Superbowl Alert: Hebrew National Hot Dogs Still Kosher

Lawsuit Claiming Hebrew National Hot Dogs Not Kosher Dismissed

By Reuters

FLICKR: VOTEPRIME

ConAgra Foods Inc has won the dismissal of a lawsuit filed by consumers claiming the company’s Hebrew National hot dogs and other products are not kosher.

U.S. District Judge Donovan Frank in St. Paul federal court ruled on Thursday that he does not have jurisdiction over a dispute that he described as “intrinsically religious in nature.”...

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Are mannequins kosher?

From The New York Times we found a Purim article published just a bit early: 

Modesty in Ultra-Orthodox Brooklyn Is Enforced by Secret Squads: "Shadowy committees have threatened shop owners over mannequins they don't like, and reportedly have invaded homes to seize computer equipment."

The Brooklyn shopkeeper was already home for the night when her phone rang: a man who said he was from a neighborhood “modesty committee” was concerned that the mannequins in her store’s window, used to display women’s clothing, might inadvertently arouse passing men and boys.

Some men are sexually aroused by mannequins! Definitely not kosher!

Ha ha ha, how funny is this!?

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You are as young as the woman you feel

From The New York Times OPINIONATOR | DRAFT come an essay on translation, a subject we detest, "The Treachery of Translators." The Times reports how, A translator learns that the law of karma can be unforgiving.

We suffered for years translating and publishing rabbinic texts, Mishnah and Talmud. Oh yes we pretended it was fun. And sure it gave us daily puzzles to solve and limitless opportunities to be clever.

It was in fact wretched and tormenting work. We don't do it any more. And we don't miss it even for a nano second.

The Times essay uses the silly clever funny suggestive assertion, "You are only as old as the woman you feel" as a quintessential instance of a sentence whose double meaning cannot be conveyed in a word for word translation.

Doh. As if we did not know that much stuff, "loses in the translation." It's always unnerving to confront those well written pieces that start off with a universally obvious premise, probe and poke it and conclude with nothing new.

Okay, this blog post tells you that the Times does that and you say that's obvious. Touché.

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Are Legumes Kosher for Passover for Ashkenazic Jews?

From Haaretz - the "legume revolution" has begun and many are saying that yes, legumes are kosher for Passover for Ashkenazi Jews, under certain circumstances.

We find this debate and discussion to be a caricature and burlesque of the meaningful human, social and philosophical purposes of religious theology, law and custom.

Efrat rabbi tilts against Passover food restrictions for Ashkenazi Jews. Others, unhappy with holiday legume laws, launch Kitniyot Liberation Front.
By Raphael Ahren

Trying to ease the life of Ashkenazi Jews who observe the dietary laws of the upcoming Passover holiday, an American-born Orthodox rabbi recently issued a halakhic ruling expanding the menu of permitted food products during the weeklong holiday.

According to Ashkenazi custom, the consumption of legumes and other non-wheat grains, known as kitniyot, during Passover is forbidden because of a resemblance to hametz, leavened grain, which is strictly prohibited on the holiday. Since most Israeli Jews who observe the holiday's dietary laws are of Sephardic descent, and thus do not have this custom, many kosher for Passover products in the country contain kitniyot, such as rice, corn and beans. In recent years, a growing number of Orthodox Jews - especially Western immigrants to Israel - have started rebelling against the kitniyot ban, arguing they are adapting to the Israel's mainstream practice because the ban is a custom and not law.

A few week's ago, Rabbi Zvi Leshem, of Efrat, issued a ruling that it is permissible to consume products and dishes containing kitniyot, as long as they do not constitute the main ingredient and are not directly recognizable. His decision will help those who do not want to entirely abandon the tradition of avoiding kitniyot but have difficulties finding certain items - such as oil, mayonnaise or chocolate spreads - that do not contain kitniyot in their ingredients.

"Some of those products that are labeled 'for those who eat kitniyot only' are permissible according to all opinions, since the ratio of kitniyot ingredients is less than 50 percent and they are therefore annulled in the majority of non-kitniyot ingredients," writes Leshem, 54, who was ordained by the Chief Rabbinate and holds a PhD in Jewish philosophy from Bar-Ilan University. "Since only products are forbidden in which kitniyot constitute the main ingredient, many oils, cookies and dairy products containing kitniyot are completely permissible for Ashkenazim." In addition, he permitted quinoa, the grain-like crop which is "a very new food" unknown to the sages who enacted the ban on kitniyot.

"It is a mitzvah [commandment] to publicize this decision, which is based upon the traditional Halachic methodology of the great authorities throughout the generations, and not upon looking for unnecessary stringencies," Leshem concludes.

"I tried to show that certain things that people think are prohibited are really permitted," Leshem, who lived in Cleveland and Indianapolis before he immigrated to Israel in 1979, told Anglo File this week. He said he used to avoid products labeled "for those who eat kitniyot only" for many years before looking into the matter.

"It is very misleading, certainly for Anglo olim [immigrants] who are not used to the whole issue. The obvious thing that most of them do is avoid anything that says kitniyot. But that's in many cases unnecessary."

But more and more Ashkenazim, especially Anglos, feel that in Israel it no longer makes sense to observe a custom followed by a minority.

Louis Gordon, for example, said he wondered about the kitniyot divide since he moved from Baltimore to Israel 21 years ago. "I couldn't understand how kitniyot is kosher for these and treif [not kosher] for those," he told Anglo File. "There are people for whom kitniyot is worse than hametz. It didn't make any sense."

To vent his frustration, Gordon, 44, recently created a Facebook group called Kitniyot Liberation Front. The site, which currently has over 600 members, many of them local Anglos, seeks to promote awareness of lenient rabbinic opinions regarding the use of legumes on Passover. His opinion is mainly based on the views of Rabbi David Bar-Hayim, the head of Jerusalem's Shilo Institute, who in 2007 issued a ruling allowing Ashkenazim in Israel to eat kitniyot.

