Friday, December 13, 2024

It's Wondrous, But Is It Moral?



Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Dec 13-14, 2024 • 13 Kislev 5785 • Vayishlach (Gen 32-36).
Do you know how many days until Hannukah? Find our curated Channukah books and gift suggestions on BestJewishBooks.com (or uncurated @ Amazon). 

Notre-Dame_de_Paris-cropped

This week the world celebrated the restoration of Notre Dame of Paris, a truly remarkable building, especially considering it was constructed in the 13th Century.

Yet I hope they will forgive Jewish people (and anyone of conscience who knows the cathedral’s history) who may be hesitant to extend our congratulations.

Notre Dame – like many European cathedrals – is an explicit monument to the perceived or hoped-for downfall of the Jewish People and our religion.
 
This great architectural achievement has been the badge of the French Catholic Church since its completion in 1250 CE. They laid the cornerstone in 1164 and during the 86-year construction period, this rising symbol of French Catholicism paralleled a rise in official French antisemitism.

As the Church grew in power, Jewish resistance to conversion remained a thorn in the side of Christianity. Since Jesus himself was Jewish, our nearly universal refusal to convert implied something invidious about us.

By the 13th Century, 
Church leaders had come to suspect that the Talmud – more than any other Jewish book – is what kept Jews Jewish and prevented our acceptance of Christian theology. Across Europe, representatives of the Church staged numerous public "disputations" between Christians and Jews. Judaism was typically defended by a learned rabbi, while the prosecution was often an apostate Jew – a convert to Christianity whose knowledge of the Talmud was sufficient to give him credibility and to enable him to quote Talmudic passages.

At the first of of many nadirs of this period, in June of 1239, Pope Gregory IX ordered the Catholic kings of Europe to seize all Jewish books and to examine them for heresy. King Louis IX was the only European monarch to heed the Pope’s orders. He was perhaps encouraged by the apostate Jew who betrayed the Jews of France, Nicholas Donin, who was angry with the French rabbis and had traveled to Rome with accusations against the Talmud. Donin personally delivered the Pope’s letter to Paris, which included the order that “those books in which you find errors of this sort you shall cause to be burned at the stake.” On March 3, 1240, French soldiers confiscated approximately 10,000 handwritten volumes of the Talmud from every synagogue and yeshiva in France.

The investigation took about two years and culminated in a public trial. Donin served as prosecutor and the defense was led by two of the greatest Tosafists, Rav Yechiel of Paris (Donin’s former teacher) and Rav Moshe of Coucy.
 
On May 13, 1242, the verdict was issued: the Talmud contains heresy and all copies must be destroyed in a month’s time. King Louis IX ordered the burning of all known copies.
 
The execution of this verdict on June 17, 1242 was joyfully supervised by priests and bishops and King Louis himself. For this and other acts of piety, Louis was later beatified (declared a “saint”). Catholics remember him as the epitome of the Christian King and even named a major North American city in his honor.
 
The trial was conducted in front of the nearly-completed Notre Dame cathedral. The symbolism of this location is very important. Look carefully at the main entrance: flanking the central doorway are two statues. The one on the left depicts a woman with her head held high and a staff in her hand. She is Iglesia – the Christian Church. The statue on the right has her head down with broken staff and a snake around her eyes. She is Synagoga – Judaism.
 
These symbols – found on numerous European cathedrals – mean quite plainly that the core mission and meaning of this building is the triumph of Christianity over Judaism. Make no mistake: the building itself is an intentional monument to the Jewish People’s alleged downfall.
 
This history should inform our response when, 777 years later, Notre Dame of Paris burned.
 
For example, consider the reaction of Barbara Drake Boehm, senior curator at the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s medieval Cloisters branch in New York (her voice shaking): “It’s the very soul of Paris, but it’s not just for French people. For all humanity, it’s one of the great monuments to the best of civilization."

Question for your table - Do you agree with Ms. Boehm? Does Notre Dame represent the best of civilization?

