madlik

May 22, 2024 · 7:34 pm

Times for Torah

parshat behar – leviticus 25

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz for brunch on Thursday May 23rd at 11:00am Eastern on Clubhouse. Rabbi Mintz is in Israel and will share impressions of his recent visit to the only Haredi Hesder Yeshiva. The Talmud suggests that we set aside specific times for Torah study and we will use the Sabbatical year to focus on different ways that our tradition has offered for integrating study into civil society and military service.

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every week and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This week’s parsha is Behar, which means “at the Mountain”. While Rabbi Mintz is not at the Mountain, he is in Israel and will share impressions of his recent visit to the only Haredi Hesder Yeshiva. The Talmud suggests that we set aside specific times for Torah study and we will use the Sabbatical year referenced in the parsha to focus on different ways that our tradition has offered for integrating study into civil society and military service. So join us for Times for Torah.

So, Rabbi Baruch Haba from the Holy Land of Israel, how are you doing and where are you?

1:08 – AM:

I’m in Jerusalem, sitting in Rechavia, sitting in my in-law’s apartment in Rechavia, and it’s really nice to be able to share with everybody some of the highlights of my trip and to talk about Parshat Behar. We bring everybody together. Last week you were in L.A., this week I’m here, and we’re looking forward to a great discussion.

1:30 – GS:

Fantastic. We were discussing what was going to be the subject matter today, and you had suggested that since you had visited a Hesder Haredi yeshiva, and we’re going to parse that and explain what Hesder is, and we’ve discussed Haredi, but we can refresh our memory, and you’re going to tell us about your visit, but I thought that we would put it into context. Because all of the different movements that we’ve seen and that we’ve surveyed and that we hear about in the news with regard to this kind of quasi-conflict between studying Torah and serving in the military, studying Torah and being in the job market, all comes down to the Torah’s really high regard for study for study’s sake. On the one hand, and on the other hand, the integration of study into what is a textbook, and I’m referring to the Torah now, of a full life, a full life for an individual, a full life for a society. So, I thought we would just quickly glance at the beginning of the parashah. I said it was Bahar and that’s because it says that God spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai, that’s the mountain, And it’s an important speech, obviously. He says, speak to the Israelite people and say to them, when you enter the land that I assigned to you, the land shall observe a Sabbath, a Sabbath of God. Six years you may sow your field and six years you may prune your vineyards and gather in the field, but in the seventh year the land shall have a Shabbat of complete rest, a Shabbat of Hashem.” And most of us probably know this concept from modern-day academia. I mean, I think probably it is something that has retained value within other professions as well. This idea of taking off time from that which you do on a regular basis, every seven years is what the sabbatical has given us, and doing something different. In academia, it means maybe not teaching and just doing pure research or traveling. So forth and so on. So, this is a Torah concept that has had legs, but it also has had legs with regard to actual study of texts and traditions. And that’s kind of interesting because in the text itself, Rabbi, there’s really no reference, number one, to what you do in the sabbatical year. It tells you what you can’t do. All it says is it’s to Hashem. What do you feel were some of the traditions of what you were supposed to do during that seventh year?

4:37 – AM:

Yeah, so that’s a really interesting point. In Judaism, in the cycle of Judaism, it seems to be that the cycle is around days in which you’re not supposed to do. Shabbat, you’re not supposed to do work. Shemitah, you’re not supposed to work the field. Yovel, the Jubilee year in this week’s parasha, is a time when you’re supposed to free the slaves. It seems almost as if holiness is a time that we let go, that we don’t do, which is kind of the opposite of what you might think. We kind of think that you have to be very active. To be holy, you have to be very active. But it seems to be that holiness is when you pull back and you kind of realize that it’s God’s world. We don’t need to be doing all the time to make things valuable. So, I think that that point is a really interesting point. And what do you do? What were they supposed to do? So, whenever you are not allowed to do certain things like on Shabbat, like on the sabbatical year, like on the Jubilee year, there’s the idea that you’re supposed to take care of those who are less fortunate, right? So Shemitah, the rule, one of the things about Shemitah, it’s not here, but one of the things about Shemitah is that all loans are canceled. Now, all loans are canceled, means if someone borrows money from you, so they don’t have to pay you back in the Shemitah year. That’s an amazing thing. That’s a form of charity. Because today we talk about loans, we talk about loans for business, like an investment. But in the Torah, they didn’t know about that. In the Torah, all loans are forms of charity. So that’s great that all loans are canceled. So, what are you supposed to do during the sabbatical year? You’re supposed to give charity. And that charity is forced upon you because all loans are cancelled.

6:51 – GS:

But you’re right, it doesn’t tell you what you have to do. The Bible doesn’t say you need to go to synagogue, it doesn’t say you need to study and read Chumash and Rashi. It leaves that to our imagination. And as I did a quick look at all of the commentaries and traditions, what you said is clearly one of them. I found also something, because it says it’s to Hashem, to God, it compared it a little bit to the manna, where the manna didn’t fall on the Sabbath day and you had to have faith in God that he would provide. And so, if you’re an agricultural society, and this gets back even a little bit to Joseph, the seven good years and the seven bad years. You have to have faith that the produce that God will grant you during the prior years will be enough to serve you during the year of fallow. So that was another one that I found. Clearly it does connect it to coming into the land. And so, from a national religious point of view, if you look at many Zionist thinkers up until today, the idea is it teaches us to respect the value of Eretz Yisrael, of the land that God gave to us. If you look at it in terms of environmentalism, there are environmentalists who talk about the Shemitah as recognizing that the earth belongs to the Lord, that we are only guardians of it. So, a lot of people take a lot of different things from it, which is maybe the whole point. We don’t always have to be told what to do. But I was trying to connect the dots and find a connection to the way I started, the academic sabbatical. And the closest that I could come was a Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Kalischer. I believe you’ve quoted him in the past with regard—

AM: Yes, we have. He was an early Zionist

GS: and what he writes is, the liberation from the yoke of work would give them the opportunity for studying Torah and wisdom. Those who are not students will be occupied with crafts and building and supplying these needs in Eretz Yisrael. Those endowed with special skills will invent new methods in this free time for the benefit of the world.” I was just blown away by that, because he kind of says it all in the sense, when I read the text through that lens, I realized that what he takes from it is, you get stuck in the day to day, the planting, the harvesting, the cutting, the mowing, and you can’t think big. You can’t think about the big questions of how do we step back and do a process analysis. I love this idea that he says those people who are capable, he’s almost talking about tech, that you can come up with a way to give us more leisure time. If the industrial revolution is anything, it was that. It was to free man by using technology to have more free time. Which of course, begs the question, what do you do in the free time? But he clearly starts by saying, studying Torah and wisdom. And I’ve put the quote in the source sheet. I’ve also, as you say, he was an early Zionist. He was before Herzl. He was before many of them, and he was a really very vocal and very thoughtful Zionist, and I put a little bit of an article in the notes that I think makes for fascinating reading. But I think ultimately, and this is also the way I started, is, you know, we talk about the division of labor is the source of modern economic systems. I think it is pretty clear that what the law of the Shemitah does is it divides labor from something else. There’s a time to work and there’s a time not to work. And I think this concept of studying Torah in a designated time is probably at the source of all of the different methods that we’re going to describe today, the different philosophies of integrating Torah learning into the modern state of Israel. And what the modern state of Israel and our parasha have in common is that these laws could not apply in the desert. They are not theoretical laws. These laws only apply when you’re in the land, whether that land is the land of Israel or you’re part of civil society, you’re engaged. So, there’s a famous Talmud in Shabbat 31a, and it says, with regard to the world to come, Rava said, after departing from this world, when a person is brought to judgment for the life he lived in this world, they say to him in the order of that verse, he’s referring back to a particular verse, first question that they ask you at the pearly gates, Did you conduct business faithfully? Wow, that is the first question. And of course, that presupposes that most people have been engaged in business, somehow providing livelihood, somehow providing a way to live. Next question at the pearly gate. Did you designate times for Torah study? Kevata itim l’torah. Again, getting back to what I said a second ago, it’s not did you study your whole life, did you study every minute, yomam velaylah, it says kovea itim l’torah. And then it says, did you engage in procreation? Did you await salvation? Did you engage in pilpalta b’chachma, in dialectics of wisdom? And did you have fear of God? But korvea etim l’torah, Rabbi, that is a biggie. That is, it’s not biblical. It’s rabbinic. It comes from this innocuous piece of Talmud. But clearly, that is the marching order of every traditional Jew, which is you put on tefillin, you eat kosher, but at the end of the day, did you study Torah today? Did your week go by, and do you have a regular (fixed) time that you study Torah? It’s a biggie, isn’t it?

13:20 – AM:

I mean, it has become a biggie, and you know, you make a very interesting point. It’s not really biblical. I mean, there is a law in the Torah to study the laws and to teach, but the idea of kavat ha-itim la-Torah, to study every day, like the daf yomi, to study every day, is clearly a rabbinic idea, that the rabbis thought it was important to continue to study. And of course, as you’re getting to, that became a tradition of yeshiva. And that tradition probably goes back about 1,500 years, that they had yeshivas where people would study all day long. Now, in the old traditions, you would study as a young man, and then you would go to work at a certain time. But what happened after the Holocaust, there was a feeling that so many Torah scholars had been killed that we needed to put an extra emphasis on Torah study. And therefore, and especially in Israel, there developed an idea that people should study all the time to the exclusion of working, to the exclusion of getting an education, to the exclusion of working. And that, you know, in Israel, in America, that’s not a viable option. Because in America, education costs money, you have to send your kids to school, medical insurance costs money, means you need a job, you need to function. But in Israel, all those things are provided by the state. So, you really can manage not making all that much money. So, what happened was that their wives went to work and they continued to study. And literally there were people in their 50s and 60s who were just studying Torah all day long. And as we’ve talked about before, now, after October 7th, this has become extremely controversial because one of the issues in the state of Israel today is that it doesn’t seem as if there are enough soldiers. Meaning, that unfortunately, you know, there’s a war in the south in Gaza, and there’s a threat in the north, and we just literally don’t have enough soldiers to protect us up north and down south. I just was speaking to my nephew, who just finished his reserve duty. He said it’s a real issue. We don’t have enough soldiers. So, there’s been a big political push to force the Haredim the ultra-Orthodox who were not serving in the army to serve in the army. And many of the leaders of that community have said that, you know, you’re not allowed to serve in the army, you have to study Torah all day long.

16:08 – GS:

So, I want to call on Yochanan who raised his hand, but before I do, I just want to pick up on one item that you mentioned. You said after the Holocaust. I don’t think I and maybe many of our listeners are sensitized to this, but maybe two weeks ago when we had Menachem Brumbach, and he talked about two major movements of the 20th century. He talked about Zionism and he talked about Haredi Judaism. And I think that most of us have kind of drunk the Kool-Aid served by the Haredi community, that they are the carriers of a thousand-year-old tradition, which is kind of strange if you look at them because they’re dressed in the garb of a certain era in Eastern Europe. But what he was saying, and he is Haredi, is actually this is post-Holocaust. It might have started with the beginning of the Enlightenment, but clearly some of these reflexes and defensive mechanisms, such as for the first time in Jewish history, I’ll say it, dedicating a time to study all day and having people supported by others to study all day. He called it a new movement. Yochanan, I’d love to hear your insight into the discussion.

17:26 – Yochanan Lowen (rav dude on Clubhouse)

Oh, thanks for having me, Rabbi and Geoffrey. I know Menachem Bombach, he was writing to me, he was messaging me a few months ago. Yeah, he’s definitely correct. It’s a new movement. It never existed before in Jewish history. Obviously, there were the idea of a Kollel or a yeshiva, existed already, Rabbi Yisroel Salanter, they say, and Rabbi Yitzchak Elchanan founded the first Kollel in Kovno, they say. But this system today that everyone in the Haredi system has to go to yeshiva until marriage and being in Kollel for the first two years after marriage, this type of system never existed before in Jewish history. And many other elements in the Haredi system never existed before. So, it’s obviously a new movement. And to be honest, it’s a cult. Maybe some people will be triggered by me saying that, but that’s the truth. Me, my wife and children are considered the first family to leave this fold. There’s a documentary about us called I Want to Know. It’s available on Vimeo, 58 minutes. I have a lot to talk about it, but I will stop now.

18:52 – GS:

But I think that it is amazing that it was a new movement, and where we want to go today is I want to hear first from the rabbi about his experience with Haredim and Hesder. Rabbi, maybe you can give us the background of what the Hesder movement was, how it started, and give us a sense of how revolutionary this is, and then give us your impressions would be really welcome.

19:22 – AM:

So after the founding of the state of Israel, you know, there were the after the war of independence. There was a mandatory draft in the state of Israel, meaning that every young man and woman who was 18 years old had to serve in the Israel Defense Forces. And they needed to have that because, you know, they were defending the different borders and they needed to have a draft. There was, starting probably in the 1960s, There were a group of religious Zionist rabbis who went to the government with the following proposal. They said, we want our young men to serve in the army, but we don’t want them to leave the world of Torah study. So, we’d like to create a program, which is called Hesder, and the word Hesder means a program. Hesder, like the Seder, it’s a program. We’d like to create a program which would have them spend, instead of three years, five years. And in those five years, they will serve in the military for half the time, and they will study in yeshiva. So, they go to yeshiva for nine months, then they go to the army for a year, then they go back to yeshiva, then they go back to the army. And this program started, I think probably Kerem B’Yavnah was the first Hesder yeshiva. But now there are several thousand young men from Israel studying in these yeshivot and serving in the army. And you know that because, you know, there were unfortunately some of the people, what is it, 275 soldiers have been killed in the past seven months in Gaza. A number of them are studying in these yeshivot, in these hesder yeshivot. And they were serving in the army. Now, the Haredim, the ultra-Orthodox, never participated in this Hesder program because they believed that you have to learn all the time, you have to study Torah all the time. There was no time for army service. About six or seven years ago, there’s a rabbi, an American-born rabbi. His father was actually a principal of the Yeshiva Day School in Miami, Florida. His father’s name was Rabbi Alexander Gross. He was one of the pioneers of Jewish education in America in the 1940s and the 1950s. His son is a man in his 60s. His name is Rabbi Carmi Gross. He’s American, Yeshiva University educated. But now he’s kind of more part of the Haredi community. He proposed and then he started a Hesder yeshiva for Haredim, which means the following. He takes young men, 18 years old, who have gone through the Haredi system. Now, there are two ways to go through the Haredi system. You can go through the Haredi system and study secular studies and take these compulsory tests at the end of your high school called Bagrut, and that gives you a high school degree. And there were some of these Haredim who just studied all the time. They didn’t study secular studies at all. And it was open to any one of these. And he started a school seven years ago. And in this school, they study Torah, Talmud basically, from 9 a.m. To 3 p.m. At 3 p.m., they join a program and they study math and computers. And they do this for two years. They have this program, almost like Yeshiva University, study Torah from nine to three, then from three to eight, they study computers and math. After two years, they get some kind of degree. It’s not a BA, but they get some kind of degree. And they enlist in the Israel Defense Forces. And they serve in the Israel Defense Forces. They don’t serve as infantry, they don’t serve as soldiers on the battlefield, but they serve as people in communications, in computers, in all those desk jobs that are so important for the military. And of course, that’s critical for us, because every Haredi who would sit at a computer frees up the person who’s now sitting on the computer and would allow them to serve in the army. So therefore, this is really what they need. If they could have a few thousand of these people, it’d make a huge difference in the army. And this rabbi, Rabbi Carmi Gross, he actually, he began this program. There, I went there on Monday. There are 80 students in this program. There were about 50 who were there because the other 30 are serving in the army now. It’s the wartime. And you know, all the things that they’re doing, all the desk, you know, all the computer things they’re doing means that there were additional people who were able to serve in the military. And the best part of this is, you know, in the Haredi community, The young men are not educated, so they go to yeshiva, they study, they study, they study, they get married, they have children, but they’re not educated, they’re not ready to serve in the workforce. This is what Rabbi Menachem Bombach talked about. How do they serve in the workforce? So Rabbi Bombach has this amazing online program where they can actually get a degree, they can study online, and they can get a degree and they can go into the workforce. This is another model where they can get a degree, they can work in the army. When they finish the army, they then can get a job in high tech, in computers, in all these things. These are jobs that were not open to the Haredim because they weren’t educated up to now. So, this, this Hesder Yeshiva is actually changing really the eco center of the Haredi approach to the army and to, you know, and to entering the workforce. Now, obviously, you know, there are however many hundreds of thousands of Haredim in Israel, and this is 80 people. So, it happens very slowly. But just like Rabbi Bambach, you know, each one of these things is just moving the dial a little bit to allow for Haredim to be part of Israeli society, the army and the workforce.

