Where will we go once the synagogues are gone?

In a Jewish religious landscape dominated by denominations struggling to compete for dollars and daveners, the idea that the three big faith streams might fade into irrelevance, supplanted by a robust “just Jewish” identity, sounds like a fantasy.

But what if it turned out that the demise of synagogue-based life is actually just around the bend — that a new generation of Members of the Tribe, enervated by treacly litanies and tired Talmudic classification, may soon figure out that the greatest sources of Jewish spiritual inspiration, intellectual growth and artistic expression (I lump them together and so can you) might come not from pulpit-pounders and the familiar rituals they command, nor even from the plaque-plagued schools that teach the cantors to cant, the professors to profess and the rabbis to rab — but from somewhere else entirely?

What if something came along that threatened to permanently dislodge the federations and foundations, with their fetes and fiscal décolletage, as the bookends holding up our sense of collective self, and put the core of Jewish identity back where it was always meant to be — in direct engagement with content?

I’m talking about Limmud.

Before I take another step, a disclaimer: In exchange for my giving four talks and participating in two panels over the weeklong Limmud conference in Coventry, United Kingdom, this past December, the folks who ran it were kind enough to fly me there and give me a bed to sleep in. But I’ve had far more lucrative speaking engagements and never once wrote about them afterward. Indeed, I was on such a high when Limmud finished on December 29 that I decided to wait a bit before writing, just to make sure the Kool-Aid had passed through my system.

For those of you permanently stationed in Antarctica, Limmud is an annual multi-day conference of Jewish learning. Since it started in the U.K. three decades ago, it has spread to communities around the world. But the British Limmud Conference remains the original, the biggest and — in my view — the most threatening to established Jewish life.

A few numbers: more than 2,500 participants; 400 presenters, including some of the most influential scholars, journalists, rabbis, artists and institutional leaders in Israel and the Diaspora; 1,000 different sessions. As one of the organizers told me, you can meet someone the first day and literally not see that person again until the closing event. Every hour of every day, if you are not presenting, you’ll need to make the impossible choice among at least two or three simultaneous sessions (out of about 20) that you have defined as must-see, or spend an hour chatting with some extremely interesting people you’ve always wanted to meet. For someone who doesn’t boggle easy, it was boggling — and enchanting.

There are a few unstated principles that make Limmud glow. One is that the mind and the spirit, the body and the soul, are one. Social, religious and intellectual stimuli are mixed inseparably. In addition to the classes going on, there is a cavernous, cacophonous central commons filled with hundreds of chairs and tables and couches for the never-ending conversations that Limmud triggers. During the day, coffee and cookies and live jazz flow freely. At night, beer on tap and harder stuff transform it into an English pub. (Still later at night, they bring out the kosher burgers as, well, a kind of exclamation point on the whole day.) This rejection of the Platonic separation of mind, spirit and body applies to the sessions, as well, which range from panels to lectures to seminars to performances to workshops. You can attend a session on “Aikido and the Talmud,” on Israel’s “cottage cheese rebellion” or on heavier questions of prayer, Zionism, philosophy, demography, dance or poetry. Or just join some people hanging out with a guitar and lighting Hanukkah candles.

Second, your place of work does not appear on your nametag. Neither do markers of formal hierarchy of knowledge, like “professor” and “rabbi.” This is because Limmud’s conceivers have realized that by developing a deferential rather than a creative atmosphere, such titles can encourage other people to plead ignorance rather than cure it by taking their learning into their own hands. The suspicion at Limmud, in other words, is that titles and affiliations, when tossed into a bubbling cauldron of intellectual ferment, can often do more harm than good.

And the third, and perhaps most beguiling, principle: There are almost no professional Limmudniks. While the international Limmud body’s paid staff is minimal, the volunteers run the conference almost exclusively. Participation fees cover more than half of the conference’s budget. There is a glaring absence of freebies. Which means that Limmud is largely immune to the pressures of philanthropic organizations and professional-caste standards. It is open-source Judaism: People there can chart their course, thankfully ignorant of what is expected of them — making contacts, coming up with ideas, changing their lives. In the process, Limmud is developing a powerful, unique brand unlike anything seen in the Jewish world in a generation.

Which is why Limmud may end up overturning the apple cart of Jewish life.

It’s not just a nice getaway; it’s by far the most interesting thing happening in Jewish life. It is more spiritual than synagogue, more challenging than yeshiva, more fun than youth groups, more effective than day school, more creative than Jewish community centers, more intellectual than grad school. Or at least it has the potential to be all these things, depending on who is leading a session, who is in the audience and who is on the other side of your Guinness at any given moment. That potential is evident every moment of the conference, and it leaves you wondering where, exactly, all this energy and identity has been all your life.

The main challenges for Limmud, it seems, are now twofold. First, it must find a way to successfully replicate the experience I just witnessed in places other than England. Although “Limmud” conferences have popped up around the world, not all of them have re-created the magic of Limmud-U.K. or followed its set of principles. Keeping the brand meaningful will be hard.

But more important, Limmud will have to find the appropriate way to extend that experience into the rest of the year. Critics have likened the conferences to summer camp, where the shortness of the period and the unreality of the environment make fantasies come true, but is much harder to translate into real life.

The thing is, I went to summer camp. The best ones aren’t stand-alone but are connected with youth movements, where the whole point is not the summer experience as much as finding a way to carry the enthusiasm through the year — local club meetings, biannual conventions and more. What my own camp experience taught me was that it was anything but an unreal bubble. It was the highlight of a whole year of redoubled expectations. And eventually it became the engine that drove my identity. In the end, the camping experience contributed decisively to my decision to make aliyah. And I am far from alone.

But regardless of how Limmud evolves, its effects will soon be felt across the Diaspora and in Israel, as well. Limmud is not just a name, but also a style, an attitude and, at its best, a hope. This is what revolutions look like; if you find it hard to believe, it’s because Diaspora Jewry hasn’t seen one in a long time.

