A Linguistic Observation about Hillel and Shammai

 I just (literally, minutes ago) realized something about the famous names of Hillel and Shammai.

The name 'Hillel' means 'praised'; the name 'Shammai' means 'appraiser'. I wonder if thee meanings correlate to the positions ascribed to them - with Shammai more inclined to evaluate things as the truly are and Hillel inclined to allow for generous leeway. A few of their famous disputes seem to go in that direction:

• The well-known dispute of 'KeitzadMerakdin', in which the Hillelites instruct that every groom must be praised for his choice of a bride, whereas the Shammites ruled that a spade must be called a spade.
• The Shammites placed a 'real' value on kiddushei kessef, whereas the Hillelites placed a symbolic value.
• In the set of three narratives about potential converts who approach Hillel and Shammai, Hillel is willing to look beyond the present reality, whereas Shammai looks at the present situation; indeed, Shammai chases one prospective convert out with a yardstick. (I discussed this set of narratives here and here).

 So what does this mean? Did Hillel and Shammai choose positions based on their names? Are 'Beit Hillel' and 'Bait Shammai' actually philosophies or attitudes, with the characters of Hillel and Shammai being later literary constructs? Were they real historical figures who were later 'enlisted' as paradigms? Some combination? Does this entire endeavor smack of 19th century Eastern European Wissenschaft?

On Cigarettes and Pig's Blood

Thanks to Joel, I was interviewed for Hungarian national radio today on the issue of trace amounts of pig's blood in cigarette filters. As you can probably imagine, the main thrust of my comments was that pig's blood is the least of a smoker's halakhic concerns. I do not like smoke and have little patience for smokers, and I believe that smoking is forbidden halakhically (even though I recently heard a story about how smoking saved lives - apparently the body adapts to decreased pulmonary function, allowing smokers to remain conscious and living much longer in lox-oxygen environments).

The interviewer wondered how it can be forbidden if the Torah says nothing about smoking (gotta love it when people fundamentally misunderstand fundamentalism).

In a nutshell, having given a disclaimer that I do not know the science of the issue and have not researched all of the halakhic implications, I gave the following reasons that it would not be forbidden to inhale pig's blood - they're pretty obvious reasons:

• You inhale it, you don't eat it (can you smell bacon?).
• By the time it enters your mouth, it's smoke.
• The taste is batel.

It's really a no-brainer, if you ask me, and the 'scientist' who suggested that his findings might have religious implications is barking up the wrong tree, at least as far as keeping kosher is concerned.

Chol Ha-Mo'ed Advice and some People Watching

In Israel, the Jews are the Goyim and the entire country is flooded with vacationing families during Chol Ha-Mo'ed. Over the year, I've developed some strategies for avoiding the major crowds, though it is somewhat impossible. The main two strategies are a) go to places that are only accessible by car, and b) go to places that cost money. Each of these criteria limits the popularity of sites. A third strategy is - stay relatively close to home. Traffic can become a nightmare.

Today we went to the Tisch Family Zoological Gardens, aka the Jerusalem Zoo. We saw some amazing elephants (pilei plo'im!), some really nasty ties, some meerkats, and some shababnikim (Mir-cats).

By far the most amazing exhibit was the moron exhibit. It was incredible to see so many morons in their natural habitat. I saw one moron get stuck trying to pass a stroller through a revolving door. Another particularly talented moron threw an orange at a lion - and actually hit it. There were several examples of moron-spawn encroaching on the territory of the other zoo animals.

This was indeed in direct violation of a) above. My arm was twisted.

Reviews and Recommendations in Brief

I would like to take this opportunity to briefly review a few interesting new things that have crossed my path:

1) The Royal Table by Rabbi Norman Lamm. I have not read this haggadah cover-to-cover, but the parts that I've read offer well-articulated essay or sermon-type insights into the haggadah. Themes that recur are the sense of Jewish majesty and the tenuous nature of Jewish history in general. As can be expected, Rabbi Lamm's soaring rhetoric evidences an affinity for employing alliteration (for example, on p. 136, in a single paragraph, you have 'Persian potentate points' and people, perhaps paranoid'; on p. 73, the manna is a 'greater gift', a 'heavenly handout', a 'prettily packaged present', and a 'divine dole'). I did not find his insights to be particularly novel, but they are certainly edifying, stimulating, and eminently readable.

