Sunday, October 19, 2014
Saturday, October 18, 2014
My father, locked in his body but soaring free
In 2011 Ronnie Cahana suffered a severe stroke that left him with locked-in syndrome: completely paralyzed except for his eyes. While this might shatter a normal person’s mental state, Cahana found peace in “dimming down the external chatter,” and “fell in love with life and body anew.” In a somber, emotional talk, his daughter Kitra shares how she documented her father's spiritual experience, as he helped guide others even in a state of seeming helplessness.
========================
Three years ago, Rabbi Ronnie Cahana
suffered a rare brain stem stroke that left him fully conscious, yet
his entire body paralyzed. It’s a condition known as “locked-in
syndrome.”
Last month, TED Fellow Kitra Cahana spoke of her father’s experience at TEDMED (watch her talk, “My father, locked in his body but soaring free”),
revealing how her family cocooned Rabbi Cahana in love, and how a
system of blinking, in response to the alphabet, patiently allowed him
to dictate poems, sermons and letters to his loved ones and to his
congregation.
Kitra began documenting her father’s recovery in photographs and video, creating layered images that — in contrast to her photojournalistic work — are
more abstract and emotional. “I wanted to try to find a way to take
photographs that reflected the mystical things that were happening in
the hospital room,” she says. “How do I explain, in a photograph, the
power that another human being has to either add or detract from the
healing of another person? I started a process of trying to tell a story
in images.”
As Rabbi Cahana began to regain his ability to speak, Kitra started
recording his voice. She is now in the process of developing this body
of work for an exhibition to help raise support for his ongoing care and rehabilitation.
Below, see Kitra’s stunning images — accompanied by her father’s
poems — and hear more about the thoughts behind them. But first, a
Q&A with Rabbi Cahana himself, in which he describes his own
experience.[...]
The Beggars of Lakewood - New York Times
NY Times Once a year, Elimelech Ehrlich travels from Jerusalem to Lakewood, N.J.,
with a cash box and a wireless credit-card machine. During the three
weeks he typically spends in town, Ehrlich — a white-bearded,
black-suited, black-skullcapped, wisecracking 51-year-old — haunts the
many local yeshivas, schools where Jewish men, mostly in their 20s,
study the Talmud and other texts. Sometimes he loiters around the
condominium complexes where students live with their young wives and
growing families. Some days he hires a driver to take him to the houses
of local ashirim, rich men. Throughout town, he greets old
friends, asking after marriages made since his last visit and new
babies. And at every stop along the way, he asks for money.[...]
The yeshiva students may not give much, but nearly all of them give —
and there are so many of them. Between 1990 and 2010, Lakewood’s
population doubled to about 92,000 residents, largely because of the
growth of its ultra-Orthodox Jewish community. Conveniently located
equidistant from New York City and Philadelphia, Lakewood is home to
Beth Medrash Govoha, the nation’s largest yeshiva. The school, founded
in 1943 by the refugee Rabbi Aharon Kotler, has seen its student body
swell to about 6,500, making it just smaller than Harvard College. The
growing Orthodox movement encourages young men to forgo or postpone
higher education for religious study, and the yeshiva has benefited from
that. Other schools have followed suit, setting up shop in Lakewood.
Most students are married, and families with five or 10 children are
common.[...]
Lakewood
is becoming a medium-size city, but in many ways, it’s a pre-World War
II European village, right down to the Yiddish and, to an extent, the
clothes. The spiritual ecology of the town revolves around the Torah,
which obliges that all Jews, even those who are in need themselves, give
to charity. And so Lakewood — full of broke students, most likely at
the peak of their adherence to Jewish law — has given full expression to
the generous tendency of small, diasporic communities, which can be
amplified when they find a little piece of the world to call their own.
It’s
not that Lakewood residents enjoy having their doorbells rung two,
three or four times a day to hear a hard-luck story. But while other
towns may criminalize beggars or tell them to move along, Lakewood has
an obligation to fulfill — Jews are literally family, according to the
Torah. So the town came up with a modern solution to an ancient problem:
paperwork. Beggars are registered and licensed in Lakewood, as a means
of preserving trust in this community that aspires to be a village but
is outgrowing that label.[...]
