Do Good Neighbors Make Good Fences?

 The purpose of this blog is to bring some good-neighborliness to the Shabbat table. Please print and share., forward, post on facebook, etc.

Last week I blogged about Maine, butter, and the evidence (or lack thereof) of the mRNA vaccines being dangerous. 

This week, a slightly different angle. Here's the question I'd suggest using to begin the discussion at your Shabbat table:

What are the arguments for a person to get the vaccine?

I ask this because too often I've heard the following reasons:

- It's the only way to stay safe (not true for everyone)
- It's the only way to stop this pandemic if everyone gets it (not true)
- It puts others at risk if you don't get it (not at all clear that this is true)
- there's no downside (not true for everyone)

As you know from what I wrote last week, I'm not anti-vax. But this is not a health blog nor even a good citizen blog; it's a Jewish spirituality blog.

So the question I'd like to leave you for your table is: What's the Jewish spirituality take on taking a vaccine?
 

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

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Ditch the Margarine, Save Your Marriage?

The purpose of this blog is to bring some "bread-and-butter" to the Shabbat table. Please print and share., forward, post on facebook, etc.

 

 

 

 

The purpose of this email is to pause for 24 hours and stop worrying about the future. Please print and share...
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Or only if you live in Maine?

As you can see in this graph, there is a suspicious correlation between Maine divorce rates and the US consumption of margarine.

This is one the more popular graphs to teach correlation v. causation (see for example this).

What prompts this topic is an email I received yesterday from a friend with the alarming stat:
 

About 4,000 people died after getting the vaccine in the EU.

 

Apparently, this claim is true. It comes from EudraVigilance data (we have a similar database called VAERS).

It was sent to me as an urgent plea from a caring friend, "Please don't let anyone in your family get vaccinated."

I almost don't want to comment on this type of misinformation, but it is being circulated by serious, caring and intelligent people.

For the record, I'm sympathetic with anyone who doesn't want to be vaccinated, especially given the growing evidence for innate immunity. But as I will explain, I haven't read or heard anything about Pfizer's that makes me think there's anything to be worried about.

First, the claim that 4,000 died makes no connections about causality. It’s merely reports of death or injury after a vaccine that could have been caused by anything, including old age. Anyone can report to the EudraVigilance or to the VAERS – so those numbers are scientifically meaningless. The best they can tell us is that there is room for investigation. Someone should (probably has) find out why these people died. As raw data, it tells us absolutely nothing about the safety of these vaccines.

 

Moreover, look carefully at the numbers:

 

About 44,000,000 people in the EU have had the vaccine.

 

4,000 therefore represents .009% - and they may all (likely) have died from unrelated causes.

 

It doesn’t sound to me like anything to be worried about.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

Thinking is really hard. Thinking critically is even harder.

It's even harder when it comes to other people's behavior.

The Talmud tells the story of the great rabbis Shammai and Hillel.

An idolater approaches Shammai and asks him to convert him on the condition that he teach him the entire Torah while standing on one foot.

Shammai tells him to get lost.

When he poses the same challenge to Hillel, the rabbi agrees. After the conversion, he gives him the on-one-foot Torah lesson:

"Love your neighbor (as yourself)....that's the essence of the whole Torah; the rest is commentary."

Question for your table - What was Shammai's error?

(It seems to me that he failed to think deeply about the man's motivation; he only looked at the surface.)

Two more questions for your table....

What's the most misunderstood part of Judaism or Jewish thought?

What about Judaism or Jewish thought bothers you, but you may not have thought through 100%?

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

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The Biggest Jewish Myth?

  

 

 

 

 

The purpose of this email is to pause for 24 hours and stop worrying about the future. Please print and share...
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The purpose of this blog is to bring some authenticity to the Shabbat table. Please print and share., forward, post on facebook, etc.

When I was old enough to ride a bike through town (no helmet of course), every so often I'd pedal down to my grandfather's office.

He had the corner office of distinction in a law firm where he showed up every day after his swim at the Elk's Club (from which he was old enough to have been banned for the first half of his life).

There he would show me the latest letters received from his other grandchildren, try to teach me about puts and calls, and there he explained the whole kosher thing to me.

"Kosher means unclean. You see, if you don't cook pork properly, it can make you sick, even kill you. It's a very unclean animal. So it was banned for obvious reasons. One of the innovations of the Reform Movement was to acknowledge the reality that there is no longer any danger of eating pork, so there is no reason it should remain unclean."

If you stop to think about it, you'll realize that there are hundreds if not thousands of species that are not kosher. So why did my grandfather in his secular sermon single out the sow?

Fast-forward a couple decades, when I was a young rabbi giving a class in Seattle.

Playfully, I asked, "What's the bracha to make on pork?"

My sharp audience all quickly responded, "That's a trick question - there's no bracha to make on pork! It isn't kosher!"

"Ahh, but it's actually a double-trick question. Because pork can become kosher - let's say, for instance, a person is starving and the only thing they have to eat is pork. To save their life, they have to eat it!"

Afterwards, an older woman approached to speak with me.

"Rabbi, I want you to know something. I'm a survivor. At the end of the War, we were starving, At one point, the only thing to eat was unkosher meat, and we ate it. But I would never have eaten pork!"

I told her that I respected her very much but that she was wrong - pork is no different than any other non-kosher meat.

But then I challenged her, and I'll invite you to challenge your table tonight with this question - Why does pork seem to have a special status among all the many non-kosher foods? 

Question #2 - What makes something kosher or not anyhow (for animals, there are at least 5 criteria)?

 

Shabbat Shalom

 

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Sea No Evil?

The purpose of this blog is to bring some authenticity to the Shabbat table. Please print and share., forward, post on facebook, etc.  

 

 

 

 

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Happy Passover!

While the historicity of the Exodus continues to be challenged by archaeologists (and even some others who ought to know better, and others who have tried hybrid solutions), no one really expects to find significant evidence of Israel in Egypt (even though David Rohl makes a compelling case).

But the Yam Suf (Red Sea) crossing is another matter. It's a sparsely settled area and if any evidence from the entire Passover story remains, that seems to be the place to look. 

The problem is, no one knows the identity of the Bibilcal Yam Suf.

For some reason, this evidence seems to matter a lot more to Christians than to Jews, so much so that some of them have conducted expensive underwater archaeology at the Red Sea. 

See, for instance, this documentary:

http://www.viewpure.com/HM7njJuarrg?start=0&end=0

Question for your table - Why would Jewish people who celebrate and retell the Exodus every year be less interested than others in the archaeological evidence?

Happy Pesach and

Shabbat Shalom

PS - Another great book rec.
 

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