The Uses of Violence

Posted on May 24, 2013 | 1 Comment

Much of the Jewish world unleashed a torrent of invective denouncing the recent violence at the Kotel. A few weeks ago on Rosh Chodesh Sivan, the self-ordained “Women of the Wall,” as is their wont, arrived to breach the traditional customs of that holy site and were greeted by thousands of young women who had already taken their place in the Kotel plaza. The NY Times reported – grossly inaccurately – that the women were met by thousands of “protesters” who violently tried to prevent their prayers, all of which required police intercession. In truth, as numerous eye witnesses testified and video accounts verify, the “thousands” were praying silently even as roughly two dozen male hooligans engaged in the “violence:” chanting, the pouring of water and the throwing of some plastic chairs.
The males were dressed in the black garb of Haredim, and therefore this event became a “Haredi” attack on the women. A few points need to be made. Clearly, Jews have a low threshold for what is considered “violence.” In a world in which Muslims just in the last month set off bombs in Boston that killed and maimed innocent people, in which two Muslims accosted and beheaded a British soldier on the streets of London, and in which Muslims across the world – Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria and elsewhere – are brutally killing other Muslims and Christians, it seems overwrought, to say the least, to use the word “violence” for them and for what is the present equivalent of a schoolyard spat.
Additionally, one prominent Modern Orthodox rabbi in NYC took the opportunity on Shavuot day to decry the events at the Kotel, speak of achdut (unity) as the heart of Kabalat HaTorah, and then lambaste the “Haredim” for the violence at the Kotel. Suffice it to say, he would never blame “Muslims” for the violence of Muslims but speak of radicals, extremists, Islamists and other euphemisms. It is strange how “unity” for some is a one-way cul de sac. All Haredim apparently are responsible for the work of a handful in a way that he would never, ever, suggest that all Muslims are responsible for the violence of their “handful,” or two handfuls.
The reaction at the Kotel to the provocation of the women was beautiful and spirited. Thousands of women and young girls who lack any grievance against the Torah and actually love the Torah came to the Kotel early to pray. They dwarfed in size the number of provocateurs which barely registered 100 souls. The plaza held thousands more Jews praying that morning; 99.9% of the people were engaged in no violent acts at all, even of the mild variety committed. It should have been a non-story. The Kotel functions with a Rabbi who makes spiritual decisions; no one has any more right to impose their forms of worship on the Kotel as they do in Teaneck. More deference should be paid to those multitudes who come daily and conform to the norms of the place than those who come monthly and deviate from those norms. The Women were frustrated. Period.
Let me be clear that I also denounce the violence, as I do the provocations. Here are the problems with said violence: it is against the Torah, it is immoral, it is wrong, it desecrates the holy place, and it is counterproductive. And so that became the story –not the outpouring of genuine prayer on the part of the overwhelming number of Jews who love the Mesorah and find no fault with it but the catcalls of those few ruffians.
But here’s another problem with violence: it works, especially in the Middle East.
Arab terror in Israel for the last 45 years, going back to the era when they began hijacking planes, has succeeded in gaining them near statehood in the land of Israel and international support and acclaim for their cause (much of that, of course, because opposition to them carries with it the implicit threat of violence). Every new act of violence brings calls for more Israeli concessions. Arab terror internationally has provoked a wave of sympathy for their causes, and they are successfully infiltrating European capitals and exercising dominion there. The Left regularly blames America and the West for provoking the violence, and that violence has forced Americans, for example, to invent new words – Islamists – to describe the perpetrators rather than run afoul of the perpetrators and their supporters and trigger new violence. One can’t even say that Muslims have a problem with violence – even after the savagery in London and 50 years of evidence – for fear that aggrieved Muslims will retaliate with violence, which sort of proves the point. Every new attack or bombing fuels the strain in American politics that either blames America first and/or wants to withdraw from the world entirely.
Bashar Assad remains in power because he is violent; Hosni Mubarak – no saint – fell from power because he did not attack his own people in a sustained and deadly way. These lessons are lost on no one in the Middle East.
Indeed, the threat of violence is even better than violence itself. Jews are kept from praying on the Temple Mount because of “Arab sensitivities,” i.e., the threat of Arab riots if they do. MK Moshe Feiglin himself was barred from the Temple Mount because of the threat of Arab riots, despite his parliamentary immunity. The Bedouin in Israel’s Negev are running rampant, seizing land and harassing Jews with little official response except meek acquiescence because there is an explicit threat of violence (and already, numerous real life examples of thuggery) if they are restrained in any way. Illegal Arab construction in the Galil is left unchecked because the threat of violence intimidates government officials and the police. In the face of Muslim extremism, pusillanimity is the norm of Western governments. Threats work. It is easier to allow lawlessness than to use force to protect the law and the rights of victims; it is even easier then to enforce the law only against Jews whose notion of “violence” (!) is pouring water, throwing paint, and usually just sitting down. Remember Gush Katif – the fears, the hype and the reality.
A little passion in defense of religious rights is good, although it can often go awry. Jews have such an aversion to violence that we allow desecrations to take place rather than respond vigorously, which is probably just as well. Just a few hundred yards from the Kotel – in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre – riot police are always on duty, lest one of the Christian groups vying for control there move oner of their chairs three inches and provoke a holy war. Muslims defend their religious principles…well, we know what they do, and most often to each other. If a Jew steps onto the Temple Mount carrying a prayer book, Muslims claim he is trying to undermine Al-Aksa and call for protests and riots. Would a Haredi threat of violence be more effective than violence itself? Would the police then tell the women, as they do to Jews on the Temple Mount, we cannot allow your activities because of the “threat to public order” they will cause? Of course not, because a Jewish threat of violence is never credible, and the wave of condemnations for the sporadic violence that does occur is so universal that it undermines whatever cause the lout is espousing.
Jews use words rather than acts to express anger. That is why events such as this engender paroxysms of platitudes from Jewish officialdom, a cascade of clichés that can drown out both clear thinking and right-minded action. For all the blather about settler violence, there is actually very little violence relative to the threats and the provocations of the Arabs – constant stone-throwing, shootings, the seizure of crops and the burning of property, and the occasional mass terrorist attack. Any Jewish response is suspect; Jews are often arrested for self-defense and the burden of proof is on them to prove their innocence. Why? Because the Arab threat of violence trumps Jewish rights. But using words has limited effect in the climate in which they operate.
Over a decade ago, during the height of the civil war for the land of Israel then raging, with the horrific terror that was persistent and lethal, I was asked to sign a proclamation of local clergy and politicians denouncing “hatred and violence” in all its forms. It was – still is – a fairly typical liberal response to crisis: pass a resolution or a law (and if a law exists, pass a duplicate law – see Obama response to the persecution of Fox News’ James Rosen). I refused to sign, saying that “hatred of evil is good, not bad, and violence in self-defense is a virtue, not a vice.” To equate all forms of hatred and violence is wrong and immoral, and such a resolution was therefore meaningless claptrap. I still remember the dozens of scowls directed my way. The proclamation was never promulgated, and that particular bubble was burst. This squeamishness about violence is irrational, and frankly, does not emanate from Jewish values.
Nevertheless, it is also true that Jewish “violence,” such as it is and especially the Kotel affair, is not carried out by the dedicated, spirited, zealous and pious Jew who is offended by the cheapening of the Torah – but by young people who are just drawn to violence. It is a way to expend their aggressive energy in a way they think is kosher but is not. And had they not acted out, they would not have provided the pretext to the media to miss the real story – the profound expression of love of God and faith by thousands of pious women who love the Torah, not feminism.
To call the Rosh Chodesh event a “horrific riot,” as that senior Modern Orthodox rabbi did, inflames passions and serves an agenda, but hardly accords with reality. We should save the hyperbole – especially the word “horrific” – for savage beheadings and suicide bombings and not for the throwing of plastic chairs. Violence at the Kotel in this context is sinful and detrimental, strengthens the women’s cause, and provides a forum for polemicists and sermonizers to distract people from the real issues. Indeed, violence has many uses, for perpetrators and responders.
But we should recall as well that, lamentable as it is at times, violence will be with us until the day when all men will “beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.”
Let us hope that day comes soon, because within a very short time, few people will actually still be using plowshares and pruning hooks.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Machshava/Jewish Thought, Minhagim