"The issue of kitniyot turns the holiday of Pesach from one of abstaining from hametz into abstention from kitniyot. Ashkenazim won't eat with Sephardim - this is not what God put us on earth for, to divide the people," the Yad Bimyamin resident told Anglo File.

The opposition against kitniyot will soon reach the "breaking point," Gordon predicted. "A lot of people are pushing hard for this." Especially Anglo immigrants are ready to drop the kitniyot prohibition, which has to do with the fact that newcomers often feel they're abandoning their family traditions as soon as they arrive in Israel, he said.

“If you’re looking to leave the galut [Diaspora] mentality behind then you’re definitely going to leave kitniyot behind.”

David Schwartz, a former New Yorker living in Ra’anana, says he started eating kitniyot soon after he moved to Israel.

“When I grew up in the States kitniyot wasn’t an issue, it was just assumed that it was hametz,” he said. “I didn’t even know there was an issue until I came here and realized that half the country was eating humus and corn and the other half wasn’t.” In the last few years eating kitniyot has become “considerably more acceptable among my Orthodox friends,” added Schwartz, a member of the Conservative movement, whose Israeli branch permitted kitniyot two decades ago.

Leshem, too, said he noticed many Orthodox Israelis disavowing the kitniyot prohibition. “It bothers me even though I can understand where it’s coming from,” he told Anglo File. “I’m in favor of unity among the Jewish people. But it does not seem to me halakically legitimate to just abandon the custom.” His ruling allows Ashkenazim to eat in Sephardic homes, as long as they’re not eating actual recognizable kitniyot, or dishes containing mostly of kitniyot, he added.

Although Gordon, of the Kitniyot Liberation Front, argues for an end to the “foolish custom” of banning kitniyot, he hinted that his wife is not ready to introduce the controversial items to her kitchen. “We don’t serve kitniyot, but if I’m out or if I’m with Sephardim and they’re serving it, it’s not an issue at all,” he said.

“The real idea behind the Liberation Front is that we need to forget about the little things. Kitniyot are little things. We mustn’t panic about eating something we know is not hametz on Pesach,” Gordon said. “If this is the thing that consumes the attention of the Jewish people, we’re really in a bad situation. We have much bigger issues to worry about.”

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Roman Vishniac Photographs Exhibit at the International Center of Photography

The photographs of Roman Vishniac are on display at the ICP at 6th Avenue and 43rd Street.

We don't expect that Vishniac's portrait of our dad is in the exhibit.



Portraits of Albert Einstein and Marc Chagall made it into the exhibit.

    

The portrait selections in the exhibit are just one part of a larger collection. The catalog describes the portraits this way:

Portrait Studio and Nightclubs, New York

Upon arriving in New York in 1941, Vishniac turned to photography to support his family, opening a portrait studio on the Upper West Side. Always resourceful, he mined his connections in the Russian and German-Jewish expatriate communities to secure famous subjects for portraits—Marc Chagall, Albert Einstein, and Yiddish Theater star Molly Picon among them. These photographs of well-known artists, intellectuals, and performers helped establish Vishniac's reputation in New York, attracting a broad clientele to his studio, including Jewish émigré dancers, actors, musicians, artists, intellectuals, and scientists. His success in portraiture ultimately allowed Vishniac to pursue photomicroscopy, biology, and scientific research—fields that would become his primary focus over the next fifty years.

Vishniac also turned his camera to the city's nightclubs, where war- weary New Yorkers, abetted by a swell of immigrant performers and off-duty servicemen, sought distraction at a frenzied pace. His dynamic and skilled work, focusing on jazz musicians, actors, comedians, and dancers, exhibited here for the first time, incorporated highbrow and lowbrow, popular and avant-garde, focusing primarily on three Jewish- owned nightclubs: New York's first integrated nightclub, Café Society, The Village Vanguard in bohemian Greenwich Village, and the burlesque joint Leon & Eddie's. Much like his earlier work in Eastern Europe, Vishniac's portraits of Jewish émigré intellectuals and performers capture the vitality and resilience of Jewish life, this time from the perspective of a different segment of the diaspora, facing its own set of challenges.

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DNAinfo.com Exposes Worst Scandal of the Brooklyn Yeshivas - Lack of Education for Boys

They tell us who they are, "DNAinfo.com is New York's leading hyper-local news source, covering New York City's neighborhoods. We deliver up-to-the-minute reports on entertainment, education, politics, crime, sports, and dining. Our award-winning journalists find the stories — big or small — that matter most to New Yorkers."

And in a series of reports by Sonja Sharp they expose the biggest scandal of all at Brooklyn's Yeshivas:

1. English is Absent and Math Doesn't Count at Brooklyn's Biggest Yeshivas 
2. Barred From Talmud Studies, Girls Get English and Math at Brooklyn Yeshivas

Sonja quotes our friend Zalman Alpert, 

In Orthodox Judaism, men are religiously required to study the Torah, and only they are believed to have the intellectual and spiritual capacity to parse the Talmud. Put simply, Jewish boys are too important to be bothered with frivolous concepts like geometry and grammar, experts on the communities said.

“For a young Jewish teenager, it’s a waste of time because he’s supposed to be studying Talmud, Bible, Jewish codes,” said Zalman Alpert, a librarian at Yeshiva University and an expert on Brooklyn's Orthodox communities.

“No matter which Orthodox community you’re talking about, the girls end up getting a better education in secular studies.”

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Is Yair Lapid Jewish?

