Rants

Becoming A Rabbi Online

‍‍23 Nisan 5771 - April 27, 2011 By punktorah 4 Comments

You can get a college degree in just about anything online, from sports management to fire science. If you’re of the religious persuasion, there are over two million hits on Google for virtual seminary programs for Christians, and you can even become an imam online.

The Jewish world has its own options, depending on what slice of the Jewish pie you are a part of.

For the frum among us, there is Tifereth Israel Yeshiva, a distance learning yeshiva. Their site doesn’t say anything about what you learn.

Chabad got in on the act with Online Smicha, a project of Lubavitch Minnesota. Not surprising, this program is focused entirely on halachka, so if you are Hebrew language-less and/or not Orthodox, you’re out of luck.

And now the rest of us…

Aleph – The Alliance For Jewish Renewal is the only “movement” with distance learning for rabbis. It takes about six years and requires a lot of time at Jewish conferences and involvement with Renewal communities. Jewish Renewal was founded by Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi.

Rabbinical Seminary International was founded as a Jewish seminary by ex-Chassidic rabbi Joseph H. Gelberman who also founded an interfaith seminary years later. It is now run by Rabbi Roger Ross. The program is self study and mentorship focused on Jewish spirituality and less on Jewish law and other things that RSI considers to be impractical in today’s Jewish environment.

American Seminary for Contemporary Judaism has a similar program to RSI, however, it has less of the interfaith language and does mention the importance of learning Jewish law, text, ritual and kashrut. One of the rabbis who founded ASCJ is a graduate of Tifereth Israel Yeshiva, one of three Orthodox online yeshivot.

The Jewish Spiritual Leadership Institute is the project of Rabbi Steven Blaine, a graduate of Rabbinical Seminary International. A one year program, the site is built around a weekly chavurah of students and Rabbi Blaine using web conference software. It seems to focus less on rituals, Hebrew and formal study of Jewish text and instead looks at contemporary Jewish issues.

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Filed Under: Featured, Rants, Tech & Web Tagged With: Becoming A Rabbi Online, online rabbinical school, online smicha, online yeshiva, rabbi, rabbi school, rabbinical school

Indie Rock Is My Siddur

‍‍21 Nisan 5771 - April 25, 2011 By punktorah Leave a Comment

Originally posted on Jewcy.com

It’s pretty cool to have a day job that involves writing and editing a siddur. But to be honest, at the end of the day, I really just looked forward to blasting my stereo on the way home from the office.

I imagine that the siddur is a mix tape of lamentations to G-d. And with that in mind, I tried to craft a playlist that, for me, would be the equivalent of a morning prayer service (Shacharit). Here’s my best shot:

Here Comes Your Man – The Pixies

The perfect song to start off your audio davening, the chorus “here comes your man” is like a blessing before study, leading you with its pop sweetness onto the stronger stuff, like an audio gateway drug.

G-d Only Knows – The Beach Boys

“G-d only knows what I’d be without you” is an amazing line that captures yearning and the essence of the morning blessings.

Heartbeats – The Knife

The daily sacrifice is found in Orthodox siddurim, and a song by a band called The Knife only seems appropriate when dealing with issues of animal slaughter. Plus, I couldn’t think of a good metal transition from The Beach Boys…but I’m open to suggestions.

Lips Like Sugar – Echo and the Bunnymen

A darkwave song that reminds me of Psalm 30, since the psalm is about turning “mourning to dancing” and that’s about as goth as it gets (or maybe it would be more goth if it turned dancing into mourning?)

Breed – Nirvana

And speaking of mourning, Breed by Nirvana is my mourner’s kaddish. You’d think this kaddish would have reference to the dead or something dark (like Echo and the Bunnymen) but remember that Mourner’s Kaddish as a prayer never actually talks about the dead. Nirvana is so iconic (as is this kaddish in the Jewish prayer ritual) that I can’t help but put the two together.

Hellelujah – Jeff Buckley

Jeff Buckley’s cover of Leonard Cohen is the musical equivalent of the Shema.

I Was A Desert - Girls In Trouble

The Amidah, for me, is like a roller coaster. I start off with a slow build with the “Elohei Avraham, Sarai, Yitzak, etc. etc.” then go full steam with the chest striking. That’s what this song is like for me: layer after layer of guitars and percussion adding up to the explosion of “I was a desert until I learned to make the sky rain down on me.”