26:06 – GS:

That’s absolutely amazing. You know, it reminded me the fact that we’re now talking about a Rabbi Bombach approach and this approach. Again, getting back to what this Rabbi Zvi Hersh Kalischer said, where he gave different variations on what you could do in the sabbatical year. There are different variations of how you can be kovea etim l’torah. There’s not just one silver bullet. And I think that that is totally amazing, and I think you said to me a little bit in the pre-discussion that Bombach has a lot of PR, we need to know more about some of these other alternatives. And so, I think it’s fascinating that you went there and that you saw it in action. It’s obviously been operating for seven years, and it’s important, and as you say, every one of these students who comes home with a military uniform on and now is given honor rather than spat on is a change maker and is changing perceptions and changing the future. The other thing that you talked about which again gets back to the Shemitah is this has to do with making a living. If you’re in agriculture, it means plowing, but if you’re not, it gives them the ability to then go into the workforce from a legal point of view because they’ve served in the army, but also from a skill-set point of view. So, it’s really important. So, for the remaining time of our discussion, what I would like to do is to discuss some of the other alternatives or innovations that have been made since the founding of the state, since we returned to our land. That have been used to integrate whether it’s Torah study or more theological study and theoretical study into civil society and into the army. The other great innovation is something called the Mechina program. And what happened was, at a certain point, and I think the Mechina program that now encompasses all sorts of Israelis, both religious and secular and others, initially started, came from the religious movement where there’s this kind of ongoing concern, Rabbi, with coming from a closed society, a closed belief society, and then going into the army. And one of the solutions was Hesder, where you, number one, were segregated into your own divisions, And number two, you weren’t in the army for three straight years. There was this constant integration with learning. The Mechina program said as follows. These kids that are coming out of high school, they’re really not prepared for the army. They’re not prepared for integration into the larger Israeli population, which is the army. And so, it was a year where they could be prepared. Machina is from the word to prepare. And they were therefore given the skills. It’s kind of like a gap year, that they were given the skills so that they could get more out of the army and they could contribute more out to the army. And one of the things that you haven’t said, Rabbi, about the Hesder movement is both the Hesder movement and the Machina movement revolutionized the army in terms of representation of dati lu’umi, of religious Zionists, who were very unrepresented during the Six-Day War, for instance, where it was the kibbutznikim who were considered the ideological leaders that one looked to. I think because of the Hesder movement and of the Mechina movement, the number of religious Jews wearing that knitted kippah, the kippah seruga, in the officer corps, in positions of leadership, has drastically been changed, and it was over time, and it was changed because of setting up these programs. It was thoughtful, it was strategic, and I’ll just finish by saying, and as a result, Secular Jews also opened up Mechina programs. Now there are three types. There’s religious, there’s secular, and there’s mixed. But what they are doing is preparing secular Jews for love of country, for understanding of idealism, and so it created a very positive impact on all of Israel. In a sense, the people who graduate these machina programs are the leaders of the army, and as you know, that means the leaders also of industry and everything. So, I’m involved with the Rashi Foundation, which works in the periphery. They are saying that many of these mechina programs are like a Choate or a private school here. You get into it and your career track is set. So, they are opening up mechinot for people in the periphery. But this is a revolution and it comes from this concept of taking off a year, of dedicating a year, or taking off time. So, it really does kind of fit into k’vayah itim l’torah and to the shmita. What are your thoughts?

31:43 – AM:

I mean, I think that that’s so great that you connect them and that we’re really continuing in a tradition of Shemitah, of how we take off and how we reestablish or reassess our values. I think that’s really what you’re saying, right? That you take the year off and we reassess what is important to us. And whether it’s the Haredi Hesder Yeshiva or whether it’s the Mechinot, it’s the same point. And that is, what are our values? How can we rethink the way that things have been going and how can we make them better? We know that that’s our biggest problem, right, that you kind of get stuck in a mode, and you continue doing the same things. And we need to reassess, and that’s what Shabbos is about, and that’s what the sabbatical year is about, and that’s what the jubilee year is about.

32:40 – GS:

So, I want to end by talking—there is also something that has become popular, which is study after the army. There’s an organization called Ein Prat, where they take you and they give you the bigger picture. But I want to talk about a personal encounter that I had. Rabbi, you talked about your visit this week.

I want to describe a visit that happened to me about 46 years ago. I was a yeshiva student in Be’er Yaakov, which was a black hat. You could call it Haredi in those years. We had a Agudat Yisrael. We had a generator at that yeshiva for Shabbat, so we wouldn’t have to use the electricity of the state on Shabbat, to give you a sense. And we had what was called a bein hazmanim, a time off between the end of the one quarter and the beginning of Elul. And I had three weeks And I went to visit Rabbi Riskin, who at that point had not yet made aliyah. He was in a kibbutz called Ein Tzurim. And Ein Tzurim was formed by people who had been living on a part of the West Bank that is currently Efrat, which was actually part of the State of Israel in the UN Partition, was taken by the Jordanians. About 50 or 60 of the kibbutznikim were killed and captured. And they re-established themselves in a place called Ein Tzurim and I’m working in the Lul with the chickens and I’m there and there was a Hesdernik, someone who was from a Hesder yeshiva and there was a kibbutznik. And we’re all wearing kippot, maybe mine was velvet and black and theirs were kippah seruga, and I oversaw an argument that I just had to keep my mouth shut. Because the kibbutznik, …. and I did some research preparing for today, the kibbutz Ein Tzurim was part of something called shiluv, and they look down upon the people who went to Hesder Yeshiva because they weren’t fully integrated into the army. They served in their own divisions. And Shiluv was started where you would be prepared to literally be integrated fully into Israeli society. It happened to be a part of the religious Zionist movement that leaned left They also had rabbinic studies with postmodern approaches. I met a guy named Yehuda Neumann. It was amazing, and guess what? They closed the yeshiva about 10 years ago. Experiments in how to do this integration. Some of them have worked and some of them have not worked, but maybe are still out there for the future. The idea is we still have to keep experimenting. The idea that secular Jews will go a year before the army and maybe be exposed to Jewish texts. There are so many opportunities here to be kovei etim le-Torah, to provide our citizenry with this shared language of Torah. And I think that ultimately is what a part of Shemitah is about, and a part of what you experienced in Israel recently, and is a part of the equation of change, but also unification of the people of Israel. It’s really amazing. Thank you so much for that story. It’s amazing that your story from then and my story from now really come together. It’s the same, it’s the same movement and we can just hope that more people are experimenting and doing things like that.

AM: Shabbat shalom from Jerusalem. I look forward to being back in New York for Shabbat and we look forward next week. Bechukotai, chazak, chazak, v’nitzchazeh.

GS: Shabbat shalom. See you all next week.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/566480

Listen to last year’s episode: Prozbul & Iska LLC

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Tagged as haredim, hesder yeshiva, military service, sabbatical

May 14, 2024 · 12:12 am

Ki ba moed – the time has come

parshat emor – leviticus 23

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz for an afternoon tea and Torah at 2:30 Eastern on Wednesday May 15th on Clubhouse. We usually think of Tishrei and the Fall as a marathon of Jewish holidays, but if you count Rabbinic and Israeli holidays, the seven weeks of Spring win the holiday race with ease. Pesach, Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmut, Pesach Sheni, Lag ba’Omer, Yom Yerushalyim and Shavuot. We use Leviticus 23 which has the most complete summary of Biblical holidays to explore the dynamic of adding new holidays and adding meaning to existing holidays.

Sefaria Source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/564540

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every week and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This week’s parsha is Emor and it has the most complete summary of Biblical holidays. If you count Rabbinic and Israeli holidays, the current seven week period wins the Jewish holiday marathon with ease. Pesach, Yom Hazikaron, Yom Ha’atzmut, Pesach Sheni, Lag ba’Omer, Yom Yerushalyim and Shavuot. Today we explore the dynamic of adding new holidays and adding meaning to existing holidays. Join us for Ki ba Moed – The time has come.

Well, Rabbi, I sent out the notice of the podcast this week, and my son said you’re missing Yom Yerushalayim. So you can see I put in Yom Yerushalayim. How could I miss a holiday like that?

Adam Mintz: It’s not coming up for a few weeks, so we’re okay.

GS: Okay. But, you know, really, I think the reason why we complain or we notice so much the high density of holidays between Rosh Hashanah and the end of Sukkot is because they’re biblical, on many we can’t – we have prohibitions.

1:32 – GS:

We can’t ride, we can’t turn on lights, but if you just look at the number of it and if you look at it from the point of view of missing days of school or missing days of work, boy, this time of year is chock full of these holidays. As I was reading the portion, I noticed for the first time in Leviticus 23, you really have the best synopsis of all of the holidays. I had never noticed that before.

2:02 – AM:

Yes, that’s this week’s parasha. Basically, the Torah does this twice. It does it here, and it does it in the Book of Devarim, in the Parsha of Re’ei. And you know, that’s what often happens, is that the Torah repeats itself. The Ten Commandments repeat themselves in Devarim as well. So these are two places the Torah lists all of the holidays.

2:24 – GS:

So I was trying to look this up, but I know because once in a while I get called into Layn, read the Torah in the synagogue, and for some reason I thought that on certain Chagim you read a parsha

2:39 – AM:

that lists all of the Chagim.

AM: So I’ll tell you, on each of the Chagin, I’m sorry, on Pesach and on Sukkot, you read this Torah reading from this week’s parasha. So on the second day of Sukkot, just a few weeks ago, we read these holidays. Sorry, on the second day of Pesach, just a few weeks ago. On Sukkot, on the first days of the holiday, you read this Torah reading. So this is a very familiar Torah reading.

3:09 – GS:

Okay, so I was correct, but it is really complete and we’ll see in a second that I had always thought that really there were kind of two calendars that had to be merged together because there were the agricultural holidays and then there are holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur which aren’t really agricultural and as we’ll see in a second, This is one place where, in a masterly way, it kind of combines and has the whole calendar, which might explain why, as you say, we read it on Pesach, so forth and so on.

3:47 – GS:

So let’s go to Leviticus 23.

4:05 – GS:

These are the fixed times which you shall proclaim as sacred occasions. So here comes the first surprise. On six days work may be done, but on the seventh day there shall be a Sabbath of complete rest, a sacred occasion. You shall do no work. So Rabbi, how many sermons have you given where you describe the difference between Shabbat, which comes whether we invite it or not, it comes by the calendar every seven days, and a Moed, which is like an Ohel Moed, it’s a meeting place.

4:38 – GS:

We have to look up at the moon, we’ve got to decide when the new moon is, so forth and so on. And this just puts a puncture in that whole thing. It includes Shabbat in the list of Moedim, and that struck me is strange.

4:51 – AM:

Yes, but Shabbos is the grandfather, is the foundation of all the holidays. Now, you’re right, there’s a difference. Mekadesh ha-Shabbat. God makes Shabbos, because Shabbos happens every seven days. But holidays are Mekadesh Yisrael ha-Hazmanim. Jewish people make the holidays because it’s dependent on the seeing of the new moon. But you’re 100% right.

5:20 – AM:

You could have not included Shabbos, but Shabbos is considered to be part of it. And each of the holidays is called Shabbat Shabbatot, right? So each, and that means a day of rest. Now we’ll talk as you go through these about what the difference is between Shabbos and, you know, and the holidays. Let’s get there. Let’s take one step at a time.

5:40 – GS:

But I’m going to make the case that what you and I just said in terms of the difference between Shabbat and a holiday is true at one level, but from the perspective of this chapter, and it’s a complete chapter in Leviticus where it’s just mapping out the calendar, so to speak, maybe as a rudimentary or trivial perspective of these are days that you’re off from work. These are days that you don’t do certain things.

6:15 – GS:

They are similar, and I think what we have to do maybe is step back a little bit and understand that a day off, a holiday, in and of itself, they do have a similarity, and they are part of the pattern of Jewish life. So, we’re not going to read the whole thing, but it starts by talking about in the first month on the 14th day of the month, it talks about the Feast of Unleavened Bread. You shall eat unleavened bread for seven days.

6:45 – GS:

And then it goes on and speaks to the Israelite people in verse 10. And say to them, when you enter the land that I’m giving you and you reap its harvest, you shall bring the first sheaf of your harvest to the priest. He shall elevate the sheaf before God for acceptance in your behalf. The priest shall elevate it on the day after the Sabbath.” And correct me if I’m wrong, but this is really the Omer, this is the beginning of the counting of the Omer.

7:17 – GS:

It says, until that very day, until you have brought the offering of your God, you shall eat no bread or parts grain or fresh ears. [Which would be an agricultural reason for not eating bread .. hamaskil yavin). This is the new crop. It is a law for all time through the ages. And from the day on which you bring the sheaf of elevation offering the day after the Shabbat, you shall count off seven weeks. So here I forgot to mention that we are counting the Omer, which you could also say is kind of quasi-calendrical holidaying, if you will, but the point is that it ties Pesach to Shavuot, which we always knew there was a connection, but it ties it from the perspective of the first…

7:56 – AM:

The second day of Pesach, Mimacharat HaShabbat, that’s the first day of the counting of the Omer. At the second Seder, you start counting the Omer, because that’s when they gave this sacrifice. In Israel, there’s only one day of festival, so on the day after the first day of festival, they used to bring this special sacrifice.

8:18 – GS:

And of course, the fact that it says Memacharat HaShabbat speaks to the point you made seconds ago, which is that Shabbat festivals are called Shabbat as well. And so that’s how it could say Memacharat HaShabbat, the day after the first day of Pesach, you begin this counting. But again, it does connect Pesach to the agricultural calendar as well. And then it goes on in verse 21, you shall hold a celebration.

8:50 – GS:

It shall be a sacred occasion for you. No work. It is a time for throwing your settlements throughout the ages. And when you reap the harvest, you shall not reap all the way to the edges of your field. Field. So again, it mixes in agricultural rules to this kind of description of the agricultural holidays.

9:13 – AM:

Now you do know, I mean, you’ll get there, but Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur are included, even though they’re not agricultural.

9:21 – GS:

Absolutely. And where did I miss Shavuot here? It says that you shall count those seven weeks and then you shall bring an offering of new grain. You shall bring from your settlements two loaves of bread. So again, we’ve gone through Pesach, we’ve gone through the counting from the first day of Pesach till Shavuot, and then we get to, as you say, Speak in verse 24, speak to the Israelite people thus, in the seventh month, on the first day of the month you shall celebrate complete rest, a sacred occasion commemorated with loud blasts, so that’s the shofar, you shall not work in your occupations, so that is Rosh Hashanah, which as you say, is really not an agricultural holiday.

10:09 – GS:

Then it says mark the 10th day of this month as the day of atonement, we are all aware of that. And then it says in verse 33, Hashem spoke to Moses saying, say to the Israelite people, on the 15th day of the seventh month, there shall be the feast of booths to Hashem to last seven days. The first day shall be a sacred occasion. You shall not work at your occupations. Seven days you shall bring offerings by fire to God.

10:39 – GS:

And the eighth day you shall observe a sacred occasion, bring an offering to fire to God. It is a solemn gathering. We talked about atzeret in a previous podcast. And then it concludes, these are the set times of God that you shall celebrate as sacred occasions, bringing offering by fire, and you would think that we’re finished. But, in verse 39, it kind of starts again, and it says, Mark, on the fifteenth day of the seventh month, when you have gathered in the yield of your land and you shall observe the festival of God seven days, a complete rest on the first day.

11:21 – GS:

We’ve done this already. On the first day you shall take the product of Hadar. So this is the palm banches, the bows of leafy. This is the arba minim, the etrog and the lulav, and you shall observe it as a festival of God for seven days, and in verse 42 it says you shall live in booths seven days, all citizens in Israel shall live in booths. In order, and here’s the key, in order that future generations may hold that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I, your God, so Moses declared to the Israelites the set times of Hashem.

12:05 – GS:

So, it does seem, and of course if you go to theTorah.com, you will see that in the textual critical higher criticism academics will look at this last paragraph beginning in 39 and say, why does it repeat over what it has already said about the ending of Sukkot, and their argument is that the editor is trying to make this wonderful not only catalog and travelogue through the calendar of the annual calendar, but he or she is also trying to take agricultural holidays and integrate them into the Rosh Hashanah and the Yom Kippur, and take Sukkot, which is putting these booths out in the field during the time of harvest, and connect it to Yetziat Mitzrayim, to leaving Egypt.

13:06 – GS:

And I, as I always will say, is you don’t have to be a higher biblical critic to notice, number one, what is happening here, and to ask yourself, what is the Torah doing? And so that’s kind of the first question I want to have is what do you think is happening here when it repeats it over and all of a sudden it gives a reason for this sitting in booths that gives new meaning to it.

13:37 – AM:

So, I think that there are two aspects of each of these holidays. One is the agricultural aspect and one is that we should remember that God, that the Jews were in booths when they left Egypt. One is the historical and one is the agricultural. And you see it in Sukkot because the Torah repeats the holiday twice. Once the agricultural and once the historical.

14:01 – GS:

And I think, in a sense, you’re agreeing with me to say that you don’t have to be a higher biblical critic to see that the text is trying to take us somewhere. Whoever wrote the text, whatever the tradition of the Mesora, it’s clear that when we repeat something over in Leviticus that maybe is going to be also put in Devarim, there’s a goal, there’s a motivation. And I think from that perspective, as you said a second ago, what they’re trying to do is take agricultural holidays that might have even been preexistent.

14:39 – GS:

It’s clear that when you harvest, you have to be in the fields day in and day out. You want to make sure that you harvest before the first rain. You don’t want to leave any time for travel. And it’s also pretty clear that every culture has a Thanksgiving type of celebration when the harvest is over. It’s so natural, hazorim bedima b’rina yiktzaru, you sow in tears and hard labor and you reap in joy.

15:10 – GS:

So, that is obvious, but I think what our text does for us is now bring it into the historical context. And the biblical critics can say, what do you mean they dwelt in sukkot, in booths, when Bilaam cursed the Jewish people, he said, Mah Tovu Ohalecha Yaakov, we only have tents, we don’t have booths. But the point is, that’s exactly the point. It’s trying to make a connection. It’s trying to give new meaning to an existing holiday, for a new generation, for history going forward.

15:45 – GS:

And I think that is important to recognize, because ultimately, at the end of the day, when we talk about holidays, we have to admit that holidays have different, multiple meanings. They are complex. And they also have meanings that change over time and are different to different generations and different times in history. And I think that is clear from this text.

16:12 – AM:

You know this clear from this text what about in the Hagaddah when we say in every generation we have to see ourselves is that we left Egypt right is it not the same thing that we need to take the historical and we need to make it modern or contemporary for every generation I think that makes exactly your point

16:59 – GS:

absolutely but here it’s a pasuk! When I was preparing for last week’s discussion on Yom Hazikaron. I did a search, I started looking, I knew from my yeshiva days that there was controversy regarding making new holidays, making Yom Hatzma’ut, Independence Day, into a new holiday. And you know, there are halachic implications. On certain days, you say tachanun, you request God to accept your teshuvah. On happy occasions, you don’t say tachanun. On some days, you say half hallel. On some days, you say full hallel.

