Looks like this is “how to” month here on OOTOB, but this is a follow up from my post about intuitive eating, and I think it’s important to address here because a few people have observed the “frum 10” (also known as the “frum 15”) which is the weight you gain when you become Orthodox and start eating Thanksgiving dinner twice a week plus a bar mitzvah or wedding thrown regularly into the mix.
I haven’t done a giveaway on this blog in forever! Figured the time has come!
THE PRIZE: a CD of one of my most popular talks, “Why Bother to Reach Your Potential?”
1. Why is this night different from all the other nights?
2. Why is my Seder different from all the other Seder?
3. Why is my kid different from all the other kids?
4. Why is my life different from all the other lives?
Greetings, OOTOB readers!
Hope you’ve all been well. Today’s post will be a conglomeration of stuff I’ve been into.
1. CLEANING FOR PASSOVER IN ONE DAY, GONE VIRAL
Firstly, my post from a couple years ago on cleaning for Passover in one day appears to have gone viral this year. That makes me both happy and sad. Happy, that more people can understand that Passover is about joy and that God would never give us an unmanageable task, and sad that so many people are freaking out about Passover. 8,000 hits this week alone tells me that people are kinda into this topic. Ya think? It’s gotten so that when I go grocery shopping, people stop me to say, “I hear you have this thing with cleaning for Pesach in one day…?” Yeah, I’m that girl. So check it out and pass it along.
2. PATRONIZE OUR SPONSOR FOR KOSHER VITAMINS
You may have noticed that ad up there, in green, for kosher vitamins. This company is supporting OOTOB, so please patronize our sponsors and if someone asks you about kosher vitamins, send them the link. Thanks!
3. STAYING CONNECTED TO JUDAISM BETWEEN HOLIDAYS
This recent Kveller post by my online (soon to be IRL) blogging buddy Nina Badzin – I’m headed to Minneapolis on Sunday to address Aish on Women in Judaism – is a really important post. It’s short and deceptively simple, but don’t be fooled. None of these things are commonly blurted out in a word-association game about Judaism, but all of them are in the Good Book right with shofar, matza, and l’chaim. Read it and tell me what you think. Judaism is meant to lived and expressed every day – and primarily in the home. Check it out.
4. BOOK UPDATE
My book, a women’s prayerbook, is done and off to my editor! The publishing company Mosaica Press is handling it, and I’m feeling a huge sense of relief now that it’s out of my hands – at least this phase of it. It doesn’t have a name yet, so please weigh in on my two options, as developed by my trusty crowdsourcing marketing team on Facebook:
1. Calling God: a women’s prayerbook of conversation and connection
2. Prism of Prayer: a women’s prayerbook of conversation and reflection
Basically, don’t worry about the subtitle so much, but envision yourself at Barnes and Noble or recommending it to a friend. Which title has more punch, interest, and memorability?
It’s due out this fall, so keep your eyes and ears open for that.
5. HAIRCOVERING UPDATE
A couple of months ago I blogged about my evolving views on haircovering; specifically, methods of which to do so.
Each year I put together a shutterfly album of our family’s pictures from that year, and I noticed in my absorption in that project that I really, really, like the way I look in the pictures with scarves. It encouraged me to wear more of them, as opposed to wigs, which I hate wearing.
Anyhoo, that’s what’s been going on around here. Happy preparations for Passover, for my Jewish readers 🙂
Hey readers,
So the bald truth is that I’ve been too busy to blog. Oy, the honesty! Nevertheless, I’d never abandon you in your moment of need.
Here are some Chanukah laughs, and here are some ideas (too late for this year, no doubt, but just to kick yourself about how smart you could have been).
I wrote an article for the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project, the [insert insane hyperbole here] organization that sponsors the women’s trips to Israel I’ve been running since 2009 – and going again in April – woot! It’s got some grammar glitches cuz I wrote it in a rush (oy, the honesty!) but I think it’s still passable. It’s something I feel strongly about, and I’d love to hear your thoughts.
The Chanukah story is Judaism’s classic lesson of finding a bit of light amid the darkness. As the famed Kotzker Rebbe said, “A little bit of light dispels much darkness.” The iconic tale of the small bit of oil that lasted eight days serves as inspiration for us in the darkest days of winter.The Jewish people have been the victim of so much darkness of late. Hate crimes, terror, world denouncement and prejudice have all become the new normal. How to react, how to cope?? How can little old me deal with all this? The only way is to resolve to just shine a little bit of light and make a difference in that way…read more by clicking here.