La Serena - DeLeon

Kaddish is one of those things where the element of group prayer really comes together. Since I like singing this song to myself in the car, it’s close enough to congregational prayer.

Modern Love – David Bowie

I think I would end my audio morning service with an Aleinu from David Bowie, especially since this song says “modern love puts my trust in G-d and Man” and Deuteronomy 4 talks about the idea of G-d being G-d alone…a similar, powerful statement.

And now for the Tehilim, the Psalms that you study after the service. For me, these are the songs that on their own don’t do it for me, but in this combo, really give me that extra boost…like a sonic cup of coffee.

Salvation – The Cranberries

Oh Lord – The Brian Jonestown Massacre

All Women Are Bad – The Cramps

Your Mangled Heart – The Gossip

Love Will Tear Us Apart – Joy Division

That Great Love Sound – The Raveonettes

Samson – Regina Spektor

Never Gonna Give You Up – Rick Astley

Kool Thing – Sonic Youth

The World’s A Mess, It’s In My Kiss – X

Photo stolen from AmericanApparel.com.

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Filed Under: Featured, Music, Patrick Aleph, Rants Tagged With: Indie Rock Is My Siddur, jewcy.com, jewish music, punktorah, siddur

Passover: Bah, Humbug!

‍‍17 Nisan 5771 - April 21, 2011 By punktorah 7 Comments

I’m with my wife at the grocery store last year when we past by a dueling row of aisles. On one side, an orgy of pastel baskets filled with chocolate eggs and toys. On the other side, the bread of affliction.

My wife turned to me and said, “see, this is why Judaism isn’t the fastest growing religion in the world. Does this look fun to you??”

And she’s right. Passover kinda sucks.

Passover has had a few cool marketing makeovers through the years including:

The Maxwell House coffee Haggadah, which you can find in piles of thirty to fifty in the attic of every Ashkenazic Jewish woman over fifty-five.

The Chocolate Seder, which I believe was introduced by the Reform movement when someone realized, “hey, the Christians have eggs, too!”

The Rugrats Passover Episode, Let My Babies Go!, which is only rivaled by the Rugrats Hanukkah episode and that episode of Hey Arnold where the school bully has his bar mitzvah.

I’ve had several friends tell me that Passover is their favorite Jewish holiday. I even had a rabbi tell me that, according to his opinion, Passover should be the start of the calendar year because apparently it was at some point until the Apple-and-Honey-Festival kicked it out.

Frankly, though, I really don’t like Passover. Matzah doesn’t thrill me. The seder isn’t that meaningful to me. Really, my favorite parts of Passover are the mad rush of Orthodox women in my neighborhood fighting through the kosher section and the corn-syrup free Coca Cola that has those yellow caps we know and love.

Is there something wrong with me that the Hillel sandwich and opening the door for the prophet Elijah just doesn’t do anything for me?

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Filed Under: Featured, Holidays, Passover, Patrick Aleph, Rants Tagged With: chametz, chocolate seder, Humbug!, kosher coca cola, Passover: Bah, patrick aleph, Pesach, rugrats passover

Why Do People Love Chabad So Much?

‍‍8 Nisan 5771 - April 12, 2011 By punktorah 14 Comments

I know a lot of people who would give their life for Chabad. And for a long time, I never understood why. These people aren’t orthodox. But Chabad is the greatest thing to them since sliced bread and is responsible for anything that they do in the realm of Jewish. On top of that, our boy Shmuley Boteach recently wrote that Judaism is under “Chabadization”.

Why do people love Chabad so much? I think it’s because Chabad know’s they’re awesome and don’t give a damn what you think.

Take a look at the first sentence of the Chabad FAQ page:

Chabad-Lubavitch is a philosophy, a movement, and an organization. It is considered to be the most dynamic force in Jewish life today.

I like how assertive that is! Frankly, it’s manly. If Chabad were a man, it would be the kind of man that other men want to be and that women want to have a one-night stand with.

Compare that to statements on the Reform website:

The great contribution of Reform Judaism is that it has enabled the Jewish people to introduce innovation while preserving tradition, to embrace diversity while asserting commonality, to affirm beliefs without rejecting those who doubt, and to bring faith to sacred texts without sacrificing critical scholarship.