17:32 – GS:

So when I grew up, that was the big question about Yom Ha’atzmuth. Do you say tachanun today? Do you say hallel today? So, these have halachic implications. I did a search and I came across this Peninei Halacha. Peninei Halacha is in Sefaria. It’s written by Eliezer Melamed. Who’s a rabbi..

17:58 – AM:

A rabbi who’s living now. He lives in a community on the West Bank called Har Bacha, but he’s contemporary. He’s modern. He’s 60 years old. He’s part of this generation.

18:09 – GS:

He is at 16 volumes and literally it is used to bring understanding, he quotes Sephardic customs, Ashkenazi customs. So, I looked him up and we’re gonna read a little bit, I don’t know if you would put this in the category of a teshuva, responsa literature, but we’re going to read a little bit from him apropos of how do you make a new holiday? And are you allowed to make a new holiday? And it is appropriate.

18:40 – GS:

So he writes, there is a mitzvah to establish a holiday of rejoicing and praising God on a day when the Jewish people were saved. It was on this basis that the sages established Purim and Hanukkah as permanent holidays. Even though one may not add mitzvot to the Torah, so here there’s this This straw dummy out there, someone would argue that you can’t make new holidays, and he is coming to create an argument explaining how we are, in fact, not only allowed, but sometimes commanded to make a new holiday.

19:18 – GS:

And he uses a Talmudic law of exegesis called a Kal Vachomer to prove that yes, you can make a new holiday and since the law of exegesis is biblical, he argues, you can almost say it is biblical. So, what he says is that Purim is a biblical holiday since the rabbis created it. The exact things that you do on it might not be biblical, but that you have to have a holiday celebrating the redemption of the Jews of Persia, that you can definitely have.

20:00 – GS:

And the same thing goes for Hanukkah. He says, many Jewish communities throughout the ages kept this mitzvah, instituting days of joy in commemoration of miracles that they experienced. Many of them, including the word Purim, were naming these days, like Purim Frankfurt and Purim Tiberius. I had never known that. I had always done around Thanksgiving research to see. I knew there was a concept of Sudat Hoda’ah, and here I finally found it, and it’s according to this rabbi, it’s based in law.

20:37 – AM:

That is fascinating. Wow. And I just want to tell you that this Pnei Halacha is studied in all the daati leumi, the religious liberal high schools in Israel that are part of the state. They study this book, Pnei Halacha.

20:54 – GS:

So this is the rule. And that’s what makes it so fascinating. And I suggest that all of you look at the source notes and read it in full. Because again, you always hear me say the expression, when we see halacha being made in front of our eyes, this is one of those examples. And you can only just imagine in your mind that he is making an argument against a really large population, the Haredim for sure, who would argue, no, no, we have enough holidays, you can’t just go about making new holidays whenever you want.

21:32 – GS:

So, he makes that argument, but where I really became fascinated was when he moved to Yom Hazikaron, the day that we talked about last week with Menachem Bombach in terms of the Haredim, but here he starts by saying, from a halachic standpoint, there is no need to institute a general memorial day for the holy soldiers who were killed in battle. And typically, after you read an argument like this, you’d expect the “but” to follow, but we do it anyway.

22:07 – GS:

He takes a while to get to that “but” So now he’s on the other side of the debating table, if you will. And he’s now going to make an argument for not creating a holiday or commemoration for our fallen soldiers. He says, rather, one should do what the Jewish people have always done for any Jew who dies. On the Yortzeit, a memorial prayer is recited. The deceased son or relatives recite Kaddish, they study Torah, give charity.

22:40 – GS:

Those who go beyond this hold a full memorial service with Torah lectures to elevate the deceit soul, like we do for my dad once a year. We have fought many wars throughout our long history, often losing more soldiers in one war than the IDF has lost in all of its battles combined. Nevertheless, the Sages never instituted a Memorial Day for those killed in battle. When we were victorious, we celebrated, and when we lost, we mourned individually.

23:14 – GS:

There is something bothering him here about Yom Hazikaron, about changing the way we mourn, and it almost reminded me at the beginning of the parasha where it talks about not ripping out your hair and not doing tattoos. Don’t mourn the way the non-Jews mourn. But he goes on, the only tragedy for which the sages institute public mourning, and then he goes on to talk about a Tisha B’Av, and then he says, oh, and you may raise the question about the fast of Gedalia, it too was instituted because of the destruction of the temple, and he argues that the destruction of the temple is totally different because it was a National catastrophe , universal, it was so intimately involved with the Jewish people.

24:05 – GS:

But he’s having a problem with Yom HaZikaron, and that too is fascinating.

24:10 – AM:

Yeah, that is fascinating. Like, like, like, what’s the basis? Like, where does it come from You know, that’s always that’s always interesting when you read these things. The halachic, you know, when you want it, when you want to source everything in halacha, sometimes it just doesn’t work so well, right? Being sometimes there just is no source in halacha. And what do you do then?

24:36 – GS:

Well, it’s a little bit like a litmus test, a little bit like a Rorschach Ink Blot. We all see our own ideology, our own feelings, and we come to our own conclusions. But thank the Lord he actually explains what’s on his mind, what’s bothering him. He says, sadly, people who lack faith, who do not understand the Jewish people’s past or its mission, have seized control of Israel’s media and cultural life. In the beginning, the secularists still possessed an inkling of Judaism, based on what they heard in their parents’ home.

25:14 – GS:

But over time, alienation from Torah values took its toll, and they turned Yom Hazikaron into a day of weakness and defeatist. V’hem hafchu et Yom Hazikaron liyom shel chalusha v’tvoshtanut. It’s like, and “What do you really think?”

25:37 – GS:

Now he’s coming across very strong, and this is a, I was thinking if we had time to bring it up last week, but this is another, you know, this is a holiday that has stratified the population in Israel. Of course. This is not an argument that the Haredim are bringing up. They would argue something else, but what he’s saying, and as you say he represents religious Zionism in Israel, he brings up this thing of weakness and defeatism.

26:06 – GS:

Instead of honoring the memories of the fallen, trying to understand the essence of the nation of Israel and investing meaning into the soldiers’ self-sacrifice, they emphasize pain, despair, and destruction, portraying the deaths of these soldiers as meaningless. He’s really projecting a lot onto the secularists. They appear to be honoring the fallen, but in reality, there is no greater affront to the honor of these martyrs than the inappropriate character that these people have attached to Yom HaZikaron.

26:41 – GS:

The fundamental flaw in their approach is their disregard for the Jewish national destiny for whose sake the soldiers sacrificed their life. So, you can read the rest of this when going to the notes, but I think it’s safe to say that what the philosophical approach that he’s coming from is that he does see these soldiers as being part of an age-old tradition of being moser nefesh, of giving their lives for a higher meaning.

27:18 – GS:

He talks a little bit less that how can you mourn them when they have eternal life. They have given up a temporal life for eternal life. We’ve spoken about this in the most recent episodes that we’ve had.

27:55 – AM:

That is a remarkable thing that you found. I want to just say something. That’s remarkable. You know, last week, we had Menachem Bumbach, who really talked about how the Haredim embrace Yom Hazikarot, or how they need to embrace Yom Hazikarot. And now you have someone from the religious Zionist community who is suspicious of the secular way of remembering.

28:21 – GS:

Isn’t that remarkable? It is, and they both come down, and this is what really got me thinking. He ultimately comes down and says, look, everybody is commemorating this. We’re going to have to commemorate it too. Ein Poresh min Hatzibor is the word that he uses from the Seder night. You can’t separate yourself from the community. But when you do it, at least think in terms of you’re not mourning a dead soldier, you’re mourning, dare I say, almost celebrating someone who was Moser Nefesh for a higher good.

28:55 – GS:

But it is absolutely fascinating, and again, it ties into the parasha in the sense that we’re giving meaning to our existing holiday, and where does it go from there? And, you know, I was thinking to myself a little bit after last week, you know, the adage, be careful what you wish for. When we want the charedim to start celebrating Yom Hazikaron, and the next step on the slippery slope might be celebrating Chas V’sholem Yom Ha’atzmut, that’s going to impact, they are going to tweak Yom Hazikaron and tweak Yom Ha’atzmut.

29:35 – GS:

To fit their very religious worldview. And I hope that we’re all aware of that. But we’re going to have to do this together. If we’re going to embrace our holidays together, we’re going to have to reinterpret them together as well. I want to end. I have a friend. I believe he’s brilliant. He just started a substack. He made Aliyah during COVID. His name is Joe Schwartz, and he wrote Zionist Reflection on Yom HaShoah, and he argues as follows.

30:13 – GS:

He says, Jewish death is either justified or possesses some universal redemptive significance. For the Christians, we suffer as an enduring witness to our murder of Christ. For the Muslims, we suffer because we reject Muhammad’s prophecy. For traditional Jews, we suffer for our sins and for the sake of sanctifying God’s name. Only one group of people denies that the suffering of the Jews has a redemptive meaning at all, the Zionists.

30:42 – GS:

For us, the Jews suffer only because people mean us harm and because we are unable to defend ourselves, and therefore we must learn to defend ourselves. This seemingly modest, rational demural of the Jews, our bowing out of the economy of suffering into which we have been conscripted, turns out to be one of the most radical revolutions in Western thought. We see all around us this unfathomable to the rest of the world, to Jew and Gentile alike, that we are no longer willing to accept our suffering as the verdict of heaven and humanity, but intend instead to defend ourselves.

31:22 – GS:

B-b-b-but, they sputter, can’t you see that you are guilty, that you are deicides, kafirs, thieves, settler colonists, guilty of apartheid and genocide and countless other inhumane crimes, that you deserve this, all of this and more? To which we Zionists reply, no more guilty than any human being.

No, we will defend ourselves. I just thought it’s fascinating, because again, what he’s arguing for, and he has smicha (Rabbinic Ordination), by the way, what he’s arguing for is that there’s another interpretation.

31:57 – GS:

And the other interpretation is that the Zionists didn’t unintentionally take away some of the theological baggage or underpinnings that we read about in the Teshuvah. But they’re saying a Jew can just commemorate a fallen soldier because we need to defend ourselves. And I thought that was just added another aspect to this conversation, which we wouldn’t be having if it wasn’t for this amazing teshuva.

32:30 – AM:

Amazing. Thank you so much, Geoffrey I’ve been taking these ideas with me to Israel. We’ll talk next week about what we’re going to do next week, Parshat Behar. Shabbat Shalom, everybody. Enjoy this amazing discussion of this period during the year.

32:45 – GS:

Shabbat shalom. Nasia tova to Israel. Can’t wait to hear your impressions.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/564540

Listen to last years episode: Rounding the Corner

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Tagged as holidays.moed, Lag B'omer, Passover, Shavuot, succot, yom haatzmut, yom hazikaron

May 8, 2024 · 6:49 pm

Yom Hazikaron

a conversation with Rabbi Menachem Bombach

Join Geoffrey Stern, Rabbi Adam Mintz and special guest Rabbi Menachem Bombach on Clubhouse. This year Yom Hazikaron; Israeli Memorial Day, will be different for many reasons and from many perspectives. We invite Rabbi Menachem Bombach, a maverick visionary in the Haredi community to join us for a conversation about the meaning, history and halachic significance of this day for Israelis in general and for the ultra-Orthodox in particular.

Link to Netzach Israel website: https://www.mcl.org.il/academy

To support Netzach Israel: https://pefisrael.org/charity/netzach-israel-chinuch-vahachshara

Sefaria source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/563501

Please watch video below:

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday night and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This Sunday evening will be Yom Hazikaron, the Israeli Memorial day. It will be different for many reasons and from many perspectives. We are privileged to welcome Rabbi Menachem Bombach, a maverick visionary in the Haredi community to join us for a conversation about the meaning, history and halachic significance of this day for Israelis in general and for the ultra-Orthodox in particular. So join us for Yom Hazikaron – a conversation with Menachem Bombach

So welcome, Rabbi Adam, and welcome, Menachim Bombach. It’s such a privilege to have you. We were having lunch in Yerushalayim, I don’t know, it seems like three, four weeks ago. I visited two of the Haredi schools that are under Netzach Israel, your organization, where they teach secular studies, they teach math, history, science. And in the girls’ school, I saw pictures of the hostages, which shouldn’t really be a surprise to anybody, but we’re going to learn a little bit more about the challenges in the Haredi community and how radical that was.

1:45 – GS:

I talked to girls’ students who had gone down south and had taught and led youth groups with kids, their age and younger, who had been relocated. And it was their first time. Sometimes you talk about Israelis who have never left the country. These are Haredi young women who had never been exposed to different parts of the country, different types of Israelis. And you are at the forefront of taking the Haredi community and bringing it forward.

2:21 – GS:

So, first of all, Rabbi Bambach, welcome to Madlik Disruptive Torah. And I understand you’re a good friend of Rabbi Adam Mintz as well.

2:30 – MB:

I’m more than a friend. We are like a family. And thank you, Geoffrey, for this great opportunity to be a part of your great and enormous project, podcast.

2:41 – GS:

So, in the source sheet that will be attached to this podcast and on Sefaria, there is a YouTube video. And I had heard about your works and before our first meeting, I stumbled upon it. And it actually relates very much to Yom Hazikaron and the day that on Sunday night, we will observe around the world, really, in solidarity with Israel. And it is a very touching, meaningful video, but more so if you understand the context.

3:19 – GS:

So let me just describe that video, but I definitely welcome everybody to click on the link and watch it on YouTube. It has thousands of views and downloads. And it was a number of years ago. How many years ago was it?

3:34 – Menachem Bombach

Yeah, it’s about six years ago.

3:37 – GS:

six years ago in front of a class of Haredi. They look Hasidic. A lot of them have peyot. And it is on, probably on Yom Hazikaron, which as you will explain shortly, is not a day that is typically commemorated in the Haredi community. And you pass around pictures of Israeli children. There’s one picture of a child lying on his father’s grave. But all of these pictures are different. They have different names associated with them.

4:11 – GS:

And you ask your students to give their associations. And they’re heart-wrenching. These kids associate with these orphans the way you would expect one human being to another. They don’t have a lot of baggage that we adults have, but they had to be given the chance then to come up and express what they were feeling about how it would be for that child to come home and not have a dad. And after each student was given a specific name and picture of a fallen soldier, you said Psalms, you said Tehillim, and each student was supposed to have that particular gave a – face to the losses.

4:58 – GS:

And then they all came up and talked, and it was just so meaningful. But for some of our audience who would not understand why this is not normal, Rabbi, why don’t you give us the context of Yom Hazikaron in the Haredi community before that moment, at that moment, and possibly what it is going to be like next Sunday and Monday.

5:21 – MB:

Yeah, so you described it beautifully. I think it’s the first time I had someone describe the video so brilliantly. I will tell you the story because everybody knows the Haredi community. Because they’re not really a part of the Israeli society and the majority are not sending their kids to the army. So actually, it’s an embarrassing day. It’s not a day, why you should stop and thinking about something that you need to give answer for your kids.

5:53 – MB:

They’re going to ask you tough questions. So, when I started my school, my main mission is to integrate the Haredi society in Israel. So that means that it’s not just about teaching them English, math, science. It’s also about to make them to raise their solidarity toward Israeli society. So once Yom Hazikaron, the Memorial Day, when it came, I said for my staff, listen, we want to do something for our kids and they need to be identified with this terrible day.

6:34 – MB:

So, let’s do something. And it was not easy. It was very tough conversation because some of my staff, it was even not easy to teach them English and math. But then they said, OK, I understand it’s important, but why Zionism? And I said, listen, it’s not about Zionism, it’s about menschlichkeit. It’s about human beings. We need to be united. We are one nation. And then we decided we’re going to do it.

7:03 – MB:

But the story is interesting because U recorded this video.

7:10 – MB:

In Israel, there is a famous journalist, his name is Raviv Drucker, very famous. And he has a project, he has a project in the television, and he came to me one day and said, Menachem, please, I think you’re doing a very important job, and you do something for Am Yisrael. We would like to make a documentary film about you. And I said, no, I have a lot of antagonism in the community. People don’t like what I’m doing.

7:40 – MB:

So, I don’t think it’s a good idea. But then he sent just tomorrow after that. He sent his researcher, Israel Rosner, and Israel came to me and said, Menachem, you should know, I’m telling you, we need to give some hope for the community in Israel. And what you are doing, and this is something that touched my heart very much, because I think very much about the future of Israel. Just imagine that our community is doubling itself each 16 years.

8:12 – MB:

And just now, it’s about 23% of the first grade in Israel are Haredis. If you take also the Arabs, so 50% of the first class in Israel are either Arabs or Haredi. And just since October 7, you understand, that we need to, it’s very important in its agency to push much more and to make everything what we can to integrate the Haredi inside. So, Israel Rosner came and all of a sudden, he came to the ceremony and I didn’t realize that he’s standing because he just came the whole year around.

8:52 – MB:

He came and spoke with the kids, spoke with the staff, And then it becomes a part of the film. And a year after that, someone released. And cut the part of the old film. And it’s become like a viral video all over. I can tell you, it was two years. I joined the Israel parade in Manhattan. And I was always shocked that some people recognize my face just from this movie. So, I’m blessed in some ways that I touched so many souls in Israel.

9:27 – MB:

And this is exactly what we have to do mainly in those days. To make the Haredim much more with solidarity, to take care, to be a part of Israel. And this is why Netzach is exist. This is exactly why Netzach is exist.

9:43 – GS:

So you made the point that really the why it has always been such a difficult day for Haredim is because they’re not in the army. But obviously, and you mentioned this in the video, where you talk to the students and you say, these soldiers fell protecting us so that we could study Torah. So even if you follow the Haredi position, which is they are serving in their front, just as the IDF is serving in its front, it doesn’t make any sense.

10:18 – GS:

That they could not embrace as a partnership. And I’m just wondering if six years ago it was an uncomfortable day. I can only imagine what ambiguity there must be this year. Is there any talk on the street? Do you have any sense of how the Haredi community, and maybe you can’t even talk about them, as a whole, they’re individuals just like every other community, but how will you be commemorating it and how will some of your peers, your friends, your students, what is the variety of ways and is it changing?

