Southern & Jewish

Blessings & Curses: Moments of Misunderstanding

By Rabbi Marshal Klaven

“Jews are dogs, killers of Christ!”

The shouts came from an irate woman as I was walking into one of our Southern congregations for Shabbat. At first, I could not make out what she was saying. Then, it became clear:

Angry division is dangerous.

“Jews are dogs! Killers of Christ!”

She began to quote some scripture, which implied that our Jewish spiritual path is the path of sinners and we are either the devil or a slave to him. In either case, it was clear – to her – that we were destined for hell. Feeling accosted, I debated whether or not I should respond. For the sake of our people and our rich Jewish heritage, eventually I decided in the affirmative. After all, we’re no push-overs! I yelled back:

“Hey, if you’re going to quote scripture, why not ‘love your neighbor as yourself’’?! Surely, it’s a better representation of Jesus the JEW’s theology!”

She mumbled something profane and continued on her way.

I called after her with the departing words: “May God bless you!”

Moments of misunderstanding like this are too common, even today. In fact, leaving this moment, I walked into the congregation and right into another moment of misunderstanding: a member of the congregation, a concerned father, approached me with this story:

“My daughter came home with this certificate from her public school volleyball team. See! There’s her picture next to the verse: ‘I can do all through Christ, who strengthens me.’ Rabbi, what are we to do?”

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The Grogger and the Dreidel

Purim and Chanukah

There is a marked similarity between Purim and Chanukah. It has been mentioned that on Purim we rotate a groger, a noisemaker, by holding it up, and on Chanukah, we rotate a dreidel which we hold down. Certainly this is true, but more important, perhaps, is the mystical allusions that the two bring out, since it is known that nothing in Judaism is done with out a connection to the highest of mystical reasons.

First let us look a bit deeper in the two holidays. Both Purim and Chanukah have two similar elements, physical warfare and spiritual values. In Purim, the spiritual aspect was invoked to help in the salvation of the Jews. Esther and the Jews fasted and prayed to G-d that the evil decree of Haman should be over turned, and it was. Subsequently, King Achasverous permitted the Jews to enter into warfare with their enemies, resulting in the killing of thousands of these enemies.

In Chanukah, we find that Mattisyahu and his sons began warfare and were successful in their fight resulting in the regaining of our spiritual center, the Holy Temple.

In Purim, the spiritual aspect (prayer and fasting) preceded the physical (warfare), but in Chanukah, the physical aspect (warfare) preceded the spiritual (the Holy Temple).

Obviously this provokes the question that which is really more important, the physical aspect of fighting for our rights and liberties, or the spiritual aspects of life?? In addition, we can reinstate our original question of what connection is this to the spin of a dreidel or groger?

As we analyze the two holidays we can see a major difference between them. Chanukah was fought on Jewish land; Purim was in Persia, in a foreign country. Clearly it seems that when we are in foreign lands, our first recourse is to be through prayer, since we do not possess armies and armaments, we are at the mercy of G-d. However, when we are in our own land, that the Good L-rd has graced us with, we must show him that we are willing to physically fight for His Holy Presence here on earth, the Holy Temple.

Purim which was out side of our land was initiated with our spiritual powers, our prayer and fasting, and concluded with the heavenly gift granting us the use of physical warfare therefore, the groger makes its noise as we raise it up to the heavens and draws down its prowess to the earth below. Chanukah began with our rebellion as we lived on our land and concluded with G-d giving us back our spiritual center, the Holy Temple, so the spinning of the dreidel is started down below on the floor and draws its power to us from the earthly aspect of our efforts.

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How Ed Koch Honored My Son"

The late New York mayor told me he wanted to be remembered by my son Daniel Pearl’s final words: ‘I am Jewish.’

By Judea Pearl 

Most Jews have simple epitaphs on their headstones—perhaps a quote from Psalms or a passage from the Torah, or maybe a phrase proclaimed by one of the prophets. Ed Koch, the former mayor of New York, who died at 88 last Friday and is being buried in his city, has the last words spoken by our son Daniel Pearl before he was murdered by terrorists in 2002: “My father is Jewish, my mother is Jewish, I am Jewish.”

The fact that Koch has now died on the same day as our son seems to be yad hahashgacha, the hand of providence, at work. If I were a believer, I would say: How could anyone doubt God’s existence? Instead, I am struck by what a strange, surreal coincidence this is.

I never met Koch in person, but we first corresponded in 2004, when my wife and I were working on a book of essays inspired by the last words of our son. When I first heard what Danny said in that dungeon, I knew it would strike a chord with every Jewish soul—and, in fact, that every decent human being would be moved by this expression of identity. That he declared those words—words connecting him to his people with a shared, ancient history—makes me feel he wasn’t alone, that he had many millions of hearts with him in Karachi. “Back in the town of B’nai Brak there is a street named after my great-grandfather, Chaim Pearl, who was one of the founders of the town,” Danny said, and he had the pulse of the entire Jewish history with him, from the Talmudic scholars who founded the ancient town to the city-builders of modern Israel.

The echo of Danny’s words has not subsided. Koch took the dramatic act of putting it on his tombstone, but many others carry Danny’s words and are nurtured by them, quietly. For the book, we commissioned many prominent Jews to reflect on what the phrase “I am Jewish” meant to them, and Koch was one of the 300 people we asked. Koch sent in an essay mainly expressing anger about the terrorists—how they act against civilized society, and how they should be dealt with. It was about our world and how we got into this war, and we felt it didn't fit the theme. The theme was what does being Jewish mean to you, a very personal question, and we asked Koch if he’d be open to revising it. Koch’s answer was definitive: That’s how I feel, he said, and I can’t change it.