This statement really bothers me because it’s boring. But also, its tone is very apologetic. It’s like the Reform movement is sorry that it’s innovating and that it promises it’s still traditional Judaism. I think more people would support the Reform movement if their statement said, “look, this isn’t Orthodoxy. This isn’t Israeli-approved Torah derech. Deal with it. We’re 40% of the population and growing.”

OK, so what does the Conservative/Masorti movement have to say for itself?

What is Masorti Judaism? This is not an easy question to answer.

Wow. You are part of something and you can’t even explain it. Maybe that’s why Conservative Judaism is in decline.

Chabad has taken over the Jewish world because it’s bold. You may not like it, but it doesn’t care. And people, I think, respect that. No one likes a wimp.

So my question is this: why is Chabad so bold and why are the other movements (Orthodox and otherwise) so passive?

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Filed Under: Featured, Patrick Aleph, Rants Tagged With: Chabad, chabad.org, chabadization of judaism, conservative, patrick aleph, reform, shmuley boteach, Why Do People Love Chabad So Much?

Why Do We Treat Halachka Like Cafeteria Food?

‍‍29 Adar II 5771 - April 4, 2011 By punktorah 1 Comment

Halachka is a weird thing to me. It seems really to boil down to six areas:

-Laws of the written Torah we can follow (not lying or murdering people)

-Laws of the written Torah we cannot follow (animal sacrifice, slaying Amelekites)

-Laws of the Mishna Talmud that ancient rabbis thought we should follow (prayer, Shabbat candles)

-Laws agreed upon through Gemara (the how-to of the Mishna)

-Laws expanded on or contracted down by brilliant rabbis (RamBam, etc)

-Minhag, or the customs that somehow became law even though that somewhat violates written Torah to begin with

If you’re a minhag-loving Orthodox person, then all these laws work together and make perfect sense. And I have to be honest, I kinda like that. It’s the same reason I love Christian Fundamentalists: G-d said it, I believe it, I do it. That’s livin’ if you ask me.

But most people (myself included) don’t live like this, Orthodox or not. I know Hassidic guys who won’t thank G-d for making them a man instead of a woman, I know Conservative clergy who won’t push the blue books on you after eating a lusty amount of bread, and Reform rabbis who are convinced that it takes a year or more to convert to Judaism, even if the Reform movement rejects all rituals or statements of belief in order to become a Jew By Choice.

It seems that Jewish law is like cafeteria food: pick what you want and put it on your plate. Taste good? Eat some more. Taste bad? Don’t eat it next time. And to be honest, that doesn’t bother me.

If Halachka were an all-or-nothing proposition, I think most people would say “no thank you, I’ll just be totally secular and not care about Judaism at all. Thank you for saving me a ton of time!” Granted, there is that rare convert who goes from ulta-not-caring-about-anything-to-black-hat -in-Williamsburg but that is a very, very rare case. Most people that I’ve seen go frum (and I use that term very loosely) tend to be people who got turned onto G-d and took on some extra mitzvot because it made them feel good, brought them into the community, and in some cases was a substitute for something more dangerous like drugs or a career in the music industry.

I also think it’s possible to over do it, if one isn’t careful. Waking up one day and deciding to wear two hats, anally checking every hekscher symbol and painstakingly setting your phone to remind you an hour in advance of Shacharit, Mincha and Maariv based on the Chabad calendar is a lot to do when you’re used to ham sandwiches and shul twice a year.

That’s why the cafeteria mitzvot make sense. Pick up what you can, and see how it works out. You might like the taste of it and come back for more.

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Filed Under: Featured, Jewish Practice, Rants Tagged With: cafeteria food, halachka, laws, mitzvot, Torah, why

PunkTorah Is Not Virtual Judaism

‍‍22 Adar II 5771 - March 28, 2011 By punktorah 8 Comments

When the Reconstructionist Rabbinical College tweeted how they love “virtual prayer community” in response to an upcoming OneShul event, I was very pleased. It’s always nice to get praise. And having had several conversations with administrators at RRC and various parts of the Reconstructionist movement, I know them to be very genuine people*.

But then I realized that RRC actually said something that I didn’t like: that the PunkTorah community is “virtual”.

