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December 2005
1. Slander and “talebearing” are indeed proscribed by Jewish law, whether or not the information is true. But there are instances where telling negative information about another is not forbidden and where such activity is even the “right thing to do”. Rabbi Telushkin notes that when the recipient “vitally needs the information”. For example, if you knew that a prospective bridegroom had not divorced a former wife, it would certainly be proper to share this fact with the prospective bride-to-be or her family. Telushkin also extends this exemption to commercial activity, like hiring or going into a partnership in business. A history of bad debt, for example, would certainly be relevant data to share. Unfortunately, when it comes to gossip or scuttlebutt, few of us ever have the good sense to apply Telushkin’s test of “vitally needed information” because we do not weigh or foresee the consequences of our actions. Unlike a physical assault, misplaced words can do damage at a distance, and at any later time. As the Talmud puts it, “the gossiper stands in Syria and kills in Rome”.
2. The attempt to explain and unravel the meaning of Biblical passages is called Midrash. Midrash also refers to a specific exposition or rabbinic commentary on a Biblical story, usually emphasizing a lesson or point of law. Finally, the term Midrash is applied to the entire collection of literature to which this interpretive activity gave rise. The rabbis of old, assuming that no word of the Biblical text was superfluous, generated a vast midrashic literature, including much of the Talmud. However, the work of interpretation is never done and Midrash continues to be created, as we interpret the Scriptures in the light of modern experiences. Rabbi Jay Berkovitz, our Scholar in Residence this coming February, has a wonderful way of capturing this idea that the revelation of the Torah is a continually unfolding process. The word “midrash” itself derives from a Hebrew root meaning "to inquire, study, investigate”. A synagogue is to serve as a “Beit Midrash”, a house of study, as well as a house of prayer (Beit Tefila) and a house of assembly (Beit Knesset).
3. The best answer as to why Chanukah is not a major holiday is that it is not mentioned in the Jewish Bible. With the sole exception of Purim, only the holidays mentioned in the Bible, like Pesach and Shavuot, require cessation from ordinary activities. The Book of Maccabees, which describes the retaking of the Temple in 165 BCE, is not part of the canonical Jewish Bible, though it is in the Apocrapha. Incidentally, this book also makes no mention of the long burning oil. The Maccabean revolt occurred more than 300 years after the last of the Davidic line was king in Jerusalem. And Judah Maccabee and his family were not descendants of King David or even of his tribe of Judah, but the Hasmonean dynasty that they founded did rule successfully for over a hundred years. The Romans ultimately turned over kingship to the Herodians. As you would expect, the Talmud actually has quite a bit to say about Chanukah, including even down to a discussion of the order in which the candles should be lit.
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November 2005
1. The Exile phase from Beth Elohim in the years 2001-2002 produced no Book of Lamentations, as did the Babylonian Exile over two millennia before. Perhaps the reason was that we simply did not have it that bad this time around. In fact, our neighbors here in Acton were really wonderful to us. The congregation of St. Mathew’s Methodist church on Central Street could not have been more welcoming, making us feel right at home for services in Campbell Hall. The Acton-Boxborough Regional High School proved to be a very nice Hebrew School venue during the construction diaspora. The high school auditorium served us well during the High Holydays. And finally, half way between St. Matthew’s and the High School, the administrative offices found a comfortable home away from home at 3 Windsor Avenue in West Acton.
2. There is always a special prayer for rain that occurs during the Shemini Azeret service. Not long after the rainy season begins in Israel and rain is of course essential to an agricultural community. But if you must spend eight days in a roofless sukkah, you would naturally prefer good weather during that time and only start praying for rain at the conclusion of your sukkah stay. Thus the prayer for rain is first heard on Shemini Azeret. The diminution in importance of this holiday may stem in part from the fact that we are not as tied to the land as previous generations or as dedicated sukkah builders. It is also worth noting that Shemini Azeret is not even mentioned in Exodus 23 and Deuteronomy 16 as the conclusion of the seven-day Sukkot holiday. Its observance as a full festival day, complete with cessation from work, is however commanded in Leviticus 23:26 and Number 29:35-38.
