By Danny Stauffer

One day as I was studying the Torah I noticed that the commandment to love the stranger was repeated several times. I’m sure as good Jews we’ve all read the Torah and noticed the same thing. In fact, I think anybody, regardless of your level of observance, has come across that commandment several times during their studies.
Why is it repeated so many times? One could assume that a commandment repeated is probably pretty important. So the reason? Because we were once strangers in Egypt. It’s all about not sympathy, but empathy. We have been there before. In fact, we’re there now. If you live anywhere outside of Israel, you’re not in a Jewish nation. So, you could say that we are strangers once again in another’s land.
None of that news to any of you, I’m sure. What might be news to you is that this commandment seems to be quite often forgotten. If not forgotten then outright ignored! I, believe it or not, am a stranger. I did not come to Judaism through the womb but instead through conversion (which I’m still in that process). And oddly enough, some of the most discouraging people have been Jews.  I have been told by Jews that because I’m a homosexual, even with an Orthodox conversion, I’d never be a real Jew. And I’m not the only one.
During my time as a “Jew Under Construction” I’ve developed a network of other converts and people who are converting. And would you believe it? I’m not the only one who faces these issues. A very good friend of mine was so immersed in her Jewish community that even the men (it was a Frum community) were astonished by her knowledge. Yet many refused to call her a Jew.  She eventually gave up. No community wanted her to be a part of it so she became a Muslim in order to have a community to pray with (there is nothing wrong with that, of course. It’s just unfortunate that she had to seek elsewhere for a religious community.). After her conversion to Islam her rabbi encouraged her room mates to move out of the apartment.
Where is the kindness to strangers there? Perhaps the more frum will say that we need to segregate ourselves to keep us free from outside influences. But what will that accomplish? I find more segregated Jews leaving their faith than integrated Jews. I can understand being against intermarriage, but let’s face it; we live in a world of non-Jews. We can’t just ignore the rest of the population.  I always thought the whole idea behind Judaism and Tikkun Olam was to lead by example. Therefore, when somebody wishes to follow our example, even if not in our exact idea, should we not encourage it? Should we not assist in it?
I have accepted the fact that no matter what route I take for my conversion there will always be large portions of the Jewish community who don’t see me as Jewish.  For the most part, I am fine with just ignoring them. With or without a conversion I consider myself Jewish and bound by Jewish law. And part of that law tells me that I have to treat the stranger with kindness and respect. And some day, when the stranger approaches me and asks me how he, too, can become a Jew, I wouldn’t dare tell him to think twice. I wouldn’t tell him he can’t be Jewish because he’s different. I won’t judge him. I will instead give him a hug and call him brother.

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Your favorite banjo playing Georgia boy brings you a few kind words about the Jewish new year. L’Shana Tovah!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZeo0YRdpi0

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Like any profession, those of us who are Jewish-For-A-Living have a secret language that we use with each other. To the outsider, this language is strange and unfamiliar. And since I believe in openness, here is my own personal WikiLeaks glossary of Jewish non-profit speak. Remember kids, this is all in good fun…so don’t get mad if this hits a little close to home.

Jewish Communal Professional: anyone who works for a Jewish non-profit that is specifically Jewish in nature (example: Jewish National Fund, Birthright Israel, PunkTorah). Note that this does not apply to owners of Jewish for-profit businesses, even if they give more tzedekah than the non-profits do.

“Joshua just got a job at Hazon as Director of Youth Projects. We’re so excited to have another Jewish Communal Professional in the family. Too bad he wasn’t a doctor like Gerald.”

Engagement: getting Jews in a room to do something, no matter what it is, and taking credit for it. Ideally, this activity would have some kind of Jewy-ness to it, but even that is open for debate.

“Here at the local JCC we are actively involved in engagement, which is why we host a kosher pizza party once a month in the lobby. And it only takes us three months to plan it, which is great turn around time given all the meetings we have to have.”

Community Building: also called Community Development, this involves getting people to know about what your organization does and getting them to become involved.

“XYZ Jewish Organization is committed to community building, bridging the gap between the people who care about what we’re doing, and the people who could care less.”

Doing Jewish: a term coined by college Hillel (also called Hill-Hell by people who have interned there in their youth), “doing Jewish” is similar to engagement in that it gets Jews doing something Jewish together. The difference is that engagement is more formal, while doing Jewish is more relaxed. It can also mean that you are doing something Jewish right now, and are unavailable to do something else.

“Steven can’t go to the movies tonight. He’s doing Jewish over at the Hillel House on campus. Something about Israel…I don’t remember. I think some Israeli guy is telling everyone about the Floatilla thing that happened three months ago.”

Jewish Leadership Training: no different that any other kind of leadership training, except that there’s a bunch of Jewish folks doing it. The training is usually in the form of an institute, a weekend retreat with something called “breakout sessions” and kosher food despite the fact that no one keeps kosher.

“Adam just got home from Jewish Leadership training in Teaneck. I think it will really help him as the new Director of Engagement.”

Immersion: taking someone and making them “do Jewish” for an extended period of time or with some kind of intensity. Like engagement, but on steroids and more expensive.

“This two year immersion program brings post-college Jews to neighborhoods in Israel to learn language, culture, and build relations between the US and Israel. It’s like Birthright, but for a really, really long time.”

Donor Development: fundraising from people

Strategic Development: fundraising from organizations

Long Term Financial Planning: thinking about fundraising from people and organizations

“Whether you call it donor development, strategic development or long term financial planning, we’re still trying to get people to give us their money. The older folks are the easiest ones.”

Team Building: some kind of pre-meeting activity that reminds you of summer camp or elementary school, is supposed to connect you with your spirit (see Oprah) and get people to learn more about you. Usually very childish, but we put up with it because there’s that one person who will complain if we don’t do it and make our lives really painful until the next meeting.

“Before our meeting of the Temple Sisterhood, I’d like to do a team building activity where we each go around the room and say our name, where we are from, and the name of a fruit that describes us best.”

Communications Management: the process of any large Jewish organization saying something. It usually takes several weeks and involves multiple meetings. The steps are as follows: 1) something happens (see Floatilla). 2) Jewish organization sits around for a while and talks about it. Possibly some team building taking place. 3) Multiple meetings of higher-ups who relay the message to the people lower-on-the-totem-pole. 4) PR person writes an email. It goes to the head honcho who approves it. 5) Email goes out. No one cares.

“We’re really glad that we have a new communications management specialist here at XYZ Organization. She has a masters degree from Brown and knows how to set up Microsoft Outlook. By the way, did anyone hear about Neil Armstrong landing on the moon? Crazy, huh? I just read about it in the Middle Market Jewish Times next to Sheila Rosenbloom’s kugel recipe.”

Jewish Community: three possible definitions for this. 1) The number of Jews in a city (how this is determined is still unknown). 2) The number of people in a given city that are involved with Jewish organizations (also called the Active Jewish Community). This number is usually 25% of the bigger number. 3) The number of Active Jewish Community people who go to events regularly and take on some role of prominence. This number is about 1% of the active Jewish Community.

So to recap: there are 100,000 Jews in Atlanta. 25,000 are active. 250 are really active. So how big is the community? We’re still not sure. But darn it if we’re not gonna get them active!

“He’s really active in building the Jewish community. Thirty people came to that JCC kosher pizza party. It was incredible. David Kleinbloom was there talking about Jewish immersion programs. Lots of engagement. Really great. I bet they got a lot of development out of it. But really, it’s about getting the Jewish communal professionals together to discuss communications management and community building. It’s a real exercise for the JCC, too. Good thing they all went to Jewish Leadership training.”

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In keeping with the fact that it’s Labor Day Weekend and everyone is ditching shul to go to the beach, let’s keep this week’s d’var brief and to-the-point.

A double portion of Torah lovin’…

Nitzavim: do good stuff and G-d will reward you. Do bad stuff, and G-d will curse you. The end.

Vayelech: Moses is about to die. He gives the keys to the Jewish people to Joshua and they bro down in a tent with G-d who tells them that the Israelites are going to stray from the Torah.

This whole thing seems like a contradiction. G-d is the King of the Universe. You think he’d have the brains to not waste His time telling the Hebrews to worship Him in Parshat Nitzavim when he knows they’re just gonna go worship idols and eat ham sandwiches over in Parshat Vayelech.

But that’s the horrible thing about being a parent. You look into your newborn’s eyes and you feel this rapture that you’ve brought this life into the world. And you don’t think to yourself, “gee, one day you’re going to be stealing my car, get busted for smoking in the school bathroom and flunk out of college because you were more interested in X-Box than Chemistry 101.”
G-d, in this week’s double portion, is like any other parent, struggling to deal with the fact that His children will, in fact, give him the middle finger…and frankly, already have.

But G-d can’t help it. When G-d looks at Creation, it’s like we’re newborns in His hands. And he can’t help but say, “don’t worry I still love you kid, I’ll give you another chance. Just be good this time, OK?” And yeah, we’re pretty lucky like that.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=FFHsy5Q-rQM

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In our first of several multimedia community discussions on controversial issues in Judaism, PunkTorah is proud to present Cut, a film by Eliyahu Ungar-Sargon about circumcision. We hope that the film will stimulate dialogue about Contemporary Judaism and ritual.

After the film, we invite you to post your thoughts about circumcision below. Also, we will be having live discussions in our OneShul prayer services and a Q & A with the filmmaker after High Holidays.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=bx89xECfHG4

Please give the movie a few minutes to buffer (load up) if you are on a slow internet connection.

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What do we as Jews do that makes us so deserving of G-d’s praise and warm light? What have we done in order to wear white on Yom Kippur and not deem ourselves hypocrites within the halls of our shuls and the streets of our communities? White is such an unflattering color! Yet, this white symbolizes purity and stands as the visual indicator for a new chapter in the book of life. It becomes more interesting when you see people wearing white clothing and leather kippot. As if they are fooling Hash-m or a moderately educated child who emerged from basic Sunday school class.

We wear white in hopes to be inscribed in the book of life. How do we get there? How do we get to that point where we get another year? If we die, does that mean we did not follow Halakah so closely that we are doomed? Elderly people hang in the balance less that someone who defaces a Torah or commits an act of haste? Then every bully on the school yard would drop dead after hanging the poor wimpy kid upside down to take his milk money. The jails would be empty because Hash-m realizes tax money should go to innocent and hungry, so He would “take them out”. It does not seem to work this way.

So there they are… all the Jews in Los Angeles, the mid west, New York, Israel, South Africa and all the scattered Diasporas around the world. What are they wearing? White! On Kol Nidre, we present our case, or our attempt to correct what wrong doings we have made in the past year, to the “court”. The whole congregation stands before Hash-m. Again, this is ironic, seeing that your avyerot are individually done, but as a community Jews stand together.  This is another visual. It stands as a reminder that we are a unit, not just an individual. That what one Jew does, can and very much will, affect another. Many of the times, when we commit our acts of injustice,  we as Jews forget that in many daily situations we are the only Jews someone from an outside community may know.

Our children, what good does it do for them to wear white and see the rest of the community doing so? As Jewish people, we have brilliantly found ways in which to say a ton without speaking. This is like when your mother only says “Oy!” after you have brought someone home to meet her and she is displeased. Or, it’s when you pass the kuggel interrupting a bit of Leshon Horrah that’s happening at the table. It’s nonverbal! Your kids hear you enough all year. Sometimes as parents or adults, we take pleasure hearing our own voices. In shul, every adult wearing white is standing in solidarity. It says for many, “Today is important. Today I came prepared. Today I acknowledge G-d.” Rarely do Jews agree, so to speak together sets a precedence.

For those of you who haven’t prepared for the Holy Holidays, it’s okay, you have time! However, let you be encouraged to stand before your G-d in white. It does not promise you inscription nor does it promise you praise and blessings, but it does mandate the community to pick up the visual testament of the Jewish faith. Without white attire, Yom Kippur could look like any other day. It is only correct to offer it the purest contribution your heart can provide.

Be true to the streets

Yentapunker

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What Do Apples, Prayer and Fighting With Your Girlfriend Have In Common? (Ki Tavo)

I’m psyched about Rosh Hashanah. I’m supposed to say that for spiritual reasons. But really, I like apples and honey.

This week’s Torah portion is about fruit. The first fruit, in fact. We’re supposed to give that up as a sacrifice to G-d. And, surprise, G-d will bless us. Kinda anti-climactic, but not every part of the Torah makes for good TV.

We’re always giving sacrifices to G-d. Animals, plants…heck, one time there was child sacrifice (luckily that worked out OK). It made sense back then to sacrifice animals and plants because we lived in a farm-based economy. Our whole lives were what we had to eat (and for most Jews, it still is!)

I don’t own a farm. I’m not sure I know what “threshing” means and half the Shabbat prohibitions don’t apply to me because I’m not into skinning animals and preparing hide. But I still have to give sacrifices.

The solution: prayer. Our economy now is Time and People Centered. Time, because time is money. And people centered, because our talent, our energy, our ideas, our creativity are the fuel for the economy…not vineyards and pastures. Prayer is a sacrifice because it takes away our time and it also takes away our ability to think about ourselves and all the things that we want at that moment. We’re giving it up for the Lord. And what are the “first fruits” of prayer? Well you guessed it: the Shacharit service! The morning prayer is the first fruit of the day; the first chance that we get to think about ourselves. Instead, we get to think about G-d.

Speaking of this morning, my girlfriend woke me up at 6AM after I had only slept for a few hours last night. She bought some clothes for me at Target and wanted to see how they fit…but I was tired and grumpy and told her to leave me alone. But finally I relented and tried the clothes on. I could have been a total jerk, but the first fruit of the day was having a happy spouse, and even though at the time I was mad and wanted to go back to sleep, I’m glad I tried the clothes on because my girlfriend has more control over my life than anyone else does (sorry HaShem, but you know it’s true) so I’m glad I could give her the first fruit of my day…because she blesses me all the time! And I got a new pair of pants.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmT9L8vgd0o

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Originally posted on Jewcy.

Once upon a time, a group of people decided to start an online synagogue called OneShul. This independent minyan consisted of two buddies in Atlanta (a graphic designer and his weirdly Type-A musician friend) and all their friends that they met online who loved Judaism and were a little different in their own, unique ways.

In a chat room attached to their temporary cyber sanctuary the friends talked about what they wanted the synagogue to look like, feel like, and how they wanted to be represented as a community. They knew they wanted, more than anything, for the world to know that you can have a Jewish community on the internet that is just as good as any JCC or million-dollar synagogue down the street.

So they did what any reasonable group would do: they started an IndieGoGo page to raise money to make their shul happen.

Stay tuned for details as they happen…

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Previously posted on TampaBay.com

For every old Yenta who yells at me for having tattoos, I’d like to introduce you to my new home girl Mimi Rosenthal, who at the age of 101 got her second tattoo.

No matter how you feel about tattoos and Judaism, I think we can all say that a woman who has survived two World Wars, Korea, Vietnam and every little skirmish in between while being a world traveler, has four great-grandchildren and plans on getting her next tattoo on her butt is someone who deserves to do whatever she wants.

And did I mention she’s 101!!!!!!!

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More commandments in this Torah portion than any other. So this will be like a dvar on a dvar.

How do we make these commandments work in daily life? Two ways: taking the past and make yourself an extension of it. Saying to yourself, “this is the way it was back then, and so this is how we do it now”. This is Orthodoxy. The other way is to make your values the same as the Hebrews, making the Hebrews feminist, vegan-anarchists or whatever you may be.

Here’s the problem: we live in a different world than the Hebrews. Our values, and their values are completely different. And it’s important to recognize and celebrate those differences. Sometimes they were right, and sometimes our modern values are superior to theirs.

Bottom line: be yourself. And by the way, if you read this week’s Torah portion literally, don’t take any “beautiful captives”. They call that “abduction” and “human trafficking” now.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehDHZtdHfnM

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We as the new revolution of Jews ask ourselves about how we feel in social situations in regards to our religion. Is it okay to marry a gentile? Do I have to go to Passover at my cousin’s house when I might be able to visit with friends instead? There’s a holiday party with beer involved; am I going to be able to make it to work or school the next day if need be? This is how we stereotypically live our Jewish lives in the 21st century. When someone says “I am religious” or uses the term “frum”, we immediately shy away as a subculture and almost separate “us” from “them”. Why aren’t we asking more important questions, like who are they? And why did I go to Jewish day school, but never have Jewish celebrations at my house or go to synagogue? Why is it that in movies like Garden State, we giggle when they explain synagogues have to move into other buildings on Yom Kippur because during the rest of the year no one cares? It is almost as though the term religious Jew means a “black hat” or a man with peyos and a large beard, strolling along side a woman in a long skirt, a poorly woven wig, and their 36 children lined up on the way to Shabbat services. These MUST be the “practicing” ones.

I am well aware that we as a society are terribly wrong about our vision of what it means to be religious. About five years ago, in a grassroots shul, a beautiful woman in her twenties quietly sneaks into the service, grabbing a siddur and is sitting alone. She is quiet and confident, closely following along and even in some portions, adding supplemental reading others around her have not learned or attempted. Her hair is covered and she is wearing a long sleeve shirt and a skirt that kisses the floor as she walks. It isn’t until she turns that I realize the sleeves are sheer and her Greenpeace tattoo is blaring me in the face! I was destined to meet this woman! Amongst many more tattoos I learn this woman builds bicycles, is deeply into film, has a college degree, is vegan and  would later have an orthodox conversion and was not married (despite her wrapped hair).  She was everything her appearance did not suggest. However, she is still so connected to Hash-m, that she is the essence of the word “frum”.

