Life Advice from a Long-time Swimmer: Swim 100 laps every day

The Tosefta quotes Rabbi Meir (2nd century CE Talmudic scholar) saying that everyone should strive to recite 100 blessings each day. It then goes on to enumerate them - mostly in daily prayers.

Let's play with the word for blessings. They are berakhot ברכות in ancient Hebrew. Okay then. In modern Hebrew the laps that one swims in a pool are called berechot בריכות. A blessing is a berachah and a pool - and a lap in a pool - is a berechah.

I playfully read the ancient Talmud this way: Don't say 100 berakhot (blessings), say 100 berechot (laps).

Footnote about Meir from Wikipedia: Meir was buried in a standing position near the Kinneret. It is said that he asked to be buried this way so when the Final Redemption occurs, Rabbi Meir would be spared the trouble of arising from his grave and could just walk out to greet the Jewish Messiah. He requested that he be buried in Israel by the seashore so that the water that washes the shores should also lap his grave (Jerusalem Talmud, Kelaim 9:4).

And so I have crafted some Talmudic encouragement for myself to swim 100 laps a day. On many days each year, I do get to that goal.

Here are a few of my past reflections on swimming...

Yahrzeit of my mother Edith Zahavy

We are observing today the 26th Yahrzeit of my mother Edith Zahavy (aleha hashalom).

We miss her so very much. She would have loved to see the progress of her children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and take pride in all of their accomplishments. She would have loved to read books to her great-grandchildren and to watch them play and grow.

She was born in NYC and attended the public schools in Washington Heights. She watched from her classroom window as they built the George Washington Bridge.

She graduated from Hunter High School, Hunter College and went on to a career in public service at the OPA and then into the field education. 

Together with my dad, she founded the Park East Day School when my father was rabbi at the Park East Synagogue, then called Congregation Zichron Ephraim. She subsequently taught in NYC public schools for many years.

She is interred on Har Hamenuchot in Jerusalem. Her beautiful memorial photo site is here.

Understanding the Extensive Connections Between Religions and Terrorism?

In light of the awful terrorist attacks that have been launched once again in Israel I thought it urgent to repost this item.

What are the connections between religions and terrorism? 

That's a big question. I tried to answer, explain and understand it in the past through my extensive scholarly research and my academic teaching.

Here is a selected list of my blog posts of study resources in the analysis of the connections between terrorism and religion (compiled when I taught a course on religion and terrorism at FDU a few years ago). Click on each one to read it.

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

I have studied this subject at great length and taught courses in the area because I believe that understanding can help us resolve tragic conflicts. 

I also believe in the power of prayer to help us bring peace to the world.

I recommend to you all of my books: My Home Page

Best Seller: Elegant new 750 page edition of "The Zohar in English"

Often the Best Seller #1 in Zohar 

The Zohar in English Paperback!

by Tzvee Zahavy (Author), Maurice Simon (Translator), Harry Sperling (Translator), Paul P. Levertoff (Translator), & 1 more

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The Zohar is called the greatest work of Jewish Mysticism. From the Middle Ages to today people of all faiths have studied and pored over the Zohar to explore the mysteries of God and the universe and to seek knowledge of when the redemption of the world will arrive.

The Zohar is a mystical novel whose hero is Rabbi Simeon son of Yohai, a rabbi and disciple of Rabbi Akiva from second century Israel. The original Aramaic work describes how Rabbi Simeon and his companions wander through the hills of Galilee, discovering and sharing mystical secrets of the Torah.

This large format 750 page edition presents the entire work in one volume in eloquent English as translated by several great scholars of the 20th century.

\Paperback

• Amazon Best Seller

The United Nations Resolution 181 (II). Future government of Palestine on 29 November 1947. Created a Palestinian State. Arabs rejected it.

