Shabbat shalom, easy fast, merry Xmas, wear a mask

 Last Friday was the first day of Hanukkah, this Friday is the last, and next Friday is… complicated.

It’s the last Friday of 2020. It’s Erev Shabbat, as every Friday is. But it’s also Christmas–and the Fast of 10 Tevet. (XXmas?)

The problem with making Hanukkah “the Jewish Christmas” (even though Christmas seems pretty Jewy to start, what with all those Jews in that manger) is that although Christmas often falls on one of the eight days of Hanukkah, it’s based on a totally different calendar. So Hanukkah may actually overlap with Thanksgiving (as in 2013) or Christmas may land on this Jewish fast day.

And 10 Tevet is a powerful day. Chronologically, it’s the first post-Sinai holiday, commemorating the beginning of the Siege of Jerusalem by Nebuchadnezzar II of Babylon 2,608 years ago. It commemorates the human tragedy of the destruction of the First Temple, the isolation and fear and privation of being stuck in one’s home for months on end as the nation descends into chaos, while death and disease stalk the streets. IDK, is that still relevant in 2020?

10 Tevet is so essential that it’s the only fast on a Friday. It’s profoundly bizarre to  welcome the Sabbath Queen on such an empty stomach, but that’s what we’ll do next Friday, while much of the world is making the Yuletide gay. Or you can catch it the next time it happens, in 2172.

But the fact of the matter is that Christmas is a much larger part of most English-speaking Jews’ lives than 10 Tevet. It’s why we keep trying to jazz up Hanukkah, arguing that it’s better than Christmas. It’s not. It’s never going to be. Christmas is a global brand, with iconography that’s arguably more popular worldwide than the religion that spawned it. It’s all about the IP.

My fellow Members of the Tribe get very defensive about this, especially my friends on the left/ liberal/ progressive side of the aisle. They were triggered by, of all things, a blog post in the parenting section of the New York Times website, “Saying Goodbye to Hanukkah,” which said it quite simply:

We celebrated every holiday secularly, like Halloween or Thanksgiving 一 except Hanukkah. Each of those eight nights we’d recite the Hebrew prayer about God while lighting the menorah. We memorized the syllables and repeated them, but they had no meaning to us and my parents didn’t expect, or want, us to believe what we were reciting. We were trying to honor my dad’s heritage, but it wasn’t a custom he truly wanted to hold on to…

I wish my beliefs matched up with nurturing a link to past generations who repeated the same holy celebrations every year without questioning which or whether to celebrate. My religious family in Jerusalem finds comfort in knowing exactly what to do at every time of year, every life event and every Friday night. Editing how or when to light their candles never crosses their minds. This year more than ever, I wish for that same reassurance.

I found this sentiment echoed in, of all places, Disney Music’s “Puppy for Hanukkah.”

That blessing is a bop, now I’ve said it
Not sure what it means, but I learned it phonetic
By the way, you got a present for me, is it what I wanted?
Pass that shamash, let’s get the flame started.

At first glance, Sarah Prager from the blog and Daveed Diggs from the video have little in common, but for both Hanukkah is about saying a prayer they don’t understand and lighting some candles. The eleven-year-old version of Daveed is excited about the presents–and his Hebrew school education is clear, as he himself uses the Ashkenazic pronunciation even as the official lyrics endorse the Sephardic–but we know that in a year or two he “opted out of a bar mitzvah… When I was young, I identified with being Jewish, but I embraced my dad’s side too.”

If Hanukkah is the only time Jewish identity is expressed, kids will ultimately see through it. They may reject it, they may embrace it, but they won’t own it. Identity is lived experience, it’s an everyday thing. It’s who you are. Neither Sarah nor Daveed needs me, a cishet white man, to tell them that. But I’m also a Jew who knows our calendar doesn’t begin and end with Hanukkah. And that’s worth blogging and rapping about too.

Chosen nation

 That’s what everyone calls us, right? And you would expect it to be front-and-center in the first book of the Torah. But choice — bechira in Hebrew, the plural bechirot being Modern Hebrew for elections — does not come up in Genesis in relation to a people or a land being chosen by God. Instead, it comes up three times in rather bizarre, even macabre contexts.