Barack Milhous Obama

Posted on May 17, 2013 | 2 Comments

What is it about presidents and second terms that so often find them mired in scandals? The combination of hubris that takes root upon being re-elected to the most powerful position in the world, and the frustration that grows with the realization that the most powerful position in the world is still not sufficient to achieve one’s objectives, leads presidents to take risks, violate norms of conduct, and lie with impunity. And when the media begin to swirl around the presidency like vultures and the fawning stops, the cavalcade of scandals begins.
The only thing standing in the way of Barack Obama receiving the full Nixon treatment is the absence of a John Dean. Richard Nixon was sunk not only by a partisan Congress (Obama is fortunate that Democrats control the Senate) but by revelations that came out of his own White House. But Nixon was never particularly close to his staff. Obama’s inner circle is wound so tightly that it is hard to imagine a John Dean emerging, confessing misconduct and telling tales. But the scandals that are tarnishing the Obama administration will not fade anytime soon.
Two of the scandals – the Benghazi cover-up and the IRS persecution of conservative groups – were directly tied to Obama’s re-election efforts, just as the Watergate excesses largely grew out of Nixon ‘s Committee to Re-Elect the President (dubbed, for some reason by them, CREEP). Is there is person who believes that the Benghazi lies – attributing a terrorist attack on US sovereign territory (the consulate) that murdered four Americans, including the US ambassador, to a You Tube video made in California rather than to Al-Qaeda offshoots – did not originate in the White House?
It is now crystal clear that the survivors on site immediately reported the terrorist attack – as did the Libyan government – and no one with any knowledge of the event thought about or even mentioned an internet parody of Muhammad. And yet, Obama, Hillary Clinton, and Susan Rice were alternately weeks after the incident still hinting or declaring that the fault lay not with terrorists but with, in George Will’s words, “excessively boisterous movie critics.” Obama himself raised this issue at the UN about ten days after the attack. Of course, a terrorist attack would undermine the Obama narrative that Islamic terror was a thing of the past, put to eternal rest by the slaying of Osama bin Laden. Think again. (Hillary got her pay back from Obama for peddling this lie past the election – the joint TV interview with the President in which he ceremonially passed the torch to her before she disappeared to avoid having to answer questions.)
Clinton’s role in this will not end that quickly either and this fiasco will stick to her mediocre resume. The assumption of “full responsibility” without saying for what, about what or the acknowledgment of any mistakes will be juxtaposed to her exclamation “what difference does it make?” when, to all reasonable people, finding out the causes of a terrorist attack helps identify perpetrators, engenders an evaluation of possible missteps, and work to prevent a future recurrence. That seems to be quite a difference.
The attempt by the White House to deflect questions at first because the incident was still being investigated, and most recently because the incident happened “so long ago,” is facile to the point of silliness. It is a great way to lose credibility and enrage serious journalists.
The IRS scandal is also typical. Is there a person who believes that the directive to the IRS to investigate conservative groups – and Romney donors – did not originate in the White House? Why would low level IRS staffers on their own harass only political groups associated primarily with one side of the American divide? It strains credulity to think that orders from some White House official were not filtered through the system, with deniability for all, until the right operative received his/her instructions. For sure, the President can feign outrage – but these officials are part of the Executive Branch of government, working at his behest and doing his bidding.
Is there a “John Dean” in this White House – a person with a quasi-conscience who will name names and inform the public what the president knew and when he knew it? Bear in mind – I only learned this last week for the first time – the Nixon Enemies’ List was formulated by Dean and Charles Colson, with no direct input from Nixon. It is arguable whether or not Nixon even knew who was on the list. But Nixon was sunk because someone on the inside talked, and because an enthusiastic and partisan Congress delighted in his downfall. It is no rationalization to note that whatever Nixon did was done by other presidents before him. FDR was the first to use the IRS against political opponents, and Kennedy and Johnson did as well, in addition to using the FBI and CIA in a series of illegal acts. They all engendered loyalty in their subordinates, as did Nixon in some of his but clearly not in all of his.
All it takes is for one person to talk – and then to have one indictment, trial, conviction or even plea bargain for more names to be revealed. The yarn then unravels fairly quickly.
If anything will prompt a lone voice to come forward it will be an aggressive reporter, angered by the seizure of the phone records of the AP reporters by Justice officials looking for a national security leak, who cultivates and coaxes a source into talking.
In the meantime, it is worth noting that Bush II, for all his troubles in his second term, never had such ethical missteps attributed to his White House, and the Bush years were in fact a respite between two scandal-ridden Democratic administrations. It also bears mention that Obama has chosen the classic Nixonian circle-the-wagons approach to crisis control. As the beat goes on, and the timeline slowly reveals that Obama knew earlier and earlier about the truth of Benghazi and the existence of IRS persecution, his presidency will become shakier and shakier.
The traditional second term curse has come early for President Obama. He might even need a new crisis to deflect public attention from his troubles. Syria, perhaps?

