A note for new readers

Welcome!

Just so you know, I'm in the process of transferring older posts from two separate, now defunct, discussion groups to my blog here.  So, while there may not be any new posts for a while, you might want to check the archives from time to time to see if anything new has popped up there.

Thanks!

-Meri

Concepts for Organization Growth - Note

Just a note about the format of these posts.  I am going to talk from the perspective that your organization is a synagogue.  I started writing and it's how the topic best presents itself - at least going from my brain to the page - in a way that isn't bogged down by the grammatical issues of using the phrase "your organization" or "the organization" all the time.  This being said, I believe that the concepts and lessons presented are applicable to all Jewish communal organizations (and non-Jewish organizations too).  Just change the references in your head to what you need them to be.

Concepts for Organizational Growth - Introduction

Something I've been "studying" - if one could call the organizational version of people-watching "study" - is why some organizations are gaining members and raising money hand over fist, while other organizations are floundering trying to maintain their current membership and budget.  What is it about these organizations that are in an extreme "growth mode" that makes them so successful?  Or, what are other organizations lacking that creates barriers to growth?

What I found was simultaneously surprising and not.  What was surprising is that the vast majority of growing organizations belong to what I would term "fundamental" movements.  In other words, extremist and fundamentalist religious and political groups.  What is not surprising are the key reasons why these types of organizations are growing.

It did not surprise me that extremist groups are growing - the world around us today is an ideal breeding ground for such groups and people looking for easy answers.  Rather, I was surprised that there are few if any mainstream groups/movements that show any kind of growth.  Most mainstream groups are stable or in decline.  The few that are growing are growing slowly, and the growth is a result of "natural causes" - for example AARP is growing in membership numbers, but that's expected based on the rising number of Americans becoming "senior aged" in this country.

As you would expect, the cornerstone of most extremist groups' membership recruitment and retention plans is fear.  Fear is a great motivator - someone is out to get you.  It causes your membership to unify and circle the wagons, upholding your message and financially supporting your cause.  The other aspects of what an organization like this does to recruit and retain membership range from expected public relations messaging to cult-like brainwashing.

I spent some time looking into these recruitment and retention tactics to see if there was something to be learned.  I could, right now, give everyone an easy recipe for creating a grassroots "renewal movement" within your organization, with clear, easy to introduce and maintain steps for membership growth and maintenance, as well as high-powered fundraising.  The problem is, I don't think anyone would have the stomach for implementing it... and if they did, I wouldn't tell them how to do it.

So rather than dwelling in the realm of manipulation of our base human natures, I attempted to distill positive lessons that we could apply to our organizational development.

I combined the best and most successful parts of the programs I studied, broke them into related categories - concepts - and then defined what those concepts mean on the organizational level, and how to apply them positively towards membership growth and fundraising efforts.

Look for future "Concepts for Organizational Growth" (COG) posts on each topic.

Things that make you go hmm - Pesach Edition

You know how the Rabbis always talk about spritual links between words that share root letters...

I wonder if anyone has ever noticed/written about how Moshe and HaShem are the same letters backwards/forwards:  Moshe - Mem Shin Hey - and HaShem - Hey Shin Mem...

*cue Twilight Zone theme*

The ShopRite Minyan

A wise Rabbi once remarked "Feed them, and they will come". A related corollary to that rule, at least here in Wilmington, seems to be "You will always find a minyan at the Shop Rite".

It matters little what day of the week, or what time of day (1am!), I always find people I know from the Jewish community. Grocery shopping takes me hours, because I end up in conversation with each fellow congregant.

Shopping for Pesach groceries this past Monday afternoon was no different. I ran into several congregants, as expected, and we all laughed about it being the season to congregate in the Passover foods aisle.

What is different though, is that this time of year allows you to expand that community to those who you don't already know.

You see someone pouring over the shelves of matzoh meal, it's a reasonably sure bet that they're Jewish. It's easy to strike up a conversation about some new product, or how prices have yet again risen this year on staple items, or frustration over how the store hasn't yet put out the pesadic dairy items. It's common to find someone offering assistance to another who looks lost or flustered, desperately searching for the white grape juice amid the bottles of regular grape and apple juices.

Community - being built right there in the Passover aisle.

Community - being built over food... a shared cultural eating experience.

Isn't that just amazing? I think it is. We are building community over something so trivial, yet also so vital to survival.

We may not be from the same congregation. We may not both belong to the JCC. We're not coming together over some shared interest. We're not meeting each other because we have a job or hobby in common. We're not classmates, or down the street neighbors. We're building community because we eat.

Of course, it's not that simple. It's not just any old food. It's Passover, and even the most secular and unafiliated Jews have held onto some aspect of the ancient traditional foods of the holiday.

This is why many Rabbis take the laws of kashrut so seriously. It's not just about what we eat or why we eat it... it's also about building community.

Keeping kosher does several things at once:

• Allows us to perform a mitzvah - to fulfill God's commandments about what foods we eat and do not eat.
• Elevates the basic act of eating, nourishing the body, to a holy level, so that it also nourishes the soul.
• Builds connections - having a kosher home means that everyone can visit and share a meal together, both those who keep kosher and those who do not.
• Creates community - Jews from all walks of life, if nothing else, have kashrut in common.

