Wednesday, August 01, 2012

Contrasting Cultures




by Rabbi Dov Fischer

Mitt Romney's comments in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, complimenting Jewish culture have brought condemnation. A global ceremony tonight should give his critics pause

Tonight will be a most incredible night for Orthodox Jews and, more, for a massive expression of the culture of all the Jewish people.

The single largest gathering in American history in honor of Torah study will take place at the New Jersey Meadowlands ("MetLife Stadium"), home of the New York Giants football team and the New York Jets. It will be beamed by satellite to local gatherings the world over.

(New Jersey is a suburb of New York City although, for some reason, it has a governor, two U.S. senators, and some electoral votes.)

After our studying a page a day of Talmud for the past seven and a half years, the study of the entire Talmud now is wrapping up with the final folios of Tractate Nidah, the last Tractate of the Babylonian Talmud. To mark the moment, more than 93,000 seats have been sold out at MetLife Stadium for tonight.

Over the past 24 hours, there has been some discussion about Mitt Romney's comments in Jerusalem, the eternal capital of Israel, complimenting Jewish culture. Democrats have found reasons to attack what he said, and Republicans have found reasons to love what he said. That is all politics. If it had been Obama who had said that (which it decidedly was not), then it would be the Republicans attacking it, and the Democrats applauding it. That is the cynicism of politics. But the reality is that there is no other people on earth, no other culture in all of human history, that ever has made the Study of Law, the Study of a Book or Books of Law and History and Religion and Culture and Geography and Ethnography so uniquely central to its existence, its very raison d'etre.

The reality is — and Saeb Erekat and all his "Palestinians" know it — that no Arab society is going to fill a stadium to celebrate the national enterprise of having learned a book or an encyclopedic compendium. Nor will — or has — any European society. Or African or Asian society. Nor any other society or peoples in the Western hemisphere, other than the Jews.

I guess our study of Talmud is somewhat a journey into "intellectual history" or "legal history" or "comparative law" or "legislative history." On the one hand, we always have wondered ever-since we or any family members or friends became religious (either by birth or by becoming ba'al teshuvah later in life) "why" Jews do all these strange things. On the simplest level, we do them because our parents or rabbis taught us that these are the things we must do to serve G-d, and we believed them as children or came to believe them as we grew older. For lack of our own study or personally acquired knowledge, we eagerly accepted that they know, that they are right, and we all have come to see enough other people doing these things that we assume it is not a Nigerian-email scam or an April Fool's goof. But we never learn the deeper "how it all came about" and "why we do it."

Talmud study gives us a window into the "how" and the "why." Why does the day start at night? Why do we recite the prayers in Maariv that the Siddur tells us to recite? Why do some recite those extra two pages before the night the central Amidah prayer, while others skip them? Why, for that matter, is there a Maariv service? And, while we are at it, why does the night start when there are stars? Why three? Why not some other demarcation? And why are we told that, if we do daven Maariv, sometimes it is acceptable to pray "too early," but we therefore need to repeat Sh'ma at home? That is Talmud Study.

Meantime, Talmud Study is about history: I heard of Kohanim, descendants of the priestly class, and I know they get the first Aliyah to the Torah, and they bless us on the holidays. But I did not know they ate this unique donated food, which no one else was allowed to eat, and which the impure among them could not eat until they went to the city's outskirts and spent the day there after immersing in a mikvah ritualarium. Who could imagine such a thing? What a spectacle it must have been every day to watch several hundred or thousand Kohanim crossing back into the city at nightfall! No one ever told me that such a thing used to go on. Gee, in a time without clocks and wrist watches, they could almost have known it was nighttime just by their massive entry into the City's gates as the stars came out. That, too, is Talmud Study. In fact, that is among the subjects in the first day of the new cycle.

So there is some of this and some of that. It is the blend of history of people, history of ideas, sociology, conversations and anecdotes, narratives about great historical figures and their failings and successes. Along the way, we gain a window of understanding into why we do so many of the things that encompass our lives and how those practices came about.

As for those who study the Talmud each and every day, a folio a day for seven and a half years, be assured that perhaps the two greatest records of consecutive achievement ever recorded — Lou Gehrig not missing a single baseball game from 1925 to 1939, playing 2130 consecutive games over fifteen years until he was stopped by the horrible ALS disease, and Cal Ripken's record-breaking 17-year streak of playing in 2,632 games between May 1982 and September 1998 — pale in comparison to learning a Folio (Daf) a day (Yomi), with no off-season, no break in the action, no travel dates, for seven and a half years. It is a remarkable thing, and any culture that can make that undertaking a source of unique greatness to be attained by its medical doctors, attorneys, scientists, pharmacists, philosophers, accountants, university professors, entrepreneurs, mailroom clerks, information technology professionals, investment brokers, and delivery boys is a culture whose admiration rightfully is a source of great pride for those who live it.

