, brings to mind another traditional song, one sung in Jewish homes across the world every Passover:

One little goat, one little goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

The cat came and ate the goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

The dog came and bit the cat that ate the goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

The stick came and beat the dog

that bit the cat that ate the goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

The fire came and burned the stick

that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

The water came and extinguished the fire

that burned the stick that beat the dog

that bit the cat that ate the goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

The ox came and drank the water

that extinguished the fire that burned the stick

that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

The slaughterer came and killed the ox

that drank the water that extinguished the fire

that burned the stick that beat the dog

that bit the cat that ate the goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

The angel of death came and slew the slaughterer

who killed the ox that drank the water

that extinguished the fire that burned the stick

that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

Then came the Holy and Blessed One

and smote the angel of death who slew the slaughterer

who killed the ox that drank the water

that extinguished the fire that burned the stick

that beat the dog that bit the cat that ate the goat

Which my father bought for two zuzim (One little goat, one little goat)

Overcoming Our Trials: Thoughts on the Torah Portion from the Dominican Republic

2010-11-19T13:45:00.001-05:00

Yehonatan Elazar-DeMota and his wife are doing some great work in the Dominican Republic. As they help the Dominican-Sepharadi Jewish community become sustainable and independent, hakham Yehonatan currently heads the local Jewish school he founded (Beit Midrash Nidhe Israel) while also helping to provide kosher meat and other foods for the community.

He sent out the following thoughts on this week's Torá portion (our translation follows):

La perashá de esta semana se titula Wayishalah, "Y envió".(Gen. El sentido simple del texto da entender que Ya'aqob envió mensajeros a su hermano Esaw/Edom con la intención de apaciguar la enemistad entre ellos. Hacía mas de 20 años que ellos no se veían y Ya'aqob aún tenía miedo que su hermano lo matase. Uno podría deducir de esta situación que Ya'aqob se sentía culpable por haber tomado la bendición de su hermano. Por esta razón él ofrece una porción de sus ganancias, como para darle a Esaw lo que le correspondía como primogénito.

Antes de encontrarse con Esaw, Ya'aqob tuvo otro sueño en la Tierra de Kena'án, como lo tuvo cuando salió de ahí. En este sueño, él luchó con una persona, quien él identificó como un mal'akh (angel). Al luchar con él, se quedó cojo al recibir un golpe en su muslo. Esta experiencia es muy parecida a lo que uno siente cuando sueña que está batallando y se despierta dando patadas o puños. Los psicólogos concluyen que las experiencias nocturnas pueden causar efectos físicos al cuerpo; pueden manifestarse como dolor en la espalda, piernas, calambre, hasta asfixia.

Los Sabios de Israel dicen que los pensamientos humanos, como deseos, fantasías y temores aparecen en los sueños. (Berakhoth 55a). Sabiendo esto, se podría inferir que Ya'aqob tenía miedo volver a su casa, ya que su hermano podría asesinarlo, y por esto fue que el tuvo la visión con el angel. Algunos comentan que este angel era el angel de Esaw, mientras otros dicen que era el Satán.

La Torá relata la experiencia de Ya'aqob más que a cualquier patriarca. De hecho, algunos Sabios comentan que Ya'aqob nunca murió. Claro está, él murió y descansa en la cueva de Mahpela, pero ellos quisieron enfatizar que la experiencia de Ya'aqob es la experiencia de sus descendientes que están en el exilio. Aún más, los profetas se refieren al pueblo de Israel con el nombre de Ya'aqob para demostrar este concepto.

La vida de Ya'aqob está repleta de pruebas, decisiones, frustaciones y achaques. ¿Qué más podría pasar después de la violación de su hija Dináh? ¿Porqué es que Ya'aqob sufrió más que su papá o abuelo? Podríamos responder, más grande el hombre, más fuerte su yeser hará (instinto al mal). El sufrió mucho porque él tomó decisiones sin pensar en las consecuencias de la vida. Mi madre, que tenga larga vida, me enseñó, "Uno paga por todo lo que uno hace en esta vida". La perashá de la semana que viene muestra que Ya'aqob inclinó por Yosef, descuidándose de los demás hijos. Talvéz fue por esto que Dináh fue violada.

Ya'aqob es una demostración de que el ser humano es capáz de superar cualquier problema y elevarse. Como dijo el mensajero nocturno, "Has luchado con los hombres y con el Dio, y has vencido...no serás llamado más 'Ya'aqob', sino 'Isra'el'". Así mismo será con los descendientes de Ya'aqob cuando hayan salido de este largo exilio de más de 2700 años. Entonces, seremos dignos de ser llamados "Isra'el".

-------

The Torah portion this week is entitled Wayishalah, "He sent" (Genesis). The plain meaning of the text implies that Ya'aqob sent messengers to his brother, Esaw/Edom, intending to defuse the enmity between them. It was more than 20 years that they were not together and Ya'aqob was still afraid that his brother would kill him. One might infer from this situation that Ya'aqob felt guilty for having taken the blessing of his brother. That is why he offers a portion of his profits, and gives his due to Esaw as firstborn.

Before meeting with Esaw, Ya'aqob had another dream in the Land of Kena'án, as he did when he left there. In this dream, he fought with a person, whom he identified as a Mal'akh (angel). To fight him, he was crippled by a blow to his thigh. This experience is very similar to what you feel when you're struggling in dreams and wake up kicking and with fists. The psychologists conclude that the nocturnal experiences can cause physical effects to the body that can manifest as back pain, leg cramps, choking up.

The Sages of Israel say that human thoughts, and desires, fantasies and fears appear in dreams (Berakhoth 55a). Knowing this, one might infer that Ya'aqob was afraid to go home because his brother would kill him, and this was why he had the vision with the angel. Some say that this angel was the angel of Esaw, while others say it was Satan.

The Torah describes the experience of Ya'aqob more than any patriarch. In fact, some sages say that Ya'aqob never died. Of course, he died and rests in the cave of Mahpela, but they wanted to emphasize that Ya'aqob experiences the experiences of his descendants who are in exile. Moreover, the prophets refer to Israel by the name of Ya'aqob to demonstrate the concept.

Ya'aqob's life is full of tests, decisions, frustrations and pains. What more could happen after the rape of his daughter Dinah? Why is it that Ya'aqob suffered more than his father or grandfather? We could answer, the greater the man, the stronger your yeser hará (instinct to evil). He suffered a lot because he made decisions without considering the consequences of life. My mother, bless her, taught me, "You pay for everything you do in this life." The Torah portion of next week shows that Ya'aqob inclined toward Yosef, neglecting other children. Maybe it was because of this that Dinah was raped.

Ya'aqob is a demonstration that humans are able to overcome any problem and rise. As the night messenger said, "You have fought with men and with God, and have overcome ... you will no more be called 'Ya'aqob' but 'Isra'el'." It will also be with the descendants of Ya'aqob they have come out of this long exile of more than 2700 years. Then, we will be worthy of being called "Isra'el."

Boas entradas de Sabá! Shabbath Shalom!

"The Best is Yet to Come": Jurriaan Kamp and Matt Ridley's New Book

2010-11-18T21:55:00.001-05:00

Ode Magazine's editor-in-chief, Jurriaan Kamp, makes the historical case against pessimism in his e-newsletter, the Intelligent Optimist:

Predicting the future is hard, but it's impossible if you're too pessimistic.

Humankind continuously exceeds its own expectations when it comes to the development of new technology. However, we are really bad at one thing—predicting that development. And that's a problem that leads to a lot of unnecessary pessimism. For example, in almost all future scenarios of climate change, clean and renewable energy advances little by little. As a result, the earth keeps getting warmer and warmer. But these kinds of scenarios are always based on known facts. Yet, as history shows, it is the unknown that revolutionizes the world again and again.

Humanity has a lifetime subscription to defeatism. Every era has had its own preachers of doom and impending doom scenarios. Around 1880, a group of entrepreneurs and scientists gathered in Paris to discuss the future. The question was what the French capital would look like in 50 years. The conclusion was dark: With continued growth of the population and the economy, these French visionaries foresaw that the Parisian avenues would be buried under several feet of horse manure. A dozen years later at the Chicago World Fair of 1893, visitors were asked which invention would define the coming new century. Nobody answered: the car. But in 1903, Henry Ford began building his car plant and in 1908 he launched the Model T. And Paris has never experienced the horrific horse manure scenario.

The horse carriages were not replaced little by little by the automobile. And the advances of television, the Internet, and mobile phones were never gradual. You do not have to be a prophet to predict that the clean energy revolution will surprise the world in the same way.

The following list of quotes should silence the widespread pessimism about the future (for more click here or here):

"The abdomen, the chest and the brain will forever be shut from the intrusion of the wise and humane surgeon." —Sir John Eric Ericson, Surgeon to Queen Victoria, 1873

"Heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible." —Lord Kelvin, mathematician and physicist, 1895

"It is an idle dream to imagine that automobiles will take the place of railways in the long distance movement of passengers." —American Railroad Congress, 1913

"Who the hell wants to hear actors talk?" —H. M. Warner, co-founder of Warner Brothers, 1927

"There is no hope for the fanciful idea of reaching the Moon because of insurmountable barriers to escaping the Earth's gravity." —Forest Ray Moulton, astronomer, 1932

"There is not the slightest indication that [nuclear energy] will ever be obtainable. It would mean that the atom would have to be shattered at will." —Albert Einstein, 1932

"Television won't be able to hold on to any market it captures after the first six months. People will soon get tired of staring at a plywood box every night." —Darryl F. Zanuck, Head of 20th Century-Fox, 1946

"The world potential market for copying machines is 5,000 at most." —IBM to the eventual founders of Xerox, 1959

"There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in their home." —Ken Olson, President of Digital Corporation, 1977

The human race is a "collective problem-solving machine," writes the British biologist Matt Ridley in his recent book The Rational Optimist. Nobody knows now how and by whom we are going to be saved from the impending explosive growth of Chinese CO2-spewing, coal-fired energy plants. But if history is any guide the inventors with radical innovative solutions are already living somewhere on the planet. Not decades but years from now a coal-fired energy plant will be a hopelessly old-fashioned solution, much like the computer that some 40 years ago occupied the entire basement of an office building. This is an almost inevitable outcome as more and more people trade and do business together, a process that continuously feeds new ideas and new solutions. Make way for optimism!

Jews in America - "Intermarriage"

2010-09-14T16:37:00.001-04:00

Our identity as Jews living in America is influenced by many factors - cultural, historical, communal, environmental - which have left their mark and their legacy for us today. One particular element of Jewish identity, often passed down through the generations by parents to their children, through their words and actions, is an existential awareness. This is an awareness of life when viewed in sum, a singular existence comprised of beliefs, relationships, and deeds. This awareness is the backdrop for any thoughts of destiny and purpose I can have, any confidence in my origins and ability. Children raised with an awareness of this dimension of themselves can benefit from the autonomy it provides when cultivated to maturity. Communities of families espousing this awareness can thrive materially and spiritually, as they work together in developing a group identity which elevates and enhances the individual members alongside the members of other groups. I might say that this element of Jewish identity - a timeless intimation that there’s a “big picture” - is tied to the treasured notion, equally timeless, that there’s one really real reality that includes all else - all of us along with it - and that’s the reality we should be looking for. No settling for the icon or the image. The real thing.

This existential awareness, which we inherit and pass on, is not determinative - it doesn't directly tell us who we are. The awareness of my life from the perspectives of observer, planner, and doer, simply opens the door to seeing my life this way. Over thousands of years, Jews and other Israelites have considered their lives’ purposes and meanings in a kaleidoscope of different ways. Sometimes we have considered our lives as existentially secure, guided by a relationship with reality that precluded crimes against us so long as we committed no crimes against others. Other times we have considered our lives as existentially threatened, open to violation, abuse, and destruction, oppressed and disadvantaged through no product of our own doing. As American Jews living in the fabled “land of choices,” we are afforded the opportunity to choose the purposes and meanings with which we build our Jewish identities from quite a range of options. Knowing that there is indeed a foundation, I can build the foundation of my life on premises of security and trust, or premises of threat and mistrust - among many others.

The word “intermarried” is often used to describe the marriage of someone who identifies as a Jew and someone who does not, and to the family which they start together. These individuals, and their children, are included or excluded to differing degrees by members of Jewish communities, often due in part to the existential premises of those who either welcome or reject. To some of us, the choice of someone who identifies as a Jew to start a family with someone who does not identify as a Jew is seen through the prism of existential security: my own Jewish identity is unaffected by anyone’s choices and actions but my own, and someone else’s choice in life partner in no way affects the amount of basic compassion and respect either should be shown as human beings. To others of us, such a choice is seen through the prism of existential threat: my own Jewish identity is affected by others’ choices and actions, and someone else’s choice in life partner changes the amount of basic compassion and respect I should show them. Once we are aware of the choice we can make in the prism through which we view life, the choice is ours to make.

Jewish law is often cited as justification for the rejection and exclusion of “intermarried” families by members of Jewish communities. Yet is there really a basis in Jewish law for such action, or are such justifications the result of imaginative or ideological co-options of Jewish law? While formally proscribing the union, marital and/or sexual, of someone born to a Jewish mother and someone who was not, the rabbis of the Mishnaic and Talmudic eras acknowledged such families and accepted them into the greater Jewish community, under the protection of the law - and certainly beloved by God - like everyone else. Maimonides’ comprehensive guide to Jewish law addresses the non-Jewish spouses of Jews in many legal scenarios and situations, taking their participation in the community of Jews who follow Jewish law (and certainly their humanity and dignity) as a given. The rabbis of the Talmud, and those who lived within their tradition, did not view the choice of someone who identifies as a Jew to marry someone who doesn’t, through the prism of existential threat; they were secure enough in their own relationship with reality to tolerate and sincerely respect the personal choices of other human beings. Trusting in the faithful direction of all things yet acknowledging that such trust is a choice, they coined the saying - “all is in the hands of Heaven, except for one’s awe of Heaven.”

My acceptance of an “intermarried” family probably stems from the sense of a “big picture” that my parents raised me with. I don’t have to make the same personal choices as someone else; I can accept another person as a human being and as a member of my community irregardless of his or her personal choices. In fact, I trust that such a union is, at some universal level, the will of God - reality at its best. It is an opportunity to learn about human beings’ lives and cultures, to share what we’ve learned about our own lives and culture, as we welcome them to the table. As American Jews, we have the freedom to choose - the choice of approach is ours to make.

Zionism vs Militarism: "For Not By Force Shall Man Prevail"

2010-09-13T17:35:00.002-04:00

Here's a timely quote about militarism and the use of force in national "self defense," taken from The Prophets, a masterpiece by Avraham Yehoshua Heschel z"l illuminating the inner world and perspectives of the prophets of Israel:

The prophets were the first men in history to regard a nation's reliance upon force as evil. Hosea condemned militarism as idolatrous.

Israel has forgotten his Maker
And built palaces;
Judah has multiplied fortified cities....
You have trusted in your chariots
And in the multitude of your warriors,...
[Israel has] gone up to Assyria,
A wild ass wandering alone;...
They hire allies among the nations....
When Ephraim saw his sickness,
And Judah his wound,
Then Ephraim went to Assyria,
And sent to the great [?] king.
But he is not able to cure you
Or heal your wound.

Hosea 8:14; 10:13; 8:9-10; 5:13

Having anticipated Isaiah's vision of enduring peace, Hosea proclaimed in the name of the Lord: "I will not deliver them by bow, nor by sword, nor by war, nor by horses, nor by horsemen....I will make for you a covenant on that day with the beasts of the field, the birds of the air, and the creeping things of the ground; I will abolish the bow, the sword, and war from the land, and I will make you lie down in safety" (Hos. 1:7; 2:18).

"The gods are on the side of the stronger," according to Tacitus. The prophets proclaimed that the heart of God is on the side of the weaker. God's special concern is not for the mighty and the successful, but for the lowly and the downtrodden, for the stranger and the poor, for the widow and the orphan.

The heart of God goes out to the humble, to the vanquished, to those not cared for.

I will restore health to you,
And your wounds I will heal, says the Lord,
Because they have called you an outcast:
It is Zion, for whom no one cares.

Jeremiah 30:17

The Lord has founded Zion,
And in her the afflicted of His people find refuge....
The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord,
And the poor among men shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.

Isaiah 14:32; 29:19

"For not by force shall man prevail" (I Sam. 2:9). "The nations shall see and be ashamed of all their might" (Mic. 7:16). "Not by might,...says the Lord of hosts" (Zech. 4:6).