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events

Temperance

Posted on May 10, 2013 | 7 Comments

How can we understand the harsh, intemperate remarks directed at Knesset Member Dov Lipman (Yesh Atid) by the distinguished Rosh Yeshiva of the very yeshiva he attended and with which he identifies?
MK Lipman, a self-described Haredi, belongs to the Knesset party whose leader has been most outspoken about having Haredim “share the burden” of public service and economic output. From one perspective, his membership in the party is an anomaly and the criticism was bound to happen sooner rather than later. That perspective is one that perceives Talmud Torah as the ultimate value in society – which is laudable – but also demands that the rest of the society acknowledge that as well, which is a much harder sell.
From another perspective, Lipman represents a new wave of Israeli leadership, in which the traditional divisions in Israeli politics between religious and secular are no longer sustained. That approach has already been commented upon here, as approximately half-dozen political parties boast members of Knesset who are religious Jews. That is unprecedented, and it recognizes that, just as the “Jewish Home” includes Jews who are religious and secular, so too the Jewish “Future” has the same. The parochial, provincial parties that are interested only in their own needs and constituents are in recession.
Lipman has embraced a plan that would limit the number of full-time yeshiva students supported by the State to 1800 people chosen annually. The rest could learn Torah until age 21, and then do some form of army or national service and then join the work force. It recognizes the value of Torah study, as well as the necessity of reversing the dire poverty that is endemic in the Haredi world. He also supports a plan to mandate that Haredi elementary schools teach secular subjects like mathematics and English, or lose some government funding. For all that, Lipman was called by the Rosh Yeshiva a “wicked” person, who “has learned [Torah] and rejected it,” and akin to “Amalek,” the eternal arch-enemy of the Jewish people, i.e., one who wants to destroy the Torah and the Jewish people. Ironically, MK Lipman, in his past a veteran Torah educator, wrote a book about Jewish education that carries the endorsement of the very same Rosh Yeshiva who has now denounced him.
One would think that the Haredi leadership, especially in Israel, would themselves be searching for a solution to the financial and educational crises in the Haredi world. The rates of employment among Haredim are staggeringly low; according to statistics released this week, 61% of adult Haredi women work outside the home (typical of the secular world) but just an astonishing 48% of Haredi men are employed. One sin begets another. An inferior secular education leaves even interested Haredim woefully unprepared to hold meaningful jobs that pay salaries that can support their families. Additionally, ignorance of mathematics makes Talmud Torah infinitely more difficult. Anyone learning Daf Yomi should realize that more than a dozen folios in Masechet Eruvin are incomprehensible without some rudimentary knowledge of mathematics. And yet, a defiant ignorance of this subject is being glorified in the Haredi world, notwithstanding the fact that in the Rosh Yeshiva’s own yeshiva in the United States secular subjects are studied in the Yeshiva high school and students in the upper yeshiva routinely attend college. It is hard to see why secular education for Yeshiva students here is the norm, and secular education for yeshiva students in Israel demands martyrdom rather than compliance.
Ask many Haredim in Israel privately, and they will concede that they have been let down by their religious leadership who have proffered an ideal of existence that cannot be achieved, that renders them incapable of functioning in a normal society, and that bears little relation to the Torah world historically.
The “business model” of the Haredim has failed. Proof of its failure is the strident rhetoric flung at MK Lipman in place of a reasonable attempt to find solutions to the existing problems – as if Lipman is the problem and if he – and his ilk – would only disappear, then all problems in the Haredi world would disappear as well. That is patently false, but he is a convenient target for the major failure in the Haredi system, which follows.
Personally, I am drawn to the Haredi world, and especially in its regard for Torah. Too often, one finds in the Modern Orthodox world grievances of one sort or another against this or that aspect of Torah, as if Jews get to sit in judgment of God and His Torah. There are groups that define themselves by their rebellion against the part of Torah or the halacha they do not like. That is disgraceful arrogance, and that type of insurgence is thankfully unknown in the Haredi world. They like – love – the Torah, and they have no complaints against the Creator. Often, they are more humble servants of God than one finds elsewhere, and certainly defer to rabbinic authority (always welcome, but here, probably to a fault).
But those for whom the primacy of Talmud Torah is paramount have failed miserably in one regard: they have not successfully conveyed the value of Torah study to the rest of the society that they hope will support them. And that failure was quite predictable given current trends. That is to say, you cannot tell the rest of society that you cannot live with them in the same neighborhoods, ride with them on the same buses, fight alongside them in the same units (or any unit, for that matter), and socialize and interact with them in any meaningful way – and then stick out your hand and say “support me, because Torah study is the greatest value.” The mendicant cannot condescend to the benefactor, at least not forever; the benefactor might develop his own ideas and values and eventually say “no, sorry.”
In fact, that failure is even more troubling that it sounds on the surface, as the Haredi lifestyle and the walls that it has erected around itself has convinced too many Israelis (and other Jews) that it is impossible to observe the Torah’s mitzvot and still be a productive citizen. To be a pious and observant Jew, it would seem from their value system, demands that a person withdraw from the world at large, from gainful employment, and from meaningful contributions to anyone outside one’s narrow community. But a Yeshiva is not a monastery in the wilderness; it shares a root with yishuv, civilization. A true yeshiva enhances and even defines the civilization around it; it doesn’t detach itself from it.
The chickens of detachment and segregation have come home to roost.
Of course, I know of no precedent in Jewish history where a community of putative scholars expected the rest of the Jewish world to support them in perpetuity, and the Haredi world is being forced to reckon with that reality. The shrillness of the responses to date – catcalls of Amalek from some, threats by others to leave Israel and relocate to Poland and Russia (re-create the “good old days,” I suppose) – underscore the paralysis of leadership in the Haredi world, which is a shame for all Jews because the Torah commitment of Haredim is unparalleled. But that commitment also needs to be re-focused and especially must begin to infuse Jewish life outside the Bet Midrash.
The saddest aspect of this imbroglio is that it has thus far stimulated no major reassessment in the official Haredi world, no re-evaluation of what they might have done wrong and what they might do better, and no acknowledgment that there is even a problem in their circles. They seem to feel it is all politics, combined with Jew-hatred, and that the storm will pass whenever the next elections occur, they handle the post-election coalition building more deftly and the money will start to flow their way again.
They could be right about the latter. That is a tragedy, because such “victories” imperil the Torah world and ultimately harm all Jews. And there is no shortage of role models in Israel today of people who learn, fight, work, earn and build – who see themselves as part of something greater and not apart from everyone and everything else. They are the embodiment of the Torah ideal today, and they are the ones who will move Jewish destiny forward.

