Stranger Than Fiction?

The purpose of this blog is to create a controlled-burn at the Shabbat table. Please print and share...

Do you realize how very soon we'll be dipping apples in honey??

Walk into a room full of Torah scholars and you'll hear a lot of heated arguments. Why is that?

Dialectical argument is one of the best ways to get closer to Truth.

Most of these arguments depend on logic and reason. But every once-in-a-while, a scholar may find support for his position in the writings of an earlier or more senior scholar.

Upon such validation, the scholar may utter a two-word quasi-blessing: Baruch sheh'kavanti. It's something of a humble alternative to "I told you so."

I had a baruch-sheh'kavanti moment last week here in this space. You may recall that I asked, "Is tribalism the same as racism?" and, "Does being Jewish mean to be tribalist?"

While I was writing that blog last Thursday, it turns out, a fellow member of our tribe was blogging her confession to having posed (and built her career) as a member of another tribe.

In case you didn't hear the story (because you might have something bigger to worry about?), here's the basic outline:

• Jewish woman from Kansas City gets a prep-school education, goes to University of Kansas then University of Wisconsin-Madison for a PhD.
(Her dissertation: "They glorify in a certain independence" : the politics of identity in Kisama, Angola, and its diasporas in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries"

• At some point, probably during a post-doc research fellowship in the Caribbean, she decides to abandon her own people's ship and join the tribe of "Afro-Latina".
(Here she is in character.)
(She may have even started a trend at UW-M.)

• Pens a critically-acclaimed slave-history (finalist for Yale's Frederick Douglass Book Prize and the Harriet Tubman Prize).
(Here's a taste of her writing: "To gloss Kisama as a simple toponym referring to the arid lands between Angola's Kwanza and Longo rivers is to miss the cross-regional, trans-Atlantic political processes thru which thousand of the most individually weak and vulnerable people of the 16th and 17th century Angola collectively fashioned dynamic political identities originated around renouncing state formations, martial idioms for social organization, and resisting slavery, the slave trade and the imbrication in market economies.")

• After eight years of this conversion/charade/fraud/satire, she's about to be outed so she comes clean.
(Not surprisingly, her academic career is evidently over.)

In her blog-confessional, she calls her tribal conversion "the very epitome of violence". Others have called her decision to convert to Afro-Jamaican "racist." 

So which is it? Is tribalism itself racism (per Michele Norris, last week's blog)? Or is it racist to join another tribe uninvited (per Jessica Krug's critics, and Krug herself)?

Or, wonders Professor Jonathan Zimmerman from the University of Pennsylvania, is it racist to heap praise on her book when we thought it was written by a woman of color, and to trash it now that we know it was written by a Jewish woman from Kansas City with no blackness in her genetic and cultural history?

OK, it was bad to lie and say she grew up Afro-Latina. But if she wants to be black, shouldn't that be her choice? (If a person can become transgender, why not transracial?)

Or perhaps Michael Laitman is onto something when he frames Krug's tale as a very Jewish story because "there's a Jessica Krug in every Jew"....?

Final thought and question for your table:

In her confessional, Ms. Krug writes, "I have no identity outside of this. I have never developed one. I have to figure out how to be a person that I don’t believe should exist, and how, as that person, to even begin to heal any of the harm that I’ve caused."

Question - if you could speak to her right now, what would you say?

Shabbat Shalom
 

 

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Did You Hear the One About...

The purpose of this blog is to increase simcha at the Shabbat table. Please print and share (+ like it, tweet it, forward).
 

.... the guy who could never remember the punchline of a joke?

Get it?

Remember, the purpose of this email is to read it aloud at your Friday night dinner table.

Here are a few more:

What is brown and sticky?
A stick.

Why do seagulls fly over the sea?
Because if they flew over the bay, they'd be bagels.

What kind of music do planets like?
Neptunes.

Why are there gates around cemeteries?
Because people are dyin' to get in.

Don't trust atoms. They make up everything.

A guy walks into a library and says, "Hi, I'll have the fish please."
The librarian says, "Sir, this is a library."
The guy whispers, "Oh, I'm sorry! I'll have the fish."

Survey time for your table - 5 questions....

Which of these is the best? The worst?

Why are "bad" jokes good?

What's the world's best "bad" joke?

(Send it my way and I'll send you a prize.)

You often hear people talk about "Jewish" humor — is there such a thing?
(Hint - click on the image above.)


Shabbat Shalom


A mensch tracht un Got lacht — A person plans and God laughs.

 

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So This is Planet Hooston

You never heard of Planet Hooston?

(If you know where it is, you might have a super memory.... If you don't, maybe this will jog your memory.)