The sons of God saw that the daughters of humans were beautiful, and they married any of them they chose. Then the Lord said, “My Spirit will not contend with humans forever, for they are mortal; their days will be 120 years.” (Genesis 6:2-3)

Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as this was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah. So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east.  (Genesis 13:10-11)

The Hittites replied to Abraham, “Sir, listen to us. You are a mighty prince among us. Bury your dead in the choicest of our tombs. None of us will refuse you his tomb for burying your dead. (Genesis 23:5-6)

The first case is somewhat ambiguous, but it seems to describe a common phenomenon of the antediluvian age, when “sons of God” (descended from Seth) marry “daughters of humans” (descended from Cain). One prominent example of this is Noah marrying Naama (at least according to R. Abba b. Kahana in the Midrash, Gen. Rabba 23:3), and his sons may have followed suit, meaning we are all born from sons of Seth and daughters of Cain. Of course, for everyone else on the planet, this choice didn’t work out as well.

The last case is quite positive: Abraham insists on purchasing this plot for the full price, and it is in many ways the first permanent connection between the people and the land of Israel–even before the bearer of that name is born.

The middle case, from our Torah portion, is an unmitigated disaster. The Torah isn’t much for spoiler alerts, apparently, because we know before Lot calls the local moving company (nothing more Israeli) what will happen to Sodom. In fact, years before the weather forecast for the Jordan Valley is “Sulphurous,” Lot and his fellow Sodomites are captured in war, and their king flees. Abraham has to save him, but Lot doesn’t think twice about his choice. Then, a decade later, amid the fire and brimstone raining from the sky, Lot has to be physically pulled away from his house, where he was presumably sitting at a table, wearing a bowler hat, sipping tea and declaring: “This is fine!”

This triumvirate of choice parallels a statement by Rabbi Johanan in the Talmud (BT Sota 47a): “There are three kinds of favor: the favor of a locality in the estimation of its inhabitants, the favor of a woman in the estimation of her husband, and the favor of an article in the estimation of its purchaser.”

Some say that the reason for this favor (hein) is basely cynical: no one wants to admit a mistake in whom or what they choose. I disagree: on the contrary, this hein is created by the positive declaration one makes every day to say: Yes, this is the one I chose, and I actively choose her/him/them/it again today.

But sometimes we err in our choices. We have to admit that we were wrong, perhaps because we didn’t have all the information, or because our chosen one has changed, or because we have. Regardless, we must not wait until the floodwaters or flames reach our homes to make a new choice. To choose life, to choose love, to choose a form of compassion and of justice that does not end at our front gate. Otherwise, we will have no one but ourselves to blame for our Lot in life.

Stop trying to kill my mother

Was that headline too aggressive for you? Trust me, I’m beyond caring.

It took Israel five months to hit 1,000 fatalities. Then five weeks to hit 2,000. Five days later, we’re already at 2,200 — and now we’re opening for business again?!

Ah, but the positive test rate went down, and the new case numbers went down. Really, over Shabbat, when most activity, medical or otherwise, comes to a standstill? What a shock! But yeah, that’s what this month-long lockdown was supposed to achieve. Awesome, we’re no longer at 120 percent of our hospital capacity for coronavirus patients, we’re just at 90%. See you at the victory parade!

I feel so alone, as if I’m one of the few adults left in this country — not by age, but by temperament. And we are so staggeringly outnumbered. We have vast communities of toddlers, who are not going to follow the rules, no matter what. Threaten, cajole — it makes no difference. All you can do is try to minimize the damage. Then you have grade-schoolers, who definitely learned the rules at some point, but just don’t follow them most of the time, because they’re lazy or petulant or preoccupied. Their masks are below their noses, on their chins, on their elbows, or maybe they just left them at home because they’re only going to the store for a couple of things. And then we have teenagers, who know the rules and will quote them to you chapter and verse — but utterly lack common sense. They’re the ones already planning their parties, because the government had decided 10 randos in an enclosed space is now safe.

Masks help, but most people don’t wear them properly. Social distancing helps, but most people don’t observe that. Being outdoors helps, but once you put up the sun cover, the plastic sheeting, the partition walls — are you even outside anymore? All three reduce the risk, but they do not eliminate it.

That’s why my immunosuppressed mother is not going to be venturing outside — except when she has to, for doctor’s appointments, which pose their own risk. Will that cab she hails have a plastic partition between her and the driver? Will the bus she boards become too crowded? There is no way of knowing.

This pandemic started, quite literally, the day of my son’s bar mitzvah celebration. His school insisted on starting this year with everyone coming, every day, but sticking half the kids in another classroom to do worksheets while the other half gets a live teacher. Within a week, three of six grades were in quarantine. Within two weeks, the whole country was in lockdown, so they switched to Zoom. Then my kid’s teacher decided he was going to meet the kids in small groups near their homes. My son’s group was scheduled for tomorrow, but that’s not happening… because the teacher is now in quarantine.

