Molekh

Molekh

At last count, according to the Associated Press, more than 330 bodies were pulled from the rubble of the school in Beslan. One hundred fifty-six of the dead were children.

All I can think of is God’s cry of horror to the Israelites in Jeremiah 32:35:

And they built the high places of the Ba’al, which are in the valley of Ben-hinnom, to cause their sons and their daughters to pass through the fire to Molekh; which I did not command them, nor did it come into my mind that they should do this abomination ...

(Emphasis mine.)

Read Imshin. Read Meryl. Read Charles at Little Green Footballs. They’re all right on target; I’d just be repeating them at this point.

The prophet Jeremiah could not have been more explicit in his denunciation of child sacrifice.

So after this I do not want to hear, ever again, how much Islam respects the prophets who came before Mohammed.

Right On Target

Right On Target

While I’m posting on blogging matters, there’s a new and different blog in town, Hitzei Yehonatan (Yehonatan’s Arrows; see 1 Samuel 20:18—23).

For the past several years, Rabbi Yehonatan Chipman has been sending out his profound and scholarly divrei Torah (essays on religious topics) to his mailing list. Now he is making them available on the Net. And may I say: Finally.

Mazal tov on the new blog, Rav Yehonatan. I hope you’ll come to the next blogger meet-up!

Bloggers, Bloggers Everywhere

Bloggers, Bloggers Everywhere

Last night was the first Israeli blogger meet-up. It was wonderful to meet the people behind the blogs and start putting faces to names. We turned out to be quite a cross-section of English-speaking Israeli society (all right, we did have a sprinkling of native Hebrew speakers here and there), and were an almost equal number of men and women. We came from several different countries including the US, the UK, Canada and Israel, though I’m sure more were represented.

We even had a journalist covering the event. Turns out she’s a blogger too and had intended to come anyway, so she had to participate and do her job at the same time. My hat’s off to her, and when her article is posted I’ll post a link to it here ... but only if she says wonderful things about me. (Just kidding! No, really!)

I finally met Allison, Imshin, Adrian of Neither Here Nor There (formerly Expat Egghead), the Rev. Huatou, Celestial Blue and many others. I also saw a friend of mine and his wife for the first time in years. Ah, the miracle of the Internet, the best part of it in my opinion: connecting people. (Sorry, cat-bloggers; Imshin didn’t bring Shoosha. Darn.)

Ra’anana is a beautiful city, the restaurant was terrific and its personnel lovely people. And it was great to have a change of scene, if only for a few hours. I’m glad I went.

I’d write more but I’m exhausted. It’s Friday afternoon, the week is catching up with me and I’ve been awake since 5:00 a.m. (Work started at 6.)

Shabbat shalom. (Finally. Thank goodness.)

The Complacency Tax

The Complacency Tax

Today the moderator of a local e-group I’m on advised us to check how much we are paying our Internet service providers and find out whether we can get a better deal. I took his advice and was astounded to find that I have been paying an outrageously high monthly rate for an Internet speed so low it isn’t even marketed anymore. But that’s going to change very soon; effective midnight tonight, I’ll be getting a rate of speed several times faster at less than half the price I’ve been paying.

I’ve heard this phenomenon referred to as the “complacency tax.” We accept the given rate and stay there for months. And although Internet companies run specials all the time, they don’t tell their existing customers about them. It’s up to us to take the initiative. Once we do, we can get a better deal with one phone call.

Like I just did. Thanks, Moderator—you know who you are.

Israel Gets a Gold

Israel Gets a Gold

Israeli Windsurfer Gal Friedman won an Olympic gold medal today—his second Olympic medal and Israel’s first gold.

(His first name means “wave,” by the way. Is that cool or what?)

Congratulations, Mr. Friedman, and thanks.

(So where’s Iran in the rankings now?)

How to Get a Kitty Hug

How to Get a Kitty Hug

If you want to know how to get a cat to hug you, just ask Lair. Good information on a topic I love.

The first challenge to hugging your cat is to find a way of picking the cat up that doesn’t frighten the cat. Most cats will telegraph how they want you to hug them when they approach you, giving subtle hints in their body position how they won’t mind how to be picked up.