One of the most virulent videos from the burning of the Cathedral on April 15, 2019 shows the main spire falling. This video appears to have been shot from the nearby City Hall Plaza (Place de Hotel de Ville) where the Talmud burning took place. However, it may have been shot from the Holocaust Museum, which is about the same distance.
 
One wonders if the placement of the Holocaust museum there must be either a statement of repentance or an historic irony – so close to two locations that are associated with virulent anti-Semitism and that surely contributed, through the persistence of cultural memory, to the Holocaust itself.
 
The current caretakers of Notre Dame have had five years and 900 million dollars to restore their beloved church. I had hoped to see the offensive grand entryway modified. Alas, le plus ça change….
 
Rabbi Meir of Rothenburg witnessed the Paris burning and wrote, “My tears formed a river that reached to the Sinai desert and to the graves of Moshe and Aharon. Is there another Torah to replace the Torah which you have taken from us?"

Your thoughts?

(By the way, Jewish history does point toward a happy ending... for example, click the above image.)

Shabbat Shalom

Before you go: JSLI programs (see below) rely on generous supporters like you. To make an end-of-the-tax-year donation - click here.

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Friday, December 06, 2024

Fight Fire With Water?



Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Dec 6-7, 2024 • 6 Kislev 5785 • Vayeitzei (Gen 25-28).
Do you know how many days until Hannukah? 
Find our curated Channukah books and gift suggestions on BestJewishBooks.com (or uncurated @ Amazon). 

Adass-Synagogue-in-MelbourneOnce in a blue moon a reply comes in from a reader of this Friday email... sometimes with an answer to the big question at the bottom, sometimes with a request for more information, sometimes to (respectfully) disagree....

(Whatever the reason, it's uplifting to know that somebody is reading this blog once in awhile!)

Such a message arrived in reply to last week's Thanksgiving message - from an old friend I hadn't heard from in many years... apparently he reads this email every week!

I guess our friendship has become rather one-directional. But it was good to hear from him.

At other times, I wonder, is anyone listening?

That's how we Jews should be feeling right now regarding yesterday's shocking news from Down Under.

Sunrise in Melbourne, Australia is presently about 5:51 am. That means that the earliest morning service begins around 5:20.

At around 4:30 am yesterday morning (Thursday, December 5, 2024), two men had arrived to Melbourne's largest synagogue, Adass Israel, to study Torah before the morning service. They heard and investigated some noises and found two men breaking a window and tossing in Molotov cocktails. The fire completely destroyed the shul.

The two men escaped with minor injuries. Had it occurred an hour later, there would have been hundreds of people inside.

Thankfully, miraculously, some (possibly all) of the Torah Scrolls were spared.

Wondering why you didn't hear about it? Maybe because no one was killed?

Last I checked - last night - literally none of the MSM outside of Australia and Israel carried the story on their front page - not the BBC nor the the NYT(still giving top billing to the the 2-day-old story about the Brian Thompson murder; the latter did however make space for the new Amnesty International Blood Libel), not the WP, not the LA Times (who decided a false tsunami warning was newsworthy, but not the firebombing of a synagogue), not the Miami Herald. Even the Sidney Morning Herald had the story way down their Home page, after more urgent items such as the death of "Australia’s first supermodel Maggie Tabberer." 

This shul was built by Holocaust survivors. Think about that.

Question for your table: Had it been a Melbourne church or mosque, do you suppose the MSM would have ignored or buried the story?My daughter has a writing assignment this week about how October 7 has affected Jewish people's sense of Jewish identity and commitment around the world.

How would you answer that?

My personal perception is that October 7 was like rolling a heavy stone off of a well, allowing the worldwide waters of antisemitism to flow.... and the best response would be to roll the heavy stone off of the well of Jewish wisdom and make sure that those Jews who are waking up thirsty for Jewishness have something to quench their Jewish thirst.

Your thoughts?


