Chelm Answers

Answers for the People of Chelm and Any Other Curious Souls - Year 2000 Questions

December 2000

1. We can't be completely sure of the why the two books of the Maccabees were not accepted in the Biblical canon. Several scholars believe it was because they were written very late relative to the other books and also were not written originally in Hebrew, but in Greek. When the accepted books of the Bible were finally fixed around the first century C.E., only a few hundred years had passed since the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple in 165 B.C.E. This was very recent compared to the other events described in the books that actually formed today's Bible. The Maccabees and other excluded books are collectively referred to as the Apocrypha.

2. Potato latkes and sufganiot are both quite tasty of course. But according to tradition, the real reason they are eaten during Chanukah is because they are fried in oil, symbolizing the miracle of the oil that lasted for eight days instead of just one. Incidentally, the story of the oil is not mentioned in the books of the Maccabees, but has been passed down as an oral tradition.

3. The word "amen" originally meant "true" and has come to be translated "so be it". It appears in the Hebrew Bible 30 times, and much more often still in the Christian New Testament. Sources say that, in temple and Talmudic times, responding "amen" was the main form of participation in services because congregations were unfamiliar with prayer texts and also because public worship took the form of responsive reading. The Talmud also offers another explanation of "amen", as the acrostic formed by the initial Hebrew letter of "El Melekh Ne'eman" or "God, our Faithful King".

November 2000

1. The word "Torah" means "teachings or instruction." Literally it denotes just the first five books of the Bible-Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which contain the mitzvoth, God's commandments. But just as often it refers to the larger body of Jewish teaching.

2. Actually the countries mentioned-Brazil, the United States, South Africa, Sri Lanka-were all first settled by Sephardi Jews, as a result of the same dynamic. In the early 1600's the Netherlands was the only seafaring power that allowed Jews to travel and trade freely. About this time the Netherlands was breaking free of Spanish power and welcomed refugees, including many Sephardis formerly from Spain and Portugal, who were fleeing the Inquisition and forced conversions. As Amsterdam grew into a major trade capital, Jews sailed in Dutch ships to all corners of the new trading empire-to Brazil in the 1630's, to New York in 1654, and to South Africa and Ceylon about the same time. The Dutch have been righteous people for quite some time!

3. The names of the Jewish months are of Babylonian origin, adopted around the time of the exile after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. There are not an even number of lunar months (about 29.5 days) in a solar year (about 365.25 days). So the solution in the Jewish calendar is to insert an extra month seven times in a nineteen year cycle. The months have either 29 or 30 days each. This adjustment ensured that the seasons-which mark solar time-appeared at about the same time every year in the Jewish calendar.

October 2000

1. "From Dan to Beersheeba" describes the whole land of Biblical Israel. The tribal lands of Dan, one of Jacob's twelve sons, were at the very northern tip of Israel, above the Sea of Galilee, near the present day Golan Heights. Beersheeba was Israel's the southernmost settlement, an oasis deep in the Negev Desert and the site of several stories of the patriarchs.

2. The Shema prayer "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One…" is the opening subject of the Tractate Berachoth, the very first in the Talmud. As is typical, a variety of opinions from various rabbis and sages are given. To our untutored senses, it seems like a debate among contemporaries though in fact they may have lived centuries apart. The argument is not whether, why, or how often to recite the Shema. It is only about "when," how early in the day or how late at night. What if you've been out partying at a wedding and get home late? These and other factors go into setting the acceptable times for when the Shema is to be recited.

3. The three essential themes of the High Holidays are Teshuvah (repentance, or returning to God's path), Tefillah (prayer), and Tzedakah (justice or righteous actions). Remember the familiar prayer, "On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. But repentance, prayer, and deeds of kindness can remove the severity of the decree." [The New Mahzor, p. 285]

September 2000

1. Leaving the gleanings of the field has aspects of all three categories of good deeds, but it is absolutely a clear example of tzedakah. Because the request occurs in the Torah, it is a mitzvah-a divine imperative and not optional. Thus it's more of a social regulation and you do it whether or not you feel like it. Gemilut hassadim, acts of loving kindness, are typically voluntary efforts, like donating time or money to a charity of your choice. Our Me'ah teacher, Eliyana Adler, notes that there is also an aspect of gemilut hassadim because each landowner can decide how to define "edges" of the field and can thus choose to be more or less generous. Tikkun olam, repair of the world, is generally thought today to involve working for peace, freedom, and social justice for all. Lenny Zakim's work with the Anti-Defamation League is a great example here. By the way, the magnificent new bridge across the Charles near North Station will be named after this remarkable person.