Besides the eeriness (today) of General Zod mistaking a lake for Houston, it's somehow comforting to hear him call water "a very strange surface."

That's our cue that he's an alien. It's OK to fear and loathe him.

And so Hooston in the movie stands for Planet Earth - we're all on this spaceship together.

If you're not in Texas, the real Houston seems so far away, it might as well be another planet.

But the people there are suffering majorly, and it's super easy to help them:

Houston Federation
Texas Chabad

Be generous. Many of these families have lost everything but the proverbial shirts on their proverbial backs.

They're drained, they're sad, they're scared, they're hugely uncomfortable, they're in shock.

You know, when your street turns into a river and there are fish swimming in your living room, you might just pause and say, "Is this really happening?"

There's your question for the table: Did you ever experience something so strange that you said, "Is this really happening, or am I dreaming?"

If not, what would it take?

Shabbat Shalom


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When the Stars Allign

The goal of this email is to cure loneliness in our times. Please print and share.

Happy Birthday shout-out this week to Shelli in SF.
(To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email.)


This title may seem more appropriate for last week's Persistence of Memory.

But that would be a hyper-literal reaction, wouldn't it?
 
Today it is (of course) meant figuratively, as in, "When things seem to be going the right way, or the desirable way, or in some divinely-guided way".

When is that?

According to our ancient tradition, whenever a couple get married.

When two souls, who have been separated for some 20-odd (or 30-odd, or 40-odd, or more) years, reunite, that can only happen because it's a match made in Heaven.

(No, marrying your soul-mate does nto mean that it will be blissful, merely that it could be blissful.)

First question for your table: If that's the case, why do people - even religious people - go to so much trouble and heartache when it comes to getting married (or helping a child get married)?

The answer should be obvious to anyone with even a rudimentary Jewish education. We are not Christian Scientists who don't take medicine because trusting God is sufficient to heal us.

We take the medicine, because we understand that we were given a hurting world in order to get involved and be a godly partner in the tikkun.

There is no greater need for tikkun than the feeling of loneliness.

I just read that loneliness is one of the allowed justifications for euthanasia (i.e., legalized murder) in Belgium (where it is now possible for a child to be put out of her or his misery upon request).

Let's put aside the ethical side of that topic for a moment and consider the emotional background. The good people of Belgium have decided that persistent, incurable loneliness is so terrible that it justifies empowering doctors (who have taken the Hippocratic Oath) to inject a shot of barbituate so potent that it kills the patient within two minutes.

The best cure for loneliness, I'm told, is the company of other people.

Now it all comes together. Today is not merely the 15th of Av on the Jewish calendar - it is Tu b'Av - the festival of matchmaking, of participating in that divine tikkun to end one kind of loneliness.

How you can get involved:

1. Today, make a list of singles who you think would prefer to be a little less single (the act of making a list boosts your memory).
2. Print your list and tape it to the dashboard of your car.
3. Keep them in mind every day so that you will be on the lookout for their soul mates, enabling you to become God's messenger, as it were.

Do this today and I guarantee you will have a much richer and happier life. Shabbat Shalom

PS - Whether you find school-supply shopping fun or infuriating, try using our free resource for parents (try searching under category: school supplies)

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Who Can Marseille?

The purpose of this blog is to spark some lively tête-a-tête at the Shabbat table.
Wishing Mom a continued recovery. Please keep Chaya bas Yehudis in your tefilot.

Did you hear what happened last week in Marseille?
 

On Monday morning, 35-year-old Benjamin Amsellem was walking to work.

He teaches a at a Jewish school. He was wearing a kippa (yarmulke/skullcap) and carrying a copy of the Torah.

Suddenly he found himself attacked from behind by a machete-wielding 15-year-old.

Amsellem fell to the ground and protected himself with his feet and the Torah in his hands. Although wounded, he survived.

The teen, soon captured, later said he was proud of the attack, had acted “in the name of Allah and Islamic State," and that his only shame was that he had not managed to kill the teacher.

"Do you represent Isis," the investigators asked?

“I don’t represent Isis, they represent me.”

You may not have heard this story initially (since when is it newsworthy that someone attacks a Jew?)

But more media (including NPR) picked it up after what happened next.

What happened next was the response of Zvi Ammar, the head of Marseille's Jewish community.

"Not wearing the kippa can save lives and nothing is more important. It really hurts to reach that point but I don't want anyone to die in Marseille because they have a kippa on their head."

However, French Chief Rabbi Haim Korsia demurred:

"To suggest this is like saying Jews bear some responsibility for being attacked. This is the same kind of thinking as those who would say a woman is guilty of an assault because her skirt wasn't long enough.

It's an interesting question for your table.

It's also an old question that has some interesting precedents.

