Shall we fast and mourn on Tisha B'Av? No!

No. I believe we should abolish the practice of fasting to commemorate the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple on the ninth day of the month of Av, known as Tisha B'Av.

Now before you convene a synod to excommunicate me, know that I am in good company. In the third century CE the greatest Tanna, Rabbi Judah the Prince, tried to abolish Tisha B'Av.

My son Yitz called my attention to this passage below which records the rabbi's action [Soncino Babylonian Talmud (2012-04-25). Megillah and Shekalim (Kindle Locations 739-743). Kindle Edition.] and to Tosafot's glosses (at Megillah 5b) which reject the premise that someone could entertain the notion of abolishing Tisha B'Av.

R. Eleazar said in the name of R. Hanina: Rabbi planted a shoot on Purim, and bathed in the [bathhouse of the] marketplace of Sepphoris on the seventeenth of Tammuz and sought to abolish the fast of the ninth of Ab, but his colleagues would not consent. R. Abba b. Zabda ventured to remark: Rabbi, this was not the case. What happened was that the fast of Ab [on that year] fell on Sabbath, and they postponed it till after Sabbath, and he said to them, Since it has been postponed, let it be postponed altogether, but the Sages would not agree.

Of course, if Rabbi Judah the Prince (compiler of the Mishnah) once tried to abolish Tisha B'Av but the sages would not agree to it, I do not expect that the sages of our times will agree with me to abolish Tisha B'Av.

Yet here is why they should.

I concur that as a culture we need to remember the calamities of the past so that we can be vigilant and prevent the calamities of the future. But we need effective ritual memories that are clear and unequivocal. Tisha B'Av commemorates that the city of Jerusalem and the Temple in it were destroyed.

Because the city has been rebuilt in modern Israel, this befogs the symbolism of the past destruction and renders it less effective.

I have been mulling over this issue for thirty years or more. In 2012 I mused as follows (with a few edits added).

Is Tisha B'Av relevant? No I do not think that the fast of Tisha B'Av is relevant anymore. I need a holiday from Tisha B'Av.

That day was for a long time a commemoration through fasting and prayer over the destroyed city of Jerusalem and the Temple. I visited Jerusalem in May of 2011 (ed.: and again in 2013, and many more times since then) and can attest that the city is not desolate. It is without reservations, glorious.

Who then wants the bleak story to be told? Archetypally the militant "celebrity" archetype wants to keep recalling defeat, destruction and desolation, to spur team Jews on to fight the foes and to triumph at the end of time. That scheme may work for that archetype as long as the facts of reality do not fly smack in the face of the narrative. And when they do, what then? The narrative loses its force. It becomes absurd.

I cannot imagine Jerusalem in ruins. Period. And indeed, why should I perpetuate an incendiary story of gloom and doom into a diametrically opposite positive world of building and creativity? The era of desolation has ended.

For over twenty-five years, I've been lamenting the irony of lamenting over a city that is rebuilt. It's more rebuilt now -- way more -- than it was twenty five plus years ago. What do I do then about Tisha B'Av, the Jewish fast day of lament and mourning? Here is what I said those many years ago.

We should say kaddish for JFK

Today is the 51st anniversary of the death of President John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Here is what I published 11/15/13 in the Jewish Standard...

This year, the fiftieth anniversary of the assassination, I want to recant my opinions and actions at JFK's thirtieth yahrzeit. I should have said Kaddish for JFK then, I was wrong. I will do it this year.

Yes, we should say kaddish for JFK.

Here is what I wrote in 1993.

It was bright and sunny in Washington on November 22, 1993, thirty years after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. I was attending an annual conference of over 7000 professors of religion and biblical studies in the capital city. What a shame, I thought, that at this conference there was no formal recognition of the anniversary of the death of this leader at this conference. Here were gathered so many experts in religion and ritual, and they made no attempt to memorialize the day.

At a break between sessions of the conference I headed directly for the hotel entrance. A quick negotiation with a taxi driver confirmed that for $15 to $20 and less than an hour's time I could get out to Arlington National Cemetery walk up the path to JFK's grave site, spend a few minutes and return to the learned discourse of the meeting.

In the cab I wondered what I would do when I stood at the memorial in front of the eternal flame. It was JFK's yahrzeit, the anniversary of his death. In Judaism, members of the family recite the Kaddish prayer for a deceased relative each year on the specified day.

But Kennedy was not Jewish and not my relative. I could not see myself reciting a mourner's prayer for this hero. What then? I'd wait until I got to the site and play it by ear.