So, next time you're walking down the kosher foods isle of your local supermarket, remember to say hello to your fellow members of the Jewish community!

Current Events: Israel in the Media

I was trying not to do two current event items back to back, and was originally going to shelve this topic for a later date, but given the recent bombing in Israel, I changed my mind.

The following opinion column is from the Wall Street Journal. Since they have recently gone to a pay subscription only service, I reprint the article text here for your convenience:

BRET STEPHENS: A family of five slaughtered in their beds. Some Palestinians call it ‘natural.’
March 15th, 2011

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424...el_opinion

Are Israeli Settlers Human?

A few years ago, British poet and Oxford don Tom Paulin offered a view on what should be done to certain Jewish settlers. “[They] should be shot dead,” he told Al-Ahram Weekly. “I think they are Nazis, racists. I feel nothing but hatred for them.” As for Israel itself, it was, he said, “an historical obscenity.”

Last Friday, apparently one or more members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, the terrorist wing of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’s “moderate” Fatah party, broke into the West Bank home of Udi and Ruth Fogel. The Jewish couple were stabbed to death along with their 11-year-old son Yoav, their 4-year-old son Elad and their 3-month-old daughter Hadas. Photographs taken after the murders and posted online show a literal bloodbath. Is Mr. Paulin satisfied now?

Unquestionably pleased are residents of the Palestinian town of Rafah in the Gaza Strip, who “hit the streets Saturday to celebrate the terror attack” and “handed out candy and sweets,” according to the Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth. The paper quoted one Rafah resident saying the massacre was “a natural response to the harm settlers inflict on the Palestinian residents in the West Bank.” Just what kind of society thinks it’s “natural” to slit the throats of children in their beds?

The answer: The same society that has named summer camps, soccer tournaments and a public square in Ramallah after Dalal Mughrabi, a Palestinian woman who in March 1978 killed an American photographer and hijacked a pair of Israeli buses, leading to the slaughter of 37 Israeli civilians, 13 children among them.

I have a feeling that years from now Palestinians will look back and wonder: How did we allow ourselves to become that? If and when that happens—though not until that happens—Palestinians and Israelis will at long last be able to live alongside each other in genuine peace and security.

But I also wonder whether a similar question will ever occur to the Palestinian movement’s legion of fellow travelers in the West. To wit, how did they become so infatuated with a cause that they were willing to ignore its crimes—or, if not quite ignore them, treat them as no more than a function of the supposedly infinitely greater crime of Israeli occupation?

That’s an important question because it forms part of the same pattern in which significant segments of Western opinion cheered Ho Chi Minh and Fidel Castro and Robert Mugabe and even Pol Pot. The cheering lasted just as long as was required to see the cause through to some iconic moment of triumph, and then it was on to the next struggle. It was left to others to pick up the pieces or take to the boats or die choking in their own blood.

Whether similar tragedies would unfold for Palestinians in the wake of their own “liberation” remains to be seen, though the portents—the experience of the postcolonial world generally and of the Gaza Strip specifically—aren’t good.

Even worse is that Palestinians have grown accustomed to the waiver the rest of the world has consistently granted them over the years no matter what they do. Palestinians ought to have expectations of themselves if they mean to build a viable state. But their chances of doing so are considerably diminished if the world expects nothing of them and forgives them everything.

It is precisely in this sense that the frenzied international condemnation of Israeli settlements and settlers does the most harm. Having been accorded the part of George Orwell’s Emmanuel Goldstein—perpetual target of the proverbial two minutes of hate—they have drained whatever capacity there was to hold Palestinian actions to moral account, to say nothing of our ability to understand the nature of a conflict that is more than simply territorial. The demonization of the settlers has made the world not only coarse but blind.

I write these words as one who has long entertained doubts about the wisdom and viability of much of the settlement enterprise, though I’ve never considered it the core issue in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—a point well borne out by the example of Gaza following Israel’s withdrawal.

Now I find myself cheering Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for announcing, in the wake of the Fogel family massacre, the construction of hundreds of additional homes in the settlements. Israel’s consistent mistake since the peace process began nearly 18 years ago was to suppose that conspicuous displays of reasonableness and moderation would beget likewise on the other side. The reality has been closer to the opposite.

For 60 years, no nation has been held to such stringent moral account, or such ceaseless international hectoring, as Israel. And no people has been held to so slight an account as the Palestinians. Redressing that imbalance is the essential first step in finding a solution to the conflict. The grotesque murders of the Fogels and their little children demands nothing less.

This week there was the bus stop bombing in Israel, and the continued shelling of Israeli civilians from points in Gaza. As members of the Jewish community, we hear about these things through multiple sources. Anyone outside of the Jewish community however, would be hard pressed to find mention of these events. If your local newspaper is like the bulk of American newspapers, these stories did not appear on any front pages, or even second or third pages... Instead they were buried in the back pages of the international section, if they appeared in the newspaper at all.

What kinds of media representation of Israel have you seen?

Do you think that Israel is treated fairly in the media?