For instance, there is an ancient midrash (traditional story) that when Moses arrived to Median (Exod. 2:15), his failure to identify himself as an Israelite (he evidently presented himself as an Egyptian) landed him 10 years in prison, as a Divine punishment.

In the rabbinic literature, the question has been debated for a thousand years.

Where does your table stand?

First, what issues are at play here? Safety? Perception of safety? Ethic pride? Freedom of expression? Freedom of religion? Anything else?

Second, imagine you lived in or visited a major French city. Perhaps you would want to visit the shul there on Friday night. Would you sport a kippa in the street? If you were a French parent, would you let your child walk to school wearing one?

Or would you prefer the middle-ground of the invisible kippa?


Shabbat Shalom.

PS - Sunday night (and Monday) is Tu-bishvat, our "New Year of the Trees", a great excuse to find as many fruits of trees as you can, put them all on the dining room table, and invite family and friends to enjoy. My goal every year is to gather the kabbalistic 30 different fruits, but sometimes have to cheat by counting different varieties of apple. Can you match that?

  
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Merry HUXmas?

The goal of this blog is to shake things up a bit at your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

This week my friend Raffi phoned from Jerusalem.

Raffi is a husband and father, and a graduate student in physics at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem (HUJI).

He told me that he was unhappy about an announcement from the University this week:

All classes would be canceled on December 25.

Yes, you heard it here first:

For the first time in its ninety year history, the Hebrew University of Jerusalem - home to the world's largest Judaica book collection - had Christmas vacation.

They called it "Yom ha-Molad" - literally, "Day of the Birth".

Raffi was not merry.

He was merely perplexed, given that HUJI's student body are ninety percent Jewish and nine percent Muslim.

One of his fellow students complained, "What's next, Christmas trees?"

It seems to me that such chagrin is misplaced.
 
Their real complaint should be that they only got one lousy day - in the middle of the week!

Why not two weeks like every other country? Or at least a 3-day weekend?

For your table: What do you think? Did HUJI go too far on this one, or not far enough?


Shabbat Shalom


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What We Can Learn from Ice Buckets

The goal of this blog is to add something cool your Friday night dinner. Please print and share.

This week's question for your table is:

What's your opinion of the ice bucket challenge?

More specifically:

1. Would you do it?
2. Who should I do it?

Yesterday I was privy to a conversation where a group of rabbis were debating whether or not it was an undignified activity for a rabbi to participate in.

I frankly didn't know enough about the project to respond. I have not paid attention, not seen any videos, ignored every single tweet and post about it.


So I did some research....

LA Times sports writer Bill Dwyer has mixed feelings.

This public health blogger argues in favor of it.

Forbes, too, comes out in favor.

(And, interestingly, that Forbes article led me to this one that anyone out there trying to raise money may find useful.)

Regarding the dignity issue, my own perception is that a rabbi's participation is innocuous and would be regarded as "in good fun" and not undignified. I assume and hope that the rabbi would preface his video with a dvar Torah along the lines of:

"We should all be giving 10 percent of our income with or without this ice bucket challenge and if one person here today makes such a commitment, it will be worth every shiver. I personally long for the day when human beings are so focused on taking care of each other that we no longer need gimmicks to get people to give. But in the meantime, I'll do whatever it takes to help people and I hope you will too!"

It seems to me that the takeaways here are:

1. People will participate in something outside their comfort zone if you call it a "challenge" yet make it super easy to succeed and even fun and get them on video having fun, and that video has to be really really short.
2. People will give more money when the message is really simple and easy to get: "stop this terrible disease"
3. People like cold stuff when the weather is warm

That, as my grandfather z'l would have said, is my 2-bits.

For your table: What are your 2-bits?

Shabbat Shalom


PS - Yes - it is still possible to subscribe to our new Amazing Nature for Teachers program - for your child's teacher or school - does your child's or grandchild's school even know about it?

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Tunnel Vision

The goal of this blog is to expand the vision of your Friday night dinner. Please print and share.
In honor of Shelly's birthday... Happy Birthday, Shelly!
In memory of Anita Ghitzes, who passed away this week.
To dedicate a future Table Talk, send an email
 

Last week's email, What's in a Doorpost, drew a large response.

Maybe that's because of a deep je-ne-sais-quoi that resonated. Or maybe it was just the contest.

In any event, this week is the sequel.

Let's go back two weeks, to Friday August 1st. What can you remember from that day?

That was the day of the first cease-fire, that Hamas broke by sending a suicide bomber through an attack tunnel.

(Cease Fire: We cease, you fire.)

Hamas first claimed that they had kidnapped an Israeli soldier - Hadar Goldin (pictured here). It later turned out that he had been killed by the explosion.