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jStandard: Aramaic and Angels Redux

May 24, 2013
To the Editor:

Rabbi Zahavy’s column about kaddish (“Dear Rabbi,” May 3 Jewish Standard) and the letter responding to it (“Do the angels pray in Aramaic?,” May 10 Jewish Standard) raise a host of issues that must be dealt with rationally.

When my parents died, I, as an Orthodox Jew, said kaddish three times daily for 11 months for both. I did it out of respect for Jewish law and tradition and respect for them. Certainly not because I expected that my actions or inactions in this world would have any effect on their position vis-a-vis God in the World To Come. Rabbi Zahavy says that “to secure a place for the departed soul”… “many Jews believe” that by daily recitation of Kaddish, you will be “certain” about the departed’s immortal life “in the eternity of heaven.”

To begin with, our religion makes very clear that we are rewarded and/or punished for our own deeds and not for what anyone else does. My parents’ place in the World to Come does not depend in the least on what I or anyone does on their behalf.

Secondly, both he and the letter writer, Israel Polak, discuss whether angels do or do not communicate in Aramaic! One of my problems, relating to this and the Kedushah, has to do with the issue of angels praising God. It is established that 1) angels have no free will and 2) God has no need of our prayers nor of our praise of Him. We are the ones who need to pray and to praise God. Why then does the Creator of the Universe need to hear, as the Talmud states, the Kedushah illustrates, and Rabbi Zahavy argues, words of praise from beings who have no choice in the matter?

While it may be comforting and romantic to believe, as Rabbi Zahavy says “many Jews” do, that we can intercede with God “to gain heavenly immortality for the soul of a departed one,” it makes no sense that our intercession will, as it were, cause God to change His mind.

Jeff Bernstein
New Milford

Rabbi Dr. Tzvee Zahavy, replies:

Mr. Bernstein makes good points. I agree that we always must offer respectful performances of our ritual. And surely we do not expect our prayers will compel God to act. But my explorations seek to understand why we say this Aramaic or Hebrew prayer in this place and for this amount of time.

I do believe that God hears my fervent and humble prayers and that they do make a difference. That is why, during Yizkor on the second day of Shavuot, I said the El Maleh Rachamim, asking God to grant proper rest in heaven for the dear souls of my father and my mother, “O God, full of mercy, Who dwells on high, grant proper rest on the wings of the Divine Presence in the lofty levels of the holy and the pure ones, who shine like the glow of the firmament…”

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JStandard: Do Angels Speak Aramaic?

My Dear Rabbi column (May 3) sparked an urgent letter to the editor at the Jewish Standard. I answered it.

The Dear Rabbi Column, “ ...based on timeless Talmudic wisdom” (May 3), writes the following about the Kaddish: “Yet this prayer is especially apropos for a mourner because we believe that it is the Aramaic praise that the angels recite in God’s presence in the heavens.”

1.The Talmud (Shabbos 12 A) states that the angels do not understand and certainly do not communicate in Aramaic.

2.The prophets, Isaiah 6 and Ezekiel 3, inform us of the praises that the angels recite to God, verses that are incorporated in the daily prayers as the Kedusha, not the Kaddish.

3.The rabbis have explained that the unique quality of the Kaddish, which elevates it even beyond the Kedusha ( Berachos 21 B), derives from the fact that it is the result of human initiative.

Israel Polak
Teaneck

Dear Rabbi, aka Rabbi Dr. Tzvee Zahavy, replies:

I thank Mr. Polak for his letter. My column targets the issues of people, not of angels. Since I have not yet been to heaven, I can only speculate on the language skills of angels and their activities based on the assertions of our traditions. The Talmud passage Mr. Polak refers to cites the individual view of one rabbi regarding the language skills of angels. Other authoritative rabbis in the Talmud and later times argue that some angels do know Aramaic or that the question is moot, because angels know what you are thinking. Putting the language and angel issues aside, I do agree, as I proposed in my column, that the Kaddish is a powerful prayer of praise, a “human initiative” that mourners recite here on earth to act as if they are intercessors to gain heavenly immortality for the soul of a departed loved one.

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What is Kaddish?

We said Kaddish for our dad this past year. Some writers responded to their year of saying Kaddish by writing books about it. Four good ones are shown above.

We published a popular book about prayer a in July 2011, so we don't feel the need to go ahead and write another one about our Kaddish year.

