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why Orthodox Jews do what they do Archives - Page 8 of 17 - Out of the Ortho Box
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why Orthodox Jews do what they do

Uncategorized July 1, 2012

Saturday Joggers

Actual conversation:
Rabbi, I have a silly question.  So this weekend we were away for a friend’s son’s bar mitzvah, and Saturday morning I went out for a jog.
So there I am, in my shorts, and, well, you know, and my route takes me right past the local Orthodox synagogue, just as everyone’s leaving.
And so on the one hand, I want to say “Good Shabbos,” or “Shabbat Shalom,” or whatever, but would that be weird, because obviously I’m like, jogging, and not, well, in shul… And I’m not dressed modestly so would that make people uncomfortable?  Or should I just say good morning?  I mean, how would that be viewed by the Orthodox?
Saturday joggers and Orthodox shul-goers: what say you?
Uncategorized June 20, 2012

Swayin' While Prayin'

When I pray
I sway.
Why? you may say.

The Yiddish word: shuckle.
Is there a Hebrew equivalent?

It’s how I saw people praying growing up.
I don’t know another way.
I’ve tried to stop.
Can’t.
It happens by itself.
Side-to-side.
Forth/back.

Sometimes, the emotion of my words gets into my body and takes over.
Or, I’m thinking about my grocery list (oy!).
Then, the sway/pray wakes me up.

Shake!  Awake!
Think about where you are. (Not Heinen’s.)

Are you not ashamed
to be swaying
like a saint
when your mind
grows faint?

Close your eyes.
Sway.  Be silent.  Let your body remind your heart.
To listen.
Take part.
Engage.
Be on the same page.
Be one:
Words.  Mind.  Heart. Body.
Sway, and pray.
Or: pray, and sway.

Either way.

Uncategorized June 11, 2012

I’m a Jew-ist

I care about our planet
yet I’m not an environmentalist.

I care about animals
but I’m not an activist.

I feel that women are strong, wise, and capable, and have an incredibly important contribution to offer the world
but I’m not a feminist.

I believe that humans have values and concerns that are deeply important
but I wouldn’t be called a humanist.

It is vitally important to me to understand things rationally
but I don’t want you to call me a rationalist.

My observance may seem extreme to some
but I don’t think you’d call me an extremist.

I believe that God has a masterplan
but I’m definitely not a fatalist.

I’m a Jew.
It’s my highest calling.
I wouldn’t dilute it, hyphenate it, or share it with any other identity.
All my other callings fall under its umbrella.
I’m a Jew-ist.

Uncategorized May 30, 2012

High on Hebrew

Hebrew is the only language, I recently asserted, where it pays to play language police.

On a recent post about the nature of the relationship between Reform and Orthodox definitions of Jewish,  a tangent, one of many, arose, buried deep in the comment section, that merits its own post: the particularness of the Hebrew language.

It started with the discussion of: is Judaism a race or nation?  Religion or ethnicity?  I was surprised that some were opposed to my usage of the word “race” as it niggled Nazi terminology a wee too close.  And the conversation continued (I’ve edited here):
Me: …it really only makes sense to be the language
police where Hebrew is concerned. English (ever read the kids’ book
“Frindle”?) language is useful per lots of people agreeing to mean
something by the usage of a particular word or phrase.

Hebrew,
according to Judaism, carries inherent, never-evolving, never
synonymously interchangeable, meanings. Biblical Hebrew, that is.

So
I don’t mind if you substitute race for nation for whatever. My
original point was, is and still stands, that whatever you call us, we
defy logic. You can’t compare us to any other people, religion, race
ethnicity, or nation – in terms of how they define themselves, came to
be formed, and can cease to belong to that particular group. It doesn’t
even matter what you call us, for this reason.



Should be working:  Thanks for appreciating me be a linguistic nitpicker. It’s a passion.
Now
you will have to tell me more about this idea that Hebrew has
never-evolving meanings. Where does Judaism say this? I’m a big fan of
Robert Alter’s Bible translations, and his scholarship. One thing I love
is his sensitivity to the ambiguities in the language of the Torah.
Which means you and O-Jews might be anything but fans. 
  
Larry Lennhoff: I
hope Ruchi wasn’t trying to say that the words of the Torah are
unambiguous. Rather I took her to say that every word was precisely
chosen and that no other word would do in its place. This precision is
necessary precisely to allow for the ambiguity that results in the 70
faces of the Torah. When someone darshens (homiletically interprets a
verse) based on the idea that if you read a word with a different set of
vowels you can extract another meaning they are taking advantage of the
Torah’s precision, but increasing ambiguity, not lessening it.