Transcending all politics, it is a uniquely treasured culture of which we have every reason to take enormous pride as MetLife fills up tonight.

JWR contributor Rabbi Dov Fischer, a legal affairs consultant and adjunct professor of the law of civil procedure and advanced torts, is rabbi of Young Israel of Orange County, California. He was formerly Chief Articles Editor of UCLA Law Review and writes extensively on political, cultural, and religious issues.

http://www.jewishworldreview.com/0812/fischer_daf_yomi.php3

The Power Of One!

THE"GEDOLIM" DECLARE WAR ON THE INTERNET!

CLICK ON LINK:
http://www.jewishmediaresources.com/1354/the-gedolim-declare-war-on-the-internet

I JUST RECEIVED THIS SOLICITATION TO MY E-MAIL VIA THE INTERNET THESE GEDOLIM DECLARED WAR ON:



https://www.ateretshlomo.org

UOJ STATE OF THE JEWISH UNION 2006:
...."Rabosai; we are in a generational war. We will win, no doubt. But it will take energy, participation, and fortitude. The Taliban-like rabbis and their supporters must be defeated. There is no room in our civilized society for "halacha" sanctioned evil. The Internet is as evil as a gun. You can use the Internet to protect yourself and your family with it, by learning, studying, researching, increasing your income, providing parnassah, and you can kill yourself with it, spiritually. Did you ever see a gun on trial?

There is a person behind the gun/computer that must be educated and taught responsibile behavior with this great "weapon". You can fend off robbers in the middle of the night with a gun, or you can kill family members, Rachmana l'tzlan. Money can be used for good and evil, do you think these cavemen would consider meeting over a fire on the issue of banning money?".....


This Internet issue is merely symbolic of the fear that they have. Too much information will ruin their business. Their ignorance and their inability to reconcile Torah and science makes them scared silly. You have the ability to access information that frightens them; they DO NOT want you to know anything other than what they tell you. This is not about porn sites, this is about their inability to control your thought process. Their death knell!

If you are convinced that rabbis and rebbes are no more closer to God than you are, they're out of business. If their brachas are worthless, why stand in line until the wee hours of the morning begging them to take your money? The more they take, the better they make you feel. JUST LIKE DRUGS! Do they care about you? Or are you only as good as your last check, or cash under the table to the gabbai-doorkeeper-zookeeper? What a freak show! What circus did they perform at before moving to Boro Park?

To paraphrase the verbiage of the great thinker, scientist/philosopher Carl Sagan; "their posturing, their imagined self-importance, their belief that they are somehow in a position of privilege in the universe, is unfathomable."

And these eternal words of wisdom of Sagan on the psychology of humans;(paraphrase) " the thought that you may have dedicated your life to a lie, that you may have accepted a conventional wisdom that no longer, if ever, corresponds to an external reality, is a very painful realization. A person will go to any lengths to prevent themselves from seeing that inadequate worldview that they dedicated their lives to."

My views and opinions may be the minority view for now in Orthodox Judaism, but since when does the majority view make it the correct view? Did not the majority of Jews in the time of Rabbi Akiva accept Bar-Kochba as the Messiah? Did not the vast majority of Jews in the time of Shabbtai Tzvi accept him as the Saviour of the Jews? Are not the followers of Jesus and Mohammed the majority?..........




What if it all depended on me.
To change the world.
To change the world?
What if my only responsibility was to change the world.
To change the world? Let me be the ONE.
To start a revolution.
Let me sing my song to the people of the
world. It all begins with.

ONE -- THE POWER OF ONE.

JOINING THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE BELIEVING IN ONE.

THE POWER OF ONE. DON’T HANG AROUND.

 STAND UP OR SIT DOWN.

AND BELIEVE WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER
WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER

What kind of love can conquer disease.
And change the world. And change the world?
What can I do to make poverty history.
And change the world. And change the world?
Let me be the ONE. To start a revolution.
Let me sing my song to the people of the world.
To the children of the world.

It all begins with...
ONE THE POWER OF ONE.

JOINING THE HUNDREDS OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE BELIEVING IN ONE.

THE POWER OF ONE. DON’T HANG AROUND. STAND UP OR SIT DOWN.

AND BELIEVE WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER --
WE CAN CHANGE THE WORLD TOGETHER

Please don’t close your eyes
Please don't turn away. Let your voices rise.
Put love on display. And make a difference now.
I believe you and me. Can make a difference now.
Oh oh oh. Oh oh oh Oh oh oh It all begins with ONE