Aaron Kotler, who hosted me one night this summer in Lakewood, is the
president of Beth Medrash Govoha and the grandson of its founder. He
dresses in banker’s pinstripes, is an avid cyclist and, seemingly alone
among the middle-aged men of Lakewood, speaks without a trace of Yiddish
singsong. He has been instrumental in bringing real estate investors to
town to feed the growing need for housing. I asked Kotler what he
thought of the culture of begging. “I think that people of quality want
to live in a place that has a flavor of doing chesed,” or
kindness, he said. He questioned whether the door-to-door begging was
“the most effective way to raise money,” but ultimately he looked on it
favorably. [...]
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Tuesday, October 14, 2014
Conservative rabbi is supported by congregation after announcing he is gay and divorcing his wife of 20 years
Washington Post The leader of one of the Washington region’s most prominent synagogues
on Monday came out as gay, telling his thousands of congregants in a brutally personal e-mail that a lifelong effort to deny his sexuality was over and that he and his wife of 20 years would be divorcing. [...]
In his letter to the congregation of 1,420 households, and then in an
interview, Steinlauf described an incredibly close relationship with
his wife, whom he met in rabbinical school. The pair, he told The
Washington Post, spent the past three years “desperately looking at one
another, thinking, how can we hold onto this marriage, because we love
one another so much?” And concluding that a reality he’d walled off
since he was a boy wasn’t going away. [...]
Washington Post The full text of an e-mail from Rabbi Gil Steinlauf to the Adas Israel congregation:
Dear Friends,I am writing to share with you that after twenty years of marriage, my wife Batya and I have decided to divorce. We have arrived at this heartbreaking decision because I have come to understand that I am gay. These are great upheavals in my personal life, as in Batya’s and that of our children. But it is plain to all of us that because of my position as Rabbi of Adas Israel, this private matter may also have a public aspect. We recognize that you may well need a period of reflection to absorb this sudden news. I am most grateful for the support Adas’ lay leaders and clergy have provided my family and me in the short time since I brought this matter to their attention. That support makes it possible for us to prepare for this new chapter in our lives, and for me in my ongoing service as Rabbi of Adas Israel Congregation. [...]A text I’ve sat with for years is from the Babylonian Talmud (Yoma 72b) and states, “Rabbah said, any scholar whose inside does not match his outside is no scholar. Abaye, and some say Ravah bar Ulah, said [one whose inside does not match his outside] is called an abomination.” Ultimately, the dissonance between my inside and my outside became undeniable, then unwise, and finally intolerable. With much pain and tears, together with my beloved wife, I have come to understand that I could walk my path with the greatest strength, with the greatest peace in my heart, with the greatest healing and wholeness, when I finally acknowledged that I am a gay man. Sadly, for us this means that Batya and I can no longer remain married, despite our fidelity throughout our marriage and our abiding friendship and love. As our divorce is not born of rancor, we pray that together with our children we will remain bound by a brit mishpachah, a covenant of family. [...]
Philosophers Debating G-d from NY Times blog
This is a
concluding reflection on my series of 12 interviews with philosophers on
religion. I’m grateful to all of them for the intelligence, clarity and
honesty with which they responded to my questions, and to the readers,
who posted hundred of comments on each interview. It seemed natural to
keep to the interview format, even though I (G.G.) had no one to
interview except myself (g.g.). Taking some of the recurring views and
concerns expressed by the readers into account (there were too many to
cite individually), I’ve tried to submit myself to what I hope was the
polite but challenging voice questioning my interviewees.
G.G.: What was the point of talking to a bunch of philosophers about religious belief?
g.g.:
The immediate impetus came from the poll I cited at the beginning of
the first interview: 73 percent of philosophers said they accepted or
were inclined to atheism, while 15 percent accepted or inclined to
theism. Only around 6 percent identified themselves as agnostics. I
would have expected a good majority to identify as agnostics.
G.G.: Why did you expect that?
g.g.:
The question of whether God exists is a controversial one: there have
been, and still are, lots of smart, informed and sincere people on both
sides. So it would seem that philosophers, committed to rational
reflection on the big questions, wouldn’t be atheists (or theists)
without good reasons. But it is also obvious that the standard arguments
for and against God’s existence — first-cause arguments, the problem of
evil, etc. — have stimulated an enormous amount of debate, leading to
many complications but to no consensus. (To get a sense of contemporary
discussions on theism see the Stanford Encyclopedia’s articles on the cosmological argument and on the problem of evil.)
Given this, it seemed to me that at least a good proportion of
philosophers would be agnostics, undecided about God’s existence.
G.G.: So you wanted to talk to philosophers to see why they accepted or denied the existence of God. What did you find out?