UNITED NATIONS

A

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	General Assembly
		A/RES/181(II) 29 November 1947

Resolution 181 (II). Future government of Palestine

A

The General Assembly,

Having met in special session at the request of the mandatory Power to constitute and instruct a special committee to prepare for the consideration of the question of the future government of Palestine at the second regular session;

Having constituted a Special Committee and instructed it to investigate all questions and issues relevant to the problem of Palestine, and to prepare proposals for the solution of the problem, and

Having received and examined the report of the Special Committee (document A/364) ^1/ including a number of unanimous recommendations and a plan of partition with economic union approved by the majority of the Special Committee,

Considers that the present situation in Palestine is one which is likely to impair the general welfare and friendly relations among nations;

Takes note of the declaration by the mandatory Power that it plans to complete its evacuation of Palestine by 1 August 1948;

Recommends to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out below;

Requests that

(a) The Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation;

(b) The Security Council consider, if circumstances during the transitional period require such consideration, whether the situation in Palestine constitutes a threat to the peace. If it decides that such a threat exists, and in order to maintain international peace and security, the Security Council should supplement the authorization of the General Assembly by taking measures, under Articles 39 and 41 of the Charter, to empower the United Nations Commission, as provided in this resolution, to exercise in Palestine the functions which are assigned to it by this resolution;

(c) The Security Council determine as a threat to the peace, breach of the peace or act of aggression, in accordance with Article 39 of the Charter, any attempt to alter by force the settlement envisaged by this resolution;

(d) The Trusteeship Council be informed of the responsibilities envisaged for it in this plan;

Calls upon the inhabitants of Palestine to take such steps as may be necessary on their part to put this plan into effect;

Appeals to all Governments and all peoples to refrain from taking action which might hamper or delay the carrying out of these recommendations, and

Authorizes the Secretary-General to reimburse travel and subsistence expenses of the members of the Commission referred to in Part I, Section B, paragraph 1 below, on such basis and in such form as he may determine most appropriate in the circumstances, and to provide the Commission with the necessary staff to assist in carrying out the functions assigned to the Commission by the General Assembly.

My Jewish Standard Dear Rabbi Zahavy Column for October 2016: Binging at Weddings and Not Believing in Sin

My Jewish Standard Dear Rabbi Zahavy Column for October 2016: 
Binging at Weddings and Not Believing in Sin

Dear Rabbi Zahavy,

I went to a big Orthodox Jewish family wedding recently in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. The music was so loud that some of my relatives, who had expected it, brought along earplugs. There was so much food at the smorgasbord and the main meal that the next day I weighed myself and saw I had gained more than three pounds in one night.

I’m tempted to turn down invitations to future frum family simchas just to keep my hearing intact and my waistline under control. Is that a reasonable course of action?

Binging in Bergenfield

Dear Binging,

Sure you can skip family weddings to preserve your health and well-being, and you should do that if you have no other solution. But some of your kin seem to have found modalities that allow them to participate and preserve their hearing. Surely ear plugs are an option for you too. Why not avail yourself of them?

And regarding the food, you know that you do not have to eat all of it! One possible alternative is to attend the smorg and the chuppah and gracefully decline the elaborate dinner that follows. Who needs to drive home at midnight from Brooklyn anyway? Of course, doing that you will miss the chance to bond and share at greater length with your family. But with such loud bands, how much schmoozing could you do with the relatives anyway?

My Puffin Foundation Lecture on Religion and Terrorism

2023 update: I will never forget it. It changed our world. 9/11 is a terrible day for us all. Every year. I saw the second plane hit while I was driving in to work from the hill across the river. I saw the towers fall a short time later from my office window in Jersey City. Just know well that the terrorists acted in the name of Islam. Do not ever minimize or forget this. See the last five pages of my PPT for salient details: MAKING AN ACT OF TERROR INTO A SACRED COSMIC RITUAL. Awful horrible unforgivable.

My lecture presentation link is here:

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1KrlfOTUK4hLW21pwiMcBdAOxG_8SDEuW

My numerous blog posts about terrorism and religion are linked here.

