Everybody Has a Gameplan Until You Punch Them in the Face
Thank you to Abigail Hirsch for videotaping this video, and to Lorne Lieberman for his support of the video project.You can sponsor these weekly videos with a 54$ donation to TBDJ! Please e-mail office@tbdj.org if you are interested.
Thursday, October 29, 2009
Monday, October 19, 2009
Continuation:
The Power of Now, Part III
We thank Rima and Eliezer Brodt of Toronto for sponsoring this video, in honour of the recent birth of their son, Noah Joseph Brodt.
Thank you to Abigail Hirsch for videotaping this video, and to Lorne Lieberman for his support of the video project.You can sponsor these weekly videos with a 54$ donation to TBDJ! Please e-mail office@tbdj.org if you are interested.
The Power of Now, Part III
We thank Rima and Eliezer Brodt of Toronto for sponsoring this video, in honour of the recent birth of their son, Noah Joseph Brodt.
Thank you to Abigail Hirsch for videotaping this video, and to Lorne Lieberman for his support of the video project.You can sponsor these weekly videos with a 54$ donation to TBDJ! Please e-mail office@tbdj.org if you are interested.
Thursday, October 15, 2009
The Power of Now, Part II
We thank Rima and Eliezer Brodt of Toronto for sponsoring this video, in honour of the recent birth of their son, Noah Joseph Brodt.
Thank you to Abigail Hirsch for videotaping this video, and to Lorne Lieberman for his support of the video project.You can sponsor these weekly videos with a 54$ donation to TBDJ! Please e-mail office@tbdj.org if you are interested.
We thank Rima and Eliezer Brodt of Toronto for sponsoring this video, in honour of the recent birth of their son, Noah Joseph Brodt.
Thank you to Abigail Hirsch for videotaping this video, and to Lorne Lieberman for his support of the video project.You can sponsor these weekly videos with a 54$ donation to TBDJ! Please e-mail office@tbdj.org if you are interested.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
The Power of Now
Tomorrow is too late.
Every year, as I ready myself for Neilah, the final prayer of Yom Kippur, I reread a paragraph written by the sainted Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan. In it he reminds us that the Neilah prayer is the last prayer of the High Holiday season, the last few precious moments available to us to change our ways and our destiny. Rabbi Kagan reminds us of Hillel’s famous saying “if not now, when”. Neilah is a spiritual “bottom of the ninth”, and we better be ready for our turn at bat. We need to wake up and grasp the power of now.
But in many ways, every day is Yom Kippur. The power of now applies every day. Unfortunately, we usually overlook this.
Procrastination is based on the illusion of immortality. It’s easy to put things off for later when you expect to have time later. For a procrastinator, the answer to “if not now, when?” is: tomorrow, or the day after. Hillel, however, wants to remind us of a tragic fact: there might not be a tomorrow.
Too often we let things fester, for no reason at all. I remember a grudge I held in 11th grade against a roommate. We had had a trivial falling out in September, a falling out that festered to the point that we didn’t speak for the entire school year. Only in June, after having spent the entire year in the shackles of a speechless resentment, did we finally make up, having virtually forgotten why we fighting in the first place.
My adolescent grudge is a familiar experience for many, and not just for adolescents either. Too many mature adults hold grudges, breaking off communication with those closest to them. Usually, in the back of their minds they figure they’ll make up in the future. But as time goes on, it gets harder and harder to reconcile. And sometimes, it really is too late. Every Rabbi has seen the tears of guilt at funerals, when mourners realize they have left too much unsaid; they figured they still had time. In reality, when a grudge is disrupting a relationship, every day is Yom Kippur. We have to seize the power of now, because tomorrow may be too late.
When I was younger, I was troubled by the enormous emphasis we place during the high holidays on “who will live and who will die”. All of this talk about death seemed to be morose and pessimistic. But in actuality, this emphasis is deeply life affirming; we need to recognize that now is the time, that we must live deeply and completely, today; we cannot wait until tomorrow. Our inevitable deaths remind us not to procrastinate away precious opportunities.
These precious opportunities can be mundane, like calling your mother. There’s an anecdote told about a South Central Bell commercial featuring the legendary college football coach Bear Bryant. It was meant to be a humorous commercial, and the gruff football coach was supposed to look at the camera and say: “have you called your mama today?”. Coach Bryant, whose mother had passed away many years earlier, instead said: “Have you called your mama today? I sure wish I could call mine.” This ad libbed ad touched everyone.
Coach Bryant and Rabbi Kagan are both teaching us the same lesson; the importance of the power of now. And on Yom Kippur, and every other day of the year, tomorrow may just be too late.
Tomorrow is too late.