3. Of all the prophets, Ezekiel stands out for his bizarre visions, like the valley of dry bones which awake on hearing the word of the Lord and self-assemble into a great army. In another image, Ezekiel himself is bidden by the Lord to eat a scroll, which he found “tastes as sweet as honey”. Ezekiel wrote his haunting but ultimately hopeful visions while in exile in Babylon, where he was sent in 598 B.C.E. when the new conquerors annexed Jerusalem. He was thus the first prophet to write outside the land of Israel. He also predicted the destruction of the (First) Temple, which occurred at the hand of the Babylonians in 587 B.C.E. For all these things, he is justly renowned. But in the opinion of the scholar Paul Johnson, his most lasting contribution was to move individual accountability to the very essence of the Jewish religion. Ezekiel departed from Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the great nevi’im who went before; they emphasized collective guilt, often for the sins of a leader, while Ezekiel preached that each individual was responsible directly to God.
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October 2005
1. The Talmud, in the tractate Sanhedrin 4:5, is the source of this beautiful passage:
“Whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved the entire word”.
Rabbi Joseph Telushkin considers this as one of the most central statements in all Judaism. It is simply stated, but measuring up is tough indeed. Rabbi Irwin Kula offers that we need to “try to figure out what we must do to fashion a world in which each person is treated as if he or she has infinite value. What does it mean to say that every human being is infinitely valuable when people die for lack of dollar’s worth of food a day?”.
2. The Jewish tradition is to pray three times every day, not just on Yom Kippur or other Holy Days. So there is a service for each period of the day when prayer should be recited. These services are Shacharit, or morning service; Mincha, the afternoon service; and Ma’ariv, the evening service. Yizkor is a memorial service that is on Yom Kippur and other important days. The name appropriately derives comes from the Hebrew stem “Zakhor”, meaning “to remember”. Kol Nidre is the opening prayer of the first service on Yom Kippur. Kol Nidre means “all vows” because at this time we declare that all personal vows made to God in the preceding year are annulled, so we can start over again. Yom Kippur closes with the Ne’ilah service. This name comes from the Hebrew word “to lock,” referring to the symbolic closing of heaven’s gates and the “book of life”.
3. The basic issue is that the Jewish calendar is a lunar one while the civil calendar is a solar one. These two just do not match up conveniently. The reason that all the Jewish Holidays are coming very late in 2005 is that the Jewish year just ending (the year 5765) had an extra lunar month added and was actually 13 lunar months long. Thus all the holidays in the following year (5766) were "moved" to a later time relative to the usual modern solar calendar.
Correlating lunar and solar calendars may confuse us, but generations of scholars and observers have worked an accurate, if elaborate method to ensure any "drift" is eventually corrected. The Hebrew calendar grew from the Mesopotamian lunar one, and the length each month derives from the average time is takes the moon to complete a cycle. Twelve lunar months are about 354 days while the solar year is about 365 days. Clearly these two "years" do not match, so the solution is to add an extra lunar month ("second Adar") every two or three years in accordance with a precisely prescribed 19 year pattern (12 regular lunar months every year plus 7 extra lunar months every 19 years). According to Internet encyclopedia Wikipedia, there are exactly 14 different patterns that Hebrew calendar years may take, giving years which last anywhere from 353 to 385 days long.
The year 5765 was one of the particularly long ones, so subsequent Jewish holidays in 5766
(which begins October 3, 2005) were pushed "to the right" so they are all later
(usually 18 days later) relative to their dates in the previous year.
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September 2005
1 Thomas Cahill's "The Gifts of the Jews" makes for wonderful,
inspiring reading. The bold thesis of the book is captured well in its
subtitle - "How a Tribe of Desert Nomads Changed the Way Everyone
Thinks and Feels". He traces the evolution of so much of today's
western worldview back into the Hebrew Bible - and he tells this story
with great style and feeling. It is definitely more of a popular than
a scholarly work, though he has done plenty of homework and cites many
experts to support his arguments.. And it is peppered with many great
quotes like this one from the "minor" prophet Micah, in chapter
6 of the book named after him.
He (the Lord) has already shown you what is right:
and what does the Lord require of you,
but to do justice,
love mercy,
and walk humbly with your God?