Another face that did not meet the guidelines of the stereotypical box is one of my favorite bloggers. Sure he studied at a Yeshiva and davvens every morning!  He is a real FFB (Frum From Birth), but he also questions the Frum community and does not believe in the social hypocrisy of it all. After a night of discussing inappropriate behaviors, mainly ones you’d do in a fraternity house, and discussing if these were acts against torah, I woke to see him checking his email, wrapped in tefilin and mouthing the prayer by heart!

My favorite vision of a religious Jew is the one of my grandmother (in her blessed memory). I had never seen her walk into a synagogue or a religious service outside of a funeral and my baby naming. She had never kept a kosher kitchen in her life and did not step foot in the state of Israel. She did not understand Hebrew, she did not have a religious education, she wore slacks and tiny little slippers around town. My grandmother spoke with the cutest Brooklyn accent and raised two daughters while working for an aerospace company in the 1950s. She always smelt of gardenias and watched Murder She Wrote and Matlock. I was a little kid, no more than 9 years old, snuggled in my grandma’s room. She’d tuck me in, kiss me and then rolled over. I could hear her whisper something over and over again, but I could not make out the words. What was she saying? What couldn’t she tell me? Ahhh! I have ADHD grandma, I need to know what you’re saying!  I interrupt her softly spoken words and ask, “Grandma, what are you whispering?” The most profound and utterly religious moment I have ever had was right then and there, “I am asking G-d to protect you Rachel. I pray every night in hopes that He will watch over you as he has done for me and your mommy.” At the time, I only knew this was my role model for prayer. What I didn’t realize is that my sociologically, stereotypical, culturally Jewish woman, of a grandma was in fact going against a social norm. She used prayer daily to connect with Hash-m.

These three people have nothing in common outside of their religious background. Their appearance is not similar to one another and they have no reason to exchange glances or connect with one another. They have found their own roots in the heart of their religious foundation.

The new and “modern” Jew seems to be fearful to embrace old tradition. It’s almost like the word prayer has escaped the “new Jewish” lexicon. Like Judaism does not have enough to offer spiritually, so we must entice our youngsters with Buddhist enlightenment, making new trends like “Bu-Jew” and sporting their stereotypical “Moses is my homeboy “shirts.  When looking at fliers on college campuses today, we see organizations that feed off of the new sub cultural Jews; they are caught avoiding their Jewish mothers and looking for a free and warm meal. The vision of the stereotypical Jew should no longer be the “black hatter” of our parent’s times. The new stereotype is the religiously ambivalent and the mal-educated wrapped in a (Name Your Jewish Organization Here) t-shirt that they got for free. The face of Judaism has changed. The new face of religion is far removed from prayer and smothered in the contextual pop culture society we see today.

Be true to the streets,

Yentapunker

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PunkTorah is proud to announce the fund-raising launch for OneShul.org, the world’s first web-based, community run synagogue.

OneShul was inspired by group of PunkTorah volunteers who began meeting online to daven with one another, using PunkTorah’s recently released Indie Yeshiva Pocket Siddur (available online and through ModernTribe.com). With the popularity of this “DIY Prayer Service” came the idea for a virtual synagogue without borders, based on collective Jewish values and spiritual independence.

“Synagogues are shutting down for the same reason that brick-and-mortar business are closing,” says Executive Director Patrick Aleph. “People live online and if you believe in being where people are, then you need to be there, too.”

Says PunkTorah Creative Director and “Alterna-Rebbe” Michael Sabani, “OneShul is an open synagogue for all of us to congregate, learn, lead, and empower each other. Traditional Jewish organizations and leaders have said that real community can’t be achieved online, or as they see it, synthetically. We challenge that notion. We say that yes, real community means communicating with each other in a meaningful way and that can be done online. We are proving it right now.”

OneShul is “independent” meaning that it does not tow a party line to any of the established Jewish movements. Instead, by being community ran, participants get to decide what kind of minyanim to make, the style of worship, etc. PunkTorah hopes that OneShul will be a diverse place, where all Jewish opinions are appreciated.

OneShul has already seen major success with its live, interactive Afternoon Prayer Services and Jewish classes, led by different members of the PunkTorah community via UStream. PunkTorah hopes to expand OneShul into something much larger, providing Kabbalat Shabbat, more holiday services, an “indie yeshiva” of Jewish books and blogs that are written collaboratively by volunteers, spiritual counseling via skype, a mobile davening app for the iPhone/iPad, tzedakah and tikkun olam programs, OneShul outreach houses across the country, volunteering and internship opportunities for students interested in Jewish communal service, and a launching pad for the spiritual future of the New Jew community. “Everything that a physical synagogue has, but better,” says Aleph.

To make this happen, PunkTorah has launched a fundraising drive through IndieGoGo.com and plans to raise $5,000 to create the “synagogue of the future”.

With OneShul, PunkTorah is challenging the notion that community only exists in neighborhoods. Says Michael Sabani, “Which community is more real? The one where I show up once a week and sit next to what is essentially a stranger, say ‘Shabbat shalom’ and then leave? Or the one I am in constant contact with through Facebook and Skype, who I know I can turn to in a time of need?”

To learn more about PunkTorah’s OneShul project, visit www.indiegogo.com/oneshul

PunkTorah is a non-profit (501c3-pending) organization dedicated to independent Jewish spirituality, culture, learning and debate.

Press Contact: Patrick Aleph

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Originally published on 3xDaily

Are you there Hashem? It’s me, Gefiltepunker.

Recently I attended a film screening of USHPIZIN. It’s the story of a Hasidic ‘Baal Teshuva’ (returning to Judaism), couple who lives in the Breslov community in Jerusalem. They are questioning and exploring their faith in G-D as they deal with infertility, financial hardship and are tested and pushed to the limits by an unruly, ex- convict, pair of guests from the protagonist’s past, who show up for Sukkot. In the end, G-D has delivered, but prayer is what has inextricably carried them through to their happy ending.

And this is what got me thinking and questioning. How important is prayer in your life? For the couple in this movie prayer was essential in their daily routine, it was a very direct request, reaching out to G-D to explain and show mercy so that they could further their worship of G-D. How do you put your prayer into practice? What do you expect as a result of your prayers? Can we expect miracles/ G-D to always answer our prayers? Or do we pray for G-D just to guide us, but in a way for us to help ourselves?

How we do it, the frequency and effort that we put into it and what we expect in return will vary from Jew to Jew. My friend who attended the screening with me also raised the question, “What’s your daily prayer?” She herself was trying to find a prayer that spoke to her sensibilities, felt warm and inviting and to carry her through her own day. At which point I immediately suggested the Shema, which is my personal go-to prayer. I recalled always reciting the Shema carefully in Hebrew school. I often found myself speed reading through other morning prayers just to get through it and on to the next, but not with Shema. Even though I don’t remember all the words by heart, I think of it and I recite it to myself in my own personal times of need.

My friend had a very different reaction to the prayer. She found it cold, uninviting, just not as meaningful to her as I found it. We had very different pre-existing relationships and attitudes toward this prayer. Any suggestions out there from folks of how to find the prayer that’s right for you?

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Sunday! Sunday! Sunday! Emily Saex gives you her top three Jewish songs, each week with a different theme.

Three Minute Dance Party – The Soundtrack for a Most Excellent Bedroom Dance Party

Can!! Can – “God Lives in NYC”
Time to get your indie shake on kids, whether you’re at home and sliding around the foyer a la Footloose or at a hipster house party sippin’ on PBR and trying to get the party started. And no I didn’t just write this cuz Patrick Aleph is in the band. This song is good! You want this, you need this. Check it out for yourself and when your whole body starts spazzing uncontrollably, in an ever so hip fashion of course, you’ll thank me.

DJ OokRoo – “Manginot”
I came across this gem on the Shemspeed audio player and I kept coming back to it. This LA duo has created what Hadag Nachash, Kanye (a la College Dropout) and Calle 13′s female backing vocalist only WISH would be their song lovechild. This song makes me want to pop and lock right in the middle of Starbucks. Ain’t no shame in my game.

Electro Morocco – “Joe Pill”
Right from the first second of this song hips will begin swaying and shoulders will be shaking. hands will go up in the air and you can bet your damn Keffiyeh that they’ll be waving them like they just don’t care. This is street festival stylee beats right here, where even the most shy dancers will let loose.

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“Justice, justice, you shall seek.” Parshat Shoftim is the Torah portion where we get to feel like Tikkun Olam-aholics and Social Justice Champions. The environmental crowd uses Shoftim to make the case for Al Gore’s livelihood and the LGBT crowd will surely use Shoftim to talk about the overturning of Prop 8, while the other side of the aisle will be screaming Fair Tax and War on Islamo-fascism at the top of their lungs. But let’s talk about something more interesting than politics.

Why is justice repeated twice in “justice, justice, you shall seek”? Isn’t it good enough to say, “seek justice” without the clever poetics?

The Jewish tradition is big on numbers and the number two has its own signifigance. Two, the Kabbalists believe, is the number for fellowship…and that seems to make sense. There are two parts to the Torah, oral and written, that are in fellowship with each other. One Torah isn’t “more right” than the other. They compliment each other. “Two people shall become one flesh”…how that’s fellowship. How about the two angels in Sodom and Gamorrah? Or the fact that we light two candles on Shabbat and that when a man studies in yeshiva, he studies with a partner?

This week’s Torah portion talks justice, but justice can’t be administered by one person. From the beginning, we learn what justice should be in fellowship. No one person, no matter how smart they are or just they are has all the right answers. Great things come from partnership.

Short and sweet, that’s the lesson of the week. Go with G-d and bring a friend!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wut_uOgdoDk

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Jewniks of the 21st Century

by YentaPunker

This publication was inspired by one of my professors, Dr. Ball, and written in honor of Patrick Aleph.

In the 1950s Jack Kerouac, alongside many of his dubbed “Beatnik” friends, wrote a novel in three weeks called “On The Road”. It took Mr. Kerouac 7 years to travel the county and continually do some soul searching. A man growing up with the social repercussions in America of The Great Depression, World War II, and The Cold War, needed a place to avoid conformity.

It is within his subculture, the Beats, that he found refuge. The Beats avoided the “Corporation Man” and refused to end up like their fathers. They looked for deeper, transcendent meaning in their quest for a new tomorrow.  They gave new definitions and context to words used within the culture, providing meaning that redefined their acceptable behaviors. These Beats valued poetry, books, Bebop, and were compelled to find the authentic in their everyday lives.

With all youth subcultures comes backlash by those who fear change or have different values systems. The Beats were called “Beatniks” in a satirical reference to Sputnik, the satellite. Their dark clothing and hair styles were criticized, as though their parents had not been an active participant in the Flapper era. If their parents were more accustomed to the Victorian way of life, it was even more horrendous on the family.

So why would PunkTorah even come close to this movement we see as a joke within movies like “So I Married an Axe Murderer”? It’s an easy grab. PunkTorah was created for those of us who are looking to redefine Judaism. It does not mean we want to start a new sect, but merely to identify that we as Jews are on the preverbal search that Kerouac so graciously and vigorously wrote about.

PunkTorah’s overall goal is to transcend from classification and create the authentic embodiment of Judaism at its core. These Jews too value books and poetry. Some of these books are valued cross sects of the religion, but others may be less accepted in other communities.  We cannot be defined by labels! Clearly the genre of Punk is rebellious in nature. It redefines how Punk may use the connotation of rules and order, but defies what our larger community expects from us; we desire individuality. This is not our parent’s Judaism. This sense of the nishama seeps from the very embodiment of the way we davven, dress, speak, and carry about in our temporal lives.

Kerouac had no intention of being connected to Judaism, but he captures what Jews in their teens, 20’s, 30’s (and even those above) are reaching for. He writes of the holy when things cannot get any worse. He sets his characters up for failure, but they do not lose hope or insight to themselves. They separate themselves from the collective whole in hopes that they too will understand themselves in the context of the temporal world. Their rebellion is not one in hopes of destruction, but that based on progressive change. This is PunkTorah’s take on Judaism. We are the change that’s in the world. Our hearts pray they way they know how and our actions follow. We have redefined words, but not taken meaning from them. Continually on the road, we struggle with our journey of life. We are the Jewniks your Jewish mothers warned you about.  Are we perfect? No, we simply are the authentic form of G-d’s creation, human.

Be True to the Streets-

Yentapunker

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Hey y’all! Have you seen our new Online Event Calendar? It has all of the dates and times for upcoming services and classes. We have a lot of great things planned for the near future, like interactive classes, groundbreaking online services, and some live streaming surprises, so check it out regularly! You can also subscribe to it by clicking here!

We would also love for anyone who wants to volunteer to lead a service to let us know. You don’t have to be a rabbi to pray with others. Read a story, tell a joke (preferably a clean one ’cause this is a friendly site, but whatever) or even just say the prayers and that’s it! We usually use the IndieYeshiva version of Mincha which can be found here, or you can purchase a download copy from us by donating and clicking here. That’s it! You don’t have to stand around and chat with everyone if you don’t want to (though feel free to!). The important thing is that you are helping to build the future of Judaism, a community not bound by geography, a Jewish community of the world, and that you are taking responsibility.

Only together can we change the world.

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School started today for many kids across the country. The lucky few of us are still enjoying our summer vacation.

Judaism puts a strong emphasis on education, and it seems appropriate to ask, “can the Torah teach us anything about secular education?”

I’m not an education expert, and I will not claim I am. Nor am I a particularly political person. But I will say that I believe Judaism does have a lot of values that the non-Jewish, secular education community should adopt…not because they are good “Jewish” values, but because they are good values to begin with.

Keep the Material Meaningful and Relevant - the phrase “d’var Torah” means “teaching on the Torah”. A d’var doesn’t involve just telling a story, but giving it a modern understanding that is applicable to our daily lives. So often, teachers teach in a way that does not relate their material to anything that I would consider to be part of normal life. We end up valuing the teacher who can relate geometry to Rock Band or Charles Dickens to the newest Will Ferrell movie because it takes the boring, the irrational, the complex and the confusing and puts it into a context that makes complete sense. I doubt that Amelek would have much meaning today if it weren’t for those teachers of Torah who find a way to make it meaningful.

Scholarly Debate – I’ve gotten into a lot of arguments with teachers. Half the time I was right, the other half I was wrong. The teachers who mean the most to me, looking back, are the ones who allowed me to argue with them. They weren’t afraid of the challenge and more importantly, they knew that by exercising my mind (even when I was dead wrong), they were setting me down the path to being a smarter adult. Jews believe in this intellectual back-and-forth, the most notable hallmark being the Talmud, which is nothing but a bunch of dead rabbis arguing about the finer points of Judaism.

Be Flexible to the Needs and Skills of Others – Each tribe had their own skill set, from being the ritual priests to the construction of the Mishkan to fighting in battle. At no time in the Torah does Moses say, “OK Levites, you’re doing great with the whole Priestly Class thing, but we really need to focus more on your basket making and pottery.” So much of education is about teaching something new and outside of someone’s boundaries, that we forget the importance of helping people excel at what they are already inclined toward. As an adult, I spend absolutely no time voluntarily doing things I don’t want to do. So why is that the bed rock of education as we know it?

I hope everyone enjoys their first day of school. Kul Tuv!

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Sunday, Sunday, Sunday! Emily Saex brings you Jew Sounds, her top thee Jewish songs, each week with a different theme.

Songs About Jerusalem

Dan Bern – “Jerusalem”

I spent ten whole days in Jerusalem
Mmmm Jerusalem, sweet Jerusalem
And all I ate was olives
Nothing but olives
Mountains of olives
It was a good ten days I like olives I like you too.

And you WILL like this song.

Matisyahu – “Jerusalem”

Psalm 137 never sounded so good.

Various – Jerusalem of Gold (Yerushalayim shel Zahav)

This 1967 classic written by Naomi Shermer is…classic. So classic and amazing that everyone has tried their hand at covering this one. From Phish to Klaus Maine of Scorpions to Ofra Haza. Listen to them all and see which is your favorite version. Or even better yet, sing your own version!

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What does community look like in the 21st Century?

Can you have a Jewish community online?

We say yes.

Tell us if you agree.

Or if you don’t!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=3933T1a7aPQ

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Dear Besherit-

Thanks for not showing up again. Oh, wait… I should start this out a little nicer. Do you remember when I was a teenager and I thought I would have found you by the time I was 25 so by 27 I could be married. I am totally okay with not being married, but let me tell you these first dates are starting to really suck ass. I meet men who say I am “too Jewish” or “not Jewish enough”. My mother is starting to tense up every time I commit to another failed (again) relationship. I have decided you’re probably sitting in a coffee house or a pub right now with friends wondering why I am no where in sight. Maybe we even know one another, however, I doubt it because I am sure my instincts would have told me so.

