Awesome: I published three paperback books in March on Amazon!

Awesome: I published three paperback books in March on Amazon!

      

My first unboxing video:



My first Talmudic Advice podcast:



My Haggadah Unboxing Video:

Ten Tips for a Better Seder - with Trump Tips Added

It's a great performance. A dramatic Off-Broadway revue.

I have always had fun directing the reading of the Haggadah at the Seder. I learned this dramatic art as a child by watching my father (Rabbi Zev Zahavy) masterfully conduct the performance of the communal synagogue Seders as the rabbi of the Park East Synagogue in Manhattan. He did it right and authentic and dramatic.

So in the spirit of the season of rebirth and freedom, let me offer you ten tips for your seder extravaganza - this year we must add Trump Tips.

Rav Soloveitchik, Rav Lichtenstein, Prof. Weidhorn, Prof. Flatto, Prof. Levy: My Five Greatest Teachers at Yeshiva University

I realized over the years since I graduated from Yeshiva College that so many of my teachers there imprinted upon me indelible lessons for life and learning. I have chosen here to recall five special teachers. I apologize to the many other wonderful teachers that I have omitted. I especially beg the forgiveness of those that I have chosen to so briefly and inadequately remember. Nothing that I say can do them justice.
[Periodic re-post -- to celebrate these great teachers.]

RCBC Designates Next Saturday "Shabbat Shmoozer" in Teaneck

The RCBC (Rabbinical Council of Befuddled Clergy) has declared next Saturday to be "Shabbat Shmoozer" in all Teaneck synagogues.

Speaking on behalf of the group, Rabbi S. A. Rudemanski explained that scholars had pointed out a mistake the rabbis previously made in reading of halakhic texts governing synagogue conduct.

Rudemanski said the rabbis had thought that "talking in synagogue" was the cause of everything from natural disasters and political crises to scraped knees and stubbed toes.

Jews in Book Reviews - NY Times Book Review - 2 major reviews of books about Jews

Front page of the book review David Grossman's newest book - and inside the BR, Professor Ellen Umansky's new novel.

Is This Mic On?: A Stand-Up Comedian Wrestles With His Country and ...

https://www.nytimes.com/.../books/review/horse-walks-into-a-bar-david-grossman-.html

- David Grossman's novel “A Horse Walks Into a Bar,” about a ... A version of this reviewappears in print on March 5, 2017, on Page BR1 

A Painting Stolen First by the Nazis, Then by Persons Unknown - The ...

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/books/review/fortunate-ones-ellen-umansky.html

1 day ago - In Ellen Umansky's “The Fortunate Ones,” a painting that went missing in Nazi-occupied Vienna connects the lives of two women

My Jewish Standard Dear Rabbi Zahavy Advice Column for March 2017: Dizzy Bat Mitzvah Girl and Bewildered Burial Seeker

My Jewish Standard Dear Rabbi Zahavy Advice Column for March 2017: 
Dizzy about her Bat Mitzvah and Bewildered about her Burial

Dear Rabbi Zahavy,

I’m getting a little dizzy trying to figure out when to schedule my bat mitzvah. My synagogue recommends that both boys and girls celebrate their bar and bat mitzvahs at age 13. I’d like to celebrate it when I am 12. I am ready for it. My parents support me. What should I do?

Coming of Age in Clifton

Dear Coming of Age,

It’s probable from what you say that the tasks of preparing for the chanting of the Torah and haftarah in the synagogue likely are not what is making you dizzy. Planning and deciding on all the related logistics for your bat mitzvah day are challenges to young and old alike. You appear to be involved in the ordeals of scheduling and negotiations, perhaps with your parents, siblings, and friends, and with the calendars of your synagogue and the demands of caterers, DJs, and wardrobe, just to list the most obvious factors that come into play in approaching a bat mitzvah.

Is Warren Beatty Jewish?

No, the actor Warren Beatty is not Jewish. He  was raised in a devout, churchgoing Baptist family, but he is not known to be a practicing Baptist now.

Barbra Streisand said of Beatty: "He's an incredibly gifted...gentile."

In New Yorker, Woody Allen (definitely Jewish) hilariously mocked the story that Beatty slept with 12,775 women during his lifetime in his essay, "Will the Real Avatar Please Stand Up".

