Water, Water Everywhere

The connection between Sukkot and water is obvious, and everywhere. It begins with the second Mishna in Rosh Hashana, that the world is judged with regard to water on Sukkot. This designation is intuitive, given that Sukkot marks the start of the rainy season. Consequently, we begin praying for rain on Shemini Atzeret, after the solemn ‘prayer for rain’. Additionally, we collectively engage in a bit of sympathetic magic with the Simchat Beit Ha-Sho’eva, offering a bit of water to God in the hopes that it ‘primes the pump’ and influences Him to provide us with abundant water.

Water shows up in other places – odder places – as well: for example, in the context of the special requirement that the 4 species must be ‘hadar’. The quintessential lack of hiddur, listed at the beginning of the Mishna (3^rd chapter of Sukkah), before getting into greater detail, is desiccation. A dried out lulav, devoid of moisture, is disqualified. It must contain some water. Even stranger is a discussion in the Gemara about how we know that the Biblical ‘pri etz hadar’ actually refers to the etrog. One of the Gemara’s suggestions is that the word ‘hadar’ is related to the Greek work ‘hydro’, meaning ‘water’. The etrog is an extremely water-intensive fruit. And of course, the arava, or willow branch, is called the ‘willow of the brook’ in the Torah.

The question is, does this connection indicate anything beyond the notion that we are initiating the rainy season and praying for rain?

The connection to the 4 species in general, and to hidur mitzvah specifically, indicate that there is something more to it. About 8 years ago, Rav Yehuda Brandes published this homiletic article about a Midrashic/mythic narrative which appears in several sources, including the Bavli and Yerushalmi, and discusses a potsherd which Kind David removed when he was digging the foundations of the Beit Ha-Mikdash. The watery abyss began to overflow and threaten the world, until King David, with the help of Ahitofel, succeeded in bringing the waters back to their proper levels. The Bavli (Sukkah 53a) mentions this story in the context of the Simchat Beit Ha-Sho’eva, explaining the reason for the 15 steps, corresponding to the 15 Sir Ha-ma’a lot Psalms, which served as the Levite bandstand during the celebration. The upshot of R. Brandes’ article (the whole thing is highly recommended) is that water represents id or primality. If it is completely suppressed, the world is deprived of creativity, growth, and, in a nutshell, life. If it is unfettered, it threatens to overwhelm everything and become a completely destructive force.

Hidur mitzvah serves a similar function. It allows us to inject a bit of personality into the potentially ‘dry’ performance of a mitzvah. It allows for a balance between a rote, impersonal attitude toward mitzvah-performance on one hand, and antinomianism or total flexibility on the other hand. Like water, which gives life when it can be integrated into an existing structure, hiddur mitzvah allows for individuation within the structure of mitzvah observance. Our challenge on Sukkot is to find a way to allow full expression but through the halakha – to be able to see the stars even though we sit inside a structure.

Will Tzohar Declare War on the Rabbanut?

The Tzohar Rabbinic Organization recently began publicizing an initiative to create a new kashrut organization, motivated by the fact that, in their words, “in the near future, the State of Israel will face a situation in which 2 million of its citizens will be living in cities where there is no Kashrut certification on its food establishments.” This situation developed because a number of municipal rabbis will not certify any establishment which sells ‘heter mechira’ produce as kosher.

There is no consensus within Tzohar about whether this new initiative is simply to restore balance to the Rabbanut’s behavior, or the first (or perhaps second or third) maneuver in Tzohar’s attempt to create an alternative rabbinate. In Tzohar’s eleven years of existence, they have had a problematic but oddly symbiotic relationship with the Rabbanut. They have walked a tightrope between playing by the Rabbanut’s rules and agitating for reform.

Tzohar’s issue with the Chief Rabbinate is in practice, not principle. They fight against particular examples of rabbinic corruption or misbehavior, but have no real interest in pushing for systemic change. Their basic line is that the institution itself is unproblematic, but the people who currently populate it are.