In fact, his body was ripped apart.

Reportedly, after the bombing, a second Hamas team emerged from the tunnel, grabbed parts of his body and dashed back into their attack tunnel which led  into a mosque. From the mosque, they escaped in a clearly marked UNRWA ambulance. The terrorists then made contact with high-ranking Hamas officials hiding in the Islamic University.

As a result Abu Marzook, a senior member of Hamas, announced in Cairo that Hamas had kidnapped an Israeli soldier. Israeli intelligence intercepted a conversation between the kidnappers and the Hamas officials at the Islamic University and thus got all the particulars regarding the hiding place of the kidnappers. Within minutes, the IAF attacked both the kidnappers' location and the Islamic University.

In the midst of this attack, a second force of IDF soldiers--which had gone into the mosque looking for weapons, explosives, and rockets-- encountered a young female wearing a suicide belt. She made a motion to detonate it and the soldiers realized that they were all about to die. One of them instinctively shouted the opening words of the holiest Jewish prayer “Shema Yisrael”!

She hesitated and began trembling, giving the soldiers a chance to grab her and disable the device.

The soldiers then took her to a counter-intelligence unit for interrogation. Their investigation uncovered that the would-be bomber’s mother was an Israeli Jew who had married a Palestinian in Israel and, after the wedding, was smuggled against her will into Gaza. There she lived a life filled with abuse and humiliation, and was basically a captive. In addition to the female suicide bomber, there were two smaller children as well. An armored force went in and rescued the two siblings.

Questions for your table....

Is this suicide bomber (and her two siblings) Jewish or Palestinian?
How does their rescue change the way you look at the death of Hadar Goldin?
How does Hadar Goldin's death change the way you look at life?

Shabbat Shalom

PS - There is still time to get a subscription to our new Amazing Nature for Teachers program - for your child's teacher or school - does your child's or grandchild's school even know about it?

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Mirror, Mirror on the Wall

In memory of HaRav Ovadia Yosef, ztz'l. While he made occasional inflammatory remarks (sometimes misquoted sometimes flat-out wrong), he was undeniably an historic figure, a meteoric scholar, a transcendent and yet utterly compassionate Jewish leader. To give you a small idea of his enormous impact, one in seven Israelis, including untold thousands of secular Jews, attended his funeral on Monday (and I assume that most of the others who couldn't possibly fit into the streets of Jerusalem listened to it on the radio).

Dedicated to Mom in honor of her birthday - Happy Birthday, Mom!

In response to last week's post, at least one reader actually wondered, "Is that really what Judaism says, or his he making that up?"

I assure you, Dear Reader, I don't make this stuff up.

Like the story I'm about to tell you. It's a true story, believe it or not.

But first, a question:

Who is greater: one who never sins, or one who does wrong but then comes clean?

Here's the story:

Dan is a guy who lives in a pretty average American town.

He's employed. He has money. He is not having trouble making ends meet.

Let me mention as well that he's a married man, with children.

He gives to his local Jewish Federation. People know him.

So the other day he's shopping at a Whole Foods Market. He walks past the bulk sugar cookie bin and feels a wormhole  opening up, transporting him back in time.

Suddenly Dan is a teenager again. He feels an uncontrollable urge to do something risky. To do something illicit. To do something wild.

He snatches and stuffs not one but two cookies into his mouth.

These are not free samples.

For the next sixty seconds, Dan's mouth is so full that he can't even speak when greeted by one of the staff.

Can you picture this?

Not exactly your poster-child for human greatness, is it?

So the next day, Dan calls me to tell me about it. He's not proud. He is very matter-of-fact: "I knew what I was doing was wrong, I was just a kid again."

And the day after that, Dan is back in the store, insisting that the manager accept payment for the two cookies and apologizing.

True story.

Now I ask you again:

Who is greater: someone who would never stoop so low? Or someone like Dan, who does stoop low, but then comes clean, rights the wrong and apologizes?

As I told Dan, there ain't no one who never sinned, but the world is full of people who cannot - will not - own up to their wrongs.

Because they're more worried about looking good than being good.

Think about it.

(And there are also those who worry more about money than either looking good or being good. Oy.)

All right, one last question for you table:  

If you were the store manager, how would you respond to the apology? What if you caught someone like that with his hand in the cookie jar?

Shabbat Shalom


PS - A few weeks ago I sent out the following quote. Please forgive me for resending it:

"Apology is a lovely perfume - it can transform the clumsiest moment into the most gracious gift." - Margaret Runbeck

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How Ethical Are You?

Over seven years ago, I launched this weekly blog at the encouragement of a friend in California "to give me a story to tell my kids at the Shabbat table." This week, a new feature.