Orthodox figures such Ibn Ezra, James Kugel (in his book How to Read the Bible: A Guide to Scripture, Then and Now)…all pay great attention to Biblical grammar and vocabulary.

I look forward to Ruchi’s post on the matter.
Zusel ben Shlomo :  Ruchi, you
are losing me again when you state that Hebrew, even Biblical Hebrew,
is never ambiguous or uncertain. It is certainly not true once it is
translated into English. IF you have ever seriously studied Tanach
using two different Jewish translations you might be amazed at the
differences. Even resorting to a competent Biblical reader, results in a
statement “well the Hebrew kind of implies both meaning, but neither
one is exact.”
There are also many Biblical nouns e.g. animals that we have no certain knowledge of.

There
are also words that only appear once in the entire Biblical Hebrew
so it is impossible to know what they meant in the ancient context.
Tanach also includes many euphemisms and figures of speech that cannot
be translated literally. 

So let me clarify what I’m talking about here.  Please note that wherever I say “Hebrew,” I refer not to modern Israeli Hebrew, but rather to Biblical Hebrew.
Rabbi Akiva Tatz is really the contemporary king of the topic.  In his book Letters to a Buddhist Jew, there is an entire chapter devoted to the following concepts.  I encourage you to click on the link and read it online:
1. Hebrew is entirely unlike any other language (sounds familiar to my assertion that the Jewish people are unlike any other people ever created…).
2. All languages derive originally from Hebrew.  The story of the Tower of Babel describes its explosion into multiple languages.  No coincidence here that Babel is essentially the same as the English “babble” – that’s exactly what happened when the languages diverged.
3. Hebrew is [perhaps one of] the most concise of languages.
4. Hebrew is the language of reality, and thus a concept that is merely an illusion will not have a word to describe it in Hebrew (example: “my rights”).  Ugly words do not exist in Hebrew; despite its inherent conciseness, more words and syllables will be employed to describe something in a lovelier, less insulting way.  Example: the word “treif” is not Biblical but rather Talmudic.  In the Torah it describes “the animals that are not pure.”
5. There are no synonyms in Hebrew since each word is precisely chosen and carries that meaning throughout its use anywhere in Scripture.
6. Aside from the actual word usage and the sense of reality it conveys, there is another layer of meaning encoded in the language, that, as far as I know does not exist in any other language.  This is called “gematria” – each letter carries a numerical equivalent that is there to teach us something and can often reveal deeper layers of the concept.
7. Each Hebrew letter’s construct and name is the subject of deep meaning.  Even which letters are juxtaposed in the Torah is a meaningful study.  Example: Two letters that never appear together in the entirety of Torah (this was asserted prior to computer-checking capacity but remains proven now) are the “gimmel” and the “tet.”  Put together, it spells the Talmudic word for divorce.
There are so many examples and so much more to say; start with reading Rabbi Tatz’s chapter and even that is just the portal.
To respond to Zusel ben Shlomo:
Sure, Hebrew can be ambiguous, just as any language.  But the diction never is.  If a word is chosen, it is very telling.  To the point where when I teach Torah classes, mainly in English, when we’re stuck I look up the original Hebrew and it usually answers the question.  The translating into English is precisely the problem; it’s like reading a recipe online instead of cooking it in real life.
So to the original point, it doesn’t really matter if I want to call the Jewish people a “nation,” a “race” or whatever.  The real question is, what are we called in Hebrew?
Here are a few answers, and excuse my imperfect translation, which you now know the reason for:
“Mamleches kohanim” – a kingdom of priests (religion/Chosen People)
“Goy Kadosh” – a holy people (religion)
“Bnei Yisrael” – the children of Israel (race/family/ethnicity)
“Am segulah” – a treasured nation (nation)
Squirming?  🙂 
So…. does that clarify or confuse?  What’s your exposure to the depth of Biblical Hebrew?

Uncategorized May 22, 2012

What Do You Mean, You Can’t Eat in my Home??

Okay, so I shamelessly stole that awesome title from Azriela Jaffe’s book, and will pay back the favor by linking it here.  (Thanks, Azriela.)  I haven’t actually read the book but I’ve heard lotsa good things about it.