Shabbat Shalom

To learn more about how we're quenching Jewish thirst, see the links below.
To become a partner in the thirst-quenching business during this week of "Giving Tuesday" or anytime - click here.

Appreciated this Table Talk? Like ittweet it, forward it.... This message can also be read on Times of Israel.

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Thursday, November 28, 2024

Do Jews Do Thanksgiving?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Nov 29-30, 2024 • 29 Mar Cheshvan 5785 • Toldos (Gen 25-28).
Please print this email and bring some hodu to the dinner table.
Do you know how many days til Hannukah
Find curated Channukah books and gifts on BestJewishBooks.com (or uncurated on Amazon). 

Festive-Vegan-Falafel-with-Cranberry-Pear-Dip-3Question for your Thanksgiving table –

Thanksgiving is rooted in European colonialism. 

That's why many of his statues have been torn down

So now that Columbus has become so controversial, how come nobody is talking about that today? How come we don't hear of anyone refusing to "do Thanksgiving" in protest?

Tradition?

Well, the tradition of the present Table Talk email is to pull out, dust off and rejewvenate our annual Hodu message.


Here are a few questions to stump everyone at the table:

Try this one first: 
Why turkey?

Serious question: Why do Americans eat turkey on Thanksgiving?

(Why does it seem like a religious duty, like matzah on Pesach.)


If anyone answers, "They ate turkey so we have to eat turkey," that would be incorrect.

In fact, they would be wrong on 2 counts.

First of all, would it really be so bad to have a Thanksgiving pizza? Or Thanksgiving hamburgers? Or a red beans and rice Thanksgiving? How about a Chinese Thanksgiving? Curry Thanksgiving, anyone? Do vegetarians do Thanksgiving? 

(I know I'm not the first to ask this question, but it seems far from resolved.)

Second, they probably didn't eat much turkey.

At that original Thanksgiving in 1621, they apparently ate mostly venison.

I know, shocking, right?

Let's go back in time.

Imagine you're on the boat with Columbus.

(Maybe you're even a Jewish refugee
 from the Spanish Inquisition.)

PS - If you'd like to know about the Jews who sailed with Columbus, send me an email.

Of course, you and your geographically-challenged buddies think you're in Asia.

It's a strange world! Strange people, fauna and flora.

And you see this funky chicken.

The Wampanoag Indians call it neyhom.


What do you, O Spanish sailor, call it?

Remember, it looks vaguely like a chicken and you think you're in India, so naturally you call it "Indian chicken."

Are you with me so far?

French explorers agree that it looks like a chicken and they call poulet d'Inde (Indian chicken), later shortened to dinde (pronounced "dand").

English settlers think it looks more like a Turkey pheasant than a chicken, so they call the bird turkey.

Jewish explorers side with the French and call it tarnegol hodu — "Hindu chicken" — later shortened to hodu.

What's interesting for us is that the Hebrew word HODU also just happens to mean "give thanks" (in the imperative mood for all the grammarphiles out there).

So back to our main question for your table: What food should you eat on Hodu Day?

(Hodu, of course.)

Now try asking somebody Jewish at the table this stumper:

You're Jewish, right? Can you explain what "Jewish" means?

Forget the religious or cultural meaning; we want to know the etymology of "Jewish".

It means something like, "a state of being thankful". 

Ergo, if you're living up to the name "Jewish" then you are....

....living in a state of being thankful.

Let that sink in before asking the next question: How often?

(Once a year? Once a month? Once a week? Once a day?)

That could be a lot of hodu to stuff yourself with.

Final question for the table: How do you do hodu?


Happy Hodu-Day, and

(which may be the same as saying...)


Shabbat Shalom

PS - the links above - including the image - are all very cool, check them out!

Cross-posted on Times of Israel.

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Friday, November 22, 2024

Yes, We Have a Banana!

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Nov 22-23, 2024 • 22 Mar Cheshvan 5785 • Chayei Sarah (Gen 23-25).


banana copy
First question for your table: If you had a billion dollars, is there any chance that you'd pay six million for a banana and piece of duct tape under the guise of "art"?