Some boast of chariots, and some of horses;
But we boast of the name of the Lord our God....
His delight is not in the strength of the horse,
Nor is His pleasure in the legs of a man.
But the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him,
In those who hope in His steadfast love.

Psalms 20:7; 147:10-11

This is the man to whom I will look,
He that is humble and contrite in spirit,
And trembles at My word....
For thus says the high and the lofty One
Who inhabits eternity, Whose name is Holy:
I dwell in the high and holy place,
And also with him who is a contrite and humble spirit.
To revive the spirit of the humble,
To revive the heart of the contrite...
Zion shall be redeemed by justice,
And those in her who repent, by righteousness.

Isaiah 66:2; 57:15; 1:27

Powerful words to heed, as we address some of our challenges: extreme militarization in Israeli society and the marginalization of apolitical diplomacy independently conducted on a popular level. Bringing Zionism into the 21st century, as a living social movement that remains holy and meaningful to Jews across the world, may entail some thoughtful reconsideration of suppositions and premises that underly the attitudes and policies we've supported thus far. May this be a year of looking beyond brawn and bullets for safety, security, and peace!

David Shasha on the Prophets: Alienated Jews?

2010-09-12T13:33:00.001-04:00

David Shasha, director of the Sephardic Heritage Center, discusses our perceptions of the prophets of Israel, and the way we relate to their message today:

Prophetic self-criticism is the engine which has allowed Judaism to survive and flourish over the course of time.

As we begin the period of the High Holy Days, it would behoove us to open our Bibles and re-read the stories of the great Hebrew Prophets -- rebels all -- who spoke truth to power in the name of God and would not relent even in the face of death and personal destruction.

Their powerful faith in God has served us with a shining example of personal responsibility and integrity. Over the many generations of Jewish life, this faith demands social justice through fidelity to the Sinai Covenant, which teaches us who we are as Jews. It is a faith that demands the dignity of every single human being to live unmolested and free of oppression.

Those who have chosen the ways of Ahab have found worldly success and power. They have crushed their enemies and silenced the voices of those who dare to oppose their wicked guardianship of the earth. They belittle and humiliate those who look to the "still, small voice" of God that Elijah heard so many centuries ago. But we must not forget that security in the Jewish mind is to be found in the good works of humanity and not in the cruel depredations of the rich and powerful.

Read the whole article at the Huffington Post.

It Belongs To All Of Us | The Derusha Update

2010-09-03T10:45:00.002-04:00

The Derusha Update

[ print out this newsletter to share it on Shabbath ]

From around the world of books and blogs -
Thoughts on the weekly Torah portion and more /
Enjoy!

This Weekend's [Double] Portion:
"You Are All Standing Today..."
"And Moses Went..."
[ Deut 29:9-31:30 ]
read on Sat Sept 9, Shabbath Elul 24

  [ get candlelighting times for your home ]

Moses continues his farewell address to the children of Israel, who are gathered together in their encampment on the plains of Moab, across the Jordan River. Recalling the wondrous deeds that God has done on behalf of them, Moses describes their relationship with God in terms of sovereignty and loyalty that are familiar to them. In no uncertain terms, Moses declares the Torah - the Law of Israel which is the foundation of Israelite culture - to be eternally valid, freely accessible to each and every child of Israel, and not just a "priviliged few." Moses finally begins the preparations for his coming death, which include appointing his student, Joshua, as his successor and instructing the priests to write down the laws and the people to assemble every seven years "before God" and read them together.

This week's concluding reading from Isaiah asks us all to seek out God and observe the terms of the covenant which God contracted with us, for God's promises and commitments are always kept, no matter what. Special mention is made of the non-Jewish "foreigners" who lovingly keep the Sabbaths and the covenant, and will be gathered in and accepted in God's house alongside the Jews.

Looking for something good to read?

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE by Marino
"I've seen godly men full of morals sit idly in their homes while the paper boy brings news of murder most foul in the back of death bringing vans and coughing pits."

WE ARE ALL GOD'S CHILDREN by Joseph Haddad
"Why are we here? Where are we headed? A serious reading of the book of Genesis will help us understand the answer to these questions."

GOY by Ranjit Chatterjee
"One gets here into the tangle that if everything is an illusion then the statement too is an illusion. Yet only a fool or a naif does not recognize the limpid and irrefutable paradox that a thing can not be known as it is, only through a means of knowing, and the means of knowing is no use at all without a means of communicating what has been learnt."

Questions and Commentary

"You are all standing today before God, your Authority - your representatives, your elders, your officials; every person of Israel." [ 29:9 ]

Review the first pasuk of the Sedra (i.e. 29:9), noting the meaning of the word 'nitzavim'. What is the 'shoresh' [root] of this word, and why do you think that Moshe Rabbeinu chose this word to describe this 'setting'? In your opinion, does the noun 'matzeva' [a monument] stem from the same root? If so, explain why. Menachem Leibtag

"God, your Authority, will bring you to the Land that your ancestors possessed, and you will reposses it. [God] will be good to you and make you flourish even more than your ancestors." [ 30:5 ]

If there is indeed any "covenant" of a shared destiny, it...is between Jews and Native Americans. Many similarities can be seen between these two groups. For both, the basis of religious beliefs and practices is an attachment to a specific pice of sacred land. The Jews regained their indigenous homeland after 1,878 years of exile. In the last twenty years or so, Native American nations have become more aggressive in reclaiming land, fishing, and hunting rights. In some cases, significant strides have been made. Judith Antonelli

"It is not in the heavens, that you should say, 'Who among us can go up to the heavens and get it for us and impart it to us, that we may observe it?" [ 30:12 ]

Israel had its priests, but unlike those of Egypt's temples or of Greece's oracle places, their knowledge of God's law was not exclusive....Israel's priests dealt at all times with a law and a tradition available to all....In the religious traditions of antiquity, such a commitment to universal accessibility was unique, and it had an even more profound effect on the Jewish people as the centuries passed. The study of Torah became the supreme preoccupation of the Jew; none was too humble to be excluded from the mitzvah of learning and none too prominent to be excused from it. W. Gunther Plaut

"And God said to Moses: Your days are drawing near to death - call Joshua..." [ 31:14 ]

For every person needs to diminish one's own honor and to increase the honor of the Omnipresent; for whomever chases after honor does not merit the honor of God but rather the honor of rulers, as was declared regarding it, 'The honor of rulers is a matter of investigation' - everyone investigates after him and questions, 'Who is this and what is this, that they apportion him this honor?' And they divide against him, declaring that he is unfit for this honor. However, whomever flees from honor, diminishing one's own honor and increasing the honor of the Omnipresent, then one merits the honor of God, and then people do not investigate his honor, if he is fit or not, and regarding this it was declared, 'The honor of God is a hidden matter' - for it is prohibited to investigate [God's] honor. Nahman of Breslov

"A wicked one will leave that path and a person filled with sin, those thoughts; let these turn to God who whill have mercy on them and to our Authority who is abundant in forgiveness. 'Because My thoughts are not your thoughts, and My ways are not your ways,' says God. 'As far as the heavens are above the earth, so are my thoughts above your thoughts.'" [ Isaiah 55:7-9 ]

God doesn't hold grudges the way we do, even after we seem to "forgive and forget." This is a reminder to treat other people as we hope God will treat us. We want to be completely forgiven. We must remember to extend that same unqualified forgiveness to otherse....We cannot see the whole pattern of the universe, or know what part our piece plays in it. But we do fathom what it might mean to be near to God, nearer than we are. By striving to make God's will central to our lives, we increase the possibility of calling God nearer to us, which will nourish us and keep us on the path of righteousness. Susan Gulack

News and Views

Land of Confusion – A Response to R. Broyde on Women Leading Kabbalat Shabbat
[ opinion @ YUTOPIA ]

A Time to Ban, A Time to Defer
[ reflection @ Hirhurim-Musings ]

Rethinking 'stam yeinam'
[ opinion @ Jewschool ]

New article on the Hazon Ish by Yakir Englander
[ review @ The Book of Doctrines and Opinions ]

The Best Insurance
[ gratitude @ Lazer Beams ]

Drink Your Honey This Rosh Hashanah – Mead and Hard Cider Cocktails
[ alcohol @ the Jew & the carrot ]

War & Forgiveness | The Derusha Update

2010-08-20T15:10:00.000-04:00

The Derusha Update

From around the world of books and blogs - 
Thoughts on the weekly Torah portion and more / 
Enjoy!

This Week's Portion:
"When You Go Out To War..."
[ Deut 21:10-25:19 ]
read on Sat Aug 21, Shabbath Elul 11

get candlelighting times for your home

The children of Israel are still camped across the Jordan River, on the plains of Moab just outside the promised land. This week's portion opens with Moses nearing the end of the first section of his farewell address to the assembled people. Moses repeats the laws of Israel which aim at instilling the "good faith" in which the different social relationships (familial, economic, and legal) between members of Israelite society must be maintained.

This week's concluding reading from Isaiah records God's emphatic promises of reunion with the people of Israel, God's beloved "wife," and God's exuberant instructions to prepare for a future restoration and expansion.

Looking for something good to read?

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE by Marino

"Murderers dressed in sunday's best commit thought-crimes inspired by divine bureaucrats while obscure patterns radiate from an overdose on reality. I try to mean it when I smile."

WE ARE ALL GOD'S CHILDREN by Joseph Haddad
"Though we may have different languages, cultures, beliefs, and faiths, human beings remain fundamentally related to each other, members of an extended family."

THE NAKED CROWD by Jose Faur
"Hence, the Tora or Law of Israel involves both spiritual enlightenment and political freedom: one without the other strips Judaism from its significance."

GOY by Ranjit Chatterjee
"I am not a poet, much as I admire poets, like Milton who absolutely baffles me with his prodigious blind creativity and puritan sensuality, or Walt Whitman with his unabashed American confidence and grandeur that in a sane man would be called lunatic. Ah, sanity."

THE MISHNE TORAH ed. Yohai Makbili, et al
"The first of the positive precepts is to know that there exists a God, as it is written 'I am the LORD, your God' (Exodus 20,2; Deuteronomy 5,6)."

Questions and Commentary

"If you no longer desire [the woman you captured], you must release her; you may not sell her for money or treat her harshly, for you have violated her." [ 21:14 ]

Her captor is told by the Torah, "you have violated her." That in itself was no doubt news to men's ears. "What do you mean I violated her? I just did what any red-blooded male would do," one can just hear these men protest. The root of "violated" isanat, which is the name of the vengeful Canaanite goddess raped by her father and her brother. It is the same verb used to describe the rape of Dinah (Gen. 34:2) and the Egyptian oppression of the Jews (Ex. 1:11-12, 3:7). Judith Antonelli

"You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together."
[ 22:10 ]

...the Torah forbids us to plow a field with an ox and donkey together. Can you think of any logic behind this law? Menachem Leibtag

"You shall not abhor an Edomite, for he is your brother; you shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land." [ 23:8 ]

...Let us try to extract some relevant principles from among the Mosaic imperatives regarding certain peoples who were unfriendly to Israel....The descendants of Esau had inherited the hostility of their ancestor toward Jacob with such intensity that the king of Edom refused the Hebrews simple passage through his country. Nevertheless, Moses instructed his people not to hate the Edomites, for they are our brethren. And in order to make clear that this injunction is not due to the kinship between Esau and Jacob, he amplifies it in the same verse: "You shall not abhor an Egyptian, for you were a stranger in his land" (Dt 23:8). Why is this said? Could it be claimed that Egypt lavished a benevolence upon Israel beyond what she received from other peoples? To the contrary, indeed, the Jews were so ill treated there that they had all the more reason to be grateful to the other nations. If the text, then, invokes the memory of Egyptian hospitality, it must be an acknowledgement that the generous reception which Israel was initially granted in that country ought to be more remembered than the severe suffering which came later. Elijah Benamozegh

"Since God, your Authority, walks in the midst of your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you, let your camp be holy; let [God] not find anything unseemly among you and turn away from you." [ 23:15 ]

These words caution us about the types of destructiveness which are known among soldiers when they are away from their homes a long time. God therefore instructed us about actions which bring upon consideration the resting of the Divine Presence among us, so that we will be saved from those [destructive] actions....In order that it will be rooted within everyone that the camp is like the sanctuary of God, and is not like the camps of the nations - in regards to destructiveness and negligence, interpersonal injury and the taking of wealth, and nothing more - rather our goal is the rectification of human beings towards God's service and the regularity of their circumstance. Moses Maimonides

"God called you, like a brokenhearted and abandoned wife - a young wife that was rejected, declared your Authority; for a brief moment I abandoned you, but with great compassion I gather you back. " [ Isaiah 54:6-7 ]

For us, the scenario of the rejected woman reconciling with her husband may resonate all too well with the familiar domestic reality of battered wives rejoicing in a reunion with their abusers. Such an association strips the prophecy of all redemptive promise. In order for the metaphor to hold its power, its readers must go along with the unspoken assumption of the prophet/poet, which is that, in this scenario, the man is completely righteous in his anger toward his woman; that she has, in fact, betrayed him...This metaphor reflects the way the Israelites viewed themselves in relation to God. It was their sin that caused their exile. Israel, though powerless and exiled, sees itself as the one whose actions drive the situation...Forgiveness and liberation comprise the ultimate theme of this haftarah. God's love endures beyond all physical existence. The expression of such love through a sexist metaphor is simply an affirmation that complete redemption is imaginable, describable, if even from a limited perspective. For us, it is comforting to know that we don't have to be able to perfectly envision the fully redeemed world in order to believe that it is possible.Vivian Mayer

News and Views

Who's Selfish Now?

[ economics @ YUTOPIA ]

Tony Judt

[ eulogy @ A Perpetual Pilgrim ]

Desert crossroads

[ follow-up @ Lazer Beams ]

The Treifa Big City

[ review @ Hirhurim-Musings ]

New translation of Isaiah for Yom Kippur

[ haftarah @ Velveteen Rabbi ]

Kosher Veganarchy in the UK!

[ progress @ The Jew and the Carrot ]

Kosher Food but non-Kosher Behavior

[ opinion @ Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals ]

Spread The Words!

Share this email with your friends so they can learn more about what’s happening at Derusha Publishing.

Oil Spills, Global Hip-Hop, and the Soundtrack to Social Progression

2010-08-09T21:10:00.001-04:00

Over at Shempseed, our good friend Y-Love is single-handed saving the world in-between shows and recording sessions:

TWO HOT NEW SINGLES FROM EVERYONE'S FAVORITE REVOLUTIONARY MC, Y-LOVE

August brings two hot new single from "the soundtrack to social progression", Y-Love. Y-Love's first single from his hotly anticipated forthcoming record This is Unity, ‘Move On’, produced by Diwon and featuring DeScribe, is the beginning of the era of "global hip-hop" -- where global social consciousness combines with pop for the kids on the street. The single will be released worldwide on August 10th. The second single, "If Not Now, When?" is an audio fundraiser for the Gulf Restoration Network (GRN) and could be downloaded as a name your own price download now.

MOVE ON

Y-Love's first single from his hotly anticipated forthcoming record This is Unity, ‘Move On’, produced by Diwon and featuring DeScribe, is the beginning of the era of "global hiphop" -- where global social consciousness combines with pop for the kids on the street. The club-friendly track is the first off the upcoming album, takes a page out of the Young Money playbook while keeping with Y-Love’s signature anti-prejudice message -- 'unity builds the world, all divisions destroy the world'.Y-Love, "the soundtrack to social consciousness", (as URB Magazine called him) keeps This is Unity’s tracks ready for the mainstream while still pushing positive and constructive energy in a world often content with misdirected rage. Israeli superstar Sabbo (of Soulico fame) was feeling the track and went in on the remix - bringing the world-changing party atmosphere to a whole new level

IF NOT NOW, WHEN?

Since the times of the civil rights movement, slavery and time immemorial, the call for justice has often found its voice in music. From the oldest spiritual to the singer-songwriter movement of the '60s to the politically-charged hip-hop of today, the voice of the oppressed have often been heard on the stage from an artist on a stage hoping to change the world through his art.

Today, the BP oil spill, the worst environmental disaster in our nation's history, is the headline on our minds. Millions of gallons of oil poured into the Gulf of Mexico for week after week, ruining delicate ecosystems, poisoning waterways, and devastating entire communities whose livelihoods revolve around the sea. America watched as BP tried to downplay the tragedy, before turning to accountability and resolve to fix the crisis they were responsible for.