Let me catch you up a bit. I work as an English teacher for 11^th graders in Orange County. I have found it’s pretty cool to play Dr. Dre or some Israeli rap while the kiddos do their vocabulary. I know, you’re stuck doing some horrible nonprofit work (sense the sarcasm) or sitting at a desk making the world a better place. I just hate that you and I enjoy work so much that we might not have met. What the heck?

Now how dare you possibly have passed by me at some random Jewish function in Los Angeles, Long Beach, or Orange County. I know you didn’t mean to, but I was surrounded by so many people. I get it, you played coy. That’s cool… but I am pretty dense, you’ll have to be more upfront with me.

I would have made you a CD of all the dance music my students gave me. I have been jamming on it in the car and cutting a rug with friends every so often at Woody’s on the Warf of Newport Beach. I know you like to dance. I get it. Bar Mitzvas are where you can try out all your craziness.

Speaking of which my dress was not creased or wrinkled! I washed it and use this anti wrinkle spray on it. I am clearly wearing flats to that evening you need me to attend for your work. I don’t want to fall like the time I did on 2^nd street (totally sober mind you) and broke my wrist, all because I wore a small heal. I am a klutz! I cant help it! And for your information I didn’t spend ANYTHING on the sweater, I sewed the flowers on an old one because I was bored. So there! J

In Los Angeles, there is this awesome Carlebach minyon that I like to daven at on Pico. Naw, I know you and I aren’t frum, but I am really glad that you understand I like to tap into my spiritual side and it’s cool that you support me in my religious zealousness every now and again. By the way, I appreciate you cooking vegetarian for me because your kitchen isn’t kosher and mine is. I am really excited that you don’t give a shit that I separate my milk from my meat. It was cute how you sang the song from NOFX as you stepped into my kitchen. Ha! And yes, I would like to go to the music festival with you.

You love Star Wars and a Bronx Tale too? Holy crap! Maybe we can have a marathon on a rainy day and then make fun of one another as my dog and cat make plans to escape from my condo because you and I are just so damn weird together. I have decided before I meet you under the chuppah I want the “dum dum” sound from Law and Order to play. I know, you wake up to me watching it at odd hours of the night and you find it charming. I like that you smile at my weird idiosyncrasies. Can you pass the frozen yogurt since you’re getting up to grab the newspaper anyway? You know I am more up on my politics than you are… don’t try and act like you know something before me. Silly!

Oh, you moved my bookmarker you stinker. I was reading _________________ in the bathroom, but apparently you also took a liking to it. Get another bookmarker and I can share it with you. For goodness sakes, put the seat down though! I almost fell in and Phoebe likes to drink from the bowl. Gross!

Last weekend I forgot to tell you thanks for coming to my softball game. The Matzo Ballers have gotten so much better since we have two non Jews on the team. Go figure right? J I wrote about it on my blog and somehow ended up sending some rant to PunkTorah as well. That site is really taking off and I am proud to have a small hand in it. Michael seems to put up with me, but Patrick is really the catalyst for all my nonsense.

My mother called three times yesterday asking when you are going to join my parents on the boat. I told them you’re excited, but I wanted to take you on the kayak with me and Willow, my pup, before you commit to a day of Jewish parents on the open seas. Nothing says rockier than Jewish parents and 10 foot swells.

I should get to bed so I can wake up early and see the new exhibit at LACMA or the Getty. I know, how many museums can I visit in a year? I don’t mean to be a geek, but I ran out of acrylic paints and my sewing is really coming together and I want new inspirations. Yes, you’re a muse, but I really love Van Gogh’s painting style. Either you can come with and we can nosh on some yummy Asian fooders or you can hang with the boys and see me tomorrow night if you like. The day after I’m headed to a “Handmade” fair again. I know, more art…! When you get time we’ll take a weekend to drive up the coast or to go to Napa or something as we discussed. I like weekends with you. Stop pretending like you’re the funny one. Okay, you do make me laugh so hard I am sure I’m going to explode, but you think I am pretty goofy too AND YOU LOVE IT!

Okay Mr. go getter punk rock briefcase using contradiction of a Jewish man (aka my besherit), we’ll talk tomorrow.

XOXO and be true to the streets-

Yentapunker

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Deuteronomy 11:26-16:17

Monotheism in a nutshell, all laid out. Make the change you want to see!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=wHDsuVuSJhA

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(Originally posted here)

That is the question…

In yeshiva I found a wallet while riding my bike once, after telling someone, I forget who, possibly a beis medrish guy – he told me some shocking news. He told me that there was a whole gemara about not returning things to non-Jews and not giving them gifts, I was shocked and super happy at the time, years later I regret the whole incident, but my Rosh Yeshiva confirmed the news, he said that the guy could get a new license and the chances of him knowing what a Jew was were slim and that meant that no Kiddush hashem could be made so halachically I shouldn’t return it. You cannot imagine the joy of being told as a 15 year old who wondered about the silly stringencies in yeshiva dorm life that it was halachically demanded that I keep a lost wallet, I was overjoyed and told my father who confirmed the Rosh Yeshiva’s ruling and told me about the gemara, for a split second I thought maybe I would take an interest in gemara, I didn’t until my late 20’s, but I digress.

I was sitting at the table this past Friday night when an interesting conversation in a similar vein took place. The conversation revolved around doing things because they are the right thing to do, versus doing them for a Kiddush Hashem and that concept really struck me. It struck me how we are constantly being told to do things to make a Kiddush Hashem, not because they are the right thing to do and I personally think that’s a pretty crappy way to teach people the difference between right and wrong.

In someone is always paying attention to making a Kiddush Hashem, basically showing someone that because they are openly Jews they are going to do the right thing, that seems to take away from the whole thing in the first place. If we said to our children “do this because it’s the right thing to do” rather than “do this because it’s a Kiddush Hashem” it seems to be a much better lesson. If we teach people to do something because it’s the right thing to do, they will always do it no matter if they can be identified as a Jew or not. I can imagine people doing things that shouldn’t be done because they are lacking the public statement of being Jews.

It sounds way nicer and more moral to say something like returning this lost wallet is the right thing to do rather than “I will get a Kiddush hashem for returning this lost object.”In this case I would have to take the heretical route and go against the Torah, because in my mind keeping the wallet is wrong, regardless of the gemaras teachings, although I don’t think it’s heretical to disagree with something that has some outdated philosophies. I am sure that back in the day, returning a lost object may have been excuse to start a pogrom or something, but these days it’s likely to spark a nice post on the local craigslist rants and raves section.

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By Pamela Alexander

I was at the cafe rocking to the Sex Pistols when a friend came over to say hello. Bob is an evangelical Christian pastor who has never tried to debate the merits of our respective faiths, or tried to “win me to Jesus” (and thank G-d for small miracles!) His respect for our differences has allowed us to forge a friendship based on a mutual love for HaShem and a desire to follow His commandments. Baruch Hu.

When I told Bob I was listening to my favorite punk band, he roared with laughter. “Pamela! How can you listen to the Sex Pistols and be a religious Jew,” as if punk rock was anathema to faith. While he used different words, it echoed for me shades of “what makes a ‘good Jew,’ good?” I reminded Bob that I was not a fundamentalist, that my Judaism included teachings from the past and the present, and that as much as I challenge what Judaism has always been, I challenge with equal tenacity and enthusiasm what Judaism has become.

Well, that sounded intellectual enough. I can simultaneously delight in our oral tradition, without relegating myself to the 18th century. I can live in our post-modern world, recognizing the many things that must change without crashing head first into secularism. It’s a nice balance, right? I am always hearing about how we should strive for balance in all areas of our lives; it’s supposed to be a good thing. But, never mind the mental health experts. What does G-d desire of me? If my life is to bring about tikkun olam, is this the way I should go?

Can I be the Jew G-d wants me to be if I approach my faith, my Torah and Him, as if in Jewish deli, and is that what I’m doing?: picking and choosing what sounds good at the time, what is easy on my wallet, easy to eat in the car, and easy to digest? In other words, give me Orthodoxy as long as it’s always enjoyable, requires little sacrifice, is very convenient and will never give me heartburn?

When people of faith petition their institutions for change, whether it be Catholics who want Vatican approval for birth control, Presbyterians who challenge the ban on gay pastors (I cannot help but wonder what the members themselves think of the Presbyterian Church’s call for a world-wide boycott against everything Israel) and Jews who want Orthodox Rabbis to perform inter-marriage ceremonies, my gut reaction is always the same: you cannot ask a centuries-old religion to change its fundamental doctrine to suit your individual needs. But, what of Judaism?

I believe the Torah was inspired by G-d and while I believe that our Sages were also inspired through their deep prayer and study ~ and while their writings did become Jewish law, I have never viewed them as having the same voice as our prophets (even though the tale of the carob tree tells us that G-d responded that “the Torah is not in heaven!”) Maimonides was not Isaiah, Nachmanides was not Jeremiah, Akiva not Daniel. If this is indeed the case, why would we follow rabbinic law with the same fervor and commitment as we do biblical law?

What does this say of traditional Judaism, which is far more rabbinic in nature than it is biblical? And, what of today’s rabbis, perhaps even less “inspired” than our Sages (and I realize that this entire line of thinking is highly problematic). Currently, it is perhaps by five American Orthodox rabbis who issue poshkim, current Jewish law, that most of us will be most profoundly affected; that is, if we desire to follow halachah as set forth by them. Current poshkim address such as politically hot issues as assisted-suicide and stem cell research.

If I am going to pursue halachah, should I not first require myself to think, pray and make decisions on the relative importance I ascribe, for example, to biblical as opposed to rabbinic law, to the importance of tradition versus change? If I find that I do wish to balance what are ancient though not archaic laws, with current ideas, should I not first decide how I am to create that balance? To which view should I give deference?

As the Pistols go, their name is the most provocative thing about them. If I can share their lyrics with my parents without shame or embarrassment, it’s a pretty good sign that they are not a morally corrupting influence! The real issue is, if I had made a decision to become as observant as possible, and a poshka were issued prohibiting the listening to the Sex Pistols, would I throw out my records? Or, would I decide to follow my own heart, and my own beat, picking and choosing at the rock and roll delicatessen? Hmm.

Honestly? While part of me hopes I would pursue other types of music, I know that I would turn it up just as loud. Yeah, I’m sure I’d go kicking and screaming on this.

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I gave up on G-d for a week, thanks to A.J. Jacobs and my girlfriend’s hatred for my hat collection.

I’m one of them-head-covering-Jews. And it drives my girlfriend insane. She hates them and has threatened to burn them all, with the exception of my black beanie, which she says makes me look like Link from Zelda.

Anytime one of the “Jew Rules” doesn’t make logical sense, she’ll mockingly say that I’m  ”just trying to be difficult”. I find this a lot when more observant people are in relationships with the unobservant. But I started to wonder if that was true. Do I keep kosher just to be a pain? Is a yarmulke more about standing out…a grown up version of blue hair and piercings…than connecting with HaShem?

Then I thought, what would it be like to go “off the derech” for one week? No davening, no kashrut, no nothing. It reminded me of a backwards-day-version of the A.J. Jacobs book The Year of Living Biblically. So I decided to un-Jew myself for one week…my “Week of Living Un-Biblically”.

Head Covering: the first thing to go was the hat. It felt weird walking around with my hair sticking out, and it actually made me self-conscious in a way I hadn’t felt in a long time. I was more aware of what my hair was doing and kept running my hands through it to make sure I didn’t look bad. I felt naked, exposed…and weirdly normal, in a bad way.

Kashrut: I normally eat vegetarian food out and only eat kosher or in some cases halal meat. But the burger was there, and I ate it. Frankly, that didn’t do much for me. A veggie burger would have been just as good. But then I had the opportunity to eat at Teds Montana Grill.  Meatloaf, caramelized onions, grilled bread…and cheese! Oh, glorious cheese. I took one bite, and frankly, treif wasn’t all it was cracked up to be. I found that I didn’t enjoy mixing meat and milk, anymore than I enjoyed avoiding it.

Davening: having to take part in PunkTorah’s Afternoon Online Prayer Services while being a heathen was tricky. Luckily Michael ran the show on that, and I could just play second in command. I always enjoyed the Q&A chat sessions after services the most, so I figured that the Un-God would forgive me if I stuck mostly to talking and less to praying. It was interesting to wake up in the morning and feel no sense of what had-to-be-done. Though, I did wrap tefillin twice because they were sitting there, looking so lonely, and I felt compelled.

Tisha B’Av was a hard one to pull off, too. We did the online service, which was awesome…though it was weird trying to be un-frum during a Jewish holiday. I didn’t fast, which I actually ended up being OK with since Tisha B’Av is a rabbinic holiday and frankly the restoration of the Temple is not on my hot-button-issues list.

Shabbat: not going to shul was strange. My girlfriend left to go to a party and I hung out at the house reading. No Shabbat candles, no wine, no challah. Then I went to bed.

The next day, we talked about my upcoming trip to Chicago. I was planning on flying up Sunday morning, but instead we decided to go together, and to drive up. So I drove on Shabbat…eleven and a half hours. Driving that long, slamming Red Bull and eating old pizza…that was my punishment from G-d.

So what did I learn from not being religious for a week?

Too Much of Judaism Is Exterior: Wearing a yarmulke or tzitzits does not make you more/less Jewish. It just makes you more/less Jewish in a certain way. My obsessive fear about walking around bare headed seemed to pre-occupy my time more than if I wasn’t praying. And that’s a bad sign. Plus, I know Judaism focuses more on what you do instead of what you think or feel, but I have the sense that this is a really, really bad thing. Maybe it does matter more what you think than what you do. The local Reform shul in my town operates a homeless shelter. The Orthodox shul doesn’t. Just saying…

The Soul Finds A Way: Whether it was the compulsive latching onto my tefillin, or the spiritual conversations I found myself having with Catholics, I realized that when I couldn’t “do Jewish”, I felt myself needed to “be” more Jewish. The soul winds a way to express itself, even under duress.

Calling BS on Yourself Isn’t A Bad Thing: I’ve always looked at spirituality the way I look at clothing. You put on what you like, and that’s it. We’re all naked underneath. But at some point, you have to seriously look at the kind of clothes you are wearing and decide if that is really you. Am I really the guy who thinks that G-d will strike him dead if he walks more than four cubits without a hat on? Am I the guy that thinks that “boil the kid in the mother’s milk” means “if it doesn’t have a Star K on it, then it’s dirty goy food”? No. Do I act like I am? Sometimes. Is that a bad thing? Sometimes. Is it a good thing? Sometimes, too.

Yes Virginia, There Is A G-d: Tonight (Shabbat) is supposed to be my last night of living un-biblically. I was going to go with my girlfriend to see Troll 2, considered by critics to be the worst movie ever made. But then the theater sold out. Not saying G-d had anything to do with it. But have you seen Troll 2? Only G-d could make that movie sell out. Looks like I’m going to shul.

Oh, and for those who are wondering…I decided that head covering was not really that important, that kashrut is really important, and that G-d rules over all of my petty social experiments.

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I watched Christopher Hitchens the other day on YouTube. The “Arch Bishop of Anti-Theism” remarked that the Jewish G-d was a genocidal megalomaniac and bemoaned how anyone could worship such a terrible deity.

Ironically, Christopher Hitchens is Jewish. But that’s a whole other story.

If you read Parshat Ekev, you’re left wondering if he’s right. The Hebrews are about to enter the promised land, and Moses is telling them to do some pretty cruel things to the Canaanites on G-d’s behalf. “You shall not spare them…no man will be able to stand up before you until you have destroyed them…their gods you will burn with fire…you shall drive out those nations from before you” (Deuteronomy 7:16-22).

So I guess you’re right, Hitch. G-d, it seems, doesn’t have a lot of loving-kindness for the Canaanites.

If you have the chance, watch a documentary called The Bible’s Buried Secrets and you’ll learn something interesting about the ancient Israelites: they weren’t exactly the mighty warriors that the Bible talks about. In fact, they were shepherds, outcasts, nomads, serfs…people on the fringes of society.

I know a little bit about people on society’s fringe. I’ve spent a good bit of my life there, as a nerd, a weirdo, a freak, a rocker, an artist. I think my teen years were the culmination of all of these identities.

Anyway, these are the people today who sit on the outside of society. Something we all have in common: we like stories that give us strength. We generally feel powerless, whether it’s powerless over some popular kid at school, a loudmouth boss at work that won’t leave you alone, whatever. So we come up with elaborate stories that give us a sense of belonging, a sense of unity with people in our struggle, and ultimately, stories where we win in the end. Pop culture is filled with these stories: Revenge of the Nerds, Napoleon Dynamite, American Splendor, Ghost World, SLC Punk…these are our “Parshat Ekevs” (or would that be Ekevot?)

Imagine what it must have been like to be a beaten up surf in the Bronze Age, a social pariah of your time, totally worthless to any community you tried to belong to, and then have someone tell you that you are chosen specially by the one true G-d who believes in you and that you are actually the descendent of mighty warriors. Sounds pretty rad to me.

