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Making Judaism ‘Fit’

The Desert – A Blank Canvas

By Rabbi Yaacov Haber

Where important meetings, conventions or summits take place location is of the utmost importance. The greatest political minds come together to choose Oslo or Geneva. They search the globe for political neutrality, proper security and appropriate ambiance. The location of a meeting is not incidental but crucial to the success of that gathering.

The most important meetings in history, the meetings between G-d and man, strategically took place in the most barren spot on Earth; the desert that stands between Raamses and Jerusalem. G-d could have spoken to us in an elegant conference center in Egypt. He could have waited until we reached the Holy Land and spoke to us at the Holy of Holies, or at the spot of the Akeida. He could have also made the desert into a rain forest. However, for the appropriate location, the right atmosphere and the proper mood, G-d chose the desert. Why?

In order to accept the Torah we should feel desert-like. The Talmud speaks about how a desert feels. Not opulent, not holy, but like a desert – barren.

The Chazon Ish was one of the greatest luminaries of the last century. His in-depth analyses of astronomical and geological subjects made his contribution unique in history. He was a brilliant man renowned for his piety and kindness. A peculiar aspect of the Chazon Ish however was his refusal to be involved in any debate or even dialogue with other leading Rabbonim. Rabbonim resented this and criticized the Chazon Ish for departing from standard rabbinic practice. The Chazon Ish once wrote about his policy. “It is not my way to enter into debate, because differences of opinion are usually caused by personal events that may have taken place years earlier, even during ones childhood. Any proof I will bring will not change an embedded opinion. I therefore refrain from answering.” (Igros vol. 1;28)

For those of us who grew up in America and are comfortable in this society and culture, accepting the Torah and its values is not always simple. Instead of starting with a blank canvas, we start with a culture – a culture we enjoy – and we try with all our hearts to fit Torah into it. Feeling like a desert is feeling like a new canvas, ready to accept any color, material or pattern imposed on it. We are not in a midbar, we are in New York!

There are some hard questions the Torah wants us to ask ourselves. When we choose our clothing, or the place we daven, do we choose them according to the Torah or according to the prevailing styles, trying with a very big shoehorn to make them halachic? When we make decisions about how many hours we work and how many hours we spend with our children, are we thinking Sinai or America? When we think of our roles, are we emulating Moses and Miriam, or talk show hosts, dot-com CEO’s and movie stars? We are Modern Jews. Being modern means applying the Torah to modern situations and keeping Torah alive and attuned to contemporary society. Being modern does not mean trying to maintain my modernism even if the Torah is challenging it.

So for this week’s Parsha, and in preparation for Shavuos, close your eyes and meditate: I am a desert. I am thirsty. I am owned by no-one. I am humble. I am free. I will receive the imprint of any footstep that treads on me. I am a blank canvas, I am ready to receive the Torah.

From Torah Lab, here.

Hyehudi Ought to Quote More of Rabbi Pruzansky

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky
Rabbi Steven Pruzansky
Photo Credit: Screenshot

 

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, who has served since 1994 as the spiritual leader of Teaneck NJ’s Congregation Bnai Yeshurun (which boasts close to 600 families) appears to be making waves in faraway Israel, in the city of Modi’in. Modi’in resident Josie Glausiusz on Wednesday sent a letter to the leaders of the city’s Hameginim synagogue, urging them to cancel a Monday, Feb. 13 event with Pruzansky, as reported Wednesday by Judy Maltz in Ha’aretz.

Maltz lifted from Wikipedia some of the “Controversies” section in Rabbi Pruzansky’s page, so we went to the same source and lifted all of them. Because a well-rounded education is the foundation of true liberalism:

1. In 1995, Abraham Foxman, then national director of the Anti-Defamation League, left Pruzansky’s congregation in protest of the rabbi’s calling then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin the “Rabin Judenrat.” Mind you, at the time, this “vitriol,” as Foxman called it, was mild stuff compared with other voices condemning Rabin’s selling out half of the land of Israel to Arab terrorists.