Every year, as I ready myself for Neilah, the final prayer of Yom Kippur, I reread a paragraph written by the sainted Rabbi Israel Meir Kagan. In it he reminds us that the Neilah prayer is the last prayer of the High Holiday season, the last few precious moments available to us to change our ways and our destiny. Rabbi Kagan reminds us of Hillel’s famous saying “if not now, when”. Neilah is a spiritual “bottom of the ninth”, and we better be ready for our turn at bat. We need to wake up and grasp the power of now.
But in many ways, every day is Yom Kippur. The power of now applies every day. Unfortunately, we usually overlook this.
Procrastination is based on the illusion of immortality. It’s easy to put things off for later when you expect to have time later. For a procrastinator, the answer to “if not now, when?” is: tomorrow, or the day after. Hillel, however, wants to remind us of a tragic fact: there might not be a tomorrow.
Too often we let things fester, for no reason at all. I remember a grudge I held in 11th grade against a roommate. We had had a trivial falling out in September, a falling out that festered to the point that we didn’t speak for the entire school year. Only in June, after having spent the entire year in the shackles of a speechless resentment, did we finally make up, having virtually forgotten why we fighting in the first place.
My adolescent grudge is a familiar experience for many, and not just for adolescents either. Too many mature adults hold grudges, breaking off communication with those closest to them. Usually, in the back of their minds they figure they’ll make up in the future. But as time goes on, it gets harder and harder to reconcile. And sometimes, it really is too late. Every Rabbi has seen the tears of guilt at funerals, when mourners realize they have left too much unsaid; they figured they still had time. In reality, when a grudge is disrupting a relationship, every day is Yom Kippur. We have to seize the power of now, because tomorrow may be too late.
When I was younger, I was troubled by the enormous emphasis we place during the high holidays on “who will live and who will die”. All of this talk about death seemed to be morose and pessimistic. But in actuality, this emphasis is deeply life affirming; we need to recognize that now is the time, that we must live deeply and completely, today; we cannot wait until tomorrow. Our inevitable deaths remind us not to procrastinate away precious opportunities.
These precious opportunities can be mundane, like calling your mother. There’s an anecdote told about a South Central Bell commercial featuring the legendary college football coach Bear Bryant. It was meant to be a humorous commercial, and the gruff football coach was supposed to look at the camera and say: “have you called your mama today?”. Coach Bryant, whose mother had passed away many years earlier, instead said: “Have you called your mama today? I sure wish I could call mine.” This ad libbed ad touched everyone.
Coach Bryant and Rabbi Kagan are both teaching us the same lesson; the importance of the power of now. And on Yom Kippur, and every other day of the year, tomorrow may just be too late.
Monday, August 31, 2009
Flying Rabbis and Building Fences: The Right Way to Respond to H1N1
It was the perfect newspaper picture: fifty Rabbis sitting on a plane, sounding the shofar. They were on a special charter flight flying over Israel, hoping to use special prayers to ward off an onslaught of H1N1.
Now, I love prayer; without it, Judaism is unthinkable. And I appreciate how these Rabbis want to protect the entire community. But even so, I wasn’t happy with this flight. By emphasizing an exotic form of prayer, these Rabbis seem to have forgotten that in Judaism, using purel is also a religious act.
Safety is a religious obligation. The Bible requires that a roof be properly gated to prevent people from falling off it. The late chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Benzion Uziel, included in this commandment the employer's responsibility to ensure occupational safety, and the late leader of the Edah Hacharedit, Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Weiss, saw this commandment as an injunction against reckless driving. So why are Rabbis flying around in planes instead of handing out purel dispensers?
Regrettably, this can be traced to a false dichotomy between the ethical and the ritual. Some mistakenly see ritual requirements, such as the kosher laws and the Sabbath, as “true” Judaism, and underemphasize Judaism’s ethical requirements. This is why it’s not unusual for Orthodox Jews to be extremely punctilious about ritual commandments, and at the same time smoke like chimneys and drive like maniacs. In particular, we ignore the responsibility of committed Jews to take responsibility for the world politically, ethically, economically.
In contemporary society, there is a new phenomenon behind this false dichotomy. Orthodox Jews are often seen as exotic figures straight out of the movies. We look different, eat different foods, and have different holidays. To the mass media, Judaism is primarily about rituals that make Jews mysterious and different.
Unfortunately, Jews have internalized this view of Judaism, and we now imagine the primary purpose of Judaism is simply to be different. This is why mundane topics like safety and ethics are neglected; after all, being ethical isn’t all that exotic.
Of course, as both Rabbi Akiva and Hillel emphasize, ethics are the foundation of Judaism. Yet this emphasis does not devalue the Torah’s rituals. On the contrary, combined with ethics, these rituals become part of a powerful, meaningful whole. Judaism is not about being exotic, it's about being holy. Defining Judaism solely by being different puts us in danger of becoming caricatures of ourselves.
