Opuscula Book worth reading

I JUST FINISHED a book, Conversations for Autumn 2019/5779-80 by R. Marc D. Angel (right). It is issue number 34 in the on-going series.

The book is a potpourri of sundry topics penned by R. Angel, most of which I enjoyed reading.

R. Angel — one of the book’s topics is Minhagim: Divinity and Diversity in which he discusses “Jewish” names, including his surname — considers how American Sefardim (and Mizrahim) interact with the Israeli chief rabbinate and how American orthodox are being forced (my word) into haridism — extremism.

Because R. Angel and this scrivener often are of the same opinion, I find a lot to appreciate in his works.

The rabbi founded the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals¹ in 2007 and has been its director since. Before the institute he was, from 1969 to 2007, rabbi at the Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue in New York City². He now is “Rabbi Emeritus”; R. Meir Y. Soloveichik³ is the congregations current rabbi.

R. Angel is more “modern orthodox” than Sephardi/Mizrachi, although the influences from his Turkish and Rhodes forebears play a major role in his books and talks. (Likewise, the Spanish & Portuguese Synagogue is more “modern orthodox” than either Spanish or Portuguese.)

A true Sephardi will recognize the rabbi’s trials and tribulations growing up among Ashkenazi Jews who cannot comprehend any minhag except their own. Tzit-tzit in or out? Standing or sitting for the “Big 10”? (The answer is “When in Rome . . .” )

This scrivener is a member of a Sefardi-dominated mixed minyan where most of the Ashkenazi members follow the Sefardi practice. I’m certain they follow Ashkenazi practices when in Ashkenazi congregations, as they should.

One of R. Angel’s oft-quoted sources is former Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Israel R. Benzion Uziel. He notes differences between both R. Abraham Isaac Kook, the first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi, and the late R. Ovadia Yosef, the Sephardi Chief Rabbi of Israel from 1973 to 1983.

Rabbi Uziel, left; R. Kook, right (https://tinyurl.com/tc6vcxk)

R. Uziel, according to R. Angel, always tried to find ways to include all Israelis in the building of the state. Where R. Kook was stringent, R. Uziel tried to find a way to accommodate everyone. R. Yusef Messas was another Sephardi (Moroccan) rabbi that earned R. Angel’s respect sufficient to mention by name in Conversations.

The book includes a fairly lengthy chapter on gerut — conversions.

R. Angle looks at conversions throughout history and concludes that the harideem in Israel have high jacked the process not only in Israel but in the galut as well.

A chapter is dedicated to another of the rabbi’s favorites, R. Jos. B. Soloveichik, referred to simply as “the Rav.”

Still another chapter is set aside to discuss modesty, “tseniut.” (Spelling is from the book.) The Babylonian amora, Rav Sheshet,⁴ is noted for suggesting that any man who gazes at a woman’s little finger it was though he was gazing at her private parts. Sheshet, known to be irascible, also said a woman’s hair is ervah (immodest). All of Sheshet’s comments might be taken with the proverbial “grain of salt”; Sheshet was blind and could see neither a woman’s little finger nor her hair.

The Institute’s web site is one I bookmarked for frequent visits.

Sources

1. Institute: https://www.jewishideas.org/

2. Spanish & Portuguese congregation: https://tinyurl.com/vk2venl

3. R. Soloveichik: https://tinyurl.com/rnea52t

4. R. Sheshet: https://tinyurl.com/szab452

עינים להם ולא יראו * אזנים להם ולא יאזנו

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

Web sites (URLs) beginning https://tinyurl.com/ are generated by the free Tiny URL utility and reduce lengthy URLs to manageable size.

 

Comment on Conversations

Judaism and the 3 bears Rephrase, please

Every week, the The Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals sends out an email querying its members with a “Question of the week.”