2. In 2012, Pruzansky wrote in his blog that President Obama had won by “”pandering to liberal women, Hispanics, blacks, unions, etc.” This was met with harsh criticism by mostly liberal women, because there aren’t so many Hispanics, blacks or union members in Pruzansky’s section of Teaneck.

3. In November 2014 Pruzansky compared The New York Jewish Week to Der Stürmer. The JW for their part titled their editorial attacking Pruzansky, “A Rabbi’s Low Blow.” It was over a blog post titled “Dealing with Savages,” where Pruzansky proposed using live ammunition on Arab stone-throwers and suggests that any village that is home to more than two terrorists should be razed and its inhabitants deported. Foxman and the rest of the usual suspects accused Pruzansky of racism and of being anti-Arab. Two years and a few months later, some of the good rabbi’s blog post’s recommendations have been adopted as policy by the Netanyahu government.

Incidentally, following that post that urged a radical response to Arab daily violence against Jews, Pruzansky’s synagogue announced in a letter to the congregation that Pruzansky agreed to have his future blogs reviewed by editors and that the board would periodically review the process. Pruzansky himself was forced to express to the congregation his regret for having written in a way that “many have deemed harsh.”

4. On March 31, 2016, Pruzansky published a blog post titled “A Novel Idea,” blaming the promiscuous culture for many rapes reported on US campuses, and proposing marriage as a solution to the overall problem. Pruzansky was accused of blaming the victims of rape, of not taking rape seriously, and of not acknowledging or understanding marital rape exists (On campus?).

Incidentally, while by Rabbi Pruzansky’s current account his synagogue has close to 600 member families, earlier accounts suggest there used to by as many as 800, which could mean the vociferous rabbi was doing damage to the synagogue’s bottom line.

Author Josie Glausiusz (The American Scholar) is spearheading the effort to block Rabbi Pruzansky’s appearance in Modi’in next month. Glausiusz is a fervent leftwing feminist (we visited her Twitter account), often in the most predictable fashion. Her email to the Hameginim synagogue read, “Rabbi Pruzansky’s views are deeply insulting to women, to Arab citizens of Israel, to Holocaust survivors, and to the family of Yitzhak Rabin and all those who mourned his murder.”

In other words, she, too, has hit the good rabbi’s Wikipedia page…

Glausiusz continued, “He should not be offered a public platform in Modi’in to air his offensive views. I call upon you to rescind your invitation to Rabbi Pruzansky to speak at your synagogue.”

The event, incidentally, will be an interview of Rabbi Pruzansky by Hameginim’s congregational rabbi, Adi Sultanik. Glausiusz, who could have opted to come to the event and ask embarrassing questions during the Q&A, opted instead to agitate for killing the show. Glausiusz told Ha’aretz: “I’m so fed up with people like this being given a public platform. As a woman and an Israeli citizen, I feel it is important to speak out against someone with such offensive views.”

No, that’s not what she’s been doing. Speaking against Pruzansky, demonstrating, demanding equal time – those would have all been legitimate responses. Instead, passing on debate and discussion, Glausiusz is advocating a boycott.

Whether or not she succeeds doesn’t really matter.

From Jewish Press, here.

Surrender of the Temple Mount Incites War

Israel’s Beating Heart

January 26, 2017 | Moshe Feiglin, Chairman of Zehut

The Temple Mount is the most holy place on earth. It is the place chosen by the

G-d of Israel from which to rest His Divine Presence throughout the world. This is the place that connects the physical with the metaphysical; the place where Adam was created and Isaac was bound. It is the place where life and the Nation of Israel were fashioned, the place where our First and Second Temples stood. Just as most of the prophecies about the Return to Zion have already miraculously been fulfilled, so the rest of them will be realized. When the time comes, our Third Temple will dwell on the Temple Mount for eternity.