Yes Israeli politician Yair Lapid is a Jew. David Remnick wrote about him in New Yorker, and evaluated his performance in the 2013 parliamentary election, "...the great surprise was the second-place finisher, a television celebrity and political novice named Yair Lapid, who leads a brand new—but impressively greased—centrist party called Yesh Atid (“There is a Future”). Lapid appealed largely to young, middle-class, secular voters, and he concentrated mainly on social issues like education and housing and on stripping the ultra-Orthodox of their state subsidies and military exemptions. Facebook, Twitter, and his square-jawed, salt-and-pepper-hair glamour were Lapid’s tools..."

Remnick shared more about Lapid in that essay:

Lapid resigned from Channel 2 only a year ago, and is one of the most famous people in Israel—a television star with a “Mr. Israel” image. He is bluff, cocky, handsome, and had no problem when it came to name recognition. When he was hosting a show named for him, he would ask his guests a signature question: “What is Israel to you?”

As one Haaretz reporter, Asher Schechter, wrote sarcastically last month, Lapid is a prince of Tel Aviv privilege, a “notorious wannabe,” a cigar-smoking, product-wearing TV star. He has been mocked for his modest education, his uncertain grasp of the facts—but “it’s easy to make fun of Yair Lapid.”

Lapid is the son of Yosef (Tommy) Lapid, a famous and pugnacious journalist who went on to head the Shinui Party (a party devoted to secularism and the free market), and the playwright and author Shulamit Lapid. He had learning disabilities as a child and dropped out of high school. Nevertheless, he built a career in his parents’ mold, writing for the newspapers Maariv and Yediot Ahronoth. His subjects were generally light; when he wrote politically, he kept it simple. In the nineties, he starred in a romantic comedy called “The Singing of the Siren,” in which he played the cad, and then made a career on television. He wrote a TV series called “War Room.”

Above all, he was an on-air presence, a star in every living room. “During his eight-year tenure hosting the most-watched talk show in Israel, Lapid became more than just a media personality and more than just a columnist,” Schechter wrote. “On air, he transformed into an icon.… He wanted to be a symbol, and to that end he cultivated his boyish, all-Israeli image.” One of the rewards of television stardom was a web of connections, friendships with leading bankers and entrepreneurs. He may play a middle-class hero on television and in politics, but he is a man of the Tel Aviv bubble, the coastal secular élite.

Yair Lapid’s emphasis on the secular nature of Zionism and Israel itself is inherited from his father and clearly a reaction to the rise of the religious nationalists, like Bennett, who want to re-define Zionism in the mold of settler ideology. Lapid told the Associated Press, “I don’t want a country that is defined by religion. I don’t want a country that is defined by the separation of groups and sectors.” Read more.

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Is Naftali Bennett Jewish?

New Yorker has a long rambling article ostensibly about Naftali Bennett, who is a Jew, and a right wing politician in Israel. The article is by David Remnick, editor of the magazine and also a Jew and politically a liberal. Remnick throws into the article his historical narrative about how Israeli politics has veered further and further to the right over the past decades.

Full of back-stories and color, as New Yorker articles must be, we wondered about the bottom line motives for this write-up. Our inquiry to a religious friend in Ra'anana asking whether he knows Bennett brought this response, "Bennett lives a couple of blocks away, but I do not know him nor have I ever met him. I am not sure that I have even seen him. He lives a minute away from another big shot, Yakov Amidror who is Netanyahu’s personal National Security Advisor... Bennett has made a big splash, although I haven’t a clew why."

I suppose Remnick went over to Ra'anana ostensibly to find out if and why Bennett matters. In the process he gives us this color with a surprising and strange local comparison:

...Bennett’s house is large, modern, filled with sunlight. He and his wife have four children, ranging in age from six months to seven years. There were toys and strollers scattered everywhere, and open packages of Huggies. The place didn’t have the ascetic feel of a settler outpost: there was a Viking stove, a Nespresso machine, laptops, flat-screen TVs. This was the style of the bourgeois pioneer.

Finally, Bennett came in. We made coffee and went out to the green back yard to talk. More toys, a barbecue. I’d heard people compare Ra’anana to Englewood, New Jersey—prosperous, good schools, close to the city—and it felt that way, but with better weather...

In effect this long combined profile and history lesson in New Yorker boosts Bennett's influence. So now we muse, Why would a left-leaning writer want to do that? Remnick seems to tell us why at the close of his essay:

...And so this is the moment of Naftali Bennett. I’ve rarely seen a novice politician so confident, and with such reason. Each day, he is climbing in the polls, skimming off votes from the Likud and Netanyahu...

You see the simple and overt Talmudic logic. Boost the more radical one to split the rightists and thereby to help the left.

Postscript: Wait just a sec. Isn't that why and how the radical rightist party Hamas came to power in Palestinian politics? Americans and Israelis thought that boosting them would split and weaken the Palestinian cause. Hmm, maybe that is not such a good logic after all. We believe that divide-and-conquer is not such a good strategy. You just end up shooting-yourself-in-the-foot.

An op-ed in the Daily Beast, "Why I Like Naftali Bennett," by Shaul Magid, spells this thinking out in another roundabout way.

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כל מה שקורה, רק ביידיש - חינוך וחברה - הארץ Bella Bryks Profiled in Haaretz

כל מה שקורה, רק ביידיש - חינוך וחברה - הארץ

Our Manhattan Day School elementary school classmate Bella Bryks-Klein has been profiled for her work in promoting Yiddish culture in Israel.

פסטיבלים, הרצאות או שירה. אם זה ביידיש זה נמצא בעיתון "וואס? ווען? ווו?", שהוקם על ידי בלה בריקס-קליין ונודע כעכבר העיר של חובבי השפה

Hat tip to our mutual classmate Faye for letting us know.

