Friday, October 27, 2017

Shabbat-O-Gram for October 27

Shabbat-O-Gram

   
Above: a scene from Tuesday night's inspiring Reyut panel discussion

Check out next summer's Israel @ 70 Tour - and reserve now! 


Shabbat Shalom!
 
Mazal tov to Aaron Eben and his three-generation TBE family, as he becomes bar mitzvah this Shabbat morning.  Our portion is Lech Lecha and on Shabbat morning we'll be talking about Jewish names and why we change them. See the parsha packet. And join us Friday night as well for another wonderful musical Shabbat.  Next week marks the 100th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration and we will be hosting the AJC's Director of Contemporary Jewish Life, Steven Bayme.  Make sure to be here for that and for the Hoffman Lecture on November 7, featuring Daniel Gordis and Peter Beinart.
 
 
"The Band's Visit"
 

Last night I was able to see the new Broadway musical, "The Band's Visit."  It opens officially on November 9, but already the buzz is sky high, with nightly sellouts.  I really enjoyed this story of an Egyptian police band that gets sidetracked to a dead-end Israeli development town in the 1990s.  The acting is superb, the music spirited, the theme universal and the ambiance authentically Israeli.  The overarching message is of overcoming difficulties in communication. The premise of the show is a mix up at the border that sends the band to Bet Hatikva, instead of Petach Tikva, "with a P."  English is the common ground where the Israelis and Egyptians meet, but it's also slippery ground for all of them and the words never flow easily.  In some ways, though, the communications issues are more acute among couples and families that have known each other for years in the town.  It was nice to see a show about Arabs and Israelis where not a word is spoken about territories, terrorism or anything remotely political.  A definite two thumbs up!


Warding off Evil Spirits, Jewishly

For this week of Halloween, for those interested in a variety of responses to the question, 'Should Jewish children trick or treat?" click here.  And if you click three times, you can escape the clutches of the Wicked Witch of the West!  One way to resolve the dilemma of whether or not to go out would be to trick or treat in a Jewish costume.



You can also take a look at my packet on Vampires in the Jewish tradition.
 
Meanwhile, if you are concerned about how to ward off evil spirits, Jewish folklore provides lots of advice.  Because, you see, over the centuries, no matter what the rabbis poo-poohed, the ordinary folk in the country side were spitting on their fingers and going "poo, poo, poo." Jewish folk religion was - and is - full of the occult.  Below are some helpful hints, direct from my great great grandmother, whom I contacted at a seance, assisted by the Long Island Extra Large (the Medium was unavailable)
  
How to Ward off Evil in Jewish Myth and Superstition
 
Spirits of the dead who wander between heaven and earth and are trapped, unable to ascend:    Wear a prayer shawl and blow a shofar (preferably in the cemetery where the bodies of the wandering souls are buried).  The gates of heaven will open for the souls to enter. (From "The Boy Who Blew the Shofar," Gabriel's Palace: Jewish Mystical Tales.)
 
Stand inside a chalk circle to protect yourself from evil spirits.
 
Say the Shema to ward off demons.
 
To keep demons away, read Psalm 91.
 
To exorcise a dybbuk, you need a minyan (ten adults past B'nei Mitzvah age) and a rabbi.  The rabbi will contact the spirit and try to convince it to leave the person and move on to the afterlife (heaven). A dybbuk is a wandering spirit who has invaded a human being.  You can spot a dybbuk because they will sometimes speak nonsense or behave in a strange and disturbed manner. 
 
Red string is said to ward off evil.
 
Salt protects one from demons and evil spirits. Place it in the corners of the room where evil spirits like to hide.
 
To put a golem to rest - erase God's name on his forehead. Angels can provide protection from demons and evil spirits.
 
Spitting 3 times is done in response to seeing or hearing something especially evil or good.  Spitting protects against demons.
 
When traveling, wear a metal pin on your clothing as protection against evil.
 

 
 
The Religious Landscape
 
A very interesting survey on the American religious landscape came out this fall, based on interviews of over 100,000 Americans from every state.  It's summarized here.  The headline finding from a national perspective is that white Christians, once the dominant religious group in the U.S., now account for fewer than half of all adults living in the country. Today, fewer than half of all states are majority white Christian.