QUESTION OF THE WEEK: Recent polls have indicated that 10% of American Jews identify as Orthodox. About 20% identify as Jewish without religion! When 90% of American Jews are not Orthodox, Orthodoxy seems to be becoming more insular and less interested in connecting with other Jews. Should Orthodox Jews engage more creatively and more often with non-Orthodox Jews, or should we build higher walls around ourselves to protect us from negative religious influences?

I have a problem with the question, especially as it comes from Sefardi rabbi Marc Angel.

The problem is the word “Orthodox” and variations of same.

“Orthodox” is, first and foremost, a European concept. It is foreign to Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews. The label is an effective barrier – a מחיצה - where there should be no barrier.

In fact, the question suggests it own answer when it asks: Should Orthodox Jews engage more creatively and more often with non-Orthodox Jews, or should we build higher walls around ourselves to protect us from negative religious influences?

I see far, far too many Jews who reject out of hand any Jew who is “not like me.” Makes no difference if the Jew is (alphabetically) Conservative, Orthodox, or Reform (and flavors in between) or non-observant, whether the Jew is Ashkenazi, Sephardi/Mizrahi, or a blend; ditto for both “accident-of-birth” Jews and converts, “righteous” or otherwise. The “you’re not like me” malady seems less prevalent in Israel – “less” albeit not “non-existent” – than in the U.S.

In general - and remember, “all generalities are lies” - Sephardi/Mizrahi Jews look at other Jews as (a) less observant than, (b) more observant than, or (c) observant like me. The level of observance is dependent on the perception and level of observance of the person making the observation. In other words, how observant I am depends on your level of observance – and, to a lesser extent, your narrow mindedness.

A few quick words on “narrow mindedness.”

The late Hakham R. Ovadia Yosef (נפטר יום ב' חשון תשע''ד) wrote many books and ruled on many things based on his Iraqi heritage and his education. Those who followed him, and there were many, accepted his authority without looking right or left.

I have a book in my library, דברי שלום ואמת, the sole purpose of which is to explain that there are other valid traditions that are equally correct.

Someone in the Shas camp would, for example, tell a woman that she must say the blessing over the Shabat candles before lighting them while the North African – and possibly others – tradition is to light the candles, cover the eyes, then recite the blessing. A minor point, perhaps, but one that caused grief in the family.

There was a time when I was guilty of “looking down” at others who were not like me. The hasid who tucks his trousers into his socks and insists on wearing a fur hap in the hottest weather; the (classical) Reform lady rabbi who absolutely forbids kippa and tallit in her synagogue, and the Jew who drove to shul on Shabat.

I’m older – much older, as it happens – and, thanks to my late father-in-law אליהו בן זהרה לחיאני ע''ה, hopefully much wiser. I learned from him that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew, regardless of the person’s “take” on Judaism.

My father-in-law was not a rabbi. He was not a particularly learned man, at least as far as formal book and yeshiva learning. But he was truly a hakham when it came to people, Jews and non-Jews alike.(He came from Morocco where he daily dealt with Moroccan Jews, Moroccan Muslims, and French Jews and non-Jews.) Lest anyone think Morocco was a place sans hakhamim, there were a number of Moroccan communities with yeshivot of note and it was home to more than a few world renowned rabbinical families; my father-in-law worked with one such family.

I make minyan with a “mixed” congregation. We have Syrians, Egyptians, several Ashkenazim, at least one Turk, and a Moroccan or two. The shul’s sedur is, I think, Ben Ish Hai, but you’ll see other sidurim on the tables (including the Moroccan וזרח השמש and אבותינו). Some were tzit-tzit outside, some not; some have payot, others do not; some are clean shaven all year round, some are bearded from time to time while others’ faces are hirsute all year round. I have never heard anyone even suggest that “that” person is less of a Jew that the speaker.

That’s not to say that every Jew has to be every other Jew’s best friend forever – BFF to the texters – but it is to say that the Jews in my circle are tolerant of Jews with a different perspective on the religion. There is a Chabad center down the street. It starts on Rebbe time – that is, much later than our HaNetz start time. It occasionally lacks one or two to make a minyan, so the rabbi sends a runner to us to “borrow” however many it takes to fill out the minyan.