2) An interesting new site (full disclosure - I was involved in the Hebrew editing and translating of the site): Mikvah Calendar. Although I'm not a 'consumer' of the service that this site provides, having seen what they do in detail I find that it provides something unique and useful. It's utility is not merely for the mathematically impaired - the service sends out regular reminders about bedikot etc., can be tailored to various minhagim, and takes geography into account. Worth checking out.

3) Long-time reader Isaac recently launched a new website, mi.yodeya.com, which is a sort of Jewish answers.com. It's interesting and has great potential to be both informative and 'talmudic' in its discussion format.

Enjoy and Chag Sameach!

A Tale of Two Aarons: Part II

I noted a while ago that Rav Aharon Lichtenstein and Rav Aharon Feldman were actually classmates at TA in Baltimore in the early 1940s, in Rav Bobrovsky's shiur. I heard that tidbit (amongst many, many others) from Rav Yosef Blau.

Rav Lichtenstein notes this connection in a review of Rav Feldman's recent work, The Eye of the Storm: A Calm View of Raging Issues. Rav Lichtenstein criticizes what he perceives to be the angry tone (hardly a 'calm view') of the work, as well as the tendency to view certain ubiquitous phenomena in the Jewish world (such as Zionism) as zero-sum endeavors. He acknowledges that Rav Feldman gives his community a particularly articulate voice, but wishes that the differences that divide two people whose backgrounds and values are so similar would not be so great as to preclude 'mutual fruition'. In a touching coda, R. Lichtenstein recalls that he and R. Feldman were in R. Bobrovsky's shiur together, and that the Feldman boys invited young Aaron Lichtenstein to go sledding with them in Druid Hill Park. R. Lichtenstein asks rhetorically, "Can we ever go sledding again?"

A Memorable Purim Seudah/ Metallica in Israel

My brother-in-law spared me of having to write about the excellent Purim Seudah that we shared yesterday. I merely posted some of my memories (Purim Rabbah, a horse named Maimonides, and Chinese lulavim) in his comments, to round out the picture.

For those who wish to sing "Arur Ha-gever", the tune sounds like this (I actually know the guy in the video), but the words come from here. I pointed out at the time that setting Jer. 17:5 to music is actually quite Maimonidean, since, in his responsum about standing for the Decalogue, the Rambam criticizes differentiating between biblical verses in terms of authority (OK, it's a stretch, but I was not thinking so clearly at the time). My costume was not terribly Spanish, though.

One last matter. Metallica is playing in Israel on Saturday night, May 22, about 15 minutes after Shabbat. I'm considering taking the family to a nearly hotel for Shabbat so that I can get to the concert right afterward. Tickets go on sale this Motza"sh. If anyone's interested in organizing a "Metallica Shabbaton" with us, let me know.

Is there an Echo in here?

Double entendre in the title:
1) My comment system has now switched to Echo and is no longer Haloscan. Too bad. I liked Haloscan. It died.
2) Anshel Pfeffer has an article in Haaretz (it appeared yesterday in Hebrew, today in English) in which he talks about the dangers of charismatic rabbis. Think he reads this blog?

Is the real issue homosexuality?

In her article Homophobia reigns supreme, Yael Mishali insinuates that much of the religious public is more bothered by Rav Elon's alleged homosexuality (although in this instance the proper term is probably 'hypersexuality') than about the alleged abuses.

Mishali raises an interesting issue in that one may wonder what the repercussions would or should have been had Rav Elon been discovered to be having an affair with a consenting adult male. I think it would have warranted censure - recall that a prominent yeshiva head lost his job due to an alleged affair with a married woman - given that the position of Rosh Yeshiva obviously implies adherence to the Torah.

Aside from that, though, I believe that Mishali is off the mark. I do not believe (perhaps I'm naive) that the main issue here is Rav Elon's sexual orientation. I would imagine that the response would have been the same had the alleged victims been young women. Furthermore, I would imagine that the nature of the exposure would have been far less, if at all, had Rav Elon been discovered to be gay but not actively engaging in mishkav zakhor. The predatory element of this  affair is far more serious - in the eyes of Takana and in the eyes of the R-Z community - than the sexuality issue. And I believe that this attitude goes right back to TaNakh and Hazal.

As I wrote here, a comparison of the Christian and Jewish views of the sin of Sodom can be very instructive. In the Western/ Christian world, Sodom is associated with sexual deviancy and perversion. Not so in Hazal and TaNakh, where Sodom was characterized as being cruel and indifferent to suffering. Although the narrative of its destruction portrays an attempt to perpetrate sexual violence, Hazal were bothered by the violence more than they were bothered by the sex-qua-sex (see that post for more detail). I believe that the Takana Forum reflected the attitude of Hazal to a tee and should be praised for the outstanding work they've done.