11:00 – MB:

You will not believe, but I just got a survey dated before October 7. And it’s a Haredi from Kekar HaShabbat, very famous site, Haredi site. And it was, if I remember, it was for two years ago. And they asked people, when it comes day soon, are you standing or not? So 77% said they are standing.

11:30 – GS:

Let’s explain to our listeners. So what happens on Yom HaZikaron is at sunset on this year, it’ll be Monday night, a siren sounds, the same kind of siren that you would sound, unfortunately, sounds all the time in these days for a red alert. And everybody stands up. If they’re driving a car, they stop the car and they stand by the side of the car. It’s the most powerful and eerie moment. And what you, Rabbi, are saying is that in a recent poll, 77% of Haredi who were polled will mark that observance.

12:12 – MB:

Exactly, and you will not believe the next percentage, 59% said they are standing in the street when there are next settlers.

12:27 – MB:

were next to secularists. So once you are on the street and you see secularists, you will stand just to respect. And I think if you would ask the same question now, after post-October 7, I think the numbers will raise dramatically. And as you mentioned, it’s about, first of all, it’s about gratitude. Plain and simple. Even if there are disagreements about politics or ideology, we all owe a huge debt of the brave of the soldiers who gave their lives for us, Haredim included.

13:02 – MB:

Showing up in Memorial Day, it’s a way to express that gratitude and appreciation. So, it’s very simple. You will not believe, but after it was published all over, so many people in the community I would never expect came to me secretly and quietly and said, wow, you touched my heart so much. You know, everybody understands the Haredim has now access to the internet. It’s not like 20 years ago. The official number speaks about 70% who has access to the internet.

13:36 – MB:

So they use WhatsApp and status sim, all kinds of techniques and media. And you know, those kinds of things becomes very viral inside the community. And I know, but I can tell you something new happens that the last three years, There are many ceremonies from the Haredi communities that also some political members of Knesset joined the last year. And this year, again, Netzach Yehuda is doing something very huge ceremony, but also the first time in Beit Shemesh.

14:10 – MB:

Beit Shemesh, as maybe you know about that, but the last election was two members, Haredi members, who run by themselves as an independence party. And they’re not belonging not to Agudat Israel, not Degel HaTorah, not Shas, just they are part of Netzach. And they asked for the mayor to do something for Yom Hazikaron. You will now believe we have more than 500 people who registered for this event.

14:44 – MB:

The people who are going to come are Haredim, only Haredim.

14:50 – GS:

It’s amazing you mentioned the established political parties, but that raises the issue of leadership. Would you say that most of this is organic, or are there any leaders within the Haredi established community who have the backbone, the foresight, and the vision? Or is this another, it’s a unique situation of the “Rov”, of the community leading the way? How would you characterize it?

15:21 – MB:

I really, you know, it’s, you know, you heard about Likya Aner. I think I also shared the last time when I talked to you. But she asked, it’s very important to understand, she asked for some years ago, for many Haredim, if you are proud to become, to be an Israeli. So, 46% said they absolutely agree with this phrase, we are proud to be Israeli. And then you have 21%, they’re quite agree, and then the rest of them, they’re not agree with them.

15:55 – MB:

But this is a very nice thing because if you’re speaking, about the Haredi who is identified with Israel, it’s absolutely organic. And it comes to bottom up more and more people. As you know, I was also involved very much in the encouragement of Haredim to become a part of the second stage in the army since October 7. And it was fascinating to see that more and more Haredim, they have the courage and they are very proud to take part in this many projects.

16:33 – MB:

So it’s tough, it’s about culture, it’s many barriers, but we can see more and more and more things that, you know, it generates a lot of optimism in the coming years.

16:48 – Adam Mintz:

I have a question, Menachem, going back to the Yom HaZikaron, the experience in the Midrashah. How did the other Rabbanim, your teachers, how did they react to the whole ceremony?

17:03 – MB:

You know, some of them were indifferent. I’m not sure, but that’s why some of the rabbis came to me and said, Menachem, it’s impossible. I’m going to leave now the school. And he was a very significant teacher. He teach Gemara and he loved the place, but he said it’s too much for me. Yeah, everybody reacted differently. But we know leadership is about to influence the community, to influence the kids, the families.

17:36 – MB:

And I want to tell you, no one child left the school since then because of those kinds of actions, right? And I took some risk. I didn’t know if the parents is going to love it, but I never asked them. And I was fascinated. And I was shocked after they just sent me nice messages. We love very much what you do, and we appreciate, thank you for the courage you show us the way. And this, I think, if you are thinking about the pain of Israeli society, and what Israel is suffering from the last few months, I think the normal people in the Haredi community feels ambivalence but uncomfortable, and I think this is something that would really change.

18:25 – MB:

Yoma Zikaron now, I talk to many people, even I have a community, I have a shul. And I do a Misheberach Lechayalei Tzahal in my shul, even it’s very, very affirmed in a conservative shul. And I saw people get out, when I started the Misheberach days, get out from the shul. And I said, listen, this shul is a place respect Jewish soldiers. And we respect Am Yisrael, and who don’t like the place, you can go to find another.

18:56 – MB:

And you will not believe, only two people from 100 people, everybody stays, even though some of them are very conservative, conservative Haredim. So, I think people as individuals, identified the field, they are mentioned, they understand you cannot stay aside. We cannot, you know, be against those noble acts from the soldiers. So, yeah, I want just to share one story. That touched my heart very much after this film was published.

19:35 – MB:

And I want to share with you, because I shared with many times, but I want to share with you because it’s a story that gives a lot of hope of the future of Israelis in Israeli society. It was a day after this film was published, came to me a Chabad guy, and he said, I’m just, you’re Rabbi Bombach, he said, yes, listen, I’m just now coming back 45 minutes from Rehovot just to tell you thank you in my name and my name of my family.

20:07 – MB:

And the story is that he said, I have a grandmother, she’s 87 years old, she lives in a kibbutz, and she hates haredim. She hates haredim, and some of her kids became haredim. And for more than 17 years, she don’t want any relationship with them. Because actually, they lost a child in the army, yeah? You can understand it, and she’s a Holocaust survivor. Very intellectual woman, very special.

20:37 – MB:

And they tried to send mediators and people who can talk to her, but she was very strict. She said, no, no, no. A big no. And last night, that’s what the Chabad guy said. She said for the whole family, she called the whole family to come to the kibbutz. We didn’t know what to expect for. I wasn’t on my way to the United States. My brother was to Bat Yam, to Bar Mitzvah. And we just leave everything, we run, we took our kids, and we just drove so fast just to get in and to see my grandmother.

21:10 – MB:

And then she said, listen, Before I’m going to say something, I would like all of you to watch together with me this film of Yom Hazikaron that you described, Geoffrey. And after they watched the film, she said, I just want to apologize about all those years that we didn’t have any relationship. I just didn’t know there are some Haredim who respect Jewish soldiers. And they cried, and he said, you saved my family.

21:41 – MB:

I have another story. It was a guy, 91 old, Holocaust survivor. He wrote me an email and said, I’m very close to die. And I’m blessed. I thank God that I’m still alive to see the hope that you are bringing from Israel. And I really believe those, even it’s, you know, people say, oh, you’re a 1,300,000 people. And while we are talking, the numbers are growing. So how do you think how you can influence so many people, but we know in terms of numbers and in terms of, you know, of changes and those kinds of things, It changed.

22:28 – MB:

We can now point out of so many influences in many different areas just because we publicly, and we’re not behind anything, just publicly saying what we believe. And I think more and more Haredim have become more and more identified and a part of it.

22:50 – GS:

So, when the war broke out, we all understood how the government had failed, and volunteers, mitnadvim, really filled the gap. And I think for most of our listeners, the face of the haredim were Zakah, the haredim who have traditionally gone and saved body parts and given honor and respect to the those who have died in terrorist attacks and whatever, but were there other things that the Haredi community did?

23:22 – GS:

I’ve heard stories about women just going to support shiva minyanim or shivas in houses. Can you give us a little bit of an insight in other ways that organically the Haredi community has been affected and effected the situation in Israel in the last seven months?

23:42 – MB:

Yes, so actually I was also involved to encourage more haredim to go to the second stage project in the army. That means they get trained for two weeks and then they have the reserve in many, many areas. And we run a very nice and a special campaign. You also, your organization was a part of it and it was very successful in terms of to make more, more numbers because the ratio was 20%. I mean, if you want 2,000 people to volunteer, you have to get 10,000 because not everybody is accepted of many, many reasons.

24:23 – MB:

If you have not, you know, you have any background, many, many, many issues. So we run very nice campaign and it worked nice, but I can tell you I expect it should be more Haredim. But the idea of this project was also about to normalize the uniform. We want very much that Haredim, every Haredi in every city who lives in a Haredi city, the kids and the matures should see more and more people with uniform.

24:56 – MB:

And it worked, but not enough. Yes, but this is where it’s very nice. And I can tell you until now, we have almost thousands of Haredim now because of this project in the army. And we are continue working for this in the coming months. But beside this project, you know, the 10% Haredim is considered more than Haredim. And there’s another 30% considered a heredim with modern touch, and there’s another heredim who is, you know, the conservative heredity, I mean, the majority of silent, and then we have the extreme heredim.

25:37 – MB:

So, what happened since October 7, besides those 40%, the 10%, the 30%, we figured out there is another population that we can call them people who care. People who care, even if they’re not really Israeli, so maybe they don’t know about Israel too much, but they do everything that they can to support everything. They send materials, they visit people, they bring food to the army and to families. It was very nice, but still, I think culture is much stronger than anything else.

26:19 – MB:

Because once it becomes, after two and three months, you know, people go back to the same olam kimina gono’ek, people go back to the same behaviors, the same customs, and that’s why the only way to really make a huge change in the coming years is to teach. I just wrote an article about civic science, that we need to teach those kids civics. They need to be, you don’t know what to be a citizenship in Israel.

26:48 – MB:

And then when they grow, they don’t have any questions about that. It will be natural for them to be identified, to take a part. This is exactly what we are doing in our 20 schools, almost 20 schools, because we believe that in the age of 5, 6, 7, you learn about those values and about obligations, it makes you a different person.

27:15 – GS:

You know, that normally, I think, people from the outside, when they see Haredim or ultra-religious or religious Jews doing something to help someone who’s not of the same mindset or culture, we almost feel there’s a sense of trying to make them religious, trying to be mekarev is the Hebrew word. And I think there’s an organization called Tzohar, I’m sure you’re aware of, that their whole approach is we are here to serve.

27:53 – GS:

And I think, and maybe I’m projecting, I’d love to hear your opinion on this. That during the war when Haredim went out and they volunteered in any way they could, so whether it was meant bringing food to a shiva, I think really they put themselves in a position where they were there just to serve. And as you said, there was an element of hakarat ha-tov, of recognizing and being thankful. There was also a big element of connectiveness It was clear that they benefited as much from going down south and being engaged with people that were different than them.

28:41 – GS:

but trying to help them deal with being relocated and help them deal with keeping up their studies. We gain, we give as much as we get, and we get as much as we give. And I think that potentially could be a paradigm changer where we all really realize that we were killed because we were Jews, we were maimed because we were Jews, and I didn’t, I’ll just put one more thing (into the discussion). I didn’t hear a sense at all of any critique of the (dance) rave that these kids were dancing on Shabbat, they were being mechalel Shabbat (desecrating the Sabbath).

29:22 – GS:

It was so clear the nation was together for the first time. Those are our kids, we are their parents, their brothers. Am I drinking the Kool-Aid or am I right?

29:34 – MB:

You’re absolutely right. You’re absolutely right. I didn’t find any one of those people who tried to convince or to be Mekarev. It comes from simply pure place. And actually, I mean, let’s not forget values like unity, solidarity, and loving your neighbor. These are very cool Jewish values. So commemorating Memorial Day is a great way for the Haredi, that’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s a great way for the Haredi community to show that commitment to those values in action.

30:12 – MB:

I mean, so this is the only way we can do, but there’s a lot of work to do. It’s not a hachmeh (innovation), a huge hachmeh to do those kinds of acts and volunteer just when we’re in the hedges in a very risky position. I think as Jewish people, we understand we are a Jewish nation, we have the same destiny, and we have to do everything that we can to work shoulder to shoulder. And to even, you know, I just explained this morning for a group, we don’t just need to understand the differentiation between pluralism and tolerance.

30:52 – MB:

Pluralism means that you believe there is many existence. Everybody’s, everything is truth. But as an Orthodox, you’re not a pluralism, but you have tolerance. And that’s mean you understand people as different, way and practice and be deaf. Yes as a human being. Yes, fully understanding and fully respected And this is something we can educate even Orthodox kids Geoffrey.

31:18 – AM:

That’s interesting pluralism and tolerance You don’t have to necessarily accept pluralism, but you’re tolerant to other people Pluralism is a philosophy.

31:38 – GS:

Exactly You know, and I think nowadays, when we think of tolerance, we typically want the ultra-religious, and just by that term, they sound so radical, to be tolerant of those who are not. But it really does go both ways. There’s a lot of misunderstanding and hatred I think maybe we could have a whole other podcast, because what they call the elephant in the room is when we have a discussion like this, I’m sure there are some of our listeners who are just scratching their head and saying, how can you possibly be a citizen of a country and not consider yourself a part.

32:14 – GS:

Some of the things that you have actually said need to be explained. It’s so problematic. But I think the end takeaway is, listen, there are belief systems. Secularism is a belief system. Judaism is a belief system. If we are going to progress in this world, we see the power of these belief systems. To do bad, and we have to see the power of them to do good. And to change them, you need leadership like you, Rabbi Menachem, and you need understanding.

32:47 – GS:

And I think that’s what’s so, so very important. We have to respect the backgrounds of each other. These are rich backgrounds, thousand-year-old backgrounds. But that doesn’t mean they can’t be changed. We see change overnight. And ultimately, I suspect that this Yom Hazikaron, you know, I was looking through the laws of mourning. And one of the laws is that you can’t greet the mourner. You have to just sit there and wait for them to speak.

33:18 – GS:

And I think we need less speaking and more just being together in unity. And we all come to Yom HaZikaron, to the State of Israel, to being Jewish in different ways. But a situation like today, on Monday, on Tuesday, is one where we can look in each other’s eyes and just see the pain and share that at the most deeply human level. And I just can’t wait to hear how Yom Hazikaron is different this year, because I think it’s going to have major impact, I believe, on how we go forward.

34:00 – MB:

Yes, so I want to say that I absolutely agree. I will write about and I’ll figure out and I will let you know. But I just want to end with one thing that after the Holocaust, two major movements emerged in the Jewish world, the State of Israel and the Haredi community. They each developed very separately, doing their own thing. But over the time, the paths started to cross and even clash. So now I think we got to figure out a way how to coordinate between them.

34:36 – MB:

And I think there is a huge potential, and we need the right people, we need the right vision, and to put aside those old arguments Then it’s visionary symbol fights. And I think it will happen. It will happen. There is no other choice.

34:52 – AM:

What you’re doing, Rabbi Bambach, is really what we call in America a game changer. And we look forward to things in Israel, unity in Israel, and people coming to understand and to tolerate one another, and these are hard times, but hard times lead to good times, and you’re going to be, Geoffrey asked about leadership, you’re going to be one of the leaders that are going to define what the future of Israel looks like,

35:22 – GS:

Thank you so much for joining. I’m going to put a link in the show notes so that people can discover your organization, a link to the PEF page so people can support the organization, and we look forward to learning with you sometime in the future again. Keep up the amazing work and Shabbat Shalom to everyone. Thank you so much for joining us.

35:45 – AM

Shabbat Shalom. Be well. Bye-bye.

35:46 – MB:

Shabbat Shalom. Thank you.

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Tagged as haredim, menachem bombach, Netzach Israel, yom hazikaron

May 1, 2024 · 11:18 pm

Life comes first

parshat achrei mot – leviticus 16 – 18

Join Geoffrey Stern and Rabbi Adam Mintz on Thursday May 2nd at 8:00pm Eastern on Clubhouse. From Rabbinic Judaism up until the present, we Jews “Choose Life”. Was it always so? Was it so obvious? Is it the secret source of Jewish survival? And…. Is it at the core of the current conflict?

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/561608

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse every Thursday night and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This week’s parsha is Acharei Mot.. literally; After Death. From Rabbinic Judaism up until the present, we Jews “Choose Life”. Was it always so? Was it so obvious? Is it the secret sauce of Jewish survival? And…. Is it at the core of the current conflict? So many questions and only half an hour. Join us for Life Comes First.

0:39 – GS:

Okay, Rabbi, welcome back from Italia.

0:55 – AM:

Welcome back from California and welcome back to all our listeners. It’s nice to be back to the weekly parasha.

1:02 – GS:

You know, they do say there are a bunch of new years and Nisan and Pesach is one of them and I really feel like this is a new start. I told you before, I was like, you know, out of practice and setting up [the equipment for the podcast] and doing everything. It’s like we are starting all over. It’s exciting. It is. So, you know, as I said in the intro, the name of the portion is Achrei Mot. And in Leviticus 16.1, it says, God spoke to Moses after the death, Achrei Mot, of the two sons of Aaron who died when they drew too close to the presence of God.

1:42 – GS:

Mot sh’nei b’nei Aaron b’keirav’tem lefnei Hashem v’yarmutu. The keravtem, as you know, means get close, but it also has the same shoresh as karban. So clearly, they were sacrificed. And you don’t really get a sense at all in this that maybe there was anything wrong with what they did. It just is a matter of fact. The Torah Temimah quotes the classical commentaries and says that since the portion goes right into the rules of the Day of the Atonement, it says it comes to teach you that just as the Day of Atonement atones for Israel, so the death of righteous people atones for Israel.