Kids love stories, and they love true stories even more.

What we have found works best is this ... at some point in the meal, pour everyone their favorite drink for a l'chaim - tell them not to drink until after you finish the story. Make this a ritual every Friday night, and your family will look forward to it.


The best book I have found full of Jewish-themed stories is called Stories My Grandfather Told Me. The publisher has granted me permission to excerpt these via email, but not on a web page. If you would like to receive a copy of this week's story, "Someone Else's Property", please join the email list or send me an email, seinfeld  (at)   jsli.org


Shabbat Shalom

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How to Live Forever

Ask this question at your table - How can you live forever?

You may be surprised at the answers you get.

Some take a scientific approach to this age-old question. I'm not opposed to that.

But I'm going to suggest a non-scientific answer and I'm betting you'll agree with me.

But first, a word from our sponsor.

It's that time of year again, end of the tax calendar: Your last chance to make a 2012 donation. So all of your favorite charities are sending those last-ditch emails.

Let's try for something more appealing here (pardon the pun): just a question.

This is not a question for your table. This is a question for you.

What's this weekly blog actually worth to you? A nickel? Two bits? A dollar?

Think about it for a moment.

Think about your favorite table talks. Maybe the Sandy Hook one last week did it for you. Perhaps it was We of the Storm. One of the most popular of all time was Late for the Train (2006). Some still remember the musical Chinese Food on Xmas, dedicated to the yahrzeit of Bert Walker that falls at this time of year.

If you had paid a buck for your favorite one, would you have said, "Money well spent"?

Now what does it say that it comes to your inbox for free every Friday? Does that make worthless or priceless?

This blog actually costs several nickels to produce, and we rely on readers like you to keep it going. There are the costs of the 7-year-old computers and the rest of the office overhead. There is staff time.

Yet this blog is provided as a free service by JSL in order to achieve our mission of increasing the level of Jewish spiritual literacy worldwide. You have the opportunity today to enjoy being being an active partner in this mission. At any level of contribution, you will be a partner. (If you are already a JSL partner, thank you.)

Once you estimate the average value of the weekly blog, please multiply by 50 and show your appreciation by making a tax-deductible contribution. For online and snail-mail instructions click here (and read about the thank-you gift you'll receive).

(If you cannot become a partner today, then at least enjoy the fact that when you read this blog, you are enabling someone else to give to you!)

With that out of the way, the promised answer....

To remind you, the question was, How can you live forever? 

Try asking this at your table before reading my three answers.

My first answer is very simple and perhaps too obvious. When I give to you - anything, whether a physical gift, time, or just a smile - some of me is now part of you.

Maybe you'll give to others, so that some of me now gets further redistributed.

But you may or may not give to others. So to maximize my immortality, I need to give to as many people as I can.

You already knew this answer, didn't you? Maybe this answer is reminding you to be a bigger giver, but so far, you haven't heard anything new.

My second answer: acquire wisdom. Whatever wisdom you acquire in this life stays with you in the next world (Talmud).

My third answer is deeper: Someone who learns to live in the moment turns every moment into eternity.

"Living forever" is therefore possible right here, right now.

It takes practice, spiritual practice. Some kind of meditative practice.

(If you would like to learn this kind of meditative practice in the comfort of your own home, shoot me an email. Perhaps we can create an online program.)

The fourth answer is deeper still.

(Wait, didn't he say there were 3 answers? This is a blog, not a math class.)

Jewish wisdom teaches that we all live forever. Nothing to worry about. But the quality of that forever - the experience you will have after you leave this world - will be a sum of three things:

• the wisdom you acquired
• the giving that you gave
• the meditative level that you achieved.

We need to strive for all three. Yet most of us excel at one or two, and find at least one much harder. Now you know what to work on.


Shabbat Shalom 

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Begin Again Now

The purpose of this blog is to help you turn your Shabbat table into an vibrant salon. Please share.
In honor of my dear Mother's birthday - Happy Birthday Mom!
(To dedicate a future TT, send an email.)


For a conversation-starter, try showing this photo around the table and ask everyone what they think it depicts:



(If you cannot view the photo in this email, click here.)

Hint: The snap shows a street at Foxconn, the Shenzhen (China) factory that makes our iphones, ipads, ipods and many other gadgets.

So what are those nets for?

They were installed in 2010 in response to the high rate of suicide at the factory that year.

That's the screaming headline.

In fact, even at the peak of its problem, Foxconn (which employs a mind-boggling 400,000 people in Shenzhen) had a lower suicide rate than the national China average.

But I'm re-hashing this topic because it makes an interesting conversation starter and an opener to the bigger question of the week:

What is wrong with suicide?