David Hazony is a contributing editor to the Forward, and the author of “The Ten Commandments: How Our Most Ancient Moral Text Can Renew Modern Life” (Scribner, 2010).

This Jewish Daily Forward article is available online.

² And God spoke to Moses and said to him: “I am the LORD. ³ I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, as God Almighty (El Shaddai), but by My name LORD (YHVH) I was not known to them.

The Divine name El-Shaddai has a number of possible meanings.

1)      Nachmanides – the root of shaddai is ‘shadad’ (שדד) meaning ‘might’. He who defeats the laws of nature.  Hence the common translation of El-Shaddai as “God Almighty.”

2) “Shad” (שד) – breast; the aspect of God’s personality (so to speak) which we perceive as the  Omnipotent Sustainer.

3) Maimonides in the Guide (I ch. 63) The letter “shin” is the prefix contraction of the word “asher”, “that”. She – Dai.  That [which] is sufficient. This means that God’s existence is self-sufficient.

R. Simcha Bunim of Przysucha (1765–1827), one of the great Hasidic masters in Poland, put forth a fascinating possibility.  Utilizing the same form as the Rambam, She-dai, he explains that there is sufficient revelation of God in the world to recognize His existence. There is just enough of Me in the world to know Me.

Sufficient; only just enough.  This indicates the precarious nature of creation.  Too much Divine revelation and we lose our independent identities.  We have the children of Israel at Sinai beseeching Moshe to protect them from the all-consuming Presence of God.   On the other hand, too little Divine revelation and we have a world which is both deaf and dumb, devoid of meaning or the possibility of redemption.

The German philosopher,  Gottfried Leibniz (1646-1716) writes that God created the best of all possible worlds. According to R. Simcha Bunim, God created the only possible world.

This only possible world teeters  perilously  between faith and skepticism, hope and despair, existence and annihilation, God’s at once comforting and disquieting Presence and His terrifying absence.  Only in the world of El-Shaddai, where belief in God cannot be taken for granted and atheism is possible can faith be meaningful.

Dear Haverim,

Urim Publications and OU Press are proud to announce the publication of Rabbi Etshalom’s 2nd volume of “Between the Lines of the Bible” with 18 essays on Sefer Shemot.

The following is the first half of a new essay, previously unpublished on the internet, taken from the new volume, which can be purchased at your local Jewish Book Store or online via: Urimpublications.com

Sincerely,
Yitzchak Etshalom

Interjected Observations

Although we read the Biblical text in the sequence that it is presented – and this is truest when reading narrative (we assume that event A precedes event B in the text because it preceded it in real time), there are numerous examples where the Biblical text adds in interjections which reflect a later reality to help the reader understand the text – or to maintain the narrative flow. For example, at the beginning of Numbers, we are told that the count of the people and their assignments to different camps was first commanded on the “first day of the second month”; this series of assignments includes the division of Levitical labors in transporting the Tabernacle. Yet, a month earlier, the chieftains offered (over 12 consecutive days in the first month) a total of 12 wagons which, as we are told in the pre-summary of the narrative of their donation (Numbers 7:3, 7-9) that Moses distributed the wagons and teams of oxen to the Levites based on the specific transporting needs of each family – in other words, it seems as if Moses already knew – and communicated to the Levites – which family would be in charge of which component of cargo; yet that command is only given in the next month!

The answer to this puzzle lies in our understanding of the Torah as an “edited” text; in other words, the events were not recorded as they happened, rather at some point later, God commanded Moses to commit them to writing – and in an order that would maintain narrative flow as it clarifies the reasons and etiology of certain practices. This is, parenthetically, a point of consensus among nearly all medieval commentators (Rishonim) and is fully anchored in traditional Rabbinic exegesis[1]. In the example invoked above, although the text marks the dates when the chieftains brought their gifts and when the people were to be counted (and the Levites were given their assignments), the final editing took place at a time when the results of those were all known – hence, the distribution of the wagons and oxen is integrated into the text of Numbers 7 to complete the narrative of the gifts and identify where each ended up.

This an example of a chronologically “flexible” narrative; yet there are more obvious examples of “interjected texts”, such as I Samuel 9:9 and Ruth 4:7 where early nomenclature or practices are clarified for the later (current) audience who would no longer recognize the words or practice invoked.

This short introduction will help us demystify several enigmatic passages involving the wizards of Pharaoh’s court and their role in the “Plagues narrative”.

I HARTUMEI MITZRAYIM

The wizards/magicians of Pharaoh’s court appear in the Biblical narrative several times – and in all cases, they come off as quite incompetent and hapless.

The first time they appear is in their lack of success in interpreting Pharaoh’s double-dream (Gen. 41:8) which leads to Joseph’s release from prison and, very quickly, to his meteoric rise to royalty. This particular mention sets the Hartumim up as foils for Joseph and anticipates their serving a similar role for Moses and Aaron in our passages.

Before assaying the interactions with the wizards in the Exodus narrative, it is prudent to point out that the word Hartum[2] does not appear in the Biblical text after our passages – until the middle of the Hellenistic era (Daniel 1:20, 2:2) and, again, they are unsuccessful in interpreting the king’s dreams when Daniel (surely a latter-day Joseph) is able to do so.

The wizards appear in five passages in our narrative, which we will refer to as the “serpent”[3], blood, frogs, lice and boils.

A: The “serpent” (7:8-13)

Before the plagues begin, God charges Moses to go to Pharaoh and present his “bona fides” (per the footnote, I have not left “Tanim” untranslated)

8 And Hashem spoke unto Moses and unto Aaron, saying: 9 ‘When Pharaoh shall speak unto you, saying: Show a wonder for you; then you shall say to Aaron: Take your rod, and cast it down before Pharaoh, that it become a Tanim.’ 10 And Moses and Aaron went in unto Pharaoh, and they did so, as Hashem had commanded; and Aaron cast down his rod before Pharaoh and before his servants, and it became a Tanim. 11 Then Pharaoh also called for the wise men and the sorcerers; and they also, the magicians of Egypt, did in like manner with their secret arts. 12 For they cast down every man his rod, and they became Taninim; but Aaron’s rod swallowed up their rods. 13 And Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as Hashem had spoken.