2. Maimonides, or Moses ben Maimon, was the greatest Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, who lived from 1135 to 1204 C. E. The breadth and volume of his writings are staggering. This is especially remarkable, since he had an extremely demanding "day job," as physician to the Sultan of Egypt. Scholars marvel at this genius who understood and combined elements of Jewish, Arab, Greco-Roman, and the new Western cultures. It is said that "from Moses to Moses, there was no one like Moses." That is, from the Exodus (the era of the first Moses) to the time of Moses Mendelssohn, the great Jewish philosopher of the 1700's, there was no one who could equal the intellectual achievements of Maimonides.

3. Given the political and social exclusion that has characterized so much of Jewish history, we should be especially appreciative of the political freedoms of modern America. These freedoms are gifts that must constantly be renewed and nurtured. One very articulate proponent is Representative Barney Frank, who many feel is the smartest individual in U.S. Congress. In the local community, there are many active Congregation members, including Herman Kabakoff and Pam Harting-Barrat, who serve as members of the Acton Board of Selectmen, while Rita Grossman has just stepped down from the Boxborough Board.

July/August 2000

1. Hezekiah was the king of Judah, the Southern kingdom, in the period around 700 B.C. E., when Sennacherib's Assyrian forces were besieging Jerusalem. Three books of the Bible as well as Assyrian chronicles agree on the main points of this siege. Hezekiah's Tunnel was cut through limestone to bring water inside the city to what is now the Pool of Siloam. The second book of Chronicles contains a reference to this tunnel, which was re-discovered by an Arab boy playing in the pool.

2. The First Temple in Jerusalem was built in the middle of the tenth century B.C.E. during the reign of King Solomon. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., after which most of the residents of Judah went into exile in Babylon, the first Diaspora. Rebuilding the Second Temple began about fifty years later after the Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to their homeland. The Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 C.E. during one of the periodic Jewish revolts.

3. The Balfour Declaration was a letter dated November 2, 1917 from the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Arthur James Balfour. It publicly stated the British government's support for the idea of a Jewish homeland. Palestine was at that time a British protectorate.

June 2000

1. Bathsheba was a wife of King David and the mother of Solomon. Leah and Jacob were the parents of Judah, ancestor of the best known of the twelve tribes. Mary was the mother of Jesus of Nazareth. Jochebed, wife of Amran, was the mother of Moses. Mark wonders why so many people know Jesus's mother and so few know the name of Moses' mother? His answer: because life's not fair.

2. The beloved Rabbi Hillel almost always seemed to carry the day in his debates with the austere Shammai. There is a legend that, when asked if it were possible to state the essence of Judaic Law while standing on one foot, Hillel responded with the Golden Rule, saying "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellows; that is the whole Law; the rest is mere commentary. Now go learn!" This learned and saintly man, who lived from 30 B.C.E. to 10 C. E., is credited with laying the foundation for modern rabbinic teachings.

3. The Haskalah took root first in Germany in the early 1800's. In all of Western Europe, overall scholarship and an appreciation of the rights of all people were rapidly gaining ground. Unlike the other Western European countries at that time, only Germany had a very large and comparatively wealthy population of Jews, many of whom were involved with the larger gentile German society. In Eastern Europe and much of the Mediterranean basin, the bulk of Jewry was much poorer and quite isolated culturally.

May 2000

1. The Hebrew Bible is called the Tanakh, an anagram of the initial letters of its three sections. First is the Torah (five books of Moses), then Nevi’im (the twenty-one books of the Prophets), and finally Kethuvim (the thirteen books of Writings, from Psalms to II Chronicles).

2. The Jews did not come to Russia, Russia came to the Jews! The initial waves of settlement in what is now Russia occurred in the period from 1200 to 1700 C.E. when these lands were under Polish and Lithuanian rule. Jews were active partners especially with the Polish nobility in developing Eastern Europe all the way to the Ukraine. But in the course of three partitions at the end of the eighteenth century Russia progressively swallowed up what had once been the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and its population including close to one million Jews.

3. You would never guess it from the twentieth century focus, but for most of the time since the end of Second Temple period (70 C.E.), Jewish writers displayed little interest in the recording of current history. Scholars feel that this was because most Jews believed the really momentous events and historic patterns were already recorded in the Torah. This only began to change after the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492. This event, the final expulsion from Western Europe—and from a land that had witnessed so many magnificent Jewish achievements, was so disruptive that it demanded an explanation, causing more Jewish history to be created in a few decades than in the previous millennium.