But for me the more interesting finding is that the religiously unaffiliated-those who identify as "atheist," "agnostic," or "nothing in particular"-now account for nearly one-quarter (24%) of Americans. Since the early 1990s, this group has roughly tripled in size (see the chart below).


 
This is not just a Jewish phenomenon, but for Jews it has unique implications, because Jewish identification can be - and often is - based on peoplehood rather than religion. But for us the key is that what we are seeing in the Jewish community is reflected everywhere.
 
See also this recent Washington Post article on the state of American Jewry.


 
Embracing Auschwitz


 As a rabbi, I've long felt that the Holocaust took up far too much Jewish bandwidth, smothering our joy and replacing it with resentment. It posed questions that were unanswerable, eclipsed centuries of achievement, gave us a pretext to hate others and gave our children the excuse to opt out of this Debbie Downer of a religion altogether.
 
But recently I've come around to a very different perspective, one validated by the pending release, on Nov. 3, of a video game. Not just any video game, but "Call of Duty: WW2," the long-awaited next installment of a series that has sold 30 million units worldwide. What makes this one different is that it will depict the Holocaust, a topic avoided in prior WW2 video games, and the creators indicate that the subject is being handled authentically and truthfully.
 
"We didn't want to shy away from history," creative director Bret Robbins told Mashable.
"We wanted to be very respectful of it. Some very, very dark things happened during this conflict, and it felt wrong for us to ignore that."
 
As a response to the recent surge of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust is increasingly being brought into the mainstream of popular culture. Aside from "Call of Duty," this year's hit conventional board game is called "Secret Hitler," which simulates the rise of fascism. The subject has become so prevalent in social and political conversation that a rule was created, Godwin's Law, asserting that if any discussion goes on long enough, eventually someone or something will be compared to Hitler.   
 
The Holocaust is everywhere.
 
Back in the 1970s, Elie Wiesel disparaged the lowbrow TV mini-series "Holocaust" as "untrue and offensive." But the series was seen by 20 million West Germans, half the country's population, which led to massive reforms in the German educational system. Hopefully after the release of "Call of Duty," millions of fans will convert their gamer's rush into a strengthened commitment never to let such evil prevail again.
 
Wiesel also said that anyone who hears the account of a witness becomes a witness. With Wiesel gone and the survivor generation dwindling, it is time for Jews to embrace Auschwitz and to fully assimilate the power of its narrative into our collective story. I believe Jews are finally ready to do just that - and that Judaism itself is adapting to prepare us for that role.
 
In the 2013 Pew survey of American Jews, what stood out most was the response to the question, "What does it mean to be Jewish?" Leading the way by a large margin was "remembering the Holocaust," at 73 percent. If there is a core to the Jewish self-image, a consensus narrative, that story is far more likely to revolve around what occurred at Auschwitz than at Sinai.
 
Jews, like all people, crave to live lives of joy, love, acceptance, community and faith. After seven decades of going through various stages of grief, we are at last recognizing the potency of the Holocaust message and its potential to help us check those positive boxes. What used to evoke only guilt and vulnerability is becoming a source of vitality and inspiration. While the narrative remains utterly shattering, sparks of hope are beginning to emerge.
 
In a series of sermons over the recent High Holidays, I demonstrated how classical Judaism is now being interpreted anew through the prism of this epochal event, and a "Torah of Auschwitz" is emerging.
 
Keep in mind that I use the term "Torah" with some deliberate irony - it is intended to provoke thought, not to show disrespect. For in the broadest sense, the word means "sacred teaching," and as a verb it connotes an ongoing, evolving process of discovery. I contend that such a "Torah"- like process of sacred discovery has been dramatically aroused by the epochal events of 70 years ago.
 
For example, in Leviticus 19:14, the Torah of Sinai says that we should not place a stumbling block before the blind. In Germany today, there are memorial plates in the ground for Jewish victims - "Stolpersteine," or stumble stones, they are called, because when you stumble over them you have to notice. As of last January, there are 56,000 Stolpersteine throughout the country. So the "Torah of Auschwitz" offers this corollary to Leviticus: "Yes, you should place these stumble stones everywhere a victim lived, to remove blinders from the eyes of those who try to forget their suffering." 
 
