In TNR, Halbertal, a self-described leftist,  not only articulates  the biases contained in the report, he courageously mourns the fact that such distortions give Israel an excuse not to examine any shortcomings.  While others tout Mr. Goldstone’s Zionist bonafides, Halbertal, in classic Dragnet fashion, gives us “just the facts”. His conclusion points to the error of the two extreme positions common to the left and the right.

Faced with this unprecedented and deeply perplexing situation, two extreme positions have emerged in Israel. The radical left claims that, since such a struggle necessarily involves the killing of innocent civilians, there is no justifiable way of fighting it. Soldiers ought to refuse to engage in such a war, and the government has only one option, which is to end the occupation. This view is wrong, since Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens, and without providing real security, it will fail also to achieve peace and to put an end to the occupation. The radical right claims that, since Hamas and Hezbollah initiated the targeting of Israeli civilians, and since they take refuge among their own civilians, the responsibility for harming Palestinian civilians during Israel’s attempt to defend itself falls upon the Palestinians exclusively. This approach is also wrong. The killing of our civilians does not justify the killing of their civilians. Civilians do not lose their right to life when they are used as shields by Hamas and Hezbollah. In fighting the militants, Israel must do as much as it possibly can do to avoid and minimize harm to civilian life and property.

While others imagine that there were commands from the highest quarters for Israeli soldiers to “take the gloves off”,  Halbertal puts the civilian casualties in the context of NATO bombings, Pakistan, and others. He doesn’t mention Somalia where the proportion of civilian casualties was obscenely high.

In asymmetrical war, the problem is that every soldier must make very complicated assessments of who is a civilian, who is making a legitimate threat and who is not.  This is not like a higher up decision to bomb Hiroshima or Dresden, this is a complex situation decided on the ground, sometimes in seconds, by citizen soldiers of the rank and file.

This is a fair analysis which yearns to hold Israel accountable for what it actually did, and not for what others imagine.  It also seems to me that the J Streeters who booed Rabbi Yoffe’s criticism of the Goldstone Report, hadn’t read it–after all it is 452 pages of Palestinian testimony.

Now that, by design, rag tag insurgents hide among civilians, we need new rules of engagement. Halbertal begins the conversation that Goldstone could have started.

Halbertal is a Professor of Law who is immersed in ethical issues of war in general and the new kind of war Israel faces now. He incredibly suggests that these complex moral equations be part of an Israeli soldiers training so that he won’t be paralyzed to act on the battlefield. I agree, but only a Jewish army would require such concern from her rank and file.  But even if we didn’t, the rest of the world would.

For those without the time to read the extraordinarily long Goldstone report, at least do yourself a favor, and read Halbertal’s analysis.

Thanks Moshe!

Now, that’s a helluva title.  Recently, Ralph Stanley the unparalleled mountain music singer and banjo player published a memoir, The Man of Constant Sorrow. He is 82 years old and still performs about one hundred concerts a year.  Anyone who saw the film, “O Brother Where art thou”, will recognize Ralph’s pipes singing to the grim reaper in his chilling rendition of “O Death”. Stanley eschewed electric  instruments and anything else that was not traditionally used to play mountain music.  He, nevertheless, was incredibly innovative within this limitation. His claw hammer banjo style was path breaking, and he claimed that although he learned from his predecessors, he always had to do things his own way. Still, he adhered to the perceived strictures of the genre, and was very critical of those “ignorant hippies playin’ with their electric banjos”.

Levon Helm, once the drummer and vocalist for The Band, has had an amazing comeback at age 71,  Recovering from throat cancer, his miraculously unimpaired voice has given us two magnificent solo albums. One, “Dirt Farmer” and the other, “Electric Dirt”. Levon has taken a different path than Ralph. He is rooted in the same place, but has produced more eclectic offerings.  His, and Ralph’s voice are cut of the same cloth.  The power of which is in the feeling, the experience, the pain and the joy they bring to each vocal.  Levon, however, is happy to sing the blues, invite horn arrangements and play rock and roll, not as a concession to a fickle public, but because he is at home in all these musical settings.

Ralph attributes his long career to his fidelity to what he feels the music required.  Whose to argue with him? Levon, I suppose, would say that his long career is a product of his love for many kinds of music and the unique impression his voice brings to each song.

When interviewed on Diane Rehm, Ralph was asked what he listened to. Incredibly, he answered that truthfully, he just liked to listen to Ralph Stanley.  Even if his mother taught him a lick, he was more impressed by how he changed it than he was by the fact that she taught him.  I’m sure that Levon would have a long list of musicians who had inspired him from several genres.