PS: In late-breaking news, the distinguished Rosh Yeshiva publicly apologized to MK Lipman for his intemperate remarks (sort of: he went from calling him a “rasha” to simply “misguided” and denied comparing him to Amalek). Now, on to solutions.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History, Machshava/Jewish Thought

Lag BaOmer

Posted on May 3, 2013 | 2 Comments

Surprisingly, the holiday that requires the most advance preparation is not Pesach or Succot; those require one, two, maybe three or (all right, for some) four weeks. In Israel, preparations for Lag Baomer began well before Pesach, almost six weeks in advance of the celebrations. Why?
A ubiquitous sight from early spring was seeing children gathering wood for the big bonfires made on Lag Baomer. Children become scavengers. These urchins clear their homes of all wood in a way that is not done before Pesach with chametz. They frequent construction sites and build makeshift wagons, schlepping their new-found wood from block to block to the central gathering spot. Anything not nailed down is seized, and I suspect that even much that is nailed down is seized anyway. Often, the pieces of wood are two or three times the size of the child carrying it; it looks like the wood is moving itself. This went on for weeks, and really intensified this last week with Lag Baomer’s imminence.
Of course, there are persistent reminders to exercise caution. Fire is obviously dangerous, and in an American context, it is hard to conceive of letting children play with matches, much less ignite stacks of wood in the hopes of producing an enormous conflagration. And, indeed, most fires were well-supervised (although it is clear that the hills surrounding Modiin did catch fire.)
How seriously do Israelis take this quasi-holiday? This year, children were off from school for two days, Sunday and Monday. And the Rabbinate, wary of Shabbat desecrations if bonfires were lit on Saturday night, directed that Lag Baomer pyrotechnics be delayed until Sunday night. (The Rabbinate has developed a habit of minimizing the real dates of Jewish observances in favor of commemorating events.) As can be expected, this just induced the boisterous, youthful participants to light fires both nights – Saturday night in fulfillment of the “custom,” and Sunday night in deference (so to speak) to the Rabbis. What is the origin of this strange custom?
For sure, it is rooted in kabbala (admittedly, not my thing), and a celebration of the yahrtzeit of Rabbi Shimon bar Yochai who brought eternal light to the world through the Zohar and whose illumination is commemorated annually on this day. Perhaps there are other reasons, and some thoughts occurred to me.
In addition to the hilula for Rabbi Shimon, Lag Baomer primarily celebrates the cessation of the plague that afflicted Rabbi Akiva’s disciples. There is a common denominator that links the two: both Bar Yochai, and Rabbi Akiva and his students, were caught in the inferno of Roman persecution. Rabbi Shimon had to hide in a cave with his son for many years, and Rabbi Akiva’s students were actively engaged – as was Rabbi Akiva – in the failed rebellion of Bar Kochva (which, as I learned last week from Modiin’s mayor, actually began in Modiin).
It was a dark time for the Jewish people. Torah study declined and had to go underground. Jewish settlement in the land of Israel was constricted. It was 75 years after the churban, and the future seemed even more bleak that at the time of the churban itself.
And yet, we survived. The plague stopped. The rebellion ended. Rabbi Shimon came out of hiding with a change of government, and Torah study began anew – culminating just a few decades later with the publication of the Mishna.
Fire is the symbol of Torah and Jewish continuity. We are the heirs to a “fiery faith” (Devarim 33:2). Even in the darkest moments, all it takes is one spark to reignite the flames of Torah and it burns again. And fire has the capacity of not being diminished when it is spread; one candle lights another without that flame being lessened in intensity at all. The spread of Torah enriches all of us – teacher and student, parent and child – and nothing need be lost.
In essence, Lag Baomer is a celebration of the mesorah – not just the hidden aspects as revealed by Rabbi Shimon, and not just the revealed aspects as represented by Rabbi Akiva – but a celebration of the mesorah of Torah and the land of Israel that sustains us, that gives us direction in life and eternal hope for the future.
Undoubtedly, children are always the best examples of this hope, and so they have become, if not the masters of the mesorah (yet), then at least the masters of the fire that symbolizes Torah, mesorah, our love for Israel and our confidence in the redemption ahead. They may fully comprehend why they toil for so long gathering their wood and assembling their bonfire, but they do not toil in vain. They aim to keep the fire raging until the coming of Moshiach. May they stay strong, and safe.