Brooklyn Hip-Hop artist Y-Love (Yitz Jordan) drove to Louisiana in early July to see the devastation first-hand and was deeply moved by his experience in the South. He echoed the call for justice for the Gulf by writing his new song, "If Not Now, When?" The powerful track features an inspiring cinematic Hip-Hop beat produced by Diwon (Erez Safar), the world music mastermind behind Shemspeed Records. The lyrics are hard-hitting recounts of the Gulf oil spill, and how the region is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina over 5 years ago. Y-Love launched the site Hip-Hop Activist (hiphopactivist.com) soon after returning from the Gulf, designed to be a "blog to motivate social change," empowering the urban music communities to create positive change in the world.

Proceeds from "If Not Now, When?" will go to benefit Gulf Restoration Network (GRN), an organization committed to uniting and empowering people to protect and restore the natural resources of the Gulf Region for future generations. GRN has been active in the oil disaster cleanup since the region was first threatened, mobilizing volunteers for cleanup and helping to save the already damaged wildlife.

"We can all fix the world - if not now, when?" Y-Love exhorts in the chorus of this underground Hip-Hop tune, staying true to his message of using his music "to elevate the world, not to tranquilize minds." Y-Love, currently in the process of recording his album , This is Unity, scheduled for release in early 2011, is working on a video for "If Not Now When?", and leading up to the release of his single "Move On" on August 10th. Y-Love was called the "soundtrack to social progression" by URB Magazine, and his pro-unity message of positive change has been well-received globally, from Australia to Ukraine. Y-Love has been featured on the Conan O'Brien Show, BBC World TV, and in the CBS documentary, "Faith, Music, and Culture." XXL magazine called Y-Love, "the MC making Hip-Hop kosher", a reference to Y-Love's own conversion to Orthodox Judaism.

"If Not Now, When?" is available at http://shemspeed.com/dl/grn, which allows users to donate as they see fit. Download the song to donate to GRN, and help rebuild the gulf.

Thoughts on the Torah Portion from the Dominican Republic

2010-08-06T12:21:00.001-04:00

Yehonatan Elazar-DeMota and his wife are doing some great work in the Dominican Republic. As they help the Dominican-Sepharadi Jewish community become sustainable and independent, hakham Yehonatan currently heads the local Jewish school he founded (Beit Midrash Nidhe Israel) while also helping to provide kosher meat and other foods for the community.

He sent out the following thoughts on this week's Torá portion:

Shalom yehidim. La perashá de ésta semana se titula Re'éh (mire). Ella comienza con una exhortación a guardar los mandamientos revelados en Sinaí. El Eterno nos ortoga la oportunidad de escojer todos los días entre bendición o maldición---la bendición si guardamos la Torá y malidición si nos desviamos de ella. Esta perashá incluye la miswáh de destruir la memoria y nombres de los dioses de Kena'an, no comer la sangre de los animales, destruir la ciudad dada a la abodath zaráh, ejecutar a los israelitas que desvían a los demás para su perdición, kashruth (leyes dietetícas), el diezmo, la shemitáh (año sabático), la caridad monetaria, servidumbre hebrea, las primicias y primogénitos y fiestas religiosas. Como vemos, todos éstos asuntos son vitales para la existencia y continuidad del pueblo de Israel.

Cuando las naciones consideran al pueblo de Israel, muchas veces los primero que piensan es las riquezas que tienen. Esto se debe a la bendición que El Abastado, bendicho Sea, les ha ortogado, bajo la condición de mantenerse "separados" para El. Los Sabios de Israel interpretan el versículo "diezmando diezmarás...", (Deb./Deut.14:22) utilizando la flexibilidad linguistíca del hebreo, para revelar el secreto de la bendición económica. El texto dice תעשר" עשר", pero se puede cambiar la letra sin por shin, resultando en "aser teasher". De ésta manera da entender, "diezmando te enriquecerás". La Torá prohibe poner a prueba la palabra del Eterno. Sin embargo, hay sólo una cosa que está permitida poner a pruebas---diezmar y esperar la abundancia de riquezas. Considere lo que dijo el profeta Malakhí "Traed todos los diezmos al alfolí y haya alimento en mi Casa: Probadme ahora en esto, dice el Eterno de los ejércitos, a ver si no os abrolas ventanas de los cielos y derramo sobre vosotros bendición hasta que sobreabunde" (Mal 3:10).

Muchos han tomado éste pasaje para manipula y robar de personas sinceras. Sin embargo, en realidad el contexto del diezmo no se refiere al dinero, sino a los frutos y animales de la Tierra que se llevan al Templo como ofrenda. De hecho, hay 4 tipos de diezmos en la Torá : terumáh, ma’aser rishón, ma’aser shení y ma’aser oní. Todos aplican exclusivamente cuando el Templo está en pie en Jerusalén y no a ninguna institución religiosa. Por otro lado, él que acustumbre apartar una porción de sus bienes para darlo a los pobres, verá bendición de ello. El siguiente relato demuestra éste fenómeno:

Cada vez que los colectores de la caridad veían al R. Eleazar ben Birtáh se escondían de él, porque él tenía la costumbre de regalar todo lo que tenía. Un día iba al mercado a comprar un ajuar de novia para su hija. Cuando los colectores de caridad lo vieron, se escondieron de él. Él corrió detrás de ellos y les dijo: Yo os conjuro, díganme ¿a cuál misión se dedican? Y ellos respondieron: [El matrimonio de] un par de huérfanos. Él dijo entonces: te lo juro, que debe tener prioridad sobre mi hija. Y tomó todo lo que tenía y lo dio a ellos. Él se quedó con un zuz (centavo) y con eso se compró trigo que y lo depositó en el granero. Cuando su esposa regresó a casa le preguntó a su hija, "¿Qué trajo tu padre a casa?" Ella respondió: Él ha puesto en el granero todo lo que él había comprado. Ella entonces fue a abrir la puerta del granero y se encontró con que estaba tan llena de trigo que el trigo sobresalía de las bisagras de la puerta y no se abría a causa de aquello.

La hija se dirigió al Beth-Hamidrash (Casa de Estudio) y le dijo a él [su padre], Vengan a ver lo que Su amigo ha hecho por ti. Entonces él le dijo, te lo juro, serán para ti como propiedad dedicada, y tú no tendrás más derecho a participar en ellos que cualquier persona pobre en Israel. (T.Bablí. Ta'anith 24a)

La Sagrada Torá dice: "Cuando haya algún pobre entre tus hermanos en alguna de tus ciudades, en la tierra que El Eterno, tu Dio, te da, no endurecerás tu corazón ni le cerrarás tu mano a tu hermano pobre, sino que le abrirás tu mano liberalmente y le prestarás lo que en efecto necesite". (Deb./Deut. 15:7-8)

Que Adonay les otorgue el mérito de ser como el Rabí Eleazar ben Birtáh y tener las bendiciones prometidas por El.

Boas entradas de Sabá

This Week's Derusha Update: Building Community With Charity (news, views, and great weekend reading)

2010-08-05T21:55:00.001-04:00

The Derusha Update

From around the world of books and blogs - 
Thoughts on the weekly Torah portion and more / 
Enjoy!

This Week's Portion:
"See! I Am Placing Before You..."
[ Deut 11:26-16:17 ]
Sat Aug 7, Shabbath "Menahem" Av 27

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The children of Israel are about to enter the promised land. This week's portion opens with Moses addressing the assembled people. He repeats many of the laws of Israel relating to sanctity (such as a central sanctuary, dietary discipline, and festivals) and civil conduct (such as economic laws and labor laws).

This week's concluding reading from Isaiah describes the restoration of the people of Israel to their social role as God's "witness to the world," as they gain confidence in God's commitment and dedication to them.

Questions and Commentary

"See! I am placing before you a blessing and a curse today." [ 11:26 ]

Is there any logical reason for this 'blessing & curse' to appear specifically at this point in Sefer Devarim? Menachem Leibtag

"You shall not eat anything that has died a natural death; give it to the stranger in your community to eat, or you may sell it to a foreigner...." [ 14:21 ]

The Mosaic Law accepts as legitimate the presence in the land of Israel of foreigners who do not adhere to the Mosaic religion. Such a "proselyte of the gate" or resident stranger (ger-toshav), fellow-citizen thought not co-religionist, is to be distinguished from the "proselyte of the law" (ger-tsedek), who has completely converted to Judaism. Not only are proselytes of the gate exempt from the dietary prohibitions in the Law, but Israelites, who cannot eat the flesh of an animal which has not been ritually slaughtered, are urged to give it to them rather than sell it to an ordinary stranger. This statute is valuable to us for two reasons: the charitable motive which inspires it, and its clear recognition of a legitimate though non-Mosaic category of religion. Elijah Benamozegh

"You shall set aside every year a tenth part of all the yield of your sowing...You shall consume the tithes...in the place where God will choose...." [ 14:22-27 ]

Since the tithes are of foodstuffs which can be easily accumulated in preparation for the visit to Jerusalem, and since he can probably not consume them alone, he will be compelled to give part of it away as charity. This gathering together of many people simultaneously in the same place, and their sharing possessions with others, will inevitably strengthen the bond of community and love among the people. Moses Maimonides

"Ho! All the thirsty, come for water, and the one without money; Come! Buy and eat! Buy without money, Free! Wine and milk! Why do you spend money for what is not bread, your profits for what does not satisfy?" [ Isaiah 55:1 ]

The prophet warns us not to waste our resources on objects of illusory worth. In contrast to the apparently physical riches of the first part of the haftarah, the riches of the second part are spiritual. These are true delicacies, not distracting material enticements. True food, true knowledge, and true spirituality are not material. They are not "empty calories." God's spiritual bounty here is metaphorically called water, milk, and wine. ...In the physical world, man, woman, and God are all partners in bringing forth nourishment. In the symbolism of our text, water, milk, and wine are seen as the products of this partnership. Looking again at the haftarah, we see that God is telling us that the best things in life are free. They are not the illusory treasures and toys of materialism. The best that life has to offer is spiritual. Joanne Yocheved Heiligman

News and Views

Local Journalist Speaks with the Author of "Goy"

[ interview @ The Derusha Notebook ]

Do-It-Yourself Theodicy

[ review @ Hirhurim-Musings ]

Where's my Jewish athletes bible?

[ suggestions @ Jewschool ]

Kiwi Confidential

[ wine @ The Jew and the Carrot ]

Opposition mounts against lower Manhattan JCC

[ satire @ mobius1ski ]

Looking for something good to read?

WHAT IS THE MEANING OF LIFE by Marino

The early poems of a next-generation beatnik.

WE ARE ALL GOD'S CHILDREN by Joseph Haddad
A religious humanist guide to the Hebrew Bible.

THE NAKED CROWD by Jose Faur
An introduction to the differences between Western and Jewish politics.

GOY by Ranjit Chatterjee
An autobiographical story of a spiritual search for God beyond language.

THE MISHNE TORAH ed. Yohai Makbili, et al
The entire Oral Law of the Jewish people in a single volume.

Spread The Words!

Share this email with your friends so they can learn more about what’s happening at Derusha Publishing.

Coming Together Through Education: P2P Diplomacy in Israel

2010-08-03T20:43:00.001-04:00

Two articles on the efficacy of "P2P" (peer-to-peer) diplomacy, taking place outside "official" diplomatic channels and institutions:

In Jerusalem this summer, 100 Israeli and Palestinian students are learning to communicate with the "other" while mastering basic science and business skills.

MEET – Middle East Education through Technology -- http://meet.mit.edu/ -- was youth-created in 2004 by students who dreamed of inventing a "social start-up" to engage youths from both sides.

"I had to fly over oceans to meet people who lived 10 minutes away from me [in Israel]," said Anat Binur, founder and member of the executive board, who grew up in the Israeli town of Herzliya.

"We created relationships and a feeling that changed the way I looked at the world and my ability to solve problems. It made it very clear to me that we had to create a generation for whom the reality was very different."

Fellow board member Abeer Hazboun, a native of Bethlehem in the West Bank, said the aim was not necessarily to make the students best friends, but to teach them to work as partners.

"We wanted to create an alternative model for classical conflict resolution and try to bring students who we believe have the potential to be leaders in the future and invest in them, empower them, educate them, provide them with skills of 21st century," Hazboun said.

"It was a great opportunity in MEET to meet Israelis and see their point of view," said Rawan Abu Lafi, a 16-year-old Palestinian junior from Shuafat, a neighborhood bordering Jerusalem and the West Bank city of Ramallah.

"It was a great opportunity to meet Palestinians," chimed in Adam Ochayon, 17, from the Israeli town of Mevaseret and a fellow participant in the program.

Participants come from both Arab and Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as well as the West Bank cities of Ramallah and Bethlehem and the Israeli towns of Beit Shemesh and Mevaseret. Those who live outside of Jerusalem reside in campus dormitories in rooms shared by Israelis and Palestinians.

"In the overnight it's a great opportunity to get to know each other," said Ochayon. "It really gets personal. You sleep in the same room. You can't really tell the difference. It doesn't really matter if you are Israeli or Palestinians."

The idea is to teach conflict resolution through computer science and business. Instructors come from prestigious American technology university MIT, the primary partner of MEET.

"On the first day I walked in and I couldn't tell the difference between the Israelis and Palestinians, but I noticed there were clear-cut groups already and they seemed to be speaking either in Arabic or Hebrew and it was hard to try and figure out how to bring them together," said instructor AnnaPremo.

"But after the first week and they knew each other better and it was easier."

Local Journalist Speaks With The Author Of Goy

2010-07-22T23:00:00.002-04:00

Brooke Kenney, staff writer at the Business Gazette in Maryland, describes her reaction to Derusha author Ranjit Chatterjee and his spiritual autobiography, Goy:

Spend just a few minutes talking with Silver Spring's Ranjit Chatterjee, and you'll realize he has little interest in the mundane. Read just a few pages of his new memoir, "Goy," and you'll learn what does interest him – adventure, family, philosophy and Jewish studies with a dash of linguistics on top.

The book is a flowing combination of all these areas, with Chatterjee recounting his life from childhood and mixing in Jewish history and culture as well as philosophical explorations along the way.

To hear his life experiences recounted in his book, you might think he has lived the life of 10 men. He had an affair with a married woman he met on a badminton court. He took a freight boat across the Pacific to visit his native India. He learned photography, married and divorced a Japanese artist and ate turtle soup on Mexico's Isla Mujeres.

He has traveled all over the world. Born in Calcutta, he earned various college degrees in Delhi, Prague, Jamaica and Chicago. He speaks English, French, German, Czech, Bengali, Hindi and a little Caribbean Creole.

He says he didn't seek out adventure, but rather found it through happenstance and circumstance. He had expected to live his entire life in India.

The book's title is a Yiddish word for a non-Jew that also can mean "a nation."

Chatterjee does not consider himself Jewish, but instead a scholar of Judaism. He was inspired to learn about the religion and culture by various people in his life, not the least of which were his parents.

One story the author writes about is when his mother told him a disturbing Holocaust story. Ranjit was only about 6 years old, but his mother decided to tell him a horrific story about Nazis who buried Jewish people up to their waists and then sent in vicious dogs to attack their upper bodies. That was really the beginning, he says, of his interest in the plight of Jewish people.

"I know that my father was never any kind of racist, which is very common in India," Chatterjee says.

His father was a surgeon in the Indian army who was commissioned to serve with the British army in North Africa and Europe during World War II. His father almost never spoke of the atrocities he witnessed.

"Once, in the presence of an elderly Jewish friend of mine," writes Chatterjee, "the conversation at the dinner table turned to his war experiences. My father got up from his chair to leave the room so abruptly that the chair back broke and the painfulness of the memories of what he knew or had seen was amply confirmed."

In addition to earning a doctorate in Slavic languages and having his dissertation published as a book, Chatterjee co-edited "Tropic Crucible: Self and Theory in Language and Literature" (1984) and wrote "Wittgenstein and Judaism: A Triumph of Concealment" (2005). The latter book is about an Austrian philosopher who, Chatterjee argues, was secretly a Jewish thinker who had to mask his ideology because of the anti-Semitism of the time.

Chatterjee now works as an adjunct professor of English at the University of Maryland University College and as a senior research scholar at the Joseph and Rebecca Meyerhoff Center for Jewish Studies at the University of Maryland.

Chatterjee wrote the bulk of the book about 10 years ago when he had some free time after a move from Chicago to Washington, D.C. About two years ago, he heard of a small publishing company called Derusha and decided to submit his manuscript for consideration. They took on his work.

He says he wrote the book for his children and for other who may know him, but not know his entire life story.

"There's no one person who sort of tracked me throughout my life," he says. "And if I didn't put it all down, nobody would know."

