God's purposes in the universe explained by Rabbi Zev Zahavy

Trying to understand the role of God in the universe these sad days of COVID can be difficult.

My dad wrote a philosophical theological treatise called "Whence and Wherefore" to help people do this and I turned to it last week - and then I decided to republish it as a hard cover book.

I formatted and uploaded it yesterday at Amazon KDP and today it is available around the world for orders.

He found meaning in cosmology and philosophy and also in Kabbalah. I do hope people can learn from this new edition. Here are some of the links to it.

In the UK https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B09NH2Q88Q

In the US https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09NH2Q88Q

Also available in Europe in the markets of DE FR ES IT.

Happy Hanukkah. But what is Hanukkah?

As so many people ask, What is Hanukkah?

If you are wondering what is the official meaning of Hanukkah as presented in Jewish liturgy, here is the text we insert for the holiday, no spin added,

And [we thank You] for the miracles, for the redemption, for the mighty deeds, for the saving acts, and for the wonders which You have wrought for our ancestors in those days, at this time.

In the days of Matityahu, the son of Yochanan the High Priest, the Hasmonean and his sons, when the wicked Hellenic government rose up against Your people Israel to make them forget Your Torah and violate the decrees of Your will.

But You, in Your abounding mercies, stood by them in the time of their distress. You waged their battles, defended their rights, and avenged the wrong done to them. You delivered the mighty into the hands of the weak, the many into the hands of the few, the impure into the hands of the pure, the wicked into the hands of the righteous, and the wanton sinners into the hands of those who occupy themselves with Your Torah.

You made a great and holy name for Yourself in Your world, and effected a great deliverance and redemption for Your people Israel to this very day. Then Your children entered the shrine of Your House, cleansed Your Temple, purified Your Sanctuary, kindled lights in Your holy courtyards, and instituted these eight days of Hanukkah to give thanks and praise to Your great Name.

And then of course the Talmud explains Hanukkah. Sorta.

There is no Mishnah or Talmud tractate for the festival of lights. Why is that? It is an incredible question. Not going to speculate. All we have in rabbinic literature is this.

The Talmud (Bavli Shabbat 21b) explains what is Hanukkah:

What is Hanukkah? For our Rabbis taught: On the twenty-fifth of Kislev commence the days of Hanukkah, which are eight on which a lamentation for the dead and fasting are forbidden.

For when the Greeks entered the Temple, they defiled all the oils therein, and when the Hasmonean dynasty prevailed against and defeated them, they made search and found only one cruse of oil which lay with the seal of the High Priest, but which contained sufficient for one day's lighting only; yet a miracle was wrought therein and they lit the lamp therewith for eight days. 

The following year these days were appointed a Festival with the recital of Hallel and thanksgiving.

What else is there to say? 

Dreidls, gelt, and latkes come later.

Our Amazing Incredible Hanukkah Avatar

Hanukkah has its own avatar. I wrote about how this works in my truly amazing favorite book, "God's Favorite Prayers."

...The concept of avatar has several meanings. First an avatar can be an embodiment or a personification of a substantial idea, for instance, "the embodiment of hope"; "the incarnation of evil"; "the very avatar of cunning." In some respects I describe in this book how the prayers serve as avatars of several diverse personalities. In this sense I can say that the Amidah is an avatar of the priest.

An avatar in the context of religions can have another meaning. In specific it is a manifestation of a Hindu deity, particularly Vishnu, in a human, superhuman or animal form. As an example of how the term is used is, “The Buddha is regarded as an avatar of the god Vishnu.” In this sense of the term, I created my archetypal avatars, such as my “priest,” as representatives of the core values that inhere in the prayers...

... The most recent technological application of the word avatar denotes a computer user's self-representation or alter ego, in the form of a three-dimensional model within a computer game, or as a two-dimensional icon picture on a screen, or as a single-dimensional username within an Internet community.

... On two special occasions, Hanukkah and Purim, we add paragraphs to the Amidah to describe the victories of heroic Jews of the past. I see these hero figures as avatars of the priest.

Is the Film "The Endless Summer" Jewish?

My favorite movie is Bruce Brown's, The Endless Summer. No, it wasn't Jewish at all that is, until I made it into a metaphor for my quest for perfect Jewish spirituality and the inspiration for my book cover (see below). I haven't found any other Jewish connections to the film or the poster.

Vanity Fair has a story about the famous iconic Endless Summer movie poster. "One Summer, Forever: The Endless Summer poster is 50 years old, and it hasn't aged a minute. Kitchen-table project turned pop-culture phenomenon, the Day-Glo movie promo created by John Van Hamersveld for his friend Bruce Brown’s 1964 documentary is still selling the dream—on T-shirts, TV shows, beer bottles, and dorm walls. Lili Anolik looks back at the moment an iconic image was born, the social upheaval it presaged, and the surfer-dude-slash-designer whose life it changed."

In 1966 I saw a film that documented two boys seeking simple perfection in a quasi-mystical sport. IMDB sums up, "Brown follows two young surfers around the world in search of the perfect wave, and ends up finding quite a few in addition to some colorful local characters."