That is exactly what happened this week when billionaire Justin Sun won the "Comedian" at auction.

To answer this burning question, it may be a little hard to imagine having a billion dollars, so let's reduce it proportionately - it would be like someone with a million-dollar net worth spending a mere $6,000 on the banana. 

Would you?

What if it were a mere $600? Would you consider that a bargain too good to pass up?

Currency in any form is an excellent measure of value. I can tell you exactly what you value – just show me your credit card statement. But sometimes just like we sometimes eat impulsively and speak impulsively, we spend impulsively and the purchase doesn't represent our true values. 

Question for your table: How can a person avoid such impulsive actions that they may later regret?



Shabbat Shalom 

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Friday, November 08, 2024

Should I Care Who Wins?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Nov 9-10, 2024 • 8 Mar Cheshvan 5785 • Lech-lecha (Gen 12-17).


G. CapesPeople like to say that competition is good because it pushes people to excel.

The thing about competition is that it creates losers.

Not only that, but there are usually more losers than winners. That's a lot of hard feelings. Is it worth it? 

I cannot recall specifically being aware of "strongman competitions". 

I'm sure that I've heard about them... but it's one of those things that I don't generally pay attention to.

You could try asking this at your table - Can you name one such competition or one champion?

There are many, including: 
World's Strongest ManArnold Strongman ClassicEurope's Strongest ManStrongman Champions LeagueWorld's Ultimate StrongmanWorld's Strongest VikingWorld Muscle Power ClassicFortissimusPure StrengthRogue InvitationalShaw ClassicGiants LiveIFSA World ChampionshipsStrongman Super Series and World Strongman Challenge

I'm sure it's entertaining to watch men lifting cars and bending steel bars but it's frankly not something I've ever tuned in. 

But for some reason the death this week of Britain's most famous strongman captured my imagination. This is a guy who at his peak could literally tear phone books in half and bend steel bars.

But what caught my attention was the following detail in his biography:

He supported himself and his young family by working as a police officer. One afternoon, he was sent to arrest a man for not paying a fine. He knocked on his door. When the man opened it, Capes saw dozens of budgerigars — a type of parakeet — chirping about in cages.

“Could I have a look at your birds?” Capes said.

They brought back memories of his childhood, when he tended to injured birds and animals. The man invited him inside and served him a cup of tea. They had a lovely chat about the tiny, chatty budgies. Capes even held some of them in his giant hands.

Alas, after an hour, Capes reminded the man that he was there to arrest him.

“He came quietly and afterwards we kept in touch,” Capes told The Sunday People, a London newspaper, in 1998. “Two weeks later he gave me my first ever pair of breeding budgies.”

Capes began breeding them with the same enthusiasm with which he trained for strongman competitions. He competed in budgerigar shows throughout Europe, winning a world championship in 1995. He was named president of the Budgerigar Society in 2008 and frequently judged competitions.

“There’s something about their color and beauty that fascinates me,” Capes told The Sunday People. “They bring out my gentler side.”

I love that he didn't merely experience the beautiful birds in the zoo like most of us might do.

As in his first career as a strongman, he took his God-given talents and pushed himself towards his potential. He channelled all of that amazing physical power into his art, which was an interaction with the profound beauty of nature, and in so doing, left the world a better place than he found it.

Two questions for your table: Do you think that his success has anything to do with the fact that he grew up in a time before the advent of so many modern distractions and addictions? And as asked above, is competition worth it, given that it creates losers?


Shabbat Shalom 


PS - This week's Table Talk also appears online at http://rabbiseinfeld.blogspot.com.

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

Friday, November 01, 2024

Who Was That Unmasked Man?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Nov 1-2, 2024 • 1 Mar Cheshvan 5785 • Noach (Gen 6-11).
In memory of Jeremy Dossetter (Yermiyahu Matan) z''l, whose 7th yahrzeit was observed this week.


FJM
I recently had the opportunity to spend six hours in the City Department of Planning.