And the author, with his typical modest tone, explains why he thought others might want to read about him.

"I think it's a bit of a unique life."

"Goy" is available for purchase at www.amazon.com.

Maftirim Music Project

2010-07-21T18:25:00.000-04:00

Karen Gerson Sarhon, of the Sepharadi cultural research center of Istanbul, recently sent out the following update about a recent publication:

Our Sephardic Center in Istanbul has been trying to finish a major work ever since its foundation in 2003; to bring to light the wonderful collection of the Maftirim, which the great masters of this music, David Behar, the late hazzan Isak Macorro and hazzan David Sevi had recorded in 1987. The nearly 6 hours of audio-visual material is just extraordinary to listen to as the voices are of those rare voices that you do not come by very often.

The book that accompanies the audio-visual material was accomplished with the aid of other great masters like Prof. Edwin Seroussi of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Prof. Tova Beeri of Tel-Aviv University, Prof. Isaac Jerusalmi of Hebrew Union College, Cincinnatti, Udi Mahmut Ozbay, expert of Turkish music, etc.

All the information in the book is in three languages: Turkish, English and Judeo-Spanish. The book also contains the scores of all the collection!

You can ask us to send you the brochure we have prepared for the sales of this masterpiece (and I sincerely hope you can buy it), which is part of our cultural heritage.

To order this magnificent work, all you have to do is send us your credit card no. (16-digit Visa or Mastercard) + the exp date + the 3-digit security no at the back of your card either by fax to: +90 212 231 92 83 (to the atten of Gila Erbes) or by e-mail (preferably in 3-4 e-mails for security reasons) to karensarhon@gmail.com or to kitabevi@salom.com.tr

Please forward this information to all you know who are interested in liturgic music, in Sephardic music and also in Turkish Classical Music to help us sell this work and continue preserving our culture.

(Hat-tip to David Shasha)

Coexistence at the "Jaffa Arab-Hebrew Theater"

2010-07-05T17:44:00.000-04:00

In the city of Yaffo (Jaffa), along the coast north of Jerusalem, residents continue to turn to the arts as a medium through which to express ideas of coexistence.

According to Israel 21c:

[The Arab-Hebrew Theater has been around since 1998, surviving the dark days of the second intifada, the Second Lebanon War and Operation Cast Lead. The troupe comprises two veteran theater companies that previously worked in the area independently: Ezrati's 'Local Theater,' established in 1990, and the Arabic-language 'Al-Seraya,' which first started performing in 1997. Together with his partner Gaby Aldor, Ezrati reached out to Adiv Jahshan, director of Al-Seraya, to establish the Arab-Hebrew Theater.

With its mixed Arab and Jewish population, Jaffa is the perfect place for the troupe to operate. In the spirit of true coexistence, the troupes both work independently, performing plays strictly in Arabic or Hebrew, and hold joint productions in which they mix actors and languages. All the performances are held in the Al-Seraya House. Originally built in the 18th century as a khan (a lodging house or inn), it was later used for purposes as diverse as a governor's mansion and a soap factory.

Today the building is a national landmark, housing both a museum of archaeological finds from ancient Jaffa, and the Arab-Hebrew Theater. The actors with the Local Theater have hailed from all over the country, but are "now mostly Tel Aviv transplants," Ezrati says, while the members of Al-Seraya come mostly from Jaffa.

The joint efforts are 'joint' in every sense of the word, with productions, scripts, and even performance dates decided upon together. The productions chosen generally reflect the troupes' point of view on coexistence, Ezrati explains. For example, he says, the theater's production of 1001 Nights last year was chosen not just because it's a good story, but because it has an important message for Arabs and Jews.

(Hat-tip to Libby and Len Traubman)

Riding the French Friendship Bus

2010-06-24T13:49:00.002-04:00

In France, some Jewish and Muslim communal leaders have not been shirking their responsibility to educate youth about the importance of creating dialogue and understanding between human beings:

On a hot afternoon in early June, an unusual looking bus is parked in the central square of this historic city in eastern France.

Passers-by cast sidelong glances at the brightly colored portraits on its side accompanied by such slogans as “Jews and Muslims say no to discrimination” and “We are more alike than you think.”

It is the friendship bus, a project of the French Jewish-Muslim Friendship group, known by the acronym AJMF.

Led by a rabbi and imam, the bus and its team spend five weeks every summer traveling through the French countryside hosting panel discussions, chatting with pedestrians, promoting dialogue, and holding out the hope of mutual respect and cooperation between two communities more often found at odds.

“This is our sixth summer touring France,” said Rabbi Michel Serfaty, AJMF's founder and co-leader of the bus project with Imam Mohamed Azizi. “We fight discrimination and stereotypes, and try to break down the walls between our young people.”

Check out the Jewish Telegraph Agency for the full story.

(Hat-tip to Libby and Len Traubman)

The First Comprehensive Muslim-Jewish Engagement Field Report

2010-05-18T17:49:00.000-04:00

The folks at the University of Southern California's Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement have released the very first report on the dialogue occurring between Muslim and Jewish communities in the United States. From their press release:

Debunking conventional wisdom, Muslim and Jewish groups throughout the United States are dialoguing with one another in increasing numbers. A report on the field of Muslim-Jewish engagement issued by the Center for Muslim-Jewish Engagement (CMJE) indicates that the number of organizations and groups with missions to build relationships between Islamic and Jewish communities in the United States has been growing since 2001 and has risen significantly in the last two years.

This report marks the first comprehensive survey of the burgeoning field and provides recommendations for strengthening and expanding the work done by practitioners. “To grow the field of Muslim-Jewish engagement, we first need to understand it,” says Dafer M. Dakhil, CMJE founding co-director.

CMJE represents the only academic think tank and resource center in North America dedicated specifically to Muslim-Jewish relations. The Center collected data from organizations in the United States and Canada and from participants in the second annual Weekend of Twinningsm, a program that partners mosques, synagogues, and other organizations for a weekend of interfaith programming. The surveys revealed the following trends:
There has been a significant increase in the formation of these groups after 2001. Nearly half of the groups founded since then were formed within the last 24 months.
While these groups largely rely on a small core of volunteers, they have extensive networks. Over half of responding groups reach 100 people or more annually. Over a quarter report reaching over 500 people.
The tech-savvy nature of these groups allows them to reach expanding numbers. Nearly two-thirds possess a website.
The groups have aspirations to expand their public presence but lack financial and staff resources.
Groups desire online educational, leadership-building and programmatic resources.
Events like the Weekend of Twinningsm lead to ongoing organizational relationships that extend beyond formal programming.
Groups engaging in this groundbreaking movement range from intimate groups to national collaborations. In Atlanta, for example, the Jewish-Muslim Women’s Baking Circle brings women of all ages around a kitchen table to bake and build relationships across religious boundaries. The group describes itself as “an informal gathering of women who meet from time to time to bake and talk.” The Foundation for Ethnic Understanding — the organization responsible for the annual Weekend of Twinningsm has created the largest Muslim-Jewish initiative to date. Groups’ objectives include everything from basic education and combating hate to community action and policy advocacy. While much of the focus is external, “the deepest change that students of Muslim-Jewish engagement experience is in their own self understanding,” says Rabbi Reuven Firestone, founding co-director of CMJE.

Volunteer Opportunity with Tav HaYosher

2010-05-05T15:28:00.004-04:00

Tav HaYosher, the independent regulatory organization launched by Uri L'Tzedek, is looking for volunteers! From their latest newsletter:

The Tav HaYosher is seeking volunteer Compliance Officers to certify kosher restaurants that they meet ethical standards. Dedicating only a couple of hours every 2 months, you will have the opportunity to be at the cutting edge of local Jewish activism and a crucial member of volunteer community ensuring kosher restaurants meet ethical standards of employee treatment. Please contact info@utzedek.org to discuss.

Judith Antonelli on Shemitta - "The Land's Sabbath"

2010-05-02T23:33:00.005-04:00

In her masterpiece, In the Image of God: A Feminist Commentary on the Torah, Judith Antonelli provides an historical and cultural context for the Biblical narratives and laws, sourced in the Rabbinic textual tradition, with a pervasive concern for humanism and ecology. Declaring "Mother Nature" to be the theme of the Tora portions of Behar and Behuqothai, Antonelli describes the relationship between the seven-year cycle of land use and rest, and the seven-day cycle of human activity and rest:

When you come to the Land that I am giving you, the Land must rest in a Sabbath to Hashem. Six years you will plant your field, and six years you will prune your vineyard and gather her crops. In the seventh year there will be a Shabbat Shabbaton for the Land, a Sabbath of Hashem. (Lev. 25:2-4)

I will command My blessing to you in the sixth year, and the Land will produce crops for three years. You will plant in the eighth year but will eat from the old crops until the ninth year. (Lev. 25:21-22)

Every seventh year the Land had to have a Sabbath, just as every seventh day the Jews had to have a Sabbath. Furthermore, enough food would be produced in the sixth year to last until the ninth year, just as the double portion of manna given in the wilderness on the sixth day lasted through the Sabbath.

Just as refraining from working at our jobs on the Sabbath requires faith that God will provide enough income for us, so too the observance of Shmitah requires faith that God will provide enough food. On a purely physical level, Shmitah allows the land to regenerate itself by lying fallow for a year; on a spiritual level, Shmitah affirms that the land belongs to God and may not be subjected to unlimited human exploitation. Similarly, the Sabbath allows us to regenerate ourselves by "lying fallow" for a day, and affirms that our creative endeavors also ultimately belong to God.

That the Jews found it difficult to have such faith is indicated in Leviticus 26:34-35. Because Shmitah was not observed, the Jews were exiled. Only through desolation was the Land of Israel given the rest it needed. The seventy years off Babylonian exile are said to correspond to the seventy Sabbatical Years that the Jews neglected to observe (Rashi). The term "Shabbat Shabbaton," which is also used to describe Yom Kippur (Lev. 16:31; 23:32), implies a relationship between Shmitah and atonement.

Josh Yuter on the Politics of Ordaining Female Rabbis

2010-04-29T23:54:00.002-04:00

Over at YUTOPIA, Josh Yuter (perhaps one of the best minds to be ordained at the R' Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary at Yeshiva University) offers an independent analysis of the controversy surrounding the issue of ordaining women as rabbis. After discussing the similar approaches of members of the Conservative Movement and members of the Orthodox Movement (and providing a thought-provoking definition of "Orthodox Judaism"), Yuter muses:

The irony of the dispute over women's ordination is that both sides are employing similar authoritarian tactics of forcing their authority on the broader community at large. The RCA could argue that it is fact their mandate to do so as a major Orthodox rabbinic organization. At the same time, no one who possesses any sort of rabbinic title has the right to demand or expect others to respect their degree or position as a religious authority. For example, a graduate of Yeshiva University's rabbinical school should not expect Jews in hareidi communities to seriously acknowledge their ordination and vice versa. In the spirit of egalitarianism, women who wish to be ordained as rabbis have no right to assume that because of their ordination they will be taken seriously as legitimate halakhic authorities, but just like male rabbis, they must constantly and consistently prove themselves to their specific constituents.

In contrast to the above debate, the Tanna Yehoshua Ben Perachya stated "עשה לך רב" – make for yourself a master (M. Avot 1:6). The choice of a spiritual leader is ultimately an individual one, not dictated by society, and there does not seem to be evidence to preclude a woman from being in this role regardless of title. This relationship is ideally a sacred bond, and one which must be entered into freely and nurtured regularly without the burdens of social politics. Similarly, all rabbis and rabbinic professionals must remember that their primary mission is not the defense of "Orthodox Judaism" – by any definition – but rather to teach Torah to the best of their ability.

In addition, it is also worth mentioning that within the terminology of the halakha, Jewish law, the word "rabbi" (originally pronounced "ribbi") referred to a judge ordained by the Supreme Court of Israel (or by a judge already ordained by the Court). Without a Supreme Court of Israel to ordain judges, there are no "rabbis"; which is perhaps why many Jewish communities across the world called their legal guides and spiritual leaders not "rabbis" or "rabbanim" but "hakhamim" - "sages," a title reflecting their own wisdom rather than their affiliation with an established institution.

The Chief Rabbi of England on a Judaism that is Relevant to the World

2010-04-22T16:33:00.003-04:00

A big hat tip to David Shasha for passing along this release:

Future Tense: Jews, Judaism, and Israel in the Twenty-first Century

By: Jonathan Sacks

https://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780805242690

Category: Religion - Jewish Life
Format: Hardcover, 304 pages
On Sale: April 20, 2010
Price: $26.95
ISBN: 978-0-8052-4284-3 (0-8052-4284-8)

ABOUT THIS BOOK

One of the most admired religious thinkers of our time issues a call for world Jewry to reject the self-fulfilling image of “a people alone in the world, surrounded by enemies” and to reclaim Judaism’s original sense of purpose: as a partner with God and with those of other faiths in the never-ending struggle for freedom and social justice for all.

We are in danger, says Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of forgetting what Judaism’s place is within the global project of humankind. During the last two thousand years, Jews have lived through persecutions that would have spelled the end of most nations, but they did not see anti-Semitism written into the fabric of the universe. They knew they existed for a purpose, and it was not for themselves alone. Rabbi Sacks believes that the Jewish people have lost their way, that they need to recommit themselves to the task of creating a just world in which the divine presence can dwell among us.

Without compromising one iota of Jewish faith, Rabbi Sacks declares, Jews must stand alongside their friends—Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Buddhist, and secular humanist—in defense of freedom against the enemies of freedom, in affirmation of life against those who desecrate life. And they should do this not to win friends or the admiration of others but because it is what a people of God is supposed to do.

Rabbi Sacks’s powerful message of tikkun olam—using Judaism as a blueprint for repairing an imperfect world—will resonate with people of all faiths.

A New Religious Ecology Curriculum for Teenagers

2010-04-19T20:23:00.005-04:00

A local interfaith advocacy group for ecological issues has created an educational tool for teenagers to develop their thoughts about God and their own participation in the environment:

GreenFaith and The Story of Stuff Project have teamed up to create, Let There Be ... Stuff?, a six-session curriculum for teenagers that explores the relationship between their consumption, their faith, and the health of the planet. GreenFaith and The Story of Stuff Project are offering free copies of the curriculum - a $35 value - to the first 1,000 houses of worship that register. Versions are available for Jewish and Christian teenagers.

To register to receive your free copy, click here now.

The curriculum is based on The Story of Stuff, a 20-minute web film that takes viewers on a provocative and eye-opening tour of the environmental and human costs of US consumer culture - tracking where our stuff comes from and where it goes when we throw it away. Over 10 million people worldwide have viewed the film, making it one of the most widely viewed environmental-themed short films ever. In May 2009, the film was featured on the front page of the New York Times, which called it a “sleeper hit in classrooms across the country.” Read the article or watch The Story of Stuff.

'“The Story of Stuff delivers a body blow to consumerism,” said the Rev. Fletcher Harper, GreenFaith's Executive Director. “For years, we've been bombarded with the message that we find fulfillment through consuming - a fundamentally anti-religious message. This film shows why this idea flunks, and the curriculum helps teens create a positive response.” “Annie Leonard is a modern-day prophet,” said Rabbi Lawrence Troster, GreenFaith's Rabbinic scholar. “People of all faiths need to hear her message and mobilize their congregations in response.”

“The Story of Stuff Project has received thousands of messages from religious groups since we released the film, revealing a deep resonance between their values and the message of The Story of Stuff,” said Annie Leonard, Director of the Project. “This curriculum will not only help young people explore what their faith asks of them, it will help them put their beliefs into action.”

Full Article

Saul Williams and the Future of Love

2010-04-15T21:37:00.000-04:00

Saul Williams, celebrated poet and independent musician, will be participating in a new "teleseminar" series (a project of Integral Spiritual Experience) on the subject of "love":

“I love you.”

Consider the impact that these words—spoken in the right place, at the right time, by the right person, in the right way—have had on your life. In our time, so many of the old words of the sacred have lost their capacity to move us, dethroned by the rigorous critiques of modernity and post modernity. But the authentic expression of love always holds a radical power to touch and even transform our lives.

We sometimes wait our whole lives to hear “I love you” spoken with total authenticity.

We may wait even longer to be able to say it. But to hear or speak these words sincerely is a complete affirmation of all that is sacred. For many of us today, the words ‘love’ and ‘meaning’ are virtually indistinguishable.

Yet, what do we mean by “love”? Is love simply the tender feeling you have for a friend or a relative, a lover or a spouse? Or is there something more profound about love’s meaning, something that accounts for its power to transform a life, in every way?

