Rebellious Children and Re-Reading Text

“If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, that will not listen to the voice of his father and the voice of his mother and though they chasten him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall lay hold of him and bring him out unto the elders of his city…

They shall say unto the elders “Our son is stubborn and rebellious, he does not listen to our voice, he is a glutton and a drunkard.” And all the men of his city shall stone him that he die… (Deut. 21:18–21).

I always smile when we read the section on the rebellious son.

I know it’s a tad geeky to have a favourite Torah portion.

But I just can’t help it.

It’s not that I dig infanticide, or support the murder of teenage delinquents as a means to maintain public order.

It’s what the Rabbis did with (or to) the story, rather than the story itself that enthrals me.
First, they limited the case to that of a 12½ year old boy (“son not daughter; son not mature man”)

Next, they insisted the law only applied when a specific type of meat and wine was consumed – excluding the beer festival or any over-indulging at KFC from the prohibition.

Finally, in a pilpulistic twist of grandiose proportions, the Rabbis announced that the command only applied when the child’s mother was similar in appearance, height and voice to his father. (“He does not hearken to our voice – this shows that their voices must be alike”).

[As an aside, I always wondered how any child whose mum looked exactly like their dad could become anything other than rebellious – but maybe that’s because my father has had a thick beard for the last 30 years…]

In short, the Rabbis took a Torah text with a specific command and completely changed its meaning.

They didn’t argue that God knew best, or that human morality was inherently subjective (or Christian).

They didn’t answer those starry eyed liberals that we don’t have a choice – that ‘that’s was the Torah says and who are we to argue?’

When faced with a conflict between text and moral intuition, the Talmudic Rabbis went with the latter.

They understood that an authentic religiosity engages with text rather than unquestioningly subjugating itself to it in the name of serving God;

They realised that leaving our morals at the entrance of the Bet Midrash is not what learning Torah is about, that – to paraphrase the Kotzker – serving the Shulchan Arukh (or dry text) is not always the same as serving God.

But with my smile often comes a frown.

Because surely there is no midrashic re-reading of homosexuality or divorce laws which could possibly stray from the text more palpably than that of the rebellious son.

So why is our generation still stuck with the Shulchan Arukh worshippers?

Original from lech-lecha.com

Moving to Lech Lecha

After four years of blogging solo, I am transferring the majority of my writing energy to a new blog shared with some friends at http://www.lech-lecha.com/.

I will probably continue to post in the Land of Milk and Honey from time to time.

However its probably best to find me on the Lech Lecha blog here.

Overflowing Streams & the Festival of Love

Strategically speaking, the best way to have spent Tu Be’Av would probably have been pursuing beautiful white-robed bachelorettes through the moonlit fields of Jerusalem rather than barbequing with a bunch of couples at Maayan and Enav’s Sheva Brachot in Yafo.

But life isn’t always about strategy. And those hand-made burgers were really good.

The truth is that it’s always special to celebrate with friends on joyous occasions. Having first met Maayan in the context of the Tel Aviv bi-weekly Shiur (in which several friends get together to discuss texts, sip wine, and raise heretical thoughts in a safe environment) her and I have become good friends.

And having been asked to say a few words to the happy couple, my mind turned to the connection between her name, the concept of marriage, and the Jewish festival of love we’re currently celebrating.

‘Ethics of the Fathers’ mentions two rising rabbinical stars who couldn’t be more different from each other.

In the red corner stood Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus (let’s call him EBH), referred to as a plastered cistern which didn’t lose a drop.

In the blue corner meanwhile was Elazar Ben Arakh (EBA), described as an overflowing stream (Maayan Hamitgaber in Hebrew).

One source says that if all the sages were on one scale and EBH was on the other, he would outweigh them all.

Another remembers the text slightly differently - that if all the sages including EBH were on one side and EBA on the other, he would outweigh them all.

What seems to be at stake in the discussion is who is the ideal type of student – the arch traditionalist or free thinking intellectual?

Yet regardless of who was better, what is striking is how the ‘Maayan Hamitgaber’ of EBA simply overflows with creative and intellectual energy and enriches everyone he meets.