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Book Serialization Part 14: Six People You Meet in Synagogue

Book Serialization Part 14:  Six People You Meet in Synagogue

For 2013. We present our book in serial format on our blog - God's Favorite Prayers...

The Mythic Priest

J

ust above, we saw how the mystic vividly employs and deploys her mythic narratives of heaven.

Priests, whom we meet formally as synagogue archetypes a bit down the road in our journey (in the chapter “The Priest’s Prayers”), get in on a mythic mode of their own by imagining the sacrificial orders of the ancient Temple, by making reference to them and by reliving them. For instance, on the Sabbath, the day of rest, the priest recites at the center of his Amidah prayer, not a long paean to the creation in six days and rest on the seventh, but strikingly something else. He chants a recollection of the sacrifices of the Sabbath day in the ancient Temple.

You did institute the Sabbath, and did accept its offerings; you did command its special obligations with the order of its drink offerings. They that find delight in it shall inherit glory for everlasting; they that taste it are worthy of life; while those who love its teachings have chosen true greatness. Already from Sinai they were commanded concerning it; and you have also commanded us, O Lord our God, to bring thereon the additional offering of the Sabbath as is proper. May it be thy will, O Lord our God and God of our fathers, to lead us up in joy to our land, and to plant us within our borders, where we will prepare unto you the offerings that are obligatory for us, the continual offerings according to their order, and the additional offerings according to their enactment; and the additional offering of this Sabbath day we will prepare and offer up unto you in love, according to the precept of thy will, as you have prescribed for us in thy Law through the hand of Moses thy servant, by the mouth of thy glory, as it is said:

“And on the Sabbath day two he-lambs of the first year, without blemish, and two tenth parts of an ephah of fine flour for a meal offering, mingled with oil, and the drink offering thereof: this is the burnt offering of every Sabbath, beside the continual burnt offering and the drink offering thereof.” (Numbers 28)

They that keep the Sabbath and call it a delight shall rejoice in thy kingdom; the people that hallow the seventh day, even all of them shall be satiated and delighted with thy goodness, seeing that you did find pleasure in the seventh day and did hallow it; you did call it the desirable of days, in remembrance of the creation.

Our God and God of our fathers, accept our rest; sanctify us by your commandments, and grant our portion in your Law; satisfy us with your goodness, and gladden us with your salvation; purify our hearts to serve you in truth; and in your love and favor, O Lord our God, let us inherit your holy Sabbath; and may Israel, who hallow your name, rest thereon. Blessed are you, O Lord, who hallows the Sabbath.

For the priest, there is no better way to single out what makes the Sabbath special than to reference and relive the service for the day as it was performed on the altar in the ancient Temple in Jerusalem.

And, to further illustrate this point, on the day of great introspection and confession when Jews gather to seek atonement for their sins, in the service for Yom Kippur, the priest invites you to relive the olden activities in the Jerusalem Temple when the High Priest obtained forgiveness for all of the sins of the people of Israel.

The highlight of this ancient service is called the Seder Ha-Avodah (the sacrificial service) in the Musaf Additional Service for Yom Kippur. It describes how the high priest entered into the Holy of Holies, the innermost holy sanctuary of the Temple. He offered there incense and sprinkled blood and then emerged intact from the presence of God and declared God’s acceptance of the people of Israel’s prayers for atonement.

This lovely, almost childlike narrative of the high priest, tells me the simple things that he did, what he wore, and how his face looked when he finished the ceremony. It stands out as a uniquely vivid mythic story made into a prayer for the Yom Kippur service in the synagogue.

Here is the core of the text of the High Priest’s Yom Kippur sacrificial service:

For his sake you made the covenant of the rainbow as a statute, and in your loving regard of his savory offering, you blessed his children.

You gave him twelve tribes, beloved of the exalted God; they were called “loved ones” from their very birth.

A forehead-plate, a robe, a breastplate, an ephod, a tunic, linen breeches, a turban and a sash.

He was then given the golden vestments which he put on; he sanctified his hands and feet from a golden pitcher.

Arousing within himself feelings of reverence, he entered the Holy of Holies, and when he reached the Ark, he set down the fire-pan between the staves of the Ark.

He transferred all the incense from the ladle into his hands, put it on the glowing coals to the west side and waited there until the Holy of Holies became filled with smoke.

He hastened and took the blood of the bullock from the stand whereon he had placed it, dipped his finger in the blood... and sprinkled from it upon the curtain...

And thus he would count: One!

One and one; one and two; one and three;

one and four; one and five; one and six; one and seven!

When the priests and the people standing in the Temple court heard God’s glorious and revered Name clearly expressed by the high priest with holiness and purity, they fell on their knees, prostrated themselves and worshiped; they fell upon their faces and responded: Blessed be the name of his glorious majesty forever and ever.

…and he took off the golden vestments. His own garments were brought to him and he put them on; and they accompanied him to his house. He would celebrate a festive day for his coming out from the Holy of Holies in peace.

How glorious indeed was the high priest when he safely left the holy of holies!

Like the clearest canopy of heaven was the countenance of the priest.

Like lightning flashing from benign angels was the countenance of the priest.

Like the purest blue of the four fringes was the countenance of the priest.

Like the wondrous rainbow of the bright cloud was the countenance of the priest.

Like the splendor God gave the first creatures was the countenance of the priest.

Like the rose in a beautiful garden was the countenance of the priest.

As I go forward now to the next chapters, I observe that the other ideal synagogue people whom I meet invoke the mythic narratives of Israel for their own purposes. Scribes whom I visit in the next chapter recall the narratives of the sins and punishments of Israel from the book of Deuteronomy to instruct us to keep track of our credits and debits and to fulfill more commandments of the Torah.

Meditators, whom I seek out later on, recall chapters from the past narratives of Israel so as to help them bring compassion and loving kindness to the present experiences of their lives.