Love is more than just a feeling. Enlightened teachers through the ages have told us that love is the dynamic ground of all reality. If that’s true, then love can be seen as the actual force that drives evolution—the force the Greeks called Eros—as well as the enlivening joy that opens the heart.

So what is love, when we see it from both a personal and an evolutionary perspective? How do we find it, nurture it, and sustain it?

Modern science and philosophy point out that all levels of reality are evolving. The world of today is wildly different then the world of yesterday. Matter, body, mind and even spirit are in flux. When we understand the profound evolutionary context of life, we realize that love must be evolving as well.

Wow: The Evolution of Love—What a wild, important and profound idea!

Simply put: the meaning, purpose, and vision of love is changing.

In our time, the great truths about love—taught in different languages by teachers of every tradition are being re-shaped by modern and post-modern considerations. In this unique conversation, we engage these truths through an integral lens.

During this remarkable series of teleseminars, we'll be exploring questions like:
Which skills and principles of Integral Love can immediately raise your level of consciousness, and transform your relationships?
How does the dance of the Integral feminine and the Integral masculine affect almost every facet of your life?
Why is love the most crucial ingredient in effective shadow work, which we engage in to heal the unresolved emotional trauma of our past?
How does love impact the evolution of consciousness in the life of an individual and the life of a community?
How is love impacted by the level of consciousness of the lover and the beloved?
What is the relationship between love and spiritual enlightenment?
What are the structural patterns in the evolution of love?
How does our conscious participation change the evolution of love?
What new requisite skills are needed to forge deep, lasting relationships—the new human capacities that have the power to deepen our realization and to liberate our true and unique self?
What new gifts for the world can and must emerge from this radical inquiry into the nature of love?
What does love mean between a spiritual teacher and student?
How might love manifest in a business or organizational environment?

More Information

Galilee Moms Come Together For Peace

2010-04-14T21:49:00.000-04:00

We started the Muslim-Jewish Women's Network because it seems pretty clear that the restoration and inclusion of the voices of women worldwide is necessary in order to resolve the conflicts which beset human beings everywhere. Nitsana Bellehesen shares a heartening example of the fruits of women forming cross-cultural relationships:

For a group of Jewish, Christian, Druse and Moslem mothers living in Israel's Galilee region, peace starts in the home.

They started out trading recipes and home secrets - nothing unusual in a group of moms getting together to do that. But these mothers come from four different cultures living in Israel's northern Galilee region and were rarely in contact before.

Founded five years ago by Dr. Anat Pinto who was born in the area, the Christian, Moslem, Druze and Jewish women are a fiercely a-political group, dedicated to creating true friendship.

The Galilee moms range in age from 25 to 70, encompassing every level of education and type of occupation - they are lawyers, teachers, businesswomen, and housewives who share a willingness to leave their comfort zone to create a better society.

They plan seminars and activities for women from all over the country as part of the work of the new non-profit organization that they started last year, called Moms in the Galilee. Seminars focus on a topic that one of the moms specializes in. Two women gave a seminar on family finances, another taught how to cook with local herbs.

Nada, a Druze woman, says, "Someone who wants to make peace has to start from home."

Seeking God Through Jewish Biblical Interpretation

2010-04-13T20:40:00.002-04:00

David Shasha, the director of the Center for Sephardic Heritage, wrote an excellent essay called "Understanding Midrash," referring to the rabbinic genre of literary commentary, which appeared in the Huffington Post. Here's the full article:

While the Halakhah, Jewish civil and ritual law, is the stern discipline of Jewish life, the Aggadic Midrash is its fountain of creativity. The word Midrash comes from the Hebrew root D-R-SH meaning "to inquire" or "to seek." The word Aggadah comes from the Hebrew root N-G-D meaning "to tell" or "to narrate." Midrash is the mechanism that permits Jews to generate new and multiple meanings from the Sacred Scriptures.

The tradition of Midrash as interpretation can be found in the strikingly odd tale of Ezra the Scribe in Nehemiah 8:8, where Ezra stood before a gathering of the people and presented to them the text of the Law, "translating it and giving the sense so they understood the reading." Ezra -- the "Bookman" -- transformed Judaism into a text-centered religion which promoted study and critical investigation of its traditions.

In the period of the classical Sages, Midrash became a discipline unto itself, and many collections of Rabbinical Midrashim, most prominently the canonical Midrash Rabbah, were generated and later collected into books.

In her classic 1981 study of Rabbinic interpretation in the context of contemporary thought, The Slayers of Moses: The Emergence of Rabbinic Interpretation in Modern Literary Theory, Susan Handelman contrasts Midrashic hermeneutics to the Greek philosophical tradition:
The infinity of meaning and plurality of interpretation are as much as the cardinal virtues, even divine imperatives, for Rabbinic thought as they are the cardinal sins for Greek thought. The movement of Rabbinic interpretation is not from one opposing sphere to another, from the sensible to the nonsensible, but rather from "sense to sense," a movement into the text, not out of it.
Rabbinic Midrash begins with the text of Scripture in order to spin out infinities of new meaning through the agency of stories, interpretations, and exegetical acts. While the ethical aims of both the Greeks and Jews sought an ideality, the methods that the two groups used were quite different.

The great scholar Max Kadushin, in his seminal 1952 work The Rabbinic Mind, sees the Midrashic method of narrative expansion that he views in "organic" terms:
The organismic principle of integration is an all-embracing principle, taking in all the value-concepts in the complex and relating every concept to every other concept in an identical manner. Within this general, all-inclusive type of integration or relationship, however, there is room also for additional forms of integration having to do not with the complex as a whole but with numerous specific concepts.
Kadushin illuminates for us the ethical elements that drive Rabbinic thinking, elements that emerge from a kaleidoscopic reading of Scripture.

In Medieval times Rabbinic sermons centered around the rhetorical aspect called Melitzah. Melitzah is the Hebrew term signifying rhetorical ornamentation and poetical values. The expert Derashah was one in which, as Jose Faur has written in an article on Rabbi Joseph Dana and Jewish oratory, the eloquence and erudition of the rabbi were central:
In our hands has been preserved a unique and quite singular art whose entire substance has been refined from a definitively Jewish source: the derasha or the "rabbinical oratorical art." It would be germane to mention here that the Tanakh functioned within the Sephardic rabbinical tradition as a fully formed model of "rhetoric." In this tradition, "rhetoric" is not considered an ornamental setting devoid of substance, but a Jewish aesthetic that shapes "truth/beauty" into a single unity: a truth that is inimitably beautiful is inimitably true, and the reverse [...]. From the aesthetic standpoint, the accomplished Darshan is no less an artist than the poet, painter or composer.
The art of Derashah thus comprises the scholarly-intellectual, the ethical, the exegetical, the aesthetic, and the poetical. Its aim is to expound Scripture by means of narrative expansion, thus allowing the Darshan, the one making the Derashah, to formulate new and often innovative ideas that can encapsulate cultural, historical, scientific, and philosophical values that are seen as "emerging" from the ancient Biblical texts.

As the scholar James Kugel states so eloquently in his landmark 1983 article "Two Introductions to Midrash":
Here then is the crucial factor in the mentality of all early exegesis: for when what then happened in Scripture happens again and again, unfolds over and over, it is because the Bible is not "the past" at all. For it to be the past, its sense of time would necessarily need to be continuous with our own, and we would have to live amid a series of similarly God-dominated events, so that the whole flow of time from Abraham to now could make for one simple, consequential, story. Once this is no longer the case, biblical time becomes "other," a world wholly apart from ours, yet one which is constantly intersecting our own.
In the end, Midrash is a means to affirm the sanctity of the Hebrew Bible as Scripture, yet it permits us to engage in a meaningful dialogue with the text in order to evolve as mature human beings. The Biblical text thus takes on a dual aspect: the ancient stories are told and retold while our current concerns are addressed.

The Midrashic method contrasts with static historicism, known alternatively as "originalism" or as "fundamentalism," in its ability to adopt multiple perspectives and a pluralistic stance towards meaning in our lives. Rather than assume that the truth is a singular, univocal idea, the attitude found in the Platonic philosophy and adopted by Western civilization, Jewish tradition leaves room for multiple truths and a seemingly infinite chain of meaning that is exemplified in the use of the Midrashic method.

Bibliographical note: For those wishing to learn more about Midrash, I would like to recommend the many books of James Kugel, particularly In Potiphar's House (1990), The Bible As It Was (1997), and The Ladder of Jacob (2006). Another wonderful writer on Midrash is Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg whose three books also make Midrash accessible to the general reader.

Looking at the Sikh Environment Day as a Model for a Jewish Environment Day

2010-03-20T20:32:00.000-04:00

The Sikh Council on Religion and Education marked March 14 as Sikh Environment Day. Plans for the day involved:

During this observance, Sikhs can focus on ecological tips and improvement, and encourage raagis, or others, to perform environmentally themed shabads – hymns from the Sikh holy scriptures. A number of shabads extol the relationship between Sikhism and the environment, and Sikhs will be able to focus on their message during this celebration.

In honour of this day, it is proposed that all communities participate in a tree planting ceremony or various other activities listed below, or further listed in the EcoSikh Guidebook. In addition, we propose that all communities participate in a local environmental clean-up.

“Each community can create their own theme or follow one suggested by the EcoSikh initiative organised through the website. We hope that this particular day will be celebrated and the entire Sikh community will do something in solidarity around the world.”

Various celebrations will take place in Punjab and in other parts of India. In North America, several gurdwaras have committed to celebrating this day as a Sikh Environment day. Several Sikh Youth organisations also planning to celebrate this occasion.

What can people do for Sikh Environment Day?

Individuals Families:
Plant an EcoSikh garden or tree
Visit your local parks monthly as time for spiritual reflection and renewal
Gurdwaras/Organisations:
Ragis sing shabads with environmental themes
Distribute tree saplings
Organise a tree planting ceremony or plant saplings of plants in the Gurdwara complex.
Wider Community:
Become an active part of Earth Day celebrations (April 22nd)
Join interfaith environmental work camps and celebrations

Full Article

Leave a comment below and let us know what you think a Jewish Environment Day would look like!

Literary Salons Returning to Baghdad

2010-02-01T20:54:00.000-05:00

Throughout history, literary salons have been the forums in which people have discussed and debated the ideas which rest at the core of their societies and souls. We take it as a positive sign that these important popular institutions are on the rise once again in the city of Baghdad:

Speaking Freely Where Fear Rules
by John Leland

At the end of a week that included two spectacular bomb attacks, Ali al-Nijar left his home to talk about poetry. Mr. Nijar, a retired professor of agriculture, was squeezed in among 60 others at a weekly literary salon on Baghdad’s Mutanabi Street, one of about a dozen salons that have sprung up around the city in the last two years as violence has dropped.

“This is a product of freedom,” Mr. Nijar said, waiting for the featured speakers to arrive. The topic for the week was a poet named Abdul Wahab al-Bayati, one of the founders of modern Iraqi poetry. “Of course, there is fear in the city right now,” Mr. Nijar said. “But people don’t care about the bombings. I know the risk I’m taking, but I don’t care.”

For centuries salons were a vital part of Iraqi intellectual life, places where people of different classes or sects met to discuss culture, literature or ideas. At one time Baghdad had more than 200 salons, about a quarter of them run by Jews, said Tariq Harb, a lawyer who is a regular at several salons and hosts his own.

But during Saddam Hussein’s presidency, the salons dwindled away or went underground, as people objected to government control or feared the presence of government spies. In the sectarian violence that followed the 2003 American-led invasion, people were often afraid to meet in public.

Safia al-Souhail started her salon last April, after a level of peace had come to the city. It meets one afternoon a month at her home and ends after dark, which would have been unthinkable during the height of sectarian violence.

Full Article

Spirituality in Business: Trust in Money?

2009-11-30T11:59:00.000-05:00

In his book The Garden of Bliss, Shalom Arush continues the topic of trust in the Almighty, versus trust in the "almighty dollar" (a topic of his bestseller The Garden of Emuna). Re-iterating some of his earlier points, Arush writes that it all starts at the beginning of the year, Rosh ha-Shana:

A basic principle of Emuna* is the foundation of all financial dealings, commerce, business and income, namely, that each person’s entire income is predetermined from Rosh Hashanah (New Year Day) for the entire year.

The practical application of this principle is to trust Hashem.** We know that it is the responsibility of the Creator to provide for all of His creations. One can certainly trust The Creator to fulfill His*** responsibility. Therefore, a person will undoubtedly receive all that is predetermined for him, regardless of his efforts, wisdom or even righteousness. In addition, no person can in interfere with what is coming to another, or detract in any way from what was determined in Heaven, as our Rabbis said, "A person cannot touch what is prepared for his friend."

Only when a person understands this principle, believing in it with full and simple belief, can he feel totally secure in all his financial matters, and successfully pass all the Emuna tests, with calmness and happiness, without getting angry or impatient and without committing theft or fraud.

On a practical level, a person who has trust in Hashem does not think about money. He knows Hashem provides, and dwells on it no further. His entire mindset in matters of income can be summarized in two words: Hashem provides.

What is predetermined for you – you will receive.

The entire world is a series of Emuna tests. At every moment, the businessman is undergoing a test – whether to believe that his income is predetermined in Heaven or to believe that it depends on his own efforts. If he chooses the former, he feels calm and happy and conducts all of his dealings in a fair and righteous manner. If on the other hand, he chooses the latter belief, that his income depends on his own efforts, he feels nervous and pressured to continually increase his efforts and ploys in seeking money, even resorting to dishonesty and outright fraud.

Everything depends on the simple faith that all of a person’s income is predetermined with precision in Heaven. He simply must choose the channel though which to receive his blessings. He may choose a golden pipe – a righteous manner, which comes with happiness and calmness, or a sewer pipe, which comes with stress, strife and fraud.

With no emuna, a person in business is easily tempted to violate laws, both Torah and civil. This life is Purgatory leads to complications of shady deals, debts, and a life fraught with worry and difficulty.

Trust in money is a trap that many aspiring business people fall into. Driven by lust to expand their businesses and make more money, they make severe mistakes and miscalculations, often failing to see that their expenditures are more that the profits. Sometimes they increase sales by recklessly undercutting their competition. Ultimately, blinded from their cash turnover when in actuality they’re losing money, they collapse under the weight of tremendous debts.

Obviously, the above scenario is the outcome of faulty emuna, when a person fails to run his business with good judgment, not letting things run the way that Hashem wants, which means, with whatever resources that Hashem provides. A person with emuna understands that if Hashem wants him to invest a lot of money, Hashem would have given him the full sum. He’s not foolish enough to think that Hashem is low on funds or that He needs financing, or maybe a killer-interest loan from a loan shark. If Hashem gave him a smaller amount than he wants to invest, it’s a sign that Hashem wants that he should run his business on a smaller scale. There will a Divine blessing on the small business, and he would be able to continue and do additional business. But without emuna, a person thinks that large investments will yield bigger profits, therefore he puts himself in great danger. He invests other people’s money in a business that won’t necessarily succeed. And even if it will succeed – it is doubtful whether he will be able to repay the loans that he incurred because of this business.

- The Garden of Bliss by Shalom Arush (translated by Lazer Brody)

* "Emuna" - a term denoting belief, conviction (especially in God and divine providence).

** "Hashem" - a Hebrew way of referring to God (lit. "the name").

*** While God is often described with masculine language, this is merely a human convention, as God does not have any gender, of course.

American Wisdom: The American Sense of Fact

2009-11-29T13:24:00.002-05:00

We continue our series on Lin Yutang's masterpiece on American culture, "On The Wisdom Of America," with Yutang's presentation of a certain philosophical trend towards ungrounded abstractions, contrasted with a certain trend in American thought towards more solid conclusions found through experience and intuition:

One of the most remarkable and clearest facts about American thought is the strong American sense of fact. It would gladly sell its tons of encased philosophic systems for a strong touch of the fluidity of experience. It feels the ground cautiously as it advances and is not likely to accept or worship an Idea until its fingers can close around it, and test its color, texture, weight, and worth for possible manufacturing purposes. From Emerson to James, Santayana, and Dewey, it is all the same story. Take the famous question whether I exist, perhaps the idlest of all philosophic questions. Descartes proved the thinker by his thinking. How on earth, one may ask, did Descartes, who could not on prima jade evidence accept his existence as real, believe that his thinking was? That was the beginning of the dark ages of European philosophy, for even a European philosopher who denied his body accepted his consciousness without question as the final fact, and proceeded to build a universe entirely out of that consciousness, until with some maternal pride, it recognized the universe as its own child. The natural upshot or conclusion is, of course, that the universe exists in me, and not I in it.

