Letters to Talya: A Yom Kippur Reflection

Thirty-nine years ago, Dov Indig, a young soldier in the Israel Defense Force tank corps, sat on guard duty in the Golan Heights. Joining him was a reserve soldier, many years older than Dov. During their four hours of guard duty, they engaged in a deep conversation about religion. It must have been a fascinating exchange; Dov came from Yeshivat Kerem B’Yavneh, a Hesder yeshiva where students combine Torah study and military service in combat units, and the reservist came from a Hashomer Hatzair kibbutz, the epitome of secular Zionism.

The reservist told Dov of his teenage daughter, Talya, an 11th-grade student in the kibbutz high school. Talya’s class had recently spent one week in a Gesher (Bridge) seminar, where secular Israeli teenagers interact with religious kids and study Judaism from a more traditional perspective. The seminar raised many questions in Talya’s mind about Judaism, and her father felt unable to address her questions. He liked Dov’s approach and asked permission from Dov for Talya to write to him with her questions. Dov happily obliged, and what ensued was a two-year exchange of letters between Dov and Talya.

This thought-provoking and moving exchange of letters between two pre-Facebook teenagers is found in the 2005 book “Michtavim L’Talya” (“Letters to Talya”). I was recently re-reading the book, and it dawned on me how deeply this book relates to one of the most powerful lessons of Yom Kippur.

The Mishnah teaches: “For transgressions between man and fellow man, Yom Kippur effects no atonement, until they have pacified each other” (Yoma 8:9). This Mishnah emphasizes the interpersonal angle of Yom Kippur, one that far transcends cantorial performances and eloquent sermons. It teaches us that fasting and prayer do not resolve differences between people. It reminds us that in addition to talking to God with a scripted text, Yom Kippur is also about talking things out with family, friends and those with whom we have different religious and political viewpoints.

So it was with Dov and Talya. They lived in the same country but came from two extremely different places in life.

Dov was a Modern Orthodox religious Zionist yeshiva student. His worldview was rooted in God, Torah, halachah and the uniqueness of the Jewish people.
Talya was the classic secular Zionist. Raised in a secular kibbutz, her worldview was rooted in the modern-day values of Western civilization, of an enlightened Zionist society in Israel and in the Jewish people as agents of universalism.

Egalitarianism was not a part of Dov’s world, and God was not present in Talya’s upbringing and education. Dov frowned upon the abandonment of Torah and saw it as part of the cause for the breakdown of family values in Israeli society. Talya could not accept the separation of boys and girls in social venues such as dancing or holding hands on a date. What these vastly different youngsters had in common was their youth, their curiosity about the other and their willingness to talk with each other.

From very different perspectives, Dov and Talya exchanged letters for two years. It sounds scripted, but it’s all true. They spoke about God, Torah, Zionism, values, Jewish history and the political direction of their country vis-à-vis the Arabs. As we enter Yom Kippur, these intellectually brave teenagers remind all of us that the power of dialogue — face to face, Facebook or through written letters — has the power to bridge gaps, resolve differences and bring people closer together.

In fact, here is Talya’s very last letter to Dov (my own translation):

Dear Dov,
I received your letter today, and I am already writing back. Perhaps this is because of your previous letter, where you wrote of the possibility of war with Syria. I am deeply worried; so much so that I have decided that this year, for the very first time in my life, I am fasting and going to the synagogue on Yom Kippur. There I will pray that there will be no war, and that the high alert of our soldiers is a false alarm.
So, what do you think? Would you have ever believed two years ago, when we started writing to each other, that a cynical kibbutz girl, who bothers you with all sorts of annoying questions, is actually going to the synagogue and fasting on Yom Kippur? I hope I can hold up throughout the day!

I have changed so much these past two years, as my world has opened up to ideas that I would have never imagined in my wildest dreams. It’s all thanks to you, Dov, thanks to your fantastic letters, and thanks to our fascinating dialogues and exchanges. It now seems to me that I am living from letter to letter, so please, hurry up and write more, as I await your letters.
I wish you a good and wonderful New Year.
Yours, who thinks about you often,

Talya

Dov never had a chance to respond. He was killed on the second day of the Yom Kippur war.

On this Yom Kippur, let us commit to continue their dialogue.