Dan Senor and Saul Singer have written a book about Israel’s hi-tech industry called Start Up Nation that chronicles Israel’s stunning contributions to everything from computer chips to cell phones.  In an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, Dan Senor makes a distinction between innovation and entrepreneurship.  Innovation means coming up with something new, whereas an entrepreneur will figure out how to market it. Many countries are entrepreneurial, but they lack innovators.  Israel, on the other hand, has both. That is what sets her apart.

The Talmud teaches that: It is impossible for a Beit Midrash [to exist] without innovative thinking. (Hagiga 3a) In keeping with Ralph Stanley, it means within the rigors and structure of an articulated framework, we are nevertheless commanded to come up with our own “fingerpicking styles”, our own voice, but it must be from within the system itself. Every innovation must be filtered through that which has preceded it. It is from there that we reap the rewards of authenticity and longevity.  It is also true, that others will find sustenance from being more fluid and experimental, but what cannot be claimed, is that such a path will have the staying power of a tradition that feels the profound tension between fidelity to what was and innovation for what needs to be.

Ralph Stanley, and Levon Helm know this, but they interpret it very differently. Their authenticity hinges on the fact that they see this tension as essential to their mission as musicians who represent more than the sound of their own voices.

One of the great websites for Jewish legal arcana is seforim.blogspot.com.  This is primarily a place for observant academic types to bemoan the perceived dishonesty of their very right-wing confreres. The latest missive from Marc Shapiro regales us of tales of Brandeis where reconciling the ethos of the university with halachic Judaism can be a challenge. I love this website, and I admire the energy people put into the articles that appear there.

I read these engaging tidbits with mild interest since I was an Orthodox Rabbinic Advisor (not even a Rabbi does more than advise at the big H) at Havard Hillel many years ago. Orthodox communities at universities might have been a testing ground for halachic innovation for adult communities in the future, but it was not to be.  Not only because of the mindless, fascistic musings of the “right-wing”, but primarily it is the so-called enlightened Orthodox who are to blame. When congregations that have hundreds of members struggle to have a daily minyan, why would the cogent arguments of  perceived marginally committed Orthodox Jews be taken seriously?

One of the major disappointments for adherents to Jewish egalitarianism is that there has not been a great proliferation of shomer shabbos egal. communities.  If there had been, this would have presented a formidable challenge to the Modern Orthodox community, but, in fact, there aren’t, and it hasn’t.  Beyond the “sins” of inequality, and perceived discrimination, there seems to be a disquieting and unavoidable conclusion.  Most liberal temperaments find it very difficult to submit themselves to the dictates of a Book.  The synthesis of taking the Law and western culture equally seriously is an eccentricity from which a serious movement has not truly emerged.

To a lesser degree this is also true regarding Modern Orthodox as well. There is a reason that its thinkers and leaders are self-perceived outsiders bemoaning their lack of influence, and mollifying themselves with critical, self-congratulatory insights. Taking its cue from its right shoulder, one Modern Orthodox University looks askance at its upstart rival on “principle” inhibiting “true followers” from hiring rabbis from said institution.

I am certain that one can find much diversity within the community of the hirsute/chapeau crowd–even if it is muted. Certainly, there would be those who would vilify regardless, but it would be different. I remember being a witness at a wedding in Jerusalem where Prof. Shaul Lieberman, the rector of JTS was the m’sader Kiddushin.  At that time Rabbi Jolte z”l was Chief Rabbi of Jerusalem and had cracked down on who was allowed to perform weddings in Jerusalem. Many a YU Rabbi was denied because Rabbi Jolte had a low opinion of the American rabbinate.  Somehow, Rabbi Jolte’s opinion of the Conservative movement didn’t influence his decision whether to allow Professor Lieberman to perform the ceremony. After all, he was footnoted in Lieberman’s monumental work, Tosefta KiPeshuta.

If we had a vibrant learning community that could engage with others and where our commitments to both learning and practice were similar, we might bridge the credibility gap, but until that time, it’s the same old whine.

Some things people just knew and now the New York Times corroborates what the Talmud understood millenia ago.  Daniel Goleman reports of his friend who has defied prediction of his demise for over a decade. He attributes his longevity to the fact that he was loving and as a result was also loved:

Though no one could ever prove it, I suspect that one of many ingredients in his longevity has been this flow of people who love him.