Do you agree with Bret Stephens, that the Palestinians get a "pass", while Israel is unfairly condemned?


I am hoping that the resulting discussion of this topic will become a launching point for futher discussion about Israel and current events, so please comment everyone!

Current Events: Government Hearings on Muslim Extremism

Please visit the following JTA news article:

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2011/03/...nt-reasons

Don't worry, take your time reading, I'll wait...

Here's a salient quote:

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D-Nev.), perhaps the most passionately pro-Israel lawmaker in Congress, said in a statement that King’s tone mitigated against a sober assessment of domestic Muslim extremism.

“Instead of singling out this particular community for investigation, our focus should remain on the many sources of terrorism and violence that threaten our nation and its residents,” she said, noting her concerns about the “tone and substance” of the hearings.

“I ask,” she said, “if this hearing were focused on the Jewish community, Japanese community or the African-American community, or any other community, would we not be justifiably outraged?”

This week, my post is a simple question to you - From a Jewish perspective, what do you think about this?

The Two Faces of Vashti

So, I am a part of my synagogue's purim shpiel this year. Our script is awesome. There is this hilarious sing-down during the first scene where Achashverosh is asking Vashti to dance for him and his male party friends by singing "It's getting hot in here, so take off all your clothes...", and Vashti responds with "We don't have to take our clothes off, to have a good time, oh no"...

Well, maybe it's not as funny in text...

In any case, this particular scene got me to thinking... (a dangerous pastime, I know... )

These days, at least in my shul, Vashti is portrayed as something of a minor feminist heroine. A tragic victim of her husband's drunkeness. Here Vashti is summoned before the king, her husband, and his many male party guests, all quite intoxicated, and she is told to come to his party wearing only her royal crown. Vashti refuses, obviously shocked at the violation of her integrity and personhood. Achashverosh, in his drunken state, flies into a rage, and orders her executed (or exiled if we're presenting to the kinder). After he sobers up he realizes the folly of what he has done, and we all know how the story continues.

This is a Vashti that any girl could be proud to portray in costume on Purim. But, there's another side to Vashti...

When I was growing up and attending my local Hebrew day school, we were taught that Vashti was a wicked queen, who was vain and cruel to her servants (often Hebrew women). This Vashti was in the regular practice of dancing nude in front of her husband and his court, showing off her many assets, as she was considered the most beautiful woman in all of Persia, and proud of it. The reason set forth for why she refused to respond to the king's summons was that she had suddenly come down with a case of a disfiguring skin ailment - sometimes said to be boils, and sometimes tzaraat (leprosy). Vashti was obviously embarassed to be seen in this state, and to lose her status as the most beautiful woman in the realm.

This is a very different Vashti - certainly one that is not at all sympathetic. She seems to deserve what she gets, and is definitely not anyone a young female would want to portray during Purim (unless you like playing the villian).

So - why are there two completely different takes on Vashti? And why are they so very different?

The text doesn't give us a lot to go on - it simply says that the King sent for Vashti, saying she should come to him dressed only in the royal crown, and she refused. There's no description of what anyone was thinking or feeling about the subject. There's no further description of how Vashti refused; how her response was worded might give us some insight into her frame of mind, but there is no comment on that.

We must rely on midrash and the interpretations passed down to us over time.

So - why these two opposing viewpoints? Has there been a change over time since I was a child that we now interpret Vashti differently? Which interpretation makes more sense to you? Which do you prefer?


Yet again - I have a response - but I'd like to hear your take on this first.
Have at it!

You're Never Fully Dressed Without A Smile

Hey Dapper Dan, Hey Gentleman, you've both got your style, but brother, you're never fully dressed, without a smile...

If you couldn't guess, I'm a musical theater brat. I grew up listening to broadway records and going to local theater productions of, well, just about every musical that came through town. And, when I was old enough, I performed in those shows. Annie was one of my high school productions, and I played one of the Boylan Sisters, who sang in that number.

So, what does Annie have to do with Judaism? Well, actually, there are a lot of things we could link between the show and our religious traditions, but I'm going to stick with the link between this week's Torah portion and that song.

Burt Healy said "you're never fully dressed without a smile", and this week, God insists to Aaron the high priest, that he's not fully dressed without a whole host of items. The high priest's "uniform" was a linen tunic and breeches, covered in a colorful robe which had woven pomegranates and gold bells hanging from the hem. He then would wear an ephod (breastplate) with a belt and shoulder pieces, containing 12 gemstones on the front, and one each on the shoulders. On his head, he would wear a linen turban with a gold head-plate engraved with the words "Holy to God".

Why do you think God wanted Aaron to wear all this? What kind of message do these clothes send to the Israelites? To Aaron himself?

The message of "you're never fully dressed without a smile" seems simpler to answer. The setting of Annie is during the Great Depression,
and the song was meant to inspire a little bit of happiness in the world. If someone sees you smiling, they will feel better, and will probably smile too, and that smile will spread to others. As a result, people will feel happier, even with all of the negativity surrounding them (a timely message if I ever heard one!). Even the orphans get into the spirit of smiling!