The first five hours were merely waiting for our turn at the Zoning Commission meeting.

What a blessing to have a laptop (and plenty to do with it)!

During one of my writing breaks, I wandered around the lobby there on the 5th floor and happened upon a pile of stapled copies, obviously left for the public to read and/or take. The cover sheet:



MEMORIES OF A 50-YEAR CAREER
Frank J. Murphy's Journey Through the Transportation Profession
From 1974 to 2024


It is a monumental record that can only be fully appreciated if you are holding it in your hands. It would be very difficult for a mere mortal like me to fairly represent the contents of this hundred-page autobiography. Mr. Murphy has been blessed with either a photographic memory or the self-discipline to keep a meticulous journal for fifty years.

But here are a few impressions:

• There may not be a single road, crosswalk, traffic light, or stop sign in the City of Baltimore that doesn't have Frank J. Murphy's fingerprints on it.

• There is no bravado - merely a happy account of his journey both horizontally and vertically through a civil engineering career: gratitude for landing in a career that he could continuously find challenging and meaningful for fifty years.

• He's multi-dimensional - the packet included a photo from the office holiday party showing him playing electric bass.

While I stood there perusing the tome, my immersion in his fifty-year transportation journey was interrupted when a door nearby suddenly opened.

A man carrying a small briefcase silently and rather swiftly exited, walking past me toward the elevators, some fifty feet away (a foot for every year of FJM's career?)...

While awaiting the lift, the man looked back towards me. Was this indeed he? The legendary Frank J. Murphy himself? The photo on the document was a younger man with a goatee and the man by the elevator was older and clean-shaven. But still....

Our eyes met. I put on my best inquisitive expression and pointed to the autobiography, trying to ask across the fifty-foot divide, "Is this indeed you?"

He made no motion of his head, but if I'm not mistaken, his eyes were smiling. And then as suddenly as he had appeared, he stepped into the elevator and was gone.

Most of us can live in a city for an entire lifetime and never have a clue who actually designed and facilitated all of that flow of traffic. Even when something you don't like appears and you'd like to know whom to blame, it's always just "The City."

But if we're honest, we should admit that most of the time, things do work, and we never have a personal connection to anyone who actually created that functional design.

Question for your table: At what point does a mere civil servant become a hero?


Shabbat Shalom 


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

Thursday, October 10, 2024

An Existential Dilemma?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Oct 11-12, 2024 • 10 Tishrei 5785 • Yom Kippur.
In memory of Binyomin ben Shneur Zalman z''l who left us just before RH and whose funeral was this week.



PonderOnce upon a time, I opened a checking account in Israel.

The banker explained that I was allowed to write the date using either the Gregorian or Hebrew calendar.

I thought that was so cool. 

And you know what would have been even cooler? If writing the Hebrew date had been the only option.

I wondered why Israelis — who do all speak Hebrew last I checked – would not want to use the Hebrew calendar?

Fast forward a few decades to October 7, 2024. 

Should we memorialize the massacre on its Gregorian date or on its Hebrew date (Simchat Torah), which this year will be on October 25?

Question for your pre- or post-Yom Kippur meal: What do you think?

We're only one year in, and this question has already cracked the unity as some indeed observed our new memorial day this week on October 7 while others are waiting for Simchat Torah, while still others are going to wait until after Simchat Torah so as not to mar the holiday...??

Is there any room for compromise here?

Is this fracture perhaps related to the ultimate Jewish Question?


Question 2 for your table: Are you a "Jewish American" or an "American Jew"?

(Jewish Canadian/Canadian Jew, Jewish Israeli/Israeli Jew, etc.)

Follow-up question: Would you have answered that question differently prior to October 7, 2023? 

Follow-up question to the follow-up question: Could someone who holds the latter view be elected to public office?

I received a phone call this week from a very Jewish, very American young woman who told me that she feels very stuck in a rut. "When I was eighteen, I was so driven, so happy, and for the past number of years I've been so unmotivated and so unhappy."