I am fortunate to live in an area (Hollywood FL) that has an abundance of congregations; many are of the “more observant” category. People float from minyan to minyan. Late for ours? Go to the other Ben Ish Hai shul or the Moroccan synagogue or for a different flavor, try the large Ashkenazi synagogue or the small Ashkenazi storefront shul. Go a little father and there are “non-traditional” congregations.

I’m not a Pollyanna; there are a couple of classes of Jews I heartily dislike; one consists of those who drop their children off at Sunday school – or send them to a Hebrew day or afternoon school – and can’t bother to make minyan; great example, people. The other class is composed of those aliyah managers who ignore recently bar mitzvahed boys (or bat mitzvahed girls in non-traditional congregations). The youngsters soon learn that while everyone tells them their presence is important, it’s not important enough to give them the honors they deserve as children of the commandments, their obligations and benefits. דו פנים doesn’t work for me. (“My” congregation gives honors by The List; everyone eligible for an honor gets an honor in his turn, from the 13-plus a day to the oldest geezer.)

ADVERTISEMENT: Congregation Nahar Shalom (Dania beach/Hollywood FL) needs a cohen. We have several levi’m but no permanent cohen. While every Jew is welcome to Nahar Slalom’s HaNetz minyan, cohanim are especially welcome.

The bottom line for a Jew should be that a Jew is a Jew is a Jew – perhaps less observant, perhaps more observant, or just observant like me.

 

הריני מקבל עלי מצוה עשה של ואהבת לרעך כמוך, והריני אוהב כל אחד מבני ישראל כנפשי ומאודי

Rabbinical Silence

 

What does your rabbi say?

According to a member of Shas’ Council of Torah Sages and the head of the influential Porat Yosef Yeshiva, Shalom Cohen, a Jew who wears a knitted kippa - - is NOT a Jew (see http://yohanon.blogspot.com/2013/07/youre-not-jew.html).

I rail against Muslims who remain silent following an Islamist attack on innocents. If they are so committed to their adopted countries, why don’t they speak out against the Islamists’ atrocities?

Cohen gave his speech Saturday night.

Naftali Bennet of the (Israeli) Bayit Yehudi (Jewish Home) party took issue with Cohen’s remarks. Bennet’s remarks, along with a video of Cohen’s talk – in Hebrew to a receptive audience – is covered on the haredi web site, Kikar HaShabat (see http://tinyurl.com/q4nbc9r). The Times of Israel carried an article based on the Kikar HaShabat posting on Sunday at http://tinyurl.com/q9p5k2p.

It's now Monday.

Arutz 7 ( http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/169910 ) carried an article claiming that Cohen " did not mean to disparage all religious Zionists, but only the leadership of the Bayit Yehudi party" according to unidentified "sources."

"The words that were spoken last night in a lesson at the study hall of Maran [Rabbi Ovadia Yosef] were spoken in great pain and were only intended toward the leaders of the Bayit Yehudi and their supporters, who have declared war upon the world of Torah and yeshivot”

According to Arutz 7, Cohen has refused to take back his cruel invective against the religious Zionists. When contacted by Arutz Sheva after the initial publication of the sermon, he simply said, “leave me alone and don't bother me.”

I have yet to see any rabbis of note - or any rabbis at all - speak out about Cohen's remarks - pro or con, for or against, or even aghast.

Perhaps they are not aware of their fellow rabbi's remarks. The only places I saw the comment were on the Times of Israel, Arutz Sheva, and Kikar HaShabat. I don't frequent Kikar HaShabat, but maybe the rabbis do. (The advertisements on Arutz 7 often are not appropriate for rabbinical eyes.)

Cohen's remarks are hardly as news worthy as 9-11-2001, but still, within Jewish circles, the remarks should get some attention.