One possibly could have guessed that this concept of justice is quite
advanced, thus older prophets like Samuel, Nathan, or Elijah are less
likely sources since they lived during the early monarchy closer to
King David's time. Jeremiah would likely have railed at his countryman
more than we find in the passage here. This leaves Micah, who likely
lived toward the end of the eighth century BCE when the Northern Kingdom
was falling. Many Biblical scholars believe, however, that these chapters
date to a "modern" revision made much later during the Babylonian
exile after the First Temple was destroyed.
2. The Book of Lamentations bewails the destruction of Jerusalem and
the First Temple by the Babylonians in 586BCE. This was the first really
devastating loss in Jewish tradition up to that time. The Temple had
stood for centuries since the days of Solomon and was then the center
of religious practice and was where many believed that God actually
dwelt. Tradition ascribes the authorship of Lamentations to the prophet
Jeremiah. Many scholars think this is plausible because the content,
concerns, and style are very similar to other works by him. The exquisite
imagery and poetry translate well into English, though the original
Hebrew has one other feature - the book is a giant acrostic. The first
four chapters are grouped into sections of 22 lines, with each successive
line beginning with the next letter of the Hebrew alphabet. This feat
is similar to composing an English poem in 26 line stanzas, the lines
beginning in order with the letters A,B,C…on up through X,YZ.
3. Moe Berg was a backup catcher for most of his fifteen year major
league career. From the mid-1920s through 1939, he played with the Chicago
White Sox, Cleveland Indians, Washington Senators, and - in the final
four years - Tom Yawkey's Boston Red Sox. Though his baseball achievements
were quite modest, his intellectual and professional achievements were
not. He was a 1923 Princeton graduate, received a second degree from
Columbia Law School, and also studied at the Sorbonne in France. Though
he was a first-rate linguist and attorney, Moe is most renowned for
his role as a spy. Berg went to Japan in the early 1930s with the likes
of Ruth and Gehrig on an all-star traveling team. In fact, Berg was
assigned to take espionage photos. During WWII, he became one of America's
most important atomic spies, gathering vital information on top German
scientists. He had a great talent for languages and it was claimed that
he learned Japanese in two weeks. However, the baseball pundits countered
that "He can speak 12 languages but can't hit in any of them".
True, his lifetime average was a paltry .243, but he excelled in other
aspects of the game. Senator's Manager Clark Griffith called him "the
best handler of pitchers in the league" and he was a fine defensive
catcher, breaking an American League record with 117 consecutive full
games without an error in the 1932-33 seasons.
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August 2005
1. Many scholars feel the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the greatest
event in the entire history of archeology. At least from the point of
view of understanding Judaic and Christian history, nothing else comes
close. The first discovery in 1946 came in a cave in Judean desert containing
seven ancient scrolls. Over the next decade another ten local caves
were found to also contain treasures. In total, the remains of about
870 separate scrolls have been found, consisting of thousands of fragments.
All are devoted to religious subjects and date from the first or second
century B.C.E., before the books of the Bible had been fixed or “canonized”.
This cache includes the oldest known versions of every book of the Bible
(except Esther), many with “editions” of books never before
seen. There are previously unknown psalms and prophecies, new stories
of Abraham and Noah, and new writings claiming Moses as the author.
There was a very torturous path in making the immense amount of Dead
Sea Scroll material publicly available but this finally happened in
1991, so translations are now available to all of us.
2. It is indeed impressive how much of everyday English speech can be
traced to older sources, like Shakespeare’s plays or the Bible.
The playwright’s insights into human nature come through crystal
clear to us more than four hundred years after he wrote. It is even
more amazing that the Bible’s wisdom also resonates so deeply,
across our much different cultures and a temporal distance of more than
two thousand years. Here are matches of the four examples:
“There is nothing new under the sun.” (Ecclesiastes 1:9)
A-4
“Man does not live by bread alone.” (Deuteronomy 8:3) B-3
“A voice crying in the wilderness...” (Isaiah 40:3) C-1
“Pride goes before a fall.” (Proverbs 16:18) D-2
3. Leo Trepp’s The Complete Book of Jewish Observance inspired
this question. This work explains the logic that guided the rabbis of
old in interpreting the key commandment to abstain from work on the
Sabbath. The 39 prohibitions and 7 major categories covered very well
the situations and options available several centuries ago. In most
cases, their thinking applies quite directly to conditions a very observant
Jew could encounter today – like those mentioned in this question.