Ultimately, they suffer from no small amount of hubris; they feel that they have a better finger on the pulse of ‘the people’ than today’s local official rabbis. Indeed, there are segments of the population – the urban Religious-Zionists and religious kibbutzniks, for example, and perhaps even the pro-Jewish but anti-religious cosmopolitan secular Ashkenazim- that they understand better than today’s empowered rabbis. ‘The people’ also live in Afula, though, not just Ra’anana.

I think that Tzohar rabbis are also naïve if they think that if they ever attain power that they will be immune from the failures of the current system. Power corrupts, and rabbis in this country have power, holding the purse-strings of hundreds of millions of shekels, even when it is not a Shemittah year.

The real problem with the Rabbanut, of which the current ‘heter mechira’ issue is but a symptom (though a big symptom), and which Tzohar seems to be ignorant of, is lack of accountability, and, to a lesser degree, lack of transparency.

The Rabbanut is a government institution and runs like one. At the inception of the state, instead of becoming relevant to all areas of Israeli life and society, the Chief Rabbinate was chucked a few bones, but it became, and remains, the authority in Israel in those areas. The Rabbanut has the sole authority to recognize conversions and determine Jewish status, perform Jewish marriages and divorces in Israel, and recognize Jewish marriages performed abroad. Additionally, other areas of Jewish life – namely, kashrut, mikvaot, and eruvin – fall under the Rabbanut’s jurisdiction as well, and these ‘industries’ are multi-million shekel industries. This means that if an establishment in City A wants to be known as ‘kosher’, it must go under the supervision of the local Rabbanut. Once certified by the local Rabbinate, the establishment is free to become certified by additional certifying agencies.

Money for various religious projects is funneled through various agencies to the Rabbanut. Thus, if the Housing Ministry budgets a certain amount for the construction of an eruv, the Rabbanut will have de facto control over how that money is spent; after all, they are authorized to declare that eruv operational or disqualified. In a neighborhood near mine, an eruv was recently constructed. The cost of the eruv was put at 144,000 NIS. My estimation, having built eruvin before and having scrutinized the borders of the area and seen existing structures (basically, the neighborhood was already fully enclosed on two sides, one by an actual fence, and one by ‘tzurot ha-petach’), was that it should cost about 30,000 NIS. That’s a hefty differential. I have no idea how the money was spent, how the contractor who built the eruv was selected, or anything else. There is another scandal here in Modiin in which a mikvah ‘ran out of money’ during construction. Why did it go so far over budget? Who knows? There is no transparency.

Furthermore, the Rabbanut is not really a centralized organization, rather more like a franchise. A Rabbanut position is a lifetime appointment, and the appointment is not made by the Rabbi’s constituents. As I've written before, there needs to be a balance of power between the rabbi and his community. On one hand, the rabbi should have a degree of independence from his constituency, to be able to make hard decisions without being overly influenced by what the balabatim want to hear. On the other hand, the community must feel that the rabbi is addressing their needs, concerned with their concerns, sharing in their joys and sorrows. If he does not pass muster, he will lose his job.

In Israel, rabbis are not accountable to their constituents. The ramifications are manifold; it can mean that an official rabbi can invalidate a conversion 15 years after the fact, as was recently done, without having to bear any repercussions. Another ramification is that the rabbi serves as a de facto gatekeeper for who can get married, who can get divorced, and who is Jewish in his town. Rabbis can demand payment – on or off the books – for performing a wedding, and if he is refused, he has the power to simply refuse to perform or register the marriage. There are horror stories to this effect. The rabbi simply might just be a jerk, give politically incorrect divrei Torah, or show up two hours late to a wedding he must perform. He might insist on chumrot or deny kulot based on his own ideal version of what the halakha should be, ignoring other precedents and the sensibilities of his community. There are no real consequences.

In order to bring about systemic change and introduce elements of accountability and transparency, an organization would need, before anything else, the ambition and ability to do so. Tzohar may have the ability, but they do not have the ambition. They have not raised the issue of what an accountable, responsible Chief Rabbinate would look like, contenting themselves just to assert the unfalsifiable claim that they could do it better and nicer.