Neither have I ever dealt with this issue personally, but many of my friends have.  The thrust is that when someone decides to keep kosher, or go from “regular kosher” or “kosher style” to strictly kosher, they may be unable (unwilling?) to eat in their families’ and friends’ kitchens.  Result?  Confusion, perceived judgment, and hurt feelings.  IMHO, one of the main issues is that the parties involved become emotionally bogged down and thus unable (unwilling?) to see things objectively.

So, for the purpose of distance and illustration, let’s look at four analogous instances.  Ready?

Scenario 1:
My husband is doing a bris.  He suggests that the family serve kosher food at the bris to honor the Jewish symbolism of the occasion.  They decline.  They offer to order him a kosher meal.  Or, sometimes, they don’t.

Scenario 2:
We have guests over that are gluten-free.  It’s my first experience with gluten-free eating, so I poke around online and ask them for ideas.  “Don’t worry,” they say, “don’t put yourself out.  There are lots of things our son can eat.  Thank you!”

Scenario 3:
My friend tells me an acquaintance invited herself over for Shabbat dinner, and asked what she’d be serving.  “Brisket,” she said.

“Oh, sorry, I can’t have that.  It’s too fattening.”

Scenario 4:
At a holiday dinner, my mother-in-law brings out a number of dishes, most of which, coincidentally, contain mushrooms.  It turns out that her guest is allergic to mushrooms.

Questions:
1. Is it the responsibility of the bris host to order my husband a kosher meal?  Is it reasonable for him/her to be offended if my husband can’t eat the “regular” (non-kosher) meal?

2. Is it my responsibility to make sure I have gluten-free food for my guest, or should he/she fill up on GF food prior to coming?  Should I be hurt if he/she won’t eat food that I thought, erroneously, was GF?

3. Is this guest rude?

4. Who feels worse: the guest, or my mother-in-law?

What do you think?  Have you ever been in any of the above situations?

Uncategorized May 3, 2012

Birthdays, Valentine’s Day, and Competitive Sports: What I Learned in Buffalo Grove, Illinois

Total immersion – moving from Jerusalem to Buffalo Grove, Illinois:  from almost complete Orthodox social insularity to very heterogeneous Jewish suburbia.

My husband had accepted his first pulpit position in a small outreach congregation, and I was about to learn everything there was to know about the Jews in the ‘burbs.  For the purpose of this post, I will refer to my fellow Jews that I met as HSJs (heterogeneous suburban Jews).  This means they were not Orthodox, not urban, basically raising young families and sending their kids to (the excellent local) public schools.  Some considered themselves Reform, some secular or unaffiliated, some of Orthodox sympathies but not observant quite to that degree, and some Conservative.

I enjoyed meeting these families so much, and they were patient and loving as I figured out what on earth I was doing (at the tender young age of 23).  I learned much about them, and them about me.  So what follows is hardly a judgment call, but simply my learning curve.

Here were the surprises:

1.  HSJs are very big on birthdays.

Now, I am too.  But just because it’s my kid’s birthday, or even my husband’s or mother’s, doesn’t mean I am going to stop the clock and ignore everyone else.  I found this devoted observance of birthdays surprising and interesting.  Growing up, my mother always acknowledged our birthdays with a cake on the Friday night preceding or following our Hebrew birthday, or English.  Depending on which came first.  Or what else was going on.  Occasionally a friend would have party, at home.  With homemade cake usually, or something at the local kosher pizza place.

So when people told me they couldn’t come to an event or class because it was someone’s birthday, I couldn’t really wrap my brain around it.

Here’s why I think:  

In the Orthodox world, people have a lot of kids.  And people get married young and have more kids.  This means a lot of cousins, neighbors and occasions.  For example, in my extended family and community, about once a week, if not more, there is an occasion of some sort: bar/bat mitzvah, upsherin (first haircut for a 3-year-old boy), siyum (celebration of completion of a part of Talmud), wedding, sheva brachos (week-long celebration following the wedding), Jewish holiday, and on and on.

Birthdays, frankly, paled in comparison.

2. HSJs celebrate Valentine’s Day.

This was a shocker to me.  We couldn’t plan an event on Valentine’s?  Really?  For Jews?  Wasn’t St. Valentine, um, a saint?

Here’s why I think:

Hallmark wins on this one, guys.  It’s succeeded in convincing us that this is not a religious thing, but a moral obligation for all husbands.  Jewish guys are menschen, right?  So they do the flowers, wine, and chocolate.  Everyone forgot about the St. and is just trying to stay out of trouble.