So yes, Hitch, this G-d seems like a tyrant. But when life won’t stop beating you up, it’s nice to know that you have some muscle on your side and that you belong to something bigger than yourself.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uaqD7IYQVoM

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Religion, for many Jews, is a meritocracy. Where you went to college/yeshiva, what branch of Judaism ordained you, what rabbis you studied under, what level of kashrut, negiah, shabbat you keep. This is a litmus test for how-Jewishly-you-can-be-trusted. The more hardcore you are, the better, even if people think that your understanding of Judaism is bogus. At least you have the spiritual resume to back it up.

But really, is this where holiness comes from? Does a person who goes to a black hat yeshiva really cleave to G-d and the Torah more than someone who went to a community college?

Moses seems to think that our destiny is not in the shul or the centers of learning. In fact, it seems like we’re going to seek G-d from the outside.

Just read…

“And the Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and you will remain few in number among the nations to where the Lord will lead you.  And there you will worship gods, man’s handiwork, wood and stone, which neither see, hear, eat, nor smell. And from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him, if you seek Him with all your heart and with all your soul.” (Deut. 4:27-31)

This doesn’t seem like a really good ad for Jewish higher learning or Israel immersion. In fact, it seems like us Diaspora people have been part of the plan all along.

I’m really turned on by the phrase, “And from there you will seek the Lord your God, and you will find Him, if you seek Him.” It doesn’t say, “from the Chabad house, you will find G-d” or “in the corporate offices of the Jewish Federations you will find G-d” or “in the house of some learned scholar of the Torah, you will find G-d.” No! It says that from a place of idol worship, of disconnection from the greater Jewish community, from a place of sin…that is where we will find G-d.

Suddenly, the Diaspora looks a little nicer.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rTTbs9_a25E

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PunkTorah will be holding an interactive online Lamentation. Together we will mourn and lament.

Right here! At 9:15 PM Central. Participate in the “build-a-lamentation” where we will work together to create a work to be featured on PunkTorah.org!

Tonight starts the fast of Tisha B’Av, the ninth of Av.

What does that mean? There are some things we are told not to do:
Prohibitions:

1.     No eating or drinking

2.     No washing or bathing

3.     No application of creams or oils

4.     No wearing of leather shoes

5.     No marital relations

6.     No Torah study

Why Tisha B’Av?
The Talmud tells us that there are five things that happened to the Jews on Tisha B’Av:
1. The twelve spies sent by Moses to observe the land of Canaan returned from their mission. Only two of the spies, Joshua and Caleb, brought a positive report, while the others spoke disparagingly about the land. The majority report caused the Children of Israel to cry, panic and despair of ever entering the “Promised Land”. For this, they were punished by G-d that their generation would not enter the land. Because of the Israelites’ lack of faith, G-d decreed that for all generations this date would become one of crying and misfortune for their descendants, the Jewish people. (See Numbers Ch. 13–14)

2. The First Temple built by King Solomon and the Kingdom of Judah was destroyed by the Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BCE and the Judeans were sent into the Babylonian exile.

3. The Second Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE, scattering the people of Judea and commencing the Jewish exile from the Holy Land. According to the Talmud in tractate Ta’anit, the destruction of the Second Temple began on the Ninth of Av and the Temple continued to burn throughout the Tenth of Av.

4. The Romans crushed Bar Kokhba’s revolt and destroyed the city of Betar, killing over 100,000 Jews, in 132 CE.

5. Following the Roman siege of Jerusalem, Roman commander Turnus Rufus plowed the site of the Temple and the surrounding area, in 133 CE.

What can we learn from this now? How can we bring this into our lives today?
Well, we see that as a people we have a responsibility to mourn our collective losses. National tragedies tie a people together, just as national celebrations can. So mourning together as a people is an important part of being a Jew. Not only this, but we are told that Moshiach will be born on Tisha B’Av. The pain and mourning are akin to birth pangs.
If we look more closely at the first occurrence, the spies who were scared, the Israelites cried for no reason. G-d told them they would invade and be victorious, but they despaired of even trying. Because of this, because they cried empty tears, G-d told them that this day would be forever a day of mourning. It’s basically a parent saying, “Why are you crying over nothing! You’ve wasted all this time and energy crying over nothing, now you’ll really have something to cry about.”
The real sin of the Israelites is that they didn’t believe in themselves. They saw the inhabitants of Canaan and were scared, even after G-d told them not to worry. They didn’t have faith that they could do what G-d said they could. So this year let’s mourn for what we could have done, and resolve to do what we can. Recognize that Judaism doesn’t shy away from pain, it is a reality of life that needs to be acknowledged, but we have to allow our pain to give birth to a better world.

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I had a friendly debate with a gentlemen I was meeting about what it means to be Jewish. He challenged my opinions, but I did not feel like he was being rude or even trying to convince me another way. This friendly exchange is rare, so I took to him pretty quickly.

As it turns out he asked me questions about my faith that I did not have concrete answers for. I mean, what seems like truth to me, does not always seem that way for someone else. I always feel Hashem, but I do not always have “proof” of Him. It makes it complicated when discussing with someone who has a different perspective, but again… I did like this conversation so I continued to entertain different thoughts.

Finally, it came down to this one conclusion I had. If someone does not like our faith they’re not “Jewing it right”. He was a bit perplexed when I said it so I explained:

To “Jew it right” you must do something that seems fulfilling to you in the realm of religion. Try and learn something for a Rabbi or a friend; join an organization or a temple or an organization within a temple! You must take that energy that comes from within and apply it spiritually and culturally. Once you are firm in your beliefs and practices (whatever they might be and from whatever sect you belong to *or don’t belong to*) then you will find inner peace and happiness with your relationship to Hashem. This concept is “Jewing it right”. The affirmation that there is 1 soul creator that wants praise and acknowledgment that steams from joy and fulfillment from His creations.

Overall the conversation went well, but I was also excited to see that within the dialogue I had really verbalized how being Jewish is not only something I am committed to, but something that really speaks to my nishama.

Be true to the streets-

Yentapunker

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The who, what, why, how, and when of tzitzit.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=oGwkKri0N2A

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Here’s the thing, whether or not you agree with who is in charge of Israel, sweeping 85% of the Jews under the rug and declaring that they are no longer members of the family is a lot of power to give to one group of people. Click here to send an email to Prime Minister Netanyahu expressing your concern about the conversion bill before the Knesset!

Stand up! Let your voice be heard! Ani veAtah Neshane et HaOlam! You and I will change the world!

-Michael and Patrick

(From the Jewish Federation of North America Website)

Issue Background:

As you know, The Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) has articulated concern about a proposed bill in Israel’s Knesset amending Israel’s Law of Return. One proposed change could affect those who convert to Judaism after spending time in Israel, and potentially prevent them from immigrating under the Law of Return and gaining automatic Israeli citizenship. The bill also, for the very first time, gives the Orthodox Chief Rabbinate authority over conversions in Israel, something that could well alienate the 85% of North American Jews who are not Orthodox.

Representatives from JFNA and the Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) met this winter in the Knesset with the bill’s sponsor, MK David Rotem of the Yisrael Beiteinu Party, and delivered a concerted and forceful message that, as Diaspora Jewry’s representatives, we wish to engage in discussions on any such initiatives before the law is changed.

MK Rotem pledged no changes would occur without our consultation. Rotem and former Israel Ambassador to the U.S. Danny Ayalon later met with Diaspora Jewish groups in the U.S., including Ayalon with JFNA, to reiterate these promises.

This past week Rotem suddenly advanced a new, even more troubling amendment, without consulting with JFNA or JAFI. The new changes would give “authority” to the Orthodox-run Chief Rabbinate in Israel to carry out all conversions and says a convert can only be recognized if one “accepts the yoke of mitzvot according to halacha” (as defined by the Chief Rabbinate).

Since these developments occurred, our leadership told Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Knesset leaders, and Rotem that these latest proposed changes would “drive a wedge” between Israel and the Diaspora and cause “significant damage” to the Diaspora-Israel relationship. JFNA and JAFI have delivered a strongly worded letter to this effect to the prime minister and have met with Knesset members this week to underscore that message.

These changes would potentially affect a broad swath of Diaspora Jewry, and also make a theological and ideological statement about the more liberal Jewish movements to which most Diaspora Jews belong. JFNA and JAFI have issued public statements to this effect and spoken out to the Israeli press.

While our leadership has been advocating in the halls of the Knesset, we need your help to send an even louder message to Prime Minister Netanyahu.

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“A lot can get done with a dance party. If you watch movies from the 80s, how did everyone save the community center? With a dance party!”

DJ Lil Ray is the bat mitzvah DJ you wish you’d had. She’s cool, young, and she knows what you want to hear…and plays it. Top 40 and obscure stuff that NME doesn’t even know about “weaving in and out”, according to Lil Ray, in ways that keep the party moving. “I like electro and hip hop and those things have been intertwined,” says Lil Ray, citing that “there’s no hip hop without Kraftwerk.” I highly doubt that there are serious bat mitzvah DJs that would throw down about German experimental music, and for that, DJ Lil Ray wins the award for coolest DJ ever.

Lil Ray had previously been in Atlanta, where she cut her teeth as a DJ with the Astoria group and a regular Saturday night spot at The Highland Inn Ballroom. But the move from Atlanta’s small party scene to the hub of culture had more to do with career than with art. With a masters degree in Social Work from Georgia State, Lil Ray planned on moving to New York to work in the non-profit sector. Turns out, no one needed her, even “for the lowest entry level job.”

So Lil Ray broke the mold and did something few creative people ever do: she “fell back” on her artistic ambitions. And now, after just a few months of living in NY, Lil Ray has positioned herself as an up-and-coming player in the local dance party scene.

This includes her incredible niche market: DJing bat mitzvahs. It doesn’t seem like a trendy DJ like Lil Ray would want to even go there, but for Lil Ray, DJing to twelve and thirteen year old girls is…well…a mitzvah in and of itself.

“It was a dream come true. I played Top 40 female vocal hits and they were screaming. They were the roudiest crowd I have DJ’d in a long time.”

DJ Lil Ray is proud of her bat mitzvah work. On her website, Lil Ray talks about growing up in “Ft. Lauderdale bat mitzvah scene” and told me that, through her DJing, she hopes that she has a “meaningful impact” or her teen audience, that they, too “can be a DJ or anything that they want to be.”

I asked Lil Ray what, if any, role being Jewish has in her work. Normally Jewish musicians have nothing to say about this, citing that music is universal and that tribalism is meaningless. Lil Ray shocked me with this answer:

“Growing up in an enclave, the value of joy…is always there and important to celebrate. So after all of these years of being an activist, landing on: being a good person…really goes a long away. Religion and culture can give a framework for being a good person.”

In a way, DJ Lil Ray fulfills two amazing spiritual values in Judaism. Through her work as an activist, she has shown an incredible commitment to tikkun olam (repairing the world). And through her hip shaking record spinning, Lil Ray is shaking the branches on the Tree of Life with the mitzvah of simcha, of bringing joy to others through her music.”

You can catch Lil Ray in action at Enid’s in Greenpoint, Brooklyn on Saturday, July 24 for Hot & Sticky, a totally free Hip Hop dance party.

What’s Lil’ Ray listening to? Check out her hot picks…

Aloe Blacc – I Need a Dollar (Pristine Blusters and DJ Mulher ‘Millionaire’ Remix)

Brazillian DJs get all Baltimore on an instant neo-soul classic.

Round Table Knights – Calypso

This song is magic because most people don’t know it but it gets them going anyway.

Get Em Mamis – Shake It All Night

I love sassy lady MCs spitting on throwback club tracks.  I not so secretly dream about doing a show with them.  If Kid Sister was there, I would probably plotz.

Sensato Ft. Black Point – Watagataputisberry

If you like jumping up and down and shouting and having fun, you like this song.

A-Trak – Trizzy Turnt Up

A-Trak, a fellow Jew, is a big inspiration.  His free Dirty South Dance mixtapes are genius.

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Deuteronomy 1:1-3:22

www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpxUt1J2SNY

It’s hard enough imagining a time without the internet, let alone books. But that’s what it’s like to be an ancient Hebrew. Moses keeps repeating these same stories about the People over and over again, not because he’s lecturing or thinks that the Hebrews are too stupid to remember, but because there isn’t exactly a library of Jewish history sitting around the traveling camp.

It’s like in the book Fahrenheit 451 where an underground society of people called “book-keepers” each memorize a book in order to preserve knowledge. In the same way, Moses is turning each of his people into a living book…a living Torah, in fact. Instead of writing all the laws and stories on parchment, he demands that each person become a Torah in themselves, and collectively, the People of the Book.

One thing that particularly struck me about the portion this week was Moses recalling the time he appointed judges and magistrates to help him “mete out justice” and teach “the word of G_d”. Moses is basically saying:
“Hey, remember that time I tried to do everything myself and I couldn’t? Yeah, well you can’t either. Ask for help from each other and together anything can be accomplished.”
If even Moses himself, the pinnacle prophet of Judaism needed to get help from those around him, how much more do we? This is one of the key teachings that he leaves with the Israelites as they head into the Promised Land: you will need help, and you have to look to each other for it. No one, not even the prophet of G_d Almighty can do it alone.

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I’ve neglected going to services lately because I am really not comfortable there. We go in, we pick up a siddur, we sit down, and invariably our daughter either wakes up or jumps down and starts running around. All the old bubbies start to murmur and give us dirty looks and then my wife has to escort the little vilde chaya out the door while I stay and daven alone. This is fine. It is routine and I expect it, though I’m saddened that we have to be separated during what I consider to be a both personally spiritually important time and a good spiritual environment for the kid.

My real disappointment lies in the way we are holding modern, “liberal-type” services.  We all sit in rows in a fancy sanctuary, sing songs and follow along and do the “call and response” type of thing. We listen patiently as the leader drones in that “poetry/sing-songy/disingenuous” kind of high pitched voice. And it struck me that it was all so, for lack of a better word, “church-y”. I hated it. It feels like it is copying the Protestant style of Western church worship, from the music to the atmosphere. Someone at the service even made a comment (jokingly, I think) about being “quiet at church”. I thought to myself, “Shouldn’t this be different than church? Why are we trying to be like that? To fit in? No thanks.” We are different, and that should be a good thing. Jews always have been different. We’re iconoclasts! We break down walls and smash idols! Heck, we’re different from each other! You know that old chestnut, “two Jews, three opinions”!

My first exposure to a Chabad type service was really, interesting. We were on vacation, so we went somewhere we normally wouldn’t have gone. This was very different. Everyone seemed to be mumbling and shuckling and I had no idea where I was in the service. After  fifteen minutes I gave up trying and I just followed along as best I could. The shaliach’s kids came right up to him and he would pick up the little ones in between prayers. It was pretty overwhelming and a disorienting.
The same type of thing happened later when I was at a much smaller minyan and everyone was davening at different speeds. I got flustered and frustrated. I even got mad at the guy next to me for going so fast and not doing it “right”.  After thinking later about why I got angry, what about everyone not praying together made me some upset, I figured it out.

Jacob Siegel, in a fantastic post you should check out, put it like this:

In the middle of this cacophony of prayers,  “I would form my own personal connection with G-d, and you, praying beside me, would do the same, and we would each be vocalizing at different paces, and we would each be inspiring the other to achieve a spiritual awareness that we would then carry throughout the day.” This is incredible to me. It is that independence in the midst of community, what I consider almost the definition of Yiddshkeit, that electrifies my neshama.

I’m not saying one way is right and the other wrong. I am saying that it is a shame if we are changing our nature to conform to an idea of what a progressive, liberal service should look like. Something that IndieYeshiva and PunkTorah are trying to do is to bring these ideas back into the way we “do” Jewish, and have them there for us, to make our Yiddishkeit genuine and real, and by “genuine and real” I don’t mean specifically that there is one right way to do things, but a way that resonates with our past. I’m taking about an Integral Judaism that would transcend and include the past (more on that in another post).

I would like to, if I may, let Mr. Siegel take us out, because any paraphrasing on my part would be just that, and I feel he puts is very eloquently:

‘When we pray, we share our energy. I davven, and you hear me and feel inspired, and I hear you and feel further inspired. Let’s thank our cantors for their efforts in service of us and G-d, and ask them to step down from the bimah and stand beside us, as we now all share together in our cleaving to G-d.”

Yasher Koach.

Michael ארי

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There is a very large debate in some sects of the Jewish world about pets and how to deal with their “circumstances”. Some people believe you cannot spay or neuter a pet because it is against Torah. This leaves a huge problem in our animal world. A rescue kitty or pup is only allowed to be saved from a kennel or from being put down after they have been sterilized. This sterilization is to avoid other animals from being on the streets. Animal population control is an important way to provide security for those who already need love.

Now the big question: Why is it not okay to commit an avayrah in order to do a mitzva? Is it not a mitzva to save an animal from abuse or untimely death? Adoption of an animal is one of the highest forms of respect for G-d’s little creatures, no? The idea of opening your home from 1-20 years for another creature and providing it love and attention seems to be something the Torah would support. How is this act of kindness not over-riding the government mandated rule about adoption animals?