To summarize, as I have met the ideal people of my prayers, I have come to realize how the mythic mode looks back in time. It helps bring the narratives of Israel’s past to life in the synagogue so that we may find more perfect ways to pray. And, in particular, I’ve observed how Hannah, our mystic archetype, looks heavenward to learn to pray and even to dare to imagine that, while praying, she transcends her time and place.

In the next four stations of our spiritual journey, we meet four more archetypes of the synagogue: first the scribe, then the priest, the meditator and the celebrity-monotheist. We shall see that they apply the mythic mode of expression with greatly diverse results. They, too, seek to transform their synagogue environs and seek spirituality according to their own understandings of God and Judaism. And, in their worship, they offer up some additional instances of God’s favorite prayers.

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Book Serialization Part 13: Six People You Meet in Synagogue

Book Serialization Part 13:  Six People You Meet in Synagogue

For 2013. We present our book in serial format on our blog - God's Favorite Prayers...

Mythical Discourse

H

annah left me with this thought, reminding me that only one letter changes the “mystical” into the “mythical.” I ought to spend some time investigating the role of the mythical in the synagogue, she suggested. Maybe I will find another identifiable archetype, like Moshe the Mythic.

Hannah is quite right that I need to explore myTHical synagogue discourse, that mode of thinking, which is indeed related to—but not identical with—the mySTical.

I don’t, however, endorse Hannah’s suggestion that the mythical element in the synagogue is archetypal. I see that the mythical is a pervasive underlying mode of thought that religious Jews who attend the synagogue accept as a given. You may rightly ask, if it is such a given, then please explain already what you mean by the mythical.

I employ the term “myth” in a manner that is common in the academic study of religions, not in the way it is used in popular culture. In the latter, a myth is a fantasy, a far-fetched untruth that other people wish you to believe, often so they can deceive you or, perhaps, entertain you. By contrast, in the disciplines of the study of religions, a myth denotes a narrative that is truer than true, a story whose details are not just interesting, dramatic or entertaining. The elements of a mythic narrative bear special deep and timeless meanings for those who retell them.

In the prayers that I’ve considered, I’ve provided examples of mythic thinking and speaking. My descriptions of the mystical in the section just above in this chapter is based on a cosmic mythical understanding of the universe. The shared narrative, to which we made reference, presumes that heaven exists, that angels dwell there and that God also does. Those are essential components of a Judaic cosmic myth based on biblical and rabbinic teachings.

More familiar to most of us are the historical myths, the familiar biblical narratives revered in Judaism, such as the exodus of the Israelites from Egypt and the miracle of the splitting of the Red Sea, the revelation of the Torah by God to Moses at Mount Sinai, the wanderings of the Israelites in the desert, the conquest of the Promised Land by Joshua, the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem, the destruction of the Temple and the exile from the land. 

Again, by calling them myths, I mean that these are accounts of events that I deem to be more than historical, true or factual. They contain spiritual meanings of great consequence.

As we saw in the previous section, these myths can be referenced and they can be relived. For instance, the mystic refers to the cosmic myths of heaven and angels so she can learn how to pray. The mystic relives the myths of heaven and of the angels and (in one way that we interpreted the Kaddish) she sees herself rise to stand in heaven and, there, to beseech God for entry for the soul of the deceased.

In Judaism, historical myths are referenced and relived frequently in the synagogue and in the rituals of the Jewish home. In the synagogue at the end of the morning Shema service, the berakhot that are recited right before the Amidah make reference to the song that the Israelites sang after they were brought forth from slavery and saved from the Egyptians by the miracle of the splitting of the sea.

That is a perfect example of how, by making reference to the mythical narratives of Judaism, the people in the synagogue find the right words to praise God. It is as if in the prayer that I cite now, the archetypes of the synagogue turn to and ask an Israelite who has been freed from bondage and who has crossed the Red Sea on dry land, “What should I say to thank God for his saving graces?”

You have always been the help of our ancestors, Shield and Savior of their children after them in every generation. Your dwelling is in the heights of the universe, and your judgments and righteousness reach to the ends of the earth. Happy is the one who obeys your commandments and takes to heart your teaching and your Word. You are the Master of your people and a mighty King who pleads their cause. You are the first and you are the last. Beside you, we have no king, redeemer or savior. From Egypt you redeemed us, Lord our God, and from the slave-house you delivered us. All their firstborn you killed, but your firstborn you redeemed. You split the Sea of Reeds and drowned the arrogant. You brought your beloved ones across. The water covered their foes; not one of them was left.

For this, the beloved ones praised and exalted God, the cherished ones sang psalms, songs and praises, blessings and thanksgivings to the King, the living and enduring God. High and exalted, great and awesome, he humbles the haughty and raises the lowly, freeing captives and redeeming those in need, helping the poor and answering his people when they cry out to him.

(Stand in preparation for the Amidah. Take three steps back before beginning the Amidah.)

Praises to God Most High, the Blessed One who is blessed. Moses and the children of Israel recited to you a song with great joy, and they all exclaimed: “Who is like you, Lord, among the mighty? (Exodus 15) Who is like you, majestic in holiness, awesome in praises, doing wonders?” With a new song, the redeemed people praised your name at the seashore. Together they all gave thanks, proclaimed your kingship, and declared: “The Lord shall reign forever and ever (Exodus 15).”

Rock of Israel! Arise to the help of Israel. Deliver, as you promised, Judah and Israel. Our Redeemer, the Lord of hosts is his name, the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 47). Blessed are you, Lord, who redeemed Israel. (Koren Siddur, pp. 104-106)

These prayers convey to me some important insights, which they derive via a mythical mode of expression. As I suggested, if you want to know how to pray properly, sure, you can ask the angels. But, also, you can recall the mythic redemptions of the history of Israel. The Israelites who crossed the sea on dry land understood firsthand the greatness of God. Therefore, we also may learn from them the best way to pray, and we may follow their lead.