The term “virtual” can mean a lot of different things, depending on the context. Obviously what RRC was saying is that they love our “online” community. No harm, no foul. But we really do need to be careful about how we use language. Frankly, this is a conversation that is well overdue.

“Virtual”, as it is sometimes applied by others outside of PunkTorah to our community can mean “not in fact or reality”, “simulated”, or “almost, but not really”. As one person put it, “your online community is nice, but it’s not enough.”

I have partied, shared meals, had long conversations and in some cases shared hotel rooms and apartment floors with people from the PunkTorah community. If our interaction with one another was “virtual”, then we would have never had these moments together. I’ve seriously considered temporarily relocating to cities where members of the PunkTorah community are, so that we can continue to grow our online chavurah and provide further support to our prayer leaders.

I’ve listened to stories from people all over the world whose physical communities either abandoned them or never wanted them in the first place. And our community has welcomed them, no questions asked, to be a part of our…dare I say…Jewish family. That’s more than I can say of some of the physical, “real” Jewish communities I’ve encountered.

What is “virtual community”? It’s the synagogue whose rabbi has to tell everyone during the service to introduce themselves and shake hands, because open acts of kindness and hospitality are so rare. It’s the minyan members that ignore new people who wallflower at an oneg, because they are so vested in themselves. It’s the shul that asks people it deems to not be Jewish to step aside during Kaddish or act as Shabbos Goyim during a Friday night dinner. It’s the Jewish non-profits who speak the language of diversity, but in the end are run entirely by middle age, heterosexual Ashkenazic white men with Ph.Ds who are more interested in gala banquets and meaningless conferences than having a heart-to-heart with someone in need.

Bottom line: there’s nothing “virtual” about the PunkTorah family. We’re here, we’re real, get used to it.

*This is not to say that Reconstructionists are any more genuine than any other movement, so don’t take that the wrong way.

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Filed Under: Featured, Patrick Aleph, Rants Tagged With: chavura, community, OneShul, online, prayer, punktorah, virtual

Jewish Crusties, Unite!

‍‍17 Adar II 5771 - March 23, 2011 By punktorah Leave a Comment

I’m a middle class loser sellout. I have a nice apartment, I shop at the organic farmers market and I have a good job and dork around on my laptop all day.

If I were a real Jew, I’d be a Crustie.

Crusties are a subculture of urban nomads with ties to the gutter punk and hippie movements. The actual term “Crustie” comes from the crust that develops on your newly pierced body, though Crusties are known more for being dirty, smelly, hungry and perpetually homeless. Many have quasi-anarchist political leanings that are anti-capitalist and anti-conformity.

While true Crusties in the 80′s and 90′s sense don’t exist like they used to, homeless Travel Kids who adopt the nomadic lifestyle are in full force. I’ve known a few and they have a pretty interesting perspective on life.

The Jewish People have been crusty Travel Kids for generations. Only now have we truly settled down in the Western World and made a mainstream name for ourselves.

Part of me regrets that. I sometimes wish the Jews were still wandering. I wish we weren’t so settled.

For a long time, Michael and I have been talking about getting a van and traveling around America, helping small Jewish communities have services and Torah study. While we are both married, and he has a kid and is attending school, that aching part of yourself that wants to get rid of the apartment, sell your stuff, and live like a bohemian never goes away.

Shlomo Carlebach had it right: go forth and be blameless, just like our father Abraham. Be a nomad. Go where the people need you. Be a Crustie Travel Kid, for HaShem. They’ll call you a hippie, a loser, a rebel, an anti-social misfit. But G-d smiles and that’s what’s important.

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Filed Under: Featured, Fun, Rants, Reject Assimilation! Tagged With: Crusties, generations, Jewish, perspective, Travel Kids, traveling, Unite

“Kosher as F***!”

‍‍3 Adar II 5771 - March 9, 2011 By punktorah 4 Comments

You would think in a small city like Louisville you would not find many places that are kosher. Today I found out that my favorite restaurant is now kosher. I happened to stop at Nancy’s bagels. Not only do they serve the best bagels I have ever had they make their own cream cheeses. They make seven or eight great types of cream cheese like jalapeno, herb, honey nut, lox, etc. If you don’t believe me about how great these bagels are you can ask Patrick about Nancy’s lox. This change makes me so excited because before we only had a kosher bakery, oddly enough across the street from Nancy’s bagels and Graeter’s Ice Cream out of Cincinnati. I bring this up because I have seen a trend in restaurants going kosher. Not only small businesses but large chain restaurants as well.