In fact in that book, we resolved our main understanding of the meaning of the Kaddish. We have not changed our mind. Here is some of what we said in "God's Favorite Prayers" as explained by our archetypal mystic, Hannah, on pages 59-61:

Hannah invites us to examine next the well-known and practiced Kaddish prayer, a second case of the entry level mystic’s prayers.

There are several varieties of Kaddish recited in the synagogue, enough to confuse the beginner. One of them, called the Half (chatzi) Kaddish, because a few sentences are left off of it, is recited by the leader of the services as a framing mechanism to mark the end of each major section of the liturgy. And, coincidentally, the term ‘half’ (chatzi) relates to the Hebrew word for a dividing or framing action.

The second Kaddish variety, called the complete one (shalem), marks the very end of the services proper.

The best-known Kaddish in the synagogue though is the mourner’s Kaddish (yatom), the one that is employed as a mourner’s doxology (i.e., a praise of God). The practice of associating this prayer with a mourner first appears in the thirteenth century. The synagogue authorities endorsed the custom that mourners during the first eleven months after losing a close relative ought to rise and recite a Kaddish on their own. In the case of this Kaddish Yatom, the mourner rises in his place in the synagogue and recites the doxology at a few appointed times in the daily, Sabbath, and festival services.

I ask Hannah, What is it that the prayer tells us? And, in particular, what makes the prayer an apt mystical enactment for the mourner who recites it? She explains that the substance of the prayer is not at all philosophical or deep. It is a litany, as a mystical prayer is wont to be, of the right words of praise of God in the correct order. She shows us the mystical component of the Kaddish, those lines that cite for us the adoration that is recited by the angels in heaven.

Hannah explains then that reciting the Kaddish provides an appropriate vicarious association for the mourner—to stand and recite a prayer on behalf of the departed souls of the dead:

Magnified and sanctified may his great name be in the world he created by his will. May he establish his kingdom in your lifetime and in your days, and in the lifetime of all the house of Israel, swiftly and soon—and say: Amen.
May his great name be blessed forever and all time.
Blessed and praised, glorified and exalted,
raised and honored, uplifted and lauded
be the name of the Holy One, blessed be he,
beyond any blessing, song, praise and consolation
uttered in the world—and say: Amen
May there be great peace from heaven,
and life for us and for all Israel—and say: Amen.
May he who makes peace in his high places,
make peace for us and for all Israel—and say: Amen.
(Koren Siddur, p. 178)

This lilting and poetic passage does have a certain unique cadence, yet it seems to us in its words to be no more than a standard glorification of God, nothing about death or dying or the deceased. I ask again, why then is this prayer especially apropos for a mourner? Hannah proposes that it is because reciting this heavenly angelic Aramaic praise is the epitome of a mystic’s liturgy. It is a stand-in enactment by the mourner on behalf of the departed loved one. The mourner stands in place in the synagogue and recites the words.

But acting in the mode of the mystic archetype, the mourner advances to the next level of mystical prayer. She is not just addressing God with the outpourings of her personal anxiety and vexation, but imagining that she is standing aloft in heaven, representing the soul of her beloved departed, knocking on heaven’s door to seek entry for that spirit into a secure, eternal place close to the divine light and near the warmth of God. 

I pressed Hannah on this matter. I asked her to clarify to us what is going on when she recites the Kaddish. Is she addressing God from her pew, using the words authorized by the angels on behalf of the deceased? Or is she imagining her ascent to heaven to plead there for the soul of the departed?

Hannah did not know the origins of the Kaddish as a mystic’s prayer on behalf of the soul. Alan Mintz explained that this association began in the Middle Ages (Hurban: Responses to Catastrophe in Hebrew Literature

In the generations immediately following the First Crusade the ceremony of remembering the dead began to be practiced not only in the case of renowned rabbinical martyrs of public persecution but also simply for all who died natural deaths, entirely irrespective of the conditions of persecution. A bereaved son would recite the Kaddish, an Aramaic doxology, for the memory of his recently departed father or mother, in the conviction that such recitation had the power to save the deceased’s soul from tortures beyond the grave. The practice gained headway in the thirteenth century and by the fifteenth a new custom emerged: the Yorzeit, the recitation of the Kaddish on the anniversary of the death of a relative. And soon there was further established the Yizkor or Hazkarat Neshamot, the Kaddish together with various supplications for the souls of the departed, recited on the Day of Atonement and the last days of the Pilgrimage Festivals. Taken together, this amounts of a kind of cult of the dead that began in medieval Ashkenaz and later spread to all of world Jewry.