But what is God saying by telling Aaron that he's never fully dressed without a whole set of complicated and impressive-looking clothing?

Certainly "impressive" is one reason - the clothing inspires respect. The message of "Holy to God" on the headpiece is certainly a reminder to the Israelites, and Aaron himself, that the role of the high priest is a holy one, and that God is "watching". Of course, in Jewish terms, Aaron's clothes conform to the requirements of tzniut - modesty. And there are probably a number of other reasons you've come up with as well.

My point is not to belabor what Aaron is wearing. What I want to do is discuss what messages our own clothing sends to others.

I am sitting here typing this while wearing a t-shirt and jeans. My t-shirt happens to say "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!". What are my clothes saying about me? Well, certainly the shirt tells you that I went to New York City to see Mary Poppins on Broadway (once a musical theater brat, always a musical theater brat). The t-shirt and jeans combo says I'm being casual and comfortable.

Would I wear this outfit to teach? No way.

Why not? Because in a school setting, this outfit is sending the message that I don't take the school and my teaching seriously. That my comfort in a t-shirt and jeans is more important than my role as a teacher.

I shouldn't have to explain further about clothing and roles. I'm sure you're all used to the concept of wearing business attire at work, suits to interviews, tuxedoes and gowns to a black tie affair, and pajamas to sleep. Everyone is familiar with the long list of occupations and organizations that require uniforms of its members, and why.

But, here's the question. Why do we have all of these messages (both Jewish and secular) that tell us that it is important to be careful of what we wear, but then at the same time, tell people not to judge others by appearances?

Even Shakespeare covers this in Polonius' advice to Laertes in Hamlet:

"Costly thy habit as thy purse can buy, But not express’d in fancy; rich, not gaudy; For the apparel oft proclaims the man..."

"...This above all: to thine ownself be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man."

How can one be true to themselves, and yet at the same time adhere to society's structure on how to dress, lest he be judged poorly by others?

Say a college student arrives to an 8am class wearing his or her pajamas. If I were the professor, do I think that this student doesn't
care about my class? Or should I think that the student woke up late, and rather than be late to class, came dressed as is?

The first reflects poorly on the attitude of the student, the second assumes that class is important to the student and gives him/her the benefit of the doubt.

The easy out to this question is to say that both are correct. That Judaism instructs us to be vigilant with our own demeanor and dress, but to easily forgive the faux-pas of others.

But, I'm not content with that answer, because it doesn't answer the question of how to be true to myself while satisfying social expectations.

If being true to myself means being the most genuine "me" I can be, doesn't that mean I should always wear clothing that expresses my personal style? If I am most comfortable wearing t-shirts and jeans, why shouldn't they be acceptable at work?

I have an answer, but now that we've had a few weeks together with most of you simply reading, I want to hear your answers first.

So - go ahead - what do you think?

Of Mirrors, Moos, The Mishkan, and Moons

Rosh Chodesh, the Jewish celebration of the New Moon, is considered a holiday for women. As a part of the celebration of this holiday, women are exempt from working.

Why is it that in Jewish tradition women have a specific holiday dedicated to them?

Because of the honorable actions of the ancient Israelite women.

You will remember the midrash of how Miriam was responsible for the birth of her younger brother Moses. Moses' father, upon hearing the edict that Pharoah ordered all male Jewish babies to be killed, he decided to divorce his wife, so that they would have no more children. It is said that Miriam accused her father of killing the Jewish people, because he had decided that there would no longer be any male OR female children, which was worse than Pharoah's decree. Upon hearing that, Miriam's father did not divorce his wife, and instead Moses was born.

A parallel midrash states that Miriam's family was not the only family to face this situation. The majority of the male population in Egypt had lost hope of ever seeing a better life, and wanted to divorce in order to prevent the next generation from being born into slavery. The women, however, had faith that there would be better days ahead, and beautified themselves in order to entice their husbands to return to them. Later on in Parsha Shemot, the Rabbis tell us that the women of Israel donated their copper mirrors towards the building of the Mishkan - these would be the same mirrors they used to beautify themselves while in slavery in Egypt.

You will also remember the midrash of the actions of the men and women during the incident with the golden calf. It is said that the women did not want to participate in the building of the golden calf, and refused to give up their jewelry to be used to mold the idol. The men tried to take the jewelry by force, but the women resisted. In the end, the men had to give up their own precious metals for the making of the calf. In contrast, when Moses asked the people to provide precious metals for use in the making of the Mishkan, the women gladly gave their jewelry, the same jewelry their husbands wanted to use in the calf, to the cause.

As a result of the Israelite women keeping their faith in God and hope in the establishment of a true Jewish community, at the dedication of the Mishkan, the women received the holiday of Rosh Chodesh Nissan. The Rabbis conclude that the custom of women celebrating all Rosh Chodesh days as work-free holidays derived from this original declaration.

Advertising Jewishness

I have four catalogs sitting in front of me on my table.  One is a crafts supply catalog, another a party supplies catalog, yet another is a teachers' supply catalog, and the final one is a promotional products catalog.  Each of these catalogs contains a section entitled "inspirational" or "faith-based" products that are ostensibly all Christian in nature.