The Temple Mount is the beating heart of the Land of Israel. Famous Israeli poet Uri Tzvi Greenberg accurately described the Temple Mount as the yardstick of Israeli sovereignty in the entire Land. When we lose our hold on the Mount, the heart becomes ill; circulation weakens and the organs suffer. When Israel transfers control of the Mount to the Jordanian wakf, Jerusalem becomes divided once again and Israel’s cities become the target of missiles – a scenario that nobody would have imagined just a few years ago. There is a direct connection between the abandonment of the Temple Mount and the deterioration of the legitimacy for the very existence of a Jewish State anywhere in the Land of Israel. This approach has reared its head in the most respected and enlightened states

When with our actions we declare that we have no connection to the Temple Mount, the world says the same at UNESCO. And when the world says it, the legitimacy of our hold on the Land is lost. When we lose the legitimacy of our hold on the Land, it becomes legitimate to attack us and illegitimate for Israel to defend herself. Surrender of the Temple Mount does not prevent war; it incites it.

The “strategy” of Israeli administrations since the Six Day War has been to evade the actualization of Israeli sovereignty on the Mount and to pass on the “problem” to future generations. This “strategy” has brought about a continued depreciation in Jerusalem’s status, to its essential re-division and to the transfer of most of the sovereignty at the heart Israel’s capital – on the Temple Mount – to the Jordanian wakf. Today, places in East Jerusalem where Jewish children used to play safely are now void of Jews; it is impossible to build a home in Jerusalem without the personal authorization of the Prime Minister and UNESCO is turning Israel’s practical policy into a principled international decision, determining that there is no connection between Israel and the Temple Mount.

The decision to give the keys to the Mount to the Moslems immediately upon its liberation was cited as diplomatic insight and the “realpolitik” acumen of Six Day War Defense Minister Moshe Dayan. But the truth is that Dayan’s actions were not born of necessity; it was his strategy. Prior to that, in the War of Independence, a planned strategy brought about the fall of the Jewish Quarter and the loss of an opportunity to liberate the Temple Mount and Judea and Samaria. Before the Six Day War, Dayan (and the minsters of the National Religious Party) were against liberating the Old City. Even Paratrooper Division Commander Mota Gur, who conquered the Temple Mount, was sure that it would shortly return to Jordan.

Israeli-ness did not want the “whole Vatican” – in the words of Moshe Dayan. Religious-ness also didn’t want the Mount, which returns the Torah from the personal-religion dimension of the Exile to the national-culture dimension. This is the deep reason for today’s ultra-Orthodox opposition to the return of Jews to the Temple Mount. There is nothing more anti-“religious” and anti-exile than the Temple and the Temple Mount.

Jerusalem is a reflection of the identity conflict raging within Israeli society. It is the conflict between Israeli identity and Jewish identity. The Mount was abandoned by Israel and Jerusalem is being divided because the Israeli/Religious identity is fleeing the return to the Jewish/cultural identities. The return to the Mount is the connection between those cultures.

The Arabs are not the reason; they are simply the means in this internal conflict. Jerusalem does not appear even once in the Koran. When the Moslems are on the Mount, they bow southward to Mecca and turn their backsides to the Dome of the Rock and the site of the Holy of Holies.

Israel sanctifies the Mount to the Moslems so that it can run away from itself. The result is the loss of the bedrock foundation for the justification of our existence in the entire Land of Israel – and the turning of humanity against us. By sanctifying the Mount for the Moslems, Israel brings war upon itself.

From Zehut International, here.

Non-Jewish Music? No Such Thing!

Secular Music

When asked to support their position, opponents of secular music invariably cite the Sha’ar Hatziyun, who writes as follows:

כבר הזהיר השל”ה ושארי ספרי מוסר שלא לזמר שירי עגבים לתינוק שזה מוליד לו טבע רע. ובלא”ה נמי איכא איסורא בשירי עגבים ודברי נבלות דקא מגרי יצה”ר בנפשיה ושׁוֹמֵר נַפְשׁוֹ יִרְחַק מזה ויזהיר לבני ביתו על זה [מאמר מרדכי].