Mintz commented further about the deep personal attachment that Jews have to this prayer:

The astounding tenacity of this outlook is observable in the simple sociological fact, known to all, that in the process of secularization, and especially in the acculturation of Jewish immigrants from Eastern Europe to America, the recitation of the mourner’s Kaddish with its attendant rites is the very last particle of tradition to be given up.

Without knowing anything about the historical development of the Kaddish, the entry-level mystic in the synagogue does engage in some prayer, emulating the angels and sending praises and petitions heavenward. She also may practice an intermediate form of mystical prayer, an imagined ascent to stand in another realm and importune her case before the angels and before God....

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James Gleick in the Times Sunday Review: Let's Say Kaddish for Printed Paper Books

James Gleick in Sunday Review of the Times writes today about "Books and Other Fetish Objects." We think Gleick is a genius and if he says that real physical books are over, we believe him, we agree with him and we move on.

And that is what he says. He loves books, as do we. He admits that handling rare books is a trip. We agree. But he makes it clear that digitized books are here and they are the present and the future of all writing and communications.

We agree. And we agree even more because we published our first Kindle book TODAY. Yay. It took a while to format and format and format the darn thing. But we think we got it right. Amazon asked us if we want them to determine the price in international currencies. We said yes.

So in 24 hours or however long it takes, our book will be downloadable all over the world.

And yes, we get royalties. More important, we get to influence thinking about religion all across the globe. Instantly.

Yes, like Gleick, we love books. We have a house filled with books. Dead tree books. We like to hold them and feel their heft. We like to smell them and sense their new or old aromas.

But paper books are dead. And though Gleick does not come right out and say it, we will. It is time to say Kaddish for the printed paper book.

Invention of the Week: Digital Synagogue Memorial Plaques

We were in a TV store recently and we got shelf-shock from the sheer variety of 42 inch and bigger digital displays at prices that went down by more than 50% in some cases in the past year.

What does this video technology advance and price point mean for society? Is it good for the Jews?

One Israeli company has answered that question with their product line of Digital Memorial Plaques for synagogues.

It's so obvious that this is a good invention, there is no need for us to even spell out why. Here is what the Tel Aviv company says on its site. They even provide rabbinic endorsements....

לוחות הנצחה אלקטרוניים

‘זיכרון חי’ הוא לוח הנצחה וזיכרון דיגיטלי המנוהל על ידי מחשב המעלה לכותרת הלוח את שמות הנפטרים ביום הזיכרון שלהם, בהדגשה יתרה ובאופן אוטומטי. הכוונה להחליף את לוחות הזיכרון הסטטיים הקבועים בבתי הכנסת היום. במתקן הזיכרון החדיש, שגודלו כ - 70 ס”מ גובה ו-100 ס”מ רוחב "42 ואו "50 אינטש בגדלים של עד 123 ס"מ ( מטר ו - 23 ס"מ), במתקן המוצע הוכנסו שכלולים טכנולוגיים המתאימים את לוח הזיכרון לתקופתנו.

אנו מתכבדים להציג בפניכם מערכת חדשנית להנצחת שמות הנפטרים שהלכו לעולמם. באמצעות לוח הנצחה דיגיטלי של “זיכרון חי”. המערכת פותחת בפני באי בית הכנסת את האפשרות להתעדכן במועד יום הזיכרון של כל נפטר המופיע בלוח הזיכרון. המערכת החדשנית, שפותחה בעמל רב וביראת שמים, מאפשרת לגבאי בית הכנסת לנהל את מכירת שלטי הזיכרון בצורה פשוטה וידידותית כפי שנסביר בהמשך. לנגד עיננו עומדת מטרה קדושה והיא הנצחת יקירינו ההולכים לעולמם ואשר עם השנים, מטעמים אלה ואחרים, אנו פוגעים בכבודם שלא במתכוון, בכך שאנו שוכחים להתייחד עם זכרם במועד הפטירה.

לצערנו ישנם כאלה הנוטים לשכוח ימי זיכרון למקורבים ולרחוקים והדבר גורם לבושת פנים ותסכול רב. ‘זיכרון- חי’ היא מערכת המתריעה על מועד יום הזיכרון של כל נפטר ומראש, ההתרעה תוצג מספר ימים קודם ליום הזיכרון ועד למועד שבו יחול יום הזיכרון בפועל . המערכת החדשה מאפשרת בעזרת לוח ההנצחה הדיגיטלי, להוסיף שמות נפטרים ללא הגבלה ובאופן מיידי וקל במיוחד, (ללא תלות בגורם חיצוני המצריך חריטה והדבקה על הלוח המסורתי).