Neurologists can measure how affection and connection have a measurable impact on the well-being of the recipient. The converse is also true.  In the Talmud, it says that one who visits the sick removes one sixtieth of the illness. (Nedarim 39b) One time I was visiting an elderly rabbi with a couple of my teachers.  One of them quipped, “We’ve come to remove a 60th of your illness!”

“In that case,” he said, “You shouldn’t have come together!”

The Talmud anticipates this conclusion and teaches that one can remove a sixtieth of what remains, so that there is still something for physicians to do.

He was right about one thing though. The more time spent, the merrier. The more time alone, the worse it is.  Good thoughts, pure intentions, actually enter another person’s head.

The most significant finding was the discovery of “mirror neurons,” a widely dispersed class of brain cells that operate like neural WiFi. Mirror neurons track the emotional flow, movement and even intentions of the person we are with, and replicate this sensed state in our own brain by stirring in our brain the same areas active in the other person.

Maimonides teaches that the more visits to the sick, the better it is, as long as one does not make a bother of ones self. (Hilchot Avelim 14:4)

A sixtieth is understood to be the smallest measure that can alter a substance. One sixtieth of a forbidden food, can make a casserole unkosher. This small measure is the tipping point between something that is forbidden and something that is permitted.  Similarly, a visit to someone who is seriously ill can be the tipping point between demise and recovery.

Your visit could be the one that saves.

No people that I know of questions its identity more than Jews.  This silliness allows us to question our own legitimacy, and more frighteningly allows others to delegitimate our identity as well.  Enter historian Shlomo Sand and his soon to be translated book, The Invention of the Jewish People. Sand tells us that our bloodlines are not pure, that we have descended from converts, and so, therefore, our claim to an eternal connection to Israel is bogus.

Echoing Arthur Koestler’s canard in his The Thirteenth Tribe, he eschews the Biblical connection of present day Jews because they are not the descendants of classical Israel.

Ovadyah the proselyte had the same problem over seven hundred years ago, when he wrote his famous letter to Maimonides wondering how he could say certain blessings that implied the bloodline that Sand sees as necessary.

Maimonides explains that Abraham and all that was promised to him was promised to those who claim him as his father.  The spiritual father determines the connection not only to the religion of Israel, but also to the Land of Israel.  For the Torah was promised to those descendants of Abraham who have demonstrated that they have joined with Israel.

Our national identity emanates from citizenship of the spirit. Processes are in place to formalize this citizenship–it’s called conversion.

For those who reject these principles, Sand provokes a challenge that must be discredited, but for believers, his speculations are irrelevant. The only question is whether the conversions were ‘kosher’. Sand presents a challenge to the secular alternative to peoplehood, but to the Jews for whom the Torah is the constitution, it evokes a huge yawn followed by a sigh of “so what!”

One of the unusual components of the Torah is that ethical principles are often stated as legal ones.  In other words, it’s not only the good and right thing to do, but it is, in fact, illegal not to do it. “Do not place a stumbling block before the blind” (Leviticus 19:14) is not a pithy aphorism, but a law forbidding one person to mislead another–whether it is giving wrong directions, or willfully selling faulty merchandise.  Professors Hershey and Linda Friedman  in an article that appears on the website Jlaw.com outlines the Talmudic principles that, if followed, would have averted the current crisis that has put millions out of work, and threatened a corrupt banking system where major players are perceived as “too big to fail.” The frightening thing about the meltdown is that most of what caused it, was legal. In Jewish law, before many homes would have been foreclosed, the companies would have been taken down and forced to renegotiate terms that were reasonable. The paper makes it case–

…using six framing principles: misleading with bad advice; deception and fraud; bribery, both outright and subtle; honest weights and measures; conflicts of interest; and transparency. Each of these is used as a lens through which to view the activities and behaviors that caused the current financial debacle and, in the process, almost totaled the global economy. The paper concludes that Jewish law was violated at every step of the way towards the current financial catastrophe. Had the bankers, auditors, rating agencies, politicians, regulators, and mortgage brokers followed the principles of business ethics described in Jewish law, the global financial crisis would not have occurred.

I would add that the capitalism vs. socialism is a false framework designed to avoid any serious framework for reforming the current system.  The Torah is concerned with personal accountability on both sides.  A person is accountable to make a genuine effort to make a living–if he is capable. A society is accountable for taking care of their most vulnerable who–through no fault of their own–are unable to care for themselves.  The Torah also makes it clear, unlike American law, that the burden of fairness falls squarely on the merchant’s shoulders.  The consumer is not accountable for ascertaining the legitimacy of the merchant–the merchant is presumed to be following the law.  Therein lies the rub.  As long as caveat emptor is the fundamental principle of buying and selling in America, business ethics is destined to be an oxymoron.

