thinking jewish

Memorial Day

On a sunny Monday morning, I walked up the steps on the corner of Garfield and 8th Avenue, through a parade of acne-ridden thirteen year-olds, family members, strangers alike.

The task at hand was simple, routine: Shacharit.

But this was no ordinary morning minyan. On this day, a Jewish child became a Jewish adult. On this day, a family celebrated its heritage. On this day, a year of studying paid off. On this day, a two year experiment of trying very new things in a very old shul ended.

Back in November, I'd taken on the Bar Mitzvah child as a special tutoring project - my last major endeavor. Prior, the child had had had no formal Jewish education. While his father had grown up with Ashkenazi Hebrew, bagels, and an endless attention to Talmud study, his mother had been raised with such things as Christmas, pastel eggs, and Jesus. This was a textbook case of intermarriage, after all, with all the expectations of statisticians at hand.

But this son, the only of their three children, was a Jew. And he was becoming an adult. And I would show him the way.

The many months since November have been hard, and full of much work - for he and I both. The two of us, you see, spent this year preparing for major changes - new journeys - his, physical and emotional, mine geographical and intellectual.

Change, as good as it may be, is also, always, a loss. And so it requires preparation. And in our case, that preparation came through Torah.

We studied, we argued, we laughed - two friends, a teacher and his student. Every week. Two hours. We pushed forward each day. Moses and Abraham and the Israelites. Aleph, Bet, Gimmel, Dalet. Back to Moses again.

This week, yesterday morning, we read from the beginning of the book of Numbers. God instructs Moses to take a census of the Israelites - all men aged twenty and older. From there begins an accounting of each of the tribes, their leader, and their number. Each Israelite matters. Each Jew is called to make a name for himself. Each Jew must forge his own path into the Promised Land.

Preparing for this journey, my student taught us, is difficult. Abraham too had been sent on a journey into an unknown future - Go forth from your native land and from your father’s house to the land that I will show you. This must have been scary, and anxiety-inducing. It must have been difficult as all hell.

Change is never easy.

But comfort in the face of uncertainty, my student taught, can be found by rooting ourselves in our tradition. The future is easier to endure if we remember the past. Learn the mitzvahs. Study Torah. Respect our families.

Amen.

With that, the Bar Mitzvah kid went off to celebrate - dancing, and presents and good food, I'm sure. And I walked slowly out of the grand sanctuary on Garfield to say my own "thank you"s and "goodbye"s.

The future is unclear, but bright. The path uncertain, curved, but secure.

The past - these last three years in New York, two years in Brooklyn, two years working with an amazingly talented and insightful mentor - will guide me for many years to come.

And just like that, with a quiet whisper and a "Mazel Tov!", I ended my time at Congregation Beth Elohim. Two years, countless memories, trials, errors, and so much fun - all receding to the storage files of my mind that will guide me down my future path.

That large, old synagogue on the tree-lined streets of Park Slope will forever hold a special place in my memory.

L.A., Lag B'Omer, Et Al

A day late, but still in anticipation of a move to the West Coast in five days, I share with you this:

Appeasement

There's been a lot of free-wielding use of this World War II memory-laden word lately. It didn't start with Bush's speech to the Knesset last week, though that event certainly highlighted the term's timeliness.

According to the logic of the administration and its supporters, parties should not be communicating with the likes of Iran, lest we repeat the mistakes of Chamberlain with regard to Germany.

Chamberlain was naive in his dealings with the fascists - so naive as to agree to some of Germany's territorial acquisitions in exchange for a promise to expand no more. This was, perhaps, the biggest Allied blunder of the war - allowing Germany to grow unfettered and delaying the war's start significantly. Poland was lost because of Appeasement.

So, now that the word is popular anew, it seems appropriate to check a dictionary.

Ap·pease:
–verb (used with object), -peased, -peas·ing.
1. to bring to a state of peace, quiet, ease, calm, or contentment; pacify; soothe: to appease an angry king.
2. to satisfy, allay, or relieve; assuage: The fruit appeased his hunger.
3. to yield or concede to the belligerent demands of (a nation, group, person, etc.) in a conciliatory effort, sometimes at the expense of justice or other principles.

Now, obviously, definitions one and two are positive, and have little to do with the geopolitics at hand. Number three is the action that sane individuals want to avoid.