That is the Israeli mindset. Rosh ba-kir. So you tell me how we’re supposed to get out of this mess. I’m listening.

7 Sukkot

 Sukkot is a Hebrew word meaning ‘how many holidays can Jews fit into one month?’ The answer, of course, is ‘I can’t be in tomorrow. It’s a Jewish holiday.’ — The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Oct. 15 2008

Jon has a point. Other holidays have their character and themes, but what is Sukkot about? Despite its many colorful practices, it’s hard to pin down what Sukkot is about. And I think that’s the point. Sukkot is many, many things in the calendar — just as it is in Scripture. That’s reflected by the seven very different personages we invite each day to our sukka.

Sukkot has its origins in Babylonian paganism (II Kings 17:30, Amos 5:26-27), and so does Abraham, the first guest. Abraham smashes his father’s idols, according to the Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 38:13), but he fashions a new faith that repurposes many practices of the pre-monotheistic world. So it makes sense that Zechariah (Ch. 14) foresees a future time when all nations will come to Jerusalem to observe Sukkot–not Passover or Rosh Hashana, but Sukkot–expressing their recognition of One God rather than their conversion to Judaism.

Sukkot also appear in a farming context in the Bible, in Isaiah’s opening vision (1:8): “And the daughter of Zion is left as a booth (sukka) in a vineyard.” The grape harvest marks the end of the summer, with celebrations at its start and end, 15 Av and 10 Yom Kippur (Mishna, Taanit 4:8). Five days later, we build a sukka not in the vineyard, but in our backyard. And we invite the second guest, Isaac, who spends his life working the land. The drinking party (mishteh) is a recurring feature of his biography, culminating in the occasion (Genesis 27:25) when he blesses all his progeny, a decidedly different result than the other drinking daddies who precede him in the Torah, Noah and Lot.

Sukkot also appears in a ranching context, as Jacob, after his final confrontation with his twin brother, “travelled to Sukkot, and built himself a house; and for his livestock he made stalls, so he named the place Sukkot” (ibid. 33:17). These sukkot represent the tranquility of pastoral life, but there is a danger of becoming too passive. Jacob is malingering on the eastern side of the Jordan, focusing on the animals in their stalls rather than the people in his own house. This ultimately leads to a number of tragedies, the most consequential being the sale of Joseph into Egyptian slavery by his brothers.

Joseph’s Sukkot is a totally different one. We don’t arrive at it until over a century after his death.

 Moses took the bones of Joseph with him because Joseph had made the Israelites swear an oath. He had said, ‘God will surely come to your aid, and then you must carry my bones up with you from this place.’ So they travelled from Sukkot… (Exodus 13:19-20)

This Sukkot is the first station of Israel in the desert, a nation of free men and women. These are flimsy structures, but they are the first homes to be truly theirs.

Moses goes on to lead Israel to Sinai, where he ascends, entering the fog and cloud surrounding God. “And he made darkness pavilions (sukkot) round about him, gathering of waters, thick clouds of the skies” (II Samuel 22:10-12). Entering these sukkot is an experience of transcendence and revelation.

Aaron, on the other hand, manages the opposite: instead of going back up in the Cloud, he brings Clouds of Glory down to protect Israel as they move through the desert. “The Cloud was by the merit of Aaron,” the Talmud tells us (R. Yosei be-R. Yehuda, Taanit 9a), and it is these clouds which we are supposed to be reminded of when we sit in our sukkot. (R. Eliezer, Sukka 11b). These are sukkot of shelter, protection and peace.

The last guest is King David, of whom Amos says (9:11): “In that day will I raise up the tabernacle of (sukkat) David that is fallen, and close up the breaches thereof; and I will raise up his ruins, and I will build it as in the days of old.” Is this the palace? Is this the temple? Is it both? The symbolism is so evocative that we include the phrase in our Grace After Meals throughout the week of Sukkot. It is striking that a sukka, a seasonal structure, is given the royal treatment; but that’s because in relation to God, the most lasting human achievement is temporary. Still, we should take pride in our glorious past and future, as Sukkot comes to a close for another year.

May your sukka be a place of faith and feast, tranquility and transformation, prophecy and protection and prestige. Chag same’ach!

How do I forgive?

 I’m really not in a forgiving mood.