2:33 – GS:

So Rabbi, this is not going to be the focus of our discussion, but clearly you could make a case that it wasn’t simply the two sons of Aaron who were otherwise very righteous but failed in this regard that we can make a statement like that about (them.. regarding the death of the righteous), but you can go in whole hock and say, you know, the death of the righteous. This is a story about Aaron’s two sons, who just become overwhelmed with a need to sacrifice themselves, and here we are. This is the beginning of the portion of this week.

3:10 – GS:

It’s not altogether clear that they had sinned, is it, at least from this pasuk?

3:15 – AM:

No, it’s for sure not.

3:17 – AM:

And the Torah Temimah quoting that Yerushalmi, what does it mean that the death of righteous people atones for Israel? Right? It makes it seem like it makes sense, right? Just like Yom Kippur atones, so too the death of righteous people atones. That’s pretty harsh.

3:36 – GS:

It’s pretty harsh, but again, what we always try to do at Madlik is to take away all the preconceptions that we have and just look at it freshly as we are today. And here we have the Torah Temimah, the Jerusalem Talmud in Yoma, who brings this as an example of the death of the righteous. And this wasn’t simply any death. This was a death that they orchestrated, in a sense. You could make a case. It’s almost celebrating, must I say, martyrdom. They gave their lives for God. And in that Jerusalem Talmud, it brings other examples, and it does go on to say that Yudan bar Shalom said, why did the death of Aaron follow the breaking of the Ten Commandments to teach that the death of the just is as hard for the Holy One, praise be He, as the breaking of the tablets.

4:43 – GS:

So you have this paragraph in the Jerusalem Talmud that links the death of the righteous to atonement. Kind of modulated a little bit by saying, maybe God isn’t all that happy about it, or it hurts him. But I think if you just looked at these verses, you could easily make a case that Judaism, along with many other religions, understands that if you really believe in a God, and if you want to dedicate your life to God, you sometimes need to give your life for God, and in a sense, celebrate martyrdom would almost be the knee-jerk interpretation of this linkage between the death of Aaron’s sons and the high holidays; Yom Kippur.

5:33 – AM:

Yes, I think that’s right. And you know, it’s interesting you say we have a new beginning. So, we go back to how we work in Madlik. It’s nice to say that idea that we need a fresh view. So, I say it’s harsh. Yeah, sure. It’s harsh. But you know, but let’s leave that aside. Let’s leave our judgment aside. But they say it is a fact. So, we need to evaluate it.

5:55 – GS:

So, I just really quoted chapter 16 and the namesake of the Parsha to create a little bit of context. But what I really, really want to discuss tonight is much later on in the Parsha, and it is Leviticus 18, where there is a critical term, phrase, in rabbinic Judaism, and later Judaism, called v’chai behem, and you shall live by these laws (Meaning you should live and not die for the Torah). And we’re going to visit it and kind of walk down a road about how it treats life, because at the end of the day, Ahare Mot and how we put it into context, is how do we either celebrate life or the adverse, celebrate the end of life or death.

6:45 – GS:

So, in Leviticus 18, you know, it begins, here’s another beginning of a chapter, God spoke to Moses saying, speak to the Israelite people and say to them, I God am your God. Nothing really out of the ordinary here. You shall not copy the practices of the land of Egypt where you dwelt or of the land of Canaan to which I am taking you, nor shall you follow their laws.” Again, we’ve heard this a hundred times before. My rules alone shall you observe and faithfully follow my laws. I, God, am your God.

7:19 – GS:

You shall keep my laws and my rules by the pursuit of which human beings shall live. I am God. There is really nothing new here. If you think about it, even if you read it in the Hebrew and it says, Ve’et mishpatai asher yase’otam ha’adam v’chai b’hem ani hashem. If you go to the Koran translation, it modulates v’chai b’hem slightly. It says, You shall therefore keep my statutes and my commandments, which, if a man do, he shall live in them. I am the Lord. So, we know, wink wink, that vechai bahem became a bumper sticker, a tag phrase for saying what we all think we know about Judaism, which is we embrace life. (over death)

8:06 – GS:

There’s nothing in Judaism that comes more before life. But before we get there, let’s continue reading it and reading the commentaries the way it naturally reads. If you look at Rashi, Rashi says, he says, you shall live in them in the world to come. Eternal life in parentheses, the translator says. For if you say it means that he shall live in this world, is it not a fact that in the end he must die? So even Rashi is going along with the mold, which is, yes, you have to live in them… eternal life.

8:44 – GS:

We’re saying; you follow the laws of the Torah, of God, and you will live forever. Ibn Ezra, it says, Why does it say, therefore keep my statutes, my ordinance, to make it clear that they are a source of life in both worlds to those who observe them. God will give eternal life to the person who understands their secret. He will never die. These two commentaries of and by themselves are missing the point or even intentionally sticking to the way it was written and meant to be understood, which is you keep God’s commandments, you’ll live forever.

9:27 – GS:

You’ll have this blessed life. You’ll have this charmed life of eternity. They are not making any case here about Judaism loves the life that we have on the four cubits of this earth. Am I right? Am I missing something?

9:47 – AM:

No, you are right. That’s correct. I mean, it is interesting the idea, I mean, you know, let’s go back to the Rashi for a second. For the world to come. Shem tomar v’olam hazeh v’lo sofa humeit. Right? Meaning that it’s a funny argument because you could say v’chai bahem means that you should enjoy this world. But Rashi doesn’t like that idea because the idea that it’s finite, that, you know, that means that you can’t really have a perfect world because this world is finite. That’s not obvious to me.

10:28 – GS:

They’re almost resisting the message that we know ultimately took root.

10:35 – AM:

Right, that’s what I’m worried about. Correct, that’s exactly what I’m worried about.

10:40 – GS:

Maybe that’s what they were worried about, and maybe what I’m doing is projecting into them, and they’re not actually reading it as we would say pashut pashat. They are reading it from the context of too many people are thinking about Vachai Bahem as human, physical, temporal life. I want to bring something more spiritual into it, but nonetheless, it is surprising when you read it from the context of how later Jewish tradition took those two words, v’chai b’hem, and that was fascinating to me this year as I read it over again.

11:16 – AM:

I agree with that.

11:17 – AM:

I think that is fascinating. I don’t know what the answer is, and I think you’re right, but I mean, you know, but it is fascinating.

11:25 – GS:

So, the direction I want to take it now is to say, and I said this kind of in the intro, which is, we all know that Judaism loves life. And I said, was it always so? And was it so obvious? So, and of course, I’m kind of contrasting this, I guess, stereotypical belief that we have that Jews just love life against the alternative, which is that at the end of the day, we are living for a world to come, we are living for eternal life, this life is fleeting, this life is meaningless, trivial, temporal, and all that.

12:09 – GS:

And I think we would be doing a disservice if we didn’t follow Rashi and the Ibn Ezra and the other traditional commentaries who see in veha’i Bahem as a celebration of exactly that type of eternal life, to look at our our scripture, our prayers (our liturgy). I mean, here we are talking about Yom Kippur, and on Yom Kippur, we have the Ten Martyrs. It’s a major, major part of the service. Elu Azkara. And I’ve quoted it in the source sheet. I hope you look at the source sheet, but if not, you know, in a few months you’ll be in synagogue, you’ll have plenty of time, you could look up the Ten Martyrs.

12:55 – GS:

And if you were coming to synagogue only once a year, and unfortunately there are people who do just that, you could easily make the case that ours is a religion that celebrates martyrdom. In the translation that I brought from Sefaria, it really elaborates, Rabbi. I’ve never seen that before.

13:15 – AM:

Yeah, this is really amazing, this Sefaria point here.

13:19 – GS:

But what it does is it talks about, you know, some cooked up charge that the Caesar made against the Jews about the kidnapping of Joseph that was never paid for, and therefore the Jewish people had to pay for the crime that was done so many years earlier. I mean, this is the kind of – whether it’s deicide or fratricide or whatever, we get blamed for things that happened long times ago. And he goes up, they send Rabbi Yishmael up to heaven. And it talks about what he does before he goes up, if you read the embellishment, and you know, he dresses in white, he goes to the mikvah, he puts on the tefillin, he comes down when God and the angels tell him, yes, this is true, you have to martyr yourselves.

14:04 – GS:

And it really goes through a whole, I don’t know if I’m right to say celebration, but certainly at the most holy day of the year, at Musaf, which you could argue is the height of the service, here we are reading about Nadav and Avihu, two children and here ten children of God martyred themselves. We also read about the Akedah (The binding/sacrifice of Isaac) on the high holidays. You could easily make a case that Judaism, along with a whole slew of other religions, asks for the ultimate sacrifice.

14:38 – AM:

I think that is absolutely a fair read, right? And you talk about the Akedah, right? I mean, that is its own complication. But what does it mean, right? How do you explain it? And, you know, it seems to be that we are a religion of martyrdom. Now, you have to say that it’s very important to look at this in light of Christianity, because Christianity is a religion of martyrdom. Right? So, you know, how is this—are we responding to Christianity? Are we trying to be like Christians somehow?

15:13 – GS:

I mean, and if you think about it, if I was to say to any Jew on the street, what is the most important blessing; liturgy that we have, it would be the Shema. Maybe the Alenu is up there. These are traditionally prayers of martyrdom. So, again, and I’ve read books who have talked about we’re kind of out of touch with that whole aspect of Judaism, (see: Two Nations in Your Womb: Perceptions of Jews and Christians in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages Paperback – August 19, 2008 by Israel Jacob Yuval) and maybe this b’chai b’hem, love of life, Fiddler on the Roof, To Life, To Life, L’chaim, maybe this is a recent interpretation of us Jews. I’m going to argue not so much, but again, you have to be honest when you look at the sources, and I think it’s important because it also means that when you look at the sources as we’re going to do from here on, and they do celebrate life in contradistinction to giving up life and to another life in another world, it comes not only out of a context of an ancient Near East, a Middle Ages. It comes out of the context of our own religion, and we always love looking at different pathways that could have been or that are. Clearly, our own religion had a very solid footing in that notion of this life is a Prusdor, it’s just a passageway to a bigger world, a more important world, and it’s almost meaningless.

Pikei Avot 4: 16

רַבִּי יַעֲקֹב אוֹמֵר, הָעוֹלָם הַזֶּה דּוֹמֶה לִפְרוֹזְדוֹר בִּפְנֵי הָעוֹלָם הַבָּא. הַתְקֵן עַצְמְךָ בַפְּרוֹזְדוֹר, כְּדֵי שֶׁתִּכָּנֵס לַטְּרַקְלִין:

Rabbi Jacob said: this world is like a vestibule before the world to come; prepare yourself in the vestibule, so that you may enter the banqueting-hall.

16:44 – AM:

I think that’s important to say. I think that’s very important to say. You know, and that’s its own discussion, right? That you learned from Yeshiva, that the whole purpose of this world is to get us to the next world.

17:01 – GS:

So what I love about where we’re going to go from here is we are still going to stay in the realm of interpretation as opposed to maybe what’s intrinsically in the text. So, we go to Deuteronomy 30: 19. And it says:

(19) I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day: I have put before you life and death, blessing and curse. Choose life—if you and your offspring would live— (20) by loving your God ה’, heeding God’s commands, and holding fast to [God]. For thereby you shall have life and shall long endure upon the soil that ה’ swore to your fathers Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, to give to them.

So here we have that iconic choose life, and giving the text a little bit of credit, you cannot but interpret this either on a personal level in terms of the soil that you’re living on, it’s clearly a temporal physical life, or from a national perspective as the Jewish people living on our land in our homeland.

18:14 – GS:

But clearly, וּבָֽחַרְתָּ֙ בַּחַיִּ֔ים became that bumper sticker, but it does say in the text itself, in no unmistakable terms, that we’re not talking about some eternal life, some afterlife, some other life. We’re talking about living upon l’shevet al ha’adamah asher nishbah Hashem l’avotecha. So, I think we’re not going to be proving any points here, but what we can say is this is where that other context went that said that somehow we Jews fell in love with temporal, timely, physical life and saw that as a worthy goal of existence.

18:57 – AM:

Yeah, now, how did that happen, right? What you’re arguing is that there was a movement, there was a transition somehow, right?

19:07 – GS:

Either a transition, or there were multiple traditions, or it was like everything else. You know, we’ve discussed this so many times. You know, you can find any opinion in the texts or in Judaism,

Pirke Avot 5: 22

בֶּן בַּג בַּג אוֹמֵר, הֲפֹךְ בָּהּ וַהֲפֹךְ בָּהּ, דְּכֹלָּא בָהּ.

Ben Bag Bag said: Turn it over, and [again] turn it over, for all is therein.

and this is one that clearly, I mean, we went around our Seder table, and we said, v’hi she’amda, we raise our cup, and we talk about how in every generation they’ve tried to destroy us, and then we go v’hi she’amda, and this is what saved us. And I said to everyone at the table, what is that secret sauce that has saved us?

19:47 – GS:

And I’d love to know if you’ve asked that question or around your table….

19:51 – AM:

I’ll tell you what we said. Obviously, we asked that question. And I’ll tell you what we said. What we said is you pick up the cup. You know what is that saves us? What saves us is the Seder. The Seder is the most practiced ritual in America. Ninety percent of Jews in America have some form of a Seder. That’s what keeps us going. The you know, the idea of continued ritual.

20:17 – GS:

So, I love that. Some of the answers that we got was the fact that the Jews stay together. We might be the smallest nation, but we’re the biggest family. My son Daniel said that even though we argue and we have different opinions… we embrace different opinions, we stay at the same table, and that’s what the Seder is. That’s kind of a variation of what you just said. Around the table at differing people and we’re still together. Some people said it was humor. Some people said it was lifting up that glass to l’chaim.

20:53 – AM:

That’s funny. See, I’m just struck by the fact that we lift up the glass. Why is it, you know, that we lift up the glass? Somehow there has to be some symbolism in that.

21:07 – GS:

So, that was the segue I was looking for and the reason we lift up the glass is what do we say? We say l’chaim. We say To Life. So, that clearly was one answer that our secret sauce is that we are just infatuated with life. And that is, again, you know, is it in that verse, b’chartem b’chayim? I’m not sure, but I do believe that it does talk about – can’t reinterpret it the way Rashi and the Ibn Ezra did to b’chai b’hem. Here we’re talking about temporal life. And it’s an embracement of it. So let me just explain how b’chai b’hem in our verses, in our parasha, how it was interpreted.

21:56 – GS:

And you know, we’ve been talking at the level of midrash, of allegory, of commentary, but now we’re going to talk halacha (Jewish Law). The Mishnah Torah written by Maimonides in the laws of the Shabbat says, the laws of the Shabbat are suspended in the face of a danger to life, as are the obligations of the other mitzvot. So, in a sense, what he’s saying is from a legal perspective, all of our ritual, all of our religion doesn’t ever, ever compete with something that puts life in peril. And he goes on to give many, many examples of that.

22:50 – GS:

And then finally he says that these list of things that I tell you you can do on the Shabbat In Mishnah Torah Shabbat 2.3, says, when such treatment is administered, it should not be administered by Gentiles, by children, by servants, or by women…. excuse the women part. What he’s saying is, don’t put this off to whatever in your time is considered the lesser members of society. So that they will not view the Shabbat flippantly. Instead, the treatment should be administered by the leaders of Israel and the wise.

23:35 – GS:

It is forbidden to hesitate before transgressing the Sabbath laws on behalf of a person who is legally ill. It says, when a person shall perform to live through them, he quotes our verse as the proof text. He says, how do we know that not only are you overriding the ritual law, but you are actually—you should have the most saintly person do it—you are actually embodying the ritual law? It’s because it says in Leviticus which a person shall perform b’chai b’hem. And he goes on to really get into so many ways that the rabbis have gone out of their way to say, even in a situation where normally we follow the “rov”, the majority, in a case of Pekuach Nefesh (when life is at stake), you save the life.

24:34 – GS:

Normally you have to consult with a higher authority…. just do it. It’s really fascinating, if you recall a few weeks ago I had an interview with Daniel Polisar of Shalem College and he was talking about raising funds to buy protective gear for soldiers and he realized the need on Friday afternoon. He called his rabbi and he says, can I continue working on this spreadsheet and sending out the emails over Shabbat and the rabbi said you have to do it. These are live situations and really we’re stretching it.

25:10 – GS:

We’re not talking about someone who’s on life support. We’re talking about anything that can remotely be associated with life, overrides not only Shabbat but every mitzvah. This is rather remarkable and it’s remarkable that the only verse that Maimonides brings is from our parsha that didn’t have to be interpreted that way.

25:33 – AM:

Yeah, that is absolutely right. And again, that’s what’s interesting to me is the fact it didn’t have to be interpreted that way. That’s why it’s so interesting.

25:43 – GS:

And so, to me, Rabbi, what that means is, and this is why I love our texts and I love our Torah so much, is number one, we don’t necessarily hide the making of the salami, so to speak. We take a verse, we reinterpret it, we put it into law, and it’s fascinating if you think of the history of this. We’re going to go, I know it’s just Passover, I know we were talking about Yom Kippur, But believe it or not, we’re going to go to the book of the Maccabees and Hanukkah time, because we are going to see that this law that pikuach nefesh overrides, that a life at risk overrides everything, was not necessarily always the law.

26:33 – GS:

Now, the book of Maccabees, I don’t believe we have in the original Hebrew. We only have in Greek, even though there is a translation into Hebrew or Aramaic, in the Sefaria. Here’s a situation where we’re reading it in translation and we’re doing just fine. And it says in the Book of Maccabees 1.9 that there was a battle. Now when Bacchides heard hereof, he came on the sabbath day unto the banks of Jordan with a great power. Then Jonathan said to his people, let us go now and fight for our lives.

27:09 – GS:

And what happened is, and this is if you read it in the text, and I encourage you all to look at the source notes, it almost sounds at this point in the story as though we’re talking about Moses and Nachshon Ben Aminadav on the banks of the Reed Sea. And they’re on one side, and they go, wherefore cry ye now into heaven that ye may be delivered from the hand of your enemies? So, with that, they went to the other side of the river. And then later on, what happened is their enemy made war against them on the Sabbath day.