The film spoke to me, as it did to many others of a more idealistic age. The essence of surfing of course is the wave. And the lover of surfing no doubt wants to embark on the quest for the best wave. To experience the performance of the essence is to find the perfect wave.

Brown's two surfer dudes found one in South Africa, see the video clip below.

Are Coronary Stents Kosher?

Yes, coronary stents are kosher. In fact they are a miraculous invention.

What are they? Wikipedia says: "A coronary stent is a tube placed in the coronary arteries that supply the heart, to keep the arteries open in the treatment of coronary heart disease. It is used in a procedure called percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI). Stents reduce chest pain and have been shown to improve survivability in the event of an acute myocardial infarction."

The coronary stent was invented by Julio Palmaz. The stainless steel, insertable mesh stent is expanded once inside the body to hold an artery open and allow blood to flow more freely. Palmaz secured funding for the development of the stent from restaurant owner Phil Romano (Fuddruckers and The Macaroni Grill). Palmaz co-developed the stent with Dr. Richard Schatz, a cardiologist at the time at the Brooke Army Medical Center. We would guess that Schatz is Jewish. They patented their invention in 1985.

The coronary stent is one of the greatest inventions of our time. The stent can be inserted through a small puncture in the groin or wrist and via balloon angioplasty it can open up quickly and with little to no pain a 99% occluded major coronary artery. The procedure takes about an hour and the patient is ambulatory after four hours and can resume many of his favorite activities :-) within one day.

To a person (like me) with CAD this rapid and amazing restoration of a person's quality of life is a true medical miracle of our times.

ADS: Kindle Talmud in English -|- Experience God's Favorite Prayers

Is Matt Amodio Jewish?

Is Matt Amodio, the astounding Jeopardy champion with over $1 Million in winnings, Jewish? 

Yes indeed Matt is a Jew according to celebrity columnist Nate Bloom - see this column.  

More up to date information will be posted here as we get it.

10 Years Ago: Tzvee and Talmud Hullin on the FYI Page 3 of the Jewish Standard

Click to Enlarge

Ten Years Ago: Larry Yudelson of the Jewish Standard of Teaneck wrote me up for their page three FYI column.

The Jewish Standard, Teaneck NJ
July 8, 2011

FYI
Local author puts Talmud translation on the web

As the seven-year cycle of daily Talmud study known as Daf Yomi began a new tractate last month, Tzvee Zahavy found himself running low on blog ideas.

Zahavy, a Teaneck resident, professor and rabbi, is also a blogger.

As the Daf Yomi project approached the beginning of the Babylonian Talmud tractate Hullin, Zahavy realized that he already had content.

"I figured it would be a service both to me in my own studies, and to my readers, if each day for 142 in all, I shared on my blog the text of my English translation of one page of the Talmud text," he said.

Zahavy translated Hullin as part of a series that was completed in 1995 by Professor Zahavy and others, called, "The Talmud of Babylonia. An American Translation." Sales of the set have been modest, in the thousands, he said.

The translation is now available in a new edition from a Christian publisher, Hendrickson, in both print and digital formats.

Artscroll’s English version of the Talmud is better selling, Zahavy said because it is Orthodox-approved and non-academic.

Zahavy said that the general public does not go out in great numbers to buy and read books of and about the Talmud. “Back in the late sixties, author Norman Mailer told us students in a lecture at Yeshiva College that he read the Soncino English Talmud every night at bedtime,” Zahavy said. “We saw that he was trying to impress us and he didn’t. We all knew that the Talmud is always studied seriously - it is never read at bedtime.”

Zahavy’s newest book is called “God’s Favorite Prayers.” The volume will be published in print and digital formats this summer by Talmudic Books, a new imprint that Zahavy started. He is confident that it will sell better than his Talmud translations.“More people pray than study,” he said.

--Larry Yudelson

Yahrzeit of Rav Aharon Lichtenstein, great Torah Sage and the Quintessential Scribe

My teacher and rebbe Rav Aharon Lichtenstein passed away six years ago.

He was awarded the Israel Prize 2014 in Jewish religious literature.

He was one of the finest teachers that I studied with in college - a genius as an educator and a sincere and compassionate human being. He is the person that I chose to personify the quintessential scribe personality of prayer in my book "God's Favorite Prayers (p. 71 ff)." Here is the excerpt.

The Scribe’s Prayers

I had the privilege of studying in Rav Aharon Lichtenstein’s Talmud shiur (class) for two years, 1966-1968. Each December, he invited us talmidim (disciples) to his house for latkes (potato pancakes) on Hanukkah. There, in his apartment, we sat with his little kids and his wife Tovah, daughter of Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik. The latkes were good and the Lichtensteins appeared to be a regular family. For some reason, that surprised me.

Once, during the years that I was in his shiur, while I was out with some of the guys playing basketball on the courts between the Yeshiva College dorms, Rav Aharon, a lanky, thin and tall man, came walking by. One of us had the chutzpah to ask him to join the ball game. He said okay and he played aggressively—and just like a regular guy. For some reason, that blew my mind.