Moses and Aaron enter Pharaoh’s palace, representing a deity foreign to Pharaoh. In order to demonstrate the power of their God, they must show their abilities in the occult “language” of Egypt =- magic. Pharaoh’s response is understandable – his magicians can match their tricks and they’ve brought nothing new to the table; when Moses and Aaron’s “magic” proves to be stronger, Pharaoh, who should lend an attentive ear to these interlopers and their demands, hardens his heart instead and refuses to listen.

B: Blood (7:19-22)

It is in the next passage – the first of the plagues – where the role of the wizards and their behavior becomes unclear and hard to decipher.

19 And Hashem said to Moses: ‘Say unto Aaron: Take your rod, and stretch out your hand over the waters of Egypt, over their rivers, over their streams, and over their pools, and over all their ponds of water, that they may become blood; and there shall be blood throughout all the land of Egypt, both in vessels of wood and in vessels of stone.’ 20 And Moses and Aaron did so, as Hashem commanded; and he lifted up the rod, and smote the waters that were in the river, in the sight of Pharaoh, and in the sight of his servants; and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. 21 And the fish that were in the river died; and the river became foul, and the Egyptians could not drink water from the river; and the blood was throughout all the land of Egypt. 22 And the magicians of Egypt did in like manner with their secret arts; and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not to them; as Hashem had spoken.

Aaron had turned all of the waters of Egypt to blood (note – real blood, not blood-colored water, as attested by the death of the fish) and there was no way to find any water as the blood was throughout the land.

That being the case, what did the wizards do? What liquids remained for them to turn into blood? Even if we posit that there were some remaining untouched waters, what would be the point of their adding to the devestation wreaked on the Egyptian populace and economy through the Aaronide plague?

There is a further anomaly in the text. After the Torah relates the wizards’ success in aping Aaron’s plague (?), the passage concludes with Pharaoh’s hardening his heart so as not to listen to Moses and Aaron – but the wizards’ actions (seemingly) have nothing to do with Pharaoh’s stubbornness. The apparently disjointed read of the text tempts us to consider that it was the wizards to whom Pharaoh didn’t hearken – note “he hearkened not to them” – them being the aforementioned wizards – but that would be very odd indeed, for what did the wizards say that Pharaoh chose to ignore?

C: Frogs (8:1-7)

The next plague keeps us in the company of the wizards functioning in an apparently parallel manner to their role in the “blood-plague”.

1 And Hashem said to Moses: ‘Say unto Aaron: Stretch forth your hand with your rod over the rivers, over the canals, and over the pools, and cause frogs to come up upon the land of Egypt.’ 2 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt. 3 And the magicians did in like manner with their secret arts, and brought up frogs upon the land of Egypt. 4 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said: ‘Entreat Hashem, that He take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may sacrifice unto Hashem.’ 5 And Moses said unto Pharaoh: ‘Have you this glory over me; against what time shall I entreat for you, and for your servants, and for your people, that the frogs be destroyed from you and your houses, and remain in the river only?’ 6 And he said: ‘Against to-morrow.’ And he said: ‘Be it according to your word; that you may know that there is none like unto Hashem our God. 7 And the frogs shall depart from you, and from your houses, and from your servants, and from your people; they shall remain in the river only.’

Again, the wizards’ actions and Pharaoh’s reaction to them seem odd; even if there were room to bring more frogs into Egypt (note that the text testifies that after Aaron effected the plague, the land of Egypt was “covered”), what would be the point of this plague. Surely no one would notice more frogs and identify that they were summoned forth by the royal magicians – and, even if that were the case, the same question asked above confronts us – what is the purpose of more agents of destruction and stench? If the wizards were going to help Pharaoh, they should have removed the frogs and reversed the Hebrews’ leaders’ plague.

Again, as we saw in the blood-narrative, Pharaoh ignores the wizards and their actions play no role in his further discussions with Moses and Aaron. The mystery continues…

D: Lice (8:12-15)

In the final plague of the first plague-cycle (see chapter 7), where Aaron is commanded to strike his staff on the ground and bring forth lice, the wizards finally try to act in Egypt’s interest – to reverse the plague. They are, however, utterly unsuccessful:

12 And Hashem said unto Moses: ‘Say unto Aaron: Stretch out thy rod, and smite the dust of the earth, that it may become gnats throughout all the land of Egypt.’ 13 And they did so; and Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and there were gnats upon man, and upon beast; all the dust of the earth became gnats throughout all the land of Egypt. 14 And the magicians did so with their secret arts to bring forth gnats, but they could not; and there were gnats upon man, and upon beast. 15 Then the magicians said unto Pharaoh: ‘This is the finger of God’; and Pharaoh’s heart was hardened, and he hearkened not unto them; as. Hashem had spoken.

The key issue here is the meaning of להוציא – “to bring forth”[4] – what were the magicians attempting to do? If they were trying to replicate Aaron’s plague – he also “brought forth” lice – then the same question asked above in the blood and frogs narrative rises here: Why were they replicating the destructive plague. If, on the other hand, they were (finally) trying to reverse the plague, then the word כן – and they did “thus” (similarly) is a bit hard to fathom.

In any case, this is the one point at which the magicians speak up – in resignation, admitting that the plague is “the finger of God”.

E: Boils (9:8-12)

The final mention of the magicians paints them in their most pathetic hues – as bystanders who cannot even stay in the company of their master when Moses and Aaron generate the boils – and they must flee:

8 And Hashem said unto Moses and unto Aaron: ‘Take to you handfuls of soot of the furnace, and let Moses throw it heavenward in the sight of Pharaoh. 9 And it shall become small dust over all the land of Egypt, and shall be a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast, throughout all the land of Egypt.’ 10 And they took soot of the furnace, and stood before Pharaoh; and Moses threw it up heavenward; and it became a boil breaking forth with blains upon man and upon beast. 11 And the magicians could not stand before Moses because of the boils; for the boils were upon the magicians, and upon all the Egyptians. 12 And Hashem hardened the heart of Pharaoh, and he hearkened not unto them; as Hashem had spoken unto Moses.