Some Lag Baomer pictures:

http://mail.aol.com/37688-111/aol-6/en-us/mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=31727889&folder=Inbox&partId=1&saveAs=photo.JPG

http://mail.aol.com/37688-111/aol-6/en-us/mail/get-attachment.aspx?uid=31727891&folder=Inbox&partId=1&saveAs=photo.JPG

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Holidays, Israel, Jewish History

Women on the Wall

Posted on April 26, 2013 | 9 Comments

Here in Israel, some would have you believe that the most recent contrived contretemps – women wearing talitot and seeking public prayer at the Kotel – has riveted the country and pitted groups, people and politicians against each other in waves of outrage and recriminations. The truth is that it is barely a story, discussed very little by Israelis, and reflective of the peculiar forms of Jewish self-expression that are rooted in the exile experience.
As such, two sensations wash over when reading the sporadic references to these matters in the media. The first is tedium. Whatever their motivations, and I assume at least some are sincere, this battle is same-old same-old. The movers and shakers among the provocateurs are predominantly non-Orthodox, and some of those leading the charge and being arrested for the blatant breaches of the law are secular women who would otherwise not be found within 2000 ells of a house of prayer. As is customary these days with all groups that are uncomfortable with established religious or cultural norms, they wrap themselves in the banner of “equality,” as if that justifies anything and everything.
Memo to provocateurs: Judaism does not believe in absolute equality, nor does nature or life itself. The Torah is quite explicit that men and women share the same essential spiritual worth – both males and females were created in the image of God. But that is not the same as saying that modes of worship, and treatment under the law, therefore have to be identical. In God’s orchestra, men and women, kohanim, leviim and yisraelim, all have different roles and play different instruments. That is why that orchestra produces beautiful music and has spawned millennia of faithful Jews who have clung to the Torah despite great suffering imposed from outsiders and enormous challenges from secular culture and values.
The orchestra of the provocateurs plays only one instrument – a loud trumpet that blares and blares, and attracts attention but not respect.
There is a second sensation that arises as well to which many have become accustomed as these arguments pop up every now and then: sadness. It is sad when women feel that they are spiritually significant beings only when they mimic what men do. Whatever obscure sources one wants to cherry-pick after the fact, it is obvious – for example – that women have never worn talitot during prayer. That these women should feel that their prayer is elevated and worthy only when wearing male garb in public is just sad. (One wonders why these women just don’t wear tzitzit¬ – a talit katan – everyday under their garments like observant men do, or is it just the public show that matters?)
Certainly men can light Shabbat candles every Friday night and go to the mikveh once a month, but those men are mimicking women and fashioning their own religion that has little connection to God or Torah. It is the ultimate in self-worship. Egalitarianism has become the dominant value – above all others – such that the Torah is merely a tool in achieving it, and any jot or tittle of the Torah that engenders any sort of inequality must be abandoned, according to this way of thinking. For example, there are non-Orthodox Jews known to me who refuse to daven anywhere there is a mechitza (partition between men and women), deeming such to be “immoral.” They are sincere, albeit misguided. Where does it end? Should we anticipate a day when women will be clamoring to grow beards during sefira and lamenting the unfairness of it all – the “male patriarchy” – if they can’t?
In truth, the groups comprising the Wall Women have different agendas. Some want to push for women’s prayer and the duplication of the male experience, while others want full egalitarian prayer – mixed minyanim and the like. They are not identical but have joined forces to fight the greater battle – much like Conservative Judaism does not accept Reform Jewish conversions but fight together against Orthodox control of the conversion process. Both, again, have found the convenient bogeyman – the Haredim who are the enemies de jure in Israel and blamed for much of society’s ills and the strife at the Kotel. But anyone with remote familiarity with the events on the ground knows that the most caustic opponents of the provocateurs are not Haredi men, but women, and not all Haredi women, just religious women who are happy in their lives, love the Torah and find no fault in it, and do not want their prayers disturbed by these foreign elements who have incessant complaints against God’s Torah instead of their own unwillingness to comply with it.
The Haredim, though, are depicted as the enemy because they are convenient targets, and a woman-woman brawl would be even more tedious. And not all the women involved are non-Orthodox, but, as we have seen in other areas, rebellion against Torah can come from those who wear suits, hats, tichels, wigs and tallitot – and from both men and women.
Much has been made of the arrests of women wearing tallitot and otherwise disturbing the peace at the Kotel. It sounds bizarre that anyone should be arrested for “praying” in an uncustomary matter, until one realizes that just a few yards away from the Kotel, Jews are routinely barred from praying near the Temple Mount, and even arrested if they are caught moving their lips. There is a concept among decent people of respecting the norms and customs of a place. Certainly, these women would not demand freedom of worship in Al-Aksa, nor even try to enter wearing shoes. They would not seek to impose their forms of worship on a church, and if similarly-minded Christians did, the church would be justified in having them evicted and, if necessary, arrested for disturbing the peace. In their egalitarian ardor, they show contempt for Judaism that they would never show to other religions. (It reminds me of when the late Leah Rabin visited Pope John Paul II and covered her head with a scarf, something she would never consider when visiting the Chief Rabbi. Interesting.)