Torah Thoughts from Paris

This week I bring you “Torah Thoughts from Jerusalem – via Paris.” After two wonderful and productive weeks at the SEC in Jerusalem, where we held our historic first annual Sephardic Summer Institute, I decided to take a few days with my wife and visit the city where my father lived for ten years, where my parents spent their first year of married life, and where intellectual and artistic inspiration is as common as the corner café.
We arrived here Wednesday, and after checking into our charming little hotel, we went out to explore the neighborhood where we are staying – Le Marais – the historic Jewish neighborhood of Paris. I would like to share with you our first afternoon in Paris.

My friends have often commented that I must have a built –in wireless detector in my brain that detects Jewish bookstores (In Israel the signal is always beeping!), for within a few minutes of our walk down Rue de Rosiers in the Marais, Peni and I found ourselves in one of the most magnificent Jewish bookstores I have ever seen (and I have seen a few in my day). There in front of us, in a smorgasbord of books as varied as French cheeses and wine, we discovered the vibrant intellectual and spiritual world of French Jewry. Torah commentary, literature, poetry, intellectual journals – you name it, it was there. Peni studied French in college, and French is my first language from childhood, so we were both fortunate enough to appreciate the depth of what this bookstore represented.

This brought to my mind the opening verse of this week’s Torah portion, Parashat Re’eh: “Behold I set before you this day a blessing and a curse” (Deuteronomy 11:26). Throughout the Jewish world, the “blessing and curse” is often expressed by the conscious decision to strengthen and perpetuate Jewish life – a blessing – or the abandonment of anything Jewish – a curse. Here in Paris, as reflected by the vast intellectual and spiritual treasures I found in this bookstore, the Jewish community has decided – despite, and perhaps in spite of, an unfortunate resurgence of anti-Semitism (as told to me first hand by a local café owner), to choose the path of blessing and express a serious engagement with Jewish life. My library is now enriched with the Torah commentary of Rabbi Leon Ashkenazi (a French Sephardic rabbi who helped re-build French Jewry after the Shoa) and Marc-Alain Ouaknin (A French rabbi/intellectual who writes creative spiritual works on many Jewish topics) – and I also purchased a Moroccan Shofar.

As we walked out of the store – our minds and souls nourished – we felt it was time to also nourish our bodies. What to eat? And where? The answers to these questions were right in front of us, in every direction we turned. On these few charming Parisian blocks in the Marais, we were presented with more kosher restaurants than one can find in any given neighborhood of Tel Aviv. French food, Israeli food, Moroccan food, Ashkenazi food, kosher markets filled with gourmet meats, wines and cheeses, and patisserie/bakeries with pastries and baguettes that make you say “diet, what diet?”

Here again, I looked at this bustling Jewish life – this time in the culinary arts -- and it brought to mind yet another teaching from this week’s parasha, one of the most characteristic expressions of living a Jewish life: the laws of Kashrut (the Jewish Dietary Laws – see Deuteronomy Chapter 14, verses 3-21, for a full listing of the permissible and prohibited animals to eat, and the prohibition of mixing meat and dairy). Here, in the heart of Paris, you can enjoy life as any other Parisian – eat the best cheeses, taste the finest wines, walk out of a bakery with a baguette that you finish by the time you get back to your hotel, or enjoy the finest entrecote steaks and pommes frites (that means French Fries – they don’t call them that here, FYI) – and you don’t need to compromise your observance of the Torah’s laws of kashrut. Simply magnificent, and once again, the expression of being a blessing, not a curse.

After a wonderful meal, we continued to explore, and we found a beautiful historic synagogue, opening its doors in time for Minha – the daily afternoon service. As opposed to what media might present, the synagogue was packed -- more so than I have seen in many US or Israeli synagogues – and mostly locals, not tourists. After the services, Peni and I met in the lobby, and we almost simultaneously commented how powerful it is that no matter where you are – Los Angeles, Boston, Jerusalem or Paris – the feeling of community in a synagogue is always that of feeling “at home,” and the language of prayer is always one. Of course, when that language is laden with a French accent, it brings out the romantic side of spirituality, and makes prayer a language of love. Parisians wouldn’t have it any other way.