His advice is constantly sought.

He wows his seniors with his wisdom.

He explains complex texts in ways never before heard.

Yet ultimately, the text tells us, he separates from his friends and forgets his learning.

And the story suggests that while an overflowing stream has many advantages over a plastered cistern, it dissapears unless funneled or collected somewhere.

Without a context of support, or what psychologist Donald Winnicott terms a holding environment, all EBA’s genius goes to waste.

And I began to wonder whether the same is true in relationships.

That we all have so much creative energy; dreams and ambitions; hopes and fears; future ideas and plans.

Yet without someone to share them with, to give us direction, we can’t fulfill ourselves or actualize those dreams.

And that what we need is someone who provides us a framework, who which helps us become the best person we can possibly be.

It’s what EBA was lacking.

It’s what Maayan and Enav have found in each other.

And as we celebrate the Jewish festival of love, it’s a reminder of what we should all be seeking.

Obama, Hasidism and the Search for Authenticity

I know it’s been a while.

But just because nothing has been written doesn’t mean nothing’s been done.

There was the Maccabiah Games opening ceremony starring 7,000 Jews from around the globe, in which the Prime Minister (in true Zionist style) told everyone that Israel was their home and that they should make Aliyah

There are the Kiddushim and BBQs celebrating a new batch of Olim, which often nudge me into clarifying what this country means to me, and why I’m here.

There are the after-work runs along the beach and sunset dips in the ocean, which I like to refer to as mini Bi-Athlons, although I fear 2km followed by 5 minutes chilling in the sea doesn’t really count.

And there’s also been the ‘Spoken Word’ event organized by Farrah and hosted in the infamous Spinoza 6 apartment.

Spoken word was a new experience for me (isn’t every thing said out loud a ‘spoken word’?)

But it was a real eye opener and hugely enjoyable.

The lineup headlined with the Hebrew Mamita – the sexy oi-veh chutzpah-having non-cheaping, non-conspiracizing, always questioning, hip-hop listening, Torah-scroll reading, all-people loving, pride-filled Jewish girl.

Also featured were the lovely Farrah (torn between her lover New York and mistress Israel), the Puerto Rican, Panamanian, Polish, Russian, Spanish, Lithuanian first generation American Ruby (Pujerican for short) and Yael - too Jewish for the black girls and too black for the Jews.

And what struck me was despite the different topics, they all touched on the underlying question of what being Jewish means.

Or what comprises authenticity in this multi- layered 21st Century reality we live in.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently. I’m currently working my way through 2 books – Obama’s ‘Dreams of my Father’ and 'The Quest for Authenticity', which discusses the Przysucha (pronounced Pshishka) Hasidism – a group that focused on personal authenticity above all else.

Abhorring routine and imitation, the Przysucha promoted serving God rather than the Shulchan Aruch, preached genuine self analysis rather than self indulgence;

And it made me wonder about how one achieves genuine authenticity.

With our friends.

In relationships.

With God.

And those things that make it harder – the society we live in, our fear of what people may think of us.

And in this context, an extract from Obama’s book describing his first visit to Kenya, leapt out at me;

For a span of weeks or months, you could experience the freedom that comes from not feeling watched, the freedom of believing that your hair grows as its supposed to grow and that your rump sways the way a rump is supposed to sway.

You could read about the criminal on the front page of the daily paper and ponder the corruption of the human heart, without having to think about whether the criminal or lunatic said something about your own fate.

Here the world was black, and so you were just you; you could discover all those things that were unique to your life without living a lie or committing betrayal.

And his prose reminded me of my early visits to Israel, how amazed and excited I was that among the palm trees of the airport were people like me, a land filled with Jews.

And without meaning to be too old skool Zionist a la Bibi, it made me think whether there’s something about this place that facilitates the search for authenticity.

Not that all Jews should move to Israel – Heaven forbid.

But that it’s a place where one can walk the streets without feeling self conscious about the silly hat we wear on our heads.

Without the fear of having a penny thrown at us;

Where one can read about Benny Sela without worrying how it reflects on us;

Where, to paraphrase Obama, ‘the world is Jewish and so you were just you’

Where, in Isaiah Berlin’s words, Jews don’t have to be more German than the Germans.