Can the system really change? Should it be fixed or simply annihilated? How would that happen? What can organizations like Tzohar really do?

These are the questions that Tzohar should be asking, and that I hope to address in upcoming posts.

Sukkah with a View

Here are some pics that I took from inside my sukkah (at sunset):

The window faces south, toward Emek Ayalon. Nof Ayalon is in the background on the right side of this first picture.

In the immediate background of this picture, you can see the new Modiin bypass road which has not yet opened because of politics. Further in the background, you can see the tracks that are being built for the high-speed train to Jerusalem. If is expected to be finished by 2011:



In the center is the Modiin-Latrun road, beyond which are more Shephelah foothills. Part of Nof Ayalon is visible on the right.

Kol ezrach mi-kem yeshvu ba-sukkot

Art Project

My older son (age 3) attends a Chabad preschool here in Modiin. In general, we’re fairly pleased with the place. He seems to be having a good time, making friends, and learning his davening and brachot.

Last week, however, he came home with the following art project:

This is a portrait of the late Lubavitcher Rebbe’s mother, whose yahrzeit, celebrated as a holiday in chabad, was on the 6^th of Tishrei. The day before, he came home with a note asking that he be sent to school wearing festive clothing, with a coin for tzedakah, and with a candy for the hitvaadut (Hebrew for farbgrengen) that they would be holding in honor of the occasion. They refer to Rebbetzin Chana Schneerson as ‘the mother of the Rebbe, our generation’s prince’ and as ‘the mother of royalty’.

Finally, in honor of the occasion, they served cornflakes with milk for breakfast. I have no idea what they normally serve.

Happy Eruversary

This past Shabbat/Yom Kippur marked three years since the University of Maryland/College Park Eruv became operational. It was a great project. I still consider it the highlight of my rabbinic career. There are a few stories in particular from when we were building the eruv that stand out.

First of all, the whole project was, in my opinion, a major Kiddush Hashem. It was highly visible and got excellent publicity in various local media outlets.

We primarily worked at night because the technology we employed was really only visible at night. We used a self-leveling laser to make sure that the tips of our lechis, which were ½” ground wire molding strips affixed to electricity poles, were directly underneath the electrical wire (based on the principle of gud asik). This is a relatively new but highly effective technique used in eruv-building. Normally, the lechi would have been run all the way up to the wire. This device, which cost us $200, saved us thousands and made it easy to thoroughly check the eruv regularly. The inventor of this little gadget was truly mezakeh the rabbim. We had to work at night, however, because it’s really hard to notice a red dot on a black wire in broad daylight.

So imagine, if you will, a bunch of guys walking around at 2 a.m., holding flashlights, hammers, nails, metal brackets, plastic strips, and this laser thingy, which, before we realized it an covered the extraneous beams, would shoot off into drivers, living rooms, etc. Despite letters of encouragement from the city, county, and university, we had a hard time explaining to people exactly what we were doing, and why we were doing it at such ungodly hours. Then we started getting media coverage, and all of a sudden everyone understood – ‘Oh, you were those guys on the news…’

Part of the fun was translating the theoretical into practice. In theory, it’s easy to slap a piece of plastic on a pole. In practice, there’s no such thing as a straight telephone pole. We found out what type of plastic we’d need, and then figured we’d go to Lowe’s or Home Depot and just pick it up. Wrong. They don’t sell ground wire molding. So we did some research on the web and came up with 4 or 5 suppliers of the stuff, and started calling around. I called this place in Roanoke, VA called Virginia Plastics, and get on the phone with their warehouse manager. Yes, they have 300 yards of ½” black ground-wire molding in stock. The woman then asks me if I work for an electrical company – their main clients. I responded that, no, this was for a private initiative. So the woman says, “Oh, are y’all building an ee-ruv? Did I say that right?” I nearly fell off my chair.