(Oh, and I’m pretty sure I misattributed that quote. It was Shneur Zalman of Liadi.)
On another note, by ebook is coming along nicely thanks to my detail-oriented fellow grammar-nerd daughter, whom I’ve hired to edit it. And my prayer book is, like, 75% written. We’re progressing, people. Patience.
Happy reading.
Happy Chanukah.
Love,
me
Well, here we go again. Tonight and tomorrow are Tisha B’av – the saddest time on the Jewish calendar.
It’s always a struggle to “make myself sad” so I can appropriately commemorate this day. Not this year, though.
It’s usually tough to conjure up feelings of wistfulness about our nation’s eventual return, unified, to our Land. Not this year, though.
Sometimes it’s hard to imagine our land full of dead and wounded. Not this year, though.
It can be a stretch, at the height of summer, to pause from our revelry, from our swimming, from dancing at weddings, from outdoor barbecues – to focus on loss and pain. Not this year, though.
At one time it seemed a bit overblown to state that we were surrounded by enemies who wished to see us dead. Not this year, though.
And ultimately? It has, at some points in my life, been difficult to truly pray for life to change, to bring in its wake better times, peaceful times, happy times.
Not this year.
May this be the last Tisha B’av – this year, and any year.
Rabbi Zee (aka Zauderer) is a fast-talking New Yorker. Except he lives in Toronto and has some really interesting things to say – if you can follow the pace. He joined us in Cleveland for a Shabbaton weekend last year and I’ve been getting his weekly emails ever since. He and his wife Ahuva and their eight children live in the Bathurst/Lawrence area, where their home is always open to anyone who wants to experience a Shabbos or a Torah class. Rabbi Zee (as he is known to his students) brings to his classes a special combination of Torah knowledge, teaching experience, and interpersonal skills. In honor of the forthcoming holiday commemorating the giving of the Torah, Shavuot, here’s a classic piece of his on the Oral Tradition (the mishna/Talmud). Rabbi Zee will be available to field comments and questions here. Email him to be added to his weekly list – it’s great stuff.
“Now let’s see what this list says,” Amelia Bedelia read. “CHANGE THE TOWELS IN THE GREEN BATHROOM.” Amelia Bedelia found the green bathroom.
“Those towels are very nice. Why change them?” she thought.
Then Amelia Bedelia remembered what Mrs. Rogers had said. She must do just what the list had told her.
“Well, all right,” said Amelia Bedelia.
She snipped a little here and a little there. And she changed those towels.
“Now what? PUT THE LIGHTS OUT WHEN YOU FINISH IN THE LIVING ROOM.” Amelia Bedelia thought about this a minute.
She switched off the lights. Then she carefully unscrewed each bulb. And Amelia Bedelia put the lights out.
“So those things need to be aired out, too. Just like pillows and babies. Oh, I do have a lot to learn.”
*********************************************
It is a foundation of our faith to believe that G-d gave Moses and the Jewish people an oral explanation of the Torah along with the written text. This oral tradition is now essentially preserved in the Talmud and Midrash.
However, there are many Jews today who are skeptical when it comes to accepting a so-called “oral tradition,” claiming that the Talmud and all the interpretations of the literal text of the Torah were the product of later Rabbinic scholars who might have had hidden agendas and fanciful imaginations.
Some of us might be willing to accept the notion of G-d revealing Himself to the Jewish people and giving us His Torah – the Written Torah, that is – but anything other than the Five Books of Moses is circumspect.
If we study Jewish history, we will find that this is an old claim that was made well over 2000 years ago by a breakaway sect of Jews known as the Saduccees. While they accepted the authority of the Written Torah, they rejected the oral traditions and interpretations of the Sages, and they preached a literal reading of the text of the Torah…. which led to some interesting and strange practices. I guess one could say that the Saduccees were the “Amelia Bedelias” of the ancient world.
I will give you some examples of what can happen when we take every word of the Written Torah literally, without relying on a much-needed Oral Tradition.
G-d commands the Jewish people in Numbers (15:38): “They shall make for themselves tzitzis (fringes) on the corners of their garments ….. It shall constitute tzitzis for you, that you may see it …..” The Torah never writes explicitly that we should wear the fringed garment. If anything, the Torah says that we should see the tzitzis, implying that we should hang the fringed garment (today called the prayer shawl) on our wall in a noticeable place.
And that’s exactly what the Saduccees did! They hung their tzitzis on the wall, but would never wear them.