How did some of the American minds respond to such preposterous German idealism? The facts are rather encouraging. In 1820, Thomas Jefferson wrote to John Adams, "Let me turn to your puzzling letter of May the 12th, on matter, spirit, motion, etc. Its crowd of skepticisms kept me from sleep, I read it, and laid it down; read it, and laid it down, again and again; and to give rest to my mind, I was obliged to recur ultimately to my habitual anodyne, I feel, therefore I exist!" That statement, the emphasis on feeling, is one of the most reassuring things in a nation that was destined for a fructifying and abundant existence. In 1848, Henry Thoreau wrote to Harrison Blake, "I am simply what I am, or I begin to be that. I live in the present. I only remember the past and anticipate the future. I love to live ... I know that I am." In 1854, Walt Whitman wrote ("Song of Myself"), "And I know I am solid and sound ... I exist as I am that is enough. If no other in the world be aware, I sit content. And if each and all be aware, I sit content." Those utterances, I think, are significant of the true American spirit. Probably Justice Holmes in his essay "Ideals and Doubts" sums up the position best. "If the world were my dream, I should be God in the only universe I know. But although I cannot prove that I am awake, I believe that my neighbors exist in the same sense that I do, and if I admit that, it is easy to admit also that I am in the universe, and not it in me. When I say that a thing is true, I mean that I cannot help believing it. But as there are many things that I cannot help doing that the universe can, I do not venture to assume that my inabilities in the way of thought are inabilities of the universe. I therefore define truth as the system of my limitations, and leave absolute truth for those who are better equipped." That is good enough for any American, as it is good enough for me. Elsewhere, in the essay on "Natural Law," Holmes signifies his content with this position. "If we believe that we come out of the universe, not it out of us, we must admit that we do not know what we are talking about when we speak of brute matter. . . . Why should we not be content? Why should we employ the energy that is furnished us by the cosmos to defy it and shake our fist at the sky? It seems to me silly."

The wise, thoughtful American is wistful enough. He shows a certain impatience with theories as such. The most famous case is perhaps that of Emerson. Emerson had no system, was notoriously without it, the critics say. It makes it somewhat hard for Paul Elmer More to trace the influence of Goethe, Kant, Fichte, and Schelling. Conceivably, if Emerson had been able to outline his thought into a speculative system the very thought of it is unthinkable it would help nobody except some postgraduate student to write a doctoral dissertation with greater ease and precision. But what would have happened to Emerson the thinker then? Emerson's thoughts, which were always fluid and in open and intimate touch with reality, would have become all "solid," and his universe with it which would have scared William James. What they gained in sharpness of outline they would have lost in fluidity and the varied contact with the fresh experiences of life. Far better his impatience, his distractions, his refusal to yield final ground and become solidified! The adjectives Santayana applied to William James may well fit Emerson; he was "restless, spasmodic, and self-interrupted," lest the real life escape and we become encased in a dead car cass of a system where rigor mortis has set in. Perpetually dissatisfied, perpetually afraid of not having the whole truth and suspicious that the facets of truth served up by classificatory systems were only slices of reality, Emerson was famous for interrupting himself. He was for ever distracted, though by nothing except real life itself. What troubled him was the sight of a girl passing in the street, and being a Yankee, he felt he had to square his thought with such a reality, such a piece of life. He speaks his mind most clearly on this subject in his essay "Nominalist and Realist," where at the end he makes a confession of his mental processes. "There is nothing we cherish and strive to draw to us but in some hour we turn and rend it. We keep a running fire of sarcasm at ignorance and the life of the senses; then goes by, perchance, a fair girl, a piece of life, gay and happy, and making the commonest offices beautiful by the energy and heart with which she does them; and seeing this we admire and love her and them, and say, Lo! a genuine creature of the fair earth, not dissipated or too early ripened by books, philosophy, religion, society, or care! insinuating a treachery and contempt for all we had so long loved and wrought in ourselves and others." That was why when Emerson came out of the conventicle or the reform meeting, or out of the rapturous atmosphere of the lecture room, he heard nature whispering to him, "Why so hot, little sir?" That little whisper, "Why so hot, little sir?" was the salvation of Emerson, as it was of William James later.

Is Your Path The Way Of Peace?

2009-11-25T14:52:00.003-05:00

In a world of negativity where it seems that it becomes easy to fall under the shade of war and hostility, there is always peace to brighten up our paths. When we have peace in ourselves, it spreads through our actions and thoughts onto others and thus fixing this planet one person at a time.

Below is a warm article relating the aspects of peace with our personal lives and the lives of our fellow brothers and sisters. Deepak Chopra gives simple tips on how to get a clear outlook on peace in our world today by saying:

If people could achieve satisfaction without destruction, I believe they would. Millions of us want to live without destruction already. Now we are looking for a way to make our will and desire more powerful than war. Fortunately, that isn’t complicated.

For further reading, see the article at Care2.

American Judaism: Our Starting Question - What Does It Mean to Be Jewish in America Today?

2009-11-24T14:09:00.000-05:00

Jacob Neusner, prolific author and controversial scholar of both rabbinic and contemporary Judaism, compiled an anthology - "American Judaism: Adventure in Modernity" - on "the Judaism of the American middle class"; the beliefs and world view of the many Jews "who may join synagogues but rarely go to them, are 'for Israel' but do not want to live there, like 'Jewish food' but do not keep kosher, and do not believe in God but know for sure that the Jews are God's chosen people."

In his introduction to the volume, Neusner wonders,

What happens to religious traditions in modern times? Historians describe the development of institutions and doctrines, while sociologists uncover their social foundations. Historians of religions, however, tend to concentrate attention on archaic, or pre-modern, religious life, particularly in the Far East, Africa, South Asia, and the Middle East. They have developed questions about the nature of archaic religions and provided illuminating perspectives. Here we shall ask the questions of historians of religions about people heretofore neglected by them: religious men in modern America. The data differ from all others studied by historians of religions because they derive from a secular, modern, technologically advanced and intellectually sophisticated civilization. And that is why for the study of the history of religions, America, with the contemporary West it represents, is a new and unexplored field of inquiry.

If we were anthropologists studying the religion of a pre-literate tribe, we should ask about the rituals and myths of that tribe, the character of its religious leadership, the social structures that embody its religious traditions, the way in which individual identity is defined. So too of America. We want to know about the religious rituals, beliefs, and stories that shape people’s minds, the religious leaders and their place in those beliefs and stories, the religious institutions, the role of religion in the larger society. But with this difference: America is no tribe, but a complex and heterogeneous society. Americans are not pre-literate, but in their masses highly educated. Religiosity in skeptical, modern America is a different sort of thing from the believing in an archaic society that takes for granted the central propositions of religion, as of the broader culture, and knows nothing of doubt or unbelief.

What does it mean to be religious in America? The question is too abstract, the data insufficiently digested. Here, we focus on a small part of that question, on a group that is both well-documented and intensely self-concerned, the Jews. They form a coherent group in American society. They generally regard their group as religious, though doing so requires the revision of commonplace definitions of religion. And their intellectuals have articulately addressed themselves to what it means to be a Jew in America.

Still more interesting, the Jews came from a society that stood on the threshold of modernity to a country that had long before become its bastion. Central and Eastern European Jewry, which supplied the vast majority of emigrants to America, had experienced no Renaissance to focus attention on man and his achievements; no Reformation to revise the traditional religion and to purify and articulate its doctrines; no Enlightenment to impose on the tradition the astringent criteria of reason and rationality; no Romantic recovery of tradition in a post-Enlightenment reaction; and no Darwinian age of Progress. The five formative centuries of Western civilization passed unnoticed, with little effect, over Central and Eastern European Jews. They came from agricultural villages to the American metropolis, from traditional patterns of human relationships to impersonal ones, from a primitive to a highly developed economic system, from a society where the stranger was an outsider to one in which all were alien to one another, from an intensely religious to a secular world. These changes produced a vast transformation of their religious life, and that is the problem of our study: What has happened to Judaism, and what does it mean to be a Jew today?

The answer to that question does not lie in the study of the history and sociology of American Jewry, or even of American Judaism. We are not going to rehearse the oft-told tales of how in 1654 a few Jewish families came to New Amsterdam, or of the three "waves" of immigration, Spanish, German and Russian, or of the role of the Jews in fighting for America, or of the founding various synagogues and national religious movements. Among the several good introductory studies of American Jews and Judaism, Nathan Glazer’s American Judaism is outstanding. But all that is needed to answer our question lies in the pages of this book, though many works not quoted here deepen and broaden the inquiry. On the whole, such works concentrate on outward things: the place of Jews in American society and culture; the development of their institutions, synagogues, and community organizations; the way in which Jews became Americans. These issues dominated the interest of scholars for whom what it meant for a Jew was generally clear and readily defined. What was problematical was the way in which Jews fit into the larger picture of American life.

Today Jews are sufficiently well integrated into that picture so that one need not wonder whether and how a well-defined foreign body is to be assimilated into a stable and equally well-defined social and cultural structure. After four generations, to be Jewish is a mode of being an American, taken for granted by Jews among other Americans, and no longer problematical. The dominant patterns and institutions of American Jewry have been established for nearly a century. What now remains to be explored is, What do Jews now do because they are Jewish? What do they think, how do they respond, when they do as Jews, to the issues of human existence in America? What has happened to their religious tradition — the whole of it, not merely the theological surface? What of the inner life of people who superficially are the most modern of men?

Spirituality in Business: Teaching Business Students the Alternative to Greed

2009-11-23T13:51:00.000-05:00

In Vienna, Austria, business students at the University of Applied Sciences and Technology are getting more than an education in profit-making and corporate management - Dr. Lyly Rojas is teaching them about how to approach business itself from a humanitarian, peace-oriented perspective. From the Ode Exchange:

...Rojas' aim is to make peacemakers of her students by showing them alternatives to adopting the predatory and aggressive nature of the corporate environment. She maintains there is an alternative to the caveman mentality, to the bullying and domination that prevails to maximize profit and get ahead in the business world. Rojas is promoting a culture shift.

"We are in our minds, not in our hearts. We buy clothes made by Taiwanese slaves and chop down 2,000-year-old trees. We don't need more knowledge about problems; we know how to solve them," she explains. "What we need is encouragement that we will prosper without greed."

She gives her students the example of how child slavery relates to the business world; she tells them about the dresses that child slaves make in a far off land and companies sell for €4,000. In response, her students’ develop projects to change this. "Can you imagine how this makes me feel?" she asks excitedly. "Students come from different countries. Some are children of politicians and will have influence when they return home."

Whatever the background and nationality, Rojas explains that students need to learn to get along with each other and deal with conflict in a constructive manner. She provides them with the tools to realize this through assigned tasks; case studies, cross-cultural simulation and group projects, some based on her time with the UN. "Some students refuse to work together because of nationality; men team up against women and some students from former dictatorships ask 'can't we bribe people?'. The experience is about finding a collaborative point," she reveals.

You can read the full article here.

American Wisdom: The Philosophers' Blindman's Bluff

2009-11-22T12:20:00.002-05:00

We continue our series on Lin Yutang's masterpiece on American culture, "The Wisdom of America," with Yutang's critical review of the fruits of modern philosophy:

"Suppose I arrange the works of the essential philosophers leaving out the secondary and transitional systems in a bookcase of four shelves; on the top shelf (out of reach, since I can't read the language) I will place the Indians; on the next the Greek naturalists; and to remedy the unfortunate paucity of their remains, I will add here those free inquirers of the renaissance, leading to Spinoza, who after two thousand years picked up the thread of scientific speculation, and besides, all modern science: so that this shelf will run over into a whole library of what is not ordinarily called philosophy. On the third shelf I will put Platonism, including Aristotle, the Fathers, the Scholastics, and all honestly Christian theology; and on the last, modern or subjective philosophy in its entirety. I will leave lying on the table, as of doubtful destination, the works of my contemporaries. There is much life in some of them. I like their watercolor sketches of self-consciousness, their rebellious egotisms, their fervid reforms of phraseology, their peep-holes through which some very small part of things may be seen very clearly: they have lively wits, but they seem to me like children playing blindman's buff; they are keenly excited at not knowing where they are. They are really here, in the common natural world, where there is nothing in particular to threaten or allure them; and they have only to remove their philosophical bandages in order to perceive it."
That was George Santayana soliloquizing in Europe on the progress of philosophy, after he had retired from Harvard. We are grateful for such confidences on the part of a professor of philosophy and only wish more of them had the same charm of candor and the same wit to know what they are about. "Seem like children playing blindman's buff . . . keenly excited at not knowing where they are" - what an apt characterization of the joys of philosophizing in the last three hundred years of modern subjective philosophy! "Fichte and Nietzsche, in their fervid arrogance, could hardly outdo the mental impoverishment of Berkeley and Hume in their levity: it really had been a sight for the gods to see one of these undergraduates driving matter out of the universe, while the other drove out the spirit." That Santayana's summing up of the burden of modern philosophy is both fair and accurate, in regard to its general preoccupation with laboratory examination of self -consciousness with a self-conscious mind, all students of philosophy today must admit.

Almost exclusively, the problem attacked by modern philosophy is the problem of knowledge, of how we can know reality. The net outcome of three centuries of such inquiry is that we know nothing and can know nothing of reality, of the thing-in-itself. Through the long gray corridors of modern learning, one hears the frightened cries of these philosophers "Where am I?" "Do I exist?" "Am I real?" "How do I know that I exist?" cries that reverberate with increasing exasperation and are echoed by the gray-plastered hallways until it seems the only thing which remains real is the fear of the unknowable.

Two men in the present generation seemed dissatisfied with this state of affairs; while admitting the excitement of the game of blindman's buff, they also had the wit to tire of it and call it slightly unfair, unfair to themselves, unfair to the world of reality, and unfair to the business of living. One, William James, completely an American, with Irish wit under his red head, and the other, George Santayana, as good as American but with a European and generally Catholic background, were seen constantly cheating their playmates by stealthily lifting their philosophical bandages to have a peep at the sun and the trees and the birds outside. This habit of lifting their bandages was generally deplored; unless all played at the game of pretending not to know where they were, the illusion would be destroyed. William James was always regarded with some suspicion; he was described as "making raids into philosophy," by which it was meant that philosophy was not his mansion. I would admit that; to me, William James was a man who happened to drift into teaching philosophy as a means of making a living, of which means in his later years he rather tired, and who, locked up in a room with his hundreds of books on continental philosophy and psychology, was all the time pacing the floor and peeping through a keyhole at the outside world of sunlight, who heard the still inner voice, "The world is real for me, real enough for my purposes." The two men were not too close together; it was not James's fault, and yet when Santayana wrote in 1918, we "are really here, in the common natural world, where there is nothing in particular to threaten or allure us," the ghost of James must have been gratified.

The situation, I think, may be summed up in a paragraph. Since Descartes, the father of modern philosophy, began to question his own existence and fell back on his consciousness to prove that he existed, this branch of human knowledge has been occupying itself, very principally, with the problem, whether reality is real and whether we can know it at all. There grew then a paradox: how can matter, which is not mind, produce consciousness, and how can mind, which is not matter, reach out to establish connections with the external world? Having artificially separated mind and matter, which were nothing but the philosophers own concepts, they were confronted with an unbridgeable chasm, across which no flight of speculative fancies enabled them to fly, until quite lately, thanks to the progress of modern physics, Whitehead pointed out the falseness of their basic assumptions that mind and matter were independent substances and declared somewhat triumphantly that consciousness is but a function of an event and therefore necessarily an integral part of reality. This is just another of those "fervid reforms of phraseology" that, played strictly according to the rules of the game, seem to save the situation and rescue the world of reality for us. To be sure, it is playing with words again, but as it is played according to Hoyle, the evidence is admitted, and the layman watchers of the game like myself heave a sigh of relief. It had been a game of concepts and words and definitions all along. More recently, Northrop of Yale marked an important advance in thought by readmitting the value and validity of immediate, intuitive perceptions, which are the only approach God has given us for knowing the outside world, and which the willful men in their intellectual arrogance have chosen to ignore.