Here are the responses to the situations mentioned. No, it is not strictly
acceptable to open an umbrella - even while walking to the synagogue
– because that is “building shelter” and too much
like work. Yes, it is fine to let that pot simmer on the stove, just
as long as you turned on the stove (“lit a fire”) before
Shabbat began. Sorry, in the most meticulous practice, one should not
carry anything outside the home on the day of rest, even a Tallit bag.
That’s work. If, however, you wear the Tallit, that is acceptable
since it is then a garment. (To be more precise, the prohibition applies
to carrying items from one “domain” to another. That is
why orthodox Jews often construct an “eruv”, which creates
a single domain out of a neighborhood and thus allows people to “carry”
on the Sabbath.) The rabbis would always advise you to read a letter
from your mother, provided it is not about business; but make sure the
letter is already opened. There is one principle governs all situations
- any mitzvah may be broken if a life is in danger. That would seem
to cover giving medicine. Trepp closes this section on the Sabbath with
a discussion that is respectful of all the various traditions of Judaism.
Most do not advise or insist upon the scrupulousness of observance suggested
above, but all are “united in the emphatic affirmation of the
Sabbath as the cornerstone of Judaism”.
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June 2005
1. To make sense of this question, you needed to know that originally
the husband was deaf and the wife blind. These handicaps contributed
mightily to a happy and harmonious union, since the husband was incredibly
ugly and the wife an incorrigible shrew. Before the physician healed
them, she could never see how ugly he was nor did he ever hear her constant
scoldings!
Rabbi Yaakov Krantz, or the preacher of Dubno as he was better known,
often used parables, such as the one in this question, to better define
moral dilemmas and anticipate possible answers. This story of the handicapped
elderly couple is narrated in Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s delightful
opus “Jewish Wisdom”. The consensus view is that the couple
does indeed owe the money to the physician. Rabbi Krantz argues that
the couple must “accept responsibility for their actions”.
2. Henrietta Szold founded Hadassah, the first and still the largest
Women's Zionist organization, in 1912. She insisted on saying Kaddish
at her mother’s death in 1916, politely asserting a women’s
place in this ritual. Ruth Bader Ginsburg was appointed to the Supreme
Court in 1993, as then President Bill Clinton’s first appointment.
Golda Meir was elected the first woman prime minister of the State of
Israel in 1969. She was the second woman prime minister in the world
at that time. She led Israel during the difficult Yom Kippur War of
1973. Fannia Cohn was a labor organizer and early leader of the International
Ladies Garment Workers Union, which improved the lives of thousands
of exploited women & men. She became the first woman elected to
a vice presidency of the ILGWU in 1915, the first female vice president
of a major international union.
3. The Jewish traditions involving charity towards others have developed
through a lot of thought and discussion. From the Torah, the Talmud,
the writings of Maimonides, and other sages, a consensus has emerged
on a number of issues regarding giving and receiving from others. All
should give and those in a time of need should receive. With this tenet
in mind, the more specific instances in this question are all “yes”.
A. Yes, rich people should not give too much, even though they might
be able to afford more. The Talmud advises that one should not give
more than a fifth of one’s income. As Rabbi Telushkin notes this
upper limit on charity enables sensitive people to “enjoy their
possessions without guilt”. And in practice it means they will
also have reserves to give in the future.
B. Yes, the Jewish position is that poor people must also give to charity.
This is everybody’s responsibility. The Babylonian Talmud states
“Even the poor man who himself survives on charity should give
charity”. And few have said it better than Anne Frank did at 14
years old when she wrote “give of yourself … you can always
give something, even if it is only kindness…No one has ever become
poor by giving” – Dairy of a Young Girl, March, 1944.
C. Yes, it is greater to give when the recipient does not know who you
are. The great medieval Jewish sage Maimonides, in his classification
of the eight different levels of giving, assigned a higher level to
anonymous gifts.