המערכת הוצגה בפני רבנים ידועים ואלה הביעו התפעלות רבה מעצם הרעיון והיוזמה לפיתוח המערכת ואף נתנו את ברכתם (בע”פ ובכתב).

בברכת הצלחה וברכה.

‘זיכרון חי’ בע”מ

לוח הנצחה וזיכרון דיגיטלי.

Hat tip to Rav Billy. Keep those business ideas coming.

WSJ: Pray for prosperity: There's no business like the prayerbook business

We've been impressed by the new edition of the Koren siddur that has appeared this summer as our previous posts indicated. The appearance of that new edition continues the spate of prayerbooks published in recent years. It bodes well for the future of that important religious publishing niche.

We are going to be paying more attention to prayer this fall, for reasons to be revealed soon enough.

So here is a summer rerun of a November, 2007 account of what was new in spiritual tomes at that juncture from an unlikely materialist source, the Wall Street Journal.

And yet, according to the Times, religion is a primary source of seeking new wealth these days, cf. "Believers Invest in the Gospel of Getting Rich" and account of the Gospel of Prosperity.

Our advice, pick any edition and pray for prosperity. It can't hurt.

HOUSES OF WORSHIP People of the Book(s)
By BEN HARRIS

Last month, the Reform movement, the largest synagogue denomination in America, began shipping its long-awaited new prayer book, "Mishkan T'filah" to congregations. More than two decades in the making, "Mishkan T'filah" (literally, "A Dwelling for Prayer") is billed by its editors as the first prayer book "of the people." And the people have definitely had a say in its production, having tested out various incarnations at synagogues across the country and at several national conventions. If "Mishkan T'filah" is accepted as the standard prayer text in the movement's 900 congregations, it could affect how more than a quarter of American Jews pray.

"Mishkan T'filah" replaces "Gates of Prayer," released in 1975, which in a nod to the movement's ethos of personal choice contained 10 different worship services from which individuals could choose. The new book offers only one. Its principal innovation is its design, a two-page layout in which each prayer is accompanied by a translation from the Hebrew, a transliteration, a commentary and a "spiritual reading" -- all aimed at appealing to multiple orientations within the context of a single service.

The architects of Reform Judaism in 1885 formally rejected the idea that Jews are obligated to perform ritual observances like eating kosher food and keeping the Sabbath; over time it has fallen to individuals to heed their own conscience in deciding what, and whether, to observe. Today the movement is reaping the fruits of that decision. Reform Judaism covers such a vast territory of theological conviction and religious practice -- it includes classical Reform Jews who still conduct Sabbath services on Sunday as well as a younger generation more open to traditions once shunned as inconsistent with the movement's liberal theology -- that it's sometimes hard to see what ties it all together. The editors of "Mishkan T'filah" hope the new book will keep the movement's 1.5 million adherents quite literally on the same page.

If the book does find broad acceptance, it won't be for a lack of alternatives. A number of new prayer books have been or are about to be released that, taking a different tack from "Mishkan T'filah," cater to diverse perspectives rather than joining them together under one rubric.

"Shaarei Simchah: Gates of Joy," the first contemporary Orthodox prayer book authored by women, aims for gender-inclusive language, though within the limits imposed by Orthodox Jewish law. At the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York, a rabbinical student is at work on a prayer book for "anusim" ("forced ones" in Hebrew), descendants of 15th-century Spanish and Portuguese Jews who converted to escape the Inquisition but continued to practice Judaism in secret. And next year, Congregation Beth Simchat Torah, a gay-friendly synagogue in New York, expects to publish an updated version of its own prayer book that does away with liturgy that, they worry, appears to privilege heterosexual marriage. In the Amidah prayer, for example, the new text references Jacob's quasi-wives, Bilhah and Zilpah, an acknowledgment of the role of partners of lesser legal status in child-rearing.

The proliferation of Jewish prayer books is itself nothing new. Prior to the printing press, individual communities had no choice but to develop their own liturgies, which reflected their particular religious and cultural sensibilities. Today, with our raucous religious marketplace, those sensibilities have multiplied, and with them, the desire for ever more particularistic forms of prayer. Around the country, smaller prayer communities have sprung up to satisfy the diversifying needs of the religious market, each committed to an ever more nuanced religious and spiritual outlook. Many experiment with new ways to balance the often conflicting demands of egalitarianism and tradition. Others place particular emphasis on music or the arts, or on social justice or participatory worship. The new prayer books reflect this fragmentation.