“Anyone who hasn’t witnessed the celebration for the “House of Drawing of Water” has never witnessed a truly joyous occasion in his life.” (Mishnah Succah 5:3)

Leonard Cohen understands the misery of loss and memory, and his remedy is evoked in this poem and its haunting melody. The song is based on a poem written by Constantine P. Cavafy entitled The god Abandons Anthony. The original poem evokes the loss of Mark Anthony’s beloved Alexandria, while Cohen personifies the loss of someone deeply loved–who left.  Instead, however, of saying goodbye to the beloved, Cohen tells us to say goodbye to the painful moment of the leaving:

Say goodbye to Alexandra leaving,

Say goodbye to Alexandra lost

The temptation to say that the sublime moment was to begin with not real, but only imagined, because it is no longer, is a protection that Cohen warns against:

As someone long prepared for this to happen,

Go firmly to the window. Drink it in.

Exquisite music, Alexandra laughing.

Your first commitments tangible again.

This Mishnah that details the most unforgettable party in Jewish tradition creates an occasion to celebrate during these in between days of Succot. We know these present day celebrations have not the grandeur, the fervor, or the power of what we once had, but during those moments of memory and pale re-enactment, we celebrate while we remember.  We shake our branches all seven days while we remember, and we pound our willows, while we remember.  For once, we do not focus on the why of the destruction, but only appreciate the memory of a place where atonement was tangible, accessible.  Well, what happens when it all goes away? Leonard Cohen says we must resist the temptation to feel deceived.

Do not say the moment was imagined,

Do not stoop to strategies as this.

In Jewish tradition, pending on the season, we do both. We stoop to the strategies of cause and effect, but we also leave that dynamic for moments of actualizing memory as part of our present, when we “say goodbye to Alexandra leaving, and say goodbye to Alexandra lost.”

In romance, the enigmas of cause and effect may very well be beyond our understanding, and Cohen sees the falseness and cravenness in self loathing that halt the good memories and only accentuate the loss.

As someone long prepared for the occasion;

In full command of every plan you wrecked—

Do not choose a coward’s explanation

that hides behind the cause and the effect,

It is true that when it comes to ruining things, we have some control, but there is partnership in both success and failure.  Succot and its commandment to be joyful says goodbye, at least for the moment, to what Cohen calls the “coward’s explanation”.

Now, maybe, I can do something else.

I will be teaching three of them:

Maharal of Prague: Netiv Torah, Understanding the Siddur, Studies in Kashrut

All you need is a broadband connection and you can be part of a virtual classroom joining students from all over the world. Check out Webyeshiva.org for what is being taught when.  It really must be experienced to be believed.

Allow me to explain.  Today, I received two emails one from a Jewish professional, and another from a young adult who is an active participant in Jewish life. Both of them signed off with “B’shalom” meaning, I assume, “with peace”. The problem is that they may be wishing for me to rest in peace.

Babylonian Talmud Moed Katan 29a

ואמר רבי לוי בר חיתא: הנפטר מן המת לא יאמר לו לך לשלום אלא לך בשלום הנפטר מן החי לא יאמר לו לך בשלום, אלא לך לשלום. הנפטר מן המת לא יאמר לו לך לשלום אלא לך בשלום – שנאמר ואתה תבוא אל אבתיך בשלום. הנפטר מן החי לא יאמר לו לך בשלום אלא +שמות ד’+ לך לשלום, שהרי דוד שאמר לאבשלום +שמואל ב’ ט”ו+ לך בשלום – הלך ונתלה, יתרו שאמר למשה +שמות ד’+ לך לשלום – הלך והצליח

Said Rabbi Levy Bar Chita: Anyone who leaves the company of the dead should not say לך לשלום (Go L’shalom) but should say לך בשלום (Go B’shalom). One who leaves the company of the living should not say לך בשלום (Go B’shalom) but לך לשלום (Go L’shalom).  As it is written: And you should go to your ancestors B’shalom. One who leaves the company of the living should not say go B’shalom but go L’shalom. For David said to Avshalom Go B’shalom and he went and was hanged and executed later on. Jethro said to Moses Go L’shalom and he (Moses) went and prospered.

Go L’shalom means Go toward a life of peace while Go B’shalom means something similar to rest in peace. Even inadvertent curses can take on a life of their own.  Then again, the ultimate closer may in fact be Go B’shalom.

I think I’ll go with:

B’vracha (With blessing), it’s safer.