	December 2000 1. We can't be completely sure of the why the two books of the Maccabees were not accepted in the Biblical canon. Several scholars believe it was because they were written very late relative to the other books and also were not written originally in Hebrew, but in Greek. When the accepted books of the Bible were finally fixed around the first century C.E., only a few hundred years had passed since the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple in 165 B.C.E. This was very recent compared to the other events described in the books that actually formed today's Bible. The Maccabees and other excluded books are collectively referred to as the Apocrypha. 2. Potato latkes and sufganiot are both quite tasty of course. But according to tradition, the real reason they are eaten during Chanukah is because they are fried in oil, symbolizing the miracle of the oil that lasted for eight days instead of just one. Incidentally, the story of the oil is not mentioned in the books of the Maccabees, but has been passed down as an oral tradition. 3. The word "amen" originally meant "true" and has come to be translated "so be it". It appears in the Hebrew Bible 30 times, and much more often still in the Christian New Testament. Sources say that, in temple and Talmudic times, responding "amen" was the main form of participation in services because congregations were unfamiliar with prayer texts and also because public worship took the form of responsive reading. The Talmud also offers another explanation of "amen", as the acrostic formed by the initial Hebrew letter of "El Melekh Ne'eman" or "God, our Faithful King".
	November 2000 1. The word "Torah" means "teachings or instruction." Literally it denotes just the first five books of the Bible-Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which contain the mitzvoth, God's commandments. But just as often it refers to the larger body of Jewish teaching. 2. Actually the countries mentioned-Brazil, the United States, South Africa, Sri Lanka-were all first settled by Sephardi Jews, as a result of the same dynamic. In the early 1600's the Netherlands was the only seafaring power that allowed Jews to travel and trade freely. About this time the Netherlands was breaking free of Spanish power and welcomed refugees, including many Sephardis formerly from Spain and Portugal, who were fleeing the Inquisition and forced conversions. As Amsterdam grew into a major trade capital, Jews sailed in Dutch ships to all corners of the new trading empire-to Brazil in the 1630's, to New York in 1654, and to South Africa and Ceylon about the same time. The Dutch have been righteous people for quite some time! 3. The names of the Jewish months are of Babylonian origin, adopted around the time of the exile after the destruction of the First Temple in 586 B.C.E. There are not an even number of lunar months (about 29.5 days) in a solar year (about 365.25 days). So the solution in the Jewish calendar is to insert an extra month seven times in a nineteen year cycle. The months have either 29 or 30 days each. This adjustment ensured that the seasons-which mark solar time-appeared at about the same time every year in the Jewish calendar.
	October 2000 1. "From Dan to Beersheeba" describes the whole land of Biblical Israel. The tribal lands of Dan, one of Jacob's twelve sons, were at the very northern tip of Israel, above the Sea of Galilee, near the present day Golan Heights. Beersheeba was Israel's the southernmost settlement, an oasis deep in the Negev Desert and the site of several stories of the patriarchs. 2. The Shema prayer "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is One…" is the opening subject of the Tractate Berachoth, the very first in the Talmud. As is typical, a variety of opinions from various rabbis and sages are given. To our untutored senses, it seems like a debate among contemporaries though in fact they may have lived centuries apart. The argument is not whether, why, or how often to recite the Shema. It is only about "when," how early in the day or how late at night. What if you've been out partying at a wedding and get home late? These and other factors go into setting the acceptable times for when the Shema is to be recited. 3. The three essential themes of the High Holidays are Teshuvah (repentance, or returning to God's path), Tefillah (prayer), and Tzedakah (justice or righteous actions). Remember the familiar prayer, "On Rosh Hashanah it is written and on Yom Kippur it is sealed. But repentance, prayer, and deeds of kindness can remove the severity of the decree." [The New Mahzor, p. 285]
	September 2000 1. Leaving the gleanings of the field has aspects of all three categories of good deeds, but it is absolutely a clear example of tzedakah. Because the request occurs in the Torah, it is a mitzvah-a divine imperative and not optional. Thus it's more of a social regulation and you do it whether or not you feel like it. Gemilut hassadim, acts of loving kindness, are typically voluntary efforts, like donating time or money to a charity of your choice. Our Me'ah teacher, Eliyana Adler, notes that there is also an aspect of gemilut hassadim because each landowner can decide how to define "edges" of the field and can thus choose to be more or less generous. Tikkun olam, repair of the world, is generally thought today to involve working for peace, freedom, and social justice for all. Lenny Zakim's work with the Anti-Defamation League is a great example here. By the way, the magnificent new bridge across the Charles near North Station will be named after this remarkable person. 