YCT San Diego Relief Mission

...מִי יָגֿוּר לָנוּ אֵשׁ אוֹכֵֿלָה? מִי יָגֿוּר לָנוּ מוֹקְדֵֿי עוֹלָם?
הֹלֵךְֿ צְדָֿקוֹתֿ, וְדֹֿבֵֿר מֵישָׁרִים;
מֹאֵס בְּבֶֿצַע מַעֲשַׁקּוֹתֿ, נֹעֵר כַּפָּיו מִתְּמֹךְֿ בַּשֹּׁחַדֿ,
אֹטֵם אָזְנוֹ מִשְּׁמֹעַ דָּמִים, וְעֹצֵם עֵינָיו מֵרְאוֹתֿ בְּרָע.
הוּא מְרוֹמִים יִשְׁכֹּן, מְצָדֿוֹתֿ סְלָעִים מִשְׂגַּבּוֹ —
לַחְמוֹ נִתָּן, מֵימָיו נֶאֱמָנִים...

...Who among us can dwell with devouring fire?
who can dwell with the unending blaze?
One who walks in righteousness, and speaks straightforwardly;
who despises the ill-gotten gains of oppression,
shaking off the grasping of bribes from his hands,
plugging his ears from hearing bloody words,
shutting his eyes from looking at evil.
He will dwell on high, his shelter being a fortress of rocks —
with available bread, and reliable water...

Yesha‘yahu/Isaiah 33:14-16

Wildfires in Southern California burn half a million acres, displacing almost a million people! A group of rabbinical students from Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, led by the Judeoblogosphere's own Ben "RabbiBen" Greenberg, head out to the San Diego area to do relief work, volunteering with evacuees and relief organizations. Read all about it at Da‘at Binyamin —

YCT San Diego Relief Mission

YCT San Diego Relief Mission: Day Two

YCT San Diego Relief Mission: Day Three

Saving Face at Makhpeila Place

1. Avraham announces his intention to acquire a burial-place for Sara from the people of Hheit.
   
2. The local representatives declare that any of their own grave plots are available for Avraham's use.
   
3. Avraham then identifies the owner of the land he wants — ‘Efron ben Tzohhar — and states his intention to pay the full value of the land.
   
4. ‘Efron then protests that he is giving Avraham the land for free.
   
5. Avraham repeats his insistence on paying for the land, fair and square.
   
6. At this point, ‘Efron continues to protest, with a strange addition — "What is a piece of land worth 400 silver sheqels between you and me?"
   
7. And then Avraham weighs out the silver and pays ‘Efron for the land that he had just insisted multiple times that he is giving Avraham for free.
   
8. The deal is done. The field and cave of Makhpeila now belong to Avraham.
   

What the heck is going on here?

This is what the sociologists call Saving Face.

Avraham is a mourning, bereaved husband looking for a burial plot for his deceased wife. How could anyone charge him money for land that he needs to bury her? And so, Beney Hheit offer Avraham their own lands for free. When ‘Efron is identified as the owner of the particular piece of real estate that Avraham is interested in, he reiterates the general offer. Avraham can have the land for free. Anything else would be barbaric. Avraham, however, wants to pay for the land. He offers to pay the full price, as is only fair.

Avraham can't back down from his offer to pay, since that would be reneging on his self-obligation.

‘Efron can't back down from his offer to give the land and cave away for free, because that would be uncivilized reneging on his generosity.

So what does ‘Efron do?

He tells Avraham how much the land is worth without actually asking him for the money. This way, they both save face. No one has to say anything that would contradict what they've already declared to be their intention. Avraham pays ‘Efron, the national representatives of Beney Hheit witness the transaction, and everything's done honestly.

And no one had to "lose face" in the process.

Binding of Isaac: Fallout Falling Apart

based on a lecture by R' Shmuel Klitsner

People like quoting Rashi's comment on Bereishit/Genesis 22:6-8 — on the way to the place where Avraham is planning on sacrificing his son, Yitzhhaq, the Torah uses the expression וילכו שניהם יחדיו, the two of them walked together, both at the beginning, when Yitzhhaq has no idea what's coming, and later, after his father has dropped the hint that "God will find for Godself a sheep for the sacrifice" — that 'sheep' being Yitzhhaq himself.

Rashi commented on these verses that just as when he was oblivious, after figuring out that he is heading towards his death, Yitzhhaq still went together with his father, towards God's purpose.

