Month: January 2017 – ב׳ בשבט תשע״ז

The Desert – A Blank Canvas

By Rabbi Yaacov Haber

Where important meetings, conventions or summits take place location is of the utmost importance. The greatest political minds come together to choose Oslo or Geneva. They search the globe for political neutrality, proper security and appropriate ambiance. The location of a meeting is not incidental but crucial to the success of that gathering.

The most important meetings in history, the meetings between G-d and man, strategically took place in the most barren spot on Earth; the desert that stands between Raamses and Jerusalem. G-d could have spoken to us in an elegant conference center in Egypt. He could have waited until we reached the Holy Land and spoke to us at the Holy of Holies, or at the spot of the Akeida. He could have also made the desert into a rain forest. However, for the appropriate location, the right atmosphere and the proper mood, G-d chose the desert. Why?

In order to accept the Torah we should feel desert-like. The Talmud speaks about how a desert feels. Not opulent, not holy, but like a desert – barren.

The Chazon Ish was one of the greatest luminaries of the last century. His in-depth analyses of astronomical and geological subjects made his contribution unique in history. He was a brilliant man renowned for his piety and kindness. A peculiar aspect of the Chazon Ish however was his refusal to be involved in any debate or even dialogue with other leading Rabbonim. Rabbonim resented this and criticized the Chazon Ish for departing from standard rabbinic practice. The Chazon Ish once wrote about his policy. “It is not my way to enter into debate, because differences of opinion are usually caused by personal events that may have taken place years earlier, even during ones childhood. Any proof I will bring will not change an embedded opinion. I therefore refrain from answering.” (Igros vol. 1;28)

For those of us who grew up in America and are comfortable in this society and culture, accepting the Torah and its values is not always simple. Instead of starting with a blank canvas, we start with a culture – a culture we enjoy – and we try with all our hearts to fit Torah into it. Feeling like a desert is feeling like a new canvas, ready to accept any color, material or pattern imposed on it. We are not in a midbar, we are in New York!

There are some hard questions the Torah wants us to ask ourselves. When we choose our clothing, or the place we daven, do we choose them according to the Torah or according to the prevailing styles, trying with a very big shoehorn to make them halachic? When we make decisions about how many hours we work and how many hours we spend with our children, are we thinking Sinai or America? When we think of our roles, are we emulating Moses and Miriam, or talk show hosts, dot-com CEO’s and movie stars? We are Modern Jews. Being modern means applying the Torah to modern situations and keeping Torah alive and attuned to contemporary society. Being modern does not mean trying to maintain my modernism even if the Torah is challenging it.

So for this week’s Parsha, and in preparation for Shavuos, close your eyes and meditate: I am a desert. I am thirsty. I am owned by no-one. I am humble. I am free. I will receive the imprint of any footstep that treads on me. I am a blank canvas, I am ready to receive the Torah.

From Torah Lab, here.

Humility and Truth: Why Torah Scholars Must Listen to Each Other

SATURDAY, 28 JANUARY 2017 21:09

In the following video interview Machon Shilo’s Rabbi David Bar-Hayim discusses the proper atmosphere that should prevail among Torah scholars:

In English:

בעברית:

From Machon Shilo, here.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky
Photo Credit: Screenshot

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, who has served since 1994 as the spiritual leader of Teaneck NJ’s Congregation Bnai Yeshurun (which boasts close to 600 families) appears to be making waves in faraway Israel, in the city of Modi’in. Modi’in resident Josie Glausiusz on Wednesday sent a letter to the leaders of the city’s Hameginim synagogue, urging them to cancel a Monday, Feb. 13 event with Pruzansky, as reported Wednesday by Judy Maltz in Ha’aretz.

Maltz lifted from Wikipedia some of the “Controversies” section in Rabbi Pruzansky’s page, so we went to the same source and lifted all of them. Because a well-rounded education is the foundation of true liberalism:

1. In 1995, Abraham Foxman, then national director of the Anti-Defamation League, left Pruzansky’s congregation in protest of the rabbi’s calling then Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin the “Rabin Judenrat.” Mind you, at the time, this “vitriol,” as Foxman called it, was mild stuff compared with other voices condemning Rabin’s selling out half of the land of Israel to Arab terrorists.

2. In 2012, Pruzansky wrote in his blog that President Obama had won by “”pandering to liberal women, Hispanics, blacks, unions, etc.” This was met with harsh criticism by mostly liberal women, because there aren’t so many Hispanics, blacks or union members in Pruzansky’s section of Teaneck.

3. In November 2014 Pruzansky compared The New York Jewish Week to Der Stürmer. The JW for their part titled their editorial attacking Pruzansky, “A Rabbi’s Low Blow.” It was over a blog post titled “Dealing with Savages,” where Pruzansky proposed using live ammunition on Arab stone-throwers and suggests that any village that is home to more than two terrorists should be razed and its inhabitants deported. Foxman and the rest of the usual suspects accused Pruzansky of racism and of being anti-Arab. Two years and a few months later, some of the good rabbi’s blog post’s recommendations have been adopted as policy by the Netanyahu government.

Incidentally, following that post that urged a radical response to Arab daily violence against Jews, Pruzansky’s synagogue announced in a letter to the congregation that Pruzansky agreed to have his future blogs reviewed by editors and that the board would periodically review the process. Pruzansky himself was forced to express to the congregation his regret for having written in a way that “many have deemed harsh.”

4. On March 31, 2016, Pruzansky published a blog post titled “A Novel Idea,” blaming the promiscuous culture for many rapes reported on US campuses, and proposing marriage as a solution to the overall problem. Pruzansky was accused of blaming the victims of rape, of not taking rape seriously, and of not acknowledging or understanding marital rape exists (On campus?).

Incidentally, while by Rabbi Pruzansky’s current account his synagogue has close to 600 member families, earlier accounts suggest there used to by as many as 800, which could mean the vociferous rabbi was doing damage to the synagogue’s bottom line.

Author Josie Glausiusz (The American Scholar) is spearheading the effort to block Rabbi Pruzansky’s appearance in Modi’in next month. Glausiusz is a fervent leftwing feminist (we visited her Twitter account), often in the most predictable fashion. Her email to the Hameginim synagogue read, “Rabbi Pruzansky’s views are deeply insulting to women, to Arab citizens of Israel, to Holocaust survivors, and to the family of Yitzhak Rabin and all those who mourned his murder.”

In other words, she, too, has hit the good rabbi’s Wikipedia page…

Glausiusz continued, “He should not be offered a public platform in Modi’in to air his offensive views. I call upon you to rescind your invitation to Rabbi Pruzansky to speak at your synagogue.”

The event, incidentally, will be an interview of Rabbi Pruzansky by Hameginim’s congregational rabbi, Adi Sultanik. Glausiusz, who could have opted to come to the event and ask embarrassing questions during the Q&A, opted instead to agitate for killing the show. Glausiusz told Ha’aretz: “I’m so fed up with people like this being given a public platform. As a woman and an Israeli citizen, I feel it is important to speak out against someone with such offensive views.”

No, that’s not what she’s been doing. Speaking against Pruzansky, demonstrating, demanding equal time – those would have all been legitimate responses. Instead, passing on debate and discussion, Glausiusz is advocating a boycott.

Whether or not she succeeds doesn’t really matter.

From Jewish Press, here.