Bracelets, sticky-backed foam cutouts, plushies, beads & charms on ribbon, inscribed rocks, flashlights, backpacks & tote bags, posters, bookmarks, stickers, pencils, erasers, yo-yos, temporary tattoos, pencil cases, make-your-own fleece blankets/pillows, squishy stress balls, necklaces, hats... you name it, these catalogs have it, and they have it imprinted with a wide variety of catchphrases:

PUSH - Pray Until Something Happens
FROG - Fully Rely On God (printed on frogs, or with an image of a frog)
Walking In His Path
Walking With Jesus
Wild For God (with an image of a panda bear)
Paws-itively In His Path (with an image of a tiger)
Fishing For Men or Fishers of Men (appearing with the obligatory fish symbol)
I'm On God's Team (on a baseball cap)
Colors Of Faith
Smile, Jesus Loves You
Jesus Loves Me
God's Love Is Eternal
God's Love Guides Me
God Is With Me
God Is Great
Friends In Christ
Jesus Is Peace
Jesus Is Love
Catch The Spirit

That's just a sampling, and not even counting the items with scripture references.

I can't help recognizing that Judaism doesn't have catchphrases.  We have good quotes, but they're not "sound bites".  Beyond "Shalom" and "Chai", we don't have much that is short enough to count as a catchphrase.  I think the shortest thing I can come up with off the top of my head is the Hillel quote: If I am not for myself, who will be for me?  If I am only for myself, who am I?  If not now, when?

Not exactly something that prints easily on a pencil, a squishy stress ball, or the tummy of a small teddy bear...

Looking in our synagogue gift shop, we don't have a lot of merchandise that proclaims the awesomeness of God.  Nor does any of it contain sayings about how we're all friends because of God, nor that God is super because he blesses us.  I don't see anything that says I should smile because Hashem loves me.  And I certainly don't see any yo-yos telling me to spin God's glory out to the world.

Judaism doesn't "do" that sort of thing.

As Rabbi Michael mentioned in our Hebrew School tefilah not too long ago, Judaism doesn't much care about what you believe.  Judaism cares about what you do and how you act.

Ours is a religion of action, and by comparison, Christianity focuses a lot on beliefs.

But, are we missing out on something by not having more "quotable" statements of faith?

Judaism has a strong history of non-evangelism.  In other words, we don't go looking to convert people.  Judaism believes that every spiritual path has a role in the world to come, and while Jews believe it is the best path for themselves, there is nothing in our faith tradition that says we have any better a path than others, nor is our path the only "right" path.

So, the idea of marekting Judaism through tchotchkes with sayings like "It's good to be kosher", seems laughable.

On the other hand, perhaps there is something to this idea...

Not marketing Judaism for the purpose of gaining adherents, but marketing Judaism in order to increase awareness of Judaism.

In other words - in places that are not New York City - perhaps we need to let people know we exist?

I think back to one of my old offices, where some of the people I worked with honestly believed that all organized religions were just different flavors of Christianity.  That Adonai, Krishna, Allah, Confucius, Buddah, Shiva, etc. are how all these different languages say "Jesus".  These coworkers of mine did not understand why separation of church and state was so important.  To them, people are fighting over what name to call Jesus in public prayer, and they thought that was just silly.  Why can't they just call him Jesus in public because we're here in America and speak English, and they can call him whatever they want in their own homes and churches.

Certainly an ad campaign could only help improve that situation.

Pint-sized Philosophy: What came before God?

I teach Kitah Gimmel – third grade – at Congregation Beth Shalom’s Hebrew School. In our classroom we have a box, covered in shiny blue metallic paper, that says “Ask The Rabbi” on it. The students can write down questions on pieces of paper and place them in the box for Rabbi Michael to answer when he visits our classroom every week.

My kids? Born Philosophers. And born wiseacres too. They take “Ask The Rabbi” as a personal challenge to see if they can find a question that Rabbi Michael just cannot answer.

Their favorite stump-the-Rabbi question? What came before God? – or – Who created God?

Rabbi Michael’s answer is fair – Nothing. His answer is also meant to work within his 20 minute visit window, and for his young audience.

But, this is Judaism, the religion where two Jews equal three opinions. Of course there should be more to this answer. Even if the ultimate conclusion is still “Nothing”, I am sure that many have weighed in on the subject.

Many Rabbis agree with Rabbi Michael in their assessment. Nothing existed before God – God was the beginning of everything. Or, even better phrased “God has always been”, and therefore there is nothing that could have come before.

When Moses asked God’s name, God replied “ehyeh asher ehyeh”. This phrase can be translated as “I am what I am”, “I am what I will be”, or “I will be what I will be”. The ambiguity as to the time frame is interpreted as meaning God always has been and will continue to be eternal.

There is at least one Rabbi that has stated it is heresy of the highest caliber to even think upon this question. I politely disagree, considering that we should not be condemning a young student’s questioning. I seriously doubt that was the intent of this rabbinical edict, but anything that stops the genuine quest for knowledge seems antithetical to Judaism. We are, after all, the people who struggle with God.