Shabbat Shalom and Au Revoir from Paris!
August 6, 2010

"The Two Menorahs" by SY Agnon (translated by Daniel Bouskila)

In the synagogue there stood a Hanukkah Menorah made of tin, and engraved upon it was an impression of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem, and the candlelighting blessings for Hanukkah. It's candle holders were wide and deep. All year long the Menorah was hanging on the northern wall of the synagogue, in the exact same place where they would hang a Matzah that symbolized the permission to cook during the Passover holiday. Every eve of Hanukkah, the Shamash (caretaker) of the synagogue would take down the Menorah, clean, shine and polish it, place it on a table next to the doorway, place wicks and oil in its cups, and light it for Hanukkah.

It happened one year that a few days before Hanukkah, the Shamash wished to prepare the Menorah for the holiday, but he could not find it. The news of this spread all over the town, and the news ultimately arrived to all of the town's children. God inspired the children to come up with a plan -- they would take all of their dreidels made of lead and bring it to the town's craftsman, so that he would make a new Menorah from all of the dreidels. They brought all of the dreidels to the craftsman, and they promised that his pay would be all of the Hanukkah gelt (money) that they would receive from their parents. It wasn't two or three days, and some even say one day, and the craftsman had already completed the new Menorah. The children took the Menorah from the craftsman and brought it to the synagogue, and that night they lit the Hanukkah candles from this Menorah.

A few months later, before Pesach, when the Shamash was cleaning and preparing the synagogue for Pesach, he suddenly found the lost Menorah under a bench. He picked it up and placed it back in it's natural place. The following year on Hanukkah, the Shamash took the original Menorah and prepared it for Hanukkah. The elders of the synagogue saw this and said, "The children who gave up their dreidels and Hanukkah gelt so that we should all have the mitzvah of lighting the Menorah -- they should have the merit that their Menorah should be used." They established that they should light from the lead Menorah that the children had commissioned, even though the original Menorah looked prettier. And so it was, that the light of the children illuminated the synagogue -- and the entire town -- year after year on Hanukkah.

Give Shalom A Chance

Someone would probably be labeled a hippie if he or she were to use the English word “peace” as a greeting or an expression when parting. Yet in Hebrew, the standard “hello” or “goodbye” is shalom (peace), and the word carries no modern cultural or political connotation.

What is it about the word “shalom” that has enabled it to become the standard Hebrew salutation? A small sampling of its place in Jewish tradition will reveal that “shalom” is far more than a greeting.

In the Hebrew Bible, the word “shalom” appears 237 times, including in this week’s Torah portion, Naso. In the Birkat HaKohanim (Priestly Blessing), which is part of our daily Jewish liturgy, the concluding line reads, “Yisa HaShem Panav Elekha, V’Yasem Lekha Shalom” (May God direct his favor upon you, and grant you peace) (Numbers 6:26).

Commenting on the word “shalom,” the Netziv, the 19th-century rosh yeshiva of Volozhin, says, “Now that the previous blessings have been pronounced, we recite a blessing that is the vessel which contains the other ones, for without peace one cannot derive gratification from any blessing.”

The “previous blessings” referred to by the Netziv are the first two parts of the Priestly Blessing — “May God bless you and protect you,” and “May God deal kindly and graciously with you” (Numbers 6:24-25). In a beautiful metaphor, the Netziv refers to “shalom” as a vessel that contains “blessing, protection, kindness and grace” from God, and further remarks that without peace, one cannot truly enjoy these or any other blessings.

The great Torah commentator Rashi, in his typically brief yet packed comments, says, “Without peace there is nothing.”

Is peace only a blessing from heaven, or can human beings participate in creating peace?

The Book of Psalms teaches: “Seek peace and pursue it” (Psalms 34:15). Based on this injunction to actively seek peace, the rabbinic tradition brings to light an aspect of Aaron’s life that complements his ritual duties as high priest. Pirkei Avot teaches: “Hillel says: ‘Be a student of Aaron, lover of peace [ohev shalom] and pursuer of peace [rodef shalom]’” (Pirkei Avot 1:12).

For Aaron, who was commanded to recite the Priestly Blessing, its simple recitation was not enough. Aaron was the ultimate creator of peace within the community, reconciling differences between married couples and disputes between friends. From Aaron we learn that prayers are not mere words we recite, but, especially with peace, a lifestyle we must create for ourselves.