I'm sorry if that sounds morbid, but it's really a question about life and meaning, and purpose. So now that the High Holidays have passed and Jewish life is "back to normal", I'm challenging you to ask this at your table: Why shouldn't suicide be a moral and legal option?

I hope that the discussion will lead to an affirmation of the value of life, and perhaps greater scrutiny of what makes life itself precious.

Shabbat Shalom


PS -  If you haven't already, please download our (corrected) fall bulletin here.
PPS - This week's title is borrowed from a terrific book by Rabbi Pliskin well worth your time.

Jewish Thanksgiving?

Mazal tov to Asher Dossetter and family on his becoming Bar Mitzvah this week.

 

The goal of Table talk is to make you look brilliant at your Friday night dinner table. Please print and share.

 

Imagine you are the first European to visit America. It's an amazing New World! Strange people, strange foliage, strange animals. And you see this odd chicken-like bird for the first time. What do you call it?

Since you think you're in India, you naturally call it "Indian chicken."

Are you with me so far?

So French explorers dubbed this new bird poulet d'Inde (Indian chicken) later shortened to dinde (pronounced "dand").

English settlers called the bird turkey because they thought it looked like another type of fowl that was imported from Turkey.

Jewish explorers sided with the French and called it tarnegol hodu which means "hindu chicken" and was later shortened it to simply hodu.

What's interesting for us is that the Hebrew word HODU also happens to mean "give thanks."

Similarly, we ourselves are called "Jews" because most of us descend from the remnant of the 12 Tribes who survived the repeated pounding from Assyria and Babylon 2,500 years ago. The one remaining landed tribe was Yehuda or Judah. And that name - Judah - means "thankful".

Therefore, being "Jewish" means cultivating a Thanksgiving mindset every single day.

(I can hear it already - "Gee honey, I"m watching so much football because the rabbi told me to....)

Below: Two links on cultivating gratitude...

Article by Rabbi Pliskin
Audio by Rabbi Rietti

Shabbat Shalom

YES U CAN

“Think of who bin Laden was. The 17th child out of 54, he could have lived in rich mediocrity and obscurity. Instead, he shook the world, and changed not only the course of history, but the way a hundreds of millions of people would live their daily lives. For a decade, he escaped a manhunt organized by the most capable government on the planet.

"One man accomplished so much in the service of evil! We believe that the power of good is so much greater than the power of evil. Think of how much good one person can do!”

- R. Avrohom Ausband

"If one person could kill 6 million Jews, then one person could save six million Jews!"
- Rav Elazar Shach

Shabbat Shalom

Yom Kippur in August?

Here we are, in the deepest part of the summer, when all we NHs (Northern Hemispherites) want to do is relax for a few minutes.

Keep your feet up. I don't want to spoil the moment.

But I'm going to make a radical proposal.

It begins with a story.

At my first summer job as a young adult there was a guy who invited everyone in the office to his "Xmas in July" party.

What made it Xmas-y was that everyone brought a present to give to a random person.

So instead of a bunch of people drinking beer together on a summer afternoon, it was a bunch of people drinking beer and exchanging presents on a summer afternoon.

As I grew older and wiser (after all, I did learn to drink wine instead of beer!) I have learned an ancient piece of Jewish wisdom that for some reason has little cache, even in the most traditional Jewish families and communities.

It's called "Tu B'Av".

No, not Tu Bishvat

No, not Tisha B'Av

Tu B'Av.

"Tu" is the number 15. Av is the month of Av, which corresponds to the constellation Leo, the lion.

This coming Sunday night will be the full moon of the lion. (Don't think it's a random coincidence that Apple released the "Lion" OS this month.)

Tu is spelled "tet-vav" which are the first two letters of "tov" (good). What is needed to turn "tu" into "tov"?

A: the letter "bet", which is...

- the number two, i.e., a relationship
- a house or home (bayit), i.e., harmony

I'm not inventing this. In ancient times, Tu B'Av was celebrated as a day of friendship and love, "the most joyous" holiday (Mishna Ta'anit 4:8).

What happened to it?

Well, you know, destruction, exile, a few holocausts....

But is time we brought it back?

You know how many people try to make amends with family, friends and adversaries before Rosh Hashana/Yom Kippur?

Why wait until then? The most auspicious time to heal our relationships and this troubled world is this Sunday night through Monday.

Here is my challenge for you -

1. Try to make-nice this Tu B'Av with everyone you know.
2. Choose a Jewish single over 30 who hasn't yet found Mr. or Mrs. Right and make a commitment to help him or her get married in the next 12 months. Commit to making this goal a priority in your life.
3. Share to this blog to 15 ("tu") people. Let's start a viral campaign to renew Tu B'Av as a day of friendship and love and get a head start on the High Holidays.