The Zohar gives us a further mystery. It states that we are commonly mistranslating the first sentence in the Torah. “B’resheet Barah Elohim” is normally translated as “In the beginning, God created”. However, you can translate the “B” from “B’resheet” as meaning “with” as well as “in the”, and the subject of “barah” – “created” is unclear, we are not absolutely sure who is doing the creating. The Zohar speculates that there could be a hidden subject, a hidden source who is doing the creating, and therefore the meaning of this first sentence could be rendered “With beginning [the hidden subject] created God”.

And so we are left with a mystery – who is this hidden subject? The Zohar continues:

“The Concealed One, who is not known, created the palace; this palace is called Elohim.” In other words, the Ain Sof, co-eternal with the first Sefirah, Keter, used the agency of Beginning to create the second of the emanations, Khokhmah, which is as far as our human understanding will take us.
(Kenneth Hanson, Kabbalah: The Untold Story of the Mystic Tradition)

Which is a fancy way of stating that God created himself. Because God was intending to create a world of finite beings with a limited viewpoint, God needed an identity that could be perceived by creatures not equal to himself.

Which still leaves us with the conclusion that God always has been. But it seems like an incomplete answer. The inner scientist is not appeased. If all things have a cause, then certainly doesn’t God also need a cause?

Scientifically we know that things always come from other things. You cannot have something come from nothing. If you have nothing, then you will always continue to have nothing. 0+0=0 is simple math. But, since the universe exists, we know that we have something. So there always had to be something for the universe to be created out of.

That’s a long way of saying that science states that the universe needs a creation force in order to exist. Whether you consider that source of creation to be God or the Big Bang (or both!) it doesn’t matter, but it must exist for everything else to flow from it.

The Big Bang theory states that it is the point at which everything came into existence; matter, time, dimension, energy – everything. Therefore, the question of what came before the Big Bang becomes nonsensical. How can you consider the existence of a time before time? The label of “before” cannot possibly apply.

As Stephen Hawking said “Asking what occurred before the Big Bang is like asking what is north of the North Pole.”

I will leave the conclusions to you.

3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, 19, Hike!

Happy Adar I.

Adar I you say?

Yes, we’re in a leap year, didn’t you know?

Leap year?

Ok, let’s start at the very beginning… It’s a very good place to start…

The Torah indicates that we can number our weeks by seven days, as in Genesis, God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh. The Torah also indicates that we can number our months by the moon, celebrating the new month with the beginning of the new moon, and our festivals often are celebrated starting on the full moon. And the Torah indicates that we should number our years in order to keep track of the age of people, trees, and when we should celebrate the jubilee year. In addition the Torah indicates proper seasons for our festivals, such as the spring for Pesach, and the fall harvest for Sukkot.

This presents an obvious problem of how to create a proper calendar. Jews need to be able to keep track of the lunar calendar, for when new months occur, as well as dates for festivals, but we also need to keep track of the solar calendar, because those festivals are agricultural in nature, and therefore based on seasons. So, how do we reconcile both ways of keeping track of time?

The solar cycle is 365.24 days in length, and can be easily divided in to 12 equal portions of 30.4 days. In order to remove the .4 of a day each month and the .24 of a day each year, the months were divided up slightly unevenly, with 7 months of 31 days, 4 months of 30 days, and one month of 28 days which receives an extra leap day every four years. By comparison, the lunar cycle is 29.5 days, and a month is generally considered as having either 29 or 30 days depending on which evening the new moon is sighted. Creating a year out of 12 lunar cycles creates a lunar calendar of 354 days, which is 11 days shorter than the solar calendar year. In order to keep our seasonal festivals from sliding around throughout the solar year, and therefore mismatching with the seasons, Jews needed to create a way to compensate for the difference between the lunar and solar cycles.

Necessity being the mother of invention, the concept of the Jewish leap year was born.

Way back in time, Jews were dependent on the Sanhedrin (the Jewish Supreme Court) to keep track of the calendar. Every month at the new moon, the Sanhedrin would hear testimony from witnesses who claimed they had observed the new moon in the night sky. When the court decided that they had two reliable witnesses who both confirmed the new moon on the same night, they would declare the new month, and messengers would be sent out to every community to convey the declaration.

Some years, the Sanhedrin would have concerns about pilgrims being able to arrive in Jerusalem in time for the celebration of Pesach (one of three pilgrimage festivals, and often a time that a census would be taken) due to the weather. We know now that this was that the Sanhedrin was noticing the subtle shift in seasons due to the mismatch of the solar and lunar cycles, and were concerned that pilgrims would have difficulty traveling during the rainy season. The Sanhedrin would then declare a leap year, and add an extra month (Adar II) to the calendar, prior to Nisan, thus delaying the arrival of Pesach by 30 days, giving the pilgrims more time to begin their travels.