The Shlah and other mussar books have already warned not to sing songs of passion to a child for this develops a bad nature within him. And without this there is also a prohibition with songs of passion and foul language for they cultivate the evil inclination in one’s soul, and he who guards his soul will distance himself from this and warn the members of his household about it (Ma’amar Mordechai).[1]

Let’s analyze this. The key term here is שירי עגבים, which I have translated “songs of passion.” In truth I think this is too ambiguous. From the juxtaposition of these שירי עגבים to דברי נבלות, foul language, it seems clear that these songs he is referring to are unequivocally “songs of lust.” What is certain though, is that he isn’t saying anything against secular music per se, but against שירי עגבים.

Often, these opponents come at it from a different angle. Music is a reflection of a person’s soul, they say, and music that comes from the soul of someone who is not an observant Jew is not kosher, just as food cooked in a non-kosher pot becomes loses its kosher status. These people generally have an aversion to any and all “non-Jewish music.” If we look through the early traditional halachic literature however, as far as I know we find no mention of such a concept. On the contrary, the Mishna Berura – the author of that same Sha’ar Hatziyun these people like to cite – indicates that there is no such issue. In discussing who is eligible to lead services for the congregation, Rema writes as follows:

וש”צ המנבל פיו או שמנגן בשירי הנכרים ממחין בידו שלא לעשות כן, ואם אינו שומע מעבירין אותו.

A leader of the congregation who fouls his mouth or who sings songs of the gentiles; we protest in order that he discontinue doing so, and if he does not listen we remove him from his post.[2]

The Mishna Berura qualifies:

ר”ל בניגון שמנגנים בו הנכרים לעבודת גילולים שלהם. וב”ח בתשובה סי’ קכ”ז כתב דוקא בניגון שמיוחד לזה.

He means the songs which the gentiles sing to their idols. And Bach[3] writes that this is only with a song that is specifically designated for this.[4]

Similarly, the Chida writes:

בספר מעשה רקח פ”ח מהל’ תפילה נשאל על המשוררים קדיש או קדושה לחן שירי נכרים והאריך לאסור, ובכלל הביא דברי מהרם די לונזאנו בס’ שתי ידות דף ק’ שכתב בשם ס’ חסידים, ויזהר מי שקולו נעים שלא יזמר ניגונים ניגונים נכרים, ודקדק שלא כתב שירים נכרים דזה פשיטא דאסור אלא ניגונים נכרים כלומר אף דהשיר הוא קדוש הניגון נכרי יפסידהו וכו’ ע”ש. ונעלם ממנו דברי מהר”ם די לונזאנו עצמו שם בספר שתי ידות דף קמ”ב שכתב וז”ל וזאת היתה לי סיבה גורמת לחבר רוב שירי על ניגוני הישמעאלים וכו’, וראיתי קצת חכמים כמתאוננים רע על המחברים שירות ותשבחות לשי”ת על ניגונים אשר לא מבני ישראל המה ואין הדין עמהם כי אין בכך כלום עכ”ל. וע”ש מ”ש הרב מהר”ם ד”ל בענין זה ומה שהשיב על מהר”י נאגרה בשירותיו.

In the book Ma’aseh Rokeach he is asked regarding those who sing Kaddish or Kedusha to tunes of the gentiles, and he goes at length to forbid it. He included the words of the Maharam de Lonzano in the book Shetei Yados on page 100 who writes in the name of the Sefer Chasidim “and one whose voice is pleasant should be careful not to sing tunes of the gentiles.” He notes that the Sefer Chasidim did not write “songs of the gentiles” because that is obviously forbidden; he rather wrote “tunes of the gentiles” – meaning that even though the song (i.e. the lyrical content) is holy, the tune which is from the gentiles ruins it. But he missed the words of the Maharam de Lonzano himself there on page 152 where he writes in these words; “…and this was the motivation that caused me to write most of my songs to tunes of the Ishmaelites… and I saw some wise ones seemingly complaining badly about writers of songs and praises to God to tunes of those who are not of the Children of Israel, but the law is not with them, for there is nothing to this.”[5]

It seems quite clear that there is nothing inherently unkosher about tunes composed by non-Jews, inasmuch as there is nothing inherently unkosher about a kosher piece of meat that was grilled by a non-Jew (bishul akum notwithstanding).

Continue reading…

From The Beis Medrash Blog, here.