"May you be inscribed and sealed for goodness."

Shabbat Shalom



PS - What better way to show someone you care than sending them the amazing Jewish iphone/ipad app? http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendarlink
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PPS - Another way to show you care: print this blog and get a discussion going at your dinner table.
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PPPS - Our kids' books site now has great school supplies! Browse from the comfort of your home and support JSL while you shop. http://bestjewishkidsbooks.com
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PPPPS - Our friend Rabbi Tzvi has a funky new book! Show him you love him by getting it here.

Harvesting Grapes

Four years ago I planted a couple stubby grape vines.

Four years later, they are HUGE, covering our entire deck in a giant embrace.

We have been staring at these luscious bunches, wondering when is the right time to harvest them?

The birds and bees have also taken notice, so the time to harvest got decided for us - now or never!

Yummmm. Sweet white grapes, sweet reds.

It was a long wait, those four years, but so worth it.

What a great way to pass the time on a summer day.

Yes, we know they're starving in Africa. We know that millions are unemployed. But to suckle a piece of fruit after four years of waiting, that's a sweet moment.

It's all going to end next Monday night.

"Next Monday night?" you ask....

If you have to ask, you have to read this.

Next Monday night is the 9th of Av

So what?

It takes enormous effort to connect with this holiday.

Even if you consider yourself "Jewishly connected".

Is it worth the effort?

Here's a story you can read at the table. See how people react.

Imagine the Taliban were to conquer America.

Would our lives really change that much?

Well, we can assume that they would move quickly to abolish Hollywood, destroy museums, dismantle universities. Probably convert all synagogues and churches into mosques.

Now just imagine that you join a few families on a boat to escape. You set sail for the South Pacific. You are hoping that the forces of Good will triumph, but in the meantime, you're saving your own skin. Nothing wrong with that.

But the forces of Good do not get the upper hand so quickly.

Not even in your lifetime.

Nor your children's lifetime.

Not even your grandchildren or great-grandchildren.

So your great-great-grandchildren are born on this South Pacific atoll, they have a decent life with plenty to eat and great surfing. They hear stories from their parents and grandparents about where the family came from, a place called Amerika where there were amazing cities, magical technologies, etc. etc. But that all this was destroyed by the Taliban.

It would be very hard for your great-great-grandchildren to relate to these stories as much more than legends.

That's what Jewish history is for us. We are so far removed from what was, we have almost no appreciation for what was lost.

Why bother?

Because when the Taliban are eventually overthrown, a boat will be coming to offer us passage back home. If we don't appreciate what we lost, we won't want to get on that boat.

Think about it.

The very best things in life often take years of toil and patience before they are ready for harvest.

Three things for your perusal:

1. Here is a packet of Tisha B'Av readings that I compiled for you. I've uploaded it to our jewishspirituality.net teacher-parent resources page.

2. Here is a class I gave in Los Angeles on the topic of how to find a silver lining in any tragedy.
99¢ link .... Free link

(Why a paid download alongside the free one? The first download is for those who recognize the costs incurred in creating and sending you this content and choose to support it. But there will be no hard feelings if you take the latter!)

3. Here is a video by the incomparable Charley Harary:


Shabbat Shalom

PS - Did you know you can send someone my amazing Jewish iphone/ipad app even if you don't use the iphone/ipad yourself? Here's the link.

For the biggest enjoyment of this email, try printing it out and sharing at your dinner table.

Two Feets

What I'm about to relate may sound a little trite.

This week I did something that I've never done before, but some people I know have done it many times. (I wonder, now that I've done this, am I in the majority or the minority?)

Let's call it the peat-feat.

In addition, I managed to do something else that I haven't been able to do since I was about ten. Let's call it the feet-feat.

In this, I know for sure that I am now in the minority.

The first for me this week, the peat-feat... Believe it or not, I planted a vegetable garden.

Hard to believe, I know (that I'd never done this before).

Well, it always seemed such a chore, especially compared to going to the supermarket.

Inspired in part by our friend Marc in California (who could sell tickets to visit his garden) and in part by a need to give the kids something to do on Sunday afternoon, we trekked over to The Home Depot to pack the minivan with soil, manure and lumber to build a planting box.

Now, here's the best part of the story. Devorah (5 years old) has had her eye on a packet of flower seeds that has been sitting on a counter for who-knows-how-long. She asked me, "Can I plant these flowers too?"

"Sure, that's a great idea! Now let's go to Home Depot to get the soil."

So we get into the car and head down the alley when Devorah suddenly gets very agitated... "Oh no!!! Abba!!! We have to go back! I forgot something very important!"