I suppose gods in human form may well have dropped in on this blue marble from time to time, but I strongly doubt that one has ever tooled around Rodeo Drive in a T-bird with the aplomb and good looks of Warren Beatty. Reading “Star,” the new biography by Peter Biskind, one can’t help but be blown away by the actor’s overwhelming accomplishments. Think of the movies, the grosses, the reviews, the Oscars, the endless nominations springing from this quadruple-threat voracious reader and marketing maven, who is nimble at the Steinway, savvy in the ways of politics, and a full-time Adonis, with accolades accruing from divers ones who believe he belongs not just up on the silver screen but in the Oval Office. More spectacular than a Tinseltown résumé that would humble Orson Welles are the star’s legendary exploits on the bedsprings. Here recounted are innumerable love affairs, with women of every heft and feel and station in life, from actresses to models, hatcheck girls to First Ladies. It seems that endless varieties of pulchritude salivated to plunge into the kip with this virtuoso of the percales. “How many women were there?” asks the author. “Easier to count the stars in the sky. . . . Beatty used to say that he couldn’t get to sleep at night without having sex. It was part of his routine, like flossing. . . . Allowing for the stretches when he was with the same woman, more or less, we can arrive at a figure of 12,775 women, give or take.” As a supplicant who has yet to achieve double digits when it comes to bedding the juicy gender, and those conquests requiring the aid of my Hypno-disk, I could not help imagining the following account of one gal’s irresistible swoon into the Guinness Book. But let her speak for herself...more...

Is Jimmy Kimmel Jewish?

No, comedian Jimmy Kimmel is not a Jew. He is a Catholic. Wikipedia explains, "He is Roman Catholic and, as a child, served as an altar boy. Kimmel is of German and Irish descent on his father’s side and Italian descent on his mother’s side."

Kimmel was a smash hit host of the 2017 Oscars show.

Kimmel performed 4-28-2012 at the White House Correspondents' dinner where he poked fun at Washington politicians.

Kimmel had a relationship with the Jewish comedian Sarah Silverman that started in 2002. Wikipedia reports:

She referred to the relationship in some of her comedy, "I'm Jewish, but I wear this Saint Christopher medal sometimes; my boyfriend is Catholic — but you know... it was cute the way he gave it to me. He said if it doesn't burn a hole through my skin, it will protect me." In July 2008, Vanity Fair reported that the couple had split, ending their relationship of five years. However, in October 2008 it was revealed by Fox News and People magazine that they were on "the road back to being together." The couple attended the wedding of Howard Stern and Beth Ostrosky together, but split again in March 2009.

Talmudic Books for Kindle on the Talmud, Bible, Kabbalah and Prayer
The Kindle Edition of the Classic Soncino Talmud in English

Maggid Books has Published "Halakhic Morality: Essays on Ethics and Masorah" by Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik

Maggid books published "Halakhic Morality: Essays on Ethics and Masorah" by my teacher of blessed memory, the Rav.

It is a thoughtful book and one that is as timely today as it was in the 1950s when the Rav first propounded his insights in a series of public lectures and courses on the subject of morality, ethics and Jewish law.

The Rav's newly published collection of essays, presents for example a major distinction, making the point that halakhah applies to the collective people of Israel. But ethics and morality derive from within each individual person. In my view every communal "policy of discrimination" that is justified by people on halachic grounds can engender profound quandaries for an individual on ethical and moral grounds.

The Rav in the title chapter, pp. 181ff., makes it clear that (1) there is no psak halakhah in matters of morality and (2) the mesorah for morality is a personal one transmitted by a sort of cultural osmosis, not via public proclamations, rulings or edicts.

Here is the problem in a nutshell when applying such principles to our lives. There is a moral imperative to fight gender discrimination and eliminate it. And there is a halakhic imperative to perpetuate the ritual and social practices of the past. Resolving this clash is the monumental challenge of our generation. This book will help bring clarity to such discussions, though the Rav does not address them in his presentation of themes and theories of philosophy.

The publisher notes that in this volume’s opening essay, Rabbi Soloveitchik writes:

"Nowadays a basic investigation of morality and ethos would be of great importance. There is a crying need for clarification of many practical problems, both in the individual-private and in the social-ethical realms. There are too many uncertainties in which we live today, uncertainties about what we ought to do. We should try to infer from our ethical tradition certain standards that should govern our conduct. In particular, I notice confusion among rabbis as regards basic problems whose solution cannot be found in the Shulhan Arukh and must rather be inferred by way of deduction from ancient principles and axioms."

Did Beruryah want to be a rabbi?