Are our rabbis to be like the Muslims' imams and remain silent? Are Jews of all types to likewise remain silent in face of this person's comments? Apparently Ovadia Yosef will remain silent.

This is NOT a "tempest in a teapot." It is an affront to all Jews whose approach to Judaism is different that Cohen's and Shas'.

I would not have the chutzpah to tell Shas to get a new spiritual leader; keeping the Yosef clan in power is a choice only Shas should make. By the same token, I will not suggest that Shas clean up its political house of ill repute.

But I can, and I will, look elsewhere for both religious and religio-political leadership

After all, according to Cohen and Shas, I am not a Jew; I wear a knitted kippa - proudly. On Shabat, I have the chutzpah to not only wear a knitted kippa but a colorful knitted kippa! (My knitted kippa has nothing to do with either a political or religious perspective; I simply think it allows my hair to "breathe" and might help forestall a bald spot; so far, so good.)

I was "Jew enough" for the old Mifdal (National Religious Party) and I am "Jew enough" for Bayit Yehudi. But I guess I am not "Jew enough" for Shas.

If it's all the same to Cohen & Company, I'll keep my knitted kippot, my weekday black ones, my Shabat red one, and the others I wear on haggim. Since my choice of kippot makes me "not Jewish" I'll stay clear of Shas congregations - in Israel, there always is another congregation down the street where I AM a Jew.

 

If the TinyURL for Kikar haShabat fails, the full URL is:

http://www.kikarhashabat.co.il/%D7%91%D7%A0%D7%98-%D7%A2%D7%9C-%D7%94%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%9D-%D7%9B%D7%94%D7%9F-%D7%AA%D7%AA%D7%91%D7%99%D7%99%D7%A9%D7%95-%D7%9C%D7%9B.html

If the Tiny URL for the Times of Israel fails, the full URL is:

http://www.timesofisrael.com/shas-leader-says-modern-orthodox-not-jewish/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=27675e3a5e-2013_07_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-27675e3a5e-54477781>http://www.timesofisrael.com/shas-leader-says-modern-orthodox-not-jewish/?utm_source=The+Times+of+Israel+Daily+Edition&utm_campaign=27675e3a5e-2013_07_14&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_adb46cec92-27675e3a5e-54477781

?כפה סרוגה You’re not a Jew!

Shas leader: National religious Jews ‘aren’t Jewish’

 

The following is excerpted from a Times of Israel at http://tinyurl.com/q9p5k2p

By Haviv Rettig Gur

Economy Minister Naftali Bennett on Sunday morning railed against what he called “incitement” by one of the most senior religious figures of Shas. In a video (http://tinyurl.com/q4nbc9r) posted Sunday morning on the haredi website Kikar HaShabbat, Rabbi Shalom Cohen, a member of Shas’s Council of Torah Sages and the head of the influential Porat Yosef Yeshiva, is seen calling national religious Israelis “Amalek” and suggesting that they aren’t Jews.

Referring to the national religious Israelis by the colloquial Hebrew term - "כפה סרוגה" “knit kipa” - the preferred headgear for such Jews — R. Cohen declared in a sermon delivered Saturday night that “as long as there are knit kippot, the [divine] throne is not whole. That’s Amalek. When will the throne be whole? When there is no knit kipa.”

Bennet replied “For those who don’t know, Amalek is an expression referring to someone who must be wiped off the face of the earth. No less. At this very moment, thousands of knit-kipa wearers are standing guard from the Syrian border to the Egyptian, from brigade commanders down to the lowliest soldiers, and are spitting blood to defend even the honorable rabbi.”

Bennett added: “In these very days, memorial services are being held for my comrades-in-arms who sacrificed their lives in the [2006] Second Lebanon War, some of them secular and others wearers of knit kippot. Some of them fell in ways that earned them medals for valor. The rabbi is calling them ‘Amalek’.”

