Spring Break Photos

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJe0uqVGZJA&feature=share

A Tradition Unlike Any Other

     I just watched a video called "I am Jewish." This man, somewhere in his twenties, just read aloud a poem I assume he wrote himself about Judaism and what it means to be a Jew both religiously, historically, ethnically, and culturally in a matter of minutes. Every single thing he spoke, you could relate to, but the one thing that caught my ear more than anything was a line in which spoke about the ram's horn being blown on Rosh Hashanah and for the umpteenth time, it the final Tekiah Gedolah was blown for a congregation of Jews. In this one moment, in this one instant, in this one second, the passion of Judaism rushed back into me. 

     Tonight is Pesach in which Jews around the world celebrate the Exodus out of Egypt. I was with my Israeli family and here, four generations sat at the same table, yes FOUR. Two great grandfathers got to experience a seder with their great granddaughter and a great granddaughter got to experience a seder with not one, but TWO great grandfathers and in no time at all, she will remember experiences with her at least one if not both. How many of us can say that? How many of us can say that we ate with even one person who was our parents' grandparents? But that's not the point. The point is that on this day, in this year 2012, we still celebrate in the exact same way that our ancestors celebrated the Exodus of our people from bondage fifty years ago, two hundred years ago, a thousand years ago and even fifteen hundred years ago. Fifteen hundred years ago, the ancestors of the Jews today ate a hard boiled egg, maror, matzah, charoset, had a lambshank on the seder plank and told the story of the Exodus and sang Deyeinu. Do I know if this actually true? Of course not, but our traditions come from somewhere… 

     One of my roommates got into a semi-heated argument earlier in the semester about lineage. I said that in Judaism, your religion is determined by the mother so if your mother is Jewish then you are Jewish. If she is not, then you are not. Plain and simple. That is our tradition. My roommate said that the only reason that tradition was started was because back when Judaism was young, it was not possible to determine the father of a child, but it was possible to determine the mother of the child. Now that we have the technology of such things like paternity tests, that tradition is now flawed and negated and we should consider a person Jewish even if only their father is Jewish. I had a rare occurrence of ignorance in the matter as I asked him where he heard this and he told me "college." I immediately spat it away with sheer ignorance with the conception that a college professor could teach me about MY religion and MY traditions. But then it occurred to me that it didn't matter because even if that is true, we do not simply throw away 3000 years of tradition because certain technology exists. Our whole religion is based on tradition. Everything we do is based on tradition and we cannot lose that because technology in one country is further along than in others or technology is further along in this year than it was fifty or hundred or five hundred years ago. We lose our connection to each other today and we lose our connection to our ancestors when we let things like this interfere with our tradition. 

     I was once asked by two very passionate feminists and progressives why I do not speak the matriarchs in the Amidah prayer. They are both feminists in the modern world as well as in Judaism. In the Amidah prayer, in the conservative and orthodox chumash, one states the three patriarchs and the three patriarchs only: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. But in the reform chumash, the four matriarchs are added: Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel, and Leah. While working at a Reform Jewish summer camp, during Tefilah, I chose to say the original Amidah and not the modified one (which includes changes to other words as well throughout the prayer.) When they asked why I don't say the matriarchs, I response with one simple word: tradition. The head of the Israeli staff on my Israel Study Tour trip had an issue with this when I asked. She said that she was constantly torn between being a feminist and keeping to tradition. The Amidah had existed as a prayer for around 2,000 years and all of sudden, we decide to change it? Who are we to change a tradition that is over two millennia old because we think it's offensive? 