Indeed, perhaps these women would garner more support if they took their prayer to the Temple Mount. A steel cage match between Muslims and liberal Jewish women would be worth ten times the price of admission. As one of my dear colleagues pointed out, it would be delightful if these liberal women fought for their rights to pray unfettered at Me’arat Hamachpela in Hevron, or at Yosef’s Tomb in Shchem. If nothing else, it would put them on the side of the angels in support of Jewish rights throughout the land of Israel.
Of course, Jewish prayer on the Temple Mount is prohibited by Israeli law so as not to offend Muslim sensibilities. Why, then, are Jewish sensibilities any less precious than Muslim ones? And – to be blunt – Jewish sensibilities are offended by blatant violations of Torah and mockeries of Torah that take place anywhere and in any form. True, we control our rage better than Muslims do, but the issue is not prevention of violence but sensibilities. And law and order.
Right now, the law bans some of the antics of these women. They may not like it, as I don’t like other laws, but those who break the law deserve to be arrested. Civil disobedience comes at a price, although the left in Israel – trumpeters of the “rule of law” – have long reserved the right to break laws they don’t like for causes they consider to be just. They conveniently forget the illegal negotiations with the PLO before Oslo – when even meeting PLO officials broke the existing law. Anarchy results when people pick and choose which laws are moral and which laws they will follow.
The gloomier prospect is that this matter will not end. Natan Sharansky’s compromise has been hailed by many, and give him credit for trying. (He wants to enshrine in practice the High Court’s license to have such prayers take place on the Western Wall’s southern extension, near Robinson’s Arch, on the unspoken but compelling theory that “out of sight is out of mind.”) There is logic to it, although religious Jews recoil at the permanence of any arrangement that breaches Jewish law. As is well known (Masechet Sukka 51b), the Bet HaMikdash of which the Western Wall is but a remnant had a balcony for women erected whenever large crowds were expected. Perish the thought – but the Holy Temple for whose rebuilding we pray every day was not an egalitarian institution! And the same mesorah that teaches us that today’s Kotel is part of the retaining wall of the Mikdash and the place from which the Divine Presence has never left and which God vowed would never be destroyed (Midrash Shir Hashirim Rabba 2:9) is the same mesorah that regulates how Jews pray.
And the compromise is sought on the specious grounds that failure to do something will cause a diminution of American-Jewish support for Israel. But that train left the station years ago; the primary supporters of Israel today in America are evangelical Christians, not Jews. Jews have become too unreliable, and too assimilated, to constitute a durable core of support, although few will admit this publicly, and the denial of this reality serves a purpose in keeping otherwise straying Jews somewhat tethered to Jewish life. And if the compromise is coupled with increased Jewish rights throughout the land of Israel – on the Temple Mount and elsewhere – it will have served a noble purpose.
But the controversy will not end – whether or not the “great compromise” goes into effect – because, as we have seen with race in America, “equality” leaves its seekers unsatisfied and they begin to demand special treatment and privileges. Robinson’s Arch will be construed as Plessy v. Ferguson re-visited, a “separate but equal” facility that will stoke the flames for years to come. In accord with Middle East custom, the provocateurs will pocket these concessions and plan their next move. It will not end, because the yetzer hara for Torah is also powerful and usually self-justifying. The latest reports are that the women in question have already rejected the compromise. They want more, and subtlety is not their strong suit.
What is missing – as is frequently the case in these intra-Jewish disputes – is surrender to a Higher Authority. Thus, this is a good debate to have, even if it has little traction in Israel, because it is a compelling reminder of the fundamental principles in Jewish life and the very foundation of Torah: Whom do we serve, how and why? What does it mean to be Jewish? How can all the deviations sought in Jewish law and morality not be deemed as self-worship? One recalls that among the initial founders of Conservative Judaism were Orthodox Jews and Rabbis. It is hard to imagine such a thing today, but, for example, Rabbi Henry Pereira Mendes at the very end of the 19th century served as the president of the OU (Orthodox Union) and the Jewish Theological Seminary, of which he was one of the founders. It took two decades to sort out who was who and who stood for what. I sense that these groups and their agendas will not require that much time to determine whether or not they want to be part of the halachic world.
The answers to those questions usually are a powerful indicator of a person’s Jewish commitment, but more importantly, the extent to which that commitment will be transmitted to his/her children and grandchildren. A sin engenders a sin, and a mitzvah engenders a mitzvah. On which side of the wall, then, will these women, their supporters and their children, wind up? That is the critical question.
Meanwhile, a District Court Judge – identified as Orthodox – ruled yesterday that women can pray at the Kotel as they wish because there is no “local custom” that has to be obeyed. One would have thought that the Rabbi of the Kotel would have been in a better position to determine what the local custom is, but, at least, whatever the merits of his argument, this judge has now proven his liberal bona fides and put himself on the fast-track to a Supreme Court appointment.
Before anarchy descends on the Kotel, it would be a good time to remind ourselves that the Kotel is a symbol of Churban (the Destruction of the Temple) and not yet a symbol of redemption, may it come soon.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History, Machshava/Jewish Thought, Tefillah