27:48 – GS:

And they said, we will not come forth, neither will we do the king’s commandment to profane the Sabbath a day. They said, let us die, these are the Jews speaking, let us die all in our innocency. Heaven and earth will testify for us that ye put us to death wrongfully. So, they rose up against them in battle on the Sabbath and they slew them with their wives and children and their cattle to the number of a thousand people. So, the first thing we have to note is things have not changed. We always get attacked on our holidays.

28:21 – GS:

Number two, in this particular case, they paid the price of not even leaving their caves. We’re talking about a Chumrah (Strict interpretation of Jewish Law against changing domains) here, and they were killed and slaughtered. And this is where Judah Maccabee rose and was an innovator and initiator. At that time, therefore, they decreed, saying, Whosoever shall come to make battle with us on the Sabbath day, we will fight against him, neither we will die, all as our brethren that were murdered in this secret place. So here it’s as close as you get. Rabbi, you ask, how did they learn this?

28:57 – GS:

When did this happen? As close as you get as of a documentary of how you see the halacha changing in front of your eyes, or at least the practice of Jewish law changes in front of your eyes. And this is as much what we celebrate on Hanukkah, I think, as anything else. It’s a fascinating story, isn’t it?

29:19 – AM:

It is a fascinating story. I mean, when it comes to Hanukkah, the question is why? That story is better than the story of the miracle of the oil. It’s interesting that we choose to celebrate the miracle of the oil even though this story is better.

29:36 – GS:

So, we are running out of time, and you just got back from Italy, so there’s a time difference here. But what I want to end with, and I really encourage all of you to look at the notes, but more importantly, to watch a movie. It’s available on Amazon. It’s called Precious Life by Shlomi Eldar. I heard a presentation by him and a guy named Yuval Biton at our local Westport library. And what both of them have in common is Yuval Biton was a doctor in an Israeli prison and he actually cured Yahya Sinwar when he was gravely sick.

30:18 – GS:

He saved the person who became our enemy. And the movie is about taking a woman from Gaza who has a child. Two of her children have already died of a rare disease. This child is brought to Israel’s hospital. He gets a bone marrow donor. And a contribution from an anonymous Israeli of $50,000. It turns out that the contributor lost his son in battle. It’s a powerful, powerful story of the relationship between Israel and Gaza, but the part that I put in the notes, a video, is a point where the mother is starting to talk and they’re talking about Jerusalem and the temple and the willingness of people in Gaza to sacrifice their lives.

31:14 – GS:

And I’m going to pick up the narrative where the doctor says, “like Arafat said, a million shahids for Jerusalem.” And she answers, more than a million. All of us are for Jerusalem. All of our people. Jerusalem is ours. You’re angry, right? And he says, why? She says, because of what I said. No, no, I just think the whole concept of Shahid is silly, he says. She says, all of us, not just a million, we’re all for Jerusalem. All of us. Jerusalem is ours. Do you understand? Death is a natural thing for us.

31:53 – GS:

We’re not afraid to die. From the smallest infant, even younger than Mohammed, (my son), to the oldest person, we’d all sacrifice ourselves for Jerusalem. We feel we have the right. You can be angry. I am, he says. So be it. I can’t be, it’s a religious thing. It’s heresy to say that Jerusalem isn’t ours. Death is normal for you? Totally normal, she says. Then how come you’re fighting over (your son) Muhammad’s life if you say that death is a normal thing? And then she describes how she had lost two daughters, she mourned in the moment, but then she got over it.

32:31 – GS:

And they conclude the conversation as follows. She: you don’t believe in death? He: no, to us life is precious. She: life is precious but not to us. We feel that life is nothing. Life isn’t worth a thing, (laughing). That’s why we have suicide bombers. They’re not afraid to die. It’s natural. None of us fear death, even our children. It’s natural to us.

33:00 – GS:

He says, I asked you before, after Muhammad recovers, would you let him become a shaheed? Absolutely, she says. For what purpose? If it’s for the sake of Jerusalem, it’s nothing to me. I know it’s hard for you. Our people die. You kill people in Gaza by the dozens, right? When there’s an attack in Gaza, right? Do you deny that? He says: no, I don’t deny that. Our people get killed dozens at a time. When one of yours gets killed, it shakes up your entire world. For us, it’s normal. We cry out in joy and celebrate when someone becomes a shahid. To us, a shahid is a big thing. To you, when someone gets killed, the world turns upside down. You take it very hard. He asks, what’s preferable? She, what do you mean? Him, what’s better, that life is precious or that it’s not precious? She says, life isn’t precious, smiling. No, life isn’t precious.

33:40 – GS:

You have to watch the movie. Afterwards, the movie director claims, that she said all that because she was being criticized in Gaza for collaborating with the Jews. But my takeaway is, whether she believed it or not, she represented a belief.

34:29 – GS:

And at the end of the day, we could make a case that that’s what we’re fighting. And this isn’t a war between colonialists and freedom fighters. It’s a war between people who love life and people who don’t. It’s just a chilling movie, and this part of it is a chilling narrative where it really gets to the crux of what we’ve been discussing tonight, Ahare Mot.

34:57 – AM: That’s amazing.

34:58 – AM:

I mean, everybody should watch the movie. I look forward, Sharon, I look forward to watching it as well. I mean, look forward. It’s very important to see it. And this was a great topic. Welcome back, everybody. We should enjoy this world so that we’re worthy to enjoy the world to come. Shabbat shalom to everybody.

35:20 – GS:

Shabbat shalom, and it is on Amazon so you can rent the movie A Precious Life. Shlomi Eldar is the director. Shabbat shalom. See you all next week. Let the hostages be free and let there be peace.

35:33 – AM:

Be well. Amen. Be well. Bye-bye.

35:36 – GS:

Hello, Loren. How are you tonight?

35:38 – Loren Davis

I’m great. Thank you, Geoffrey. I was just wondering; you talked this evening about the death of Aaron’s sons and that there may be a link there to a celebration of life and then afterlife. Is there other documentation that you can point us to that would maybe go a little bit further into that concept, because I think it’s a reasonable conclusion, because it’s a difficult passage to read and make sense of most of the time when you read it. And then you also tied it, you also discussed the issue of the lack in this movie of the lack of the dearness of life that the people from Gaza feel.

36:32 – LD:

Is there any correlation between that feeling and the story of Aaron’s sons in terms of the fact that they accept that death is something that’s part of their journey?

36:44 – GS:

You know, Lauren, I’m a big student of religion, and one of the reasons I’m a student of religion is that I think all of our religions always express us, humanity. And there’s good things and bad things in humanity, and therefore there were good things and bad things in religion, and there were things that have expiration dates also. And I think that there’s no question, and there’s a book by John Levinson, I think it’s called The Death and Resurrection of the Beloved Son: The Transformation of Child Sacrifice in Judaism and Christianity August 30, 1995 by Jon D. Levenson, and he talks about, he’s a scholar, a Jewish scholar at Yale and he talks about the sacrifice of Jesus.

37:27 – GS:

Of Isaac, we Jews typically call it Akedat Yitzchak, the binding of Isaac, because we have an issue with thinking that Isaac was actually killed and resurrected. But there are Midrashim that he points out where, in fact, Isaac dies and is resurrected. There is definitely—these are shared traditions that come from shared, deep-seated needs and desires and wants for us to beat this mortality race and to believe in a world to-come and to believe in a resurrection and to believe in an afterlife.

38:09 – GS:

And so, it is in Islam for sure. It is in Judaism and it is certainly in Christianity, and of course with Christianity and Judaism, you have the sibling rivalry where they went in one direction and we retracted. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t within us, and I think that what I was trying to say about this woman (in the movie) was whether she believed it or she was echoing things that she heard by people who were radicals and she didn’t believe, there’s no question when they talk about Hamas is an idea, part of these ideas that are shared with the Muslim Brotherhood and others are crazy ideas within the Islamic religion and we have plenty of our own crazy ideas and it’s the obligation of those of us who are students of religion to police and to explore and bring to the light of day that there are these texts, there are these traditions, and there are alternatives.

39:12 – GS:

And I think ultimately, because Hamas is an idea that makes it extremely hard to flesh out, but like other ideas, ideas can change and ideas can be subjected to the light of day. And so, yeah, I mean, I do think that you have to listen to it as hard as it is. And when you see this woman smiling, saying it, it’s chilling. But we have to know that there are pathways of thought, mostly driven by religion, that can think in those terms. You know, I think Thomas Friedman once said that when the Cold War was upon us and it was the U.S. against the U.S.S.R., we had mutual assured destruction, MAD. And he said, you know, with Iran and these types of eschatological end-of-day types of religions, mutual assured destruction is an invitation to the party. It’s not a threat! I mean, these are societies that are built upon this end of days. We have our own messianists in Jerusalem today. So, I don’t know, it’s very scary, it’s very depressing that these ideas can still take root today, but yes, they’re in our tradition, they’re in Christianity, and they’re certainly in Islam today, and they’re playing out in front of us.

40:47 – LD

Yeah, it is scary. It’s a perversion, I think, of what the religions may have originally been created to perpetuate, but that’s editorial on my part.

41:00 – GS:

Well, I mean, I think at the end of the day, if you believe in a created world, and you were created by the divine, life is the greatest gift that you have, and you have to nurture it in yourself and in your fellow creations.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/561608

Listen to last year’s episode: Scapegoating

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Tagged as choose life, death wish, martyrdom, shahid

April 16, 2024 · 12:43 pm

Madlik Model Seder 2024

Join us on Clubhouse on Wednesday April 17th at 8:00pm Eastern. This year our Seder will be different from other seders. For the first time in many of our lives it will be a Leil Shemorim, a night of concern, uncertainty, fatigue and confusion. Let us follow the advice of the Rabbis to see ourselves as though we too are leaving our Egypt…. We’ll discuss and suggest some texts and subjects for your seder this year.

Sefaria Source sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/559081

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern and at Madlik we light a spark or shed some light on a Jewish Text or Tradition. Along with Rabbi Adam Mintz we host Madlik Disruptive Torah on clubhouse and share it as the Madlik podcast on your favorite platform. This year our Seder will be different from other seders. For the first time in many of our lives it will be a Leil Shemorim, a night of concern; a night of uncertainty, fatigue and confusion. So, let’s follow the advice of the Rabbis to see ourselves as though we too are leaving our Egypt. Join us as we recast the ancient texts of the Haggadah for our generation and our challenging times.

Well, welcome, Rabbi. We have not been together for ages. We were together in person at the Jerome L. Stern lecture, pre-Passover lecture (at Hadar Institute).

Adam Mintz: Which was very good.

GS: And it talked about the fact that this Seder was different from other Seders. This L’El Shim’urim, you know, the night of the original Seder, there were probably screams and shouts outside. The people inside the doors were hoping that the marks that they put on their doorpost were actually going to perform as advertised.

1:37 – GS:

They were slaves. They didn’t know where they were going. There was uncertainty. Truly, it’s a different Seder. You and I, you know, we’ve lived what my father would call charmed lives, privileged lives. At our Seders, we rejoice at the freedom that we have. And if we think of those who are in need, it’s probably thinking of the other. And here we are, we’re going to be celebrating a Seder where when we think of those in need, we’re thinking of ourselves, of our own people. It’s really, truly, it’s going to be a different kind of Seder this year.

2:18 – Adam Mintz:

Really, I mean and you know the challenge of how to deal with it and what to what and how to feel and what to say is really a challenge so I’m happy we’re doing this and we’re thinking about it a few days early.

2:31 – GS:

Okay, so what I want to start talking about is hostages. When you drive through Israel today, you see these signs everywhere, and it says, Pidyon Shvuyim Mitzvah G’dolah. Redeeming the hostage is a big mitzvah. And, you know, I have to say that when I talk politics with my Israeli friends and I say, well, you know, the hostages is one thing, but this is global politics. This is, you know, what about the people on the border? You can’t just say we’ll do anything for the hostages. And the number of times that Israelis have said to me, you don’t understand that in Israel Leaving a soldier behind would mean that we’ve lost our soul.

3:32 – GS:

Leaving a hostage unredeemed, we’re losing our soul. And I say to myself, here is an example where the people of Israel, Am Yisrael, and this is coming from across the spectrum of Israelis, they have internalized this concept of Pidyon Shvuyim, of bringing back hostages, as a core, absolute core belief of Judaism in ways that I’m ashamed to say that I think that I’ve forgotten. I think of it as one of a number of variables.

Have you had the same experience?

4:13 – AM:

Very much so. And you know, you were in Israel just now. So, you really experienced that… you felt it. I actually heard a podcast today of Yossi Klein Halevi. And what he said was that following the missile attack from Iran last Saturday night, that actually, you know, all the discussion of Rafa and Gaza… no one’s talking about that anymore. The only thing they want to know is they want to fight Iran and they want to get back the hostages.

That’s all they’re talking about is the importance of getting back the hostages.

4:48 – GS:

So, I want to recast the whole Seder, the whole of Zecher Yetzirat Mitzrayim, based on this concept. In the Shabbat prayers, we say every Shabbat after we say the Shema, we said, emet mitzrayim g’altanu Hashem elokeinu, umibet avodim piditanu. Truly, you redeemed us from Egypt, God. From the house of bondage, you liberated us.” And the word used for liberation is piditanu. And I think that you could make a case that the whole Seder, that the whole holiday of Pesach, basically is commemorating this core belief of us Jews that when God took us out of Egypt, he was redeeming us as hostages.

5:51 – GS:

The language is used later on in that same prayer, it goes, He frees the captives and redeems the humble, and then it ends with the, redemption at its core is redeeming hostages. And I think, and again, I’ll say it again, I’m almost ashamed to admit, that I didn’t understand how core and intrinsic that is to the Jewish experience. I mean, we always talk about Yetziat Mizrayim at every turn, all we Jews say is Zecher l’tziayat mitzrayim, But there must be something about This concept of redeeming somebody who is in captivity, who has lost control of their future, at whatever cost, and I’m just in awe and I’m just humbled, but that certainly is going to impact how I, I don’t use the word celebrate, how I commemorate, how I relive Yetziat Mitzrayim this year.

6:56 – AM:

So that point about Ezrat Abateinu from the Davening is really a good point because, you know, it’s so much is in the language, right? So much is in the way we present it. And Motzi assirim or Ozer Dalim, the next thing, which you didn’t read, right? But Ozer Dalim, that’s connected to helping out the poor people. It’s all the same thing. It’s helping out the vulnerable, the people who are in trouble. And that’s what we celebrate on Pesach.

7:29 – GS:

Absolutely, but to me this year it takes on a new absolute nuance. So, I think we always talk about the Seder as asking questions. It has the Ma Nashtana in it. I think there is no question that as people are looking towards their Seder this year, some people might be afraid of the questions that are going to be asked. Some people are afraid to ask the questions inside of them. I think that at this Seder, we should really take a kind of a cue, and you know I love the kibbutzim haggadot. We should take a cue from the traditions, not only limited to the kibbutz haggadot, where they made up their own questions.

8:23 – GS:

Questions have to be very important this year. So in the source sheet, I was at, as you know from last week’s podcast, I was in Beit Hashitim, and I saw some kibbutz haggadot. And I want to just read from one kibbutz haggadah in terms of the description of the four children. It says, the wise, what does he ask? He asks, what is this war to us? Chacham, ma ha-milchama hazot lanu? What is this war to us that we are obliged to do? And surely you should respond with the laws of liberation and freedom, of herut, that is never finished, and it is incumbent upon everyone to fight for it with all of his soul and all of his might.

9:23 – GS:

The Wicked, what does he ask? What is this war to you? So these were written during the War of Independence. They were written when the people on the kibbutz were defending themselves, and that was their question. And certainly we can ask today, what does this war mean to us? So the wicked says, what does this war mean to you, to you and not to me? And since he excluded himself from the collective, and then it follows the traditional Haggadah….. So again, for the kibbutznikim who were surrounded, they understood that force was necessary.

10:24 – GS:

But those are the kinds of questions that we’re going to have and the discussions that we have to have. And finally, the one who doesn’t know how to ask, you initiate a discussion and recount the chapters of our slavery and wars from Egypt until the present time. You have to believe that as we sit down for the Seder and we know we are using a text that comes, parts of it from the times of the Mishnah, in the year 100-200, Jews have been studying these texts. I started by saying L’el Shmurim, it’s a night of watching.

11:04 – GS:

There were Jews who had seders, were afraid of pogroms, they were afraid of the new land that they had just recently come to. We are, in a sense, I wouldn’t say privileged, but yes, we are privileged. We’re privileged this year to experience a Seder like I would argue most Jews have experienced a Seder for 2,000 years and not as we have experienced it in America for the last 60 years where everything seemed so hunky-dory.

11:40 – AM:

I couldn’t agree more. I’ll just tell you that I spoke about the Seder on another podcast, and I talked about exactly this. I looked at some commentaries. You like looking at the kibbutz commentaries. I was interested in looking at the commentaries from Poland from the 1800s. People who saw themselves as if they were in bondage again, because they live with such uncertainty and pogroms and all of these things, and they write about their experience and what they’re looking for in Poland as if they need another exodus from Egypt.

12:18 – AM:

So it’s exactly what you said, that this year, but the Jews for hundreds of years wrote like this. I was reading a commentary on Ha lach Ma’anya and they said, you know, the Jews in Egypt were in prison and we’re in prison also. But we look to that model to say they got out of prison. We’re going to be freed from prison also.

That’s amazing.

12:40 – GS:

Yeah, it really is. I think as hard of a message as it is, we really have the opportunity to connect with our brethren, our brothers and sisters in Israel in a way this year that we have never been before and with our history. I’ll just continue a little bit in terms of one Haggadah that I saw at this Beit Hashitim, which has this archive of kibbutz Haggadah, in terms of the Ma Nishtana, the four questions. And it says, what is different about this night from all other nights? Because on this night, the night of Pesach, we are gathered here in a meal all together.