     Jews throughout history have needed to assimilate to their surroundings and their environment for survival. Learning to dress the same as the goyim, to speak the language, to learn trades that were easily mobile, all for the sake of keeping the Jewish religion alive. Today, millions of Jews decide to not cover their heads, to not pray three times a day, to not keep kosher, and many other things for the sake of convenience. It is not convenient to be an Orthodox Jew I will admit, which is why I do not adhere to most of the rules of Judaism, but I am still a Jew. I choose my Judaism and I have assimilated in order to not be ostracized by my peers and my environment. Say what you will about the nonexistence of anti-Semitism, but recent events have obviously proven otherwise and I will not subject myself to that for the sake of looking modest and not eating shrimp or a cheeseburger. But changing a prayer? How does changing a prayer help Jews assimilate into the community better? How does changing a prayer, a tradition over 2,000 years old help keep the Jewish religion alive? It doesn't. It kills it. How does changing the law of maternal right vs paternal right progress the Jewish people? Well the obvious answer is if we consider people with Jewish fathers and non-Jewish mothers to be Jewish, we'd have more Jews in the world, but Israel already acknowledges them as Jews and those have a right to go to Israel as Jews. But Israel is separate from Judaism. To be Israeli is not to be Jewish and to be Jewish is not to be Israeli. The religion and the state are connected, but not intertwined to each other. 

     What next? What will the progressive movement do to Judaism next? I know I sound crazy, but Judaism is BASED on one simple thing: that Jews around the entire world are connected to each other by one thing: our common past… our tradition. And if we continue to change our tradition here in America because we believe to be progressive, well then we lose that connection. We're not all connected just because we're Jews. We're all connected as Jews because we share history. We share history of oppression, of persecution, of success, of peace, of struggle, of adversity, of patriotism, of culture, and tradition.

Jerusalem

Peace Throughout the Land

There's an amazing thing about Jerusalem, specifically the Old City, and even more specifically, the Western Wall itself. If you don't have at least one spiritual experience while at the Kotel and at least three realizations as a whole while you're in Jerusalem, you're doing something wrong. I myself had three, but I'm going to talk about one right now. While in the United States, we only really see one type of Orthodox Jew. They all wear the same hat, they wear suits and look like Orthodox Jews from Crown Heights, New York. If you go to Israel however, you see all sorts of Orthodox Jews. The facial hair, the payot, the hat, the clothes, everything. There are variations and I always wondered what these meant. At first, I thought that the different view on how your supposed to look had something to do with different interpretations of Judaism. But then I asked an orthodox Jew who lives in Jerusalem and it actually has nothing to do with that. It's simply about where they're from. Each of these Jews who live in Jerusalem dress differently to show pride and show their individuality of their origins and their own heritage. But here's the greatest part. As I was praying at the Kotel I looked around at the different minyans and you just have to take one look and notice that any group of men praying do not consist of one type of Jew. Any minyan consists of multiple types of Jews with big furry hats, with long payot, no payot, black hats, beards, no beards, suits, long black coats, long white coats, long white cloaks, modern orthodox, and even Jews like me. But the amazing thing is that no matter where we are from, what our beliefs are, how strictly we follow Jewish law, Kosher laws, Shomer Shabbas, or anything else, in the end, we are all Jews and when the time came to dance and sing, no one cared where I was from or asked me how much I follow Judaism, they welcomed me into their circle. Think about this for a moment: Here are a group of people that live in a single place and share something that is important to all of them. They all come from different parts of the world with different customs and who all look differently. These people are different in so many ways, but because they are all JEWS, they not only tolerate each other, they not only accept one another, but they welcome and embrace one another without question. 

     Seeing and thinking about this, I realized that is what we all need; communities, states, countries, and the world itself. It's not just about tolerance anymore. Before this, I believed that in order to have peace, we all needed to simply tolerate each other. I didn't believe that we needed to get along, we just needed to tolerate one another. As long as beliefs are tolerated, then we will all be equal. After seeing this, I don't believe that anymore. I don't believe that it's about tolerance, but acceptance. When someone asks you, "Do you like that person?" and you respond with, "Well… I tolerate him." That seems different than simply answering with a yes. The idea of tolerance implies that you allow them to exist around you, but you don't truly embrace them as equal. This is what we must push in our communities, in our country, and in our world. We can no longer just "tolerate" one another, but embrace each other as equals using our similarities to bind us together rather than using our differences to separate us. There are so many things that differentiate the Jews in Jerusalem and yet, they emphasize the commonality of Judaism to not just tolerate or accept one another, but welcome everyone with open arms. We must do the same. If we want peace between us, we can no longer emphasize the differences between us as Jews and Christians and Atheists and Muslims and Republicans and Democrats, but as Americans and move forward as such. And in this world, we cannot emphasize our differences as Jews, Christians, and Muslims or as Americans, Israelis, Saudis, Iranians, but as HUMAN BEINGS. And if we move forward as such, peace will reign throughout our planet and we can make this a better world for our children and our children's children.