Or take Deuteronomy 17:19, the commandment to remember what Amalek did to Israel in the wilderness, attacking the meek and innocent.  For centuries, this has been interpreted as a call for vigilance in the face of evil. But in light of Auschwitz, this commandment has been reinterpreted, not as a call to punish the villains, but rather to remember the victims and to ensure that never again should a cry from the depths of despair, danger and loneliness, from anywhere and anyone, go unheeded. 
 
Sinai's Torah also calls upon Israel to love the stranger - no fewer than 36 times - "because you were strangers in the land of Egypt." Egypt was a living hell for the Israelites, as was Auschwitz for Jews. But in Egypt, save for Pharaoh's daughter's rescue of baby Moses, there were no Raoul Wallenbergs or Oskar Schindlers to buck the genocidal trend. 
In stark contrast, Yad Vashem has honored at least 26,120 Righteous Among the Nations from 51 countries. So, the "Torah of Auschwitz" states "Love the stranger," because not only do you know how it feels to be a stranger who was hated, but you also know how it feels to be a stranger who was, occasionally and inexplicably, loved.
 
Just as the evil perpetrated by the Nazis has no historical parallel, so does the courage of that era dwarf anything we see in the Bible. As the decades pass, selfless supernovas like Janusz Korczac, Mordechai Anielewicz and Hannah Senesh will further brighten the midnight sky as their stories merge into the collective, sacred narrative.
 
Jews need to embrace this story with love, conviction and overflowing pride at the unfathomable fact that somehow we survived this genocidal onslaught. And we survived with one mission only: to tell the tale. As the release of "Call of Duty: WW2" demonstrates, the world has never been more receptive to, and in need of, that message.