The two conceptual modes of religious thinking that I treat here are related. The mythical is most often a horizontal means of imagining backwards and forwards in history. The mystical, by contrast, is usually a form of vertical visualization upwards to another dimension, towards the heavens.

Both modes have their entry level and their advanced forms of application. As is the case for the mystical, for the mythical there is yet a more advanced form of imagining and reenacting. For example, the Exodus from Egypt is relived in the Seder ritual in the Jewish home ceremonies at the Passover meal. The Haggadah could not make it clearer that a goal of the evening is for the participants to relive the redemption from slavery: “In every generation, a person is obligated to regard herself as if she personally left Egypt.” The text spells out the religious obligation for every Jew to relive the miracle of redemption:

We were slaves to Pharaoh in Egypt, and the Lord, our God, took us out from there with a strong hand and with an outstretched arm. If the Holy One, blessed be he, had not taken our ancestors out of Egypt, then we, our children, and our children’s children would have remained enslaved to Pharaoh in Egypt. Even if all of us were wise, all of us understanding, all of us knowing the Torah, we would still be obligated to discuss the exodus from Egypt; and everyone who discusses the exodus from Egypt at length is praiseworthy.

The mythical mode of expression is commonly used by all the archetypes we meet in the synagogue. Each of them shows us how to reference and relive their narratives in the different ways that make the most meaningful sense to them. 

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Book Serialization Part 12: Six People You Meet in Synagogue

Book Serialization Part 12:  Six People You Meet in Synagogue

For 2013. We present our book in serial format on our blog - God's Favorite Prayers...

Mystical Experience

T

o inquire further into the spectrum of religious experience in Judaism, let’s return now to the Har-El synagogue in Jerusalem, the mystical place I spoke about in my opening chapter above. As you may recall, that small shul was where I once found the perfect davening.

At Har-El, I meet one woman who prays there regularly, one of the biblical Hannah’s contemporary incarnations. She will be my spokesperson for the contemporary “mystical” archetype in the synagogue. I call her Hannah too. I ask her to explain more of what she believes goes on when she prays.

She tells me that there are other domains of meaning in the universe that we can become acquainted with and learn from. We must accept that there are dimensions of reality beyond this physical world that we inhabit.

Our contemporary Hannah assures me that she is a mild and basic sort of mystic. She reminds me that, after all, in spite of her yearnings and proclivities, she still attends the synagogue. She has not left to join a Kabbalah Center or some other center for spiritual practice, somewhat down the road from the synagogue at another location along the spiritual spectrum.

Our Hannah tells me that it is fair to classify her as mystical archetype and that she embraces the major mythic elements of Judaism. But she surely cautions me that I may not call her a Kabbalist.

Hannah advises me that there is no distinctive profession or status for any of the forms of our mystic archetypes. “Mystical” is more of a description of a discrete personality or mindset—a conglomeration of values as they relate to ultimate questions of the regions of heaven and Earth, the dimensions of time, past and future, and the inhabitants of those other domains.

Hannah assures me that, as a mystic archetype, she ordinarily is comfortable with the views and practices of the scribe, an ideal synagogue type whom we will discuss in the next chapter in greater detail. Both of these types find intuitive the notion that the sacred can be made more personal.

By contrast Hannah does not feel as comfortable with the values of the priest—another ideal synagogue type whom we will discuss later in detail. Previously, in looking at the biblical account, we saw that, as a self-declared independent mystic personality, the ancient Hannah acts as if she has her own entrée into a realm of the holy. That challenges the priest’s exclusive control over access to the sources of the sacred and it questions the priest’s authority over the centralized locus of ritual.

Hannah, our basic contemporary mystical archetype, professes knowledge of a vision of heaven occupied by creatures who are close to God and who recite praises. She relies on the notion that the domains in heaven, which are inhabited by celestial beings, are knowable to ordinary persons like her. Hannah explains to us what happens when she recites the texts associated with those occupants of heaven. It is not as if she comes into the proximity of an immediate experience of the divine power. Hannah holds to a more uncomplicated notion that to know how to pray effectively, to address her prayer to God, she simply must ask the angels how to talk to Him.

In my discussion of the scribe in the next chapter, I will consider a passage that is recited in the morning liturgy before the biblical verses of the Shema. I preview  it now because that selection has a vivid example of this basic mystical expression. It speaks of how the mythical heavenly beings offer praise to the Lord:

Then the Ophanim and the Holy Hayot, with a roar of noise, raise themselves toward the Seraphim and, facing them, give praise, saying: Blessed be the Lord’s glory from His place. (Ezekiel 3)

To the blessed God they offer melodies.

To the King, living and eternal God,

They say psalms and proclaim praises.

When Hannah, as an entry-level mystic, says this prayer, she is sure that it will be effective on her behalf. And how does she know that? Because Hannah is certain that no being in the universe knows better than the angels what to say when praying to God.

Hannah invites us to look next at another mystical instance of prayer, the Kedushah—the expression par excellence that the creatures of heaven recite in the proximity to God. Here is how it is formulated in the Kedushah and recited at the repetition of the Amidah:

We will sanctify your name on earth, as they sanctify it in the highest heavens, as it is written by your prophet, “And they [the angels] call to one another saying: ‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts the whole earth is full of His glory.’” (Isaiah 6)

Those facing them say “Blessed–” “Blessed is the Lord’s glory from his place.” (Ezekiel 3)

And in your Holy Writings it is written thus: “The Lord shall reign forever. He is your God, Zion, from generation to generation, Halleluyah!” (Koren Siddur, p. 112)

What is so special about this prayer of the angels? On the surface level, it is an involution, a prayer to the second power, a prayer about a prayer. It’s like a diary entry by a more advanced mystic who has been to heaven and back, and who has reported what she saw there. She tells us then with a certain awe that this is how the angels sing to praise God, and concludes with the glorious, Halleluyah, which actually means no more than “Praise God.”