D. Yes, if you are needy, you must accept welfare. Once other alternatives
are exhausted, it is perfectly acceptable for one to accept charity
to meet basic needs. The great sixteenth century rabbi Joseph Karo,
compiler of the Jewish law code “Shulkhan Arukh”, put it
this way, “whoever cannot survive without taking charity, such
as an old, sick, or greatly suffering individual, but who stubbornly
refuses to accept aid, is guilty of murdering himself”. We are
commanded to take care of ourselves. And in fact, the very taking of
tzedakah enables another to fulfill the mitzvah of giving tzedakah.
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May 2005
1. The closing chapters of the Book of Leviticus contain a litany of
commandments on how the Israelites are to behave toward God and their
fellow man. These chapters form what is now known as the “Holiness
Code”. In this section, specifically in chapter 19 verse 18, we
find the earliest expression of the basic principle to “love your
neighbor as yourself”. God tells Moses to speak this and other
commandments to the people. In the Christian New Testament in Matthew
22:39, Jesus is asked the “greatest commandment” and replied
first with the words that follow the Shema, “Love the Lord your
God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind”.
And then gave a second, “Love your neighbor as yourself. All the
Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” Another
famous version is found in a story told in Tractate Shabbat of the Babylonian
Talmud. There Hillel is challenged by a man who agreed to be converted
if Hillel could teach him the whole Torah while he was stand on one
foot. Hillel succeeded by expressing this principle in the negative,
saying: “That which is despicable to you, do not do to your fellow,
this is the whole Torah, and the rest is commentary, go and learn it.".
The Palestinian Talmud’s Tractate Nedarim contains the same thought.
“Love your neighbor as yourself”, this is the major principle
of the Torah".
2. The Mourner’s Kaddish is said not only at every Jewish funeral
service, but it is also part of every daily service as well. Though
recited in memory of the departed, it says absolutely nothing about
death, and focuses only on the greatness of God. To many, this is very
humbling and beautiful. Scholars believe the Kaddish is over two thousand
years old, and sometime during the Middle Ages its current usage evolved.
In any case, if you read the translation, it is plain that there is
but one answer to this question; the theme is simply praise for God.
3. With John Paul II’s passing, the world has lost a great leader
and the Jewish people a friend. Because of his great stature as the
head - and in a doctrinal sense the very embodiment – of the world’s
largest religious body, every deed and word of the Pope is magnified.
And far more than any of his predecessors, John Pope II has made entreaties
to the Jewish people and to address the Church’s role in the suffering
of centuries. He has done many things that have moved scholars and common
people alike. The one that most moved James Carroll, however, was not
the most publicized. It occurred when the Pope “stood in devotion
before that remnant of the Temple” and offered a simple prayer
at the Western Wall, following the sacred custom of Jews for ages. The
Pope thus honored Jews at home in Israel. Because of the importance
he attaches to mending the historic breach and ending persecution, Carroll
found the Pope’s gesture the “single most momentous act
of his papacy”. Carroll’s own work is also an important
step in building bridges between the two faiths. But there is more to
do. As encouraged as he is by the Pope’s efforts, Carroll believes
the Pope’s and Church’s work is still far from completed.
He closes “Constantine’s Sword” with a call to his
fellow Christians for reform in several critical areas.
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April 2005
1. Jewish baseball stars were a treasure for previous generations, struggling
to assimilate in American society. The first truly great Jewish baseball
star was Detroit first baseman (and occasional outfielder) Hank Greenberg,
one of top home run hitters of the 1930s. After driving in 183 runs
in 1937, the next season Hank walloped 58 homers, just missing Babe
Ruth’s then current mark of 60 but setting the record for right-handed
batters. In the fever of the 1934 pennant race, Hank agonized but decided
to play on Rosh Hashanah, leading a Detroit victory with two home runs.
On Yom Kippur he did not play and the Tigers lost, leading one diehard
Detroit fan to complain that the Jewish holidays came every year, but
the Tigers had not won a pennant since 1909. Al “Flip” Rosen
was another well-known slugger who played many good years with the Cleveland
Indians. He was the American League All Star third baseman for several
years running in the early 1950s. The Princeton-educated Moe Berg was
one of the most unusual players of any era of baseball. This itinerant
catcher played for a variety of major league teams but achieved his
greatest renown with the Red Sox. Because of his great facility with
languages, he was engaged as a spy for the US during and after the Second
World War. In the modern era, probably the best Jewish ballplayer is
Shawn Green, a power hitting outfielder and All Star for both the Los
Angeles Dodgers and the Toronto Blue Jays before being traded to the
Arizona Diamondbacks in the winter of 2004.
