Come On and Let Me Know...

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

October 27-28, 2023 • 13 Mar Cheshvan 5784 • Lech L'cha (Gen 12-17). 

The purpose of this email is to let in a ray of hope at the Shabbat table... please forward/print/share.

 

 

This week's first question for your table is a question that I've heard numerous times this week.

It's also one of the toughest questions I've heard in a long time...

What do you do when you find out that someone you thought was your friend isn't really your friend?

Do you try to save the friendship or do you walk away?

How about when a place you thought was safe becomes less safe....
 

Jewish students locked in library during pro-Palestinian rally at Cooper Union

https://www.fox5ny.com/news/cooper-union-jewish-students-locked-library

 

Pro-Palestinian students project anti-Israel slogans on George Washington University library ... https://forward.com/fast-forward/566853/george-washington-university-anti-israel-projection-library/

 

At Brandeis, resolution to condemn Hamas fails student senate ... https://www.jta.org/2023/10/25/united-states/at-brandeis-u-founded-as-a-nonsectarian-jewish-university-

resolution-to-condemn-hamas-fails-student-senate

 

Outraged Jewish NYU student calls out university leadership for antisemitism on campus ... https://www.foxnews.com/video/6339710520112

 

Outraged Jewish NYU student calls out university leadership for antisemitism on campus ... https://www.timesofisrael.com/michigan-state-university-apologizes-for-showing-hitler-on-jumbotron-at-football-game/

 

A Stanford instructor called Jewish students colonizers and downplayed the Holocaust ... https://www.cnn.com/2023/10/13/us/stanford-instructor-jewish-holocaust-comments-reaj/index.html

 

Cornell Professor “Exhilarated” by Hamas’s Attack ... https://cornellsun.com/2023/10/16/cornell-professor-exhilarated-by-hamass-attack-defends-remark/

 

Drexel investigating arson at Jewish student's door amid Israel-Hamas War

https://www.nbcphiladelphia.com/news/local/drexel-dorm-anti-semitism-vandalism/3666052/

 

Israeli student attacked with a stick outside Columbia University library ... 

https://nypost.com/2023/10/12/israeli-student-attacked-outside-columbia-university-library/

 

Swastikas and a Nazi slogan were graffitied in dorm at American University.

https://www.american.edu/president/announcements/october-20-2023.cfm

 

UC Davis faculty member makes  social media post that threatens Jewish journalists, children ... https://www.kcra.com/article/uc-davis-faculty-member-social-media-post/45591044

 

NYU student who ripped down Israeli hostage posters interned for the ADL 

https://www.businessinsider.com/nyu-student-who-ripped-down-posters9p-israeli-hostages-adl-intern-2023-10

 

U of Vermont ‘vigorously denies’ fostering an antisemitic environment on campus, amid federal investigation ... https://www.jta.org/2022/09/15/united-states/u-of-vermont-vigorously-denies-fostering-an-antisemitic-environment-on-campus-amid-federal-investigation

 

Jewish-owned SF ice cream shop vandalized, tagged with pro-Palestine graffiti

https://abc7news.com/smitten-ice-cream-san-francisco-vandalized-pro-palestine-graffiti/13972158/

 

Richmond, CA City Council votes to condemn Israel of “ethnic cleansing”

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/tempers-fly-richmond-council-meeting-israel-hamas-18443610.php

 

‘Not safe anywhere now’: American Jews are flocking to gun training classes

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/not-safe-anywhere-now-american-jews-are-flocking-gun-training-classes-rcna120602

 

Question for your table: Should Jews stay or should we go?


Shabbat Shalom,
 

Alexander Seinfeld


 

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The mission of Jewish Spiritual Literacy, Inc. (JSLI) is to foster a paradigm shift in spiritual and moral education to enable every human being to access and enjoy the incredible database of 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom.

First As Tragedy, Second as Farce, 70th As...?

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

October 20-21, 2023 • 6 Mar Cheshvan 5784 • Noach (Gen 6-11). 

The purpose of this email is to let in a ray of hope at the Shabbat table... please forward/print/share

There are a couple sides to this modern story of Biblical proportions.

On one hand, we've seen this movie before:

- Massacres
- Blood libels
- Synagogue burnings

- Sadness and fear

Check out the Wikipedia Article, "Timeline of Antisemitism." 

I downloaded the article and deleted many pages of endnotes.

It's still a whopping 110 pages. 

I then went through those 110 pages and highlighted only the massacres. I lost count after about 70. 

Most of those occur prior to 1945. 

In other words, at first glance, the past 70 years seem to have broken a 2,000-year-old pattern.

But that's false.

The incidents have continued unabated. They've just been a bit less violent lately. So we've been lulled into a comfortable slumber.

That's the one hand.

On the other hand, we've rarely seen this movie:

- Jewish unity
- Shared purpose and meaning
- Commitment and grit

The last time we saw this kind of unity was exactly 50 years ago.

Would that we could capture that sense of brotherhood and sisterhood and put it in a bottle.

Question for your table: What happens after this common enemy is no more? Does the unity evaporate, or will there be another way to unite us?

Some say it could come through sharing some Torah, others say we should lock in the unity by sharing Shabbat. Everyone seems to agree that we can at least share acts of kindness.

What do you say? 


Wishing you, yours, and all of Israel, a Shabbat Shalom,


Alexander Seinfeld

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Sitting's Over, Time to Stand?

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

October 13-14, 2023 • 28-29 Tishrei 5784 • Bereishis (Gen 1-6). 