Don't negotiate with a terrorist holding people hostage. Don't agree to North Korea's demands for aid lest it further develop the Bomb.

But why is Bush so worried about those who want to appease Iran? More to the point, who actually wants to appease Iran, or terrorists and radicals? Who is Bush talking about?

You see, the problem is that the administration and its supporters, in their normal tactics of group-think, fear mongering, and just plain idiotic ideas, has conflated the words "appeasement" and "negotiate."

Speaking with one's enemies is not a bad thing. It is not appeasement. It is not dangerous. We teach children to talk things through with their enemies beginning in kindergarden. The United States and the Soviet Union - enemies if there ever were ones - met and spoke regularly throughout the cold war. Speaking does not amount to appeasement, it is merely good foreign policy, and mature adult behavior.

Which brings me to the news of the day. Israel and Syria, ala Turkey, are now engaged in indirect peace negotiations. Maybe the talks will yield results. Maybe they won't. Only the future will tell.

But, in the lead up to these negotiations, both Turkey and Israel have had made clear to them by the administration that it does not approve, it, in fact, disapproves, of these talks.

Just to be clear, Turkey was encouraged by the U.S. not to host peace negotiations between Israel and Syria.

Shame on the administration. That is a pathetic and appalling break from common sense and good foreign policy, not to mention moral leadership by the world's only superpower.

Sad, sad, sad.

All we are saying, is give peace a chance. If Israel and Syria have the political will to try, the United States should be at the forefront of encouraging the two parties. That ain't appeasement, it's called diplomacy.

Open up a dictionary, Mr. Bush, for God's sake.

The Bitch is Dead

With a single bark in the middle of the night, one of my parents' dogs died last night.

Marris lived a happy and healthy thirteen years, moving a few times between California and Colorado. She was a Corgy - the dog of the Queen of England - with short legs and no tail. When she was excited, she wiggled her ass.

But for most of her life, Marris faced her antagonist morning and night. For the most basic of her living needs, she depended on a woman who despised her.

She and my mom did not get along.

And my mom had plenty reasons to dislike this canine. She conveniently forgot her potty-training at the most unfortunate of times. She tore through screen doors and carpets and furniture. She barked and shed. And she was odd looking - some said ugly. So very ugly.

But she was a living being, one who breathed and felt and saw, one whom my step dad and step siblings loved dearly. And so, in time, my mother and the dog came to a cold peace, a truce of sorts. She got her food and water, and was left alone most of the day, and, in turn, she left my mother alone too.

Back in the day, my mom would joke about a future in which "that dog is dead." And then, this morning, when the yellow animal's body went into rigor in the wee hours before the sun rose, my mom nearly shed a tear. She was actually sad.

The witch missed the bitch.

It's funny how our perspective can change dramatically in the face of loss. My mom is sad following the dog's demise. The Israelites fled slavery in Egypt, then missed their old home. American Jews romanticize the shtetl, that splendid place of pogroms and poverty.

And I, in my final days in New York, find myself reveling in the worst things this city has to offer. Noise, dirt, obnoxious people - I want to hug it all. I have so many reasons to celebrate my departure for the Golden State - no more subway, cheaper rent, burned bridges to leave behind. I look at what my future is bringing with awe and excitement - a gem of a rabbinical school, new and old friends, plenty of sunshine.

But the known bitch is so often more easier to accept than the unknown one. And, so often, we yearn for that which we specifically can no longer have.

So the sooner the time comes for me to leave, the more I clench to that which I love here. New York. New York.

It is a wonderful town.

My three years here have been unparalleled in the opportunities they've presented me. Great friends. Amazing jobs. A new world each day, twenty-four, six.

I came, I saw, I did. And now it's time to go. The bitch is dead. It's over.

And no matter how right that is, no matter how ready I am, it's still sad. Good, exciting, but sad. I'm sure, come a week from now, that I, like the witch, will shed a tear too.

So this post is for Marris, the dog who died this day. She was good. And we liked her. She gave her time in this world. In her passing, we all learned what it means to love, to like, and to hate - to yearn and mourn and hope, how natural it is to miss that which is gone, no matter how much we took it for granted while it was here.

Thank you Corgy. I'm sorry you're dead.

When a Commercial Can Make You Cry

Surfing the blogosphere, one of my regulars directed me to the following video, an El Al commercial running in Israel, in honor of Independence Day.