And, one year, in our student play, the Yeshiva College Purim shpiel, a satiric revue for the holiday, I played the role of Rav Aharon. In my performance, I hemmed and hawed and exaggerated my rebbe’s mannerisms much more than I should have. And there in the audience sat my rebbe, laughing heartily along with us. For some reason, that really blew my mind.

Download Online a Free Passover Seder Haggadah

Here are several of the best places you can go online to download a free Passover Haggadah for your Seder.

• The Jewish Agency Haggadah Links
• Wikisource Hebrew Haggadah Page
• The Union Haggadah (CCAR Classical Reform)
• Haggadah According to the Rite of Yemen: with the Arabic-Hebrew
• The Kol Menachem Haggadah: Nusach Haarizal, by Chaim Miller

I give Chabad credit for a great resource if you want a wide selection of free Hebrew Haggadahs.  
Download Hebrew Haggadahs here.

My new Haggadah is not free - but it is really fantastic!

I thought you might be interested in this new for 2017 reprint of a classic haggadah with a foreword that I added - available from Amazon. - Tzvee

The Polychrome Historical Haggadah  by Jacob Freedman et al.   Learn more

Library Makes 1,000 Rare Haggadahs Available Free Online

An illustration of King David praising G-d in a rare Haggadah published in 1710 in Frankfurt am Maine, Germany

By Dovid Zaklikowski

The central Chabad-Lubavitch library in New York made 1,000 Passover Haggadahs, many of them rare, available on the Internet for browsing by the public. The Agudas Chasidei Chabad Library has one of the largest collections of the Passover orders of service in the world.

Housed at the Lubavitch World Headquarters, the library's Haggadah collection began years ago with a nucleus of some 400 volumes purchased on behalf of the Sixth Lubavitcher Rebbe, Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Schneersohn, of righteous memory, by renowned collector and bibliographer Shmuel Wiener in 1924.

The posting at ChabadLibraryBooks.com represents close to half of the library's total Haggadah collection and is part of chief librarian Rabbi Sholom Ber Levine's goal of making the library more accessible to the public. All told, the library possesses more than 2,200 editions of the Haggadah. Although the rarest of the books, all handwritten, are not yet available, Levine is looking for ways to post them next year. Hebrew Books, directed by Chaim Rosenberg, collaborated on the project.

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God's Favorite Prayers

Was Rush Limbaugh Jewish?

Yes, Rush Limbaugh was a Jew. Rush's Conservative Gentile persona was a successful act that earned him record multi-million dollar contracts in the radio business.

Rush's real name was Ronald Levy. He was born on the upper West Side of Manhattan. His father was a dermatologist and his mother a junior high school librarian. He attended the Ramaz School where he excelled at floor hockey and then Amherst College where he double-majored in art history and chemistry.

Rush was accepted to Albert Einstein Medical School of Yeshiva University. He had to withdraw during his first semester because he could not control his mocking derisive laughter when confronted with the illnesses and infirmities of the hospital patients.

Happy Purim everybody. א פריילעכן פורים
Rush! Rush! Rush! !רָשׁ! רָשׁ! רָשׁ

חַג פּוּרִים, חַג פּוּרִים,
חַג גָּדוֹל לַיְּהוּדִים!
מַסֵּכוֹת, רַעֲשָׁנִים,
שִׁירִים וְרִקּוּדִים!

הָבָה נַרְעִישֶׁהָ:
רָשׁ רָשׁ רָשׁ!
הָבָה נַרְעִישֶׁהָ:
רָשׁ רָשׁ רָשׁ!
הָבָה נַרְעִישֶׁהָ:
רָשׁ רָשׁ רָשׁ!
בָּרַעֲשָׁנִים

//this is satirical Purim Torah - edited to past tense 7 Adar 5781 - reposted from 5769//

Resources in the analysis of the connections between terrorism and religion

I taught a college course about religion and politics and terrorism in 2005. Now the content and the analysis of terrorism is more real and more relevant and more frightening than ever.

Here is a linked guide to my substantial blog posts of study resources in the analysis of the connections between terrorism and religion.

1. Questions about American Christian Terrorism
   
2. Marginality, sexual despair, political powerlessness, masculinity and terrorism
   
3. Religion and Jewish Terrorists
   
4. What is a Religious Culture of Violence and Terror?
   
5. Who were Shoko Asahara and the Buddhist Aum Shinrikyo Religious Terrorists?
   
6. How did Religion Motivate Sikh Terrorists?
   
7. What is the Logic of the Theater of Religious Terror?
   
8. Why Do Religious Terrorist Martyrs say that they aim to kill the demons?
   
9. What do Sexuality and Humiliation have to do with Terrorism?
   
10. Will the War Against Religious Terrorism Ever End?
    
11. From Kahane to Osama: How Do Men Make Religious Terrorism Into Cosmic War?
    
12. How can we end religious terrorism and achieve the peace of God?
    
13. Concluding Questions on Religion and Terrorism