The purpose of this email is to turn sitting into standing... please forward/print/share.
Happy birthday shout-out to my dear Mother... may you have another year of many blessings!

Last week we were still sitting in the sukkah and I asked, "Is life too complicated?"

None of us imagined how complicated it could get.

So this week, we stand up and be counted.

Stand and be counted means one thing if you are living in the Land of Israel right now.

First question for your table: What does it mean if you're not living in Israel right now?

In my opinion, the rest of us should be doing at least one (preferably all) of three things:

1. Communicate

Everyone you know who lives in Israel and everyone you know who knows someone who lives in Israel - send them an email or text:

"It must be extremely stressful - if you have the wherewithal, please let me know how you guys are doing. But if you don't, no worries, just know that you are in my thoughts and prayers."

Even if you're not the sort who prays, say it anyway. They need to hear it. It means a lot to them. (If you want to be a fully truthful person, so utter a prayer already, what could it hurt?)

But don't assume that they know how you feel. Their fear is real. They need to hear from us.

2. Give
 

https://donate.meirpanim.org/2023-emergency-campaign/

https://causematch.com/helpisrael 

https://chesedtoday.com/soldiers/

 

3. Take it personally

The Simchat Torah War is existential for Israelis but is also a war against the entire Jewish People and indeed the entire world. It started thousands of years ago. They hate you because you're Jewish. If you are fortunate, you and your immediate family were spared this time. 

Therefore, it's a wake-up call to increase our Jewish connection. How about committing - starting right now - to 5 minutes a day of increased Judaism? That could be something as simple as learning Torah or Jewish wisdom for 5 minutes a day. Join an online class. Read an article online. Listen to Torah audio. Get a meaningful book and read it for 5 minutes a day.

The teeter-totter of history

There are two threads that link you and me to our grandparents and great-grandparents, all the way back: These three pillars (Torah / kindness / prayer) and anti-Semitism. The Talmud predicts that history will be like a see-saw - when these three pillars are up, anti-Semitism will go down, and when these three pillars go down, anti-Semitism will go up. 

Those on the front lines are doing what they need to do. The rest of us also have work to do. We're all in this together.

Let's end as usual with a question for your table: 

What's a bigger surprise to you - that human beings could be capable of such evil, or that they could get away with it?


Wishing you and all of Israel a Shabbat Shalom,


Alexander Seinfeld

PS - In response to people asking me for suggested prayers to say I have prepared a small packet (PDF) - let me know if you'd like a copy.

 

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The mission of Jewish Spiritual Literacy, Inc. (JSLI) is to foster a paradigm shift in spiritual and moral education to enable every human being to access and enjoy the incredible database of 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom.

You're Invited...

Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld

October 5-7, 2023 • 22-23 Tishrei 5784 • Shmini Atzeret-Simchat Torah (Deut 15-16). 

The purpose of this email is to simplify the Friday night dinner conversation... please forward/print/share.
Happy birthday shout-out to Tom in Pasadena!

Is life too complicated? 

Or is it just me?

Work, family, relationships - that's the old fashioned kind of complicated.

I'm referring to the layers on top of all that - the password resets and lost emails and missed text messages, the software updates that cause apps to malfunction, the wifi hiccups, the constant hum of spam and the constant drip-drip of scams, the unrecognized credit card charges, the speed cameras, the constant battery charging and changing, the non-stop (doom-and-gloom) news cycle...

In a by-gone era, when you went shopping you'd feel lucky if you found a ripe apple. Just finding a single crispy Golden Delicious or Granny Smith was enough to put you over the moon. You could take that treasure home and cut it into ten pieces and everyone in the family would get one slice for dessert and everyone was ecstatic.  

But now our shopping is so extravagant that we can't even call it going to the market - now it's the super-market (in France they one-upped us with the hyper-market) - and in these mega-super-duper-hyper-meta-markets there isn't one kind of apple, there are 50 varieties of everything from cereal to toothbrushes, and we think we're so lucky because we have so many options but in fact this epoque has more anxiety and depression than any other time in history.

Psychology Professor Barry Schwartz argues in his Paradox of Choice (or watch his 15-minute Ted Talk) that too many choices can be exhausting and paralyzing. 

We Jews have a wonderful pause button on being busy - it's called Shabbat. But try asking this question at your table: What's the Torah's antidote to choice-overload?

It's called Sukkot, and it's more of an inoculation than an antidote.

The basic idea: after Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, spend a week living simply. Not as rough as camping, but in that direction — eat and sleep in a temporary hut on the deck or in the back yard. Keep it simple, nothing fancy, and meditate on how little you truly require to be happy.

The photo above is our family's new sukkah, built by committee. Although we managed to fill it up this year, it's modular and can be easily expanded. Therefore, I'm giving you plenty of advance notice: I hereby extend an invitation to you for next year to come and dwell with us and enjoy a real haven from complicated - this is the zone of simplicity to crown the High Holidays and delay the resumption of "real life" by a few more days....

Combining this theme with last week's eclecticism theme, here's one more question for your table: 

Imagine someone built an enormous sukkah with unlimited capacity, and they invited every Jewish person in town - would you want to be there?


Wishing you a Shabbat Shalom

and a Happy Sukkot,

and a Happy Shmini Atzeret,

and a Happy Simchat Torah,


Alexander Seinfeld

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The mission of Jewish Spiritual Literacy, Inc. (JSLI) is to foster a paradigm shift in spiritual and moral education to enable every human being to access and enjoy the incredible database of 3,000 years of Jewish wisdom.