Shabbat Shalom
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman

Wednesday, October 25, 2017

Embracing Auschwitz





 October 24, 2017, 4:18 pm 

Rabbi Joshua Hammerman
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman









Aa rabbi, I’ve long felt that the Holocaust took up far too much Jewish bandwidth, smothering our joy and replacing it with resentment. It posed questions that were unanswerable, eclipsed centuries of achievement, gave us a pretext to hate others and gave our children the excuse to opt out of this Debbie Downer of a religion altogether.
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But recently I’ve come around to a very different perspective, one validated by the pending release, on Nov. 3, of a video game. Not just any video game, but “Call of Duty: WW2,” the long-awaited next installment of a series that has sold 30 million units worldwide. What makes this one different is that it will depict the Holocaust, a topic avoided in prior WW2 video games, and the creators indicate that the subject is being handled authentically and truthfully.
“We didn’t want to shy away from history,” creative director Bret Robbins told Mashable. “We wanted to be very respectful of it. Some very, very dark things happened during this conflict, and it felt wrong for us to ignore that.”
As a response to the recent surge of anti-Semitism, the Holocaust is increasingly being brought into the mainstream of popular culture. Aside from “Call of Duty,” this year’s hit conventional board game is called “Secret Hitler,” which simulates the rise of fascism. The subject has become so prevalent in social and political conversation that a rule was created, Godwin’s Law, asserting that if any discussion goes on long enough, eventually someone or something will be compared to Hitler.   
The Holocaust is everywhere.
Back in the 1970s, Elie Wiesel disparaged the lowbrow TV mini-series “Holocaust” as “untrue and offensive.” But the series was seen by 20 million West Germans, half the country’s population, which led to massive reforms in the German educational system. Hopefully after the release of “Call of Duty,” millions of fans will convert their gamer’s rush into a strengthened commitment never to let such evil prevail again.
Wiesel also said that anyone who hears the account of a witness becomes a witness. With Wiesel gone and the survivor generation dwindling, it is time for Jews to embrace Auschwitz and to fully assimilate the power of its narrative into our collective story. I believe Jews are finally ready to do just that — and that Judaism itself is adapting to prepare us for that role.
In the 2013 Pew survey of American Jews, what stood out most was the response to the question, “What does it mean to be Jewish?” Leading the way by a large margin was “remembering the Holocaust,” at 73 percent. If there is a core to the Jewish self-image, a consensus narrative, that story is far more likely to revolve around what occurred at Auschwitz than at Sinai.
Jews, like all people, crave to live lives of joy, love, acceptance, community and faith. After seven decades of going through various stages of grief, we are at last recognizing the potency of the Holocaust message and its potential to help us check those positive boxes. What used to evoke only guilt and vulnerability is becoming a source of vitality and inspiration. While the narrative remains utterly shattering, sparks of hope are beginning to emerge.
In a series of sermons over the recent High Holidays, I demonstrated how classical Judaism is now being interpreted anew through the prism of this epochal event, and a “Torah of Auschwitz” is emerging.
Keep in mind that I use the term “Torah” with some deliberate irony — it is intended to provoke thought, not to show disrespect. For in the broadest sense, the word means “sacred teaching,” and as a verb it connotes an ongoing, evolving process of discovery. I contend that such a “Torah”- like process of sacred discovery has been dramatically aroused by the epochal events of 70 years ago.
For example, in Leviticus 19:14, the Torah of Sinai says that we should not place a stumbling block before the blind. In Germany today, there are memorial plates in the ground for Jewish victims — “Stolpersteine,” or stumble stones, they are called, because when you stumble over them you have to notice. As of last January, there are 56,000 Stolpersteine throughout the country. So the “Torah of Auschwitz” offers this corollary to Leviticus: “Yes, you should place these stumble stones everywhere a victim lived, to remove blinders from the eyes of those who try to forget their suffering.” 
Or take Deuteronomy 17:19, the commandment to remember what Amalek did to Israel in the wilderness, attacking the meek and innocent.  For centuries, this has been interpreted as a call for vigilance in the face of evil. But in light of Auschwitz, this commandment has been reinterpreted, not as a call to punish the villains, but rather to remember the victims and to ensure that never again should a cry from the depths of despair, danger and loneliness, from anywhere and anyone, go unheeded. 
Sinai’s Torah also calls upon Israel to love the stranger — no fewer than 36 times — “because you were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Egypt was a living hell for the Israelites, as was Auschwitz for Jews. But in Egypt, save for Pharaoh’s daughter’s rescue of baby Moses, there were no Raoul Wallenbergs or Oskar Schindlers to buck the genocidal trend. 
In stark contrast, Yad Vashem has honored at least 26,120 Righteous Among the Nations from 51 countries. So, the “Torah of Auschwitz” states “Love the stranger,” because not only do you know how it feels to be a stranger who was hated, but you also know how it feels to be a stranger who was, occasionally and inexplicably, loved.
Just as the evil perpetrated by the Nazis has no historical parallel, so does the courage of that era dwarf anything we see in the Bible. As the decades pass, selfless supernovas like Janusz Korczac, Mordechai Anielewicz and Hannah Senesh will further brighten the midnight sky as their stories merge into the collective, sacred narrative.
Jews need to embrace this story with love, conviction and overflowing pride at the unfathomable fact that somehow we survived this genocidal onslaught. And we survived with one mission only: to tell the tale. As the release of “Call of Duty: WW2” demonstrates, the world has never been more receptive to, and in need of, that message.
Rabbi Joshua Hammerman is spiritual leader of Temple Beth-El in Stamford, Conn.