The Problem of Charisma

So that I'm not accused of piling on, read what I wrote 3.5 years ago about monolithic and monologic charismatic strains of Judaism in general, and about an experience that I had when interviewing at a particular organization. The organization that I interviewed with in March 2006 was Mibreishit, and the rabbi whose portrait, placed at intervals of every few feet, wierded me out was the recently disgraced Motti Elon.

I don't know what Rav Elon did, if anything. I trust the signatories of the letter (a very diverse and extremely well respected group of mainstream Religious Zionist leaders, including Rav Lichtenstein and Rav Ariel). I do not know if Rav Elon is a criminal, a sinner, or none of the above.

I do know that Rav Elon is extremely charismatic, and I do not trust charismatic rabbis. Not a single one. Moreover, I believe that God does not like charismatic teaching, and that this is His critique of Eliyahu ha-Navi in Melachim I:19 - the path to God does not lie in earthquake, wind, and fire, but in the still, small voice. And the path to God never, ever, leads through an individual human being. Long time readers of this blog know that this is a theme that I have often returned to. (for example, see here, here, here, and here, among other places).

An excellent (but somewhat different in that it relates specifically to the high school milieu) articulation of this mistrust appears in a recently published book by Paul Shaviv called The Jewish High School: A Complete Management Guide; Leadership, Policy and Operations for Principals, Administrators and Lay Leaders. He has a section entitled "The Charismatic Teacher" that he actually posted in a comment over at Hirhurim about 4 years ago. It is in the public domain (here), but I'll reproduce the relevant sections here anyway. [Update: as the author notes in the comments, the print version of the text differs from the version below. He has posted the entire passage, as it appears in the book, here]:

The charismatic teacher (the ‘Pied-Piper’) is one of the most difficult situations for a Principal to deal with. A charismatic teacher will deeply affect and influence some students, but will almost always leave a trail of emotional wreckage in is/her wake .

Charismatic teachers are often themselves deeply immature, but their immaturity is emotional, not intellectual, and it is not always obvious. They can be brilliant in inspiring students to go beyond their wildest expectations, and are often regarded (by their following of students, by parents, and by the Board or the community) as the ‘most important’ or ‘best’ members of staff. There is always, however, a price to be paid. One of the effects of charisma is to convince the recipient that he or she is the centre of the charismatic personality’s concern. A teenage student (or a particular class) may feel as though he or she is the protégé of the charismatic teacher. The moment they realize that they are not (sometimes when the teacher ‘moves on to the next’), deep emotions come into play. In the same way, many charismatic teachers will lavish attention on a student or group of students as long as the student(s) do things the teacher’s way, or accept every piece of advice or ‘philosophy’ or Torah uncritically. The moment the student shows independence or objectivity, they are dropped. As soon as they are disillusioned or dropped, they are written out of the teacher’s story. Often such students, very hurt, leave the school. Mild characteristics of cult leaders may be observed. 

Other parents, however, will rave about how their son/daughter ‘adores’ Mr./Ms/ or Rabbi X, and is learning ‘so much from them’. Events linked to that teacher will be showcase events, and in certain cases the Principal (or Head of Department) will come to be dependent on the teacher. ‘We need something special for the prize-giving...or the ground-breaking … or the community event… can you put something together?’ The teacher will protest that the time is short, and it’s impossible, but will, of course, accept and do a fabulous job. 

The problem is that at core, these are not educational relationships. The emotional dependency and entanglement between teacher and student leads to boundaries being crossed. The teacher throws open his/her house to the students. Teens idolize the teacher, and fantasies begin to develop. The charismatic teacher will solve the teen’s angst and will sympathize with their intimate family problems. The teacher becomes party to knowledge about students and their families that reinforces the teacher’s view that they are the only teachers who ‘really’ are reaching the students. The teacher, however, is neither a trained counselor nor a social worker. That knowledge becomes power. A really charismatic teacher can end up running a ‘school within a school’. 

In the classroom, the teacher will often employ techniques (and texts) which take students to the extremes of emotion or logic, and will then triumphantly show them how they are holding they key to resolution (‘At this moment, you have agreed that life has no meaning -- but here is the answer’). 

Buy the book if you want to read more. And thanks, AB, for this link.