Make Beer, Not War

The purpose of this blog is to turn Friday night dinner into Shabbat.... Please print and share.

 
Two days ago, on Wednesday morning, Rabbi Reuven Biermacher went to Jerusalem's Old City.

At 10 am the 45-year-old immigrant from Argentina taught a group of Panamanian 16-year-olds something from the Talmud.

They were on summer vacation and their counselor came by to ask the rabbi to give them a break.

The students demurred, “No! We don’t want a break. This is the best class of the day!”

At 11 am he gave his regular Talmud class, followed by a short talk to a group of South American students.

What all three classes had in common was a beloved, wise rabbi, "full of joy and life", who cared for each of his students.

At 12:45 he left the yeshiva and headed towards Jaffa Gate, which is the main route taken by Jewish residents and tourists, and anyone else who wants to use it. The footpath outside Jaffa Gate looks like any sidewalk in any large city.

It was an unseasonably warm, sunny December day in Jerusalem.

And there, returning home to his wife and seven children, Rabbi Biermacher encountered evil.

Two young men lunged at him with knives.

Ofer Ben-Ari, 46, happened to be driving by and witnessed the attack. With only his bare hands as weapons, he ran out of his car to save the rabbi's life.

Police arrived moments later and Ben-Ari was hit by a stray bullet.

Both victims were rushed to Shaare Zedek Medical Center where they died within an hour of each other.

Biermacher's 16-year-old daughter described him as "a man of gold who never harmed anyone." One of his colleagues said in a eulogy, "He was walking example of what we all aspire to be....He was always there for everyone.... We have to take responsibility to live up to his example and make a serious change in our lives..... To look at what happened as a message to me, to think that I deserved this more than he did, and I am lucky to be here. God has chosen the best among us deliberately.... Instead of thinking, 'Am I safe or am I not safe?' we should think, "What matters is that I'm doing my job."

Ben-Ari owned a recording studio in Jerusalem and opened it free of charge to distressed youth. He also provided temporary housing for the homeless in a property he owned. He is survived by his wife and two children and here is a brief report of his funeral.

These two tragedies leave one speechless.

But I am not sharing them with you to make you sad, rather to foster a discussion at your dinner table. Perhaps these two questions are appropriate:

We know that everyone has to die. But is it better to die quickly and suddenly as they did (in this case as heroes), but without a chance for anyone to say goodbye? Or to suffer a period of illness first?

We all know (but don't like to think about it too much) that anyone and everyone's fortune could change in a moment. So what?


Shabbat Shalom.

PS - Funds are being established to help the two widows and nine orphans. For more info, post a comment or send an email.

   
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Backwards Galosh

The goal of this blog is foster a warm + cozy conversation at your Shabbat table. Please print and share...

Now that Jerusalem is enjoying its second snowstorm in as many years it feels like time to dust off the good ol' snow email, which seems to be becoming an annual tradition.

First a short story, then a question for your table, then an answer, followed by a final question.

The story takes place in snowy Jerusalem one year ago.

I had left the USA early enough to reach Jerusalem ahead of the snowstorm, but too early to have packed any snow gear.

When I arrived, in fact, the snowstorm was preceded by unbelievable torrential rain.

In Jerusalem, umbrellas are easy to come by.

Snow boots are not.

I thought, this is such a rainy place. Even without snow, there must be a lot of people who like to wear galoshes.

So I asked around. None of the local shoe stores understood the concept of a rubber shoe that you wear over another shoe.

Finally at about the 7th store the salesman at least had a clue what I was talking about and he even taught me the Hebrew name for it: andalayim (I'm guessing it's a Yiddish word formed from "on the na'alayim" - i.e., "on the shoes").

Anyway, this non-Yiddish-speaking shoe salesman who taught me how to say andalayim had no clue where to buy them, but someone else (maybe as a joke) suggested that I go looking in a Yiddish-speaking neighborhood to find them.

It turns out that the nearby Yiddish neighborhood of Belz had a shoe store and when I phoned up, the salesman told me that the indeed carried andalayim.

"But what size do you need?"

"Medium?"

"Sorry, we're all sold out of Medium."


But this was no time to quibble over details. The blizzard of the century was blowing into Jerusalem and I was going to be stuck inside without boots?

So I took a cab to Belz and I managed to get one of his last pairs of small andalayim. They're rubber, so they should stretch over my shoes right?

