Rabbi Landsberg's Blog

"Love is lowering the threshold of disgust..."

I came back a week and a half ago from a very short sojourn at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem.   While I want to strongly encourage members from Emanu-El to consider their lay leadership study program in the summer, everyone is able to get a taste of what they do without buying a plane ticket.  The institute has launched a fabulous new website where you can sample the outstanding teaching that occurs in this renowned institution (both in article form and as digital lectures).  It is worth all of the time you spend with them.

Also, SHI is about to publish a new journal which we here at Emanu-El will be helping them to evaluate.  Details to be announced.  Please do let me know if you are interested in being part of this review process.

Lastly, the blog post title is part of an aside made by Moshe Halbertal during a lecture about genocide and the Book of Exodus.  Ask me.

Shabbat shalom!

A Man's Title

I've spoken about Rabbi David Hartman* and his son Rabbi Donniel Hartman before.  Let me say now that it is my fervent belief that the very future of Judaism as a living civilization and religious tradition--embracing both modernity and Zionism--is powerfully strengthened by their work.  They engage tradition with integrity, deep love and a bold challenge.

The opening paragraph of the email from the Shalom Hartman Institute to those of us who study there long term was without italics or boldface, deceptively low key:

I wanted to be among the first to share with you the news that has just come out about Machon Hartman beginning a new program this fall to ordain rabbis who will be prepared to act as "Rav Mechanech" in Jewish high schools throughout North America.  Students will receive ordination by the Shalom Hartman Institute regardless of which denomination they identify with.  We will ordain women, including women who consider themselves Orthodox.  We will ordain gay and lesbian rabbis.  The program will be a four year program and will include getting a master's degree in Jewish thought from Tel Aviv University.

The headline in the Jerusalem Post practically screamed:  Hartman Institute to ordain women rabbis!! [perhaps the exclamation marks are mine, but they seemed present by implication].  The article, however, was thorough and interesting (read it here). 

An Orthodox woman rabbi?  Perhaps it is time...or perhaps by initiating this process of ordination, the good folk at Hartman will make it the time, whether others are ready or not.  As one of their students, I will assert quite strongly: they are eminently capable of creating a strong Jewish future.

___

*You can read some of his thoughts here.  In classic prophetic mode, Rabbi Hartman does not fear articulating some very difficult truths:

Moreover, the future of Diaspora Jews will be defined by the type of Jewishness we build here. If we move deeper into backwardness, Diaspora Jews will not be able to pick their heads up. I don't care how rich or interesting a Jewish community like Toronto is; you will not be able to speak a message of Judaism there, if here we raise Yigal Amirs. If fanaticism and religious fundamentalism grow, if the delegitimization of others grows, if human rights and democracy does not grow, then Jews cannot speak anymore about the ethical soul of the Jewish people. Israel is the public face of the Jewish people. Aliyah is a call to shape that public face. The final chapter of our people's spiritual drama has not yet been written.

Datlashlash, anyone?

New acronyms and euphemisms are being invented almost daily to define the ever-changing groupings. These include dati lite, Datlash (an acronym for dati lesheavar, formerly religious), Datlashlash (a formerly religious person who has returned to religion), Datlaf (dati lifamim, sometimes religious), mit'hazek ("getting stronger," anyone with a growing interest in religious observance) and Hardalnik (Haredi-leumi, Haredi Zionist).

Read this fascinating piece in Haaretz on the religious revival occurring in Israel. 

Language is a far more nimble force than any institution in Jewish life.  One thing common to the life of Jews both in Israel and abroad is that the one-dimensional movement descriptions cannot fully describe the complexity and nuance of modern Jewish identity.  One cannot say when, but where language goes, institutions will trail sooner or--as in Israel's case--very much later. 

Reform and Tradition, Round Two (The Rabbis Weigh In)

Here, two of my colleagues address the same question: is Reform becoming too traditional?  Rabbi Leon Morris, one of the interlocutors, was my classmate at HUC-JIR.  Nonetheless, it is not for sentimental reasons (despite my high respect and deep fondness for him) but for ideological ones, that I highly recommend a close reading of his responses.   Hard to find a teaser quote, but settled on this one:

...the early classical Reformers were seeking “to reclaim the ethical core of Judaism that had been lost in the thicket of stale rituals and a legalistic mindset.” However, in hindsight, it seems as though they threw out the baby with the bathwater, creating a false dichotomy between ethics and ritual, and ultimately failing to create a Judaism that was driven by a serious and passionate set of ethical commitments.... Imagine the contribution to American Jewish life that could have been made by a denomination characterized by strictness about hospitality, the refusal to engage in gossip, truth, compassion, respect for one another. While we could certainly benefit from an ultra-ethical Judaism, classic Reform never achieved this. I wish it had. 

Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four.

Oy Breyder!

After Steve Zeidenberg, our chazan r'vi'i, concluded Shabbat morning services with a song in Yiddish (praised be HaShem for transliteration!), I couldn't help but note this quick piece from The Jewish Chronicle of Great Britain.  So, for all those whose Yinglish is woefully lacking, enjoy:

Don’t hock my chinik
28/12/2007
By Rabbi Julian Sinclair

Don’t hock my chinik is one of my favourite Yinglish expressions. I first encountered it in yeshivah where we had a rabbi who would regularly urge us not to hock his chinik about what Rashi said on the Gemara but instead to look at the text of the Talmud itself.

You could also hock someone’s chinik about buying a new sofa, getting your child into the right school, your opinion of the rabbi’s sermons or anything else about which one may take an obsessive, and potentially annoying, interest.

The origin of the expression is the Yiddish phrase, hock mir nicht kein chinik, (or tscheynik) which literally means “don’t bang my tea kettle”. (Some say that chinik is a teacup and the phrase refers to those who stir their tea in an irritating manner. Figuratively it came to mean “don’t get on my nerves” or “stop giving me a headache”. One can readily understand the connection. One of the invaluable Yiddish websites gave a dozen variants of the phrase, but I won’t hock your chiniks by mentioning them all. Chinik is a tea kettle in Russian. One can see in it the word chai, meaning tea. This is related to the English cha, as in “cup of cha” — itself a borrowing from the Mandarin for tea.

Like Who?

I read this review of Toronto filmmaker Jamie Kastner's new movie "Kikes like Me" and--though I haven't yet seen the movie--I experienced the same dis-ease I felt when I heard of/saw the HBO movie Elders of Zion.  Though I, of course, reserve judgment until I see the film, it does seem to be another meditation on how the Jew is seen though the eyes of the gentile rather than an engagement with Jews, Jewishness, Jewish history, Jewish culture or (chas v'chalila!) HaShem.

If not to allay my fears, then at least to amuse me, I read this post about the movie, by Phoebe Maltz (on  the fabulously titled blog "What Would Phoebe Do - the best Francophilic Zionism in the Blogosphere").

Fiddler on the Chatr-i-Simin?*

From Queen Esther to my mother-in-law, Persian Jews claim a long, proud history.  Thus it is most interesting to see the changing relationship between a relatively new Persian Jewish community in the U.S. and the mostly Ashkenazi American Jewish community they encountered.  Check out this interesting piece in the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles.  Given the size of the Persian Jewish community in the greater L.A. area [estimated at somewhere over 30,000], the JJ includes a weekly section entitled "Tehrangeles".   

*According to Caucaz.com, Chatr-i-simin means "silver roof" in Old Persian.  It is the nickname of the Eastern Pamir mountain range.

Morning Services @ 2008 Biennial San Diego

Morning Services, originally uploaded by Union for Reform Judaism.

Now that's the weather we all need for our morning Tefilla!

The Biennial

For those who wished they could be there here is JTA coverage of the Biennial.

Choices

Today I added a new link to this blog - that of the YIVO Institute of Jewish Research.  YIVO is not new; its history is nothing less than illustrious -- set up over 80 years ago in Vilna by European Jewish luminaries such as Freud and Einstein to "snapshot" the disappearing world of Eastern European Jewish civilization. It is currently based in New York and, in addition to its library, publications and archives, it has a fabulous online resource.  One of its online exhibitions, for example, is a retrospective of the Bund (here). The Bund's ideals were no less than to institute a socialist revolution while maintaining the autonomy of Jewish life.

I am neither a Bundist nor a socialist of any persuasion.  Nonetheless, I found YIVO's online exhibitions to be deeply moving.  They bring to life a time and its people for whom Zionism was but one option among many.  BTW, Emanu-Elniks: be sure to ask our resident Yiddishist, Elly Gotz, about his and his father's conversion from ardent Bundism to passionate Zionism.  He once succinctly described the process to me:  Kovno, Dachau.