What neither the people who quote him, nor Rashi himself, it seems, noticed, though, was that this phrase appears again... almost. Avraham and Yitzhhaq go up to the mountain. Avraham binds his son on the altar, and is only prevented from killing and sacrificing him at the last moment by a messenger of God. God then blesses Avraham's descendents, and then —

וישב אברהם אל נעריו
ויקומו וילכו יחדו
אל באר שבע
וישב אברהם בבאר שבע

And then Avraham returned to his servants,
and they arose, and walked together
to Be’eir Sheva‘;
and Avraham dwelled in Be’eir Sheva‘.

From the point at which Yitzhhaq is almost sacrificed, he drops out of the story. He never interacts with his father again. He doesn't participate in burying his mother, Sara, or even in his own search for a wife. He only finally appears at the end of that story, coming back to meet Rivqa from meditating in the field, visiting Be’eir Lahhai Ro’i.

Be’eir Lahhai Ro’i — the Well of the Living One Who Watches Me — the site where a messenger of God saved the life of Avraham's other wife, Hagar, when she was pregnant with Yitzhhaq's older brother, Yishma‘eil.

Yitzhhaq is hanging out with Yishma‘eil.

Yishma‘eil who was also betrayed by their father, and put in danger of death. Who was also saved by God.

Yishma‘eil and Yitzhhaq buried Avraham their father together, but did not stay in Hhevron, or in Be’eir Sheva‘. Yitzhhaq returned to Be’eir Lahhai Ro’i, where God blessed him — because his father never did.

Last Night's Prayer

יְהִי רָצוֹן מִלְּפָֿנֶיךָֿ,
בּוֹרֵא עוֹלָמוֹתֿ וּמַחֲרִיבָֿן,
שֶׁתַּשְׁכִּיבֵֿנִי בְשָׁלוֹם
וּתְֿקִימֵנִי בְשָׁלוֹם;
וְתַֿצִּילֵנִי מִכָּל מִינֵי
עִכּוּבִֿים,
עִצּוּלִים,
וְשִׁקּוּצִים.*
וְאֵצֵא לַדֶּרֶךְֿ בַּבֹּקֶר
שָׂמֵחַ, וּבְֿטוּבֿ לֵבָֿבֿ,
כִּי אֶמְצָא מְקוֹם חֲנָיָה חָדָֿשׁ
בִּשְׁבִֿיל מְכֿוֹנִיתִֿי,
שֶׁתְּחָנֵּנִי בְרַחֲמֶיךָֿ הָרַבִּים.
וְלֹא אֶצְטָרֵךְֿ לָנוּדֿ וְלָנוּעַ,
וְלֹא לְהָזִיז אֶתֿ רִכְֿבִֿי
אָנָה וְאָנָה
מִפַּחַדֿ חִלּוּפֵֿי הַצְּדָֿדִֿים.
אָמֵן.

*note:
 that's שיקוץ in the Israeli slang sense of "random bad adjective applied jokingly to friends", not in the racist sh--g-tz sense, חס ושלום.

No Sketch

I went to school with Syrians, I've davened many times in their main synagogue, Sha‘aré Ṣiyón, thanks to my multicultural Jewish education I'm much more familiar with and appreciative of the customs of "Aram Ṣoba" than the vast majority of 'Dubs on the planet... but one thing has always pissed me off about the SY community, ever since I first heard about it in high school.

Their Taqana against conversion, which, we were told, was modeled after a similar communal edict in the Syrian community of Buenos Aires, Argentina, forbids the acceptance of converts into the community, marriage with converts, or even marrying the children of converts.

(hypothetical case)
Some random Non-Jewish man some place in the world finds Judaism. Converts halakhically. Makes aliyá to Israel. Marries a native-born Jewish woman — Ashkenazi, Yemenite, Italki, Moroccan, whatever. They have kids. Even if the father had never converted, the children would still be halakhically Jewish. And yet, some Syrian from Brooklyn goes to Israel, falls in love with one of the convert's children, and they can't get married without being kicked out of the community?!

Some of the quotes in THIS ARTICLE are absurd.

“Never accept a convert or a child born of a convert,” Kassin told me by phone, summarizing the message. “Push them away with strong hands from our community. Why? Because we don’t want gentile characteristics.”

That's what we call racism, not Halakha. Why do people think you can protect your community by mutilating your soul?

When on the boat from Ḥalab to NYC did the Torah stop saying
וגר לא תונה ולא תלחצנו?!