Around 350 C.E. the Sanhedrin decided to codify the Jewish calendar, thus replacing the constant declarations of new moons and leap years, with a standardized and predictable calendar. Months were given standard lengths of 29 or 30 days based on the recorded observational history of hundreds of years of new moon declarations (and because it’s just not practical to have one day belonging to two months). With this change in calendar, the Rabbis switched their previous practice and codified that Adar I would be considered the inserted leap month, and Adar II would be considered the “real Adar” when it came to observing festivals, and dates of birth and death. Thus, in the modern day, we celebrate Purim, birthdays, and Yahrzeits that occur in Adar during a non-leap year, during Adar II in a leap year. (Conversely, any such dates that occur in either Adar I or Adar II during a leap year would be celebrated during Adar in a non-leap year.) Though, because of the tradition of increasing joy during the month of Adar, the Rabbis began the practice of celebrating Purim Katan (little Purim) during the month of Adar I.

Leap years were codified to occur across a cycle of 19 years, on the years 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, and 19. This cycle allows each lunar month to more or less match up with its solar calendar equivalent each year, keeping the festivals in their respective seasons. Without this cycle of leap years, about every three years the festivals would slip backwards by an entire month.

The codified Jewish calendar also contains three types of years: chaser (deficient) containing 353 days in a non-leap year, and 383 days in a leap year; kesidrah (regular) containing 354 days in a non-leap year, and 384 days in a leap year; and shalem (complete) containing 355 days in a non-leap year and 385 days in a leap year. During a kesidrah year, all of the Hebrew months contain their normal number of days. During a chaser year the month of Kislev loses a day. During a shalem year the month of Cheshvan gets an extra day. These adjustments allow the Jewish calendar to adjust slightly in order to keep the observance of Yom Kippur from occurring adjacent to Shabbat (due to the inherent difficulty in coordinating fasting with subsequent Shabbat observance).

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Fun with Math! You can figure out if a Hebrew year is a leap year by dividing the year by 19. If the remainder is 3, 6, 8, 11, 14, 17, or zero, then the year is a leap year!

Being born in a leap year has its curiosities:
A child born on the 20th of Adar I in a leap year, will have her Bat Mitzvah after her younger friend who was born the same year on the 5th of Adar II if their B’nai Mitzvot fall during a non-leap year.

Muslims follow solely the lunar calendar for their festivals. Because of this their holidays shift around the secular calendar every year. A holiday that was in the winter this year will be celebrated in the fall in 9 years and the summer in 18 years.

Besides being concerned about travelers becoming delayed during the rainy season, the Sanhedrin were also concerned that Pesach was celebrated in its proper season, since it is also known as Chag HeAviv (the festival of spring). The leap month would be added if the crops and livestock were not sufficiently advanced enough for it to be considered spring.

A leap year is referred to in Hebrew as Shanah Me'uberet, literally: a pregnant year

If you are musically inclined, you may find it helpful to remember the pattern of leap years by reference to the major scale: for each whole step there are two regular years and a leap year; for each half-step there is one regular year and a leap year. This is easier to understand by looking at a piano or keyboard.

The two Chabads

I attended a Sushi-making event put on by my friend Rochel at Chabad, during which we discussed the role of the Jewish woman.  It discussed the topics you would expect, but what I was really struck by was the stark contrast in how that same message was delivered tonight, as compared to when I was a young girl in elementary school.

As presented during the event, "the ideal role of the Jewish woman is to be elevated in her roles as wife and mother, and to find deep meaning in shaping a Jewish life for her family through building a Jewish Home".  In this post I will not debate the validity, pros/cons, right/wrong, or any other opinions on this point of view (though I will certainly be posting on some of this later).  My point in this post is simply to illustrate the different lenses through which you can view this role.

I grew up learning that the greatest accomplishment a Jewish girl could hope for was to marry and become a mother.  But this didn't sound like such a great deal, because it came along with so many things that we were not allowed to do.  The boys got all the cool and impressive sounding mitzvot that you worked and studied hard to earn the right and privilidge to perform.  Girls didn't get to earn anything, and in fact, were flat-out told that for most of the things the boys got to do, we were expressely forbidden to even think about doing them.

One year prior to Pesach, we were taken on a field trip to some so-called Lubuvitcher house in NJ.  (I am considering it "so-called" because my current experience with Chabad is so drastically different, that I wonder if it really was truly a Chabad house.)  It was a dark forboding row-house that from the inside reminded you of a historic NYC "shtetl" boarding house.  It felt like I was visiting a Jewish-Amish home... I don't think I saw any furnishings there that were younger than 20 years of age.  Everything seemed like an antique, as if they made the house up like a movie set, or more accurately a museum replica.  The men wore your standard Chabad "uniform", but the women looked as if they hadn't updated their wardrobe since appearing on Little House on the Prairie.  A young man met us at the door and led us down a thin hallway to a large back room.  It was dimly lit inside (I would wish for sunglasses when we walked out of the house into the afternoon sun).  The Rabbi met us in the center of the room along with a few other young men.  I noticed there were women in the room, but they silently waited standing against the walls.  They literally stood in the shadows, and you couldn't see their features at all - I could only tell they were women because I could see their lighter colored skirts against the dark wood paneling.  It was creepy.

Looking around the room, there were several round tables set up in the back of the room, and the front of the room was set up as a synagogue, with an Aron HaKodesh in the front, a shulchan, a bookcase of siddurim, several rows of chairs, a mechitza and 3 more rows of chairs.  The rabbi split up the group, taking the boys up to the front of the synagogue area, and having them sit in the front two rows of seats.  He instructed the girls to sit in the rear, behind the mechitza.