Photos of the Desert

The Settlement Issue

Today in class, as my mind wandered from the mundane class discussion, I started to think about the settlement issue. It's an extremely complicated issue no doubt, but the main argument AGAINST settlements is the idea that they are obstacles to peace. Up until now, I have believed the same. I am not quite certain anymore. There are two issues: One is why is Israel allowed to settle there and are they actually an obstacle to peace? Throughout history, the issues that war was fought have evolved. The most basic issue was the issue of land. The more land you had, the more power you had. Without going into a shallow history lesson of war, land is not something that is fought over anymore, except in the case of Israel and Palestine. The crux of the issue is that of land and who does it belong to? Does it belong to the Jews? Does it belong to the Muslims? Does it belong to the Palestinians? In 1948, the a peace treaty was presented and was basically all about which land belonged to whom. The Jews had some land and the Palestinians had some land. The Jews accepted it and the Palestinians rejected it and fought the Jews. When you have land and you fight to gain more land and then you lose, you lose the land you originally had. This is the basic concept of war. It has happened throughout history. If the issue you're fighting over is land and you lose, you've made yourself vulnerable to lose your own and sometimes you do. So why is it an issue for Israel to build on land that it rightfully won? Jordan and Syria and Egypt were parties to the war in 1967. Their goal in participation of that war was to eradicate Israel and reclaim the land for Arabs. They lost. Their goal was to gain more land and in return, they lost their own. That's how war works. If it didn't, then there would be no risk for a government to go to war. Egypt lost the Sinai and then was returned to them for peace. Jordan gave up the West Bank to Israel and got peace and yet Syria and Palestinians believe that Israel should just give up their land because they asked. So my first question is: If Israel rightfully won the land in war, why should they not be able to build on it? Do you believe that if Jordan or Syria or Egypt had won the 1967 War, they would've said, "Oh now that we've successfully massacred you, you can have the land and we'll go home." No. Of course not. If Palestine had won the war in 1948, would they have welcomed the Jews with open arms? No. Because that's not how war works. You win, you get the land. You lose, you find somewhere else to go. But that's no longer the issue because even if Israel has the right to build settlements, the issue is: Should they build settlements and should they evict people from the West Bank? 

     Now obviously I do not believe that they are good for peace, but I wonder if they should be an issue at all. My question is, "Why are the West Bank settlements an obstacle to peace?" Why do the Jews who live in the West Bank need to leave and Israeli settlements need to stop? Now I don't believe that Israel should continue to build settlements in the West Bank, but I would think that the Palestinians would enjoy the free construction. By Israel building in the West Bank, all that does is create more areas for Palestinians to live at the cost of the Israeli government and no cost to the Palestinians once a Palestinian state is created in the West Bank. Aside from that argument, which is not that serious, there is an underlying issue in the request of removal of all settlers from the West Bank: The refusal of acceptance of a minority within the state of Palestine. Does Palestine believe that they cannot have a state with minorities living there? It seems that Palestine only wants a state for themselves if no one else lives there, but Palestine. Why does this matter? Some of you are probably asking me, "Well doesn't Israel want to remain a Jewish state?" Of course it does, but it does this with minorities within it. There is a secular minority, a Christian minority, a Muslim minority, an Arab minority, along with many other smaller ones. Every single country lives with at least some of its population (however small it may be) being a minority and yet Palestine believes that it cannot survive with a Jewish one… This is the real issue. From this we can conclude that it is not the settlements that are the obstacle to peace. No they do not further the peace process by any means, but they should not be a condition of peace. The only thing that should be a condition of peace is the removal of the IDF from the West Bank, but peace can be attained without the settlements becoming an issue.