3. HSJs live in the car shuffling their kids to sports events and then watch their kids at those events. 


My siblings and I were into extra-curricular stuff.  But it looked really different from what I saw in BG.  I was in the drama group at school, my brothers played football on the front lawn every Sunday, and I took Red Cross first aid and babysitting through my school.  My parents never watched us do those things, and I would never have expected them to.

Here’s why I think:

I think this one just boils down to not only having a lot of kids, but being a part of a community where lots of people have a lot of kids.  Therefore, the soccer mom model is simply not sustainable: not time-wise, and not financially.  Expectations are radically different.  I used to not get that when people said “How do you manage?” they were thinking of ALL. THAT. DRIVING.

I have enough driving with school carpools, going to friends, and household errands.  I could never manage more.  Thankfully, no one expect me to, because our community is just not structured that way.

4.  Finally, HSJs were extraordinarily touched that we had chosen to live in their community.


I had wondered if anyone would wonder why the riffraff was moving in, but we received such a wonderfully warm welcome.  Time and again we were asked if it was hard for us, living away from family, far from the day school, and not in an eruv.

They offered to help with my kids and bring us something kosher from the local bakery, and were thrilled for us when a kosher deli opened in town.

And this, for me, was the best surprise.

Have you ever been in a situation where you learned a lot about a different type of Jew?

Uncategorized April 27, 2012

Jewish v. Jew-ish, or Is It True that Orthodox People Don’t Think Reform Jews are Jewish

This is the post I didn’t want to write.

I wanted to pretend it wasn’t a problem.  Wasn’t an issue.  Wasn’t the elephant in the room.

The first time I heard this accusation I was flummoxed.  What?  Of course Reform Jews are Jewish.  Where did that even come from??  Where do people even get these things from??  How do people believe these things about us?

But I think I understand things a little better now.  And that’s good news and bad news.  This blog has helped crystallize for me what exactly the issue is.  In Judaism, there’s a teaching:

I’ve learned much from all my teachers.  But from my students most of all.

That’s how I feel about all those who read and comment on this blog.  And here’s what I’ve learned (and please hang on to the end; this is like a geometry proof.  If you hate geometry, hang on anyway; it’s like a recipe):

1. Orthodox people define Judaism very technically.  Either you’re born to a Jewish mother, or you convert according to halacha (Jewish law).

2.  However, Reform Jews (I think) define Judaism more conditionally.  If you feel Jewish, act Jewish, raise the kids Jewish, were raised Jew-ish, you’re Jewish.

3. In some cases, the Orthodox view will be more inclusive (like when a born Jew celebrates Christmas, wears a cross, burns the Israeli flag, and eats pepperoni pizza, he’s still as Jewish as Moses, according to Orthodox philosophy).

4. In some cases, the Reform view will be more inclusive (like when someone is born to a Jewish father but not a Jewish mother, he is still Jewish if he behaves Jewishly, according to Reform philosophy).

5. Therefore, since Reform Jews tie identity with behavior, they think Orthodox Jews do, too.

6. Therefore, a Reform Jew who isn’t very observant might assume that the Orthodox don’t consider him Jewish, since he figures that if he were Orthodox, he wouldn’t consider himself Jewish.

7.  This is not true, since the Orthodox tie identity to technical status only (while acknowledging that observance is very important but simply not a condition for status).

8.  That’s the good news.

9.  The bad news is that since Orthodoxy asserts that only technical status determines Jewishness, conversion can become a sticking point.

10.  However, this is highly dependent on personal circumstances and each situation is taken case-by-case.

11.  Finally, I consider issues of personal status to be extremely private and unless there’s a practical reason that someone is asking me or needs to be told for halachic (Jewish law) reasons, I don’t intervene in this area.

12.  Of all the things I deal with in Jewish education, this is by far the most sensitive and potentially hurtful: who is and isn’t a Jew?

13.  I wish I never had to hurt anyone’s feelings and that my religious beliefs and standards never had to make anyone feel bad.

14. In the vast majority of cases, they don’t.

How are you used to thinking about identity – Jewish (technical) or Jew-ish (behavior-based)?

UPDATE: May 8, 2012 – Due to the unprecedented number of comments below, you must scroll to the bottom of the page and click “load more” to view the more recent comments.