On the human front, we also have operations that deal with human sterilization. We are commanded to be fruitful and multiply (Sefer Hahinuch 291). A woman having her tubes tied is not reversible, nor is having a hysterectomy. My wonderful Jewish mother had her tubes tied the day after I was born. “Crap, look what I made! No more!!!!” Ha! A man who has surgery in health related cases can also be left sterile. The prohibitions of sterilization and marriage, however, remain independent, and therefore indispensable medical treatment that causes infertility (as with some prostate surgeries) does not impact their personal status (Tzitz Eliezer 10:25:24). However, a man can get a vasectomy and have it reversed. Think of it as the same concept of the modern tattoo. Now a man is blocking his seed from fertilization, but it does not have to be a permanent situation. It is said all males must have their sexual organs (Leviticus 22:24).

Shlomo Brody wrote a great article about dealing with animals and fertility for the Jerusalem Post. I recommend people read his article. However, we must learn that our faith has evolved with the social needs of others. Jews are now donors because we are able to save a life once we have perished. We are able to also save lives of animals. These animals deserve to be loved. My rescue cat, Phoebe, and my rescue pup, Willow, have greatly improved my quality of life and I know I have done a mitzva by providing them with a loving home. I will continue to get animals from rescues. I feel the puppy mills and pet shops are the biggest sinners. Selling animals that will eventually end up in a pound and be seen in a commercial with “Arms of an Angel” being played in the background.

Pets are a huge responsibility, but they can also be a blessing. I hope if you’re thinking of buying or adopting a pet, you take into consideration all the issues revolving around the animal. It is a huge sociological benefit to spay and neuter your pets, despite all religious debates.

Be true to the streets-

Yentapunker

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OdnCUqH42M

What does Judaism say about organ donation? Is it permitted? Find out!

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=TldXUpSB7lQ

Sometimes reading the Torah is like reading a book written by a blood thirsty thirteen year old with attention deficit disorder. This week’s portion jumps, not so elegantly, from women taking vows, to killing the Midianites and stealing their stuff, then all of a sudden we’re diving up a bunch of land. The end, next chapter please.

And you wonder why more people don’t take the Torah seriously? It’s like cut-and-paste poetry. Once the story gets really good, G-d interrupts everything with a census or some obscure set of rules that makes no sense. Or it starts off really boring, and you give up half way, only to find out the really good stuff is toward the end.

The Torah doesn’t have a good beginning, middle and end. And it’s really not meant to, either. I think there’s three basic reasons for that.

First, the Torah is a reflection of life. And life doesn’t have a real beginning, middle and end. Sure, individual lives start and finish, but the legacy of humanity lasts forever (or at least until SkyNet and the Terminators finish us off). At any rate, Torah reflects life, and life is filled with low points, high points, boring, pointless interruptions, scandals, intrigue, and everything else…and sometimes the order of those things doesn’t make any sense.

Second, the Torah is a reflection of Creation. There’s a midrash that says that G-d looked into the Torah before creating the world. I like that. The Torah is flawed at times, and frankly, so is the world. Now, I’m not calling HaShem a crummy writer or a bad creator, but the world isn’t perfect, and if you read the Torah enough, you’ll find out that the Torah isn’t perfect all the time either.

Finally, the Torah is the reflection of the human soul…sometimes for better, and sometimes for worse. This week, we’re dealing with the souls of women and warriors, liars and hinderers, revenge-seekers and oppressors. Next week, the soul may change, and go in a new direction. But the Torah does us a huge favor and lets us see all sides of the soul. Hopefully, the soul doesn’t end either.

So what’s the bottom line? Don’t let the strange ups-and-downs of the Torah, the weird jumping back and forth from women-and-their-dads-to-blood-and-guts keep you from learning. Life, Creation, and the human spirit has its ups-and-downs, and its weird moments, too.

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We know that there have been a lot of discussion about whether or not women should or can wear tallis and tefillin. Patrick and I wanted to point out this article on our friend Heshy Fried’s blog that debates the matter. Where do you come down on this issue? We’d love to know. Hit us back in the comments here!

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I ran into one of my elementary school teachers just the other day. I used to love seeing her at school because she was the only Jewish teacher and I also could see her at temple with her twin girls. Beautiful young women they were. I used to watch what they wore, how they did their hair, what they said and the terms they used. Girls a few years older always made an impression on me. I think it was because I am an only child, so I had to learn from somewhere. I used to envy these young ladies.

As I exchanged hellos and quickly caught her up with my life, she shared that her daughters were married and she was the grandmother of 7 children. I became excited until she went further into the fact that her daughters had converted and she was not able to see their weddings. My heart dropped.

1st, you must honor thy mother and father. Not allowing your mom into your wedding because she is Jewish and you have left the faith made me not only want to vomit, but wreak havoc! I mean what a nightmare for a woman who raised you in a warm and loving home. I cannot think of anything worse than ignoring your mother’s feelings and not allowing her to partake in such a serious event. I know that this family was close and that the woman who stood before me was a very active and loving mother; she’s nothing to avoid! Secondly, by Halacha her grandchildren were still Jewish, but they will NEVER know! These 7 children will not be taught their culture and heritage that is rich with beauty and worth.

I get angered. With the Jewish population dwindling and assimilation being such a serious subject. I stood there trying to be happy for this woman who clearly was also uncomfortable with the situation. Two days later I ran into a woman from the salon that I had previously run into my beloved teacher. She said she held my teacher as she cried on the day of her daughters wedding and how sad the whole situation is. I suddenly realized that simcha is really a view point. For her daughters, raising these kids in a loving home is a simcha. Although I am not saying these two women should be burned at the stakes for leaving their faith and mother behind, I am saying their simcha brings tears to many people’s eye. Unfortunately, these are not tears of joy, but tears of grief and anger.

I try and find a place to blame. Was it our synagogue? Maybe they did not do enough outreach. I certainly know I did not find a love for my faith through it. Was it my teacher’s lack of cultural enrichment? Maybe she herself was not taught the deep values of a Jewish home or how much prayer and culture can enrich your being. Should these young women have gone on Birthright as soon as they hit college or not been allowed to date outside their faith as teenagers? It really boggles my mind. In Judaism there is something for everyone! You just have to be proactive like anything else! You did not learn how to tie your shoe without being taught and you will not find a way to be spiritual without being taught in a myriad of ways!

Faith is a prescription and it’s dosage is whatever you make of it. Some of us like the culture. Some find it through social events or religious holidays. Some people are at the 3X daily. This very situation makes me concerned for my own children (G-d willing I ever find Mr. Right). Will I get the dose right or will I too be excluded from a wedding or have grandchildren that will never know what a joy being Jewish is?

Simcha (happiness) is all in perspective.

Be true to the streets!

Yentapunker

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=MT-khZjqPGw

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhaY_G_bfZ0

What does the Torah really say about marijuana?

Surprisingly little.

Check it out.

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Jewish Mixers and a lesson on why mixing isn’t always what it is cracked up to be: A lesson on Leshon Horrah….

So it is clear that Jewish mixers are an invention from the Jewish grandmother. They’re sly and cunning and deceptively alluring with food and other freebies. As the summer time warms our beaches and many of us have our outdoor activities, we crave company of friends and significant others. At one particular mixer, I was thrilled to have the pressure off. I was dating someone and was there purely for the social aspect. A-ha! A window of opportunity to not feel pressure within the Jewish community.

I had previously asked a friend if his group would like to join mine for coffee. As I was taking off to go to Aeroma (the wonderful Israeli filled coffee house on the west side of town), I stopped my friend mid-conversation to discuss if they would join us.  As I overheard his friend speaking to him she stated, “That girl has no chance with him (speaking about her male friend and a woman off in the distance). She has a huge nose and she’s ugly!” My heart stopped. The first thing I thought was holy crap. What if I was the girl she was talking about? Secondly, I looked at the girl exchanging a pleasant conversation with handsome male company and this girl making the comment. I figured her Jewish mother had told her she was absolutely beautiful her whole life. Such a warped sense of self. This girl looked like she did not know what a vegetable was. I was shocked such mean things came into my mind and gained my friends attention. The girl who had just said such harsh things waits for me to get in a word to my friend.

I had a very quick inner monologue that went like this:

Holy crap she just bashed another Jew.
Does she know she’s not a 10, not even a 5?
Why am I thinking such horrible things?
I think I am angry that she spoke horribly about this defenseless woman.
What to say? What to say?
Be smart about this, but do not allow her to act like that.

After the monologue, this came out, “ Hey ___________, I was going to ask you if you and your friends were coming, however, as much as I deeply wish you could come, I do not want to expose my wonderful group of loved ones to someone who not only publicly demeans people they don’t know, but seems to take joy from it to make her own esteem flourish.” Her mouth dropped and I suppose she decided to take her anger out on me after I up and left.

The moral: When we open our mouths publicly, we earn judgment from others. It is not always right to judge, but it is ALWAYS right to realize when something should not be socially accepted. Leshon horah, the restriction of speaking with an evil tongue. There is always a reason for G-d’s rules and guidance. A mixer only works when mixing is allowed.

Be true to the streets!

Yentapunker

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We held our first afternoon prayer service today and it was awesome. Interacting with everyone was great! We would love for everyone to come and participate. ALL ARE WELCOME!

They will be held Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at around 2PM Eastern time. To watch, go here or here! We look forward to seeing you all there!

-Michael and Patrick

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=IeL_NU-XyWM

This week’s Torah portion is about accepting change. And I’m not talking about loose change.

A guy named Zelophehad dies…and unlucky for him, Zelophehad had no sons, no one to pass his inheritance to. But he did have daughters. And these daughters were angry that their father’s lot would not be given to them. So they protest to Moses and Moses talks to G-d. The result: G-d agrees that sexism is unfair, and the law of inheritance is passed so that women would be included.

Another change happens: Moses knows that his time is running out on this Earth. The Hebrews are about to enter the Promised Land and Moses does not get to go with them. So G-d tells Moses that Joshua will be the new leader. Moses is commanded to lay his hands upon Joshua in front of the Hebrews showing his status as the future Jewish Commander In Chief.

Change is tough: it forces people to confront their boundaries and limits. It’s easier to keep life as static and simple as possible, so you’ll never experience growing paints. But change is a part of life. Get over it. Move on.

So Moses hands the keys to the kingdom over to Joshua. Here’s this guy, hand picked by G-d out of all of the Israelites, to be the new leader. Even with how Moses must have felt about turning things over to “the new guy”, there had to be some sense of trust there. I mean, G-d chose Joshua!

G-d told Moses who would be the next leader. I know that if I were retiring from a company that I started if G-d told me who would be my successor I would trust His judgment. So in this there is some comfort to Moses, that the guy taking his place was at least good enough to be selected by the Divine. And that is important.

G-d knew Joshua wasn’t Moses, and he never would be. G-d knew the time for Moses was over, it was time for a fresh perspective, some new leadership. Was Joshua going to screw up? Of course! Obviously even Moses messed up. But that’s okay.

What that says to me is that Hashem knows that things change (He made them that way!) so sometimes new leadership is necessary. And even Moses had to learn that, to trust in the way that things were going and that G-d wouldn’t let things get out of hand.

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(This is a post by Rebecca Froman, Elissa’s sister. We met them at the Greater Chicago Jewish Festival a few weeks ago. Helping out is so simple there really is no reason not to. Medical advances mean having an easier time donating if you are a match, and seriously, if you could save someone’s life, why wouldn’t you?

Please help, in any way you can.

-Michael and Patrick)

Elissa, age 26, grew up in suburban Chicago and lives in Washington, DC.  Soon after graduating from college about 3½ years ago, she was diagnosed with Hodgkin Lymphoma.  Her battle with cancer has been a roller coaster of highs and lows, marked by frustratingly short periods of remission.
Recently, Elissa fulfilled a life-long dream when she learned of her acceptance to graduate school to further her Judaic studies.  Just two days later, her dreams were shattered by the news that her cancer had returned yet again.
Elissa works as an advocate for the human and civil rights of others.  She is now faced with a challenge of a lifetime and is in need of help from another—as a stem cell transplant is her only hope for a cure.
As the granddaughter of four Holocaust survivors, Elissa has little family to test for a match and needs a genetically-matched donor to receive her life-saving transplant.  Elissa and her family are asking you to join the National Bone Marrow/Blood Stem Cell Registry through organizations such as Be The Match, Gift of Life, or Ezer Mitizion.  By joining, you fulfill tikkun olam by being a  potential donor standing ready to give patients like Elissa a second chance at life.  And her hope is that even if you can’t help her, you may be able to help another patient and their family.
Registration is easy!  A consent form is filled out and a swab of the cheeks is taken.  Your tissue type is added to the Registry until your 61st birthday.  You must be between the ages of 18-60 and in good health to join.  If you are interested in either joining or helping to organize a registration drive, please contact Elissa’s sister Becky at rebeccafroman@comcast.net or at 847-924-9185.
“If you save one life, it is as if you have saved the entire world.”

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By Mīkhah ben Davīd ha’Nazīr

My family is one of mixed heritage and diverse religious practices. My mother’s side of the family is Jewish. My father’s paternal line was Cherokee and Portuguese, from a community said to have originated as Crypto-Jews fleeing the Inquisition. His mother’s side was from an American gunslinger that, during World War I, met and married the daughter of a Jewish convert in Germany. My father’s side of the family, however, was not particularly religious in any form. On the other side, my mother is halakhically Jewish, though she is a devout Christian.

Around adolescence I began to understand that most other families were not like this. I had been growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood and for all I knew, other white boys had a set of grandparents whose homes were decorated with menorōt, giant maps of Israel and such. When I was young I would see mail on the table from “Jews for Jesus” but it always seemed like a gimmick; I was never interested. It wasn’t that I saw a problem with Jesus himself, but I knew what they meant. I knew that they meant their weird vision of a baby-god-man Jesus, who came as God-in-the-flesh, to save us all from eternal damnation. The idea never struck me as “Jewish.” Throughout my teenage years, intellectual dissatisfaction with the Christian theology I was raised in – along with extreme intrigue of many of the newly translated Dead Sea Scrolls – catalyzed a desire to embrace of my Jewish identity. My mother tried to nurture this by offering me “Messianic Judaism” literature. From a cursory glance, it seemed an obvious reconfiguration of JFJ propaganda.

My quest began instead with a personal reexamination of the Tanakh. Through several thorough readings I cemented an understanding that was more and more at odds with my Christian upbringing with each subsequent trip through the pages. The journey continued by “starting over” with Rashī, then exploring the philosophical style of the Rambam and the imaginal approach of early Modern Ḥassīdīm like the Besht and Rav Naḥman. In addition, I read anything extra-Biblical – and even extra-Judaic – that I could get my hands on. I wanted to understand religion itself; what it was human beings were experiencing throughout the ages, what it was we were doing.

Interest in “where it all went wrong” with Christianity expanded my investigation into the milieu of Second Temple Era sectarian expressions of Judaism. Of particular importance to me was the question of “What is Judaism?” considering how widely different Second Temple expressions of Judaism were. The Sadducees were clearly incompatible with what became Rabbinic Judaism. The Pharisees were an obvious precursor. Though even amongst them were the Beyt Shammaī and the prevailing Beyt Hillel. Both were Jewish yet held very different ideas. In the Second Temple Era, being “Jewish” meant, essentially, being “Judean” – in region and in customs. Thus, even the very non-Jewish Sadducees were regarded as a Jewish philosophy.

The Zealots too were Jewish, but was this “Fourth Philosophy” a sect at all? Josephus tells us that the hoi polloi were involved in their banditry. The Essenes as well, we read were not merely at Qumran but “in every city” – numbering many thousand outside of their presumed center. These too were Jewish and no one denies that today. Yet their Judaism was very different than Judaism today or the mainstream minhagīm since the Galūt… and what of those Jews who fell somewhere in between these competing identities?

What happened when Jerusalem fell? What happened when the Bar Kokhbā revolt failed? What happened when the Pharisees and the Essenes “in every city” were expelled? What happened to the Sadducees whose ideals relied on the existence of a Temple-cult? These questions fascinated me and made it impossible to buy into a myth that Judaism was ever a homogenous idea, culture or religion. The waves of `aliyōt to Israel highlight this myth today. So many Ashkenazīm imagined – and imagine still – that their Judaism is how Judaism is. This is why we are seeing some “Orthodox” Ashkenazīm clash so hard with Sefardīm and – more specifically – Mizraḥī presence in Eretz Yisrael. All one must do is observe the different liturgies, the vertical mezuzōt on their Mizraḥī neighbor’s entrances and the Arabesque kippōt and (not so long ago), turbans prevalent in such communities. Jews from around the world are often very different communities and these differences were even greater during the medieval period. The idea that there is or ever has been a single, homogeneous, “Judaism” is unhistorical and remains inaccurate to this day.

More or less unrelated to my quest, though certainly symptomatic as an expression of cynicism towards my Christian upbringing, I became immersed in various activist scenes towards the beginning of the 1990s. Animal Lib was my gateway drug to Black Power issues and naturally, issues of colonialism abroad. I was quickly acquainted with various Muslim movements and issues concerning human rights in what historian Marshall Hodgson calls the Islāmicate world. It was odd to me, however, that I would not see the same Muslim faces protesting against Female Genital Mutilation, the destruction of the Buddhist statues in Afghanistan, Women’s Issues in Sa`ūdī `Arabia and such, that I would see at the fiery Palestine rallies.