13:20 – GS:

Parents and children sitting as one, and like us, all the people of Israel, whether in the land or in the diaspora, from time immemorial on today. I would argue that this moment in time, we have never been closer with our brethren in Israel, with Jews around the world. And we have to savor that just because it’s a fact. And these kibbutznikim understood that. It says, because on all other nights we celebrated the seder of the holiday of freedom under foreign rule in the struggle on the rebuilding and immigration.

14:00 – GS:

And now we are free in the state of Israel. The gates are open for the return of the dispersed from the corners of the world, and it is in our hands to settle them here. Well, you know, one of the things that happened on October 7th is two myths, two Zionist myths may have been shattered. One was that Israel can defend itself by itself without the need of relying on anyone else. And whether it was on October 7th or last Saturday night (when 300+ missiles were fired from Iran and were 99% intercepted with the help of the US, UK, France and even Jordan), we now know that we are part of a larger community. That we need the world.

14:36 – GS:

The world needs us, but we need the world. And the other myth that was shattered is that now that we have a state, a Jew will never be killed for being a Jew in the state of Israel. And in fact, Israelis who thought they had developed a new persona realized that the kids at the Nova (rave), the grown-ups in the kibbutz, they were killed because they were Jews. And Jews have been united in a way like never before. So, this Ma Nistana that it just said that now things are different, we have to question how different they are and what that means for us.

15:15 – GS:

And these are examples of questions and discussions that we are all going to have at the Seder that is going to make this Seder like no other Seder. It goes on. I would love if you would look at the notes that are listed with this podcast and see what else they talk about. They were dreaming of making the world a better place, too.

I think there was a tradition started by the Chabad Rebbe, that he would always talk about the fifth child. And when he talked about the fifth child, he talked about potentially the assimilated Jew who wasn’t at the Seder.

16:06 – GS:

And we, of course, have been at the Hatufim Square outside of the Tel Aviv Museum, We’ve been at our synagogues where we have tables set up with chairs that are empty. In my town, which is a beach town, everybody was encouraged to bring a beach chair and put a chair on the beach with a picture of those who are missing, we should have an empty chair at the Seder. And there is a fifth child at the Seder, and he’s our grandfather, he’s our wife, he’s our husband, he’s our child who’s not there, and that has amazing impact, I think, on who is at the Seder…. The question is who’s not at the Seder as well.

16:52 – AM:

That’s interesting. I know I in my class today, my model Seder today, I referenced that too. And it’s funny because I gave credit to Rabbi Riskin for introducing it, but probably it was the Lubavitcher Rebbe.

17:06 – GS:

I don’t want to dwell on the L’el Shmurim, but truly, and we heard a wonderful lecture about this, the truth is that there was a very strong tradition, and L’el Shmurim was translated in many ways. Some was that we were watching for trouble, for tsarot, some that we simply stayed up all night like the rabbis in Bnei Brak. And talked about it all night. But it wasn’t a night of a simple sitting back and being proud of the fact that we were redeemed. So the next thing that I would like to talk about is Hametz.

17:54 – GS:

You know, and I know, that in the past, I’ve always said that at the Seder, we don’t talk enough about the fact of what’s not there in terms of the Chometz. Most traditional Hagadot will have the blessings and the formulas that we say the night before the Seder in terms of B’dikkat, hachametz, of taking out the chametz. And you can make an argument that it’s just practical to have them at the beginning of the Hagada. But I will argue that actually they’re an intrinsic part of the Seder.

18:39 – GS:

And the Mishnah, the famous Mishnah in Psachim that says, le’or la’ar ba’asa, it says, on the light, the night of the 14th And the rabbis struggle to say, no, no, you can’t clear out the hametz on the night of the 14th (the actual night of the seder). It’s too late by then. But I truly believe that there is a part of the beginning of the Seder where we have to get rid of all the decay and all of the loss that is associated with hummets. And what I will say tonight is that Lechem, and we’ve talked about this before, Rabbi, Lechem (bread) and Milchama (war) are related.

19:25 – GS:

Lechem and war are related. They come from the same shoresh (root). And I think that even in Genesis, when Adam is punished for the sin that he had done, it says, by the sweat of your brow shall you draw lechem (bread) from the earth. (similarly, the blessing on bread is: Motzi Lechem min ha’aretz) So the idea of Lechem is that struggle, is that struggle of possessions and territory. And I think that what happens at the beginning of the Seder is we try to leave behind all that storm and drum. We try to move away from the decay. It’s only for a day. We’ll get back to it, or maybe it’s only for a week.

20:20 – GS:

But I think that’s something that can be discussed this year as well, what Lechem and Milchama and war represents and the respite that we get when we sit down to the Seder.

20:35 – AM:

Yeah, I mean, you know, it’s the simplicity of matzah. That’s the opposite of lechem, right? It has no additives. It doesn’t take a long time. We’re in favor of simplicity. Isn’t that what it’s all about? And if there’s simplicity, then there’s no war and there’s no argument. It’s people get along when there’s simplicity. I think that somehow that’s the point. I mean, that comment may be overly simplistic, because maybe things are more complicated than that. But I think in terms of, you know, kind of images, I’m sure that that’s what the image is.

21:14 – AM:

That’s what the lechem-milchama and matzah being different is. You know, mitzrayim is also an interesting word. Because in the Hallel, we have a phrase, we say, min ha-meitzar karatiyah, means from the straits, from the narrow places (I call out to God). And the Hasidim say that Mitzrayim, Egypt, can also be pronounced Mitzarim, the narrow places. They limit you. Egypt limited us. They enslaved us, right? Sometimes we limit ourselves. We need to be exposed. We need to, you know, to seek opportunity and potential for ourselves.

21:56 – AM:

So that’s also an interesting twist.

21:59 – GS:

You know, there are many Haggadot that have kavanot, where before you drink a cup of wine, you talk about the intention that you have. And when you get rid of and you burn the chametz, it talks about, may all the sitra achir (evil inclination), all the klipot (shells, obstructions) and all wickedness be consumed in smoke. And remove the dominion of evil from the earth, remove a spirit of destruction and a spirit of judgment, all that distresses the Shekhinah. So, I think, and I’ve kind of said this before, that just at Yom Kippur, we start with Kol Nidre to get rid of all of the kind of previous commitments (habits) that we’ve made, so we start with a new slate.

22:45 – GS:

I think that when we start the Seder, It won’t hurt so bad to turn back a page or two and remind ourselves and remind everyone who’s out there, Seder, that part of what we’re leaving behind and we’re trying to leave behind is this struggle and stress. And imagine what a world is, as you say, simple and pure as that matzah.

So, I have to say that I was recently contacted to be on a guest on a podcast and the person who found me found me because of the Sefaria notes that we have for each of our podcasts.

23:26 – GS:

And so I looked at the Sefaria notes, and I saw that there is one note that I gave, and it’s called Ha lachma, Begin with a Breath, and it has close to 5,000 views. It’s probably the most looked at of all of our notes. And it’s based on a very simple concept that just, I don’t know where I got it from, it came into my head. But it seemed to me that we begin the seder with ha-lachma-anya, and the word ha is just a breath. And I thought that after all of us have been finished cleaning the house, scraping the house, preparing for the seder, In this day, looking at our casualties and the struggles that we’ve been, we sit down for this Seder, would it be so bad if we breathed out with just the ha sound?

24:27 – GS:

And what I quoted in this little Sefaria note is the midrash that says that in Genesis 2.4, it says, eyleh toldot ha’shamayim v’aretz behebaram. This is the story of heaven and earth when they were created. And the word created has an extra hey in it. And from that in Bereshit Rabba, Rabbi Yabua learns that the world was created by God with a breath, with a ha sound. So if anyone listens to this podcast and has any experience in meditation and breathing, I would love to hear from you, and I would love to record a meditation that we could all share.

25:14 – GS:

But I think as we sit down to the Seder, to just breathe out would not be the worst thing that we do. And obviously, from the amount of people that have looked at that source sheet, something there resonates, so there’s something there there.

25:31 – AM:

Yeah, I mean, that’s a great thought. That idea of ha is such an interesting thought. And you know, that’s one of those commentaries that you’re not going to find written in the book. But it’s so true, because that’s the way everybody feels now. We can’t just sit down for the Seder. We need to exhale a little bit or take a step back, however you understand that ha. But it needs a ha before you can get going.

I love it.

26:02 – AM: Love it. I do love it, yeah.

26:04 – GS:

The first thing that we do is we hold up the matzah and we break it. And this is a kind of a bookmark: a beginning and an end of the Seder. It kind of encompasses the whole Seder. Because if you recall, when you answer in the traditional Haggadah, the wise son who asks, well, what are we doing here tonight? You say you teach him all the laws of Pesach including and including “we may not eat an afikomen after we finish.” And what that means is, and of course we create a whole wonderful thing for the children in terms of hiding the matzah (and the necessity of finding the 2nd half which must be eaten to finish the seder).

26:47 – GS:

The idea is that we break the matzah at the beginning and we start with the first half. But by the time we’re finished, we have to eat the second half, and we can’t leave until it’s eaten. And there’s a new book that came out for my Rebbe, Shai Held, (Judaism is about Love) and he talks about this concept of the sacrifices, the Thanksgiving sacrifice, where it can’t be left over, and it has to be totally eaten.

And he writes, “the Torah implicitly requires a person who brings a Thanksgiving offering to invite others to dine with him. Why? The laws around the consumption of the Thanksgiving offering are intended to inculcate and express a core religious value. When we have been the beneficiaries of God’s kindness, we are expected to bestow kindness ourselves. The gifts of God are meant to be shared, not hoarded. Authentic gratitude is antithetical to possessiveness and acquisitiveness. The impulse of a grateful person is to give rather than grasp. Leftovers unshared are thus a sign of ingratitude.” And I couldn’t think of a better explanation (for breaking the afikomen).

28:05 – GS:

I used to think that, you know, a poor person always puts a little bit aside for tomorrow. But looking at it from the perspective of Shai Held, what we’re saying is that this Seder more than any other, we have to share our bounty and we have to share it now. And that is the concept of getting a group together, getting a community together, maybe even a world together. And making sure that you distribute everything at the same time and everybody finishes it. And I think that’s an amazing concept for this year for sure where the importance of helping people immediately, helping them now, helping them without delay has never been stronger.

28:57 – AM:

I think that’s so interesting, because you know that the Seder commemorates the eating of the Paschal sacrifice, the Karbon Pesach. And the Karban Pesach, the Torah tells us, had to be eaten in groups of people. Yes, shared it with other people, because they had to consume the whole thing. And the idea of sharing it, of taking care of others, was a very important part of the Karban Pesach. You refer to ha lach ma’anya. In ha lach ma’anya we say, kol dichvin yeitei v’yeichol (anyone who is hungry let them come and eat). He says, everybody come and join us in the Seder.

29:40 – AM:

That idea, that’s exactly what you quote from Shai Held, of inviting everybody, of taking care of everybody, of sharing, is very much there in the traditional Haggadah.

29:51 – GS:

You know, one of the things that we forget, we lose track of, is that the Seder and Pesach is one of three pilgrimage festivals. And what was a pilgrimage festival? It meant that people all over the country, maybe all over the world, but certainly all over the country, came to Jerusalem. There is a saying in Avot do Rabi Natan that ten miracles were performed for our ancestors in the Jerusalem. And we might have heard a few of them, but I want to focus on the following: “No one in Jerusalem ever said, I cannot find an oven to cook the Passover offering.

30:35 – GS:

No one in Jerusalem ever said, I cannot find an affordable bed to sleep in. No one in Jerusalem ever said, this place is too cramped for me to stay.” We have just gone through six months in Israel where people in the North, people in the South have had to leave their homes, go on pilgrimage, and come to Tel Aviv and come to Be’er Sheva and come to Jerusalem. There has been a massive pilgrimage. And how that has affected Israel, I don’t think we’ll know for years, because there has been such a dichotomy.

31:15 – GS:

Between the periphery and the central of Israel. And here God, in His own wisdom, has brought the periphery into the center. And how that has impacted the center and how it has impacted the periphery, I don’t know. But what I do know is that we are celebrating when we say Halakh Ma’anya and we are basically saying what an innkeeper or a householder in Jerusalem would say to the pilgrims who had come from the Galilee and come from the Negev to stay with him. We are reliving that moment and I think that too has to be spoken about at our Seder this year. (The amazing volunteerism and hospitality provided by Israelis for their dislocated brothers and sisters)

31:56 – AM:

Yeah, that’s super interesting. Also, that’s correct I mean, these are all around the same topic and it’s about the fact that division Somehow division is chumetz and chumetz and lechem is milhkama And it’s all related to that point and we need to fight that and we need to go in the opposite direction….

32:16 – GS:

So let’s move on a little bit. We have parts of the Haggadah that have always been kind of strange to me, for one, where we talk about the plagues, how many plagues were there. Yossi HaGalilee says, when can we derive that because God said in the plagues in Egypt, he did it b’etzba with his finger, that there were maybe 10, but at the splitting of the Red Sea, he said it in his arm, it was hand, it was (times 5) 50, and maybe there were 250 plagues, all of these kind of numerical acrobatics, what do they all mean?

33:04 – GS:

And what it dawned on me today was that the plagues were offensive. They hurt the Egyptians. But what happened at the Red Sea was defensive. What happened at the Red Sea is it split and enabled the Jews to escape unscathed. And in a sense, it is a celebration. Of the Jewish, the Israeli approach to our defense, which was on display on Saturday night. We have invested millions, maybe billions of dollars in defending our population. This war would not have occurred had we been able to defend the border on October 7th.

33:58 – GS:

It’s an amazing approach. It failed (on Oct 7th), but on the other hand, it succeeded the other night, and it teaches us a lesson. I thought about the splitting of the Red Sea differently as a result of that experience, that we are ultimately celebrating the fact that we were saved as opposed to the fact that our enemies… or that somehow we were able to harness God to hurt our enemies.

That was something that just came to me this year.

34:30 – AM:

I’ll tell you that in the Dayenu, there’s a very interesting line. You know, everything in Dayenu is, if he would have had this, but not this, it would have been enough. One of those lines says, ilu kara lanu etayam, had God split the sea, v’lo shikat tzareinu b’tocho, but our enemy would not have been drowned in the sea, it would have been Dayenu. That’s very interesting, that what we’re interested in is our salvation. We don’t need to necessarily punish the enemy. Sometimes it happens, but that’s not what we’re interested in.

And that’s explicit in Dayenu.

35:13 – GS:

You know, we have a custom in my house, but I was happy to see that it’s actually in the traditional Haggadah as brought in Sefaria, that we dip our finger and spill a drop of wine for each plague that was inflicted on our enemies. And my sense is that what we’re saying is that their suffering gives us no satisfaction, but only sadness that their hatred for us exceeds their love of their own. And I think that’s a paraphrase of something that Golda Meir once said. I think she said, there will be peace when you (our enemies) love your children more than you hate us.

35:51 – GS:

But in all of the kibbutz Haggadot, but I would reckon in all of our seders, we quote that famous midrash, which is that when the Egyptians were sinking into the sea, the angels started to sing. And God says, why are you singing when “my children”, and by that he meant, the Egyptians, are dying? And the fact that it’s in the Kibbutz Haggadot, that also have Shefoch Hamatcha which talks about that we should punish our enemies. There was always this sense that, again, is at the core of the people of Israel, and that I think we ultimately celebrate at the Seder.

36:35 – GS:

That we wish no one bad. We just wish that we can get on with our life and that everyone could love their children as much as we do. But I think it’s an amazing part of the Haggadah. That we have to focus on this year. Again, the thing that really came to my eyes is that so much of the miracle of Yetziat Mitzrayim is focused on Kriyat Yom Suf, on the splitting of the Red Sea. We actually say it (Shirat HaYam) every day, Az Yosher Moshe, and the reason is because of all the stories in the Exodus It is one of just saving our people, saving us so that we can live.

37:30 – GS:

This miraculous, call it an Iron Dome, calling a splitting of the Reed Sea. But I think at our Seder we have to recognize that as well.

37:40 – AM:

I think that if we’re going to end on a note, that’s an amazing note to end on. And I want to thank you, Geoffrey. I hope that people listen to this model Seder, because it doesn’t give you necessarily the details of what to speak about next, next Monday night, but it gives you a framework of some of the issues that need to be addressed. And I guess we all wish the same thing.

38:06 – AM:

And we wish that even before we sit down for the Seder, that the hostages are returned and that peace and security are restored. In Israel and in the region, and we pray for, we pray, I think what we Jews always pray, L’shanah haba b’Yerushalayim hab’nuyah (Next Year In a Rebuilt Jerusalem), but b’nuyah (Rebuilt) means one that’s united and safe and filled with all its people.

38:33 – GS:

Well, thank you so much. You will be in Italy. I will be in L.A. The Jews will be united. We’ll be participating the longest running book club in the history of the world. We’ll be reading the same Haggadah and hopefully getting strength from it. So, what I’m going to do now is I am going to play a song, and anyone in the audience who wants to come up onto the bima, onto the seder, we are going to ask a question, and that is, what is it that makes the Jewish people survive? V’hi she’amda. So, I’m going to play this song.

39:14 – GS:

It became a big hit in Israel. It was sung in Washington, D.C. At the solidarity march, but I’m going to play it, and please come on up to the Beamer, and we’re going to discuss what makes the Jewish people unique.

41:24 – GS:

You know, v’hi she’amda is we raise a cup and we say, and this, This is what saved us and it’s such an amazing litmus test or Rauschau ink blot because no one says what it is that saves us. So I’m curious, what does Vahishayamda mean to you?

41:50 – AM:

I’ll tell you, Geoffrey, that at that wedding I went to today, so I saw the rabbi of the shul where the wedding was, and I asked him what he’s speaking about this Shabbos, and he told me he’s speaking about V’hisha Amdan. He told me a whole d’var Torah, and I told him my d’var Torah. I said, what is V’hi? I heard from Rabbi Riskin many years ago that V’hi, you look at the Seder. And you say, v’hisham do lavoteinu velanu. This is what’s kept us together. You know, the Seder is without question the most observed Jewish ritual, both in America and in Israel.