She's practically in tears.

(Well, she's at that age where she's often practically in tears.)

"What did you forget?"

"I forgot the flower seeds!!!!"

And that's why it was so important that we plant a garden.

Question for your table: How important is it for kids to plant a garden? How about adults?

(Remember that kids' riddle - what's the first thing you plant in a garden? A: your foot... How does that go if you are using a raised bed?)

Achievement of the Week #2: The Feet-Feat

For the first time in at least 30 years, probably more, drum-roll please.....

I touched my toes.

Yes, that's what I mean - feet together, legs straight.

I've been working on this only three times a week for 5 months. If you want to know my technique, pop me an email.

Question #2 for your Table -

A. On a scale of 1-10, rate the importance of:

- a healthy, fit body
- a healthy, fit mind
- a healthy, fit soul

B. Then ask each person to rate themselves on their own fitness in these 3 areas.

C. Are you living according to your values?

Next week is Shavuot, which is the holiday that celebrates the idea that Jewish wisdom can teach us about all three. Best way to celebrate? Print out the Jewish book of wisdom and read it on Tuesday night.

(Email me your favorite quote from the above download and a reason why, and I'll send you a gift.)

Shabbat Shalom and Chag Sameach.

PS - if you haven't seen this recently, take 2 minutes and be uplifted:

Exercise

Announcement - JSL is now providing amazing improve-your-life tools from Jewish wisdom, including self-esteem and weight-loss. Go to jsli.org and click on the FEELING CHALLENGED? tab.

So the other day I'm going into the JCC for my annual exercise and there's this guy I know.

We have never seen each other at the JCC. He maybe is surprised, because in my mild-mannered alter-ego, I maybe don't look like the type who would be "working out."

He doesn't say hello. He does't say Shalom. The first words out of his mouth are:

"So tell me, rabbi, what mitzvah are you doing here? And don't tell me 'taking care of the body' because everyone says that."

So as I tread along on the mill, I come up with 5 mitzvahs (in addition to 'caring for the body') that one could be doing while getting exercise.

Question for your table - How many can you think of?


Shabbat Shalom

PS - I was just kidding, I actually go 3x/week

Hello, World

It's here, and it’s alive, very much alive:

http://tinyurl.com/amazingcalendar

If you have an iphone, ipod-touch or ipad, get yours now!

If you don't have an iphone, ipod-touch or ipad, boy are you a loser... (just kidding, I don't have one either!)

But seriously, click on the link just to see the fabulous screen shots, and please send the link to your friends and family who might enjoy this.

What does the Talmud say about airplanes? What did Louis Armstrong say about the Jews? Where is Hebrew hidden in a Shakespeare play?

And which iphone app keeps Shabbat?

(I believe after extensive testing that this app is bug-free. However, should you find a bug or a typo, kindly let me know and I'll send you a free copy of my CD, "Hannuka and the Secret of the 36".)

Last week I asked you how is it possible that I could have worked on this app for 8 years, given that there were no iphones 8 years ago?

The answer is I first developed it as a page-a-day wall calendar. But it turned out to be economically impossible to do and break even, because paper calendars have such a short sales-window. These new technologies mean it will never go out of date. Whatever day you start using the calendar, that's when it begins.

So here's the question of the week for your table: What’s worth spending eight years of your life working on? How about eighteen? What about eighty? In other words, what would you be willing to work on for so long if you knew that you could succeed but only after so long?

Shabbat Shalom

Pinteleh Yid

What did you see when you saw the photos of Marc and Chelsea?

In case you missed the three official photos, here’s one:


This is a Rorschach test. How you answer the question will tell us a whole lot about you.

Tell us what you see: _____________________________________________________________________________________

(I don’t want to spoil the purity of the test, so go ahead and answer it, and I’ll blabber a bit, then tell you below what I see.)

Blah blah blah blah, yada yada yada.

OK, want to know what I see?

I see a Jewish guy who knows that he’s under a big spotlight, and nevertheless is telling his new wife and in-laws, and his own family and all the guests,

“I’m Jewish! My father is a Jew, my mother is a Jew. I am a Jew.”

Given his position with his background, don’t be fooled by the inter-marriage part of the wedding. There was something intra- going on there too.

Rebbetzin Jungreis always says that inside every Jewish person is a “pinteleh Yid” – a point of awareness of his or her tribal membership, with all the rights (rites) and responsibilities that membership confers. To awaken that pinteleh Yid inside of yourself or someone you care about, I’d highly recommend any of her books:


A Committed Life
A Committed Marriage
Life is a Test


Shabbat Shalom


PS – another perspective


“My most brilliant achievement was my ability to be able to persuade my wife to marry me.” - Churchill