G.G.: So you wanted to talk to philosophers to see why they accepted or denied the existence of God. What did you find out?
g.g.:
Well, the theists were pretty much as I expected. None claimed to have a
decisive argument for God’s existence; that is, an argument they
thought should convince any reasonable person. Alvin Plantinga
claimed that there are lots of “pretty good” arguments, but allowed
that they aren’t conclusive, even though they may be “as good as
philosophical arguments get”— which I take to mean that they can make it
rational to assert God’s existence, but don’t make it irrational to
deny it.
Sajjad Rizvi
suggests something similar when he says that theistic proofs “allow
believers to fit their faith in God into a rationally coherent
framework,” even though atheists may not find them rationally
compelling. But the two other theists, John Caputo (a Catholic) and Howard Wettstein (a Jew) think that arguing for God’s existence misunderstands what religion is all about.
In my experience, all this is typical of philosophers who believe in God. As Daniel Garber
noted, once upon a time believing philosophers thought they had
arguments showing that atheism was irrational. Nowadays, the most they
do is argue that it can be rational to be a theist.[...]
Sunday, October 12, 2014
Rav Triebitz:Chol HaMoed Sukkos - What is Beis Din?
Update - It will be Monday night at the home of Dr. Shulem in Har Nof at 8:30.
Rav Triebitz will be speaking this chol haMoed Succos regarding the nature of beis din. What is the authority of beis din in the absence of semicha and community authority? What is the relationship of beis din to secular courts and what should it be?
Rav Triebitz will be speaking this chol haMoed Succos regarding the nature of beis din. What is the authority of beis din in the absence of semicha and community authority? What is the relationship of beis din to secular courts and what should it be?
The Jewish community is faced with many challenges and problems which require a source of authority - is that the beis din and if not what are the alternatives?
Those who are interested in joining this discussion Jerusalem - please contact me at yadmoshe@gmail.com
Problem with the Theory of Evolution or "Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" (Wizard of Oz)
My recent posting about Evolution elicited many heated comments. To set the record straight - I am not a champion of a particular biological explanation. I simply wanted to note that the **IDEA** of creation through evolution and change - is not inherently heresy. (There is a parallel issue - which also elicits heated comments - of whether Torah was given in its entirety at Sinai or whether the Five Books of Moshe were given together with the 13 Midos at Sinai - and the halacha was generated over time - but that is for a different post). What is heresy is to deny that G-d is the ultimate source of everything.
On the other hand, Evolution is clearly more than simply a scientific theory. As Prof Abraham Luchins once pointed out to me - The Theory of Evolution elicits incredible emotional defensive and offensive responses from scientists when it is challenged on rational grounds. When I was studying biology at R.P.I., my professor introduced Evolution by saying first there was matter, this sloshed around for millions of years until organic molecules developed. Several million years later single cells were developed and then evenutally multi- celled creatures. I raised my hand and politely asked him how he got from step 1 to step 2 to step 3 to step 4. What was the mechanism? He looked at me in astonishment. "But if you don't believe this is what happened - that means you are a fundamentalist!" Obviously the most obscene and degenerate state possible. The following Ted presentation illustrates my point.
The following is a recent book which attempts to explain how random selection produce complex traits. At least it acknowledges that there are fundamental problems with the Theory of Evolution. Again the fact that Evolution has problems doesn't mean that the world was literally created in 6 24hour days.
Scientific American Book Review: Arrival of the Fittest
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution transformed our understanding of life's diversity, but it could not fully answer a basic question that still vexes scientists: How does nature introduce complex traits? As evolutionary biologist Wagner puts it, natural selection “does not innovate, but merely selects what is already there.” The latest evolutionary science, however, is beginning to reveal how new traits arise in the first place. “What we have found so far,” Wagner writes, “already tells us that there is much more to evolution than meets the eye.” Drawing on his own and other researchers' work, he explains how large numbers of random mutations within species can combine to form the intricate and innovative traits seen in our planet's vast diversity.
Beis Din - Authority comes from being agents of Israeli beis din which had semicha - how does that work?
Tur (Choshen Mishpat 1): Today, when there is no ordination, all the judges are unqualified according to the Torah, as it is written, “before them,” [Exodus 21:1] meaning before ’elohim, as written in the pericope, which is to say ordained [judges], and we interpret that to mean “before them and not before laymen,” and we ourselves are laymen [in that sense]. Therefore there are no judges with authority from the Torah except if they act as the agents [of the ordained judges of Palestine].