Maybe that's why so much is missing from the Aleppo Codex...


(but i still love kibbeh and laḥmajeen)

Migdal Bavel: Part of God's Plan

In Bereishit Raba (38:6), a number of differences are identified between the generation of Noaḥ and the generation of Bavel. Why was Noaḥ's generation completely wiped away, while the Tower-builders of Bavel were confused and scattered, but not destroyed? One answer given there is that Noaḥ's generation “were steeped in theft, and therefore they did not survive; but [the Tower-builders], because they loved each other — ‘and the entire earth was one language’ — therefore they survived.”

In the time of Noaḥ, the earth was full of “חמס” — violence, theft, thuggery — and all living things had corrupted their ways (Bereishit 6:11-12). The incipient civilization of humanity, the descendents of Ḳayin and Sheit, which had just advanced technologically and culturally through the innovations of Lemekh's children (4:19-22), was already falling apart. Thuggery and corruption enveloped the earth, and God had to bring the Mabul, the great ‘Withering’, to wash the world clean.

The Deluge was a punishment for humanity, and a lesson for the survivors. Noaḥ's children learned the value of unity, of harmony, of common purpose. Why was the generation of the Mabul scalded and scoured, while the generation of the Tower was simply scattered and separated? “United we stand, divided we fall.” And the settlers in Shin‘ar learned their lesson very well — “let's build a city, and a tower... so that we will not become dispersed across the surface of the entire earth.” (11:4) No more violence, no more dissolution; like Lemekh's children in the days before חמס, united humanity were ready to invent and create, to bring something new — a מגדל, literally a ‘place of greatness’ — into the world.

The only problem was, that wasn't God's plan. Humanity must be united; we must respect each other's persons and property; but God had already told Adam and Ḥava (1:28), and Noaḥ and his children (9:1), “be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth” — now that the human race had regained togetherness, it was time to give them a little push. At no point in the story of the Tower of Bavel does God get angry. At no point in the Torah is the dispersion of languages and nations portrayed as a punishment for some unlawful act. It was a preemptive move to preserve God's plan for a world-spanning network of human civilizations in light of humanity's newfound eagerness to work together (11:6).

In the time of Noaḥ, violence was tearing the human race apart. God sent the Mabul to teach us to ‘play nice’ with each other. Once the Tower proved that we had learned our lesson, it was time to go back to work.

(this idea was developed together with a yeshivamate of mine)

What Do You Think You're Shaking?

My brother came up with this idea a few years ago...
Some of what is here is my own extrapolation on his idea.

On Sukkot, we take four plants and shake them together, as a unified bundle, at the six cardinal directions. Take a few minutes to contemplate the idea of the lulav as an axis mundi.

We already have a few examples of an axis mundi — a 'world axis' around which the universe turns — in Yahadut. There's Har Sinai, where God came down and Moshe went up, uniting Heaven and Earth to give us Torah. According to some interpretations, the Mishkan in the Wilderness was a moving representation of Sinai, carrying the axis mundi with Beney Yisra’eil all the way to a new physical-temporal location: the Beit Hamiqdash on its Temple Mount in Jerusalem. According to one opinion among the midrash, this is the site from which God took the earth that was molded into Adam Rishon, First Human. It is also the site of the Binding of Isaac — and notwithstanding the fact that it is named Luz-i.e.-Beit-Eil in the text, Har Hamoriya is also identified with the foundation of Jacob's Ladder, the angelic staircase seen by Ya‘aqov in a dream.

Pick up your [esrog and] lulav, and hold it in front of you, like you were about to make the berakha and wave it around. You are holding a long, thin object, a living pole that was cut from a tree. If the lulav's leaves sag, it is no longer usable. The lulav is a pole, an axis. Imagine the world turning around it. This is the center of your universe — the center of the universe.

You can pick it up and wave it around in the Six Cardinal Directions.

But if the lulav is an axis mundi, how can you move it? You can't move Mount Sinai. You can't move Mount Moriya. You can't move Yerushalayim, ‘iro shellaQodesh. Sure you can move the Mishkan, but it took an entire tribe, under the close direction of Aharon, his children, and Moshe.

So what are you doing when you're shaking the lulav? You're not shaking the lulav — you're shaking yourself. The lulav is an axis mundi; the entire universe revolves around it. You can't just pick it up and wave it at the six cardinal directions. You're waving yourself around it. But if the entire universe revolves around this axis, maybe you're not just waving yourself; maybe you're waving the entire universe.