Now, to be fair, I don't generally think of myself as a very sappy guy. But watching this ad over and over and over, I can't help but find myself on the verge of tears.

The colors, the words, the people, they all come together in this 50 second advertisement to create a bit that makes me want to jump up and hug an El Al employee. I find myself ready to leave Brooklyn and make aliyah immediately.

But it's just a commercial! It's just some people, payed to sing an anthem!

No. These aren't just words. These aren't just people.

They're ideas, yearnings. Hope. Fifty seconds of a smorgasbord of Jews expressing their spiritual and nationalistic aspirations. Different colored skins. Different backgrounds. All Jews, a free people, in their own land, wearing nice shirts and celebrating independence.

And then, at the end, the voice over says, "Our hope, to continue to bring the Jewish people home for the sixty years to come."

When an airline is the vehicle for Jewish theology, the expression of where a Jew is home, and what our people yearn for, ZIonism has succeeded. Who needs the Talmud when we've got airplanes?

This is all to say that, despite its problems and quagmires and deep fissures, it is undeniable that Israel has succeeded in something profound: seeding in so many of us an expression of hope and admiration, an allegiance of aspirations, that has not existed before in the history of the Jewish people, for many thousands of years, if not since the Exodus itself.

The beauty of this phenomenon is apparent when a TV commercial is able to lift you spiritually; when a commercial reminds you of who you are in the world and what you hope for; when a commercial can make you cry.

Spring Cleaning

Just in time for Spring, Method will be setting up shop next week in SoHo, from May 13 - June 7 (550 Broadway between Prince and Spring).

If you do not already know about and love Method, it is a cleaning supply company using only natural products, never tested on animals, and packaged in minimal, recyclable, and often renewable and compost-able packaging.

Their products are sold at Target, smell great, and actually clean, rather than toxify your house and the planet.

In short, we need many more companies like Method - companies which are not afraid to think radically for the sake of health and the environment. And, just as importantly, we need consumers - you and me - willing to support these companies and buy their products.

See you there!

The Greatest Experiment of Them All

Socialist enclaves. The revival of an ancient language. Oases in the desert. A Hebrew metropolis. A Jewish Democracy. Bamba, nargilla, El Al.

This day, Israel, the Jewish State, the Third Jewish Commonwealth, turns sixty. I'm sure the country is replete right now with flags and parties and many a drunk Jew.

But here in Brooklyn, on a rainy spring Thursday, I have the luxury of sitting back and reading about Israel's celebration from afar. What is the world saying? What do we make of this day?

It was just an idea, after all. Bring Jews from the four corners of the Earth back to their ancient land, one flowing with milk and honey, and build a modern nation there, a nation like any other. Could it work? Should it work?

And, these days, we take for granted just how controversial an idea it was. Zionism divided the Jewish people less than a century ago. Today the world hates us for it, but that Zionism is an authentic Jewish expression is, mostly, taken for granted.

Sixty years later, it seems that the dream worked. There are Jewish policemen arresting Jewish robbers. A state like any other indeed.

Bureaucracy. War. Impatience. Discrepancies. Discrimination.

There are more than enough reasons to hate the place, to be embarrassed every time I pick up a newspaper.

We made a state. Great. For what? So we could be blown up in pizza parlors and have a government paralyzed by the ultra-Orthodox?

And so I cry.

But I cry because I love.

I love the place my family never moved to, though they considered it, long before I was born. I love the place on the other side of the world where I will always be an other; I will never understand fully, never fully be a part.

I love it because it is family. It is not just their story, it is mine.

Two thousand years from now, our children's children will look back on the history of the Third Commonwealth, and perhaps they'll be studying a contemporary reality, or perhaps they'll search the pages of a book to understand what was a momentary aberration in Jewish existence.

Maybe it will succeed, and maybe it will not.

But that will be then. And this is now.

And now, my brothers, on the other side of the world, have built a thriving Jewish democracy. It has its problems. But it exists against all odds.

The return of Hebrew? Yeah right!

Farms in the desert? Impossible!

Jews, working together, and with Arabs (sometimes), to build a modern, successful, wealthy and healthy country? You're dreaming.

Hertzl was. And we know what he said about dreams.

Speaking to the Financial Times of London this week, Israeli Historian Tom Segev noted “Israel is an experiment that has not succeeded and has not failed.”