Not only were the magicians unable to combat the plague and thereby protect their land and people – they couldn’t even protect themselves and ignobly fled.

This – along with the “serpent” – appear to be the only passages which are comprehensible as is – but the key three passages of blood, frogs and lice will require more rigorous – and innovative – reading,

(The conclusion of the essay makes up the rest of the chapter 6 of the book)

[1] See above, end of chapter 3

[2] BDB reckons it as derived from חרט – to chisel or engrave. Occult practitioners were familiar with forms of writing their incantations

[3] I leave this in quote marks, as it is entirely unclear that the תנין here is a serpent – many regard it as some amphibious creature, following Gen. 1: 21, Ezekiel 29:3 and others

[4] The English here is incomprehensible; how does it follow from their inability to bring forth gnats (replicating the plague) that gnats (lice) were everywhere? For better or worse, there is no clear way to translate the phrase

Text Copyright © 2012 by Rabbi Yitzchak Etshalom and Torah.org. The author is Educational Coordinator of the Jewish Studies Institute of the Yeshiva of Los Angeles.

Hewlett-based psychologist Dr. Michael Salomon is an expert in treating victims of sexual abuse. He literally wrote the book — Abuse in the Jewish Community — and he’s worried that too many incidents are being swept under the rug.

“If you speak to people who work in the field, there’s a smokescreen,” he said.

But Rabbi Yitzchok Frankfurter, the editor of the haredi-oriented Ami Magazine, couldn’t disagree more.

He’s concerned that recent sensational stories about child abuse in the Orthodox community are unfair attacks by “self-hating Jews.”

The two were among lively debaters on the Zev Brenner show that aired on Saturday night, Nov. 19.

The professionals are being “stonewalled because of the issue of going to the police.” Dr. Salomon said.

His view that there is not enough reporting being done in the community was disputed by Rabbi Frankfurter and by Pinny Taub, who was abused at age 15 at his Borough Park yeshiva.

“Abuse is not an Orthodox problem, but a global human problem,” Rabbi Frankfurter said. “Penn State, which had a serious problem, is neither religious nor Orthodox. This issue has been used against us by self-hating Jews.”

Listening to the heated exchange, abuse survivor Ben Hirsch, who runs Survivors for Justice, agreed that the bloggers who brought the abuse stories to attention are often combative, but this should not distract from the story at hand.

“It was the admittedly sometimes obnoxious and offensive publicity by bloggers that forced this issue into the limelight,” Hirsch said. “They reported on this problem well before the print media would and served an important function.”

Rabbi Frankfurter stood his ground, arguing that anti-religious agitators have accused the entire haredi sector of sheltering abusers.

“No one would dare indict the Catholic community for the sins of its church hierarchy or individual priests,” he said, “but tarring the entire Orthodox Jewish world seems not to violate the standards of political correctness.”

Rabbi Frankfurter called Pinny Taub his hero for sticking by the haredi community. “You can become prejudicial against your own kind if you are molested. There are those who are using the abuse issue to bring down the community, but my policy is that my enemy’s enemy is not my friend.”

Rabbi Frankfurter conceded that he had not read Salomon’s book, which devotes a chapter to the apparent failings of Daat Torah, the concept of seeking advice from rabbinic leaders on non-religious questions.

“When taken to an extreme, it perpetuates an adoration of individuals that places them above secular law,” Salomon writes.

In addition to criticizing Daat Torah, Salomon points to mesira — the traditional prohibition against reporting a fellow Jew to secular authorities — as an excuse for abuse cover-ups.

He points to the March 2009 case of Rabbi Israel Weingarten, who was convicted of abusing his wife and daughter. When the wife testified against Rabbi Weingarten in court, the defendant and his supporters accused her of a mesira violation.

Rabbi Yosef Blau, who heads the rabbinic seminary at Yeshiva University, backs up Salomon’s criticism of the misuse of Daat Torah and mesira.

“Despite the fact that it is unpleasant to hand matters over to secular authorities, I have realized that our community is simply not equipped well enough to deal with issues of abuse,” Rabbi Blau said in a 2009 interview with the student publication Yeshiva University Observer. “We cannot investigate properly, and we cannot take measures strong enough to protect children from potential abuse.”

As an alternative to outside reporting, Rabbi Frankfurter made an on-air promise to meet with advocates and survivors of abuse, but he added that those with “an agenda” would not be considered.

Echoing Salamon’s invitation, Hirsch also expressed willingness to discuss abuse with Rabbi Frankfurter, but without preconditions. “In order to address this issue with journalistic integrity [Ami Magazine] must be willing to reach out to all who were sexually abused within our community,” Hirsch said. “Whether or not they’re currently observant is not the issue, that they were abused is.”

This Jewish Star article appeared online.

The Eve of Emancipation

The Passover night of expectation has an interesting Civil War parallel: the eve of the confirmation of the Emancipation Proclamation. On September 22, 1862, Lincoln announced a preliminary proclamation and gave one hundred days’ notice that a final proclamation would cover designated states and parts of the states of the South still in rebellion on January 1, 1863. The legality of this war measure was not clear. Many feared that Lincoln would change his mind or delay because of pressures from a variety of sources, including politicians in four border slave states that had not seceded from the Union. Churches in abolitionist strongholds in the North held vigils on New Year’s Eve, singing and praying that Lincoln would stay the course. Blacks placed candles in the windows of their homes. Early on New Year’s Day a large crowd of abolitionists gathered in Boston’s Music Hall. The event included many of America’s greatest poets of the day, including John Greenleaf Whittier, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, who read his poem “Boston Hymn.” In the evening a crowd gathered at Tremont Temple in Boston still waiting to hear affirmation of the original proclamation. Frederick Douglass recounted the scene:

Every moment of waiting chilled our hopes, and strengthened our fears. We were waiting and listening as for a bolt from the sky, which would rend the fetters of four million slaves; we were watching, as it were, by the dim light of the stars, for the dawn of a new day; we were longing for the answer to the agonizing prayers of centuries. Eight, nine, ten o’clock came and went, and still no word. A visible shadow seemed falling on the expecting throng. “It is coming!” “It is on the wires!” Joy and gladness exhausted all forms of expression from shouts of praise, to sobs and tears.