And what a coincidence: today’s Word of the Day from YourDictionary.com was “ailurophile.” (Go look it up.)

Maybe tomorrow my neighbor’s cat will give me the time of day. (She usually doesn’t.) Someday I’ll blog about the Siamese Princess and my years of unrequited feline love, and also about the Lady in Red, a red tabby female with black whiskers who likes me. She also drinks out of my hand. (Take that, Siamese Princess.)

But for now, I’m going to sleep. It’s been a long day.

Strengthening the Good

Strengthening the Good

Alan at Strengthen the Good has posted about the site’s first charity, admitting that it is not a micro one as he had originally intended. But as he notes, after Hurricane Charley the need is not micro but macro. Check out his link to The Gulf Coast Community Foundation Of Venice Hurricane Charley Disaster Relief Fund ... and give whatever you can.

Strengthen the Good

Strengthen the Good

Alan of the Command Post is using the blogosphere for a good cause: making people aware of deserving local charities. Check out his new site, Strengthen the Good.

Busy, Busy, Busy

Busy, Busy, Busy

... which is why I’ve maintained blog silence over the past few days.

Let’s see: two day jobs, a sewing project (completed last night) and designing and creating a fair-sized bilingual website (not mine): yup, that’s a pretty full plate right there. No wonder I feel ready for a nice, long vacation.

I still need to redesign my own website. I worked on the others first so that I would learn lots of new techniques before I got to my own ... and now that I have the skills, I don’t have the time. I should have known.

If all goes well the bilingual website should be done in about a week. I work on it at night, after my regular job(s). (Free time? What’s that?) I confess I’m looking forward to two things: the sense of accomplishment I’ll feel once I complete this project successfully and it goes online, and getting paid—provided that the Income Tax Authority doesn’t decide that I was really doing this job for them.

So once this website is done, I’ll have to do everything but swear an oath to bring my own site up to date. I feel like I’m walking around with outdated code stuck to my shoes like week-old gum. Not pleasant.

The sewing project involved making three sets of curtains, by the way. Though they were simple ones, I hadn’t realized they take so long to make. I mean, how long can it take to make a loop for a curtain rod and finish a bunch of edges? (Stop that snickering!) I remember falling asleep years ago to the sound of the sewing machine as my mother made matching curtains and bedspreads for every room in the house. Even though I didn’t know a great deal about sewing when I was younger, I still knew that my mother is an expert needlewoman and that she put her heart and soul into those sets. (They were gorgeous, too.) But after a project like this, I can appreciate her efforts even more because I understand just how much work it is ... and that’s without making even a single ruffle.

So I tip my pincushion to you, Mom.

Actually, both my parents are expert craftspeople. I still remember the drop-leaf table they rescued from the trash years ago and the hours they spent rebuilding and refinishing it. Today that table could grace a museum, and that’s only one example of what they can do. I like to think I got my appreciation for handicrafts and love of writing from them. Now if only I had my father’s head for numbers, I’d have it made.

Time to get back to work.

And the Bus Blues Roll On

And the Bus Blues Roll On

The Jerusalem Post is running an opinion piece by a woman who seeks to defend the idea that women should have the “right” to sit in the back of the bus for reasons of modesty. If you want to read it, head over to the Opinions section of the Post and scroll down. You’ll find it if it’s still posted there; its title is unmistakable. I’m not going to excerpt it or link to it here; I see no reason to delay its swift slide into the oblivion it deserves.

The author of the article goes on about how women should have the “right” to choose to sit in a more protected area of a public bus. Yet she conveniently ignores the fact that Ms. Ragen was not given a choice. She was intimidated, bullied and ordered about by a man who expected her to obey him as a matter of course. That is not modesty. It is arrogance. If this man were truly modest, he would have remained seated and silent with his eyes averted—just as I’m sure he thinks women ought to do.

I have news for this self-appointed guardian of public morals and women’s seating choices: no one behaves in this way out of devotion to modesty. History shows that people who bully and intimidate others do not do so for the sake of a higher spiritual cause, even if that is what they would like us to think. Their real goals are to assert their power, defend their turf and frighten others into obedience. The man who attacked Ms. Ragen violated his own religious law, with its strong emphasis on decent behavior, even as he claimed to defend it.