The snow was already falling and I was pulling and pulling, trying to get these things over my shoes.

Would they tear first?

No way, they went on and I hobbled out of the shop back to the cab. I think the cab ride cost more than the andalayim. The problem was, when I got back to where I was staying, I couldn't get them off.

It became clear that I was going to enjoy snowy Jerusalem wearing galoshes without shoes. It seemed a bit backwards, but galoshes are galoshes, right?

So while the buses and taxis were immobilized, and most of the population either stuck indoors or resorting to plastic bags and rubber bands, I sailed through the white streets of Jerusalem in amazingly strong made-in-Israel rubber and five pairs of socks.

It was magical.

A blanket of snow is always magical.

Leading to the first question for your table:

Why is a fresh snowfall ALWAYS so magical?

Think about it for a moment.

Is it because snow softens the sounds, slows the pace?

Is it because snow closes schools and is fun to play in?

The Hebrew word for snow is sheleg.

Normally, we look for significance of a Hebrew word by how it's used in the Torah.

Sheleg is not used qua snow, rather to describe a perfect whiteness, as in "your sins will be made white as snow."

But the word sheleg has a peculiar quality.

Peculiar, that is, to those who study gematria (numerology). It's numerical value is 333.

Numerologists read that as: "The number three expanded to the utmost."

Or, "the ulimate in three-ness."

But what is "three-ness"?

The number 3 in Jewish thought represents something foundational about humanity: "The world stands on 3 pillars: Torah, Avodah and Chesed" (Pirkei Avot).

(Loose translation: wisdom, spirituality, kindness)

These three qualities are exemplified by the three Patriarchs: Avraham (Abraham), Yitzchak (Isaac), Yaakov (Jacob).

Perhaps this numerology is the key to the lesson of snow.

We need those 3 pillars - Torah, Avodah and Chesed - to have a stable world. Snow shows us what the world would look like when we get the right balance of those three.

It's magical - blanketing the world with a clean whiteness, smoothing over all the bumps, hiding all the dirt.

Yes, we know the dirt is there, and will be back soon enough.

But isn't it fun for a few minutes to pretend that it isn't?

But it's more than pretending. That magic is teaching us something.

It's reminding us what the world could look like all the time, if each of us worked on the area(s) where we are deficient in our own personal triangle.

Final question for your table: What's most lacking in the world - Torah, Avodah or Chesed?

Shabbat Shalom 


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Face 2 Face

The purpose of this email is to help create some great face time at your Shabbat table. Please print and share.
Face 2 Face

OK, so I'm back from Yerushalayim.

The first thing I did in the airport in New York was to get a professional New York shoe shine for my poor Oxfords, blanched by the Jerusalem blizzard.

How was your trip?

I didn't visit any "sites".

I didn't eat any falafel.

I did drink a lot of coffee.

(Peet's best flavor, that I brought with me. Guess I'm a little spoiled.)

The highlight of the trip?

Surely watching children gleefully, exuberantly reveling in the snow was, hands-down, the greatest joy.

Some kids used baking pans as sleds.

One 13-year-old, who has never left the Land of Israel, told me wide-eyed, "It's like being in Switzerland!"

What is it about connecting with people?

What is it about connecting with people face-to-face?

In eight days I connected meaningfully with eight people/families, any one of whom would have been worth the effort.

Six were old relationships, two were new.

They all have phones. Most have email.

I have asked this question before, but this trip gave me a new way of asking it.

With all this great video technology, why does a face-to-face meeting still matter so much?

You probably know that I'm a big fan of long-distance relationships:

- A live class in San Francisco every Friday morning, while sitting at my desk in Baltimore.
- Studying with individuals and couples via video and phone most days of the week
- Tweeting
- Posting
- (anything new I'm missing?)

Yet... there's something missing, right?

A Forbes survey agrees.

I was pondering this yesterday when I struck up a conversation with a United Airlines pilot. He said, "It's a great truth that is the only thing that keeps airlines in business!"

In other words, in the business world, it's no secret.

This Hilton Hotels report explores some of the psychological reasons.

But I'm not sure they get to the very heart of the question.

So I'll leave it to you and your table tonight:

Why does face-to-face matter so much? Is it merely because our technology isn't good enough to make the other person seem like they're in the room? Can you imagine a day when the video is so realistic that face-to-face won't matter anymore?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - If you want to know the real reason I went to Jerusalem, watch  this ... or this.