How far must one take the pursuit of peace? In an interesting numerological calculation (known as gematria), the Baal HaTurim commentary remarks that the numerical value of the letters that spell “shalom” (376 — shin=300, lamed=30, vav=six, and mem=40) is equivalent to the letters of the name “Esau” (376 — ayin=70, shin/sin=300, vav=six).

Esau was Jacob’s twin brother, and there was hardly “shalom” between the two. Furthermore, in later rabbinic tradition, Esau, the father of the Edomite nation, came to be equated with the Roman Empire, Christian Rome and all of the persecution of Jews that came with it. Despite all of this, the Baal HaTurim says that the numerical equivalence of “shalom” and “Esau” teach us that “one should always be first in inquiring after the peace of all men, even the peace of a non-Jew.” Where this may seem like “no big deal” for the Jew in the modern world, it was quite bold of the Baal HaTurim to make such a statement, especially in light of the atmosphere toward Jews in medieval Europe. Perhaps we can draw from his teaching today by remembering that “Esau” was symbolic for “enemy of the Jews,” and therefore, “being first to inquire after the peace of all men” — including Esau — serves as food for thought in the debate of whether it is wise for the Jews to make the first overture for peace toward our enemies.

It is no wonder that we greet one another with the blessing “shalom.” It is, as the minor Talmudic tractate’s Perek HaShalom (Chapter of Peace) puts it, “The greatest of all blessings, for all blessings and prayers conclude with peace.”

I therefore conclude with a prayer that “shalom” become more than just a greeting. In other words, "Oseh shalom bimromav, Hu ya’aseh shalom aleinu, V’al kol Yisrael, v’imru amen."

(originally published in the Jewish Journal, June 4 Issue, 2009)

A Yom Ha-Shoah Reflection

Today is Yom Ha-Shoah, Holocaust Memorial Day. In memory of our 6 Million brothers and sisters who were brutally murdered in the Shoah, I present this poem composed by Uri Zvi Greenberg, one of Israel's great Hebrew poets.

Born in 1896 in Austria-Hungary, Greenberg moved to Palestine (Israel) in 1924. He was awarded Israel's Bialik Prize three times, and was the recipient of the Israel Prize -- Israel's most prestigious honor -- in 1957. He died in Israel in 1981.

Greenberg's poems are often called "prophecies," as he was one of the few Hebrew literary figures of the 1930's and 40's whose works envisioned and warned of the detruction of European Jewry (S.Y. Agnon was one of the others). Greenberg understood the Holocaust as a great tragedy on multiple levels, amongst them the Jewish indifference to their own destiny. Greenberg's words are powerful, poetic and direct, and he minces no words in "telling it like it is."
Below is one of Greenberg's most powerful reflections on the cruelty and inhumanity of Nazi Europe towards the Jewish people.

WE WERE NOT LIKENED TO DOGS AMONG THE GENTILES
by Uri Zvi Greenberg

We were not likened to dogs
among the Gentiles.
They pity a dog, caress, even kiss him with the Gentile mouth.
For like a puppy, fondled at home, they pamper it, delight in it always.
And when this dog dies - how very much the Gentiles mourn him!

We were not led like sheep to the slaughter in the boxcars,
For like leprous sheep they led us to extinction over all the beautiful landscapes of Europe.

The Gentiles did not handle their sheep as they handled our bodies.
Before slaughter they did not pull out the teeth of their sheep.
They did not strip the wool from their bodies as they did to us.
They did not push the sheep into the fire to make ash of the living
And to scatter the ashes over streams and sewers.

Are there other analogies to this, our disaster that came to us at their hands?
There are no other analogies-
Therein lies the horrifying phrase:
No other analogies!

For every cruel torture that any other man may yet do to man in a Gentile country -
He who comes to compare it will state:
He was tortured like a Jew.

Every fright, every terror, every loneliness, every chagrin,
Every murmuring, weeping in the world,
He who compares it will say:
This analogy is of the Jewish kind.

There is no recompense for our disaster, for its circumference is the world.

The whole culture of the Gentile Kingdoms to its peak -
through our blood.

And all its conscience -
through our weeping.