Beruryah was a great independent, moral, outspoken woman who lived in the time of the Talmud.

She was married to a rabbi. But I wonder now, was she also aspiring to become a rabbi?

We are told that she met with a tragic end, according to a medieval story.

The story briefly reports that Beruryah was "seduced" in a plot by rabbis and rabbinical students in a scheme to discredit her. When her act of immorality became public she could not bear the humiliation and killed herself. More on this in a moment.

But first, an example of Beruryah's legendary morality: the Talmud attributes in one source a moral superiority to Beruryah (aka Beruriah),  the wife of Rabbi Meir, as I summed it up in an short article:

... the rabbinic traditions do portray Beruryah as a sensitive yet assertive figure. The Talmud recounts anecdotes illustrating Beruryah's piety, compassion and wit. In one source she admonishes her husband Meir not to be angry at his enemies and not to pray for their death. She suggests that instead he pray that their sins cease and that they repent (b. Berakhot 10a).

The great rabbi was dressed down by his wife for letting his emotions obscure his ethics.

I wonder if that is why Rashi, the medieval commentator went ahead to discredit Beruryah with this other story that has no antecedent in rabbinic literature that says she was unfaithful to her husband by having sex with his student, and then in shame she committed suicide.

Rashi's commentary to b. 'Avodah Zarah 18b, on the phrase, "And some say because of the Beruryah incident."

One time she [Beruryah] mocked what the sages said [cf. b. Qiddushin 80b], "Women are flighty." He [Meir] said to her, "By your life! You will eventually concede [the correctness of] their words."

He instructed one of his disciples to tempt her to infidelity. He [the disciple] urged her for many days, until she consented.

When the matter became known to her, she strangled herself, while Rabbi Meir fled because of the disgrace.

But wait, wait. I have a bunch of questions about this juicy story. Did she "consent" or did the student finally just force her to submit? Was this a seduction or was it a rape? We have only the testimony of the men, not of the woman who was the target and the victim. What would Beruryah have said to the local police about this incident? We hear no voice at all from her in that brief story.

Indeed it's legitimate to ask if Rashi made up this story out of whole cloth, since it appears nowhere else in rabbinic literature. But even if Rashi had found this anecdote somewhere in an authoritative Midrash collection, I wonder, why did he choose to reproduce it? And why didn't he tell us where he found it? Rashi could have exercised a don't tell policy and left Beruryah's reputation intact. Why didn't he do that?

Rashi is known as one of the leading rabbis ever. He was primarily a commentator, and an anthologizer. But he is considered by many to have been the greatest exegete of all times.

My view is that in no way should we accept that this event was "historical" or "biographical" given the strange nature of the tradition's first appearance in the eleventh century.

The Beruryah incident text describes a cunning premeditated seduction scheme hatched by a jealous and short-tempered husband and executed through his misuse of his authority over his students. All of the blame for this perverse plot of seduction rests on Meir.

And yet, the more I think about this short tale, the more I conclude that no, this pious woman did not consent to sex, and that yes, it is likely that Beruryah was raped by her husband's student who failed after all his attempts to seduce her.

But lucky for Meir, the story is a complete fiction inserted as a bawdy tale by a French rabbi into his Talmudic commentary, perhaps to entertain, or perhaps to teach us a lesson.

If the latter, then it's quite a bizarre and negative lesson in my humble opinion. Rashi's little narrative teaches us that a great rabbinic master hatched a plot to send a student to seduce his wife because she was saying things that mocked a rabbinic teaching about the "flighty" nature and character of all women.

Yes, the storied outcome of Meir's plot was tragic for Beruryah and for him. Was Rashi trying to warn his fellow eleventh century French rabbis not to send their students to seduce their uppity wives because the results could be tragic?

So far that's the best I can come up with to justify even slightly the transmission of such an awful fable. And it begs the question: what was Rashi thinking?

Postscript for 2017:

If Beruryah were alive today, would she go to rabbinic school and seek ordination? Would the right wing rabbinic organizations condemn her for doing that?

Or perhaps if she opted to pursue such a radical path, would her husband engage a prominent New Jersey real estate magnate to hire a male prostitute to seduce her with the intent of blackmailing her.

You do know that those sorts of corrupt immoral schemes can backfire and lead to jail time, in fiction and in reality.

Texts:

You can review the whole corpus of the Talmud's traditions of the great woman, Beruryah, reproduced below in my short encyclopedia article.