PPS - Want to make your Table Talk rabbi happy? Like it, tweet it, or just forward it to someone who might enjoy it.  

Even better, come visit us in Baltimore for some face-to-face time over some great coffee.

Call Me Sheleg

The goal of this blog is foster a warm + cozy conversation at your Shabbat table. Don't read it now - print and share!

First of all, there were several great entries to last week's contest to finish the joke.

The judges conferred and decided that the best punch line was:

"One America, on the rocks!"

Now, speaking of penguins, perhaps you heard that Jerusalem, City of Gold, turned white this week.

These pictures are worth a thousand words around your table.

But maybe we could ask a question about snow as well.

Why is a fresh snowfall so magical?

Think about it for a moment.

Is it because snow softens the sounds, slows the pace?

Is it because snow closes schools and is fun to play in?

The Hebrew word for snow is sheleg.

Normally, we look for significance of a word by how it's used in the Torah.

Sheleg is not used qua snow, rather to describe a perfect whiteness, as in "your sins will be made white as snow."

But the word sheleg has a peculiar quality.

Peculiar, that is, to those who study gematria (numerology). It's numerical value is 333.

Numerologists read that as: "The number three expanded to the utmost."

Or, "the ultimate in three-ness."

But what  is "three-ness"?

The number 3 in Jewish thought represents something foundational about humanity: "The world stands on 3 pillars: Torah, Avodah and Chesed" (Pirkei Avot).

(Loose translation: wisdom, spirituality, kindness)

These three qualities are exemplified by the three Patriarchs: Avraham/Abraham, Yitzchak?Isaac, Yaakov/Jacob.

Perhaps this numerology is the key to the lesson of snow.

We need those 3 pillars - Torah, Avodah and Chesed - to have a stable world. Snow shows us what the world would look like when we get the right balance of those three.

It's magical - blanketing the world with a clean whiteness, smoothing over all the bumps, hiding all the dirt.

Yes, we know the dirt is there, and will be back soon enough.

But isn't it fun for a few minutes to pretend that it isn't?

But it's more than pretending. That magic is teaching us something.

It's reminding  us what the world could look like all the time, if each of us worked on the area(s) where we are deficient in our own triangle.

Final question for your table: What area do you need to work on (Torah, Avodah, Chesed) to stabilize your own snowflake?


Shabbat Shalom 


PS - In case you heard about our next Treasury Secretary but missed what I wrote about him a few weeks ago, click here.


If you enjoyed this post, please "like" it, "tweet" it, or simply forward the link to others who may enjoy it.

Being Childish

This week's post is dedicated to my wonderful wife, a true woman of valor, who has stuck with me for 15 years (this week).

As always, the goal of this blog is to give you something interesting and meaningful to discuss at your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

Shalom from Jerusalem.

Here visiting my sister and family.

One of my favorite things about visiting Israel is getting to spend time with them all.

Her six-year-old, Yehoshua, looks like one of those religious kids in the movies. Extremely short hair, long side curls, fringes dangling from his waist.

And like kids anywhere, he can say the darndest things.

To understand the first vignette, you have to know that that in the Torah there is a concept called "tuma" which is a ritual impurity. One can contract it and become tamay, among other ways, from contact with someone or something that has died. Sort of like the cooties.

We're exploring an ancient site called Maresha, which was a cave-town carved out of limestone. It's just a stone's throw away from where David fought Goliath. Today you can easily explore these labyrinthine caves, a child's dreamscape.

The last cave we visit had been used for burials. Yehoshua starts to climb into one of the crypts.

His eight-year-old sister stops him. "You can't do that! You'll become tamay!"

But Yehoshua is no dummy. "We're all tamay anyway!"

"Yeah, but then you'll get more tamay!"

First question for your table — Is there any benefit to giving people a rule to follow that defies reason?

So then later when I'm walking them home Yehoshua suddenly says to me (or to himself?):

Kol ha-goyim magiah may-ha-kotel ad kahn
Hashem ohev lishmoah otam.

That translates roughly as:

The voice of the Gentiles reaches from the Western Wall until here
Them God loves to hear.

Which Gentiles? What voice? Why does God love to hear them?

As we walk, he explains: the Moslems in the mosques, you hear their prayers (on loudspeakers). God loves to hear them because they are monotheists and not worshipping idols.

It took some prying, but I finally get it out of him that he got this idea from the rabbi who is his primary school teacher.

"And their voice reaches all the way to here?" I ask.