A brief aside: I recall stories of the “kosher bus” from Monsey, New York, to Manhattan. (I do not know whether it is still in operation.) This early-morning commuter bus, which doubled as a synagogue, featured a curtain placed down the center aisle with men sitting on one side and women on the other. This may have seemed awkward—particularly if the bus rounded a sharp curve—but I admire the compromise. The organizers sought to honor Jewish tradition (since the bus also served as an Orthodox synagogue, which requires separate seating) and at the same time would not countenance forcing anyone to sit in the rear. If only we all behaved with such decency.

One bright spot in all this: a Young Israel rabbi wrote a letter to the Post, speaking of the need to expose and be aware of the fundamentalists in our midst. True, we need to be vigilant against people who would bully and intimidate others while using religion as their excuse. The only thing such people seek to teach us is to fear them, and they act as they do not out of reverence, but because they have none.

Dead End

Dead End

Yesterday I went to the Har ha-Menuhot cemetery in Jerusalem to visit the grave of a dear friend of mine who passed away last year. But I never got there. Instead, I got lost.

Perhaps I should explain. Because Jerusalem’s neighborhoods are built on hills, many streets, which run parallel along the hillsides, are linked by perpendicular stairways. So when I saw a long flight of stairs that appeared to lead toward a main road, I took it all the way up ...

... and reached a dead end. Literally. Right there in front of me was a high stone wall, impassive, imperturbable. I barely had enough breath left to contemplate what it has seen and endured, what it would tell if it could talk. But I knew what it was telling me at the moment: this is it, kiddo, the end of the line. Inevitable, unalterable, final. No amount of pleading, praying or anything else was going to change a thing; I was going to have to go back the way I came. All the way down.

I understood then why the two men in religious garb far above me on the same stairway had looked at me strangely when they saw me climbing upward. Of course, they knew where they were going, so they were probably wondering what on earth I was doing there and what connection I could possibly have to anyone buried in that particular section. Well, their wonder was resolved quickly enough.

Another thing about the Har ha-Menuhot cemetery: various burial societies own different sections of the land there. These sections are not connected. You can stand at the edge of one and look over to the section where you would like to go, which is close enough to touch, but that’s all you can do. It seems like it should be so simple, but it isn’t; there’s this stubborn, counterintuitive, chest-high stone wall right in front of you. Like the saying goes, you can’t get there from here.

So although I managed to visit the graves of other friends and acquaintances, I didn’t get to visit the one that was the purpose of my trip. And as I puffed up yet another flight of stairs while the sun went down, vowing to stick to the main roads next time, it seemed that I could hear from the other side, ever so faintly, the voice of my dear, departed friend ... laughing his head off.

Rightful Place

Rightful Place

Although the issue of women in Judaism is important to me, I didn’t start this blog to deal with it exclusively. I figured that I would write about individual issues as they came up, but I was sure I wouldn’t be hearing or writing about them every day.

Until this week.

Novelist and Jerusalem resident Naomi Ragen writes about her recent experience on a public bus in Jerusalem: Egged and the Taliban.

I was happily immersed in an article about Yaddo in Vanity Fair when I was interrupted by an angry haredi man who announced that I needed to move to the back of the bus. I looked up at him, astonished, feeling a flash of what Blacks must have felt in Alabama in 1950.

It only gets worse from there.

Ms. Ragen’s article reminded me of similar incident that happened to me a few years ago when I boarded a bus at the Western Wall and sat down towards the front. Although the buses that go to and from the Western Wall are ordinary public buses, a process of voluntary segregation occurs on them. Men sit next to men and women sit next to women, but both men and women sit throughout the bus. A haredi man who boarded soon after me noticed where I was sitting and waved his hand peremptorily at me, not looking at me, saying: “Yoter le-matah” (farther down). That was it. No polite request, such as “Would you mind sitting farther back, please?” I guess that for men like him, women—or perhaps only those who do not know their place—do not deserve basic courtesy.