The Siren

Posted on April 16, 2013 | 4 Comments

Twice in seven days, all Israel stands still for two minutes of silence. Pedestrians stop walking, and drivers and passengers exit their cars and stand at attention. The first is for Remembrance Day for the Holocaust and the Heroism, and the second for “Yom Hazikaron l’challelei ma’archot Yisrael v’nifg’ei pe’ulot eiva,” “Remembrance Day for the Casualties of Israel’s Campaigns and Victims of Acts of Hatred.” That unwieldy name encompasses all the victims of Israel’s wars and Arab terror – almost 24,000 soldiers of the IDF, Air Force, Navy, underground, intelligence, police and prison officials, and the more than 2800 victims of Arab terror that has not yet ended. Hashem Yikom Damam.
Of course, what makes the moment extremely powerful, even haunting, is not the silence. There is no silence. An intense, sonorous, booming siren rings for exactly two minutes throughout the country. It builds to its crescendo within three seconds, retains its decibel level, and then winds down in the last three seconds. I have often heard criticism of the siren – and even more of and by the handful of religious Jews who do not honor it – as a non-Jewish custom, as inherently meaningless, even as Bitul Torah. How foolish.
Two minutes is a long time (the siren that heralded the start of this Yom HaZikaron lasted just one minute). It took me a few seconds last week to realize that what I was hearing was the modern equivalent of the shofar – a tekia gedola that never wavered or weakened and that penetrates the heart of the listener, if only he is open to it.
There is no silence. The siren carries the cry of all the sacrifices made to create, sustain and defend this land, and all the tears and heartbreak of the loved ones of the casualties. It is impossible not to think of them – as the tekia is a cry as well. Interestingly, and somewhat controversially, Remembrance Day joins together soldiers and civilians in a fraternity of people whose blood was shed by the enemy who seeks our destruction. In some quarters, it could be argued that there is a fundamental difference between a soldier who loses his life on the battlefield, and a victim of Arab terror killed in a marketplace or on a bus.
That argument is also misplaced. The “suffering” with which the land of Israel is acquired (Masechet Berachot 5a) does not distinguish between those killed with guns in their hands and those sitting in a coffee shop, between those killed by “friendly fire” and those murdered because they are Jews living in the land of Israel. To combine the two groups is inspired and unifying; the television shows (like on the first Yom HaZikaron, there is no news or entertainment on TV for 24 hours) are interspersed with accounts of the lives and deaths of soldiers and terror victims. Each story is searing, even heroic. Children who did not know their fathers, including some whose fathers were killed while their mothers were still pregnant and who know of their fathers through large pictures that grace the walls of their homes. Young widows who have aged and whose eyes sparkle at memories of their husbands, and fathers and mothers whose sons are forever young. Every bereaved family carries within it a void that cannot be filled. The day and the stories are relentless.
Last week, a group of bereaved families petitioned to detach Yom Hazikaron from Yom Haatzma’ut, arguing that the transition is too painful. (An advertisement featured a mock dialogue, from Yom Ha’atzma’ut Eve: “Why are you still crying?” said someone to a bereaved father. “Didn’t you hear the siren ending Yom Hazikaron?”) It is hard not to be sympathetic to their cry; the pain of loss is overpowering. In PM Netanyahu’s speech at Har Herzl Military Cemetery, he made that clear. Some losses define a person’s life. One can persevere, but one never forgets or overcomes.
You think of them during those powerful two minutes.
And you think of the self-sacrifice that is unending. I visited the Shomron on Sunday as a guest of the One Israel Fund, and saw the dedication and altruism first-hand – new communities being built, living under constant threat but with an inner joy and contentment that is unsurpassed elsewhere. I watched as the indefatigable One Israel Fund representative distributed medical and security equipment to various individuals whose gratitude was enormous and heartfelt. The first aid kits, and other material handed out to soldiers, civilians and security personnel has saved lives and will save more in the future. Veteran security chiefs are filled with gratitude at small things that will make their lives easier.
To see the new farms and vineyards, built, planted and maintained by people without any illusions as to the future but simply because they live with the overpowering reality that God gave this land of Israel to the Jewish people and brought us back here after two thousand years of exile, is to be inspired as few things can in our jaded, materialistic world.
“Those who sow with tears will reap with song.”
One thinks of the famous poem of Natan Alterman – Magash Hakesef (The Silver Platter) – that graces the wall of the Bet Eliyahu Museum in Tel Aviv that we visited today, that ends:
“Full of endless fatigue and unrested,
Yet the dew of their youth. Is still seen on their head
Thus they stand at attention, giving no sign of life or death
Then a nation in tears and amazement will ask: “Who are you?”
And they will answer quietly, “We are the silver platter on which the Jewish state was given.”
Thus they will say and fall back in shadows
And the rest will be told in the chronicles of Israel.”

All these thoughts pass through the mind while listening to that two minutes’ long siren, that awesome tekia that mourns the sacrifice but also heralds the coming redemption.
And when it ended – and the shofar was again silent – I realized that two minutes was simply not long enough to feel the pain, the gratitude and the appreciation – for those who paid the ultimate price, for those who continue to live and build, and for the Creator who made it all possible in our time.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History