Miriam: The Voice of Wisdom

July 3, 2008

Parashat Chukat (Numbers 20:1-22:1)


Just like that, she was gone.

With no forewarning, Parashat Chukat tells us "Miriam died there and was buried there" (Numbers 20:1). "She died with a Divine kiss," the Talmud says, and with that one kiss, the sole female voice in the Israelite camp was gone.

Who was Miriam? She is the only woman in the Torah who bears the title "Neviah" -- prophetess. So who was she?

We first meet her anonymously, without any proper name. She is referred to as "his sister," that is, the older sister of a little boy whose mother hid him in a basket on the Nile River. Once the mother placed the baby in the basket, "His sister stationed herself at a distance, to learn what would befall him" (Exodus 2:4). When Pharaoh's daughter discovers the basket with the crying baby, "His sister said to Pharaoh's daughter: ' Shall I go and get you a Hebrew nurse to suckle the child for you?'" (Exodus 2:7) Miriam is first described as a loving and caring sister, who saw to it that her baby brother Moses was protected and cared for.

We next encounter Miriam on the banks of the Red Sea, following the Song at the Sea. It is there that we first learn her name and title: "Then Miriam the prophetess, Aaron's sister..." (Exodus 15:20). It is strange, the Talmud remarks, that she is referred to as "Aaron's sister": "Was she only the sister of Aaron and not the sister of Moses?" Through this question, the Talmud actually probes a deeper question: Why was Miriam accorded the spiritual title of "prophetess"? Rabbi Nachman taught in the name of Rav, that Miriam was referred to as "the prophetess, Aaron's sister," because at the moment in her life when she first experienced prophecy, Aaron was her only brother. This takes us back to the early period of the Israelite enslavement, when Miriam is said to have predicted: "My mother is destined to bear a son who will save Israel" (Seder Olam 3, Megilla 14a). When Moses was born, the Talmud says, the whole house was filled with light, a divine indication that Miriam's prediction was in fact a prophecy.

At the Red Sea, Miriam the prophetess organized the first spiritual gathering for Israelite women. Miriam "took a timbrel in her hand, and all of the women went out after her in dance with timbrels, and Miriam chanted for them: Sing to the Lord, for He has triumphed gloriously" (Exodus 15:20-21). Miriam's song and dance was, according to Rabbenu Bahya, a "direct address and praise to the Shekhina," the feminine side of God. Miriam the prophetess was the first feminine voice to directly address the God of Israel.

Miriam's next episode is more controversial. Miriam "spoke against Moses, because of the Cushite woman he had married" (Numbers 12:1). What happened to her younger brother that Miriam criticized him? He had now become Moses the devoted "Man of God," and it was on this that Miriam had a critique. In becoming a prophet and "Man of God," Rashi says, Moses first separated from and then ultimately divorced his wife, the "Cushite Woman" (understood by Rashi to be Zipporah). Miriam expressed disappointment at her younger brother's abandonment of his wife, with an underlying critique of the concept of holiness achieved at the expense of a normal family life. God punishes Miriam, afflicting her with leprosy. How did the Israelite camp feel about Miriam's words and her subsequently being "shut out of the camp for seven days"? The fact that the Torah tells us "the people did not march on until Miriam was readmitted" (Numbers 12:15) is a strong indication that the community understood the need for her powerful presence. Without her, they lacked the sensitive voice of a woman.

This brings us to Miriam's sudden death. The lone prophetess of Israel dies, and in the very next verse, "The community was without water" (Numbers 20:2). The Talmud teaches: "Water is likened to Torah." The impact of Miriam's death was the drying of Miriam's Well -- a Well of Torah that had drenched the community with what Proverbs calls "Torat Imekha -- "The Torah of your Mother." The Israelites lost the sensitive, feminine voice of Torah -- the voice that not only foresaw the birth of a savior but also instinctively protected him, the voice that sensually sang and danced to the Shekhina, and the voice that risked punishment by reminding the Israelites that spirituality is as much about family as it is about God.

Miriam did not speak often, but when she did, she mirrored the closing lines of the "Woman of Valor" poem, chanted every Erev Shabbat around the table: "She opens her mouth with wisdom, and the Torah of kindness is on her tongue."

Miriam reminded her brother Moses, and all of us, that "Torah" is a lot more than just a "Holy Scroll."