And in that limbo between success and failure, it has done some pretty amazing things. It is one experiment that I celebrate, that I love in all its goodness and wrongdoings.

Happy Birthday.

No-Trash Monday

I failed. It wasn't the coffee cup, or the soda, or the mail or anything close that got me. It was the tape dispenser.

This morning, I decided to try to live today without creating any trash. Everything, and I mean everything, I used today would find its way, eventually, to the recycling bin, save tissues and toilet paper, for which there are no acceptable alternatives. The goal was to reduce my negative environmental impact as much as possible, accepting as a given that I would need to allow for recycling - in New York City in 2007 2008, it is impossible to live a day without some plastic and paper. (Or, perhaps, not.)

I carried my iced-coffee cup seven blocks home from Starbucks to ensure it ended up in a recycling plant and not a dump. I carried a hodgepodge of items back from Target sans plastic bag. I recycled receipts, and printouts and letters.

But I'm moving. And moving means packing. And packing means tape. And tape comes in a dispenser. And the dispenser is connected to a sticky paper packaging. The glue on the packaging renders it non-recyclable.

Damn you Scotch.

It's not like the rest of the day's successes was without problems. I tried so hard to separate papers and plastics and food scraps. But, at the end of the day I'm left with a halogen lightbulb that needs disposing, as well as four AA batteries. They sit on my shelf, staring at me. Throw me away, they beg.

I can see this junk accumulating after a few weeks without a trash can. My closets will overflow with things I have used and cannot reuse, things which no longer have purpose in this world but which I cannot bring myself to let sit away eternity elsewhere.

What's an Earth-loving person to do?

I guess, I keep trying. I spread the gospel and get others to think about the waste that they're sending to a landfill to sit around for thousands upon thousands of years.

I may not have been waste-free today, but I was less wasteful than yesterday. And hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to say the same again.

Can you?

I hope so.

Final Notice

On Monday, this blog will be making the official move to it's new address: http://thinkingjewish.net.

You'll notice that, for now, the old site works normally and the new address, though it displays all posts, is lacking in sidebar material. Come Monday, both sites will contain all blogging materials, but only the new address, http://thinkingjewish.net, will be formatted correctly.

So, again. Change your browsers. I warned you.

Shabbat shalom!

thinkingjewish.net

Passing Gas

Excuse me.

Living in New York, it's sometimes easy to forget that the rest of the country gets around from place to place by car - walking is nearly unheard of in this country. These cars, lest we forget, are powered by burning gasoline, as are airplanes, and even many of the buses we take to work.

We drill and we burn. Drill. Burn. Drill. Burn. And drill some more. All the while, we continue to pollute the environment and send money to such places as Venezuela and Iran.

Torah is pretty clear about our obligations to this planet. Adam and Eve are given dominion over the Earth, but must be its stewards. With great power comes great responsibility. The shmeta year - a sabbatical for the Earth - forces us to farm land only six of every seven years - for that one year it is as if we no longer own the land, it is no longer ours with which to do what we wish.

And yet, we still relate to gasoline as if it is there to be used as fuel. What other purpose does it serve? It just sits there waiting for us to use it. It calls out: drill me, burn me.

Despite all the talk these days about conservation and being "Green" it seems like we're going nowhere fast. At least, we're being led by politicians who don't even realize what a problem the use of petroleum poses - to our air, to our water, to our economy and our national security.

Just this week, Clinton and McCain are both calling for a temporary repeal of the national gasoline tax. Are they joking!? The New York Times, rightfully, criticized that move today. Repealing the tax would do little to help out the economy, would encourage further misuse of oil, and would further our already outrageously high deficit.

Obama stands alone on the side of common sense here.

And then, the New York Times also has an article today looking at the cars that various House Representatives drive on taxpayer dollars. Sure, the $1,000 per month lease-fees are outrageously high for a publicly financed vehicle, but, what should be more offensive is the fact that Michael McNulty, of New York's 6th District, drives the most fuel-efficient car in all of the House.

His SUV, a Mercury Mariner, gets measly 28 miles to the gallon.

Pathetic.

Is it any surprise then that there has been so little progress in Washington on the issue of changing our 19th-century based energy system? For the time being, short of drastic changes, we'll go on wasting more and more, heating the atmosphere, destroying our lungs, and sending money to unhappy people.

Looks like we'll be passing on any sabbatical from gasoline for a long, long time.