A place where we can just be ourselves.

Because when all the ceremonies and barbeques are over, maybe this is what life is really about.

Lag BaOmer: BBQs, Bonfires and Freedom

It’s been an interesting couple of weeks in Israel. Controversy over the state budget, premonitions of doom ahead of the Bibi – Obama meeting in Washington, and the 33rd (Lag) day of the Omer, which traditionally marks the Bar Kochba rebellion, the death of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai (the Rashbi) and the end of the plague / war that caused the death of 24,000 of Rabbi Akiva’s students.

Lag Ba’Omer is one of those festivals that really emphasizes the difference between Israel and the rest of the Jewish world. There it’s more or less a regular day. Here meanwhile it’s a pyromaniac and carnivore’s heaven, with bonfires and barbeques (literally) filling the Jerusalem skyline (apparently air pollution is five times larger than on any other day).

Yet despite the celebrations, this year I struggled with the significance of the three aspects this day traditionally marks. While I’m perfectly happy to celebrate the end of a plague (especially if I get to eat), the other two components struck me as strange.

Despite being a renowned scholar, Rabbi Shimon’s story is problematic. After fleeing from the Romans (in an episode which always reminds me of this scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian) and learning in a cave for twelve years, Rashbi was unable to interact with his fellow humans, burning one man to death with his eyes for engaging in the ‘trivial’ matter of farming. A Heavenly voice ultimately demands he returns to his cave and stops ‘destroying God’s world.’

The rebellion meanwhile – inspired by messianic drive which ignored Roman strength and power – ended in disaster, with half a million Jews murdered and the loss of sovereignty for nearly 2000 years.

And while it didnt stop me eating two chickens, four sausages and an entrecote I did wonder whether there was more to Lag Ba'Omer than a zealous mystic and a failed rebellion…

Then I began to think about what these two stories signify – the inability to maintain the difficult balance between rights and realpolitik, between how the world should be and how it currently is.

And about the dangers of ignoring the latter in favor of the former.

And I remembered that Rashbi's story doesn’t end with the farmer’s immolation. It continues with his re-emergence from the cave a year later as a more complete, integrated, communally oriented Rabbi.

The Bar Kochba story meanwhile gets downplayed by the Rabbis of the Talmud, who understood the dangers of unrestrained messianism, of ignoring the geo-strategic situation in the name of nationalism.

Lag Ba’Omer falls sometime in the middle of the long walk to freedom we undertake between Pesach (freedom from slavery) and Shavuot (freedom to realize our potential). And maybe it comes to remind us of the learning steps required for mature freedom –that unwillingness to compromise on what we feel is rightfully ours can be catastrophic, that seeking to mould the world in our image can sometimes destroy it.

And I wonder – faced as we are with an unprecedented economic crisis and an international community unsympathetic to our territorial wishes – whether our elected leaders realize what it takes to preserve our newly acquired freedom.

Yom Hashoah 5769: In the Presence of Burning Children

I just spent the last hour with my Reut Institute colleagues listening to and sharing stories about our families during the Holocaust; how they survived (or didn’t), how they mustered the strength to rebuilt their lives anew; how these memories (or lack of them) continue to affect us and our identity today.

Part of me feels that in the face of unfathomable evil, the only appropriate response is silence; that written words are unable to capture the enormity of what happened…that as Irving Greenberg says, “no statement, theological or otherwise, should be made that is not credible in the presence of burning children."

Yet despite this, I wanted to share an article I wrote in the spring of 2002 regarding different theological responses to the Shoah. It is based on the format of a book called Yosl Rakover Talks to God in which author Zvi Kolitz imagines a moving letter written by Yosl Rakover hours before the Warsaw Ghetto is liquidated by the Nazis. Yet rather than ultimately affirming his faith in his Creator as Yosl does, the article suggests that our understanding of God can not remain the same after such an event.

The article can be accessed here.

Wishing everyone a meaningful Yom Hashoah.