Indeed, many great Rabbis hold a much broader view of Judaism. Rabbi Yehuda Amital, the former Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, was once asked what position he would seek if he was asked to join the Israeli cabinet. He explained he would want to be minister of Health, because Halacha demands one be more stringent about health than any other religious requirement. The late Klausenberger Rebbe, Rabbi Yekusiel Halberstam, saw treating other human beings with great compassion as his legacy, and made it his life’s work to open a hospital in the city of Netanya. To these Rabbis, safety and ethics were not at all secular concerns.
Safety is a religious issue, and health measures are the authentic Jewish response to H1N1. Thinking otherwise produces a movie set Judaism that is both narrow minded and empty.
(much of this is recycled from an old post of mine)
It was the perfect newspaper picture: fifty Rabbis sitting on a plane, sounding the shofar. They were on a special charter flight flying over Israel, hoping to use special prayers to ward off an onslaught of H1N1.
Now, I love prayer; without it, Judaism is unthinkable. And I appreciate how these Rabbis want to protect the entire community. But even so, I wasn’t happy with this flight. By emphasizing an exotic form of prayer, these Rabbis seem to have forgotten that in Judaism, using purel is also a religious act.
Safety is a religious obligation. The Bible requires that a roof be properly gated to prevent people from falling off it. The late chief Rabbi of Israel, Rabbi Benzion Uziel, included in this commandment the employer's responsibility to ensure occupational safety, and the late leader of the Edah Hacharedit, Rabbi Yitzchak Isaac Weiss, saw this commandment as an injunction against reckless driving. So why are Rabbis flying around in planes instead of handing out purel dispensers?
Regrettably, this can be traced to a false dichotomy between the ethical and the ritual. Some mistakenly see ritual requirements, such as the kosher laws and the Sabbath, as “true” Judaism, and underemphasize Judaism’s ethical requirements. This is why it’s not unusual for Orthodox Jews to be extremely punctilious about ritual commandments, and at the same time smoke like chimneys and drive like maniacs. In particular, we ignore the responsibility of committed Jews to take responsibility for the world politically, ethically, economically.
In contemporary society, there is a new phenomenon behind this false dichotomy. Orthodox Jews are often seen as exotic figures straight out of the movies. We look different, eat different foods, and have different holidays. To the mass media, Judaism is primarily about rituals that make Jews mysterious and different.
Unfortunately, Jews have internalized this view of Judaism, and we now imagine the primary purpose of Judaism is simply to be different. This is why mundane topics like safety and ethics are neglected; after all, being ethical isn’t all that exotic.
Of course, as both Rabbi Akiva and Hillel emphasize, ethics are the foundation of Judaism. Yet this emphasis does not devalue the Torah’s rituals. On the contrary, combined with ethics, these rituals become part of a powerful, meaningful whole. Judaism is not about being exotic, it's about being holy. Defining Judaism solely by being different puts us in danger of becoming caricatures of ourselves.
Indeed, many great Rabbis hold a much broader view of Judaism. Rabbi Yehuda Amital, the former Rosh Yeshiva of Yeshivat Har Etzion, was once asked what position he would seek if he was asked to join the Israeli cabinet. He explained he would want to be minister of Health, because Halacha demands one be more stringent about health than any other religious requirement. The late Klausenberger Rebbe, Rabbi Yekusiel Halberstam, saw treating other human beings with great compassion as his legacy, and made it his life’s work to open a hospital in the city of Netanya. To these Rabbis, safety and ethics were not at all secular concerns.
Safety is a religious issue, and health measures are the authentic Jewish response to H1N1. Thinking otherwise produces a movie set Judaism that is both narrow minded and empty.
(much of this is recycled from an old post of mine)
Friday, August 28, 2009
H1N1, Flying Rabbis, and Building Fences - Parshat Ki Teitze
We thank Lessy and Earl Kimmel of Montreal for sponsoring this video.
Thank you to Abigail Hirsch for videotaping this video, and to Lorne Lieberman for his support of the video project.You can sponsor these weekly videos with a 54$ donation to TBDJ! Please e-mail office@tbdj.org if you are interested.
We thank Lessy and Earl Kimmel of Montreal for sponsoring this video.
Thank you to Abigail Hirsch for videotaping this video, and to Lorne Lieberman for his support of the video project.You can sponsor these weekly videos with a 54$ donation to TBDJ! Please e-mail office@tbdj.org if you are interested.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
A Test Too Easy To Pass: The Problems of Wealth and Security
We thank Anna and Joe Mendel of Montreal for sponsoring this video.
Thank you to Abigail Hirsch for videotaping this video, and to Lorne Lieberman for his support of the video project.
You can sponsor these weekly videos with a 54$ donation to TBDJ! Please e-mail office@tbdj.org if you are interested.
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