But lest we lose hope, here is an article by Rabbi Aaron Frank in the Baltimore Jewish Times on the importance of keeping a synagogue’s women’s section for the women: A Football Minyan.

If even one woman is made to feel that it is hard or uncomfortable to go to shul, we, as an Orthodox community, are failing. If one person, not to mention an entire gender, is shut out, it is simply wrong. Even if an entire year goes by and the women’s section is never used, it should never be given over to men—not ever. Keeping a designated women’s section reminds us all that shul is for everyone.

The issue of the women’s role in Orthodox Judaism has engendered much controversy, but this issue contains none of that. No Orthodox Jew should disagree that women ought to feel welcome in shul. Let us fulfill our mission of making our mikdashei me’aht into truly sacred space. Put up a sign in your shul’s women's section that this is a section for women only, 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.

Way to go, Rabbi Frank. May there be many more like you among the Jewish people.

The Controversy Continues

The Controversy Continues

Both The Jewish Week and The Forward have published articles about R. Schachter’s “parrots and monkeys” gaffe.

Gary Rosenblatt of The Jewish Week includes several reactions of other rabbis, all unattributed. So Back Row of the ’Beis suggests a “Fun Family Activity for this Shabbos”:

Read Gary Rosenblatt’s TorahWeb article and try and figure out who said all the anonymous quotes.

Well, I’m glad this is being talked about as widely as it is. That’s the only way things will change.

Pious Appliance

Pious Appliance

Today was Tishah be-Av, the saddest day in the Jewish calendar, when we commemorate the terrible tragedies that befell the Jewish people throughout history. Three weeks prior to this date, we cease all joyful activity. On Tishah be-Av itself we mourn and fast. And today my refrigerator, no doubt overwhelmed by the sadness of the day, decided to observe it by breaking down.

When my refrigerator is working well, it hums merrily along in several pitches at once: a low one for the motor, a higher one for the fan and probably a few others that I’m not aware of. This morning it sounded anything but merry. After listening carefully I realized I was hearing only the low-pitched hum. No fan. When I opened the refrigerator my worst fears were confirmed: it was all but room temperature in there.

Room temperature ... in Jerusalem. In July.

(You have to admit that there is something symbolic—and a bit spooky—about a refrigerator breaking down on a day when Jews are not supposed to eat.)

I called the repairman and described the problem. Getting up my courage, I asked him: What could this problem be, and how much will it cost to fix? He replied that it could be anything from a minor repair to one that would cost approximately two thousand shekels.

We learn that Tishah be-Av has two main aspects. One involves grief over the destruction of both Temples, the exiles and the horrific events that have befallen us throughout history. The other is the spark of redemption present even in the darkest, most difficult times. The Messiah, it is said, will be born on the Ninth of Av. And so, combining this Jewish teaching with current events, I found myself hoping that whatever the repairman discovered would have more to do with the day’s aspect of redemption than of mourning.

After some tests he determined that the problem was a broken thermostat. He replaced it, put the freezer back together and even replaced the plug. I paid him and went happily off to work. (Well, maybe not happily; it was still Tishah be-Av, after all.)

I came home hours later and headed for the refrigerator, anticipating the blast of cool air that would tell me all was well. Alas, no. The inside is barely cooler than it was this morning, the refrigerator is back to its unhappy, low-pitched, fanless hum, and I’ve called the repairman again, asking for a date sometime tomorrow.

Perhaps when he arrives he will tell my refrigerator, ever so gently, that Tishah be-Av is over.

(The next day: He did.)

Leaders, Be Careful with Your Words

Leaders, Be Careful with Your Words

Rabbi Herschel Schachter, Rosh Yeshiva of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) of Yeshiva University, has published an article on Torahweb.org entitled “Can Women Be Rabbis?”. The title is misleading, since the article hardly touches on the question at all. Mostly it mocks and derides women who seek to expand their activity in Jewish ritual. Here is what the article has to say about the practice of women reading the ketubbah (marriage contract) at orthodox Jewish weddings—a practice which R. Schachter admits is permitted in Jewish law:

Yes, even if a parrot or a monkey would read the kesuba, the marriage would be one hundred percent valid.