Prof Radzyner has a very interesting article on the authority of the contemporary beis din [click link]
Abstract: A sugya just a few lines long in the Babylonian Talmud, Gittin 88b, had enormous influence on the development of Jewish law in the area of the authority to pass judgment given to rabbinical courts in our day. According to the simple, commonly accepted understanding of this sugya, the Tannaim ruled that the Torah forbade men who had not received ordination to act as judges, and as a result, the judges in Babylonia were permitted to adjudicate, of necessity, only as agents of the judges of Palestine we act as their agents). The article reexamines these positions. The first part suggests two new ways to understand the essence of the agency of which R. Joseph spoke in the sugya. The second part of the article reexamines the source of the prohibition, to the extent that it exists, against adjudication by laymen
Friday, October 10, 2014
Succoth , She'mimi A'tzeret 74 - Futuristic Happiness
Allan Katz - Parenting by the book
We come out of the Rosh Hashanah – Yom Kippur Te'shuvah =
repentance and atonement experience, with a joy in our new perspectives about
life and closeness with God. These feelings of joy and closeness to God can be
given expression through the 'mitzvah'
of the ' sukkah' and the other commandments of the holiday Sukkoth. We leave
our permanent homes and dwell in God's shadow – the sukkah. We no longer need
the protection of a permanent dwelling. Being closer to
nature, without the barrier of physical structures, we feel God's closeness and
protection in a temporary booth. Our new trust and closeness with God makes us
feel less threatened by others and more accepting of other people. Sukkoth is
called the festival of happiness and we are happy with life itself and our
relationship with God.
The other pilgrim festivals - Pe'sach and Shavuot have good
reasons for experiencing joy and simchah. Pe'sach comes when it is spring -
when the barley begins to ripen. It is also the spring of the nation who gained
their freedom from the Egyptian slavery. The fruits of this
freedom are not harvested until Shavuot, when the Torah was given on Mount
Sinai. Shavuot is called Chag Ha'katzir when the actual crops are harvested.
Sukkot is called Chag Ha'asif – the festival of the ingathering of the crops at
the close of the year. On a spiritual level we ' gather in' the lessons of life which God and his creation
have taught us over the past year. We then spend a week being very close to God
and happy with our relationship and his creation.
Although we received the Torah on Shavuot, we will not be able
to totally appreciate the Torah and the world until the messianic period. Chag
Ha'asif hints to this period where the ' ingathering of crops ' on a spiritual
level refers to our new understanding of God and his creation.
Rabbi Eliyahu Meir Bloch, a Rosh Yeshivah from Telse, explains
that Sukkot is essentially a glimpse into the messianic period. When we hear of
bad news, we bless God as the ultimate and true judge. When we hear good news
we bless God as being the ultimate of Good and He does good. In the messianic period we will have the
perspective to see God's goodness behind both good and bad tidings.
On sukkot , this new perspective allows us to find joy in
leaving our homes in order to be in a temporary 'sukkah' a symbol
of being in ' ga'lut' = exile. In the sukkah we also have the positive experience of being in the
shadow of God , similar to the clouds of
glory that protected the Israelites in the desert. Ga'lut = exile is now
only a positive experience.
The 4 plant species=' 4 minim' are
pointed and waved during prayers in different directions in order to invoke
God's blessing of rain on the world. They also symbolize the unity of the
Jewish people. The ' etrog' = citron which has both taste and a pleasant aroma
symbolizes the scholar who possesses scholarship and good deeds, the lulav= the
palm tree branch has fruit – the date which has taste= scholarship but has no
aroma= good deeds. It symbolizes the scholar who lacks good
deeds, the myrtle=hadas has aroma but no taste, symbolizes a person who
has good deeds but is deficient in Torah
learning. The willow lacks both taste and aroma. On sukkot we are happy with
everyone, and bless God who is good and does good even to those people who
don't have taste or aroma.
The sacrifices are often accompanied by song = shi'ra and the
wine libations – nisuch ha'ya'yin. The principle is ' ein shi'ra e'la
ul ha'ya'yin. There is ' song' only with wine, because only wine has the
ability to elicit joy and song. On sukkot we don't have any special reasons to
be happy except life itself. And it is for this reason we are happy even with '
plain water '. We celebrate the gift of water with the ' simchat beit
ha'sho'evah ' and accompanying the daily sacrifice with water libations in
the hope and prayer for the blessing of rain.