2. In his very colorful way, the Rebbe Mendel was telling us to simply
be ourselves. If you parse the following passage:
“If I am because I am, then I am I and you are you. But if I
am I because you are you, and you are you because I am I, then I am
not I and you are not you”,
the Rebbe is saying “I should be myself (and not you) and you
should be yourself (and not me)”. We should not alter our essence
to please another person. This quote – and many, many other uplifting
thoughts – can be found in Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s enchanting
book, “Jewish Wisdom”.
3. The most authoritative list of the Torah’s mitzvot is that
of Maimonides. In his first book, “Mishneh Torah”, this
great twelfth century scholar, physician, and Jewish leader categorizes
the 613 mitzvot into 248 positive mitzvot (one for each bone and organ
of the male body) and 365 negative mitzvot (one for each day of the
solar year). Most of them cannot be observed today because they relate
to sacrifices, to the care of the Temple at Jerusalem, or to the ancient
state of Israel. Many laws only apply in eretz Israel or to the priestly
caste. One modern scholar Rabbi Israel Meir of Radin, maintains that
there are 77 positive mitzvot and 194 negative mitzvot which can be
observed outside of Israel today.
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March 2005
1. The Yiddish (meaning "Jewish") language grew out of German.
The home territory was the Rhine valley around the turn of the first
millennium (1000 C.E. or A.D.) where Jewish communities adopted the
German spoken around them, while borrowing many Hebrew words. Jews migrated
east as trade and settlement spread throughout Poland and later to the
Ukraine, and they took their vernacular language with them. All the
while it was growing more expressive and grafting new words on top of
its German grammar. Thanks to the exceptionally high birth rates of
the Ashkenazi Jews, especially in the 1800s and early 1900s, the number
of Yiddish speakers reached 11 million people, or three quarters of
the world’s Jewish population just before World War II. Today,
because of the Holocaust and assimilation, it is spoken by perhaps 4
million but is undergoing a revival of sorts.
2. Some places you just have to experience; they really cannot be explained
with words alone. The National Yiddish Book Center falls into this category.
Fortunately, it’s not too far away, just a few hours west in a
serene setting on the campus of Hampshire College in Amherst. You can
sense the purpose and engaging personality of its founders, who began
their improbable quest with midnight rescues of old Yiddish books from
Bronx dumpsters. Today, filmmaker Steven Spielberg and many others are
their generous patrons. It’s just a great story. And Yiddish is
filled with great stories, many written during its great “Golden
Age” of the late 19th century and early 20th centuries. Yiddish
books on all variety of subjects were flowing out of the vital Jewish
centers of Europe. Among the greatest were those of Sholom Aleichem,
who brought Tevye the Milkman to life and inspired “Fiddler on
the Roof”. The North American Jewish community, burgeoning in
cities like New York and Montreal, was even more prolific. In fact,
two thirds of all Yiddish books were published on this side of the Atlantic.
3. Saturday morning Torah studies are truly a treat. It is amazing how
much meaning and history can be found in a few short Biblical passages.
Fortunately, the rabbi is very good at providing context and connections
with larger themes of the Torah and Judaism. One recent example was
the discussion of the passage in Exodus describing the giving of the
Ten Commandments on Sinai. Most of us think of this episode as marking
the essential first covenant between God and the Jewish people, who
are to be “a nation of priests”. Then the Rabbi goes on
an excursion of how the concept of the “b’rit” was
rooted in ancient Middle Eastern culture. We learned that this term
is first used early in Genesis when God makes a covenant with Noah,
who lived long before there were Jews. Noah is even given a extraordinary
symbol when God says, “I have set my rainbow in the clouds as
a sign of the covenant” (Genesis 9:13). Thus the first “b’rit”
is made with all of humanity, the children of Noah from who all of us
humans are descended. It will be another ten generations before God
makes another covenant with Abraham, renewed much later – after
the Exodus – in the time of Moses at Sinai.