Less than 24 hours from Yom Kippur, I’m supposed to be. We stand before God and ask Him to pardon our trespasses on the Day of Atonement, so we need to forgive others. The Sages even say that God Himself is powerless to absolve interpersonal sins until the offender mollifies the victim.

But instead I’m asking: How do I forgive? That’s because this Yom Kippur, I won’t be in synagogue. I won’t be leading prayers, reading the Torah or giving a sermon there. I will be homebound, in our second (or is it fifth?) lockdown, like millions of Jews — especially in the two countries who have more Jews than any others: the US (where I grew up) and Israel (where I live). They say that Yom Kippurim is a day like (ke-) Purim, and that’s grimly true this year, as we seem to be in just as dire a situation, if not worse, seven months after that holiday and our first lockdown.

And while COVID-19 comes from nature, the reason I can’t leave my home is manmade. And I don’t know how I forgive those men. (Or women. But mostly men.)

How do I forgive the world leaders whose main goal amid the coronavirus pandemic seems to be declaring victory rather than achieving victory?

How do I forgive those who eagerly spread misinformation about coronavirus, mocking and undermining public health officials, doctors and scientists who have dedicated their lives to fighting diseases like this one?

How do I forgive the politicians who let the public health system deteriorate to such a point that a bad flu season would topple it, not to mention a once-in-a-century pandemic?

How do I forgive the protesters who think that their political agenda is so righteous that they are immune — so why not have a maskless Rosh Hashana feast on the street, or take signs and slogans to the beach to frolic in the surf?

How do I forgive the prayer-goers who think that their religious agenda is so righteous that they are immune — ignoring or at best paying lip-service to Health Ministry guidelines?

How do I forgive the rabbis on our public payroll, at the neighborhood, municipal and national level, who have provided zero leadership amidst this crisis?

How do I forgive the politicians who treat public health as a bargaining chip–maybe we’ll listen to the experts and shut down X, if you meet demand Y!

How do I forgive the education officials who decided that schools had to open up, because those halls need to be filled with as many kids as possible on as many days as possible?

How do I forgive my fellow citizens who think a distance of two centimeters is as good as two meters, or think they breathe with their chin or without their nostrils? Including law enforcement officers who are giving out tickets for those very violations?

Perhaps by Yom Kippur 5782, I will be in a more forgiving mood.

To intermit the plague

 Israel’s new coronavirus czar, Prof. Ronni Gamzu, has a name with Talmudic significance. The Babylonian Talmud (Ta’anit 21a) tells us of a sage named Nahum of Gamzu, who would say about every event in his life “This too is for the best (gam zu le-tova)”– despite the fact that he was a blind quadriplegic leper, “the legs of whose bed had to be placed in bowls of water to prevent the ants from climbing on him.” His students were alarmed by his condition.

Thereupon his disciples said to him: Master, since you are wholly righteous, why has all this befallen you?

He replied: I have brought it all upon myself. Once I was journeying on the road and was making for the house of my father-in-law and I had with me three donkeys, one laden with food, one with drink and one with all kinds of delicacies, when a poor man met me and stopped me on the road and said to me, Master, give me something to eat. I replied to him, Wait until I have unloaded something from the donkey; I had hardly managed to unload something from the donkey when the man died [from hunger]. I then went and laid myself on him and exclaimed, May my eyes which had no pity upon your eyes become blind, may my hands which had no pity upon your hands be cut off, may my legs which had no pity upon your legs be amputated, and my mind was not at rest until I added, may my whole body be leprous.

Thereupon his pupils exclaimed: Woe to us that we see you like this!

To this he replied: Woe to me did you not see me like this.

Nahum’s condition does not prevent him from teaching many disciples, including Rabbi Akiva, whom he trains for 22 years (BT Hagiga 12a). It does, however, keep him from touching a scroll or entering the study hall. The same passage calls Nahum a miracle-worker, but he does not rely on miracles where health is concerned. He isolates himself at home for decades, and yet his Torah touches everyone. The deep concern for one’s fellow human being is certainly echoed in Rabbi Akiva’s dictum: “‘Love your fellow as yourself’ (Leviticus 19:18) –this is the great principle of the Torah (Sifra ad loc.).”

And yet, Rabbi Akiva himself fails to transmit this to his own students.

It was said that Rabbi Akiva had twelve thousand pairs of disciples, from Gabbat to Antipatris, and all of them died at the same time because they did not exhibit proper regard for each other… Rav Hama bar Abba or, it might be said, Rav Hiya bar Avin said: All of them died a cruel death. What was it? Rav Nahman explained: Diphtheria.