To be sure, these impressive structures of thought, from Kant and Hegel down, were a mirage; yet they held men s speculative thought for ages. Many inquiring minds studying the nature and validity of thought and reality and spirit have derived great pleasure in their contemplation, for they fairly scintillate with the multicolored cobwebs these magicians wove around them. The students of thought were for the most part so desirous of emulating their fellows and anxious not to be thought stupid that each was ready, individually, to try to see what he could see and discover what he could discover in the filaments of light and color in their intricate schemes. They never stopped to ask, If the sum total of philosophy was the impossibility of knowledge, was not something fundamentally wrong? If the material world was perceptually, morally, socially, and aesthetically real, but logically unreal, was not something wrong with the tool of thought itself? Clearly something was not right in our definition of truth itself. The nature of truth as philosophers argue about it is one thing. The nature of truth as a hillbilly says to himself, "The skies are dark on the north west; I must finish planting the potato patch tonight, before supper," is clearly another. How to bridge that gap is no mean task for a philosopher who wants to satisfy both his sense of fact and his intellectual pride.

Since we have decided not to occupy ourselves with formal philosophy, we may enlist the help of William James and George Santayana to polish off the systems in a few paragraphs and then escape with them to the fullness of living. Both James and Santayana betrayed professional secrets of the philosophers. What James said amounted to a confession of total ignorance of the philosophers, that they were all subjective guessers without their pretended objectivity, according to James, and without love of truth, according to Santayana. William James was an American phenomenon, crude, free, forever curious and undisciplinable. When he applied his American sense of fact and robust sense of life to the academic disciplines of European structures, some thing was bound to happen,
"But practically one's conviction that the evidence one goes by is of the real objective brand, is only one more subjective opinion added to the lot. For what a contradictory array of opinions have objective evidence and absolute certitude been claimed! The world is rational through and through, its existence is an ultimate brute fact; there is a personal God, a personal God is inconceivable; there is an extra-mental physical world immediately known, the mind can only know its own ideas; a moral imperative exists, obligation is only the resultant of ideas; a permanent spiritual principle is in everyone, there are only shifting states of mind; there is an endless chain of causes, there is an absolute first cause; an eternal necessity, a freedom; a purpose, no purpose; a primal One, a primal Many; a universal continuity, an essential discontinuity in things; an infinity, no infinity. There is this, there is that; there is indeed nothing which some one has not thought absolutely true, while his neighbor deemed it absolutely false; and not an absolutist among them seems ever to have considered that the trouble may all the time be essential, and that the intellect, even with truth directly in his grasp, may have no infallible signal for knowing whether it be truth or not."
The final stab at philosophic systems is given by George Santayana, who wields his weapon of irony with as much finesse as the matadors of his race wield theirs, plunges it straight into the heart of the matter, which in this case is the heart of a European bull, and draws blood from it.
"To covet truth is a very distinguished passion. Every philosopher says he is pursuing the truth, but this is seldom the case. As a philosopher has observed, one reason why philosophers often fail to reach the truth is that often they do not desire to reach it. Those who are genuinely concerned in discovering what happens to be true are rather the men of science, the naturalists, the historians. . . . But professional philosophers are usually only apologists: that is, they are absorbed in defending some vested illusion or some eloquent idea. Like lawyers or detectives, they study the case for which they are retained, to see how much evidence or semblance of evidence they an gather for the defence, and how much prejudice they can raise against the witnesses for the prosecution; for they know they are defending prisoners suspected by the world, and perhaps by their own good sense, of falsification. They do not covet truth, but victory and the dispelling of their own doubts. What they defend is some system, that is, some view about the totality of things, of which men are actually ignorant. No system would have ever been framed if people had been simply interested in knowing what is true, whatever it may be. What produces systems is the interest in maintaining against all comers that some favourite or inherited idea of ours is sufficient and right. A system may contain an account of many things which, in detail, are true enough; but as a system, covering infinite possibilities that neither our experience nor our logic can prejudge, it must be a work of imagination and a piece of human soliloquy. It may be expressive of human experience, it may be poetical; but how should any one who really coveted truth suppose that it was true?"
Elsewhere, in the essay on "Masks," Santayana continues his pinpricking of professional philosophers. "No one," he says, "would be angry with a man for unintentionally making a mistake about a matter of fact; but if he perversely insists on spoiling your story in the telling of it, you want to kick him; and this is the reason why every philosopher and theologian is justly vexed with every other." I am informed that at the UNESCO Conference at Mexico City, some one made an attempt to call a conference of theologians and philosophers in the foolish hope that they might come to agree upon some common denominator of beliefs, unaware that it would be easier for the president of Palmolive to concede the virtue of Ivory soap than for an Episcopalian bishop to concede merits in Baptist theology.

In viewing man s attempts at philosophy, there is really only one important distinction, pertinent thinking and impertinent thinking. That thinking which concerns itself with life is pertinent, that which forgets or abandons it is impertinent. Man s instinct, even in the field of thought, is a quest for life, even though philosophers frequently forget this. Is not barrenness in itself a sufficient condemnation of a philosophy? In the Middle Ages, the ecclesiastics enjoyed the "benefit of clergy." Isn't there in modern society also a demoralizing, corrupting benefit of the university professor which exempts him from the trial of everyday living for pompous untruths? Would that the benefit of the savants were abolished and that a general conviction be established that writers on philosophy should not be exempt fromtrial at the secular court of common human life! Certainly, modern philosophy has the gift of missing the obvious. At the same time, its lack of adaptability is immense; it shows an inability to shift its pastures and move away from barren grounds to more fertile valleys, at which primitive cattle and sheep seem superior.

Derusha Update: "What Can We Learn From Esau?"

2009-11-20T17:46:00.000-05:00

The Derusha Update 2.05

"WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM ESAU?"

21 November 2009

Toldoth

4 Kisleiw 5770

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"Every book shares with its readers a glimpse at what once was, what now is, and what - eventually - could be."

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Below are selected clippings from various sources that have been hand-picked to add some spice to your Shabbath reading. We hope you find these selections interesting and informative. Remember, there's always more to learn and another page to turn!

=== The Miseducation Of Esau (Hirsch)

=== He Sought The Solitude Of The Fields (de Leon)

=== The Man Who Killed The World's First Tyrant (Midrash)

=== "I Am Going To Die" (Leibtag)

=== Helping Esau To Realize Who He Is (Touger)

=== Empathy Without Approval Of Murder (Shamah)

=== Harnessing The Power Of Esau (Morrison)

=== This Week In The Derusha Notebook (Blog)

=== Looking For Something Good To Read? (Derusha)

=== Upcoming Derusha Events (Calendar)

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The Miseducation Of Esau

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We see, then, how our Sages interpret the implications of the Torah's words. They tell us that Jacob and Esau alike could have been preserved for their Divinely-ordained destiny as descendants of Abraham if their parents would have noticed the difference between them at an early age. They could then have reared and educated both lads for the same goal by following a different approach in each case, taking into account the fact that these two brothers were basically different from one another. Because, unfortunately, an identical approach was followed in the rearing and education of these two boys, even though they were two totally different personalities, Jacob and Esau in manhood developed attitudes toward life that were fundamentally opposed to one another. Had a different approach been adopted, with due consideration for the differences between them, the two contrasting personalities could both have been trained to develop the same loyalty to one and the same goal. But this is not what happened. As long as Jacob and Esau were lads, they were treated as twins. It did not occur to anyone that, even though they were twins, Jacbo and Esau might be completely different from one another in their inborn character traits. Both were sent to the same school, both received the same instruction, both were given the same course of studies to pursue. They were educated as if both of them possessed the same abilities and personalities. But, in fact, these two brothers were simply not suited for the same studies.

...Esau, already in early boyhood, was driven by the latent impulses of the one "who knows how to trap," the "man of the field," the future hunter who delighted in challenging the forces of nature, in confronting the perils and hazards of life, and in using his physical and mental skills to overcome anything or anyone that stood in his way. He had neither the taste nor the talent for making conquests in the realm of knowledge or in the quest for moral self-refinement; he had no appreciation for the joys or the problems of domestic life.

Unfortunately, the manner in which he was educated could only fill him with loathing for the Abrahamic tradition.

[From "Thoughts on Education III: Lessons from Jacob and Esau" by Samson Rephael Hirsch]

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He Sought The Solitude Of The Fields

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"And Yitzchak loved Esav, for he relished his venison" [Bereishith 24:28].

This verse has been explained, as it is written [about Esav]: "A man who knows entrapment, a man of the field," while elsewhere it is written [about Nimrod], "he was a mighty trapper, a man of the field" - to rob people and to kill them.

He said that he prayed [alone in the field] and [with this lie] he entrapped [others] - with his mouth.

"A man of the field" - because his lot was not in the settlement but in the ruins, in the wilderness, in the field; and it is for this [that he is called] "a man of the field."

[Adapted from "The Book of the Zohar: Toldot" 9:75 by Moshe de Leon]

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The Man Who Killed The World's First Tyrant

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Esau at that time (after the death of Abraham) frequently went in the field to hunt. Nimrod, king of Babel (the same as Amraphel), also frequently went with his mighty men to hunt in the field and to walk about with his men in the cool of the day.

Nimrod was observing Esau all the days, for a jealousy was formed in the heart of Nimrod against Esau all the days. On a certain day, Esau went in the field to hunt and he found Nimrod walking in the wilderness with his two men. All his mighty men and his people were with him in the wilderness, but they removed at a distance from him, and they went from him in different directions to hunt; Esau concealed himself from Nimrod and lurked for him in the wilderness.

Nimrod, and his men that were with him, did not know he was there; Nimrod and his men frequently walked about in the field at the cool of the day to know where his men were hunting in the field. Nimrod, and two of his men that were with him, came to the place where they were when Esau jumped suddenly from his lurking place and drew his sword; he hastened and ran to Nimrod and cut off his head. Esau fought a desperate fight with the two men that were with Nimrod, and when they called out to him, Esau turned to them and struck them to death with his sword.

All the mighty men of Nimrod, who had left him to go to the wilderness, heard the cry at a distance; they knew the voices of those two men, and they ran to know the cause of it - when they found their king, and the two men that were with him, lying dead in the wilderness. When Esau saw the mighty men of Nimrod coming at a distance he fled, and thereby escaped; Esau took the valuable garments of Nimrod (which Nimrod's father had bequeathed to Nimrod, and with which Nimrod prevailed over the whole land) and he ran and concealed them in his house.

Esau took those garments and ran into the city, on account of Nimrod's men, and he came to his father's house weary and exhausted from fighting; he was ready to die of grief when he approached his brother Jacob and sat before him. He said to his brother, Jacob, "Behold! I will die this very day - and why, then, do I want the birthright?" Jacob acted with wisdom with Esau in this matter and Esau sold his birthright to Jacob (for it was so brought about by the Lord); and Esau's portion in the cave of the field of Machpelah, which Abraham had bought from the children of Heth for the possession of a burial ground, Esau also sold to Jacob - and Jacob bought all this from his brother, Esau, for a given value. Jacob wrote the whole of this in a book and he testified the same with witnesses, and he sealed it; and the book remained in the hands of Jacob.

When Nimrod the son of Cush died, his men lifted him up and brought him in consternation and buried him in his city, and all the days that Nimrod lived were two hundred and fifteen years, and he died. The days that Nimrod reigned upon the people of the land were one hundred and eighty-five years; and Nimrod died by the sword of Esau in shame and contempt, and the seed of Abraham caused his death, as he had seen in his dream. At the death of Nimrod, his kingdom became divided into many divisions, and all those parts over which Nimrod had reigned were restored to the respective kings of the land, who recovered them after the death of Nimrod; and all the people of the house of Nimrod were for a long time enslaved to all the other kings of the land.

[From "The Book of the Yashar" 27:1-17]

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"I Am Going To Die"

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In your opinion, is Esav's health situation so deteriorated when he asks Yaakov for a bowl of soup - that he would have died had Yaakov refused to give him soup? In other words, is he simply tired & hungry (but not in any danger of dying), or is starving to death?

Based on either understanding, how can you explain Esav's statement of "hine anokhi holekh la-muth" ("behold I am going to die") in 25:32?

[From "PARSHAT TOLDOT: QUESTIONS FOR THE 'SHABBOS TABLE'" by Menachem Leibtag]

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Helping Esau To Realize Who He Is

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Isaac knew who Esau was; he wasn't fooled that easily, but Isaac was "digging wells."

As a father, he was involved in an ongoing endeavor to enable Esau to fulfill his spiritual potential. He knew that to get results in education, you have to invest and he thought that granting these blessings to Esau would help Esau realize who he really was.

Isaac, however, erred. He didn't appreciate that the blessings were destined for Jacob. Ultimately the descendants of Esau, the brother who is deeply involved in the material dimensions of worldly existence, will manifest their spiritual potential. But Esau will not do it on his own. Esau's refinement will come because of the arduous labor of Jacob's descendants who dedicate themselves to teaching spiritual truth and therefore, it is Jacob who deserved Isaac's blessings.

[From "Keeping In Touch: Torah Thoughts Inspired By The Works Of The Lubavitcher Rebbe" by Eliyahu Touger]

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Empathy, Without Approval Of Murder

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Esav's reaction upon discovering that Yaaqob had "stolen" his blessing was a sincere cry, which exhibits a degree of caring to stay connected. It stirs our sympathies on his behalf. However, his response to his victimization is not a sign of self-control or true respect for his father. He resolved: "Let the mourning days for my father draw near and I will kill Yaaqob my brother" (27:41). Although we appreciate the depth of anger and bitter feelings that one who was deceived by his brother may have and empathize with him, homicide is never an appropriate response.

[From "On Esav's Character" by Moshe Shamah]

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Harnessing The Power Of Esau

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Esau represents the raw, base forces in the world. His reddish complexion indicated the violent and brutal nature of his personality. Jacob did not prevent Esau from coming into the world; after all, the world needs Esau and his raw power. Rather, Jacob held on to Esau's heel, holding him back. The name Jacob refers to this aspect of restraint, reining in the fierce forces.

Ultimately, however, our goal is not to simply hold back these negative forces. We aspire to gain control over them and utilize them, like a hydroelectric dam that harnesses the vast energy of a raging waterfall for the production of electricity.

[From "Toldot: Harnessing the Power of Esau" Chanan Morrison]

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This Week In The Derusha Notebook

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* "American Wisdom: The Wisdom of Living - The Scope of Wisdom" [11/15]

* "Whole Foods and Health Care: A Battle for Our Health" [11/16]

* "Spirituality in Business: God Determines the Sale" [11/17]

[Read the latest posts @ "The Derusha Notebook" today!]

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Looking For Something Good To Read?

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"The Naked Crowd: The Jewish Alternative to Cunning Humanity"

by José Faur [ISBN 978-1-935104-02-5]

Thousands of years ago, the Jewish nation became what Nobel laureate Elias Canetti called a "naked crowd"; a society built on transparency and inclusiveness, impervious to the attempts of would-be tyrants to control the "crowd" through mind-games, linguistic manipulation, and mass hysteria. While the Jewish people have, over the course of history, occasionally lost touch with this foundation of their society, they have never lost the dream of a truly free society for all. In this book, José Faur articulates the essence of the Jewish alternative to the cunning societies of world history.

[Derusha's books and authors are changing our world]

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Upcoming Derusha Events

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Sunday, November 29 - Teaneck Holiday Boutique

(4:00 pm to 8:00 pm)

@ The Richard Rodda Community Center

(250 Colonial Court / Teaneck, NJ 07666)

[Entrance to parking lot is from Palisade Avenue, adjacent to Votee Park]

Come join our first annual inter-cultural Teaneck Holiday Boutique for a unique collection of beautiful (and affordable!) gifts for loved ones. Featuring artwork by Tintawi Charaka, Natalia Kadish, David Masters, and Ettie Sadek. Books published by Derusha Publishing will be available for purchase.

Sunday, December 13 - "Goy" Launch Party

(7:00 pm to 9:00 pm)

@ The 92 Street Y

(1395 Lexington Avenue / New York, NY 10128)

[Directions available at http://www.92y.org/content/directions.asp]

Celebrate the publishing of Ranjit Chatterjee's spellbinding spiritual autobiography "Goy" with us on Sunday, December 13, at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. Author to speak, followed by a "question and answer" session and book signings. Refreshments will be served throughout.

Hope to see you there!

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Have a question? Contact us!

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As always, we are eager to hear from you. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any questions, comments, or suggestions.

Regards and best wishes for a meaningful week,

Gil Amminadav

gil.a@derushapublishing.com

Elana Amminadav

elana.a@derushapublishing.com

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About Derusha Publishing LLC

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Derusha Publishing is a dynamic and versatile company that prints poetry and philosophy, history books and prayerbooks, translations of traditional texts and post-modern commentaries on our common culture.

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Thank you and Shabbath Shalom!