During the year we suffer from the nations of the world who
pursue Israel like 70 wolves. But on Sukkot, we wear different lenses and see
only the good in the nations, and thus we bring 70 sacrifices for well-being of
the seventy nations.
We need to leave our permanent dwellings for the temporary
structures of Succoth in order to enjoy the heavenly, spiritual and 'futuristic
' happiness of the messianic period. But our spiritual demands and aspirations
are to leave the sukkah and take with us its eternal messages and combine '
heaven and earth '. On she'mini a'tzeret, the 8th day of our
celebration, we leave our Succoth and return to our homes. For 7 days we were
God's guests in His sukkah. Now, we invite God as a permanent guest back into
our homes and try to live 'eternal lives ' and enjoy ' a futuristic happiness '
where we can see God's positive hand in all the creation. May we see only good
in our kids and family and see problems as opportunities for growth and becoming
closer to God.
Wednesday, October 8, 2014
Rabbi Yakov Horowitz's asks parents to speak to their kids about child safety
Reb Daniel
Hope all is well. Could you please post this with a note asking parents to speak to their kids about child safety before/over Yom Tov?
It is SUCH a dangerous time for kids to be abused.
You cannot imagine.
http://www.rabbihorowitz.com/PYes/ArticleDetails.cfm?Book_ID=1869&ThisGroup_ID=238&Type=Article&SID=2
Thanks and Best wishes for a piska tova and a gutten Yom Tov.
Yankie
Visit www.bbchumash.com to learn more about our popular chumash workbooks designed to give your children the Hebrew language skills to succeed in school.
Teach your kids how to protect themselves from predators. Watch our 3 short videos to learn how.
Dean, Yeshiva Darchei Noam
Director, Center for Jewish Family Life/Project YES
www.kosherjewishparenting.com
==================================
2nd Letter
==================================
2nd Letter
Yesterday
evening after dark, a pre-bar-mitzvah-age boy came to our front door
collecting for a school-based charity drive. No reflector. No adult
accompanying him. He does not live on my block and subsequently no one -
including his parents - really knew exactly where he was or whose door
he was knocking on. And I stopped counting after ten such children came
knocking on our door since Rosh Hashana.
Really???
L'ma'an Hashem;
haven't we learned anything from all the tragedies and ruined lives of
kids who have been abused? At least in previous years, many or most of
us thought our community was somehow immune from problems of this
nature. What is the excuse now?
My
dear friends, this lack of supervision is simply unconscionable knowing
what we now know about the scope and magnitude of child abuse nowadays.
In
fact, over the years, we have noticed a significant spike in
abuse-related calls to Project YES around the joyous Pesach and Succos
Yomim Tovim.
Those of us who work in the arena of child safety attribute the greater number of abuse cases during these times of year to:
1) The less structured environment at home, in Shul and at play.
2)
The fact that children are exposed to a far greater number of
pre-teens, teenagers and adults during Yom Tov than they are during the
average school week.
We
are all busy before Yom Tov, but we at Project YES strongly encourage
you to speak to your children about child safety before Succos, and give
them a refresher talk if you already have.
We
plead with you to take this matter seriously and do everything in your
power to keep your kids safe. There are two steps you ought to take in
order to accomplish this:
1)
Have safety talks with your children - using effective, research-based
techniques that will educate and empower your children without
frightening them.
2) See to it that they are properly supervised over Yom Tov.
There are four basic messages that children need to internalize in order for any abuse prevention program to be truly effective:
1. Your body belongs to you
2. No one has the right to make you feel uncomfortable
3. No secrets from parents
4. Good touching/bad touching
Please
educate yourself before speaking to your children so that your
discussions generate light and not heat. Additionally, it is important
for you to know - and to share with your children - that although
"stranger danger" is a genuine concern, the vast majority of molesters
are family members or people well-known to the children.
As Tenafly Police Chief Michael Bruno brilliantly said during a magnificent talk he gave on child safety, "We need to train our children to consider the "it"
(the inappropriate
action being done to them) not the "whom" (regardless of the
relationship or stature of the individual who is doing it).
There are free resources available in the Karasick Child Safety Initiative section of our website www.kosherjewishparenting.com, and we encourage (read: plead with) you to take advantage of them, including a comprehensive list of Links to Safety Resources for Parents
Thanks
for reading these lines, and kindly take a minute to forward this to
others - for the only way our children and grandchildren will be safe,
is when each and every one of us is well educated about child safety.
Best wishes for a Chag Samayach and much Nachas from your family.
Yakov Horowitz
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