Pesach Thoughts 5769: Refugees in a Jewish State

It’s simultaneously strange and uplifting to have lived in a city for years yet still discover new and unexplored places. And while hardly being the Tel Avivian socialite around town, I still felt I had the city pretty much down pat. Yet the Friday before Pesach brought me to Lewinsky Park near the New Central Bus Station in southern Tel Aviv for a ‘refugee seder’ – and forced me to throw yet another illusion out the window.

The seder, organized by Amnesty International and Israel Activisits among others, sought to draw attention to the situation of approximately 17,000 African refugees seeking a safe haven in the Jewish state.

And while I arrived after the music and service had already ended, what struck me was the lack of Israelis in the crowd…and how the park in our first Hebrew city had become transformed into another world, filled with a colourful mix of Eritreans, Sudanese and Thai.

I hadn’t been to the Central Bus Station or the areas surrounding it that much since my year off in Israel a decade ago. To be honest the station is not the most attractive of Tel Aviv’s landmarks – it’s large and disorienting, and ever since I saw the ‘please don’t pee here’ sign in one of the station’s corridors I tried to keep my distance.

But the area also represents something else - the side to our city people don’t (or would rather not) see; the underclass, the stranger in our midst, the other…

Later that evening over dinner, I thought about two extracts from Amos Oz’s beautiful autobiography A Tale of Love and Darkness that are especially pertinent to celebrating the Jewish festival of freedom in our own independent state.

One bears a striking resemblance to Herzl’s Political Zionism (Israel as a safe haven), the second to Ahad Ha’am’s Cultural Zionism (Israel as a spiritual centre);

The first, narrated by Oz’s father, reminds me of Isaiah Berlin’s negative liberty (freedom from); the second, by his aunt, is similar to Berlin’s positive liberty (freedom to realize our fundamental purpose).

One describes the meaning of the Hebrew word Chofesh; the second, the term Cherut.

And both discuss situations that state’s establishment sought to alleviate – the consequences of our lack of homelessness.

Then he [my father] told me in a whisper, without once calling me Your Highness or Your Honour, what some hooligans did to him and his brother David in Odessa and what some gentile boys did to him at his Polish school in Vilna, and the girls joined in too, and the next day, when his father, Grandpa Alexander, came to the school to register a complaint, the bullies refused to return the torn trousers but attacked his father, Grandpa, in front of his eyes, forced him down on the paving stones and removed his trousers too in the middle of the playground, and the girls laughed and made dirty jokes, saying that Jews were all so-and-sos, while the teachers watched and said nothing, or maybe they were laughing too.

And still in a voice of darkness with his hand still losing its way in my hair (because he was not used to stroking my hair) my father told me under my blanket in the early hours of the thirtieth of November 1947, ‘Bullies may well bother you in the street or at school some day. They may do it precisely because you are a bit like me. But from now on, from the moment we have our own state, you will never be bullied just because you are a Jew and because Jews are so-and-sos. Not that. Never again. From tonight that’s finished here. For ever’

- - - - -

"A thousand times it was hammered in to the head of every Jewish child that we must not irritate them, or hold our heads up, and we must only speak to them quietly, with a smile, so they shouldn’t say we were noisy, and we must always speak to them in good correct Polish, so they couldn’t say we were defiling the language, but we must speak in Polish that was too high, so they couldn’t say we had ambitions above our station and Heaven forbid they should say we had stains on our skirts.

In short, we had to try very hard to make a good impression…You who were born here in Israel can never understand how this constant drip drip distorts all your feelings, how it corrodes your human dignity like rust…"

In many ways, freedom is the ability to live one’s life without fear and without emotional or physical filters.

But it also comes with responsibility.

And I wonder – when we sit down with family and friends for Seder to discuss, sing and be merry - how we can ensure we’re fulfilling our responsibility to those who don’t yet have freedom or independence?

That when we claim that everyone is welcome at our table we don’t close our heart to those invisible thousands who found their way to our shores fleeing the same persecution that we experienced so many generations ago...

Because like us, there are strangers living in a land not their own.

And one shouldn’t need to go to Lewinsky Park to notice their plight.