But seeing prayer books as a means to satisfy, and thereby validate, this diversity begs the question of whether the function of prayer is to affirm the individual's personal religious outlook. Perhaps worshipers should be encouraged to wrestle with traditional texts, even problematic ones, rather than edit them out of existence.

At the moment, the former view is ascendant, particularly in more liberal precincts. But it wasn't always this way. In the Reform Hebrew school where I used to teach some years ago, the instructors encouraged students to see prayer as one of the great unifying forces in Jewish life. We justified the hours spent mastering the prayerbook -- whose broad structure has been essentially static since the second century -- as an exercise in kinship with Jews world-wide, equipping students with knowledge such that they could visit any synagogue anywhere in the world and feel at home.

The very notion of a niche prayer book threatens that idea, a concern that the editors of "Mishkan T'filah" likely had in mind when deciding to consolidate 10 services into one. It is, of course, important that prayer resonate with a person's core beliefs. But the cost of achieving such a resonance, in an era when the colors of belief come in near-infinite shades, is high.

What is the purpose of “Mishkan T’filah” - the newest Reform Jewish Prayerbook?

The Jewish Reform movement published a new prayerbook two years ago. At the time the NY Times reported...

The movement’s leaders hope the new prayer book will help revive a worship experience that many Jews avoid.

Scott A. Shay, the author of “Getting Our Groove Back: How to Energize American Jewry,” said, “Let’s not forget that more than three-quarters of American Jews don’t go to any synagogue on a regular basis.

“Each movement realizes that the real struggle for the future and soul of American Jewry are those who are outside of the synagogue today,” said Mr. Shay, a banking executive who has been active in Jewish organizations.

“Each movement is really struggling with, ‘How do you bring them in?’ ” he said. “This prayer book is an attempt toward that for the Reform movement.”

That conclusion to that article is silly. Prayerbook reform in Reform Judaism has a long and venerated history that has more to it than just "bringing them in" to the Temples.

It reflects a consensus of the real beliefs and thoughtful considerations of the movement.

The editor of the siddur is more authentic and accurate in her description (yes, a woman is the editor):

“It reflects a recognition of diversity within our community,” said Rabbi Elyse D. Frishman, the editor of the prayer book. “We have interfaith families. We have so many visitors at b’nai mitzvah ceremonies that I could have a service on Shabbat morning where a majority of people there aren’t Jewish,” she said, referring to bar and bat mitzvah ceremonies on Saturday mornings.

“There are even those in my community who come to Shabbat worship each week who don’t believe in God,” said Rabbi Frishman, who leads the Barnert Temple in Franklin Lakes, N.J. “How do we help them resonate with the language of prayer, which is very God-centric and evokes a personal God, a God that talks to you in a sense? There are many, many Jews who do not believe in God that way.”

Unlike the Reform movement’s last prayer book, “Gates of Prayer,” which was published in 1975, the new prayer book has a Hebrew title, “Mishkan T’filah” (which means a sanctuary or dwelling place for prayer). And it reads from back to front, like a traditional Hebrew text, which was only an optional format when “Gates of Prayer” was published.

It was Rabbi Frishman who thought up the innovative layout for the new prayer book, or siddur.

There are four versions of each prayer laid out on a typical two-page spread. (Since the book is read back to front, the right page is read before the left one). On the right page is the prayer in Hebrew, the transliteration of the Hebrew prayer into phonetical English, and a more literal translation. On the left-hand page is a more poetic translation of the prayer, followed by a metaphorical or meditative passage reflecting on the prayer, sometimes by a well-known writer like Langston Hughes or Yehuda Amichai.

Rabbis who prefer to lead a more traditional service can choose a prayer from the right-hand side of the page, while those who prefer a more alternative approach can choose from the left side.

“This is a way of having the best of both worlds,” said Rabbi Peter S. Knobel, president of the Central Conference of American Rabbis, the association of Reform rabbis, which is publishing the book. “You have the possibility of doing, if you want, an entire service in Hebrew, as traditional as you can be within the Reform movement. At the same time, you can do something extremely creative.”

We believe all those who publish prayerbooks deserve a loud Bravo! for the valiant efforts they have put in. You can buy it here.

JTA: All Schnorring, All the Time - You give us your email, we bombard you with donation requests

We're being bombarded with donation requests from the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. We did not even know that the JTA was a charity.

We just went to the JTA site to read an article titled, "Six percent of Israelis say Obama is ‘pro-Israel’" and found at the end of the post this urgent notice: "This article was made possible by the support of readers like you. Donate to JTA now."

