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Judaism

A Seder in Seattle

Thursday night, we joined my semi-cousin Andy, his wife Catherine, and their adorable son Aidan, as well as a crowd of regulars and newcomers for their annual Seder meal. As always it was a great time, a moving ritual with great food and great conversation.

And for those of you not in the tribe who are looking for a bissel lernen, here's a handy Passover educational site from the Chabadniks.

We're a musical people

Abi Meleibt, by the way, means "At least I'm alive".

It's a conversation, people

Another good one from Chabad.org:

Faithful Questions

You don't learn by having faith. You learn by questioning, by challenging, by re-examining everything you've ever believed.

And yet, all this is a matter of faith -- the faith that there is a truth to be found.

It is another paradox: To truly question, you must truly have faith.

What denomination?

Ok, there's plenty to talk about from the last couple of days, politics, culture (Goodbye, Spuddy), and nekkid clowns, but instead I'm just going to post this out-of-season joke*:

A woman goes to the post office to buy stamps for her Chanukah cards.

She says to the clerk, "May I have 50 Chanukah stamps?"

"What denomination?" replies the clerk.

The woman says "OY vey! Has it come to this? OK give me 6 Orthodox, 12 conservative, and 32 Reform."

* Miz Becky, you see, has this habit of skipping over my e-mails and not reading them until months and months later. I forwarded this particular joke to her back in January. She finally read it today, I remembered how funny it was, and here we are.

L'shana Tovah

And happy new year! 5764 already. It seems like it turned 5763 just yesterday.

May we all see more peace and understanding in the new year.

Redefining the past

So before you start thinking that Rushkoff is totally off base, read this quote from the Lubavitcher Rebbe and tell me that he's not talking about the same thing:

Nothing can hold you back -- not your childhood, not the history of a lifetime, not even the very last moment before now. In a moment you can abandon your past. And once abandoned, you can redefine it.

If the past was a ring of futility, let it become a wheel of yearning that drives you forward. If the past was a brick wall, let it become a dam to unleash your power.

The very first step of change is so powerful, the boundaries of time fall aside. In one bittersweet moment, the sting of the past is dissolved and its honey salvaged.

OK, it's not directly, logically applicable, but the spirit is the same.

What are Jews all about, anyway?

An interesting essay from Douglas Rushkoff:

The reason Jews have such a hard time explaining Judaism, "the religion," is that we aren’t about beliefs. All we really have is a process–an ongoing conversation. You get initiated, a bar or bat mitzvah, by proving you can read the Torah and speak somewhat intelligently about it. No statements of faith required–just literacy and an opinion about what you’ve read earn you a place at the table. Then you get to argue with the old guys.

That’s right: Judaism boils down to a 3500-year-old debate about what happened on Mount Sinai and what we’re supposed to do about it. Judaism is not set in stone; it is to be reinterpreted by each generation. All that’s required is a continual smashing of your false idols (iconoclasm), a refusal to pretend you know who or what God is (abstract monotheism) and being nice to people (social justice). In a sense, Judaism isn’t a religion at all, but a way human beings can get over religion and into caring about one another.

Sounds good, anyway.

But like so many latent Jews in America today (we account for more than 50 percent of the total), I had a hard time finding places where this sort of Judaism is still practiced. They exist, but more likely in an apartment living room or school basement than a sanctuary. The vast majority of messages coming out of mainstream Judaism concern post-Holocaust issues such as the dangers of intermarriage, the threat of assimilation and the need to protect Israel.

I don't agree with everything he says... but that's the point, isn't it.

(via the head heeb)

Humilty

Some wisdom of the sages, by way of Chabad.org:

A person should have two pockets in his coat. One should contain the Talmudic saying (Sanhedrin 37a), "A person is commanded to maintain: For my sake was the world created."

In the second pocket he should keep the verse (Genesis 18:17), "I am but dust and ashes." (Rabbi Bunim of Peshischa)

The Lamed-vovniks

I was trying to explain to a friend who the Lamed-vovniks are, and came across this quote that explained it perfectly:

To understand this metamorphosis, one must be aware of the ancient Jewish tradition of the Lamed-Vov, a tradition that certain Talmudists trace back to the source of the centuries, to the mysterious time of the prophet Isaiah.

Rivers of blood have flowed, columns of smoke have obscured the sky, but surviving all these dooms, the tradition has remained inviolate down to our own time. According to it, the world reposes upon thirty-six Just Men, the Lamed-Vov, indistinguishable from simple mortals; often they are unaware of their station. But if just one of them were lacking, the sufferings of mankind would poison even the souls of the newborn, and humanity would suffocate with a single cry. For the Lamed-Vov are the hearts of the world multiplied, and into them, as into one receptacle, pour all our griefs.

Thousands of popular stories take note of them. Their presence is attested to everywhere. A very old text of the Haggadah tells us that the most pitiable are the Lamed-Vov who remain unknown to themselves. For those the spectacle of the world is an unspeakable hell.

In the seventh century, Andalusian Jews venerated a rock shaped like a teardrop, which they believed to be the soul, petrified by suffering, of an 'unknown' Lamed-Vovnik. Other Lamed-Vov, like Hecuba shrieking at the death of her sons, are said to have been transformed into dogs.

When an unknown Just rises to Heaven, a Hasidic story goes, he is so frozen that God must warm him for a thousand years between His fingers before his soul can open itself to Paradise. And it is known that some remain forever inconsolable at human woe, so that God Himself cannot warm them. So from time to time the Creator, blessed be His Name, sets forward the clock of the Last Judgment by one minute.

-- from The Last of the Just, by Andre Schwarz-Bart

Salt-free water

Another good story from Chabad.org:

Before Rabbi Israel Baal Shem Tov went public with his teachings and established the chassidic movement, he served as a shochet (ritual slaughterer) in a small village in the Ukraine. After he left his post, the village hired another shochet to slaughter their cattle and fowl.

One day, a villager sent his one of his non-Jewish laborers with a chicken to the shochet. But the messenger returned with the bird still very squawkingly alive. "This new fellow you got," he explained, "is no good."

"Why?" asked the villager.

"Oh no," said the peasant "From me he'll get no chickens to slaughter. He stands there with a pitcher, and uses ordinary water from the well to sharpen his knife! Yisrolik would sharpen the knife with his tears..."