I could have a whole discussion here about differentiating between the legal, social and emotional aspects of women reading the ketubbah aloud at orthodox Jewish weddings. But that’s not my point. Rather, the issue here is the insulting, offensive language and tone that R. Schachter allowed himself to use.

Jewish teaching states clearly that lashon ha-ra, evil speech, is unacceptable. So it is all the more disturbing when someone like R. Schachter, a leader of the Jewish community whose opinions people value, resorts to it. It also destroys the trust that should exist between leaders and their constituents. After all, if a leader mocks one group now, who knows who the next target may be? Those who laugh at the current insult won’t be smiling when they find the next one directed at them.

Also, R. Schachter seems to have forgotten that the Jewish people’s deadliest enemy at present delights in referring to us as the offspring of pigs and monkeys—beasts that deserve to die. This makes his comparison all the more troubling.

Our Torah says: “Love your neighbor as yourself,” while our basic ethics text, Pirke Avot, admonishes, “Judge every person favorably.” Neither text goes on to add, “Unless you disagree with them, in which case you are free to mock and insult them as much as you like.”

Or perhaps R. Schachter holds a different opinion?

The Price of a Puff

The Price of a Puff

Funny thing, customer service.

When I was in the train station the other day I decided to stop by the sweet shop for a snack to eat on the train. The proprietor was smoking, so I told her politely: “I’d really like to come in to shop, but the smoke is really bothering me. Would you mind putting out your cigarette so I can come in and shop?”

She replied: “No. Every time someone comes in here I have to put out my cigarette!”

Well, if she prefers cigarettes to cash, who am I to argue?

Gender Clarity in the Knesset

Gender Clarity in the Knesset

The Israeli Knesset’s website has revamped its alphabetical listing of all the members to include small pink or blue icons next to each name to clue the reader about the member's gender. I guess those Israeli names (which include names in Hebrew, Arabic, Russian and Amharic) can be a bit hard to figure out sometimes.

Personally I’d prefer to see more pink.

Yassin’s Execution

Yassin’s Execution

People are asking me what I think about Ahmed Yassin’s execution by the IDF. Like many Israelis, I’m anxious about what the response will be, but I believe he deserved what he got.

Yassin was a murderer, plain and simple. Some people want to portray him as a harmless, wheelchair-bound old man, but one does not have to be young or able-bodied to incite to murder. Read Yassin’s own words at Meryl Yourish’s site for a clearer picture of the man and what he stood for.

Joseph Farah, an American of Arab extraction, gives his take on the assassination here. I think it’s well worth reading.

And what do I say? Good riddance to murdering rubbish.

I believe the Arab-Israeli conflict is not about a land dispute. If it were, Oslo would have solved it. This conflict is about one thing: long-standing, implacable hatred of Jews. I believe that a profound and impartial investigation of its history, together with a good, hard look at where the billions of dollars the European Union sent to the Palestinian Authority over the past decade ended up, will bear this assertion out. I also believe that terrorism in any form, whoever the perpetrators may be and whatever grievance they may claim, is not a legitimate expression of anger or frustration, as so many would have us believe. It is pure evil.

Just this week I had to pass up the chance to stay the night at my friend’s house in the north because that would have meant coming home by public transportation on Friday morning, when it is especially crowded, and I was afraid of what could happen. I still am. Last month the man who made sandwiches for people at my workplace, who was married and the father of two children, was murdered in a bus bombing. He was returning to his shop after giving in his new car for repairs, and when I went to his store for sandwiches that morning, shortly after the attack, I found his brother on the phone trying frantically to locate him. It was too late. My co-workers and I will never again enjoy the sandwiches he made with such care and good cheer, and his family will never see him again.

I do not gloat over the death of any human being, no matter how despicable his actions. But I am not the least bit sorry Yassin is dead. Time will tell whether I—and the rest of the country—ought to be relieved.

First Post

First Post

My very first blog post. I used to think no one would want to read about my life, and I’m still not sure I’ve changed my mind. But everyone seems to be blogging these days, and you know what they say to do if you can't beat ’em.

So here I am.