Now we are critical of JTA here on several grounds. First off there is no value add to picking up an already published report from the Jerusalem Post and repeating it. Why would we donate for that? Every blogger on earth can do that for free with no schnorring. Google, Yahoo and every other aggregating service can pick the news up from other papers without begging for donations.

We are critical of JTA for this particular type of posting also because they regurgitate it with no links to the original source of the poll - which BTW you can find here.

And yes, we do want to know why there are no JTA polls? More to the point, we want to know why JTA just recycles the JPost poll without adding a single critical look at it by any known authority.

Back in April there was a dust up on account of a perceived slight to bloggers in a JTA fund raising newsletter.

Seems to us like the balabatim (owners) over there at JTA did not get the message. Instead they have intensified their electronic panhandling to the point that it seems to us to be truly tasteless.

We are sorry if the financial crisis has hit JTA hard, We will be sad to see it go away if that is the result. Reading the intensity and desperation of the current begging that JTA is engaged in, we think that will be the outcome.

Times change. The vacuum JTA leaves when it does go away will quickly be filled by other perhaps more tasteful and more value-laden Jewish news efforts.

Times: Ethnic Jewish e-magazine Tablet Launches in a pretty bubble

Nice of David Carr at the Times to mention "Tablet" in his "Media Decoder" blog in his post, "A New Online Magazine About Jewish News and Culture." It would be nicer yet if he read the site and made some comments about its content.

He quips to conclude his blurb,

With the tag line “A new read on Jewish life,” Tablet features a podcast of Joy Ladin, a poet and a professor of English at Stern College for Women at Yeshiva University who underwent a sex change. Safe to say that not everything that will be covered in Tablet came down from the mountain on those original stone artifacts.

We looked around the new site and have praise for its attractive design and impressive sounding staff. The mag also has clever headline writers.

But "a new read" is a bad tag line. What happens after three months when it is no longer "new"? Do they shorten the tag to "a read"? And BTW it's not descriptive of the nature of the content is it? Are they progressive or conservative? Young or old? (Of course, silly question, everyone on the web is young.) If they are a "read" does that include multi-media? (There is "weekly" audio on the site.) And are they pro-religion or anti-religion? Pro-Zionist or pro-Palestinian? Do you really want us to guess about all of these questions?

And then what of the other part of the tag, "Jewish life." Nothing about dead Jews? No obituaries? We gather that this means concern with "culture" but as opposed to what?

Culture, religion and politics of an ethnic group. Look at us. We are so hip and special.

No, no. Please tell us what distinguishes you from a hole in the wall.

Why do we need another Forward or Jewish Week?

What big stories did your people break in their previous lives?

What kind of new knowledge will you create? What value will you add?

Will you be honest with us? Too much among the stories, posts and reviews that you published so far that claims or insinuates they are your own new discoveries - when they are not. Other journals or blogs have written witty insights on those subjects days or weeks ago. Are you hoping nobody will notice that?

Are you planning to stay in the sparkly bubble that you so gleefully appear to have erected around your enterprise?

And please realize that we mean all of this interrogation in the nicest way. We would like to see you succeed, not just float around the Internet until this pretty bubble bursts. [hat tip to henry and others]

Tzvee in the Jewish Standard: Cheerios and the future of Judaism in America

When we translate our ideas to the print medium, the output gets longer, gets edited and gets read by different readers. Here's our guest column from our local Jewish newspaper of record, the Jewish Standard.

Cheerios and the future of Judaism in America
Tzvee Zahavy • Columns
Published: 15 May 2009

When we say that we aspire to live the talmudic life, that means two things.

First, it means that we question rigorously all those facts and influences around us. We especially separate our certainties from our doubts.
Guest column

And second, it means that we live in constant touch and tension with our present world to which we can respond and sometimes over which we can exercise some control. A good talmudist does not pretend to have dominion over the unknown future.

OK, what do Cheerios have to do with the future of Judaism in America? ...more...

Times: The Last Jews in Iraq

Baghdad Jews Have Become a Fearful Few

By STEPHEN FARRELL

BAGHDAD — “I have no future here to stay.”

Written in broken English but with perfect clarity, the message is a stark and plaintive assessment from one of the last Jews of Babylon.

The community of Jews in Baghdad is now all but vanished in a land where their heritage recedes back to Abraham of Ur, to Jonah’s prophesying to Nineveh, and to Nebuchadnezzar’s sending Jews into exile here more than 2,500 years ago.