Bennett bemoaned the fact that R. Cohen’s words were delivered as he stood next to a seated Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Shas’s spiritual leader, who is viewed by many Sephardi Israelis as the most influential living rabbi.

NOW you know why we still must suffer Tisha b’Ab.

This divisiveness gives me reason to believe we will once again be expelled from Israel; Jew hating Jew.

It is ABSOLUTE HUTZPAH to denigrate fellow Jews the way the misnamed R. “Shalom” Cohen – “Shalom”?? – does; the unmitigated gall of R. Ovadia Yosef to allow this person to utter such stupid statements without objecting.

I would never say that the haredim deserve all the disrespect they get from the heloni and the "כפה סרוגה" - the latter group in which I include myself, but as long as haredi “leadership” insists on making such non-Jewish statements, the haredi leadership and those who follow them blindly, will suffer the disrespect of others.

We – Jews – cannot afford, cannot allow, this divisiveness. It cost us our nation twice already. G-d forbid it should cost us modern Israel as well.

 

Yohanon dot Glenn at gmail dot com

Who’s evil? Look inward

Is Ovadia Yosef senile?

According to numerous reports, Iraqi R. Ovadia Yosef is calling Ashkenazi R. David Stav “a wicked man,” someone “dangerous to Judaism” who had “no fear of God at all.”

Electing R. Stav as Israel’s Chief Ashkenazi rabbi would be “bringing idolatry into the temple,” according to R. Yosef.

His inflammatory and derogatory statements are blamed for an attack on R. Stav by haredi youth as he was leaving a wedding in Jerusalem. (http://www.israelhayom.com/site/newsletter_article.php?id=10059)

Does R. Yosef know this man personally? One Web site stated that they had never met. So one assumes the Iraqi has been following R. Stav’s activities at Tzohar. One source suggested that R. Ovadia knows nothing about R. Stav but the Iraqi has become a tool of his “advisors.”

The Mizrachi rabbi may have reason for concern. R. Stav says he wants to make not only rabbinate offices more welcoming, but also remodel the Israeli face of the Jewish religion in general. “I am from the world of Torah and Zionism. I am not subordinate to the ultra-Orthodox functionaries or to the politics of the Haredi Torah world,” Stav says.

In a statement, Tzohar called R. Yosef’s remarks a testimony to “the urgent need for change across the rabbinate” and said he should “repent and ask forgiveness.”

“We protest the incitement voiced yesterday by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef,” Tzohar said. “Israel needs a rabbinate that will connect it to Judaism, and not antagonize.”

Yosef sustained criticism from several rabbis, most of them religious Zionists. Yosef has "crossed every boundary," said Rabbi Haim Drukman.

"Does he think that speaking that way about someone you've never met is ethical? Halachic? Jewish?" said Education Minister Rabbi Shai Piron. “Why? Why does Rabbi Ovadia have to curse [Rabbi Stav],” he wrote on Facebook. “Does he think that that this will bring people closer to Torah and to Judaism? Does he think that to speak this about a person he has never met is moral? Halacha? Jewish?”

Meanwhile, religious Zionist Rabbi Benjamin Lau on Monday called for all political leaders "from the president on down" to cease all meetings with Yosef. "It's a humiliation," he said.

The religious Zionist movement, the organization noted, did not need the permission of Torah sages to field candidates and “knows how to manage the religious Zionist tradition for all of Israel.”

Assuming that R. Yosef is responding to information fed him by his advisors, it remains fairly certain that R. Yosef is suffering from senility. His recent pronouncements, both within a religious context and within the political context, leave no question as to his deteriorating mental capacity.

Israel needs another Israel Meir Lau or Yosef Messas, rabbis who guard halacha while keeping it alive and in the current era.

The competition of the Ashkenazi (!) chief rabbinate – in which the Iraqi should have no voice – has turned into לשון ברע … just in time for Rosh Hodesh Av.

R. Yosef and Shas should be ashamed.