As the intelligent Sue Fishkoff asks, in an article on jweekly.com, “What’s the largest kosher restaurant chain?”. Her answer is interestingly Subway. Subway plans to have 11 kosher stores by the end of 2010. The five branches of Dougie’s barbecue in Brooklyn are also kosher. Even though Subway will only have 11 kosher stores out of 22,000 subways in the U.S. They are the number one Nationwide kosher group of restaurants. I hope that this is a trend that will continue in the U.S. and spread further abroad. According to findmekosher.com KFC in Israel is going kosher by using soy products. This is both bad and good. Many people want soy because it is a useful alternative to dairy. Some people do not enjoy this as soy is a highly estrogenic product. Completely replacing dairy or meat with soy can cause other dietary issues too. What I can’t wait for is a kosher doughnut shop in my city. There is a kosher Krispy Kream in Virginia and a Dunkin’ Doughnuts in Detroit. How jealous I am.

Why is this issue so important? I believe that this trend can only lead to good things. Knowing that a restaurant has a kosher certification makes me feel more secure that I am purchasing a quality product. I do have to admit the fact that a certification alone does not guarantee the restaurant follows all the rules. This does mean that they are more likely to be in tune with the trend, especially amongst the 20 to 30 some things, to follow ideas like ego-hashrut, vegetarianism, and vegan diets. Although this seems like a very small win, these restaurants signal that the larger population is beginning to understand and cater to alternative groups. I hope this idea will spread into other areas of life.

I find more and more the foods I would choose to buy anyway in a store now carry kosher symbols. We here at Mulberry Manor have made a pledge to make our house kosher. We already are mostly vegetarians and many of our guests are vegan so, we are very conscious of our foods. Now we can buy items in bulk and ensure that we are eating kosher food. Our mantra is “Kosher as F***!”. This may sound crude and a bit radical but a diverse and quite public house is apt to act in such a manner. In short I hope that alternative movements or the punk movement if you will can continue to make strides to normalize diversity, coexistence, and acceptance.

Rivka

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Filed Under: Featured, Fun, How Jews Eat, Rants, Reject Assimilation! Tagged With: bagels, change, food, kosher, Punk, restaurants, vegan

The White Stripes and Reform and Conservative Judaism

‍‍24 Adar I 5771 - February 28, 2011 By punktorah 5 Comments

The blues-rock band that defined my life in 2002 has called it quits. Like any breakup, it was a long time coming but still hurts badly.

The other breakup, the one that is relevant to Jewish life, is the upcoming breakup of the Reform and Conservative Movements. In an article recently published by The Forward, the liberal movements moaned about the loss of their congregational population to independent minyanim and general apathy.

The Conservative Movement, which claims that it’s fallen congregants are the ones creating indie minyanim anyway, have decided to offer a franchising deal with unaffiliated minyanim in return for them keeping to Conservative halachka. What the indie minyan gets out of this, I’m not sure. But I assume they get promotion and probably some money.

Meanwhile, the Reform Movement’s rabbis are starting to wonder why they are Reform in the first place. The consensus among factional caucuses in the Reform Movement is that they’re paying hefty dues to URJ, who turn around and do nothing.

It seems to me that, just like Jack and Meg White, the Movements are heading toward a breakup. And that’s OK.

Killing the Conservative and Reform movements would not be the death of Judaism. It would simply be the death of some office jobs. These labels like “liberal”, “reform” and “progressive” are in the common language now. Synagogues should continue to use them. People will not stop calling themselves reform or conservative Jews: they’ll just stop calling themselves dues-paying members.

The White Stripes broke up in order to preserve what they were as a band. They didn’t want to record five more crummy albums half-heartedly until Meg White had a meltdown. They did great stuff for thirteen years. But when it’s over, it’s over.

In the trail separation that The White Stripes have had, Jack White has started two bands (Racontuers and Dead Weather), produced multiple albums and double singles, expanded Third Man Records into a shop in Nashville and launched the mainstream careers of several indie bands. Good things, it seems, can happen in a breakup.