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The Yeah, Yeah Philosopher

Few have better embodied the intersection between rabbinical thought and Western philosophy as well as the late American philosopher and ordained rabbi Sidney Morgenbesser (1921-2004).

Morgenbesser’s academic focus may have been on the humanities, but he was best known for his whip-smart humor and wit.

One of his most famous retorts involves a lecture given by a prominent philosopher of language. The speaker posited that while two negatives may amount to a positive, two positives will never amount to a negative. "Yeah, yeah," Morgenbesser responded with a dismissive wave of his hand.

Despite rarely publishing, Morgenbesser’s legacy is cemented in the intelligence, playfulness, and humor of his outlook on life. A friend once said that Morgenbesser "was a philosopher in the…primordial sense of the word. He looked straight at the world."

And Morgenbesser was clever till the very end. In the last weeks of his life, before he succumbed to Lou Gehrig's disease, the philosopher asked: "Why is God making me suffer so much? Is it because I don’t believe in him?"

Israel as an Apartheid State

Entertainment personalities, the likes of Annie Lennox, Peter Gabriel, Elvis Costello, Ken Loach and Roger Waters show a unique bias when it comes to the Jewish state. Miss Lennox appeared before the television cameras, berating Israel for defending itself against Hamas. Where is she when thousands are being slaughtered in Syria and basic human rights are denied in Iran? Her silence is deafening! Has she suddenly developed a dislike for the spotlight?

An Eye-Opening Experience

By Henry Tobias 

I was recently hospitalized with serious sight threatening complications following cataract surgery. On admission to the ward, a young Arab doctor, his name showed on his I.D., explained that he needed to examine my eyes once again before the upcoming surgery. I was nauseous and vomiting, had hardly kept down any food during the previous week, a side effect of the high optical pressure, and so weak that my wife pushed me around in a wheelchair.

To say the least, I was feeling very sorry for myself, and didn't want to be poked in the eye again. The ophthalmic surgeon, who was to do the operation, had, I thought, done all the groundwork the day before and any more probing was adding insult to injury.

A nurse was trying to calm me down. Very uncharacteristically I said to the nurse, "I feel shit." I don't usually use bad language. She agreed that I was within my rights to feel sick, but another examination was necessary before the operation, an hour or two later. Both the doctor and the nurse were very reassuring. At the behest of my very loving, but worried wife, I stopped acting like a five-year old and let the doctor do his work. I apologized to him profusely, and was angry at my own behavior.

A bed had been allocated, but had not yet been disinfected. The young woman, who was in the process of cleaning, told me that she would be done in a short while. My wife and I waited patiently, and soon I lay on the very uncomfortable hospital bed.

I was aware of my surroundings, but not interested. My initial operation had been distressful, even painful, having been given minimum local anesthetic as no complications had been expected. My apprehension at the thought of another traumatic experience had me close to panic. I told the surgeon how I felt, and he assured me that he would be gentle. I soon found myself lying on a reclining chair, similar to that used by a dentist.

The area around my eye was prepared and then contrary to the doctor's promise, I saw this syringe and needle bearing down on my forehead, looking like an intercontinental ballistic missile and reason was replaced by fear. The pain seared my skull, as the anesthetic was injected. Hysteria overcame me as I writhed and complained. The doctor lost his cool, but only for a moment, and said, "I can't do my job if you don't keep still." Sense prevailed, the anodyne took affect and my head was thankfully numb.

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Hasidic Yoga

The end of a sun-scorched street in the Israeli Haredi enclave of Ramat Beit Shemesh is probably not where you'd expect to find a yoga studio. But proprietors Rachel and Avraham Kolberg learned the practice in India before adopting the ultra-orthodox lifestyle of their fellow Breslever Hasids, and now they run a low-profile, gender-segregated yoga studio for Orthodox Jews.

Why the low profile? Many in the Breslever community maintain that the meditative exercise practice (which Avraham Kolberg describes as trying to make a person "aware of his heel") constitutes idol worship. One student, a teenage girl, was recently threatened with expulsion from her religious seminary when word got out about her yoga-cizing. She and other students practically sneak into the Kolbergs' home studio, and many of the women practice in their long skirts and stockings.

Despite constant social pressures, the Kolbergs and their students continue with their yoga studio, saying that for them yoga is not just good exercise, but is a way of worshipping God. "This," Kolberg said, "is spirituality."

On The Chocolate Trail

Several years ago, in a small chocolate shop in Paris, Rabbi Deborah R. Prinz chanced upon a pamphlet claiming that Jews had brought chocolate to France following their expulsion from Spain. It was an intriguing and plausible notion, but was it true? The resulting investigation culminated in Prinz’s new book On the Chocolate Trail, which explores the connections between Jews and chocolate from medieval times to the present.

And no one could be better suited for the task. Prinz loves chocolate so much that she’s coined a phrase for her ability to sniff it out: choco-dar. Whether traveling through Europe, doing yoga in California, or jazzercising to radio beats, Prinz's "internal, serendipitous radar for chocolate discoveries," as she describes it, is permanently on.

Prinz is an engaging storyteller, and the book covers an extraordinary amount of material—from the impact of Spanish Inquisition trials on the chocolate industry to the politics of fair trade Hanukkah gelt—without feeling too weighty. Her passion for all things Jewish and chocolaty is infectious, so make sure you have some chocolate handy when you're reading—you'll be craving it.