That same afternoon in the District of Columbia, the black community awaited the publication of that day’s Evening Star so they could read Lincoln’s proclamation. Reverend Henry Turner of Israel Bethel Church tore off a section of the newspaper with the proclamation and ran headlong through the streets to his church while he waved the piece of paper over his head. After an emotional reading in the church, “great processions of colored and white men marched to and fro and passed in front of the White House and congratulated President Lincoln who appeared at a window and acknowledged them by bowing.”

The celebrations in Boston were far removed from the nearest slave affected by the proclamation. The slaves of Washington, D.C., were also not covered by the proclamation, since they had already been freed on April 16, 1862, which they formally celebrated en masse three days later. One January 1 celebration in the South took place on the Smith plantation in Port Royal, South Carolina, which served as the state headquarters of Colonel Thomas Wentworth Higginson. He described his group’s January 1 celebration:

The colors were presented to us. The very moment the speaker had ceased, and just as I took and waved the flag, there suddenly arose a strong male voice, into which two women’s voices instantly blended, singing as if by an impulse that could be no more repressed than the morning note of the song-sparrow,

My Country, ’tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing!

Firmly and irrepressibly the quavering voices sang on, verse after verse; others of the colored people joined in. I never saw anything so electric; it made all other words cheap; it seemed the choked voice of a race at last unloosed. Just think of it! – the first day they had ever had a country, the first flag they had ever seen which promised anything to their people, and here, while mere spectators stood in silence, waiting for my stupid words, these simple souls burst forth in their lay [song], as if they were by their own hearths at home!

The Emancipation Proclamation set in motion events that led to the demise of slavery. Its immediate impact, however, was limited to the psychological and political lift it gave to the forces of abolition, especially to former slaves. In practical terms it freed no slaves until Union forces overran designated sections of the South that had been in rebellion on January 1, 1863. Slaves in cities and towns were more often the first to hear the news, as these were frequent targets of Union advances, and garrisons were left behind to enforce the new order. For some slaves, the first hint that things were changing could be sensed in the hushed whispers of their masters and mistresses. This might be followed several days later by the sight of bedraggled Confederate forces retreating from the Union army. Finally, as Union forces overran cities, towns, villages and plantations, word of emancipation spread. Word of the proclamation, however, took years to reach many slaves, and some on remote plantations slaves did not hear of it until long after the war was over. The most famous delay occurred in Texas. General Gordon Granger arrived at the port of Galveston almost two and a half years after the proclamation had been issued. His arrival on June 19, 1865, celebrated today as Juneteenth, brought word of emancipation that spread quickly throughout Texas.

Booker T. Washington was nine years old when official word of the proclamation reached his slave plantation in Virginia in 1865. He wrote:

Freedom was in the air, and had been for months. The “grape-vine telegraph” was kept busy night and day. The news and mutterings of great events were swiftly carried from one plantation to another. As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual. Now they gradually threw off the mask, and were not afraid to let it be known that the “freedom” in their songs meant freedom of the body in this world. The night before the eventful day, word was sent to the slave quarters to the effect that something unusual was going to take place at the “big house” the next morning. There was little if any sleep that night. All was excitement and expectancy. The most distinct thing I now recall was that some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper – the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading, we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased. My mother, who was standing by my side, leaned over and kissed her children, while tears ran down her cheeks. She explained to us what it all meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but fearing that she would never live to see. For some minutes there was great rejoicing and thanksgiving and wild scenes of ecstasy.

One powerful image of the moment of freedom is captured in an illustration of a black soldier reading the Emancipation Proclamation in a slave home (Illustration 20). Other slaves received the message from representatives of the Freedmen’s Bureau, or from local clergy who spread the word. Some were told, ironically, by aggressive planters who were seeking to “hire” new workers to fill recently created gaps in their workforce. Often, no matter how word of the proclamation arrived, slaves could not believe that their freedom was upon them until after the master of the house himself had delivered the message. These slaves “viewed their masters as the primary source of authority – the provider, the protector, the lawmaker and the enforcer, the judge and the jury.” For them there could be no truth unless confirmed by their masters. At times the impact of the message would wax and wane with the fortunes of the Union army, as it won and lost control of various regions from the Confederate forces. Ambrose Douglass, a North Carolina slave, recalled, “I guess we musta celebrated ’Mancipation about twelve times in Harnett County. Every time a bunch of No’thern sojers would come through they would tell us we was free and we’d begin celebratin’. Before we would get through, somebody else would tell us to go back to work, and we would go.”

The most unusual celebration of freedom occurred in Charleston, South Carolina, after it fell to Union forces in March 1865. Four thousand black men and women paraded to the cheers of ten thousand more. The parade included a processional that recreated the walk of a group of slaves to the auction block. Two women were seated on the wagon and a group of sixty walked behind in chains. A mock slave auctioneer shouted, “How much am I offered?” A cart carrying a coffin with the words “Slavery is dead” inscribed on it followed this group.

