By Avi Shafran, on January 22nd, 2010
To any early 20th century Polish Jew, Japan could as well have been Neptune.
The distance between the shtetl and the Far East was measurable not merely in physical miles but in cultural and religious distance no less. Yet when, on September 1, 1923, a powerful earthquake hit Japan’s Kanto plain, laying waste to Tokyo, Yokohama and surrounding cities, killing well over 100,000 people, news of the disaster reached even the Polish town of Radin. That was the home of the “Chofetz Chaim,” Rabbi Yisroel Meir Kagan, the sainted Jewish scholar renowned around the world even then for his scholarship, honesty and modest life.
Informed of the mass deaths in Japan, the 85-year-old rabbinic leader was visibly shaken, immediately undertook to fast and insisted that the news should spur all Jews to repentance.
Yes, Jews to repentance. Jewish religious sources maintain that catastrophes, even when they do not directly affect Jews, are nevertheless messages for them, wake-up calls to change for the better. Insurers call such occurrences “Acts of G-d.” For Jews, the phrase is apt, and every such lamentable event demands a personal response.
It is, to be sure, a very particularist idea, placing Jews at the … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on January 14th, 2010
Objective observers of the Middle East, though, should think long and hard about what happened in the wake of the mosque burning, and in the wake of Rabbi Chai’s … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on January 8th, 2010
The Kotel is a holy place, and should not be made a battlefield by advocates for social or religious change. … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on December 31st, 2009
The shortage of organs for transplantation – is pushing some physicians to call a life a life, even if it hasn’t yet been fully … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on December 24th, 2009
It is thus much more than a comparison; it is an identification. Jacob is the Jewish people; and that is why he is deathless. … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on December 17th, 2009
Neither Christianity nor Islam, after all, even existed when the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem functioned for centuries as the focal point of the Jewish … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on December 10th, 2009
a society that denies the soul-idea is, in the word’s deepest sense, … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on December 4th, 2009
acting dishonestly in order to “supplement” our income denies G-d’s ability to provide us our … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on November 20th, 2009
I’ve never experienced a pogrom or been pursued by an angry mob, thank G-d. And yet my genes seem to hold some residue – bequeathed in some Lamarckian way by less fortunate forebears – that discomforts me when a large crowd of people loudly expresses itself.
Like the one outside our offices on a recent Friday. Agudath Israel’s national headquarters are located on lower Broadway in Manhattan, on the “Canyon of Heroes” where the adulated New York Yankees are paraded when they win a World Series. Personally, I reserve the word “hero” for people in other pursuits than professional sports; but the estimated two million New Yorkers who turned out for the recent parade in the Yankees’ honor clearly disagree.
It was the powerful, swelling din of their joy when the floats drove slowly by, 13 floors below, that sent a shiver of nervousness, not excitement, down my spine. I was well aware that the clamor was celebratory, not predatory; but I couldn’t help but imagine what it must be like to see such a mob waving not flags and signs but clubs and knives.
I’m not afraid of heights or claustrophobic. I appreciate a good roller coaster … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on November 13th, 2009
How the Court squares itsjudgment of Jewish law as racially discriminatory with the fact that the very same law grants full Jewish status to anyone who accepts Jewish observance and undergoes conversion – regardless of color, national origin or ethnicity – is not known. … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on November 6th, 2009
Most people, even those who readily profess belief in G-d if asked, don’t often dwell on that belief’s implications. It sits in their heads, a checked-off box filed away for … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on October 30th, 2009
Two South Carolina Republican Party chairmen were roundly denounced recently for invoking “stereotypes about Jews,” as the Anti-Defamation League declared, that will “reinforce anti-Semitism.”
What Edwin Merwin and James Ulmer did was write an opinion piece in an Orangeburg newspaper, defending a senator under fire for shunning congressional earmarks. Unfortunately for them, they chose to make their case for fiscal responsibility in part by noting that financially successful Jews “got that way not by watching dollars, but instead by taking care of the pennies and the dollars taking care of themselves.”
The GOP chairmen could certainly have made their point without mentioning wealthy Jews; any number of pennies-to-riches examples, without reference to ethnicity or religion, would have sufficed. And so, apprised of the insult taken by some, they promptly and “deeply” apologized to “any and all who were offended.”