In 1998 I was introduced to the Ṣūfism of the Sri Lankan Shaykh M.R. Bawa Muḥaiyadeen. I encountered a fascinating man, decked out in all white attire while I was working at a Cincinnati bookstore. He approached me with a white kūfī or kippah. It was sort of ambiguous, like the man himself was. It was bigger than an Ashkenazi yarmulke, but smaller than a typical Muslim kūfī. The man looked like he might be Ethiopian or an Arab Sudanese. I greeted him as though he were an Arab, or at least probably a Muslim. I was somewhat enamored with my new vocabulary: “As-salāmu `alaykum.” He paused, looked at me and replied: “Wa-`alaykum as-salām.”

During that afternoon’s conversation, the man reminisced about how Bawa had studied with him, many years ago. At the time, this was no cause for alarm, as I had no idea that Bawa had even died when I was in Middle School. For all I knew, Bawa was 40 years old. The man further recalled that my perspective and vegetarian-Nazirūt – lifnīm meshūrat ha’Dīn – reminded him of what he described as a Jewish-Ṣūfī movement which he termed “the `Isāwiyyah Order.” Try as I might to locate this group amongst the Ṣūfīṭuruq, I found only a completely unrelated North African ṭarīqah branch of the Shadhiliyah – that was attached to Jesus (`Isā) – which clearly did not match his characterization. Every Ṣūfī-Muslim that I asked assured me that I had heard the man wrong and that this was the group to which he would have been referring…

The pluralistic world view of Bawa, I was told, complimented my own vegetarianism and universal approach. I would learn that the Sri Lankan Muḥaiyaddeen, who described himself as both a Jew because he followed the Law of Moses and a Muslim because he followed Muḥammad, had settled his Ṣūfī masjid in a former Philadelphia Synagogue. I particularly enjoyed his Islam and World Peace, which contained letters he wrote admonishing Khomeinī during the Iranian Revolution. I quickly discovered, however, that the open-mindedness and deep mysticism of mystic was an anomaly within the Muslim ummah, even amongst most modern Ṣūfī ṭuruq. Working at the aforementioned bookstore, I had a number of opportunities to converse with various Muslims and not one besides this man had even heard of Bawa, let alone think that he sounded like a Muslim at all, once I described him.

Nevertheless, I took advantage of my 33% discount and ordered every book from the old shaykh that I could get my hands on. In addition, I met some kids from the hardcore music scene who had moved to Philly where they attended the Bawa Fellowship on a weekly basis. Lucky for me, they were excited by the prospect of smuggling out Xeroxes of unpublished sermons and sending them my way. Over the next few years I continued to practice Judaism along side of Ṣūfism as I understood it from Bawa. I kept kosher, observed the major holidays, Shabbat and abstaining during niddah, while also making Salāt, fasting, and seeing no contradiction between these. Still, I found myself engaged and confronted at every turn. The majority of Muslims I encountered routinely accused me of being everything from a Hasbara fellow to a Mossad agent.

My intuition that there was a time when things were different – when Jew and Muslim saw each other as kindred branches of the same universal truth – took me on an exploration of the origins of Anti-Jewish polemic in the Muslim world, that I found throughout the ḥadīth literature and Qur’ānic exegesis. Strangely, as my knowledge of `Arabic increased, I realized that the Qur’ān did not say the anti-Jewish things it appeared to say in translation. I do understand that such a statement might be difficult for many to believe. It did not call Jews “apes and swine,” that was what called those who profaned Shabbat and taught others to only pay lip service to it. Time and time again I saw reference to the curse upon those who break Shabbat. I saw frequent Talmudic quotations that the Muslim world simply was unaware of. I saw codes of laws deriving from the Dead Sea Scrolls, not anti-Jewish, or contrary to Judaism, but apparently in line with Jewish sectarianism. The Muslim world never knew.

The source of the Jew-hatred in the Muslim world, I would find, seemed to ultimately trace to Caliphate-State propaganda. In the aftermath of a Jewish revolt against the newly-born Abbāsid regime – about 150 years after the death of Muḥammad – this revolt was unleashed by an Isfahan-based Jewish Nazirite Movement known in Hebrew as the `Īṣunīyīm, and to the Muslim world as the `Isāwiyyah. Contrary to popular misconception, it was not named after the `Arabic kunyah of its leader at that time.

The `Īṣunīyīm believed that both Jesus and Muḥammad – the historical, rather than mythological figures of religious lore – were simply minor prophetic figures. They accepted the actual sayings of Jesus, but rejected the Christian Testament and ever non-Jewish feature, including the Trinity, Divine Incarnation, Hellenism and any special status for Jesus. They accepted the Qur’ānic fragments of their time, but rejected the notion that the Qur’ān was intended to, or should, supersede or abrogate the Torah. Muḥammad was a prophet to the nations, the goyyīm, the amīm, or in `Arabic the umam; but his message was never to replace the Torah for Jews who accepted a halakhah that was in many ways stricter than the Qur’ānic injunctions for the nations. For this reason, Muslim commentators would write that this Jewish movement could never be regarded as Muslims. Rulings, fatāwat came down to this effect in spite of accepting the Oneness of God and acknowledging that Muḥammad was a prophet. Isaac Bashevis Singer said that “Jews are a people who can’t sleep and won’t let anyone else.” In that regard, the movement frustrated the sleeping Muslim ummah to no end. They accepted what the Caliphate insisted a full Muslim citizen must accept, and yet they did so in a way that did not take them outside of the fold of Judaism; contrary to the intentions of the Caliphate. Finally I had found the “Order” that the man in the bookstore had told me about…

The attitude of the ` Īṣunīyim was not anomalous in Judaism. By the time Ṣūfism had flourished in Muslim Spain, the Andalusian sage, rabbeinū Baḥya ibn Paqudah would write his famous “Duties of the Hearts” – Al-Hidāyah ilā Farā`idhu-l-Qulūb – in Judeo-Arabic, quoting Torah and Talmud right alongside of early aḥadīth of Muḥammad and `Alī, who he described with the term ḥassīd. The Judeo-Ṣūfī phenomenon was not an isolated incident either. The Jewish Neo-Platonist Netanel ibn al-Fayyūmī (d. c. 1164), leader of the Jews of Yemen, adopted into a Jewish context ideas current among the Islāmic Neo-Platonist group known as the Ikhwān as-Ṣafā’. The name was obviously pregnant with etymological connection to the term “Ṣūfī” and the group has also widely been cited as an influence on rabbeinū Baḥya. Netanel asserted the authenticity of the prophethood of Muḥammad, and revelation of the Qur’ān, as well as the reality that there are additional authentic revelations, apart from Muḥammad or Judaism.

It was not long after that the Rambam would famously fuse Islāmic kalām into his discourses and even his magisterial Mishneh Torah. Yet he also responded critically to Muslim theologians, notably in his Thirteen Principals; his answer to what separates Jewish kalām from its Islāmicate counterpart. The pseudepigraphical Iggeret Teman (Letter to Yemen) was purportedly penned to the son of Al-Fayyūmī, by someone who obviously did not know the perspective of his famous universalist father. An obvious polemic written in the wake of the Zaydī massacre and forced conversions, the author is frustrated with the Muslim world – and rightly so – but clearly does not know the personality of the family this letter was supposedly penned to, nor the perspective of the alleged author on many issues that conflict therein with the well-known views of Maimonides. To cite an obvious example, in the letter the Rambam is portrayed as describing a magical Mashiaḥ figure, in direct contradiction to the actual beliefs of the man in his Mishneh Torah.

The implications of the pseudepigraphical composition of the Letter to Yemen are far reaching, but we can be sure that the Rambam did not disapprove of his son, rabbeinū Avraham’s Judeo-Ṣūfism… because he told us in lauding terms how pious and devout his son was. Yet this son led his Egyptian Jewish community in reclaiming group salāt and various other practices traditionally associated exclusively with the Muslim world. He argued that the practices of the Ṣūfīs came from Judaism, not the other way around. His son `Ovadyah was even more overt about his Judeo-Ṣūfism in his al-Maqālat al-Hawḍiyyah (Treatise on the Pool).

The fate of Judeo-Ṣūfism is a longer story than could possibly fit into this brief introduction to it. What such an introduction attempts to convey is precisely what rabbeinū Avraham ben Rambam proclaimed in his Kifāyatu-l-`Abidīn (the Complete Guide for Devotees), that Ṣūfism and the practices associated with Qur’ānic islām come from the traditions of the B’nei Yisrael, not the other way around, or as the Qur’ān says, there was nothing new taught to Muḥammad that was not taught to those before him.

In this world where our culture and traditions seem to clash, so at odds with our Muslim cousins and Palestinian neighbors’ Judeo-Ṣūfism is an important reminder that this was not always the case. Instead, at their core, the two faiths have been understood harmonically by those who were willing to look beyond the cultural baggage of Islāmicate oppressors to see that the problem was not with the Qur’ān or a historical Muḥammad, but with the Imperialist Caliphate and the hateful fantasies they grafted onto this historical personage in the sīrah and ḥadīth literature. Imagine, if leading rabbis could come to see this, in spite of the barriers that would have made it easy to reject, then perhaps the Muslim world one day will be able to as well. Perhaps with a clarifying vision of the historical Muḥammad, their vision of Islām will truly come into focus as a peaceful one. Perhaps then we will all move forward together, as one human family.

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In this week’s Torah portion, a sorcerer named Balaam is sent by Balak to curse the Israelites. But G-d appears to him and turns his heart saying, “you shall not curse them but bless them” (Numbers 22:12). After protesting to Balak’s people that he can’t do it, Balaam reluctantly agrees to carry out his mission.

But something crazy happens. Balaam is riding a donkey toward the settlement where the Hebrews are, when his donkey sees an angel of the Lord, blocking him from going toward the camp. Balaam doesn’t see it: only the donkey sees it. So Balaam tries, unsuccessfully, to go in different directions toward the camp, hitting the poor donkey over and over again. Finally, G-d gives the donkey the power to speak! The conversation went a little like this:

Donkey: Hey Balaam, why you keep hitting me? What did I ever do to you?

Balaam: Donkey, you’re embarrassing me! If you were a person, I’d freakin’ cut you!

Donkey: Why you playin’ like that? You’ve been riding me this whole time and I haven’t given you trouble at all.

And then, the angel appeared to Balaam and called him out on his awful mistreatment of the donkey:

Angel: Yo, Balaam. Why are you beating down your donkey? Obviously I’m in the way and the donkey can’t go anywhere you want it to!

So Balaam has something of a roadside conversion and the angel lets him know that, instead of curses, Balaam will open his mouth and bless the Hebrews.

Balaam goes back to Balak and lets him know this weird news. And Balak basically says, “heck with this. Let’s go to the Hebrew settlement and try this cursing thing out either way.” Long story short, it didn’t work. Apparently when G-d does something, it happens.

I’d like to ask an honest question: what’s in your way? What is keeping you from getting something done? For Balaam, it was an angel, standing in his way. What is it for you?

And an even bigger question is, “is what you are wanting to do, really that important, anyway?”

Balaam was trying to curse the Hebrews, so G-d steps in his way. And there are angels on Earth who get in our way all the time: the father who locks up his drug addict kid who he won’t shoot up, the nurse who gives out condoms to prostitutes so they won’t get AIDS.

So what’s in your way? Maybe it’s not as self destructive and the examples I gave earlier, but maybe it will take you down a path that you really don’t want. I used to think that every time my old band couldn’t get a show or every time I got fired from a job, that it was just another thing getting in my way. And to be honest, if I had a sword, I’d prolly cut some people up, too.

But then an angel stepped into my life and made me realize, “OK Patrick, maybe you need to evaluate whether this is a good use of your time.” And sure enough, those things weren’t. And now, things are going great. I have a new band, and it doesn’t stress me out at all! And my job…well…PunkTorah is my job!

There’s always an obstacle to every goal. Maybe that obstacle is an angel of the Lord saying, “don’t pass Go, don’t collect $200. You’re going to do G-d’s work instead.”

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(Originally Posted Here)

Mike Knight, the father of Punk Islam said that since you can’t hold an ideology, a worldview in the palm of your hand how can you even start to say what it is? Islam. Punk. Judaism. Zionism. When no person can hold it, how can one person own it?

It’s the things that can’t be held that are usually the most fervently grasped after and back in Vancouver, in the diaspora, Zionism is viewed less as any broad intellectual tradition than an arena of violent polemics. It’s hard to be a Zionist on the Left there. I don’t know how I feel about Jewish statehood in the abstract but I strongly support the existence of this Jewish state. I’d fight and die for this place in a just cause. I want to move here in a few months. At the same time, I wholeheartedly believe Israel is the primary, though not sole, cause and sustainer of a people’s suffering and exile. Most folks back home who agree with me, that Palestinians are entitled to sustenance, rights and sovereignty, see Zionism as a racist colonial monolith. Those who disagree with me say I cant be a Zionist because I don’t practice Zionism like a racist colonial monolith. As a Zionist who feels support for Palestinian rights is integral to my belief in a just Jewish State, I am forced to choose between the label and the content.

The other night we attended a Gala of the World Zionist Congress in Jerusalem.

On the bus ride to Jerusalem I listened to Matisyahu with my friend Sam and felt the same chill entering the city that I had felt when I was here for the first time two years ago. That’s my Zionism. No one can take that feeling from me. But it is a connection, not a claim. It gets murkier when you try to translate feelings into exclusionary politics.

When we got to the Congress I wandered around the photo displays of Halutzim draining swamps, of bright eyed, bronzy soldiers. The standard images of a pinup Zionism. I collected all the brochures and pamphlets I could find. I found a big coffee table magazine Haaretz did on Herzl that I look forward to reading. I met briefly with the head of the MERCAZ delegation, representing Conservative and Masorti Judaism. My Persian friend there got a dirty look from some Haredim. He thinks it was racism. I wouldn’t be surprising given that 100,000 Haredim just rallied for school segregation.

Eventually we picked up translating headsets, filed into the auditorium, filed back out when the headsets wouldn’t function and finally filed back in, took our seats.

Israeli President, Shimon Peres, keynote of the evening missed his first curtain call but eventually showed.

Early in his speech Peres referred to the establishment of Israel as Jewry’s “step back into history”. Such an understanding at once attempts to erase the exilic experience and makes pointed ideological use of it. Thus Peres can, as he did, speak of an unceasing Antisemitism in history, prevalent enough to define 2000 years of Jewish history while at the same time saying “we never listened to” the gentiles, we remained unchanged, pure from antiquity. Zionism commands us to both blot out the exile and remember it constantly, just as Torah asks us to treat the memory of Amalek. By erasing Exile from history, we dehistoricize its tropes, we make them a constant reality. Torquemada or Hitler, like Amalek cease to be historically grounded personalities and become constant shades, lurking around every corner, in the words of all who oppose us. This is not to suggest that Israel does not have enemies and that antisemitism does not play a role sometimes in those animosities. Helen Thomas’ comments a couple weeks ago demanding that Israeli Jews return to the graveyards of Poland and Germany were antisemitic, not to mention ignorant of Israeli demographics where the majority of Jews are Mizrachi. When the IHH tells Israelis to go back to Auschwitz or when the Left focuses disproportionately on Israel’s crimes while ignoring those of other states; there is antisemitism here. But awareness of hatred, vigilance against it’s manifestation is the opposite of paranoia. One calls us to live and guard ourselves in the muck of reality, the other exalts ourselves as the world’s blameless victim and divides the world into uncritical friends, of which ultimately there are none, and enemies, of which there are many. Peres can therefore say that “if you delegitamize Israel, you legitimize terrorism” because such fine distinctions disappear when we mentally depart from reality and enter the discourse of eternal truth. Then we begin to make statements like “the war never ends here”. We begin to believe them. We begin to resign ourselves and to excuse ourselves from moral commitment. We unchoose ourselves as Jews. This realm of ideas is what Peres called “the order of existence” which Zionism claims to understand. What we don’t understand, according to the President is “who is a human being”, that is, who is a real person in history and who is a shade, a face of the eternal anti-Semite. These are the “warmongers”, the “fanatics who threaten us”. We have to “get rid of them”. But we can’t. Because they’re not real.

By erasing exile, Zionism is able to present itself as the manifestation of a pure mytho-antiquity that is simultaneously on the cutting edge of hypermodernity. This antiquity extends into time immemorial and is a statement of political confrontation; Peres can make statements like: “we were here before anyone else” and “ours is the oldest legitimacy in the region”; neither of which are, technically speaking, true. The erasure of exile is confirmed by the delusion that the “we” and the “ours” have not changed in 2000 years of exile. “The language of the prophets” remains the “language of our children”. Zionism has a special place in this sacred recast of history. It is the step “from exile to redemption”.

Redemption is characterized in deeply Modernist language, in talk of “construction and democracy” as if human rights were synonymous with factories. Zionism’s Israel has to strive after both the “ten commandments” and the cutting edge expansion of scientific research. Zionism may have begun as a “horizontal expansion” across Palestine, Peres recounted; now its goals were vertical, building upwards into skyscrapers and forward unto the restless horizon. I’m reminded of the words of Levi Eshkol: “When can we finish building the state and go home to rest?” Phrases like “value of modernity”, “awareness of modernity” and “orientation to the future” were interspersed with vague and unelaborated references to the example of the Prophets. The only figures mentioned explicitly as prophets however were Marx and Herzl.