It’s not clear what the lack of proper regard consists of. Do they fail to follow Nahum of Gamzu’s teaching about feeling the distress of others, or do they fail to follow Nahum’s example of isolating so as not to spread disease? Are these even two different things?

I could not help but think of that as I heard of the pressure being put upon our Professor Gamzu to allow a lessening of restrictions on assembling in synagogues for Tisha be-Av, which begins tonight. Apparently, when everyone is sitting on the floor, amid extreme heat, while fasting, that’s the time to pack the shuls.

Now, the Mishna, Gemara, even Shulhan Arukh, note that the month of Av as a whole is not a time to tempt fate. A Jew with a court date in the month should do everything to push it off, Halakha states (OH 551:1). But at the height of this period of misfortune and mourning, amidst a second pandemic wave threatening to overwhelm our hospitals and healthcare workers, it is more important to read the Book of Lamentations with as many people as possible present? Ronni Gamzu would tell you that is sanctimonious malpractice. And Nahum of Gamzu would agree.

The burning Talmud

 The burning of the Talmud is a powerful image. Next week, as many Jews fast on Tisha be-Av, we will read a dirge composed to commemorate the destruction of as many as ten thousand Talmudic manuscripts in Paris in 1242.

But yesterday I was hoping that a certain volume of Talmud would burst into flame. It was in a Jerusalem courtroom, on the table of the defense counsel for Malka Leifer, captured by my friend Ittay Flescher for Plus61J Media, which covers the Jewish world for an Australian audience. Leifer is facing 74 counts of child abuse from her time as an ultra-Orthodox girls’ school principal in Melbourne, and this was her 69th hearing since three sisters came forward a decade ago to tell their harrowing story of victimization at her hands.

So whose Talmud was it? Her longtime lawyer Yehuda Fried brought the gigantic ArtScroll edition (Pesachim, Volume I, it appears) to peruse while her new counsel Nick Kaufman (famous for fighting extradition for Serbian genocidists and Muammar Gaddafi’s kids) used the opportunity to blame the victims. Yes, they were minors, but they almost weren’t. Who’s to say these 16- and 17-year-old students weren’t really the ones at fault? To extradite Leifer for a trial that will determine her guilt or innocence, the Israeli courts must first find her guilty! And she’s such a pious woman, how could she maintain her religious standards in an Australian prison?

These arguments are patently ludicrous, and hopefully Judge Chana Miriam Lomp will reject them. But they do so sound awful… Talmudic. The Talmud is often criticized for sophistry, for picayune dissection of impossible abstractions. However, some of the wildest theoretical discussions in the Talmud have turned out to be essential over the millennia. A flying tower crossing over a graveyard, a flying camel ferrying witnesses from one far-flung location to another, a cow giving birth to a donkey, a woman getting pregnant from a bath – these all seemed ridiculous until we developed analogous technology.

But that is the difference between a beit midrash and a beit mishpat, a study hall and the halls of justice. In a courtroom, we are dealing with real people, not teasing out theoreticals.

Am I arguing that Malka Leifer does not deserve a fair trial with a vigorous defense? Not at all; that is what awaits her in Australia. In Israel, it has all been about fraud and denying justice by delaying justice. This 69th hearing was the first extradition hearing, as the previous 68 were about feigning various forms of illness, mental and otherwise, aided and abetted by too many in the ultra-Orthodox community, up to and including our (recently former) Minister of Health Yaakov Litzman, whom the police have recommended indicting for his part in the affair. This case has tarnished the image of Torah and the image of Israel in the world. A hillul ha-Shem, desecration of God’s name, in every sense of the term.

And let’s not forget what the Talmud symbolizes for Orthodox Jewish women, which include not only the accused and the victims, but the presiding judge as well. Until recently, the Talmud was a symbol of patriarchy, a part of Jewish tradition controlling nearly every aspect of the lives of Jewish women but which they were forbidden to open. Only in the mid-20th century did this begin to change, and in many parts of the Orthodox community, especially the ultra-Orthodox sects, it hasn’t really changed at all. So when Fried peruses his Gemara while Kaufman proffers klutz kashyas that even Hillel the Great wouldn’t have entertained, this sends a message of intimidation, telling women that they will never be equal. Or even heard.

As our Sages might have said: Better that the words of Talmud be burnt than that they be used to oppress and to victimize.