2. Maimonides, or Moses ben Maimon, was the greatest Jewish thinker of the Middle Ages, who lived from 1135 to 1204 C. E. The breadth and volume of his writings are staggering. This is especially remarkable, since he had an extremely demanding "day job," as physician to the Sultan of Egypt. Scholars marvel at this genius who understood and combined elements of Jewish, Arab, Greco-Roman, and the new Western cultures. It is said that "from Moses to Moses, there was no one like Moses." That is, from the Exodus (the era of the first Moses) to the time of Moses Mendelssohn, the great Jewish philosopher of the 1700's, there was no one who could equal the intellectual achievements of Maimonides. 3. Given the political and social exclusion that has characterized so much of Jewish history, we should be especially appreciative of the political freedoms of modern America. These freedoms are gifts that must constantly be renewed and nurtured. One very articulate proponent is Representative Barney Frank, who many feel is the smartest individual in U.S. Congress. In the local community, there are many active Congregation members, including Herman Kabakoff and Pam Harting-Barrat, who serve as members of the Acton Board of Selectmen, while Rita Grossman has just stepped down from the Boxborough Board.
	July/August 2000 1. Hezekiah was the king of Judah, the Southern kingdom, in the period around 700 B.C. E., when Sennacherib's Assyrian forces were besieging Jerusalem. Three books of the Bible as well as Assyrian chronicles agree on the main points of this siege. Hezekiah's Tunnel was cut through limestone to bring water inside the city to what is now the Pool of Siloam. The second book of Chronicles contains a reference to this tunnel, which was re-discovered by an Arab boy playing in the pool. 2. The First Temple in Jerusalem was built in the middle of the tenth century B.C.E. during the reign of King Solomon. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C.E., after which most of the residents of Judah went into exile in Babylon, the first Diaspora. Rebuilding the Second Temple began about fifty years later after the Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to return to their homeland. The Romans destroyed the Second Temple in 70 C.E. during one of the periodic Jewish revolts. 3. The Balfour Declaration was a letter dated November 2, 1917 from the British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, Lord Arthur James Balfour. It publicly stated the British government's support for the idea of a Jewish homeland. Palestine was at that time a British protectorate.
	June 2000 1. Bathsheba was a wife of King David and the mother of Solomon. Leah and Jacob were the parents of Judah, ancestor of the best known of the twelve tribes. Mary was the mother of Jesus of Nazareth. Jochebed, wife of Amran, was the mother of Moses. Mark wonders why so many people know Jesus's mother and so few know the name of Moses' mother? His answer: because life's not fair. 2. The beloved Rabbi Hillel almost always seemed to carry the day in his debates with the austere Shammai. There is a legend that, when asked if it were possible to state the essence of Judaic Law while standing on one foot, Hillel responded with the Golden Rule, saying "What is hateful to you, do not to your fellows; that is the whole Law; the rest is mere commentary. Now go learn!" This learned and saintly man, who lived from 30 B.C.E. to 10 C. E., is credited with laying the foundation for modern rabbinic teachings. 3. The Haskalah took root first in Germany in the early 1800's. In all of Western Europe, overall scholarship and an appreciation of the rights of all people were rapidly gaining ground. Unlike the other Western European countries at that time, only Germany had a very large and comparatively wealthy population of Jews, many of whom were involved with the larger gentile German society. In Eastern Europe and much of the Mediterranean basin, the bulk of Jewry was much poorer and quite isolated culturally.
	May 2000 1. The Hebrew Bible is called the Tanakh, an anagram of the initial letters of its three sections. First is the Torah (five books of Moses), then Nevi’im (the twenty-one books of the Prophets), and finally Kethuvim (the thirteen books of Writings, from Psalms to II Chronicles). 2. The Jews did not come to Russia, Russia came to the Jews! The initial waves of settlement in what is now Russia occurred in the period from 1200 to 1700 C.E. when these lands were under Polish and Lithuanian rule. Jews were active partners especially with the Polish nobility in developing Eastern Europe all the way to the Ukraine. But in the course of three partitions at the end of the eighteenth century Russia progressively swallowed up what had once been the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and its population including close to one million Jews. 3. You would never guess it from the twentieth century focus, but for most of the time since the end of Second Temple period (70 C.E.), Jewish writers displayed little interest in the recording of current history. Scholars feel that this was because most Jews believed the really momentous events and historic patterns were already recorded in the Torah. This only began to change after the Jewish expulsion from Spain in 1492. This event, the final expulsion from Western Europe—and from a land that had witnessed so many magnificent Jewish achievements, was so disruptive that it demanded an explanation, causing more Jewish history to be created in a few decades than in the previous millennium.

Answers for the People of Chelm and Any Other Curious Souls - Year 2000 Questions