Besides therapy, what would you advise her?

It seems to me she's very fortunate. Because she has a vision of the kind of person she wants to become, of herself in a better place. That means she just needs some tools for returning to that self.

But what if someone can't remember not being the way they are? Not being angry, not being critical, not being impatient, not being lazy, or whatever the issue may be? What if they don't have model eighteen-year-old self to return to?

It seems to me that the answer is simple: go farther back. 

Even if you have to go all the way back to your birth day. 

A newborn baby is not angry, nor critical, nor impatient, nor lazy. Contrary to popular mythology, a newborn is completely innocent. 

You were indeed that innocent once upon a time. All that bad stuff that you want to shed, that's all learned layers that can be peeled off.

Picturing yourself as innocent and vulnerable as a newborn baby, that's Rosh Hashanah. 

Peeling off layers of negativity, that's Yom Kippur.

How will you know if you succeed?

You're successful if you can get along cheerily with someone who thinks different from you about the October 7-Simchat Torah question, or who plans to vote differently than you. Or who has a different definition of "genocide" than you. 

It's a high bar, but our our 2024 Yom Kippur Kit can help you get there. If you'd like a copy, reply to this email.

Wishing you an successful/uplifting Day of Atonements,


    an easy fast, 

and may you and yours, and Am Yisroel, and the world be sealed in the Book of life, peace, good health, happiness, holiness, and wisdom,
 
Shabbat Shalom 

and 

Happy Yom Kippur


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

Wednesday, October 02, 2024

Rosh Hashanah 5785 - What Will Be?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Oct 2-5, 2024 • 1-3 Tishrei 5785 • Rosh Hashana and Haazinu (Deut 32-34).

scales-of-law-animated-gif
Any Libras reading this?

It's that time of year again - 
the Scales of Rosh Hashanah.

W
hich way are they going to tip, toward Blessing or toward Curse? (As Bibi said last Friday)

As you prep for the new year, here are some recent JSLI outputs that you may enjoy:

1. A new interview of yours, truly that went live this week by the "Fully In Balance" nutrition coach, Dalia Brunschwig.

2. A class I gave last week: Southern California version and Northern California edition.

(There is an online printable adaptation of the class on my Times of Israel blog.)

3. Our updated "Rosh Hashana - Yom Kippur Worksheet and Meditations" (send an email to info [at] jsli.org to receive).

May you and yours, and Am Yisroel, and the entire world be written and sealed in the Book of life, peace, good health, happiness, holiness, and wisdom,

and

Shabbat Shalom


PS - This week's Table Talk also appears online at http://rabbiseinfeld.blogspot.com.

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

Friday, September 27, 2024

Stand-Up For Israel?

Shabbat Table Talk from the desk of Rabbi Alexander Seinfeld
Sep 27-28, 2024 • 25 Elul 5784 • Netzavim (Deut 29-31).


Stand-Up For Israel?

jerry2
A certain Israeli comedy sketch quipped that "standing" with Israel sounds so tiring.

"Free Palestine" sound much nicer. Who doesn't like free stuff?

Much-needed intelligent comic relief in a glut of MSM (main stream media) bone-headedness, such as "Israel and Hizbollah have been exchanging fire for eleven months" as if there is some kind of parity in this fight.

Maybe the AP, the BBC, the NYT and others don't have access to Wikipedia?

Why only now when Israel decides to exercise its sovereign right of self-defense is there a call for a cease fire?

Question for your table: What does "I stand for Israel" actually mean?

It seems to me that it really means, "I stand with the Jewish People."

It unfortunately took a pogrom of unmitigated evil and a 3-front war to bring us to this unity, but here we are.

Question for your table - Once the warring is over, what will happen to all the standing for Israel?



Shabbat Shalom


PS - This week's Table Talk also appears online at http://rabbiseinfeld.blogspot.com.

PPS - some more comedians: this onethese guys
, and of course my cousin Jerry...

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