How about the Sabbath? It is one of the Ten Commandments. Yet in the entire Written Torah, virtually no details are given as to how it should be kept! So how are we to know what to do? Should we keep the Sabbath by lighting candles… or maybe a trip to the park with the kids was what G-d had in mind? Or maybe it should be left up to each individual to celebrate the Sabbath in his/her own way?
The details can be found in the Oral Torah, of course. As G-d said, “You shall keep the Sabbath holy, as I have commanded your fathers” (Jeremiah 17:22) – obviously referring to an oral tradition. But I bet that Amelia Bedelia and her predecessors the Saduccees sure would have been confused!
ON THE MORROW OF WHICH DAY?
Let me give you one more example, which has relevance to the upcoming holiday of Shavuos (The Festival of Weeks).
In the Written Torah, G-d commands the Jewish people to celebrate the holiday of Shavuos. But He doesn’t tell them directly which day they should celebrate. Rather, the Torah states in Leviticus (23:15) “You shall count for yourselves – from the morrow of the rest day seven weeks…” The Torah writes further that at the end of those seven weeks of counting you shall celebrate the Festival of Weeks.
Now, if we are to believe that only the Written Torah was Divinely given, but not the Oral Tradition, then we are forced to conclude that G-d was playing some kind of cruel joke on His Chosen People!
I mean, come on, can’t you help us out here a little, G-d? On the morrow of the “rest day” we should count seven weeks and then celebrate Shavuos? Which one of the 52 “rest days” of the year are you referring to, G-d? Are we going to play Twenty Questions here, or what?
As a matter of fact, the Saduccees, for lack of a better option, decided to count the seven weeks from the day after the first Saturday after Passover, which means that Shavuos would always come out on a Sunday!
Of course, the Oral Torah helps us out here as always, and tells us exactly what G-d had in mind with that very vague and ambiguous reference.
Now, when Amelia Bedelia makes such mistakes and follows everything Mrs. Rogers tells her to do – literally – it makes for an interesting and comical children’s book, at which we can’t help but chuckle. But it’s not so funny when the stakes are higher – when the very foundation of our faith and of our lives – our beloved Torah – is taken so literally as to become vague and confusing, and, G-d forbid, almost comical.
THE OBVIOUS QUESTION
Okay, so let’s assume that G-d gave us two Torahs – a Written Torah and an Oral Tradition along with it to clarify things – but we still have to ask ourselves why would G-d do such a thing? Why couldn’t He just write everything clearly in the Written Torah? This way He could have avoided all the problems and divisions among our people, whereby some of us accept both Torahs, and some reject the Oral Torah, because it seems to have originated with a bunch of Rabbis, instead of being Divinely given and inspired!
I once posed this question to a man from West Orange, New Jersey, with whom I had been studying on a weekly basis. His ten-year-old son had joined us that evening, and the young boy came up with an answer that is, in my opinion, quite profound, and also has a connection to the very first words in this week’s Torah portion.
In Leviticus (26:3), the Torah states: “If you will follow My decrees and observe My commandments and perform them; then I will provide your rains in their time.”
The verse seems to be repetitious. What is the difference between “following my decrees” and “observing my commandments”? Rashi, the great Bible commentator, explains, based on the Oral Tradition, that “following My decrees” – which is read in Hebrew bechukosai tay-laychu – means that we should toil in Torah study, whereas the next words in the verse refer to the performance of the actual commandments.
It is difficult to understand where the Oral Tradition got the idea of “toiling in Torah” from the Torah’s words bechukosai tay-laychu, which simply mean “to follow My decrees.”
Rabbi Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first Lubavitcher Rebbe, once explained this strange oral tradition as follows:
There are two methods of writing – one with ink and paper and the other by engraving on stone. The difference between the two is that when one writes with ink, the words do not become one with the paper, making it possible for the message on the paper to be erased over time. When a message is engraved into stone, however, the words and the stone are one unit, so that the message remains in the stone permanently.
The Hebrew word bechukosai, or decrees, comes from the root word chakikah, which means engraving. G-d is teaching us that if we want the words and the message of the Torah to leave an indelible and permanent impression upon us, we must study them intensely and toil in them, so that we become one with the Torah that we study and it becomes engraved on our hearts.
And that’s exactly what the little boy answered to my question. He said that if the entire Torah had been written out for us, without our having to put any effort in trying to explain it and get to the deeper meaning behind the literal text, it wouldn’t become a part of us and would leave no permanent impact.
This is one of many reasons why the Oral Tradition is so very important and central in Judaism.