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February 2005
1. The solstices (and equinoxes) mark the length of days, or solar light.
But in this question the Rabbi is concerned with the brightness of nights,
and the major factor here is not the sun but the phase of the moon.
With a clear night sky, one can even read by the light of the full moon.
Jewish months last one lunar cycle or typically 29 or 30 days and always
begin with the new moon, the smallest phase of the moon. Throughout
the first half of a Hebrew month, until the full moon, the nights will
typically be getting brighter. After the full moon, until the 29th or
30th, the nights will become darker. Since Hanukkah falls on the 25th
Kislev, the moonlit nights will indeed be getting dimmer for the first
five days of the Holiday. Then beginning on the 1st of Tevet, just as
the Rabbi said, the nights do start getting brighter as the new moon
fills out. This new moon usually occurs on the evening of the fifth
day of Hanukkah. This is the darkest night of the year. But by lighting
more candles each night, we symbolically help to bring in a new cycle,
which we can say relights the world….every year in the “Festival
of Lights”.
2. On escaping Germany, our Acton neighbor’s grandmother married
a Catholic and absorbed the culture and faith of her husband. Her only
son was thus brought up without any knowledge or training of her Jewish
background. She never tried to instruct her grandchildren in prayers
or called attention to any particular passages of the Bible. But she
did cook for them, and in fact made blintzes and latkes on special occasions.
Only later in life did the significance of this dawn on our Acton neighbor,
since she had not a clue about this “exotic” food. The other
thing that speaks volumes now was her grandmother’s gift of a
beautiful crystal dish that had intersecting triangles etched all over,
a symbol that she now recognizes as the Star of David. Can you imagine
trying to piece all this together after fifty years?
3. Jewish law permits sacred rituals to be violated where life is at
stake. As the Talmud says ”the saving of life supersedes the Sabbath”.
In the judgment of Rabbi Israel Salanter, chief rabbi of Great Synagogue
of Vilnius, that was exactly what was at stake during the 1848 cholera
epidemic in his city. Local doctors advised people to eat to protect
themselves and increase their resistance to the plague. But on Yom Kippur,
nobody was taking their advice. This drove the rabbi to do what he did,
and thus free the others from their inhibitions. More background of
this inspiring story can be found in Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s
illuminating and instructive book, “Jewish Wisdom”.
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January 2005
1. Although there are other references to prophets in the Bible, the
last fifteen books of the Nevi’im are named for those commonly
referred to as the “major” and “minor” prophets.
The first three books – those of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel
– are considerably longer than the rest. These men are thus called
the major prophets. (You will also hear references to first Isaiah or
second Isaiah because there are two very distinct writing styles in
this book.) The remaining twelve books are those named for the minor
prophets. In his very informative book Biblical Literacy, Rabbi Joseph
Telushkin hastens to remind us that “minor” refers only
to the length, not the importance of the messages in these books. Amos
and Jonah, for example, contain images and stories well known to millions.
As for length, Obadiah, with but a single chapter of 21 verses, is the
shortest book of the Bible. Perhaps we ought simply to return to the
terminology of Rabbinic literature, in which these prophets are simply
known as “the twelve”.
2. Of the group listed, Moses is the oldest. Given the Biblical and historical
clues, it is believed he lived sometime around 1300 B.C.E. (Before the
Common Era). Buddha and Confucius both were born in the sixth century
B.C.E., Buddha in India and Confucius in China; Lao Tse was also born
in China in this same century, but much less is known about his life.
This century apparently was a time of general turmoil throughout the
ancient world, including the destruction of the First temple in Jerusalem.
A little earlier, in the seventh century B.C.E., Zoroaster, known to
Greeks as Zarathustra, was born into the priestly tribe of the Magi
in Persia (modern Iran). His followers ultimately migrated to India,
where they are known as Parsees (Persians). Mohammed was born over a
millennium afterwards in 569 C.E., and a little over a century later
his followers controlled an empire. Also, many scholars now believe
Jesus’ birth occurred a few years earlier than was once supposed,
probably in 6 B.C.E.
3. The primary Biblical direction to judges centered on fairness. Leviticus
19:15 enjoins “you shall not render an unfair decision: do not
favor the poor nor show deference to the rich; judge your kinsmen fairly”.
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