Friday, October 20, 2017

The Fall of the Serial Predator



OCTOBER 19, 2017, 6:55 PM 






The dramatic downfall of Harvey Weinstein is not a specifically Jewish story, and those who have tried to draw broad cultural connections, comparing this moment to, say, the publication of “Portnoy’s Complaint,” have failed miserably. Nonetheless, this is a teachable moment, albeit a disturbing one, for we’ve reached a true cultural watershed. So it is worth looking at some key messages emerging from those creepy massages.
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We have reached the point of zero tolerance for SSPs (Serial Sexual Predators) in our society, which is a major evolutionary leap that needs to be recognized and applauded. This is an enormous social moment, one that would, once upon a time, have been made into a stellar Miramax film. But when this film is made, despite his starring role, someone other than Harvey will take home the Oscar.
The degree of shame has become so absolute and the outcry so universal that this crime now transcends political, social, and economic boundaries. What’s true for the Catholic church is also true for the rabbinate (and regrettably, there is no shortage of rabbinic SSPs who have betrayed the trust of their communities). What’s true for a Jewish producer (Weinstein) is also true for an African American icon (Bill Cosby), an Amazon exec (Roy Price) and a media mogul (Roger Ailes), and what’s true for Democratic leaders like Bill Clinton is also true for the current Republican SSP inhabiting the oval office. Israel also has its share of powerful predators, like Moshe Katzav. And just as the perpetrators cut across all demographic lines, so do the victims – they are women, men (and everything in between) and, most especially, children.
What might have been acceptable a decade ago simply no longer is. You might escape conviction, and you might even get elected, but the marketplace will decimate you, your accusers, newly emboldened by this cultural shift, will never give you a moment’s rest and you will be universally reviled.
Civilization as we know it has been around for about 6,000 years (the Jewish calendar is spot on, this being the year 5778), and my best guess is that SSPs have been around for about, oh, 6,000 years. But the point of zero tolerance was just reached last week. Equality for women is still a very new concept, and according to a new Pew survey, a majority of Americans feel that we have yet to have fully achieved it.
As Nechama Goldman Barash of the Pardes Institute noted this week, the Bible is not immune to stories of sexual violence and objectification. She cites examples, including:
  • Sarah who is forcefully taken without permission into the harems of Pharaoh and Avimelech without protest from Abraham (God is the protestor in both cases)
  • Dina who is taken without consent by Shechem
  • The beautiful captive woman who is taken into the home of the Israelite
  • The concubine of the Givah who is gang-raped as her indifferent husband is nearby, within the safety of a house
  • Bathsheba who is sent for by David, taken into his bed and returned by his messengers afterwards
  • Tamar who is brutally raped by Amnon
  • Vashti who is the first objectified woman to say no
  • Esther
Using rabbinic source material, Goldman Barash then demonstrates how the (male) scholars of the Talmud struggle to control their own sexual desires. Occasionally they succumb to blaming the victim, but more often they speak of a man’s responsibility to control his “male gaze.”
“Women are not expected to stop their normative behavior,” she writes citing a source where doing laundry exposes a woman’s arms and legs to capitulate to the male gaze. Rather, she adds, the male gaze is expected to restrict itself.
There are Talmudic stories of rabbis like Elazar ben Dordia, who couldn’t pass a single brothel without stopping in. He learns a hard lesson and is treated somewhat sympathetically in the end, for while he objectifies women and is a sex addict, the transactions are consensual and he is not considered a predator.
It is one thing to struggle with sexual desire – most people do. It is quite another to be an SSP. I emphasize “serial,” because, while every single incident is horrible and it only takes one abuse of a power relationship to ruin a victim’s life completely, Judaism does offer the possibility of teshuvah for the person who slips up once and then sincerely makes amends. We need to take true remorse and corrective action seriously, especially in a world where one single slip up from decades ago can be looped eternally on social media and worn by the perpetrator like a scarlet letter/emoji.
And let’s not forget the third party to each incident. There’s the predator, there’s the victim… and there’s the enabler. What is interesting about the Weinstein case is that more attention is now being given to the enablers, those “yes” men who, more than the predator himself, create a climate of acceptance and acquiescence. Those who did nothing to stop Weinstein’s abuses are no better than the host who offers a drink to an alcoholic or the bartender who allows a drunk to drive away from the bar. Anyone who truly cared about Weinstein had to know that this day of reckoning could come.
This week’s portion of Noah contains an obscure anecdote in chapter nine of Genesis. After the family leaves the ark and the earth is dry, Noah plants a vineyard, and wine becomes the balm that soothes his post-flood PTSD. In this incident, Noah becomes so drunk that he is lying around naked – undoubtedly wearing Weinstein’s bathrobe. His sons respond not by encouraging him to drink more or allowing him to become a laughingstock. They “cover the nakedness of their father,” and, in the most dignified manner imaginable, they back away from Noah without staring at him in his shame. No posting selfies with drunk old Dad.
If only a few people had cared about Weinstein as much as Noah’s sons cared about their father, it might have made a difference in the lives of so many, including Weinstein himself.
We may be witnessing the fall of the serial predator, but as with ISIS, the fall does not mean the end. Abusive power relationships will metastasize into other, less grotesque but equally malignant forms, subtler than “Mad Men” but every bit as manipulative.
As long as I have something you want – e.g., a career-defining role – and you have something I want – e.g, a body – and I have the power to make or break you, there will be ways to make it all look quite consensual and transactional, even when it isn’t. As David said to Bathsheba — or was it Harvey Weinstein who said it, to Ambra, Angelina, Ashley, Cara, Emily, Kate, Mira, Rose, Rosanna and Gwyneth – “I’ll scratch your back and you scratch mine.”