We all rose to attention as he walked off stage and was replaced by Nir Barkat, Mayor of Jerusalem. As critical as I am of Peres’ speech, I liked it. I might problematize the narrative he presents but it is a story of idealism, of a people who spoke for justice in suffering and must still strive for justice in power. He called on Israel to become more than a refuge of a fearful Jewry but a beacon, a Light unto the Nations. We are not there yet. But we can be. Statehood is not the ends but the means.

I did not like Barkat’s speech. Here was the other conclusion of the Zionist narrative, not the open ended idealism that Peres and I each in our own way held to but the terrifying triumphalism of an ideology that is too busy marching forward to see who it’s marching over. Statehood as an end. It’s not that I wouldn’t like to share this triumphalism. For once in 2000 years, we’re the ones with the guns and the tanks and the borders. But when we allow the arrogance of power and the desperation of an imagined imperilment to cause us to forget the humanity of the other, we embark upon the road to Fascism.

Barkat is a main force behind the expansion of Jewish building in East Jerusalem. He began by quoting Herzl, declaring that “with Jerusalem, you can make a diamond”, rather than the traditional belief that Jerusalem is a diamond regardless. There’s not much I have to say about Barkat’s tirade for development. Jerusalem has to “become a more attractive city for tourists and investors”, he said since such parties have “shares in the city, no less than its residents”.

Investment, development, resources.

He called for “Jerusalem to be taken out of poverty” and said nothing about taking poverty out of Jerusalem. Barkat’s image of Jerusalem is a rosy and attractive one. But it is not a real one. Jerusalem is not the “strong and united city” he claimed it to be. It is a deeply divided place where identities build over, dig under and war after each other. Freedom of religion is not a Zionist innovation in this place. It existed for most of the history of Muslim Jerusalem, if not its final decades. Jerusalem is not perfect now, it was not so terrible before.

That doesn’t mean Jerusalem is not a diamond. But it has been tainted by suffering and hatred, by true believers as much as by greedy hypocrites; it has been crusted over by tears and blood. But the only way we’re ever going to see that diamond is by working to uncover each of its infinite faces, not by building skyscrapers on top of it.

So that’s it. In other news, we went to the Tel Aviv Pride Parade last week where I got pamphlet-ed by Messianic Jews.

Crazy Place.

Shalom, Salaam, Peace

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Kirtan is a part of bhakti yoga, the yoga of devotion. It is done in call-and-response format, and is used to bring the chanter into and altered state of consciousness, “at once ecstatic, contemplative and — most of all — playfully improvised”. In kirtan, the goal is to chant to G-d and to develop an ecstatic state of awareness that brings insight and peace, so that we merge with the Beloved through devotion, hence the moniker “the yoga of devotion”. Borrowing certain ideas and instruments from Hindu tradition and basing them solidly in a Jewish framework, the Kirtan Rabbi, Rabbi Andrew Hahn, Ph.D. uses Hebrew texts as a basis with the lyrics “drawn from the Hebrew Bible and the siddur (the traditional Jewish prayerbook), as well as from the language of Kabbalah (Jewish mysticism)”. At first I was skeptical, but it works, and it works very well.

On the newest album, Achat Sha’alti (One Thing I Seek), Rabbi Hahn has delivered a very well produced album full of affecting chants. The call and response format works very well and allows the listener to connect with the rhythm of the music and the patterns of the chanting. I found myself chanting along in the car and while working, giving me a nice respite in the middle of the day. Using the chants drawn from the bible and the siddur brought a unique insight to them, and in some cases it was as if I had heard them for the first time. On the previous Kirtan Rabbi album, Live! the music and chanting was just as engaging, though not as fresh. The production values on Achat Sha’alti are a refreshing step forward. The lush instrumentals add to the atmospheric chanting from the melodious opening Kaddish to a trance Lecha Dodi medley. The droning harmonium makes an incredible background to the traditional niggunim used as melodies and inspiration for the different tracks. As a tool for personal worship or meditation, I can highly recommend this album, especially to those familiar with other kirtan artists like Krishna Das or Jai Uttal and who want to be able to use kirtan and the bhakti yoga system as a devotional tool in service to Hashem. Or if you just like cool music!

Achat Sha’alti (One Thing I Seek) and Kirtan Rabbi Live! are available at iTunes and on the Kirtan Rabbi website.

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(Originally posted here.)

This entry is a fictionalization based on someone I know.

I left Judaism because I was a raging liberal and now I’m back because I realized what kind of BS liberalism really is. Let me explain. A few years ago I was struggling with being Jewish and being an all inclusive liberal. I wanted to do good and I wanted the world to be a better place and most of all I wanted peace. That’s when I started looking at myself as a Jew. I decided that in order to make the world a better place, I should give up religion, kind of like the song Imagine.

How could I be Jewish and expect equality if the concept of Judaism was against that very basic thought? How could I call myself one of the chosen people if all people were created in God’s image? I left Judaism in the name of liberalism. This is without even talking about the difference of roles for the sexes and the status of Levites and Kohanim. What was so equal about the Levites? Didn’t they do the same thing as us Yisroels? It seemed that Judaism wasn’t about equality and was about labeling everyone based on their mothers or fathers. How could I be a true liberal if I believed you were different depending on who your mother or father was?

Then I realized that Judaism wasn’t about equality and didn’t espouse the true liberal ideals that I sought. I even looked at my fellow liberal Jews in disgust — the ones who were trying to change the basic tenets of the religion in order to make it suit their liberal ideals. They weren’t even practicing real Judaism anymore in the name of liberalism, but they tried to hold on to certain things and in the end it seemed like a new religion to me. If I was going to practice Judaism I would do the real thing or nothing — no bioengineering or hybridization for me.

The Torah is not compatible with liberal ideals. Certain concepts thrown in are but in the end I wanted to be a real Jew. I can focus some of my energies on tikkun olam and social justice but in the end I had to face that I could never really be a Torah Jew and a liberal.

Have I mentioned? This entry is a fictionalization based on someone I know.

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Parshah Chukat

Numbers 19:1-22:1

www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xY6y27lHY8

Why do the same things keep happening to us over and over again? Why do we fall into the same relationships, same types of jobs, etc. etc. Sometimes life feels like a gigantic rerun that you can’t escape: a constant Bill Murray-style Groundhog Day.

Just like all the other Torah portions in Bamidbar, the same predictable plot happens:

1) The Hebrews wander the desert

2) The Hebrews get angry that they are wandering in the desert

3) G-d gets pissed off and performs a miracle

This time, we have snakes on fire, which to me sounds like a stoner metal band. At any rate, these venomous snakes bite the ankles of the Hebrews, and naturally they freak out.

So G-d says, “build a bronze altar with a snake on a pole. Stare at it, and you’ll be healed.”

Yay. Miracle. But pretty anti-climactic.

I guess you could say, “well, it all worked out for the Hebrews. They built a shrine to the snake and G-d healed them. Some lesson, huh?” But you have to remember that idolatry is a sin. G-d’s not letting them off the hook, G-d’s forcing them to do something that’s completely against their culture. It’s like a dog that pees on the carpet, and you turn around and rub their nose in it.

There’s a reason why life for the Hebrews stays the same: they keep doing the same things! It seems like a no-brainer, but perhaps if they adjusted their attitude a little bit, they wouldn’t be wandering around in the desert!

This is the way life works: you’re fat because you keep eating, you’re single because you keep going out with losers, and you’re an alcoholic because you keep drinking. It’s like my dad says, “if you keep doing what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always gotten.”

Maybe it’s all the motivational posters at my gym, but I see this week’s Torah portion as an inspiration to quit whining and do something! Maybe then the snakes that are biting your ankles (bill collectors, a crappy boss, whatever) will leave you alone.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=DQASSVAN-j0

We know they suck, but what can you do?

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(Originally posted here)

By Jeremy Wood

Al-Ramla was built in the beginning of the 8th century on dunes and sometimes I like to think you can feel that here, that there is nothing under this place but sand, that there are no hungry zombie hands of history. Yehuda Amichai said that the air above Jerusalem is thick with prayers like the smog over a factory town. I don’t feel that here. There is a lightness. Al-Ramla translates, loosely as “Queen of the Desert”.

This is not a place without history. In ’48, 10s of thousands of its inhabitants were exiled, by Israeli intimidation, by the hope of refuge and revenge in the Jordanian camp. Leaflets were dropped, promising death if they did not leave. There is a deadness in the south of the city. In a couple weeks will be the anniversary of that exodus. I hope to sit in the Muslim cemetery that sits under the old Mamluk minaret in the centre of town and say Kaddish or Fatiha or something to commemorate. They say there are sahabas buried in that cemetery. They call the Minaret, the Tower of the 40 Martyrs. 40 is lowballing it.

Many stayed though. I saw a woman in Niqqab today. I don’t know if she gets hassled or not. I assume it’s not easy and I respect her. This is not an easy country to live in for everyone but it feels often like a harder country to leave.

This is a country where past and present are, like Jews, always screaming over eachother. Right now the tension is fresh. Soon, maybe in a week, maybe less, Iran intends to send two aid ships past the Gaza blockade with partial military escort. It seems nothing but a ploy for primacy in the region that, once again, uses the people of Palestine as an empty reference like others in the neighborhood use “history” or “G-d”. Politics mask Religion mask history mask everything and I am reminded of what Declan de Barra, an Irish rebel singer once told me that sometimes the only way to sing about any of those is by singing about love. Irish poets saw their country as a beautiful and tormented woman. So did the Prophets. There are some things that can only be spoken of, as they are, to a point. Sometimes we are not prepared to see things as darkly as they can be. There is poetry after Auschwitz because there has to be.

I hope Ahmadinejad reconsiders. I am hopeful. Egypt has opened Rafah indefinitely, even though a year ago Al-Azhar declared any suggestion at doing so “unIslamic”. There is talk in the government here of lightening the Israeli blockade. It feels like the Rachel Corrie finally called Bibi’s bluff. Barukh Hashem.

All that heavy end of the world stuff aside, we’ve been planning ways out of this town. In the next few months are Jazz Festivals in Eilat, Klezmer Hasidic Acid Rock in Tzfat and Theatre in Akko. Next week is the World Zionist Congress and I’m excited. We’re invited to some sort of Gala. I hope Mimi will get me an invite from Meimad to sit in on some of the real stuff. Being in this place, reading Haaretz every day again, makes me more comfortable in calling myself a Zionist, knowing more precisely what I mean by it and not having to listen to people tell me I’m wrong.

I still haven’t been to Shul here. I bought an Artscroll in Mea Sharim and I’ve davvened Shabes Maariv with Lindsay and a few Shacharits on my own. I’m nervous. Some of the shuls here don’t even have Mechitza. They simply don’t allow women. I am worried I’ll feel nothing in a place my sisters are kept out of. But do I respond by excluding my less feminist brothers? I don’t know. Is inclusivity anything more than neutrality here? I didn’t feel much at the kotel this time around. I just pictured women being handcuffed in Tallis. My religion is not an old boy’s club. Apparently the hookah bar here is. What does that say?

Our coordinator in this place is Nir. I like him alot. His grandfather was Etzel so I’ve steered clear of politics. I do respect Etzel’s willingness to take action against the British. I like to think I would have picked up a gun for that. I can’t forgive the rest. But past is past and Jews are Jews and sometimes that’s enough for me.

Nir set me making Shnitzel tonight and I fell into the kitchen dance though I did spill oil all over my foot.

And with that,

Shalom, salaam, peace

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OK…what’s NOT Jewish about this? Four ways that True Blood is using images from the Torah to sell you vampire sex.

(1) They’re in the Garden of Eden. But obviously, if you look around, there’s some crazy stuff going down. The idea that human beings (I use the term ‘human’ loosely for some of the characters) can be in a state of perfection, and somehow screw it up, is about as Biblical as it gets. Humanity’s failure to be in co-existence with malevolent peace is a constant theme in the Hebrew Bible, whether you’re talking Adam and Eve, or even the Exodus, where G-d throws down miracle after miracle, but the Hebrews still won’t stop complaining.

(2) There’s a freakin’ snake. Enough said.

(3) The snake’s head is near Anna Paquin, who represents purity (hence the white dress). She’s in danger from all this, and is being sacrificed, hence the altar-like broken tree. But the snake’s tail is between the legs of Jessica Hamby/Deborah Ann Woll. This falls in line with “blame the victim”, that although the serpent is the tempter, the woman is the one that ate of the tree and is really the one to be at fault. The snake coming from her body shows that she, not the serpent, is at fault. Also, Anna Camp (Sara Newlin) is wearing red, like Woll. The two faces of the feminine are shown here. The woman who commits the sin (Eve) is shown in the submissive form (aka ‘spread eagle’), reflecting the idea that her curse is the pain of child birth. The woman with power, however, stands upright (Sara Newlin) and is the feminine power of Lilith, the woman who does not have pain because she did not submit in the first place.

(4) Two white characters, and two black characters. Notice the two guys standing together. Their legs are in the exact same position, one knee sticking out. But the legs are opposite: like the contrast of the color of their skin. The couple in the background are looking in the same direction, but their legs and arms are going in opposite ways. This is duality: another common theme in the Bible. Good versus evil, right versus wrong, G-d and Mankind, tree of knowledge and tree of life, the natural world and the supernatural world. Through their skin tones, the artist is making a nod to this overwhelmingly large issue.

Or maybe I’m over thinking this…

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=nTiPmKdIOGU

Here are the arguments…Tell Us Why or Why Not!

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I would like to introduce you to a new project by PunkTorah: 3xDaily.org

3xDaily is a resource for Jews who want to begin building a practice that includes daily prayers. It there to show those who may be curious one version of how things can work, to ask questions, and to figure out if and how this could fit into theirs lives. The goal is to get people involved in their own spiritual lives, to take them back from those to whom they’ve handed them over, to wrestle with the big questions, to keep asking those questions, and to stand on their own feet.

Why? Because three daily prayers are something that I think the non Orthodox world are missing out on. When I first began reconnecting to my Jewish-ness, first with a number of Reform/Conservative/”Progressive” (and I use the term as loosely as possible), praying three times a day was almost never brought up. It was like “Oh, yeah, Jews used to pray three times a day and some still do…next question.” I look at Islam, where they also pray a number of times a day. If you ask people how may know a little about Islam, they immediately mention that they prayer five times a day. It is an important part of the religion that every Muslim, practicing or not, knows about. Praying three times a day is just as important to Judaism, it is something that we are supposed to do that has been neglected. What this can accomplish is to provide what Rabbi Zalman Schachter-Shalomi called a “Shabbat In Time”, a moment to stop, connect with the Creator, and refresh. To pause during the day and give thanks for what we have and to be inspired to work on our shortcomings.
Two of the things that I see holding back non-Orthodox Jews from praying three times a day are time and learning. A regular Shacharis  (morning) service can take an hour or two. We can take this idea of a morning service and bring it to where we are now. What are the necessities? What is it that we really should say? How long could that take? One version that we created takes about fifteen minutes in the morning. Great! If you have two hours to daven through the morning service, also great! Don’t like the version we created? Create your own! Make it meaningful. Otherwise you won’t do it. As for learning, the best way to learn is to do!

Prayer is important because it gives us an opportunity to connect with something bigger than us, and this thing that is bigger than us can mean many things. A Jew who believes in G-d can use the prayers to connect to the Creator. A Jew who may not believe in a literal “god-type” G-d can connect with something larger than themselves in connecting with Jews around the world, participating in tradition, in something that goes back to the time of the temple. Even connecting with those immediately around you in a group or minyan can be important, to form community. Prayer is also important because Jews are not “weekend religious” people. We are Jews all the time. The daily prayers exist to express this at all times. Secluding our “Jewish-ness” to Friday nights or Saturday mornings can limit our identity, or at least for me, not necessarily for everyone.
I think that “taking back” some of these things that are considered “orthodox” are important. These are things that are open to all Jews, and they should be able to participate in something important to our tradition. I would also argue that any Jew who considers themselves Jewish is observant, at least enough so to “observe” that they are Jewish. So in this way we can all participate. And the benefits are described above, we connect with something larger than us, the Creator, nature, community, tradition, and rest for a short period of time, a refuge form the world, if only for a few minutes.

Head over to 3xdaily.org! Take a look around! Try some things out! And let us know what you think!

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=SreUTNmsMs4

Parshah Korach

If you like stories about political rebellion and massive death, then Parshah Korach is right up your alley.

In this week’s parshah, Korach decides that Moses needs to be overthrown. In his mind, Moses has too much authority and sits on his high horse, talking to G-d, and looking down on everyone else.

So he challenges Moses’ authority. He gathers a bunch of guys, and they confront Moses. So Moses calls him out on it! Moses and Korach go to the Tent of Meeting with fire pans of incense and sure enough, G-d sides with Moses. Korach and his dudes get swallowed up by the earth and the rest die in a massive plague.

Basically, you don’t mess with G-d.

A lot of people read this Torah portion as a way of promoting fundamentalism. “See, if you rebel against G-d, you’ll be punished! So burn your Urban Outfitters shirts and step away from the indie rock, because you need to sit all day reading Gemara or G-d will punish you all the days of your life.”