One of the contrite commentators explained that he had been quoting “a statement which I had heard many times in my life, truly in admiration for a method of bettering one’s lot in life.” And he insisted that, however ill chosen his example, he had “meant nothing derogatory by the reference to a great and honorable people,” categorically rejected … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on October 24th, 2009
there is still a mass of Jews who daily and diligently heed the Talmud’s admonition to act in a way that “causes the name of G-d to be loved because of you[r actions]” (Yoma … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on October 16th, 2009
The life work of Norman Borlaug, who died shortly before Rosh Hashana at the age of 95, should give deep pause to those who see humans as a threat to the planet.
Those, that is, like Dr. Borlaug’s fellow scientist Paul Ehrlich, whose 1968 book “The Population Bomb” predicted worldwide famine within twenty years as a result of rising birth rates and limited resources. Hundreds of thousands of people, Dr. Ehrlich soberly prophesied, would starve to death by 1988. He compared the “population explosion” –he coined the phrase – to the uncontrolled growth of cancer cells in a body, and advocated the “radical surgery” of compulsory birth control, in the form of spiking the world water supply with sterilizing chemicals.
Over ensuing years, Dr. Ehrlich’s prediction was embraced by legions of scientists, intellectuals and population-control advocates across the United States and Europe.
All the while, Dr. Borlaug, a plant scientist, quietly continued his work of decades experimenting with grain varieties, eventually developing strains of wheat and rice that raised food yields by as much as 600%.
That achievement revolutionized modern agriculture, allowing a country like India, for example, whose population grew from 500 million in the 1960s to 1.16 billion today, … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on September 25th, 2009
Oddly, a Hebrew phrase familiar to the Jewishly-educated is routinely used to refer to two entirely different and seemingly unrelated things.
The phrase is “Yud Gimmel Middot” – literally, “13 Measures” – and one of its usages was prominent over the days from before Rosh Hashana through Yom Kippur. In that context, the phrase refers to the verses from Exodus (34:6-7) that begin with G-d’s name stated twice (with a pause signaled between them, representing, the Talmud says, one’s different relationship to G-d “before he has sinned and after he has sinned and repented”) and comprising in all a list of thirteen aspects (or, as commonly rendered, “attributes”) of His mercy. The verses form the centerpiece of the Selichot supplications recited throughout the High Holidays season and are prominent in the Yom Kippur services, including its concluding prayer Ne’ila.
According to Jewish tradition, the formula was taught to Moses by G-d Himself after our ancestors’ sin of venerating the golden calf. Acceding to Moses’ plea that He forgive the people their sin, G-d then tells Moses that, in the Talmud’s words, “when trouble comes upon the Jews because of their iniquities, let them stand together before Me and recite” … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on September 17th, 2009
Coercion comes in many … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on September 11th, 2009
There is a world of difference between Tevya’s celebration of “Tradition!” for tradition’s sake and the deep meanings that lie in the rites and rituals of Jewish religious … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on September 4th, 2009
The smell of smoke grew even stronger as did the cries of the hundreds of Jews packed in the synagogue awaiting a terrible death. And then, a miracle … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on August 21st, 2009
things other than money can also be … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on August 14th, 2009
Reports have it that a popular inscription of late on coffee mugs and t-shirts is “wise Latina woman.”
The reference, of course, is to U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s contention in a 2001 lecture that “a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” The comment was much discussed during the hearings that preceded Justice Sotomayor’s confirmation. While purchasers of the shirts and mugs are likely only taking ethnic pride in the Justice, who is of Puerto Rican ancestry, the comment is worth pondering. It may even hold a thought of particular value to Jews.
The idea of a judge’s personal experience influencing – enhancing or degrading – his or her judgment is intriguing. To be sure, a victim of a violent crime might not make the best judge in the case of someone accused of the same sort of crime, or an acceptable juror. That is why there are judicial recusals and jury disqualifications.
But the question of whether our general objectivity is necessarily skewed by who we are is less obviously clear. All … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on July 31st, 2009
Even Jews who are not religiously observant have history on the heart. … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on July 24th, 2009
Destroying another’s property – or communal property or, for that matter, one’s own property – is also forbidden by the Torah. No exceptions have ever been made in halachic codes for instances where a government policy or action is not to one’s liking. … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on July 17th, 2009
The “Endlösung” – the “Final Solution” – was for “der Judenfrage” – “the Jewish Question.” There was no “Romani Question” or “Homosexual Question.” … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on July 10th, 2009
Their lyrics are about things like readiness to be persecuted for one’s commitment to Torah, the brevity of human existence, the need to seize every day – every moment – we have; yet the melodies as a rule are spirited, lively, filled with trust and hope and … Read More >>
By Avi Shafran, on July 3rd, 2009
In my youthful self-centeredness, I had imagined him as my rebbe alone. Who … Read More >>
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