There were some other moments as well. When placing the last lechis in a wooded area at the northern end of the boundary – at around 3am – we found that these woods were also home to rather large spiders in large webs. At least one of our party was an arachnophobe.
I heard from a former UMD student that she had been on the Eruv Committee 10 years earlier. I later found the minutes from those meetings. That eruv had been in the works for at least a decade, but it was about a month between the time we drove the first nail into wood and the time it became operational.
Our eruv dedication ceremony was attended by various notables, including University President C. D. Mote. In my speech, I made reference to some of the challenges of eruv building. Afterward, during the reception, President Mote came over with some technical questions about how eruvin work. I invited him to attend the shiur that I had started giving on the ins and outs of practical eruv building and checking, in order to train our bodkim, but he politely declined. Woulda been nice if it could have been accredited by, say, the engineering department. No such luck, though.

The Four Species of Shabbat Guest

There’s a well known Midrash which compares the four species that we take on Sukkot with four personality types. There are 2 variables – Torah and good deeds – which yield 4 possible combinations.

Having been in Israel for over a year now and having frequent Shabbat guests of the year-in-Israel type, and more precisely of the ‘seminary girl’ type, we can say with certitude that the same four categories apply to Shabbat guests. Sometimes, the guests are very engaging and participate in discussion and Divrei Torah at the Shabbat table. Sometimes, they are very helpful with set-up, clean-up, and taking care of the kids. Sometimes they are both. Sometimes they are neither.

We don’t really like having aravot for Shabbat. Any of the other three are fine.

Thoughts on Forgiveness

When it comes to Yom Kippur, we discuss the theme of the day by using terms like atonement. ‘Atonement’, and even ‘forgiveness’ to a degree, is not used meaningfully in our society. There are other words – like clemency, pardon, reprieve, excuse, and amnesty – which have much greater cultural currency. Three of these terms form a juridical progression. Clemency is a reduction of a sentence without minimizing the gravity of the crime. A pardon is when the crime is forgiven but where the guilt of the pardoned is implicitly recognized. Amnesty happens when an offender or group of offenders is treated as though the crime never took place at all.

And for all of them, O clement God, grant us clemency, pardon us, grant us amnesty

The term ‘forgive’ is more often used in the context of individuals, free agents. If I owe you money, you have the option of forgiving that debt. That idea can be transposed to insult and injury as well. I feel it is important to clarify terminology because otherwise we’re simply playing word games – with our selves, with our friends, and with God. Thus, I would like to take this opportunity to ask my readers to forgive any offense I may have committed against you this year.

The Ethical Dimension of Fasting

In Yeshayahu Chapter 58, which forms the main part of the Haftarah of Yom Kippur Morning, the navi contrasts the type of fast that God desires with the type of fast that He despises:

ישעיהו פרק נח

ג) למה צמנו ולא ראית ענינו נפשנו ולא תדע הן ביום צמכם תמצאו חפץ וכל עצביכם תנגשו: (ד) הן לריב ומצה תצומו ולהכות באגרף רשע לא תצומו כיום להשמיע במרום קולכם: (ה) הכזה יהיה צום אבחרהו יום ענות אדם נפשו הלכף כאגמן ראשו ושק ואפר יציע הלזה תקרא צום ויום רצון לידוד: (ו) הלוא זה צום אבחרהו פתח חרצבות רשע התר אגדות מוטה ושלח רצוצים חפשים וכל מוטה תנתקו: (ז) הלוא פרס לרעב לחמך ועניים מרודים תביא בית כי תראה ערם וכסיתו ומבשרך לא תתעלם: (ח) אז יבקע כשחר אורך וארכתך מהרה תצמח והלך לפניך צדקך כבוד ידוד יאספך: (ט) אז תקרא וידוד יענה תשוע ויאמר הנני אם תסיר מתוכך מוטה שלח אצבע ודבר און:

5 Is such the fast that I have chosen? the day for a man to afflict his soul? Is it to bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes under him? Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the LORD? 6 Is not this the fast that I have chosen? to loose the fetters of wickedness, to undo the bands of the yoke, and to let the oppressed go free, and that ye break every yoke? 7 Is it not to deal thy bread to the hungry, and that thou bring the poor that are cast out to thy house? when thou seest the naked, that thou cover him, and that thou hide not thyself from thine own flesh? 8 Then shall thy light break forth as the morning, and thy healing shall spring forth speedily; and thy righteousness shall go before thee, the glory of the LORD shall be thy rearward. 9 Then shalt thou call, and the LORD will answer; thou shalt cry, and He will say: 'Here I am.' If thou take away from the midst of thee the yoke, the putting forth of the finger, and speaking wickedness;

The contrast seems to be a refrain of the classic prophetic message that observance and worship are meaningless if the worshipper oppresses his fellow human being. This recurs throughout the Latter Prophets, quite literally from the first chapter in Yeshayahu until the last (actually, second to last) chapter in Malachi.

I was bothered, though, by the following question. Verse 6 begins by saying ‘This is the fast I desire’, and then goes on, for the next 2 verses, to beautifully describe a man’s duty to his fellow. There’s a progression from ‘sur me-ra’ in verse 6, where the prophet enjoins his audience to stop oppressing their fellows, to ‘aseh tov’ in verse 7, where the audience is encouraged to actively provide food, shelter, and clothing (in that order) to the needy. This description seems to have nothing to do with fasting, though.

There are two basic reasons given for why we fast: expiation and sobriety. Expiation means that my bodily suffering serves at retribution for bodily sin. I experience a little bit of pain or a little bit of death, and that cleanses me from the stigma of transgression. The pre-Yom Kippur ‘Tefilah Zakah’ prayer is an excellent example of this idea within the Jewish tradition. Line after line, the prayer expresses the hope that each element of suffering purges a corresponding area of sin: not wearing leather shoes atones for when my feet ran to do evil, not eating atones for forbidden foods I consumed, and so forth. The traditional ‘BeHa”B’ fasts are in this vein as well.

Sobriety means that I return to spirit by denying the body. By removing the distractions of the flesh I am able to turn back to the soul and nourish it with what it requires. This is the classic view of asceticism, that the body actually impedes the soul. One need not take an extreme ascetic view in order to see fasting as a manifestation of this idea; just as easily, fasting might be an attempt to restore balance between body and spirit. It is a temporary measure to create a certain atmosphere for a brief period of time, after which things return to normal. Perhaps the mitzvah to eat on the day before Yom Kippur echoes this view that asceticism has value, yet must be tempered.

This chapter seems to be advocating an entirely different dimension to fasting. The problem with the fasting that ‘God has not chosen’ is that I pound my chest with wicked fists. The same hand I beat my breast with is also around the throat of the oppressed. It’s not about the public display of piety, fools. Do you think that’s what God wants?

Rather, when you gather in the town square to call out to God, think of the people who sleep there at night because they have no home. When you feel the pangs of hunger after not eating for a day, think about those for whom this is a regular occurrence. When you don your sackcloth and ashes, remember that there are those who do not have what to wear.

I know that this sounds like a Camp Ramah D’var Torah, but it is precisely what the Navi is saying. This is the fast that God wants: feed the hungry, give shelter to the homeless, and clothe the naked. It means thinking twice before flippantly saying ‘I’m starving’, ‘I’m dying of thirst’, or ‘I have nothing to wear’, because there are people who are really starving, really dying of thirst, and really have nothing to wear.

I thought of this explanation on the bus in Jerusalem this morning, but now realize that it had been percolating for a few days. Each year, Magen David Adom organizes massive blood drives before Tishrei and before Pesach, in anticipation that supplies will begin to run low during the holidays. As I was giving blood last week, I though of the line in ‘Tefilah Zakah’ – ‘may the lessening of my blood and fat atone for all of my sins, iniquities, and transgressions.’ Indeed, there is an ethical dimension to fasting.

If God had a Facebook page…

…His relationship status would be ‘It’s complicated with The Jews’.