Rabbi Dr. Zev Zahavy - Yahrzeit Number 11

Photos

Rabbi Dr. Zev Zahavy

New York City 

September 8, 1918 - May 1, 2012

Nine Minute ZZ Slideshow
edited by Barak Zahavy
200+ ZZ Sermons cited in the New York Times - Download PDF

edited by Tzvee Zahavy

The Mishnah in a new and affordable English Edition

A new English translation of Mishnah edited by Robert Goldenberg (OBM), Shaye Cohen, and Hayim Lapin has been published for a hard to justify or afford price of $645.

In the Introduction two of the editors heap high praise on Rev. Herbert Danby's classic translation, which I edited and released and is now available in a beautiful new edition for $29. Here is what the other editors say about Danby.

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The Rev. Herbert Danby

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[From page 8] "In 1933, the Clarendon Press of Oxford University published The Mishnah Translated from the Hebrew with Introduction and Brief Explanatory Notes, by Herbert Danby, a volume of some 900 pages. It is a mark of the quality of Danby's work that it remains in print almost ninety years later. Our translation is completely independent of his, but we are aware that we are walking in his footsteps. For the Hebrew-less reader, unaccustomed to Mishnaic rhetoric and technical terminology, Danby's translation, [is] excellent in itself...

"Danby was a master translator, but the modern reader demands more from a translation than Danby provides. The goal of our Mishnah translation is to equal Danby's in quality and to surpass it in utility. In tribute to Herbert Danby, a philo-Semitic Christian Hebraist, we have retained almost unchanged his index of biblical passages and his table of weights, measures, and currency. We would have liked to retain his subject index, but we reluctantly came to the conclusion that it is too closely keyed to Danby's own translation and notes for it to be usable in a new setting.

"For biographical information about the Rev. Danby and an appreciation of his work, see the excellent article by Shalom Goldman in the journal Modern Judaism ("The Rev. Herbert Danby (1889-1953): Hebrew Scholar, Zionist, Christian Missionary," Modern Judaism-A Journal of Jewish Ideas and Experience, 27:2 (May 2007), pp. 219-245)."

From Goldman's article - we garner these insights:

"Danby’s most useful and widely-used contribution to the study of Jewish texts was his Mishnah translation. This translation quickly became a standard text in the English-speaking world and it remains in print seventy years after its publication. When, in 1988, Yale University Press published a new translation of the Mishnah, its editor, Jacob Neusner, made it clear that ‘‘publishing this fresh translation of the Mishnah constitutes no criticism of the great and pioneering translation by Herbert Danby. His translation has one fundamental flaw . . .He does not make the effort to translate the Hebrew into English words following the syntax of Mishnaic Hebrew . . . that is what the present translation, into American English, provides.’’ While Neusner’s translation takes us closer to the syntactical structure of the Hebrew of the Mishnah, Danby’s translation renders that text more immediately accessible and for that reason it remains the translation of record."

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My reaction is that it's good to see nice words about a classic Mishnah English Translation by Danby. But mystifying and a bit disappointing that the editors of the $645 edition have nothing to say in their introduction about numerous other recent and brilliant translations of Mishnah into English by for instance - Rabbi Steinsalz, or the edition by Artscroll (Schottenstein Edition of the Mishnah Elucidated - Complete 23 Volume Set), or the academic work edited by Jacob Neusner (which I contributed to), or the set by Pinhas Kehati, or editions rendering Mishnah into English by dozens of other scholars and rabbis.

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I recommend you go immediately and get the new edition from Amazon for $36. It is a gorgeous book.

Post-Pandemic Kohelet: An Israelite Form of Meditation: Ecclesiastes is a cynical reflection on life’s futility that we can resonate to now more than ever.

I think you will like this article published on TheTorah.com! Kohelet: An Israelite Form of Meditation. Ecclesiastes is a cynical reflection on life’s futility. The constant sonorous repetition, visualizations, and references to breath serve as a sustained meditation to help free the reader’s soul from the agonizing struggle of life.