Reform and Conservative Movement, take a lesson from The White Stripes and let it be over. Allow your influence to spread across the world and inspire new movements, just as The White Stripes inspired new bands. We already have joint Reform-Conservative shuls and Conservative-Reconstructionist shuls and Orthodox-Learning-Conservative-Shuls…why not let this grow?! I imagine a day when a town is no longer dependent on the one liberal synagogue and the Chabad house. Instead, there will be a Reform Earth-Based minyan that meets in the town park for chanting and gardening, the Renewal Conservative minyan gathering at a performing arts center for Jewish kirtan and the Humanist Chavurah meeting for lectures on Jewish history and social justice at the JCC.

It’s over guys, just let it go already…we need to move on.

photo Patrick Pantono

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Filed Under: Featured, Fun, Patrick Aleph, Rants Tagged With: conservative, independent, Judaism, reform, The Forward, whitw stripes

Opening The Gates: An Essay

‍‍17 Adar I 5771 - February 21, 2011 By punktorah 3 Comments

Opening The Gates: An Essay

(Loosening up about faith, welcoming converts, and letting go of the past)

When one thinks of spreading their faith one probably imagines a ‘Jehovah’s witness’ type, going door to door, harassing poor folks about G-d, salvation and the like. Judaism, once upon a time, had its own tradition of proselytizing. In the Roman Empire, Judaism was well known as a missionary faith and accepted converts from all regions of the Empire until the Roman Emperor Hadrian outlawed the practice around 131 C.E. As Jews, we shouldn’t necessarily feel obligated to spread our faith, but at the same time we shouldn’t shy away from talking about it either. The Torah itself specifically commands us to be open to Converts, with the passage of history and in large part due to the Diaspora, Conversion to Judaism has been, up until modern times, largely not talked about openly amongst the Global Jewish community. Biblically, the first Convert to Judaism – Ruth had herself a relatively easy time coming into the community versus the experiences of prospective converts in contemporary times. With that said, it has to be asked, why is it so hard? Why are Converts often subjected to long periods of study and Reflection often lasting a year or more?

Some Rabbinical opinions cite ‘Sincerity of the Convert’ and ‘integration/acceptance into the community’ as being key reasons for such lengthy periods. Jewish communities everywhere are shrinking, areas of the United States where Jewish communities once thrived are now largely faint specters of what once was a mere five years ago. The remedy to our decline lies in future generations, how we continue our traditions and talk about our faith is key to our survival as a people. Halakah, Jewish Law, contrary to some, was intended as malleable work, open to revision and change as the world evolved. While this is not the case for a number of us, and that’s fine, we must confront and adapt to the changes we see around us, more importantly, As Jews, we should not shy away from talking about faith. The Torah teaches to live so as to be an example to the Nations. Sharing our spiritual and religious life with others is a major part of not only our bonds to our brothers and sisters, but also allows those who may be curious or spiritually a glimpse of the Joy and connections Judaism, and religion in general, can provide.

The world Jewish community still forces the global community to be reminded of the Holocaust, and for good reason, that we ‘never forget’. Yet, if we dwell in the past how can we ever look to the future? While Yom HaShoah by its very existence, causes us all, Jew and non-Jew alike, to be mindful of past evils, it should not force us to live in a bubble, Judaism is not some exclusive country club, it is a vibrant and all-inclusive living spiritual tradition that, together with Christianity and Islam, commands the attention of some several million people. If Judaism is to survive into the 21^st century, we as a people must go forward with open hearts, open minds, and, more importantly no fear. The story of the Jews lies in the soil of the fields, from dust we came to dust we return, so lets keep our ears to the ground and our eyes towards Zion.

Bud W. Andrews 2/3/11

Ari Ben-Avraham

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Filed Under: Converting To Judaism, Featured, Rants Tagged With: community, convert, faith, future, Jewish, past, welcoming, Yom HaShoah

Becoming A Rabbi Online

Indie Rock Is My Siddur

Passover: Bah, Humbug!

Why Do People Love Chabad So Much?

Why Do We Treat Halachka Like Cafeteria Food?

PunkTorah Is Not Virtual Judaism

Jewish Crusties, Unite!

“Kosher as F***!”

The White Stripes and Reform and Conservative Judaism

Opening The Gates: An Essay

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