Spirituality in Business: God Determines the Sale

2009-11-17T23:09:00.001-05:00

In his bestselling book The Garden of Emuna, Shalom Arush discusses the overarching Divine providence governing the sale of any item:

A merchant with emuna needs to know that every article in his or her inventory is under the influence of absolute Divine providence. Hashem decides when a certain object – whether a twenty-room mansion or tube of toothpaste – is sold, to whom, and at what price. According to Kabbalistic thought, each object has spiritual sparks of holiness that belong or gravitate to a certain soul; that soul will ultimately acquire the object, as a soul correction both for the object and for itself. Elaborating on this concept, Rebbe Nachman of Breslov writes (Likutei Moharan I:52) that everything has its hour, when it ultimately returns to its spiritual root.

For example, if the sparks of holiness in a particular carrot are rooted in the soul of a tzaddik, the tzaddik's wife will eventually go to a certain vegetable stand on a certain day and pay a certain price for a certain pound of carrots. She'll then come home and feed her husband the certain carrot whose spiritual sparks are rooted in the tzaddik's soul. Once the tzaddik makes a blessing over the carrot and eats it, the carrot attains a lofty spiritual correction. In the case of a carrot or another foodstuff, it physically becomes a part of the tzaddik!

In light of the above example (which is none other than a drop of water from a vast sea, for the subject of soul corrections necessitates an entire volume in itself), any business deal – barter, trade, purchase, or sale – occurs only when and where Hashem decides. When the time is ripe for a certain commodity or piece of merchandise to reach the domain of a particular soul, the transaction is completed – not before and not after. To facilitate our understanding, let's see an additional example:

Suppose that certain inanimate objects, such as a certain tiny nuts, bolts and screws, must attain their soul correction by way of Benjamin. When the time comes for those objects to be corrected, or to elevate their spiritual status, they became parts of a watch. Hashem gives Benjamin the desire and the wherewithal to purchase a new watch; this particular watch is the exact model he wants at the exact price in the store of his choice. No one else will be able to obtain the watch, unless it's destined to be a gift for Benjamin. Either way, Benjamin and the watch come together. The watch now helps Benjamin wake up in time to pray, to reach the synagogue on time, or to perform any number of other mitzvoth. As such, the watch attains its soul correction by way of Benjamin.

If a purchaser and an object don't have a spiritual common denominator, they won't come together at any price or under any circumstance. Therefore, it's senseless for a pushy salesman or overpowering merchant to try and force something on a customer that he or she doesn't want.

Many businesspeople have related stories about seemingly useless merchandise that they sold at a tremendous profit, or about products that they thought would be best sellers that ended up collecting dust on the shelves. Realtors have all experienced prospective buyers that turn their noses up at a certain house or piece of property, and three months later end up purchasing the very same piece of real estate. Every field has its own examples of divine providence. Everything has its hour.

- The Garden of Emuna by Shalom Arush (translated by Lazer Brody)

Whole Foods and Health Care: A Battle for Our Health

2009-11-16T22:45:00.003-05:00

As we see, in the grand scheme of things there are many out to offer the best solution in regards to assistance in our personal health care. With different options proposed for our health care, we have the choice for responsibility or dependence on an outside entity, with other possibilities in between. Which is the wisest? This is up to each fellow human to decide, with his or her own best interests considered, for both themselves and for humanity.

Below is a short article and a video showing what Whole Foods and labors unions along with left-wing activists are going through as they bring their own opinions to share. Whole Foods CEO John Mackey argues that we should rely more on our own "individual empowerment" for our healthcare responsibilities, while the labors unions and activists are trying to boycott Whole Foods, stating that the solutions Mackey is offering are not attainable and pose issues for employee:

In August, Whole Foods CEO John Mackey argued in the pages of the Wall Street Journal that the solution to America's health care crisis was to be found in "less government control and more individual empowerment." His own company's unique health care plan, Mackey wrote, covers 90 percent of employees, costs less than health insurance plans, and provides a "very high degree of worker satisfaction." But for the sin of not supporting a government take over of health care, labor unions and left-wing activists called for a boycott of Whole Foods, claiming that Mackey's solutions were unworkable and his employees were unhappy.

Reason.tv talked to protesters, Mackey, and employees about "the Whole Foods alternative to ObamaCare":

American Wisdom: The Wisdom of Living - The Scope of Wisdom

2009-11-15T22:18:00.001-05:00

Continuing our series on Lin Yutang's masterpiece on American culture, Yutang's thoughts on the American philosophy of life are presented:

The only important problem of philosophy, the only problem which concerns us and our fellow men, is the problem of the wisdom of living. Wisdom is not wisdom unless it knows its own subject and scope. That scope cannot be, must not be, may not be other than the field of living for living men. I would reduce it to this utter simplicity and not tolerate the intrusion of that most unfortunate branch of knowledge, metaphysics. The problem of the living man is a vast field enough, of which we know so little, vastly alive with human entiments, hopes, and longings; with our animal heritage, of which we now and then try to be ashamed; with our primordial, dark, subterranean urges, known in Christian theology as the demon in us, and with our inexplicable nobility, inexplicable considering our background, known in Christian theology as the God within us; with our fantastic cleverness and what to do with our cleverness; with our noble patriotism and love of the national flag and the excitement of brass bands and the not so noble slaughter of international warfare. The world, the living world, is a subject much to be thought about, sometimes too much. Can we not leave alone the problem of immortality, which is the proper subject and precinct of the dead? They are dead in our sense, and if they are not dead, they will be in a better position to discuss what they know; we know necessarily so little about it until we cross the frontier. I hope they have better luck with their subject than we do with ours. Emerson noted in his Journals, "The blazing evidence of immortality is our dissatisfaction with any other solution" a much quoted line. It may well stand; the evidence is of a negative character and appeals to a kind of subjective compulsion within our minds. But its chief merit is literary, consisting in the use of the adjective "blazing"; otherwise it would not be so much quoted. But a Chinese may, with just as much felicity, say, "The blazing evidence of mortality is that we all turn up our toes." The scope of wisdom, whether American or otherwise, is therefore a simple proposition; we all die, but in this short span what can we do best with life?

"Knowledge of the possible is the beginning of happiness," says George Santayana. This seems to sum up in a line for me the best that Americans have said or thought about the proper field of wisdom. I am aware that Santayana is a continental Latin in his intellectual make-up and an American in that he was born of an American mother and grew up and taught in Boston and Cambridge, but he is a cosmopolite and I want to include him because American wisdom would be immeasurably poorer without this titan of human and naturalistic wisdom. His thoughts have the character of a city built high on the top of a mountain plateau; the air is rarefied, but the atmosphere is still intensely human.

But knowledge of the possible in human life has not been the characteristic of Western philosophy. Idle speculations, with few concessions to the realities of living, seem to me to occupy the content of Western formal philosophy speculations about immortality, about free will, about absolute truth and essence and substance, and the possibility or impossibility of knowledge. John Dewey once dryly remarked, "There is something ironical in the very statement of the problem of the possibility of knowledge. At the time when science was advancing at an unprecedented rate, philosophers were asking whether knowledge was possible." Dewey might have added correctly, "and denying that it was." How the question of free will was even posed is itself indicative of the idle speculative temper. Any man asked by a waitress whether he will have tea or coffee, with or without cream, cold or hot or iced, Ceylon tea or China tea, with lemon or milk, and one, two, or three lumps of sugar, knows that he is free. Any murderer, after perfecting his plans, knows that at the last moment the decision to do it or not to do it is dependent upon himself; even an abnormal temporary paralysis of the will through hatred or jealousy or fear only proves that a normal will functions. Yet the ink that has been wasted in the discussion of free will and determinism is enough for a hippopotamus to swim in comfortably.

There is a complete separation of the intellect and the senses in such Western philosophers; in fact, there have been a feud and a distrust and mutual suspicion for the last three centuries. The Western philosopher is a man who, by the evidence of all his speculations, is stamped as one who distrusts his senses. He cannot even observe his own mental process in ordering tea or coffee; probably only William James ever said quite plainly that after a lecture in Cambridge he was free to go down Divinity Avenue or Oxford Street as he chose. Perhaps it would be simpler to describe a Western philosopher merely as a man who doubts he exists; perhaps we may even say it is the business of Western philosophy not to know. How the robust American sense of fact staged a persistent revolt against this sort of idle futility we shall soon see. But I may quote here one of the wisest of modern Americans, Clarence Day, who had the humor and the perception to remark, "Too many moralists begin with a dislike of reality; a dislike of men as they are. They are free to dislike them, but not at the same time to be moralists. Their feeling leads them to ignore the obligation which should rest with teachers to discover the best that man can do, not to set impossibilities before him and tell him that if he does not perform them he is damned."

Wisdom is principally a sense of proportion, more often a sense of our human limitations. Let those who will rack their brains about whether the ultimate absolute is spirit, or essence, or matter; they will rack their brains only for the pleasure of it but will not wreck the universe. The universe will go on, and life will go on in spite of them. Some one has wittily remarked that Bertrand Russell is angry with God for not existing, for he would like to have the pleasure of smashing him if he did. Wisdom for me, therefore, consists in a keen sense of what we are not that we are not gods, for instance coupled with a willingness to face life as it is; in other words, it consists of two things, a wistfulness about living and common sense. John Dewey, a typical American spirit, is only trying, by the heavy and ponderous road of abstract philosophy couched in sentences of sustained dilution, to tell us to rely on experience and have faith in experience, which he once identified with common sense.

Long ago there was an American who did not have to recover his common sense but had it with him all the time. He was a man singularly gifted by God and perfectly born of his mother, who looked at the world, enjoyed it and was content. He was not distracted. Benjamin Franklin, that charmer of lightning and ladies, was wistful. He knew what he was about, what the world was about, and what America was about. How few of us can say that of ourselves!

It is, therefore, with that wisest of Americans (perhaps also the greatest) that I wish to begin my selections of American wisdom, awakening a sense o wistf ulness about living. All philosophy, all depth of human thought, must begin with a facing of the short span of man's life on this earth and its vanity, and once that is faced honestly, common sense goes with it.

One day in 1778, while living in Passy, then a suburb of Paris, Franklin went out in the company of Madame Brillon to Moulin Joli, an island in the Seine about two leagues away, where a society of cultivated men and women spent a pleasurable day together. Franklin observed there a kind of insect, the ephemera, whose life span was less than a day, and wrote the following piece, which was rapidly passed round and became well known among his friends in Paris society. He composed this for Madame Brillon, whom he was courting gallantly and whose husband was still living. The result of the courtship was that Franklin did not get what he wanted, the favors of the French lady what he called "Christian charity" but he did compose a number of bagatelles, often under her direct inspiration, which must rank among the best of his writings and show him as a gifted writer.
"What will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exists?"
by Benjamin Franklin

You may remember, my dear friend, that when we lately spent that happy day in the delightful garden and sweet society of the Moulin Joli, I stopped a little in one of our walks, and stayed some time behind the company. We had been shown numberless skeletons of a kind of little fly, called an ephemera, whose successive generations, we were told, were bred and expired within the day. I happened to see a living company of them on a leaf, who appeared to be engaged in conversation. You know I understand all the inferior animal tongues. My too great application to the study of them is the best excuse I can give for the little progress I have made in your charming language. I listened through curiosity to the discourse of these little creatures; but as they, in their national vivacity, spoke three or four together, I could make but little of their conversation. I found, however, by some broken expressions that I heard now and then, they were disputing warmly on the merit of two foreign musicians, one a cousin and the other a moscheto; in which dispute they spent their time, seemingly as regardless of the shortness of life as if they had been sure of living a month. Happy people! thought I; you are certainly under a wise, just, and mild government, since you have no public grievances to complain of, nor any subject of contention but the perfections and imperfections of foreign music. I turned my head from them to an old gray-headed one, who was single on another leaf, and talking to himself. Being amused with his soliloquy, I put it down in writing, in hopes it will likewise amuse her to whom I am so much indebted for the most pleasing of all amusements, her delicious company and heavenly harmony.

"It was," said he, "the opinion of learned philosophers of our race, who lived and flourished long before my time, that this vast world, the Moulin Joli, could not itself subsist more than eighteen hours; and I think there was some foundation for that opinion, since, by the apparent motion of the great luminary that gives life to all nature, and which in my time has evidently declined considerably towards the ocean at the end of our earth, it must then finish its course, be extinguished in the waters that surround us, and leave the world in cold and darkness, necessarily producing universal death and destruction. I have lived seven of those hours, a great age, being no less than four hundred and twenty minutes of time. How very few of us continue so long! I have seen generations born, flourish, and expire. My present friends are the children and grandchildren of the friends of my youth, who are now, alas, no more! And I must soon follow them; for, by the course of nature, though still in health, I cannot expect to live above seven or eight minutes longer. What now avails all my toil and labour in amassing honey-dew on this leaf, which I cannot live to enjoy! What the political struggles I have been engaged in for the good of my compatriot inhabitants of this bush, or my philosophical studies for the benefit of our race in general! for in politics what can laws do without morals? Our present race of ephemerae will in a course of minutes become corrupt, like those of other and older bushes, and consequently as wretched. And in philosophy how small our progress! Alas! art is long, and life is short! My friends would comfort me with the idea of a name they say I shall leave behind me; and they tell me I have lived long enough to nature and to glory. But what will fame be to an ephemera who no longer exists? And what will become of all history in the eighteenth hour, when the world itself, even the whole Moulin Joli, shall come to its end and be buried in universal ruin?"

To me, after all my eager pursuits, no solid pleasures now remain but the reflection of a long life spent in meaning well, the sensible conversation of a few good lady ephemerae, and now and then a kind smile and a tune from the ever amiable Brillante. . . .

- "The Ephemera" (addressed to Madame Brillon)
It may be appropriate to mention here that the insect juyu, whose life span was less than twenty-four hours, was mentioned by the Chinese philosopher Chuangtse, who often used the monstrously big and the absurdly small in birds and animals to illustrate the relativity of the phenomena of life. Once he tried to drive home the sense of futility of wars by his story of the "Battle of the Microbes." The King of Wei, like many modern rulers, was caught in the dilemma of war and peace. The enemy had broken a peace treaty, and he desired revenge. One general suggested assassination of the treaty breaker, another suggested a punitive expedition, and yet another regretted the destruction of cities that were built with so much human labor. Both preparedness and unpreparedness for war seemed reckless, and the King was puzzled as to what to do. I permit myself for once the telling of a Chinese story here because modern man finds himself in the same dilemma. A Taoist philosopher went up to the King and told him that the solution lay in Tao. On being asked to explain, the Taoist asked the King, "Have you heard of a thing called the snail?"

"Yes."

"There is a kingdom at the tip of the left feeler of a snail, and its people are called the Chus. And there is a kingdom at the tip of its right feeler whose people are called the Mans. The Chus and the Mans have constant wars with one another fighting about their territories. When a battle takes place, the dead lie about the field in tens of thousands and the defeated army runs for fifteen days before it reaches its own territory."

"Indeed!" said the King. "Are you telling me a tall tale?"

"It s not a tall tale at all. Let me ask you, do you think there is a limit to space in the universe?"

"No limit," replied the King.

"And if you could roam about in the infinity of space and arrive at the Country of Understanding, would not your country seem to exist and yet not to exist?"

"It seems so," replied the King.

"Now," said the philosopher, "in the center of the Country of Understanding there is your country, Wei, and in the country of Wei there is the capital of Li and in the center of the city of Liang there is Your Majesty. Do you think there is any difference between that King and the King of the Mans?"

"No difference," said the King. The philosopher withdrew, and the King of Wei felt lost.

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This Weekend's Portion:
"If You Will Go Within My Rules..."
[ Lev 26:3-27:34 ]
read on Sat May 21, Shabbath Iyyar 17

This Weekend's Portion:
"On Mt. Sinai..."
[ Lev 25:1-26:2 ]
read on Sat May 14, Shabbath Iyyar 10

This Weekend's Portion:
"Declare to the Priests..."
[ Lev 21:1-24:23 ]
read on Sat May 7, Shabbath Iyyar 3

This Weekend's [Double] Portion:
"You Are All Standing Today..."
"And Moses Went..."
[ Deut 29:9-31:30 ]
read on Sat Sept 9, Shabbath Elul 24

This Week's Portion:
"When You Go Out To War..."
[ Deut 21:10-25:19 ]
read on Sat Aug 21, Shabbath Elul 11

"You shall not plow with an ox and a donkey together."
[ 22:10 ]

This Week's Portion:
"See! I Am Placing Before You..."
[ Deut 11:26-16:17 ]
Sat Aug 7, Shabbath "Menahem" Av 27