Once the message of emancipation had sunk in, the immediate reaction of newly freed slaves covered a wide gamut, as described by Leon Litwack in Been in the Storm Too Long. These diverse reactions paralleled the varied life experiences of the slaves who lived under dissimilar types of masters and slave drivers in cities, towns, farms, and plantations in different regions of the South. On some farms and plantations, the slaves turned on their masters, while on others the former slaves lived, in part, up to the image of the dutiful servant content with his lot. On still others freed slaves simply left their homes and went in search of relatives sold off to parts unknown. Turning on their masters took a multiplicity of forms: destruction of property, especially symbols of slavery (the Big House, cotton gin, slave pens, and cotton house), theft justified as compensation for past labor, or occasionally a mock trial and punishment of a master or slave driver. Those who turned on their masters and occupied dwellings that had been abandoned found that “to sleep in the master’s bed and eat at the dining room table with the family silver and china was a novel and exhilarating experience.” In contrast, Colonel Higginson was surprised that the black soldiers under his command did not display “feelings of affection or revenge towards their former masters and mistresses.” However, as Litwack points out, the blacks responding to questions about their attitudes “were torn between what they really felt and what they thought white reporters wanted to hear.”

I am depressed.  Early Friday morning I returned home to Israel from the Limmud Conference in the UK.  Jews of all backgrounds, secular, Orthodox, Masorti, Reform and Liberal attended.  I say ‘attended’ and not ‘were represented‘ because we were all there as individual Jews, representing only ourselves, united by a thirst for Torah and community.  Limmud had managed to create a wonderful “safe space” where Jews could simply encounter one another as fellow Jews.  Coming from Israel, the experience was inspiring, almost intoxicating.

So why am I depressed?  Because I had to write “coming from Israel…”  To what did I return home?  I returned home to haredi violence in Beit Shemesh and a haredi boy dressed by his parents with a yellow Star of David.  According to reports, his father said that the Nazi-Zionist government’s persecution of the haredim is worse than what was carried out by the Nazi regime.  What would my father, who witnessed his mother being taken to be shot, who alone survived of nine brothers and sisters and unknown number of nephews, nieces and cousins, what would he say?

Confrontation.  I returned home to confrontation.  Religiously speaking, I returned home to an abomination in the House of the Lord.

Arguably, there are more Jews studying Torah in Israel today than ever before in Jewish history.   Has the society most devoted to Torah study become a light unto the nations or even unto our own nation?  Do spiritual seekers, Jews and non-Jews, the world over flock to Bnei Brak and Mea She’arim in pursuit of holy, refined spiritual human beings reflecting the image of God?  The vulgar expressions of the past weeks come from the most sheltered corners of haredi society; the most isolated from the modern world and its influences.  The sicaricim are the “most pure”.

As Jews who hold tenaciously to the Torah and its teachings we must not shy away from the painful conclusion that for some, the Torah has become, in the language of our sages (Yoma 72b), sam ha mita, a deadly poison, and in our case a toxic environmental hazard.

In my mind, two things need to happen, one political and the other educational.    We need to rethink and redefine the marriage of religion and state in Israel in a manner which preserves the Jewish character of the state while eliminating the morally numbing influence of political power on religious groups. Political power and fervent religious obscurantism are the father and mother of the noxious fruit which we must all now ingest.

Educationally, we need to dispel, once and for all, the notion that the more we shut out the world, the more “Torah true” we are.  In fact the exact opposite is true.Absolute faith in the Torah obliges us to encounter, squarely and honestly, the ethical and theological challenges of the modern world. The authentic encounter (there is no other kind) is characterized by the consciousness that we may actually learn something new in the process.  Open mindedness and humility are the two keys to shifting from confrontation to encounter; authentic encounter of ourselves, the other and ultimately, God.

Rabbi Herzl Hefter is rosh yeshiva of Har’el Yeshiva.

Batya Ludman, a clinical psychologist, family therapist and trauma specialist, provides cogent descriptions of life’s challenges, mental exercises that lead to personal insights, and practical advice for dealing effectively and meaningfully with people and events throughout the life cycle

Reading Dr. Batya Ludman’s wonderfully wise Life’s Journey: Exploring Relationships, Resolving Conflicts sparked some memories for me.

In 1970, when I had my first child, two best-sellers sat on my night table: the umpteenth edition of Benjamin Spock’s The Common Sense Book of Baby and Child Care and the just-published Future Shock by Alvin Toffler.

Spock’s message to parents was: “Be confident – you know more than you think you do – and the rest is clearly explained in this book.” Even in 1946, when the book was first published (it’s still going strong, having sold more than 50 million copies in 42 languages), many young parents needed both encouragement and a friendly source of knowledge because – like today’s immigrants – they were living far from their extended families.

Toffler defined future shock as “a personal perception of too much change in too short a period of time.” Although Toffler wrote his book before anyone could have imagined specific changes like computers in every home (or every room) and cell phones in every pocket, he was spot-on in predicting that masses of unexpected or unfamiliar information would weaken the sense that “I know how to get along in this world.”

In 1975, when I came on aliya, the only useful book I found was Sybil Kaplan’s The Wonders of a Wonder Pot. It taught me about unfamiliar ingredients and ways to prepare them without an oven, but any other information I needed for navigating into Israeli society – and for raising my children within it – was totally unavailable. Knowing Hebrew gave me the illusion that I understood what was going on around me. In reality, it’s the culture, not the language that takes time, patience and human guidance to understand.

Although future shock now engulfs everyone in Western society, new parents, parents of teenagers and new immigrants have to endure extra-large doses, making their first entries into unfamiliar worlds. Many people belong simultaneously to two or all three of these groups. Oh for a map, and a helping hand!

In her book, Ludman, a renowned clinical psychologist, family therapist and trauma specialist, provides cogent descriptions of life’s challenges, mental exercises that lead to personal insights and practical advice for dealing effectively and meaningfully with people and events throughout the life cycle.

The mental tasks are of two types. The “macro” exercises encourage you to examine (or re-examine) the values and aspirations that mold your personality and lifestyle. The “micro” exercises focus on small units of thought and behavior. For example, most of us would like to improve the way we deal with anger, both internally and outwardly, but don’t know where to begin. Fury can rise so fast that we experience it as out of our control, unstoppable and unpreventable. Thinking about this in vague general terms will probably get you nowhere, as you will discover ruefully the next time anger overwhelms you. Instead, Ludman suggests a very specific and concrete approach: Pick a time in the last week when you were angry. Now, go back and ask some questions as you review your scenario, only this time with some added distance, given the perspective of time.