The mechitza was a half wall with poles holding lace curtains up to about 3/4 of the way to the ceiling.  When we sat down, most of us could not see over the wall, and ended up having to stand, or kneel on the chairs to see through the lace curtain.  If we sat normally, we would have been staring at the wall.  I know the Rabbi said he was going to talk about the holiday of Pesach with us, but while I could hear him talking, I couldn't understand a word of what he was saying.  He was not talking loudly, and there were about 10 empty rows of chairs between us and the Rabbi talking to the boys.  I did not understand why we could not sit closer and be able to hear.  While I did know about how some synagogues separated the men and women, I did not understand why we could not simply sit boys on one side and girls on the other - why were we sitting all the way in the back, behind a wall, where we could not hear? 

One of my female classmates suggested that maybe what the Rabbi was talking about was only for the boys?  Like the health videos we watched the week before.  We thought this sounded reasonable, and so we sat down and talked with each other while waiting for the boys to end their "Jewish health discussion".  One of the women came over and scolded us, telling us to be quiet and pay attention.  We told her we couldn't hear.  She told us that we needed to be extra quiet and pay very close attention and then we would be able to hear.  We stood again to see over the wall, and the woman told us we had to sit down and act like ladies.  Some of the girls protested, saying that we had to stand to be able to see over the wall.  She told us that we were a distraction to the boys, and that standing in the windows meant the boys could see us, and they were not allowed to see us, so we needed to stay seated.  One girl mentioned that it was easier to hear when we were standing up, but the woman repeated that we needed to simply pay closer attention to be able to hear.  So, we were left sitting staring quietly at the wall, concentrating on trying to discern muffled talking from behind a wall and across a room.  I think I may have fallen asleep.

Of course all of that recollection is filtered through the lens of age.  My memories do not seem so creepy to me now, but I remember vividly thinking to myself at the time that we must be in a Jewish haunted house attraction.  The point of the recollection though is not to talk about what went wrong in that interchange as much as to establish that it was typical of what I was exposed to in my childhood regarding Judaism and what it teaches about the role of a female.  The point of view was that the boys got to do the cool things, and the girls did not.  They were expected to find joy and fulfillment in helping their future husbands to do all the cool things that men got to do.  Male and female were not presented as equal, and the role of the female was considered lesser than the male, and often times was specifically presented as females were intended by God to be second-class and ruled over by their husbands due to the sin of Eve and the apple.

It was a significant part of the reason I rejected Judaism in my early teens.  As a female, I did not have an equal share in religious participation.  I also was... alright, I still am, a defiant sort.  Tell me I can't do something, and watch me excel at it.  Someone in my family called me "a Yentl" - which I would not understand until years later when I watched the movie - but they were right, I would not stand for being denied something simply because I was a girl.

So what a welcome breath of fresh air to be presented with, essentially, the same information, but in a female-friendly context.

We discussed how women and men were equal creations, and that it is a distortion of Judaism to consider a woman or her role as being lesser or second-class.  That while a man's domain is the synagogue, and the woman's domain the home, that the main reason this "domain of the home" is seen as lesser is that society at large does not value this role.  That if you really stop and consider the impact of the role of the female - leading the family, keeping kosher, seeing to the education of the children, keeping the home observances of Judaism - that the role of wife and mother is the role of ensuring the continuity of the Jewish people.   Not a role to take lightly.

Again - this is not the post for me to offer opinions on the role as presented.  (Later, later, I promise, we'll talk about it.) But it vividly illustrated that it's all about how information is presented - what is the lens through which we are viewing something.  As a child, I was told the same exact thing about my role as a Jewess.  But it was framed through the lens of a male.  The male's domain was cool and exciting - look at all the mitzvot you got to learn and master, and perform as an adult.  The female domain was primarily ignored, and so we were left to draw our own conclusions about why it was important to be a wife and mother.  And considering the societal views we grew up with, that women belonged not in the home, but in the workplace, equal to the role of men, of course we would think of the role of wife and mother as being equivalent to being a "housewife" - someone who wasn't living up to her full potential and being trapped as a slave in the home.  I was never presented with the concept that being a wife and mother could be an exalted position.

Being presented with a positive view of how Jewish women can find fulfillment in a distinctly feminine role within our tradition has not necessarily changed my questions and concerns about the topic.  But it has allowed me to be open to learning more, as compared to rejecting the entire subject as old historic baggage. 

This has also been a striking object lesson about the importance of framing and viewpoint in any discussion, and I hope that I have done justice in pointing that out.
 

long time no see

So, yeah, it's been a while.

You see it's hard to keep up with everything that goes on in life, and run your own business, and suddenly remember, oh, right, I was trying to start this Jewish blog thing...

So - I'm going to try and remember this more often...

Also - I think my initial purpose was probably way too narrow for my interests... so, let's just make this about "my Jewish experience" - which I hope will be more interesting...

...not to mention easier for me to figure out things to write about.

:)