"No, back there!" he corrects me.

Question #2 for your table: We adults spend a lot of time talking about what and how to teach children, but what should we be learning from children?

(Rav Nachman, the famous Chasid, used to say: We should learn three things from children: They're always busy, they're always happy, and when they want something, they say "please, please, please Daddy" until they get it.)


Shabbat Shalom


(Did I mention printing out this message and reading at your dinner table? Try it, they'll love it.)

Who Killed the Kennedys?

Anyone who has even the slightest connection to the Jewish People and the faintest concept of karma should be given great pause when students are gunned down inside the oldest yeshiva in the land of Israel, founded by Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, before the creation of the state.

The Ismaelite fired more than 500 bullets before being stopped. He shot students as they studied. Others he chased down, shooting them in the back.

As reported by Israel Insider, Yehuda Meshi Zahav, head of the Zaka rescue service, entered the library after the attack. "The whole building looked like a slaughterhouse. The floor was covered in blood. The students were in class at the time of the attack," he said. "The floors are littered with holy books covered in blood."

"There were horrendous screams of 'Help us! Help us!'" recounted Avrahami Sheinberger of the ZAKA emergency rescue service, one of the first to respond to the scene. "There were bodies strewn all over the floor, at the entrance to the yeshiva, in various rooms and in the library."

The Talmud states (Taanis 19a) that when a Jewish city is attacked by an enemy (or even wild animals), all other cities should hold a public fast day. If the threat is “hostile troops”, then the call to fast should be made even on Shabbat.

What’s the point?

The point is, when my tribesmen are attacked, it’s a wakeup call to me. Sderot and Ashkelon have been under near-daily attack for many months.

This weeks question for your table is: Why does it take a massacre in Jerusalem to wake us up (if then)? And more important, now that we’ve been slightly stirred from our slumber, what should we do?

“God picks the most beautiful flowers for his garden,” the mother of 16-year-old Avraham David Moses told Ynet. “He (God) sees him as an angel, and we should thank him for the privilege of raising him for 16 years. Sixteen years of purity and integrity and kindness.”

Please also see my post from last June 22, “Instant Karma”.

And I wouldn't want to let you go without a video:


Shabbat Shalom.


Travel/speaking schedule:
April 1-2 – San Francisco and Los Angeles
April 3 - St. Louis
April 7 - Baltimore

Jerusalem

Dedicated to my friend Harry, a great soul. To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.


My friend Harry, a “Persian” Jew from California (i.e., he was born in Iran), was in Jerusalem recently with his family and taking a cab with two of his sons to the Western Wall. They settled on a fare of twenty shekels.

The driver heard his accent and asked him, “Are you Iranian?”

“Yeah, sure,” Harry said. “Are you?”

“No, but I love Iran! I love Ahamdinejad!”

Harry couldn’t believe his ears. “You love Ahamdinejad? How could you? He wants to start a war to destroy Israel!”

“Yes, destroy! Jihad, jihad, jihad!”

By now Harry’s sons were really nervous. They were hoping to make it home in one piece.

But Harry could not contain himself. He was incredulous. “How can you say that! Here you are, driving us in a cab in Yerushalayim! We are Jews! You are driving us to the Wall! How can you talk like that?

“Yes,” said the driver, “jihad, kill the Americans and Israelis to avenge my brothers in Iraq.”

For Harry, the most incredible had become even more incredible: “You are so bothered by your brothers in Iraq? It’s not Americans killing them, they’re killing each other!”

He had pushed too far: “Get out here,” the driver demanded.

“But we’re not at the Wall yet?”

Taxicabs are not allowed to the Wall anymore, security restrictions.

But Harry was not finished. “Are you Sunni or Shia?”

“I am Sunni!”

“Then you’re a fool. Don’t you know that Ahmnadijab is a Shia. That means that he’s coming to kill YOU too!”

The driver fell silent and waited for his passengers to exit the cab.

Outside, Harry told his visibly relieved sons, “You see boys, for only a few dollars we got a valuable lesson....”

Question for your table>: What was the lesson?

A related disturbing video:



Shabbat Shalom.

Speaking schedule – save the dates:
December 5 – Beverly Hills - Hannuka party for singles - with all-you-can-eat sushi, open bar, casino, music and “Persian” auction. Super prizes, including an iPhone. For tickets for yourself or to give a friend as a meaningful Hannuka present, phone 310-785-0440