Hannah explains to us what is remarkable about this prayer of the angels embedded inside of a prayer of the mystic. What the angels actually say is unique, mostly in style and hardly at all in substance. The angels know how to articulate the few special mystical terms such as ‘holy’ and ‘glory’ and ‘blessed.’ The special knowledge of the beginning mystic in this case is her insight into the way the angels say the praise, more than the extent of what the phrases they say actually signify. Perhaps she makes an assumption here that the right words must be said in the right order to maintain some ecstatic vision or connection between the mystic and heaven; the wrong word will end the rapture and dissipate the ecstasy of that union but the suitable phrase will maintain the mystic’s relationship with the bliss of heaven, or simply allow her to communicate properly with God.

Hannah invites us to examine next the well-known and practiced Kaddish prayer, a second case of the entry level mystic’s prayers. There are several varieties of Kaddish recited in the synagogue, enough to confuse the beginner. One of them, called the Half (chatzi) Kaddish, because a few sentences are left off of it, is recited by the leader of the services as a framing mechanism to mark the end of each major section of the liturgy. And, coincidentally, the term ‘half’ (chatzi) relates to the Hebrew word for a dividing or framing action.

The second Kaddish variety, called the complete one (shalem), marks the very end of the services proper.

The best-known Kaddish in the synagogue though is the mourner’s Kaddish (yatom), the one that is employed as a mourner’s doxology (i.e., a praise of God). The practice of associating this prayer with a mourner first appears in the thirteenth century. The synagogue authorities endorsed the custom that mourners during the first eleven months after losing a close relative ought to rise and recite a Kaddish on their own. In the case of this Kaddish Yatom, the mourner rises in his place in the synagogue and recites the doxology at a few appointed times in the daily, Sabbath, and festival services.

I ask Hannah, What is it that the prayer tells us? And, in particular, what makes the prayer an apt mystical enactment for the mourner who recites it? She explains that the substance of the prayer is not at all philosophical or deep. It is a litany, as a mystical prayer is wont to be, of the right words of praise of God in the correct order. She shows us the mystical component of the Kaddish, those lines that cite for us the adoration that is recited by the angels in heaven.

Hannah explains then that reciting the Kaddish provides an appropriate vicarious association for the mourner—to stand and recite a prayer on behalf of the departed souls of the dead:

Magnified and sanctified
may his great name be
in the world he created by his will.
May he establish his kingdom
in your lifetime and in your days,
and in the lifetime of all the house of Israel,
swiftly and soon—and say: Amen.
May his great name be blessed forever and all time.
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted,
raised and honored, uplifted and lauded
be the name of the Holy One, blessed be he,
beyond any blessing, song, praise and consolation
uttered in the world—and say: Amen
May there be great peace from heaven,
and life for us and for all Israel—and say: Amen.
May he who makes peace in his high places,
make peace for us and for all Israel—and say: Amen.
(Koren Siddur, p. 178)

This lilting and poetic passage does have a certain unique cadence, yet it seems to us in its words to be no more than a standard glorification of God, nothing about death or dying or the deceased. I ask again, why then is this prayer especially apropos for a mourner? Hannah proposes that it is because reciting this heavenly angelic Aramaic praise is the epitome of a mystic’s liturgy. It is a stand-in enactment by the mourner on behalf of the departed loved one. The mourner stands in place in the synagogue and recites the words.

But acting in the mode of the mystic archetype, the mourner advances to the next level of mystical prayer. She is not just addressing God with the outpourings of her personal anxiety and vexation, but imagining that she is standing aloft in heaven, representing the soul of her beloved departed, knocking on heaven’s door to seek entry for that spirit into a secure, eternal place close to the divine light and near the warmth of God.

I pressed Hannah on this matter. I asked her to clarify to us what is going on when she recites the Kaddish. Is she addressing God from her pew, using the words authorized by the angels on behalf of the deceased? Or is she imagining her ascent to heaven to plead there for the soul of the departed?

Hannah did not know the origins of the Kaddish as a mystic’s prayer on behalf of the soul. Alan Mintz explained that this association began in the Middle Ages (Hurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature, pp. 100-101):

In the generations immediately following the First Crusade the ceremony of remembering the dead began to be practiced not only in the case of renowned rabbinical martyrs of public persecution but also simply for all who died natural deaths, entirely irrespective of the conditions of persecution. A bereaved son would recite the Kaddish, an Aramaic doxology, for the memory of his recently departed father or mother, in the conviction that such recitation had the power to save the deceased’s soul from tortures beyond the grave. The practice gained headway in the thirteenth century and by the fifteenth a new custom emerged: the Yorzeit, the recitation of the Kaddish on the anniversary of the death of a relative. And soon there was further established the Yizkor or Hazkarat Neshamot, the Kaddish together with various supplications for the souls of the departed, recited on the Day of Atonement and the last days of the Pilgrimage Festivals. Taken together, this amounts of a kind of cult of the dead that began in medieval Ashkenaz and later spread to all of world Jewry.

Mintz commented further about the deep personal attachment that Jews have to this prayer:

The astounding tenacity of this outlook is observable in the simple sociological fact, known to all, that in the process of secularization, and especially in the acculturation of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe to America, the recitation of the mourner’s Kaddish with its attendant rites is the very last particle of tradition to be given up.