Remembrance Day

Posted on April 11, 2013 | 3 Comments

There are few days on which the bonds of shared identity are felt as strongly in Israel as on Yom Hashoah, officially – and quite properly called here – “Yom HaZikaron laShoah v’laGevurah,” the Day of Remembrance for the Holocaust and the Heroism. It is interesting that in America, the day’s name is shortened to “Yom HaShoah,” the almost-macabre sounding “Holocaust Day.” Here, it is a day of remembrance, framed a week later by “Yom Hazikaron l’challelei Tzahal,” Remembrance Day for the Fallen of the Israel Defense Forces.
The nation is captivated by the day. Places of entertainment closed this past Sunday night, television shows for 24 hours dealt only with the Holocaust. Movie channels, except those showing Holocaust films, were on hiatus. Each show, each interview, each documentary, was more fascinating than the next. There is no story of survival that is not fascinating; there are no other stories outside the Holocaust genre that are more fascinating. Each tale is filled with sadness, courage, inspiration, grit and some sort of faith.
The enormity of the Holocaust was such that its dimensions are limitless, and therefore a consistent mode of commemoration has yet to be formulated. The official ceremony at Yad Vashem involved, as always, torch lighting by survivors preceded by an account of their survival. But the Yad Vashem service always focuses more on the “heroism” than on the “Holocaust.” All of the torch-lighters were fighters – in the ghettos or with the partisans – or escapees. The narrative of modern Israel demands a de-emphasis on the Holocaust itself and the immensity of the slaughter, and an over-emphasis on the stories of resistance. It is not that those stories are untrue or uninteresting, indeed, the opposite. It is that the attempt to turn the Holocaust into a tale of resistance rather than extermination is misleading.
In keeping with the basic theme, the Prime Minister spoke about the looming Iranian threat and the lesson of the Holocaust: a refusal to rely on other nations for Israel’s national defense. Again, it is true, but is that really the main focus of the Holocaust? Resistance was part of the Holocaust but a relatively small part – and official Israel in its ceremonies emphasizes the physical resistance and completely downplays other forms of resistance, especially spiritual. Those stories, thankfully, abound in the media and other sources, and are testaments to the inner strength of the Jew.
In recent years, there has been a growing interest in such accounts of spiritual tenacity – of the seder in Auschwitz, of Torah study in the ghettos, of striving to keep kashrut, of Jews maintaining their inner dignity in their treatment of others and not succumbing to the attempts at dehumanization. I learned this week of a museum called “Shem Olam,” located in Kfar Haroeh for over a decade and awaiting the construction of their new facility, which painstakingly documents Jewish religious life before and during the Holocaust. (The name is taken from the continuation of the verse – Isaiah 56:5 – in which “Yad Vashem” is mentioned: “In My house and within My walls I will give them Yad vashem, a place of honor and renown, better than sons and daughters, shem olam, an eternal renown, I will give them which will never be terminated.”) There are numerous artifacts and manifold accounts of the spiritual heroism that was also part of the story of the Holocaust. One recent find came during a dig at Belzec – a shard from a seder plate brought there by Jews who assumed that, wherever they were being sent, Pesach was coming and they would be celebrating it somewhere. They never got to celebrate that Pesach, and all that remains from their plate was a small piece inscribed with the last three letters of “Maror,” the bitter herbs. It is an eerie sight.
It is as if there are two worlds – or more – commemorating the Holocaust. One discordant note was sounded by IDF Chief of Staff Benny Gantz who saw fit to say in Auschwitz on Monday that “in our generation, we have the IDF. There is no other magen (shield) for David, no other chomah (protective wall) for Zion,” essentially transposing two praises of God found in our literature (Pesachim 117b and evocative of Zecharia 2:9, respectively) for the IDF. It is no disrespect to the IDF and their competence and valor to suggest that a price is eventually paid for such hubris, and perhaps has been paid already.
The official ceremony is a reminder of the old Israel where religious involvement was limited to “functions” – Tehillim, Kaddish, etc. – that are tacked on to the end of the ceremony. No other religious participation or perspective was included. The secular-religious divide is unfortunately part of the Holocaust story as well, especially in light of the inability of the religious world to also find appropriate and enduring means of commemoration. This is likely temporary, and it stands to reason that as the years pass, the secular world will be increasingly detached from the Holocaust era even as the religious world embraces it more and more, and derives great inspiration from it. Our local Holocaust commemoration contained an excellent and emotive power point presentation of the spiritual struggle during the Holocaust.
Nothing illustrates the secular struggle with the Holocaust more than a new movie that features, in part, one of the more revolting Holocaust commemorations imaginable. The movie, “Numbered,” tells the moving tale of how various survivors dealt with the tattoos on their arms. (One woman, in a clip that I saw, says she was asked years ago: “Why don’t you remove it? Aren’t you ashamed to have that on your arm?” She responded: “Why should I be ashamed? The people who did this to me, they’re the ones who should be ashamed!” Bravo for her.)
The movie, at a certain point, introduces a recent development in Israel that was featured in the NY Times last fall, found at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/01/world/middleeast/with-tattoos-young-israelis-bear-holocaust-scars-of-relatives.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&. Young Israelis are tattooing their grandparent’s numbers on their arms in order to feel a greater connection to them. Certainly, they are oblivious to the Torah prohibition against tattooing, but is that any way of showing honor and identification? Such a hideous act meant to dehumanize is not made any better when done voluntarily; it just shows a complete lack of propriety. When I saw the Times article that discussed the movie, I couldn’t help thinking that in some concentration camps, the Nazis fiendishly offered the Jews more food on Yom Kippur – an extra ration of pork. Would these young Israelis then decide to identify more closely with their grandparent survivors by eating pork on Yom Kippur? I shudder to think that I have put such a thought in their heads.
I have not seen the movie, but I would like to think that this account of the young Israelis is a small part of it and not its focus.
Nonetheless, the great strength of this Yom Hazikaron is that it does bring together all Jews, with all the commonalities and all the differences we have. And perhaps the Holocaust remains so enormous, and so evil, that it can be no other way. Everyone sees it from a different angle. It remains personal and raw. Words still fail to convey the horror of both the Holocaust and the Second World War unleashed by the Germans that cost more than fifty million lives.
Apropos of that, it is worth quoting a line in the conclusion to “The Storm War,” by Andrew Roberts, a history of World War II. In an Italian cemetery where British soldiers were laid to rest, one tombstone, of a British private, 30 years old, reads: “Beautiful memories, a darling husband and daddy worthy of Everlasting Love, His wife and Baby Rita.”
Roberts, the dispassionate historian, continues: “Even two-thirds of a century later, it is still impossible not to feel fury against Hitler and the Nazis for forcing baby Rita to grow up without her father…”
Jews, certainly, tertiated by the Nazis, have a special reason to feel fury, to remain vigilant against our enemies, to grow in faith and connection to God, to find the way to strengthen Torah across the Jewish world, and do what we can to hasten the redemption.

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Posted in Contemporary Life, Current Events, Israel, Jewish History, Machshava/Jewish Thought