© Copyright 2008 The Jewish Journal and JewishJournal.com

Agnon's Story of Torah (Book Review)

Book Review of "Present at Sinai: The Giving of the Law" by S.Y. Agnon, translated by Michael Swirsky (Jewish Publication Society, 1994). Originally published in Hebrew as "Atem Re'item" by Schocken Books, 1959

What will you study the night of Shavuot? How about immersing yourself in a collection of classic texts of rabbinic literature, creatively compiled and presented in one convenient volume by an iconic Nobel Prize-winning author?

S.Y. Agnon's "Present at Sinai: The Giving of the Law" is a rich anthology of biblical, talmudic, midrashic and mystical texts -- all on the subject of the giving of the Torah at Mount Sinai. In this unique volume, you will find texts that speak of the Torah's mystical origins in heaven prior to the creation of the world, the revelation of Torah from heaven by God at Mount Sinai, a section on the Ten Commandments and a post-Sinai reflection on the deeper meanings of Torah beyond Sinai.

In "Present at Sinai," Agnon is at once editor and author. As editor, he consulted hundreds of books of rabbinic literature and selected from them the texts to include. His talent as an author is expressed in the creative way that he arranged the texts. Rather than present them by textual chronology (Bible, Mishnah, Talmud, etc.), Agnon presents the sources by theme, creating a chronology from "Before Creation" to "The Giving of the Torah" and beyond. Each section contains selections from the full gamut of the rabbinic corpus, and with his storytelling genius, Agnon arranged these texts in a flowing narrative, with the sources doing the talking in their original language. In this book, you are not reading stories written by the author; instead, you are reading one grand epic "Story of Torah," as told in the language of the classical texts of Torah, woven together by Agnon.

What prompted Agnon, a master of original writing, to create an anthology of rabbinic texts relating to Shavuot? As an author with a deep connection to his religious roots, Agnon related to the experience of Shavuot, a celebration of the centrality of books in Judaism.

"In God's love for His people, He still gives us some of that same power which He gave us as we stood before Sinai and received the Torah and commandments," the narrator says in Agnon's story "The Sign."

Agnon was intrigued, I believe, by the divine origins of Judaism's very first book. Both "Torah From Heaven" and "Torah From Sinai" ascribe authoritative status to Judaism's "Original Book" and to the canon of sacred books that were written as commentaries on that "Original Book." This spoke deeply to Agnon, and is reflected in many of his writings.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech in 1966, Agnon said, "Who were my mentors in poetry and literature? First and foremost, there are the Sacred Scriptures, from which I learned how to combine letters. Then there are the Mishnah and the Talmud and the midrashim and Rashi's commentary on the Torah. After these come the poskim -- the later explicators of talmudic law -- and our sacred poets and the medieval sages, led by our Master Rabbi Moses, son of Maimon, known as Maimonides, of blessed memory."

Earlier in his life, in 1937, Agnon wrote the story "The Sense of Smell," where the narrator (who, in typical Agnonic fashion is a vehicle for Agnon's own voice) proclaims: "Since the Temple remains destroyed and we have no priests at service or Levites at song, instead I study Torah, the Prophets and the Writings, the Mishnah, the halachah and the haggadot, tosefta, dikdukei Torah, and dikdukei soferim."

In both instances, Agnon connects himself to the sacred texts of the Jewish tradition, the very texts that helped him shape his unique style of writing in modern Hebrew literature. The language of Agnon's novels and short stories is based on the Hebrew of rabbinic literature, whose many periods and genres Agnon brilliantly synthesized in a style all his own.

Agnon opens "Present at Sinai" with a midrash about the creation of the world, where the Torah declares, "I was the artistic tool [kli omanuto] of the Holy One, blessed be He." This midrash is as much about Agnon as it is about God. Much like the Torah served as God's artistic tool in creating the world, so, too, did the library of Torah serve as Agnon's artistic tool in creating his own world of literature.

On Shavuot, Moses received the Torah at Mount Sinai. Thousands of years later, Agnon - whose literary style and use of sources brought the Torah to modern readers - received the Nobel Prize in Literature. In a sense, Agnon accepted the Nobel Prize on behalf of the Torah.

Chag Shavuot Sameach