Without knowing anything about the historical development of the Kaddish, the entry-level mystic in the synagogue does engage in some prayer, emulating the angels and sending praises and petitions heavenward. She also may practice an intermediate form of mystical prayer, an imagined ascent to stand in another realm and importune her case before the angels and before God.

Judaism also does know about more advanced or full-scale mystical pursuits. In such, the practitioner learns more of the mystical codes, secrets, symbols and signs and seeks a longer and fuller mystical practice and even more vivid experiences of heavenly ascent. It happens that, over the centuries, advanced mystics did not become dominant and persistent presences in the synagogue. They mainly practiced apart, leaving the domain of the synagogue to the entry-level mystics, along with the other common archetypes that we meet and describe in this book, in our model congregation of the faithful.

I might treat those advanced mystics in another book, which I could call, The People You Meet at a Kabbalah Center. I do imagine you’d meet there numerous more extensive mystics, and also a fair number of mystically adept meditators, celebrity-monotheists and performers—our artist-poet-musicians. I do not expect you would find there that many scribes or priests. But the details of all that speculation will have to await an account in a future book about a separate visit to an altogether different Jewish religious venue.

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Book Serialization Part 11: Six People You Meet in Synagogue

Book Serialization Part 11:  Six People You Meet in Synagogue

For 2013. We present our book in serial format on our blog - God's Favorite Prayers...

The Mystic’s Prayers

Kad·dish

[Ashk. Heb. kah-dish; Seph. Heb. kah-deesh]

–noun, plural Kad·di·shim

[Ashk. Heb. kah-dish-im; Seph. Heb. kah-dee-sheem]. Judaism.

1. (italics) a liturgical prayer, consisting of three or six verses, recited at specified points during each of the three daily services and on certain other occasions.

2. (italics) Also called Mourner’s Kaddish. The five-verse form of this prayer that is recited at specified points during each of the three daily services by one observing the mourning period of 11 months, beginning on the day of burial, for a deceased parent, sibling, child, or spouse, and by one observing the anniversary of such a death.

3. Kaddishim, persons who recite this prayer.

—Random House Dictionary, 2010

I

n my spiritual quest in scores of synagogues, not surprisingly I sought after and expected to meet up with some mystical personalities. After all, mystical traditions are inextricably associated with the religions of the world.

Allow me introduce you to Hannah the mystic, one such ideal type whom I met. To do this, I first must take you way back to the earliest description in Tanakh of an individual reciting a prayer at a sacred shrine. The brief narrative from I Samuel chapter 1 tells us about the Israelite woman Hannah, who recited the first silent prayer in the biblical record at the tabernacle at Shiloh.

The biblical Hannah’s story is a sad one. She was childless and she wanted a child, so she came to the tabernacle entrance and just went ahead and poured out her soul directly to God. Every successor to Hannah who prays to God in a synagogue, Temple, or anywhere, engages in an analogous mystical act and shares in the belief that his or her words or thoughts somehow unacoustically travel to God’s ear. 

Here is Hannah’s short narrative:

Once, when they had finished eating and drinking in Shiloh, Hannah stood up. Now Eli the priest was sitting on a chair by the doorpost of the Lord’s temple.

In bitterness of soul Hannah wept much and prayed to the Lord. …

As she continued praying before the Lord, the priest Eli observed her mouth. Hannah was speaking in her heart; only her lips moved, and her voice was not heard. Therefore Eli took her to be a drunken woman.

Eli (to Hannah): How long will you go on being drunk? Put your wine away.

Hannah: No, my lord, I am a woman troubled in spirit. I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. Do not regard your servant as a worthless woman, for all along I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation.

Eli: Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant your petition that you have made to him.

Hannah: Let your servant find favor in your eyes.

Then the woman went her way and ate, and her face was no longer sad.

Eli the priest could not understand that Hannah, or any sober person, could think that they could speak directly yet silently to God. The priest believed that only he and his brethren controlled the access to the sacred. All requests had to be vocalized and ritualized, and had to go through him, according to his ways and the directions of the holy place. Eli acted as if he was the gatekeeper of heaven, as he is depicted in the story, sitting on a chair at the entrance to the Temple. As told, once Hannah explains her acts, Eli accepts her sincerity and intercedes for Hannah. He assures her that God will grant her non-vocal request.

Eli had for Hannah, in this anecdote, just one accusatory and rhetorical question. I have more to ask Hannah about what she thought that she was doing there at the sacred place of Israelite worship. Here are some of the things that I want to know:

Hannah, what was your imagined experience while standing at the holy site and reciting your prayers?

When pouring out your soul, did you feel transported to heavenly realms to be with the angels, closer to God?

Did you seek to relive the experiences of salvation, along with the Israelites, as they miraculously walked through the dry land of the split sea on their way out of slavery in Egypt?

Did you want to sense the excitement of the anticipation of the redemption of Israel at the end of days and to hear the footsteps of the coming of the messiah?

As these questions suggest, along the spectrum, I want to explore and better understand the mystical, the mythic, and even the kabbalistic varieties of direct religious experiences and their qualities and intensities.

The biblical Hannah appears to me at first to represent a mystic at the most basic, entry level, i.e., one who seeks an encounter with God by talking to him. Everyone praying in the synagogue emulates the biblical Hannah the mystic, the founder of all silent personal prayer in Judaism, an archetype of Jewish religious liturgical experience. She explained her actions to Eli the priest at ancient Shiloh. He was satisfied by her explanation and told her that God will grant her request.

More advanced mystics may engage in a fuller experience, with more bells and whistles. They may delve further into the mythic life of religion, which I speak about below. And the most advanced mystics may reach out to even more transcendental and esoteric categories of experience, like those associated with the later Kabbalists.

Let’s meet Hannah’s direct contemporary descendants in our synagogue and ask them to explain to us more about the experiential notions of Judaism that they find there.

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