That’s a lie. And they know it.

This story is actually about DISTRUSTING authority.

In the first part of the story, we learn that Korach comes from a powerful family. The Midrash (Jewish legends) about Korach teaches that he was wealthy, too. And if you look at the people he recruited to overthrow Moses, they weren’t anti-establishment. They were princes, men from the assembly, nobility. They were yuppie power brokers!

Korach used these two hundred and fifty men to challenge Moses, not because they wanted equality, but they wanted power for themselves. Worse than that, they managed to trick people into following them under the lie that “everyone in the congregation is holy” (Numbers 16:3).

There are people in this world: politicians, celebrities, people in power, who claim that they are looking out for the common man. But sometimes, these people aren’t really looking out for you. They are just using you.

Why did G-d side with Moses and Aaron and not Korach? Because Moses and Aaron were the real deal. Yes, they were the guys in charge. But their hearts were in the right place. They weren’t out for “number one” like Korach.

So if you’re going to challenge the system, go for it! G-d likes rebellious people. Just make sure that you aren’t being tricked by some yuppie jerk who talks a good game.

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Folky post-Biblical riot grrl pop and Sephardic seasoned multi-genre indie rock: that’s what you get when Girls In Trouble and DeLeon, two of the great bands on JDub Records, take over your town for the night.

Less talk, more rock. Watch this!

www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYUkJ8CqSfU

www.youtube.com/watch?v=X1RcaOqcjwc

www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xu-WR03hHJ0

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“Wow, PunkTorah is really cool. I like what you’re doing. So, who’s your rabbi?”

This is a question we get all the time. Patrick and I usually look at each other to see which one of us is going to tackle it this time. What do we say?

This:

Welcome to the 21st Century. We live in the information age. Many, many years ago, when it wasn’t as it easy to find all the information you need in a microsecond on the internet, you would naturally turn to you local rabbi for answers. He was the repository for knowledge and practice. For all intents and purposes, he was the Jewish Wikipedia of the diaspora. He had the answers you needed. Nowadays, you just Google it.

This is not to say we don’t need rabbis now. Of course we do. They lead congregations and counsel, guiding the Jewish people through rights of passage and life events. They are here to comfort and even scold us when we need it. When we are asked questions, we talk to a number of different rabbis and consult tons of books in our IndieYeshiva library. However, there is a limit to all human beings. PunkTorah is all about smashing idols. Sometimes we make idols of our rabbis. Now don’t freak out, let’s look rationally at this. When we allow someone who “knows better” to spoon feed us, to tell us what we can and can’t do, we give away the power that G-d gave us to reason. We give up our responsibility.We stop making decisions because they are right, and make them because someone told us they are right.

Judaism isn’t a child’s faith. It’s not a child’s spirituality or relationship. We are a grown up faith and need a grown up relationship. We need to be able to understand that we can only have our hands held for so long. Eventually we need to walk on our own two legs.

PunkTorah doesn’t have a “rabbi”. We have many “rabbis”, many teachers. And that’s what a rabbi should be, a guide, not a parent. We don’t have one specific one because we don’t think there is one right way to be Jewish. There is one Torah, and there are millions of Jews, and each Jew can only start where they are. We are about giving out the information, putting the Torah on the table and calling all of us up to look deeply together.

I guess all I am saying is, don’t give away your power, your responsibility. Take control of your relationship with the transcendent. And yes, when you have questions, when you have problems, turn to your rabbi. Just remember the second commandment of Judaism, “You shall have no other gods before me” and the first commandment of punk, “Question authority”.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8WMoOh5QpY

Today I address a question we get all the time: Why the “Punk” in PunkTorah?

There is a very good reason!

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(Originally Posted at FrumSatire.net)

The goyim succumb to taiva and are dangerous. They will befriend you and then turn on you. Non-Jews are evil and are only there to convert you. They will suck you in and then slowly convince you that Jesus is Lord. First you will be chatty in school, and then all of a sudden you are under the chupah and your bride isn’t Jewish.

This and more is what I heard during my yeshiva years. We were told how holy we Jews were and how evil and unworthy the goyim were. We were told that they hated us. Wait, I am still told that by plenty of people. Everyone hates the Jews, according to my old man — especially the liberal Jews. Either way, being friends with non-Jews never really entered my solar system.

Think about it. As an FFB, I went to yeshiva my entire life and the first time I ever had a non-business experience with a non-Jews was when my auto mechanic asked me to mow his lawn for him. Most of the folks I know who grew up orthodox have little to do with non-Jews in a non-professional manner. I didn’t go to school with them until I hit 18 and even when I tried to hang out with them, I could never fully relate. I don’t think it’s wrong to be friends with non-Jews like my Rabbis had tried to convince me, I just didn’t have any interest.

I received an email the other day from the same girl who wrote that Dear Heshy post from a week ago. She was pissed that other frummies were giving her looks for hanging out with non-Jews. I don’t understand why. She lives in NY, hasn’t she ever gotten the Boro Park Stare?

This got me thinking about the fact that throughout my entire life I have had maybe 3 good non-Jewish friends. In fact, only in the past 3 years have I even had non-frum Jewish friends (not including my friends who have chosen a non-frum lifestyle) Most of the folks I know who grew up orthodox don’t have any good non-Jewish friends. Sure we have those guys from work or school, but how often does it go beyond that?

I can fully understand why some folks might feel it wrong to be friends with non-Jews. Some of the core parts of Judaism are designed to keep us with our own kind. Keeping kosher is one of the basic tenets of Judaism and it is responsible for derailing all of my chances at being chummy with coworkers or classmates. Shabbos is another biggie. Not being able to go out on Friday night has made me look like an anti-social religious nut job to plenty of people, but I have never gone “out” on a Friday night, unless you count those evenings spent at Barnes and Nobles looking at bike magazines when I was a teenager.

I don’t look at non-Jews as evil. I guess I just stick with my own (although my own include people who converted to Judaism – reform, conservative and orthodox) out of comfort and Judaism being central to my existence. I look at it like any common group sticking together.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=KMUMa3mFmJw

In this weeks portion, three things happen…

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In loving memory of Ha Rav Aryeh Lev Tann

My name is Roger Tann but have been known as Viking for the last 17 years of my life. I am a 33 year old Jewish Rocker who has been working the freakshow and magic circuit under the name Dr Gore doing horror magic and freakshow acts that have been so gruesome that they were banned by British TV. So the 2 questions I’m always asked are:-
Where did such a nice Jewish boy go wrong?
Why did you rebel against your faith?
I always answer them with the same answer, I didn’t really, I just saw faith and personality as 2 different things. Just because I happen to be a punk rocker doesn’t mean i don’t have faith.
My father was an Orthodox Rabbi, I grew up with learning and Shabbat and Yommim Tovim like all good Orthodox boys. From the moment i could hear i grew up on bible stories instead of fairy stories. My favourites were always the ones full of blood and gore, the fighting for one believes in. My father brought those stories to life for me and I suppose my love of the macabre came from there.
We moved around a lot and i spent my teenage years in Birmingham. There weren’t many people my age or a Jewish school over the age of 10 so I went to a non Jewish school where I first discovered anti-Semitism and lived it for the next 8 years. During this time I started hanging out with punks and rockers who didn’t care if I was Jewish, pink or green with spots, I was a decent person.
So after leaving there and having a run off bad luck at uni I decided to go to Israel. Spent time there at yeshiva, worked as a youth worker on the Lebanese border, spent time working doors at clubs even lived on the streets for a time, but I found my home. I spent half my time in the old city and the other half in Tel Aviv. This to me just screamed to me the 2 halves of me that make me as a person, spirituality and night clubs. I never found them to be exclusive of each other and to this day I never will.
I moved to London in 2000 and worked as a doorman and bodyguard for a further 4 years before disaster struck, I was hit by a car and was unable to continue my career. I thought long and hard about what I knew and the only thing I had left to use was my magic. A hobby of 14 years by that point became my passion and my new career. By this time my love of gore had taken new meaning and created something new, horror magic. After reaching the semi finals of Britain’s Got Talent (and having my semifinal act banned for doing a live human autopsy on national TV) worked around the world ripping peoples organs out and cutting people up with power tools (really satisfying if the get the chance to try it, just don’t hurt your friend trying, he will never forgive you).
A year ago bad health struck again and I’m now ill with a neurological disorder and live using a wheelchair. I pray that its only temporary.
During my 10 years in London I discovered something new, a serious divide in the community that made in most part appearance more important than anything else. I found myself pushed out and shunned, hell I even had people crossing the road to not be seen anywhere near me. Recently I have been going to Chasidic areas and apart from a few gasps of amazement at the fact I put on tefillin I am accepted for just being an Orthodox Jew.
In short I can sum up in 1 statement that was said to me many times by my father Ha Rav Aryeh lev Tann, The Torah and Judaism are so big that the can encompass almost all walks of life.

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I met Russell Gottschalk at the Limmud Southeast Festival last year. One of the few indie dudes at the family fun fest, I was instantly impressed by his love of the Jewish people, his taste in music, and the fact that I had a wing-man to help me with the ladies that weekend.

Russell told me he wanted to start an Atlanta Jewish Music Festival and I was totally into it. I have been watching the progress of the festival (of which I have not been nearly involved as I wish I would have been) and was really excited that Russell wanted to talk with me about the festival. What I learned is that the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival is not just a music festival, it’s a mission.

“I think it’s important to celebrate Judaism culturally. I’ve worked for the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival for the past four years [and] unfortunately it hasn’t done the best job of engaging the younger demographic.”

It made me wonder: why hasn’t Atlanta had a Jewish music festival, when cities like Houston, which aren’t exactly Jewish hot spots, are having them? The answer to Russell is not about Jews, but about Southern history:

“The South has a history of delayed social change…it takes chutzpah (courage) to get something started. It’s difficult to start something new, particularly in the South [and] people are going to wonder what this is about.”

This education of the masses is something Russell is engaged in all the time, not just about the festival itself, but the idea of Jewish music all together.

“The biggest issue we’ve had is ‘what does a contemporary Jewish music festival look like’? It’s not what your accustomed to hearing. There are Jewish musicians who are creating music….. that people should know about.”

Russell and the Atlanta Jewish Music Festival have approached this question of “what is Jewish music” by taking a very open policy. “We define Jewish music as artistic expressions that come out of someone’s Jewish identity. [Your music is Jewish] if you’re artistic expression is an extension of your Jewish identity.”

Russell represents the cultural Jew…the Jew-ish person. And in that way, he also represents an entire generation of Jewish youth. “Our identities are very complex…other generations didn’t have that option. That Jewish piece of the pie has gotten a lot smaller. Our peers don’t need to promote [their jewishness].”

This makes the need for things like the Jewish music festival so important. “This is going to be a cool Jewish event and we don’t have enough cool Jewish events in our community. Our demographic … wants to have cool Jewish programming”.

The music festival is going to highlight some awesome artists including Moshav, Deleon, Girls In Trouble and Atlanta’s own Atlanta Afro Klezmer Orchestra. The Jewish south shall rise again, June 5th at the Apache Cafe.

www.atlantajewishmusicfestival.org

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by Michael Sabani

Should you ignore something just because you don’t believe it? Can you still learn from it?

It was during a recent discussion with some friends about the Torah that I realized something that opened the Torah up for me almost completely.
We were discussing the different interpretations that one can have about things that happen in the Torah. I don’t want to get into specifics, but there was a questions as to what happened in a particular part of the story. Most everyone believed that one “counterculture” interpretation was true. In fact, they felt so strongly that it seemed they were almost offended to hear that a traditional or Midrashic interpretation could even be entertained. I was honestly kind of shocked. Not that they would entertain a view that doesn’t necessarily portray the patriarchs or matriarchs as saints because, let’s be honest, they weren’t! The issue I had was that they almost wouldn’t even listen, and when I did share, I felt like I was viewed almost as an anachronistic, ignorant, orthodox party pooper! And I most certainly am not!

What I learned is this:

We are a tradition full of ideas. You know that old saying, “three Jews, five opinions”. The thing is, when we hold on to one interpretation over another, when we almost outright refuse to listen to something from our own tradition that differs with what we want to believe, we are only cheating ourselves. In order to be informed, in order to be fully aware of what the Torah is trying to tell us, there has to be a balance. Just because you don’t like an idea, DOES NOT mean that you should run from it! Instead, embrace it! Look it right in the face and figure out exactly what you don’t like/believe about it. If, after you’ve listened you still don’t agree, GREAT! At least you learned something. And as people of the book we are called to always learn.

There is a saying from the sages that the Torah has 600,000 letters, and each represents one Jewish neshama, one Jewish soul. This means that there are as many ways to read the Torah as there are Jews who read it!

The sages also say that every letter of the Torah, down to the smallest yod ( ‘ ) is there to teach us a lesson. It would seem to me that in order to get the most out of the Torah, especially today, we should pay attention to even the smallest letters, especially when we disagree with it. Only through that friction can we release the Light, and only through that struggle can we brighten the world.

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=MDscMtHPSR4

By Michael Sabani

In May of 2010, the known hate group Westboro Baptist Church came to Atlanta to spread their hate-filled rhetoric. We followed them. Everywhere they went, we were there. For every sign they held up saying “G-d hates you”, there were two saying “G-d loves you”.
We were able to stand up and let them know that we aren’t afraid of them. They held signs saying “Jews Are Evil”, “G-d Hates Jews”, and even had one of their seven year old children holding a large sign proclaiming “Rabbis Rape Kids”.

We are called in the Torah to fight evil, not to ignore it. We have a responsibility as Jews to repair the world. Sometimes that means coming out of our comfort zone, standing in front of the world, and proclaming that yes, I am proud to be a Jew, and there is nothing wrong with that. Yes, G-d does love us all. Yes, peace is stronger than hate.

And I say:

Shalom

Salaam

Peace

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“If you have a good gut on something, go for it. You’re probably right.”

Sarah Lefton is the creator of G-dcast, a site that teaches me more about Judaism than any other resource I have ever found.

The “guts” of the site is the weekly Torah portion, taught through animated cartoons. “Jewlebrities” as far reaching as Hesta Prynn (from Northern State), actor and yogi Marcus Freed, controversial Rabbi Steven Greenberg and…ahem…myself, contribute d’vrei Torah that are insightful, musical, and frankly, hilarious.

Sarah and I have three big things in common. First, our mutual friendship with Matthue Roth, second our love of Judaism, and third…well…our love of cussing.

“I basically grew up with crap for Jewish education…there was one synagogue when i was growing up…this whole project, honest to G-d…is an honest attempt to educate myself.”

Honest to G-d is right. And honest to the Jewish people as well. G-dcast staff do not have a hidden agenda to promote any special version of Judaism. They are reform, orthodox, secular, and everywhere in between.

Why G-dcast? “A spoon full of sugar that helps the medicine go down,” replied Lefton. I started hearing Mary Poppins in my head when she said, “this is a fresh idea for people…that Jewish learning can be fun.”

Lefton, like most cool Jews, came from outside the system. Growing up in the south, her town had one synagogue and no Jewish educational resources available.

So when Lefton started college, she jumped right into Judaism, head first. “I did crazy things that no 21 year old would do, like joining a synagogue.”

This immersion into the Jewish world, coupled with her background in digital media and advertising came full circle when Lefton asked herself one basic question, “how come Jewish education sucks so badly?”

“I more than anyone can use a Jewish literacy. For me, this is what it has always been about,” said Lefton.

This runs contrary to the popular opinion of most Jews in the non-profit sector, who focus on community and identity. Lefton fights back with this bold statement:

“The Jewish community has done a damn good job in talking about identity and about people-hood, community, continuity, pride. But we’ve done a lousy job with literacy. Ask any American teenager is who Captain Ahab is and they’ll have a great answer…they may not like it, but they know who these people are. Smart Jewish kids…don’t know who Joshua, Miriam and Ruth are. Literacy, not pride, holds people together.”

Preach it, sister! www.g-dcast.com

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG6Emm5jt4w

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Come taste what’s been improving for over five thousand years…

PunkTorah invites you to Nibble and NoshFest at Temple Kol Emeth in Marietta, GA, Sunday, May 30th and Monday May 31st.

Local restaurants will be serving amazing tapas style snacks ranging from $1.00 – $3.00 including your favorite Middle Eastern and Jewish deli treats. And we’re thrilled to hear that HeBrew Beer will have some liquid courage on-tap.

There’s also going to be a ton of great vendors selling Jewish themed gifts and art, some awesome music including local celebs Shabbat Rocks and an open-mic for anyone who wants to show off their talent.

The great thing about this event (other than the awesome PunkTorah booth) is the spirit. This isn’t just a “Jewish” event…it’s a community event. As our friend Lesley Litt (the fundraising VP for Temple Kol Emeth told us), “This event will put Judaism out there [into the community]. We sent out letters to all the churches in Cobb county with a letter from our rabbi saying ‘Hello, we want you to be our guest…and to experience our culture.’”

For more info check out www.noshfest.com

Located in the Temple Kol Emeth parking lot at the corner of Old Canton and Sewell Mill Rd. Marietta, GA 30062

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