What was the situation that made you angry? With whom are you angry, and why? What triggers does this situation evoke that are deeper than those that might actually appear at first glance?

What are your physical and emotional symptoms (e.g. jaw-clenching, insomnia, palpitations, depression, guilt)?

How do you respond behaviorally (e.g. scream, cry, withdraw)? How long does this response last? What do you feel you handled well and what could use improvement? What were your strengths and weaknesses in this situation?

The ever-pressing routines of daily life lead some of us to neglect the relationships most precious to us and then to wonder why they have suddenly gone flat. Yet a very small investment of time can yield exhilarating results.

For example, if you’re having trouble getting along with your spouse, try this: Catch your partner “being good.” Pick five things each day for which you can praise your partner. These don’t have to be big, but you will have to search a little some days. Tell your partner what you liked and write them down for yourself. Do this for a week and then go back and ask yourself how it went.

Reading the above, you might think “Big deal. Of course every partner likes being praised.” However, the deeper benefit of this deceptively simple exercise is the way it will change your perceptions and help you develop the habit of seeing your spouse’s best qualities and actions.

As we all know, life in Israel provides endless opportunities for stress. Fortunately, it also has built-in stress relievers, such as strong family support systems and community cohesiveness. However, in their first years here, immigrants may not yet have these supports. Furthermore, even those of us who do have such supports can need more assistance during acute or ongoing crises. Ludman gives detailed explanations of relaxation and breathing exercises, which can be practiced as a daily routine and/or mobilized when we need them most. The shared root of the Hebrew words neshama (soul) and neshima (breathing) underscores the mind-body interactions that make breathing exercises so effective.

Other topics raised in this book include effective communication, marriage, child-rearing, technology and its challenges to family life, the senior years (our parents’ and our own) and bereavement. One chapter, “Take Your Foot Off the Gas,” should be translated into Hebrew and read together by all Mediterranean parents and their new-driver teenagers.

In addition to the high quality and scope of its advice, what makes this book unique is its chapters on life in Israel – the initial aliya adjustments, the difficulties of living far from loved ones, dealing with children’s teachers, coping with terror and the threat of terror, worries about our soldier-children, the roles of religion and culture in our lives and the combined effect of all of these factors together.

Here’s one of my favorite paragraphs: “Pretend for a moment that you are from another planet. Remember, life is not what you knew back home. Appreciate all the things your new life has to offer and enjoy your adopted country’s strengths… Where else do you see pink and red flowers growing on the same tree?… You have to be moved when the bus driver, the woman at the checkout and the gym instructor all say Shabbat Shalom.”

Life’s Journey is an excellent gift for anyone at any stage of life’s journey – especially (but not only) if that journey includes aliya.

The writer is an individual, marital and family therapist practicing in Ra’anana, Jerusalem and Karnei Shomron.

This originally appeared in the Jerusalem Post magazine.

Abuse in the Jewish Community
By Michael J. Salamon, PhD
Urim Publications, 2011, 143 pages
ISBN 978-965-524-064-1

The Catholic Church’s sex scandal involves some 3,000 priests. A 1998 study found that one in four Protestant clergy who do not have the oath of celibacy had inappropriate sexual contacts with someone who was not their spouse. The Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported in 2008 that one in four women and one in nine men are subjected to domestic violence. Sexual violence reported to police increased about thirty percent since 1990. The number of Jewish rabbis and teachers that abuse children is not known but, as Dr. Michael Salamon verifies in this important book, it is also high. And something must be done to stop it.

Salamon describes what constitutes abuse, mistreatment, neglect, violence, and trauma, and narrates many episodes of each in Jewish communities. There is abandonment, stalking, and physical, sexual, emotional, and substance abuse. The abusers are rabbis, teachers, coaches, family members, spouses, neighbors, and a wide variety of people who place themselves in positions of dominance, including social workers, bosses, and camp counselors. Too often people who are abused are not even aware that they are being exploited and mistreated. Salamon describes how abusers manipulate their victims.

Salamon points out that the divorce rate among shidduch weddings – a practice among ultra Orthodox Jews who shun dating and have arranged marriages – is very high because of domestic violence. In 2008, a senior police officer in the ultra-Orthodox community in Bnai Brak in Israel reported that the number of sexual offenses in this community is higher than any other city in Israel. A study showed that in 2007, 95 percent of sexual offenses in Jerusalem were committed by the ultra-Orthodox.

One of the main problems about this tragedy is that most incidences of cruelty are never reported, and many rabbis are to blame for this cover-up. Salamon tells the story of a New York judge who severely and openly scolded a Brooklyn Orthodox Jewish community for trying to hide and gloss over the clear, outrageous sexual acts of a Bar Mitzvah teacher. The bearded offender presented to the court over ninety letters of support from prominent community members, including rabbis, attesting to his outstanding character.

Why are rabbis concealing these scandals? First, unfortunately, many Jews, and rabbis themselves, view rabbis and teachers in an almost mystical manner, as holy supermen, who can do no wrong; therefore any charges against them must be lies, and if not, rabbis feel they must protect the aura of fellow religious leaders. Other say: We can’t publicize these scandals because they will create chillul hashem, they will bring shame to Judaism. Still others contend that it is forbidden to turn over a wrongdoer to a non-Jewish court, called mesirah. Others, in shrill pseudo-piety, say that this is tale bearing, called lashon horah. Salamon quotes Jewish legal sources and authorities to show that the application of these teachings to abusers is not only wrong but outrageous. Still others who want to silence the person who is abused argue that Jews need to remain silent about these behaviors to help assure the survival of Judaism. But is this, one should ask, the kind of Judaism that should survive?

In sum, this is an important book. It brings to light details about a horrendous problem that must be addressed and must be solved.

The man stayed, got drawn into the circle and eventually became a part of the group.

What then are the shortcomings of this book?