Just over half a century ago, Iraq’s Jews numbered more than 130,000. But now, in the city that was once the community’s heart, they cannot muster even a minyan, the 10 Jewish men required to perform some of the most important rituals of their faith. They are scared even to publicize their exact number, which was recently estimated at seven by the Jewish Agency for Israel, and at eight by one Christian cleric. That is not enough to read the Torah in public, if there were anywhere in public they would dare to read it, and too few to recite a proper Kaddish for the dead.

Among those who remain is a former car salesman who describes himself as the “rabbi, slaughterer and one of the leaders of the Jewish community in Iraq.”

Although many of his Muslim friends and immediate neighbors know he is Jewish (“I’m proud, I’m Jewish, not ashamed. I’m not hiding,” he wrote at one point.), he was wary of being named because it could draw more dangerous attention to him or his friends. To protect him, he is referred to as Saleh’s grandson, because his or his father’s name would be too easily recognizable here. Interviews with him were conducted by correspondence over the course of several months.

He lamented that Jews in Baghdad had had no meeting place since the Meir Tweig synagogue, the last in the city, was closed in 2003, after it became too dangerous to gather openly.

“I do my prayer in my house because we closed the synagogue from the war until now...

Robert Nickelsberg/Getty Images for The New York Times

The tomb of the Prophet Ezekiel in Kifl, south of Baghdad, used to be a pilgrimage site for Jews. It is one of few traces that remain of a once-vibrant Jewish community in Iraq. A pogrom in 1941 and other traumas led to a sharp decline in the Jewish population.

Jews were once a wealthy and politically active part of Iraqi society. Then came an exodus.

JTA: Kaddish and the Pope

JTA NEWS cleared up some of the ambiguities of other reports on the Pope's 2006 visit:

Poland's chief rabbi, U.S.-born Michael Schudrich, not only said Kaddish in the presence of the pope and the country's top elected leaders, but also recalled those non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from the gas chambers.

The pope prayed with clasped hands as Simcha Keller, director of the Jewish community of Lodz, sang El Maleh Rachamim, a solemn prayer said to honor close relatives who have died.

God: Where was the pope?

Pope: Where was God during Auschwitz horror? - News from Israel, Ynetnews 2006:

In a place like this, words fail. In the end, there can only be a dread silence - a silence which is itself a heartfelt cry to God: Why, Lord, did you remain silent? How could you tolerate all this? - he said in a speech delivered in Italian.

I don't hear silence. I hear a deafening roar from the heavens. "Where was Pius XII during the Holocaust?" "Why were you sir a Hilter-youth?" "Why did you fight in the German army?" "How dare you wear white to Auschwitz!"

Polish Chief Rabbi Attacked in 06:

A shadow was cast over the papal visit by Saturday's attack on Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, who was to say Kaddish, or the Jewish prayer for the dead, during the ceremony led by the pope.

Schudrich told The Associated Press he was attacked in central Warsaw after confronting a man who shouted at him, 'Poland for Poles!' The rabbi said the unidentified man punched him in the chest and sprayed him with what appeared to be pepper spray.

Was he or was he not with the Pope during his visit to Auschwitz? Did he say Kaddish there? Will anti-Semitism never cease?

The New York Times Magazine interviews Nathan Englander

He's young. He's Jewish. He's a literary sensation. And he has a new book coming out. And yes, he must have a great publicist 'cause he's in the The New York Times Magazine - Features - Columns - Style - The New York Times: Questions for Nathan Englander

The Fabulist
Interview By DEBORAH SOLOMON
The short-story writer talks about why he set his first novel in Argentina and named his protagonist Kaddish, what nose jobs say about our politics and his hopes for world peace."

Kaddish for the University of Phoenix

Would you buy a used car from UoP President William J. Pepicello (right)?

When the NY Times does a front page expose of a sketchy enterprise, the echoes resound around the world.

The University of Phoenix (sponsor of a sports stadium) has been written up as news in the paper of record.

The Times titles the story, "Troubles Grow for a University Built on Profits."

I've said before that these are the guys who took the "non" out of "non-profit education." And just what is wrong with that? It is a scam of mammoth proportions.

We in the industry knew for years that adult-ed courses can make a profit because self-styled literacy is an ego trip. Continuing-ed at a distance is even more alluring. You just pay up and you are an esteemed student of higher learning. And if you drop out after paying up - that is where the real profit margin kicks in.

Until the house of cards falls down. Read the story. The Times does a good job of poking into all the questions about UoP.