One is that it focuses more on the author and on his own spiritual journey than it does on Carlbach and on his journey. The author comes across as someone who sometimes is a disciple who wants to learn from his rebbe, and who sometimes wants to be him. This is why the narrative goes on for years after Carlbach’s death, taking us to the author’s reunions with his hevra in Israel and in America and telling us more than we need to know about how they have reconstructed their lives, some as haredim, some as business people, in the years since they left the House of Love and Prayer.

The other — the major fault of this book is that it includes a chapter on Carlbach’s relationships with women, which is simply inappropriate in view of the fact that Carlbach is no longer alive to respond to it. And that is all that need be said about a person who was never judgmental of others and therefore should not be judged — at least not posthumously — by others.

For those who want to have some idea of what the sixties were like for many young Jews and who want to know something about the one person who paid attention to these young people and reached out to them with a vision that they could help bring the day when the whole world would sing the song of Shabbas, this book is an invaluable guide. It is precisely because it achieves so much that it leaves me wishing it had done more and that it had left out some.

Article appeared here online.

SAN FRANCISCO — Growing up Jewish in North Dartmouth, Mass., Amy-Jill Levine loved Christianity.

Her neighborhood “was almost entirely Portuguese and Roman Catholic,” Dr. Levine said last Sunday at her book party here during the annual American Academy of Religion conference. “My introduction to Christianity was ethnic Roman Catholicism, and I loved it. I used to practice giving communion to Barbie. Church was like the synagogue: guys in robes speaking languages I didn’t understand. My favorite movie was ‘The Miracle of Our Lady of Fatima.’ ”

Christianity might have stayed just a fascination, but for an unfortunate episode in second grade: “When I was 7 years old, one girl said to me on the school bus, ‘You killed our Lord.’ I couldn’t fathom how this religion that was so beautiful was saying such a dreadful thing.”

That encounter with the dark side of her friends’ religion sent Dr. Levine on a quest, one that took her to graduate school in New Testament studies and eventually to Vanderbilt University, where she has taught since 1994. Dr. Levine is still a committed Jew — she attends an Orthodox synagogue in Nashville — but she is a leading New Testament scholar.

And she is not alone. The book she has just edited with a Brandeis University professor, Marc Zvi Brettler, The Jewish Annotated New Testament (Oxford University Press), is an unusual scholarly experiment: an edition of the Christian holy book edited entirely by Jews. The volume includes notes and explanatory essays by 50 leading Jewish scholars, including Susannah Heschel, a historian and the daughter of the theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel; the Talmudist Daniel Boyarin; and Shaye J. D. Cohen, who teaches ancient Judaism at Harvard.

As any visitor to the book expo at this conference discovered, there is a glut of Bibles and Bible commentaries. One of the exhibitors, Zondervan, publishes hundreds of different Bibles, customized for your subculture, niche or need. Examples include a Bible for those recovering from addiction; the Pink Bible, for women “who have been impacted by breast cancer”; and the Faithgirlz! Bible, about which the publisher writes: “Every girl wants to know she’s totally unique and special. This Bible says that with Faithgirlz! sparkle!”

Nearly all these Bibles are edited by and for Christians. The Christian Bible comprises the Old and New Testaments, so editors offer a Christian perspective on both books. For example, editors might add a footnote to the story of King David, in the Old Testament books I and II Samuel, reminding readers that in the New Testament, David is an ancestor of Jesus.

Jewish scholars have typically been involved only with editions of the Old Testament, which Jews call the Hebrew Bible or, using a Hebrew acronym, the Tanakh. Of course, many curious Jews and Christians consult all sorts of editions, without regard to editor. But among scholars, Christians produce editions of both sacred books, while Jewish editors generally consult only the book that is sacred to them. What’s been left out is a Jewish perspective on the New Testament — a book Jews do not consider holy but which, given its influence and literary excellence, no Jew should ignore.

So what does this New Testament include that a Christian volume might not? Consider Matthew 2, when the wise men, or magi, herald Jesus’s birth. In this edition, Aaron M. Gale, who has edited the Book of Matthew, writes in a footnote that “early Jewish readers may have regarded these Persian astrologers not as wise but as foolish or evil.” He is relying on the first-century Jewish philosopher Philo, who at one point calls Balaam, who in the Book of Numbers talks with a donkey, a “magos.”

Because the rationalist Philo uses the Greek word “magos” derisively — less a wise man than a donkey-whisperer — we might infer that at least some educated Jewish readers, like Philo, took a dim view of magi. This context helps explain some Jewish skepticism toward the Gospel of Matthew, but it could also attest to how charismatic Jesus must have been, to overcome such skepticism.

This volume is thus for anybody interested in a Bible more attuned to Jewish sources. But it is of special interest to Jews who “may believe that any annotated New Testament is aimed at persuasion, if not conversion,” Drs. Levine and Brettler write in their preface. “This volume, edited and written by Jewish scholars, should not raise that suspicion.”

Jews who peek inside these forbidding covers will also find essays anticipating the arguments of Christian evangelists. Confronted by Christians who extol their religion’s conceptions of neighbor love or the afterlife, for example, many Jews do not know their own tradition’s teachings. So “The Jewish Annotated New Testament” includes essays like “The Concept of Neighbor in Jewish and Christian Ethics” and “Afterlife and Resurrection.”

At a panel discussion before the book party, Drs. Brettler and Levine conceded that the New Testament’s moments of anti-Semitism would be too much for some to overlook (especially protective Jewish mothers).

“I told one woman I knew that her son might really like this book,” Dr. Brettler said. “She said, ‘If he wants it, he can buy it for himself.’ ”

Thirty years ago, when Dr. Levine was starting graduate school, an aunt asked her why she was reading the New Testament. “I said, ‘Have you read it?’ and she said, ‘No, why would I read that hateful, anti-Semitic disgusting book?’ ”

But Dr. Levine insists her aunt, like other Jews, had nothing to fear. “The more I study New Testament,” Dr. Levine said, “the better Jew I become.”

Click NYTimes online article for the original post.