42:23 – AM:

There’s some ridiculously high number, like 85% American Jews participate in some kind of Seder, and over 90% of Israeli Jews participate in the Seder. That the Seder is unifying is that we all somehow participate in this ritual, and that’s what VeHi means.

42:44 – GS:

So some of the explanations that I’ve gathered, and I’ll just go through them as some of you think about what it means for you, is there are some who talk about the Shekhinah, Some of them talk about our patriarchs and matriarchs, so I’ll call that Emunim ben Emunim. We are believers, children of believers. It’s this kind of chord that goes back into history. We do raise the cup, as I said a second ago, so maybe it’s the l’chaim. Maybe it’s the wine. That is our secret juice. Rabbi Leo Dee, who lost his wife and lost his daughters to a terrorist attack, says, Vehi is the women.

43:34 – GS:

They are the ones who saved us, and in the article that I referenced, he talks about those wonderful midrashim, where the women, whether it’s the birth mothers or whether it was the women who went to their husbands who had given up all hope. Maybe that’s what it is. There was a post from Daniel Gordis this week about what was happening when the missiles were flying, and he said maybe it was, what do they call it, (gallows) humor of when you’re about to be hung, he says all of a sudden he was getting Instagram posts: First direct flights from Iran to Israel since 1979”.

44:30 – GS:

There was humor there. Every week it is published when the candle lighting is in Tel Aviv, in Haifa, in Jerusalem, and so somebody posted a sign very similar to what is normally posted every Friday about when the missiles were going to land. This was Jewish humor, and maybe that is what leads us to survive.

I think the answer might be open to discussion, but the question has never been formulated better than by Mark Twain. So, I’m going to read a little bit from Mark Twain. He wrote it in the 1800s.

45:20 – GS:

It’s Concerning the Jews. It’s pretty famous, but I have it in the source sheet. And he’s talking about how the Jew survived. He says:

He has made a marvelous fight in this world, in all the ages, and has done it with his hands tied behind him. He could be vain of himself and be excused for it. The Egyptians, the Babylonian, and the Persian rose, filled the planet with sound and splendor, then faded to dream stuff and passed away. The Greek and the Roman followed and made a vast noise, and they are gone.

45:59 – GS:

Other peoples have sprung up and held their torch high for a time, but it burnt out, and they sit in twilight now, or have vanished. The Jew saw them all, beat them all, and is now what he always was, exhibiting no decadence, no infirmities of age, no weakening of his parts, no slowing of his energies, no dulling of his alert and aggressive mind. All things are mortal but the Jew. All other forces pass, but he remains. What is the secret of his immortality?”

And I think that’s the question of Vihi Sheyamda.

46:43 – GS:

And it’s a question, but it’s also something that we—what is happening in the world today. You know, we have to look back to what happened in Europe when Jews were accused of being greedy capitalists. And socialists at the same time. And here we are hated by the left and parts of the right. It is an enigma. There is no question about it. And it’s not something that we should necessarily take pride in, but we have to recognize, and I think that’s what the Seder is partially about. Yes, it has an absolutely universal message, Yes, liberation theology was based on the exodus from Egypt, and I’ve talked about that, but there is a unique story here.

47:34 – GS:

The enigma of the Jew, v’hi she’amda, what is it? What is it? And I think that’s a subject also worthy of discussion. And let’s really pray for the hostages to be free, because ultimately it’s our soul that’s in captivity.

And Loren, you are now at the Seder. Un-mic yourself, and I’d love to hear from you, my friend.

48:04 – Loren

Hi Geoffrey. It’s interesting, the Passover Seder each year, we repeat it year after year. Having lived in Israel for time. I think this holiday is all about possibility, and it’s about the ability to look past where we are, and to believe that we’re going to succeed in a more open and constructive manner. And that’s what I celebrate this holiday for. It gives us strength to move forward. And I think this possibility issue, the optimism that we get from our past and how we apply it is how we become better Jews.

48:53 – GS:

Well, I love the fact that you’re so optimistic. I must say a week or two ago I was in Israel and I was interviewing a veteran of the Yom

kippur War who had been protesting before October 7th and then after October 7th pivoted and was supporting soldiers and I introduced him and the first words that came out of his mouth was, “I am an optimist”. And maybe that, Loren, is what your Vihishayamda is, that we are an optimist. I think that Ben-Gurion said, “for us to be realists, we have to be optimists”.

49:40 – GS:

Something along those lines. But I’m with you. I’m with you. We have no choice. It’s just like Golda Meir said in the famous story to Biden, where she said, what is the secret source? What is the secret weapon of the Jewish people? And she said, “we have nowhere else to go”. I think a variation on that is about optimism. We have no other choice than to be optimistic. Okay, everybody, Chag Sameach, let’s all pray for a liberated world, and we’ll see you all, I think, probably next week with Chol HaMoed. We have off spring break for Madlik, but we’ll see you a week after that, and Chag Kosher v’Sameach to all of you. Look forward to seeing you then. Bye-bye.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/559081

Check out the Madlik Sefaria Passover Collection

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April 11, 2024 · 11:38 pm

From Farm to Table – Organic Israeli Judaism

a visit to the Shittim Institute; The Kibbutz Institute for Holidays and Jewish Culture, situated on kibbutz Beit Hashita in Northern Israel

On the last day of a wartime visit to Israel, I visit the Shittim Institute; The Kibbutz Institute for Holidays and Jewish Culture, situated on kibbutz Beit Hashita in Northern Israel. The Shittim Institute has over 1,000 Kibbutz Haggadot and a million documents constituting the most extensive and unique archive of what I now recognize as Yehardut Yisraeli, organic Israeli Judaism produced on the kibutzim from the 1920’s to the 1960’s. Join us as we learn about the archive, it’s history and it’s potential to build resiliency and unity in Israel and the diaspora.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/558858

To support the Shittim Institute go here: https://pefisrael.org/charity/machon-shittim/

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern, and on the last day of my trip to Israel, I visited the Shittim Institute; The Kibbutz Institute for Holidays and Jewish Culture, situated on kibbutz Beit Hashita in Northern Israel. I recently discovered this amazing institute when I purchased a first edition kibbutz Be’eri Haggadah from 1950. I was researching the provenance of this new edition to my collection when I learned that Machon Shittim has the most extensive and unique archive of what I now recognize as Yehardut Yisraeli, organic Israeli Judaism.

0:42 – GS:

So join me in conversation with Iran Yarkoni, Anna Gilboa, and Ari Bar-El.

0:54 – Iran Yarkoni

So this archive was established by a man called Aryeh Ben-Gurion. Aryeh Ben-Gurion was the nephew of the first Prime Minister of Israel. Aryeh was born in Ukraine. And his father was murdered. And after this, Tzipora (his mother) took her two sons. One of them was Aryeh, and the other one was Immanuel. And because of the… Because of Ben Gurion, he was the head of the Jewish Agency. They got the certificate to go to, to arrive to Israel, and they arrive in the early 30s to Haifa. And Aryeh studied there in the Reali School.

1:46 – Iran Yarkoni

And after he finished 12 years, he decided that he wants to be a pioneer. He was a part of the youth movement, the one who settled in Beit Hashita. And because he was the one who graduated 12 years at school, the only one who graduated 12 they said, OK, you graduated, you will be the educator in our kibbutz for the first group that was born here. Because Aryeh got the job of the educator from the perspective of an educator, he started to collect answers how to deal with the first generation of young Jews who were born in Israel.

2:36 – Iran Yarkoni

But you know that kibbutz was the first Jewish settlement without a synagogue…. because they had the Cheder Ochel (Dining Room) and they had…

2:46 – GS

Maybe in 2,000 years.

2:50 – Iran Yarkoni

Yes. So he looks for the right way how to connect them to the roots and to the tradition on the one hand. On the other hand, they were secular. He wanted them to stay secular. And he started to find the right combination how to deal with this. And from this perspective of an educator, he started to collect answers for different other educators from other kibbutzim.

And he collected and collected.

3:25 – Iran Yarkoni

And actually, he collected most of his life. And when he died in the late 90s, he left behind more than one million documents. Now, all the documents deal with a culture that was created in the different kibbutzim, with two sections, a section of holidays, the annual cycle, and a section of ceremonies, of life cycles. And this is what we have here on the upper floor, and we will show you later. So this is the story, the short story of this place. I will tell that in the early 2,000s, this, after a hard decade of this kibbutz, of this community, they decided to quit from the responsibility of this archive, and then we heard about it, and a minute before they decided to throw it away, we said, okay, there is…

4:47 – GS

Who’s we?

4:48 – Iran Yarkoni

We. Okay, yeah, it’s a long story, but we are… We were from… A youth movement, we were elder, but we were a youth movement, we called them HaMahanot HaOlim, and we already settled in Kibbutz Naaran to create an elder movement for our groups after the army, and we were seeking for missions to do and to create for the society in Israel, and to renew the ideas and ideals of the kibbutz movement. And from this area, with this scope, we heard about the story about this place. And we knew one year before, and we decided to take the responsibility on this place.

5:43 – Iran Yarkoni

Because we understood that this is kind of a treasure trove, that according to all the challenges of the Israeli society, here there are a lot of answers that can be relevant. So, we start to open it, and we found that it’s much bigger than we thought. Because to open a trove with one million documents, it takes years. And also, to build for us a place in schools …., we will tell you about it later. So, it takes years, but this is what we are doing here.

6:29 – GS

Now let’s start to talk a little bit about the Haggadah because this is what you came

GS: I can just say as someone who comes from the goal of it especially America where there are so many variations of judaism and you come to Israel and you see the monopoly of the orthodox and more importantly the Hilonim (Secular Jews) who when they look for spirituality, they might go to uh… What they call hodu (the Far East) … They look elsewhere because they’ve been robbed of alternatives and then you look at uh…

7:03 – GS

Things like conservative Judaism and Reform Judaism, and you say, they might work in America, but why would they work here because they weren’t grown here? They’re exports from outside. And what excites me about the kibbutz and what you saved is that this was an organic creation of Israeli Chilutzim (pioneers), secular, of their interaction with Judaism. And I think that’s the value of this archive and what you’re doing is extremely important.

7:38 – Ari Bar-El

If I can just add.

7:39 – Ari Bar-El

So, my name is Ari and I’m one of the archive staff. I’m one of the members of the archive staff, and just referring to what you said, I came here about two or three years ago, so I’m not from a machanot ha-olim, which is, Eran didn’t say it, but as an outsider I can say it, this is, in a way, the new avant-garde of the kibbutzim. They are the ones that now, think in these terms of contributing to the society as a whole, et cetera. But when I came here and I was, this is not the area.

GS: What is your background?

8:28 – Ari Bar-El

I’m a historian. I wrote my PhD on David Ben-Gurion’s attitudes and policy towards science and technology. So, Zionism, I taught about Zionism, so that was close enough to come here. And when I came here and I saw this, the second thought I had that this is like a fourth church of Judaism. If you’ve got Orthodox and you’ve got Reforms and Conservative, this is in a way a fourth church. And I think that connects to what you’ve… Not the church, a stream. How do you say it?

9:10 – Multiple Speakers

But how do you… Okay, so…

9:12 – Iran Yarkoni

It’s a stream. Kibun, or…

9:15 – Ari Bar-El

Zerem.

9:17 – Multiple Speakers

Zerem, yes.

9:17 – GS

The reform started in Germany. The reform is…

9:20 – Multiple Speakers

In America, we call them movements.

9:22 – Ari Bar-El

Movements.

9:22 – Multiple Speakers

So this is the fourth.

9:23 – GS

Unfortunately, some of the movements don’t move very often. Okay. They’re supposed to be movements, and we have Reconstructionism, we have alive Judaism. Much more. But Lut has been a Petri dish. Of alternative ways. And Israel, unfortunately, has been robbed of that. So whether it’s a fourth or I think it’s unique is what you can definitely see.

9:48 – Ari Bar-El

I heard your podcast, so I know you would agree with us that this is a remarkable, a remarkable culture and a remarkable thing. And as an outsider, this is not a usual archive. The founding fathers did not just collect material. The main job was to do cultural job and educational job. So, it’s, they didn’t do, I mean, in archive terms they, you know, you would find Aryeh Ben-Gurion cutting papers and doing all things, documents, but he had a mission of educating and spreading this kind of Judaism.

10:42 – Ari Bar-El

And this is why this archive is organized differently than classical archives. The classical archive would be organized around the principle of provenance. Okay, so if you document an organization, the archive would document, as it is, all the different divisions inside. And most archives are, this is the classical archives, this archive is a thematic archive. So, it follows the needs of this cultural activist and the needs were, I need material for holidays, I need material for life, all kinds of life ceremonies, and I need material to document the kibbutz as it evolves.

11:35 – Ari Bar-El

So these are our three main sections that will be the circle of the year or the year circle, circle of life and kibbutz culture. And then within these sections we will have, if it’s the year, the circle, so it’s different holidays and the circle of life would be different life ceremonies, birth, death, and all and all that kibbutz culture and and then they would we have different kinds of material within this Different sections, I’ll give you some of them. But the first one which is Maybe the prime material.

12:22 – Ari Bar-El

I don’t know what the translation in English. So maybe say Masechet Hag… So Haggadah is a Masechet Chag of Pesach. But this kibbutz, or the kibbutz movement, has developed Masachtot for many holidays.

12:42 – Orna Stern

It’s like the program, the description of the holiday.

12:46 – Ari Bar-El

Tractat is a Masechet.

12:48 – GS

You’re a word that comes from the Talmud, which is Masechet.

Ari Bar-El Exactly. Okay.

12:54 – GS

And the idea is, if you look on YouTube, you see that for Shavuot and Pesach, they had programs. If you have programs, you have people writing texts. You have people writing songs. And so what you’re saying is that it was grouped into…

13:10 – Ari Bar-El

So the Massechet is taking all these parts and putting it into one… Like a ceremony. ….one ceremony with all the instructions how to do the ceremonies and the content. So this is like, that would be the prime material in a way, and the Pesach is the prime of the prime, or… And then we would have, like, you can envision it as parts of this Masechet. We will have sections dealing with blessings and all kinds of ceremonies, but…

13:48 – GS

They had a Tekkes.

13:49 – Ari Bar-El

Yes.

13:49 – GS

They had a ceremony, and because they were kibbutzim, they weren’t in individual homes. They were typically all public. That’s right. So even it’s the, it’s a form following function. Yes. And because they were all public organized, they had a committee and the kibbutz, everything was by committee. So you have a lot of thought, you have a lot of archival material, I’m sure.

14:09 – Ari Bar-El

That’s right. And now you understand why in the 80s and 90s when the kibbutzim got into trouble, these ceremonies were less and less, and the production of this material deteriorated as well. So again, form and content. Exactly. And then they would have like, there is a section about sources, different sources, biblical or from Mishnah, Talmud, or from Chalutzim. And then thoughts and essays. That would be another. A lot of illustrations and graphic material. Beautiful.

14:51 – Ari Bar-El

And, you know, even a six-year-old kid that draws the Haggadah or something. A lot of this kind. This is… The archive is from the… Melematah ad lemalah..

15:02 – Multiple Speakers

From the people… From the bottom up.

15:05 – GS

And correct me if I’m wrong, but some of them were published. And some want a mimeograph machine that might be changed every year. So it’s very fluid.

15:16 – Iran Yarkoni

Most of them, until the 70s, would change every year. I will give you some examples.

15:22 – Multiple Speakers

It’s a part of the idea that it must be relevant.

15:27 – GS

That in and of itself is a radical idea for anything that is close to religion or culture, because it’s changing. In terms of the culture of the kibbutz, the first thing I do when I get a Haggadah, I want to see if it’s traditional or if the kibbutz has changed it, is I look at the Ma Neshtana. And typically in the Ma Neshtana, You can say, why in all other nights the children live, separately from the adults. But it references the kibbutz culture. And that’s the first place where you say, okay, this one’s going to be interesting.

16:01 – Ari Bar-El

That’s right. And there are other sections and other kinds of material. One more kind of material that might be interesting is the one that has two, reports on the conduct of the holiday. Ben-Gurion, in a way, Aryeh Ben-Gurion was like a cultural, not dictator, but commissar, and he would ask every kibbutz, to report what happened, what was good, what was bad, what worked, what didn’t work. And following these reports, he would, I think some of the Haggadot they have conducted later, they have set up later, refer to that, and many of their publications were then…

16:51 – Ari Bar-El

So this is a very interesting, and the other interesting kind of material is ideas and suggestions how to celebrate a holiday.

17:03 – Iran Yarkoni

Yes, the traditional Haggadah is based on Midrashim.

17:09 – Iran Yarkoni

And the Kibbutz HaKadah is based on the Bible.

On the Bible. The Tenach

17:15 – Iran Yarkoni

Yes, the book of Shemot, Exodus, and the book of Devarim… How do you say that?

GS: Deuteronomy.

Iran Yarkoni : Both of them are the basics. Why? Because they understand that what we missed in the traditional Haggadah is the story. And they wanted to bring the story back into the Haggadah, because this is the main command of the seder to tell the story of Exodus from Egypt. So, they brought the story into the Haggadah, the two parts of the story, the part of the slavery and the part of the Exodus. I want to show something interesting.

18:12 – Iran Yarkoni

The main midrash of the traditional Haggadah is called Arami Oved Avi. Arami Oved Avi is a paragraph from Sefer Devarim.

GS: Deuteronomy.

Iran Yarkoni: It’s a very unique paragraph that tells, in a few sentences, the whole history of the Jewish nation.

18:38 – GS

But the context is the Bikurim.

Iran Yarkoni :Nachon. Nachon.

GS: Of bringing the first fruits, and you come in front of the Kohen, and this is the statement you say. So it’s a quote within the Bible, which many people feel is fairly ancient. In reference to other things in the Bible, things like the Shirat HaYam, Oz Yashir, is considered fairly ancient, and this is certainly one of those.

19:04 – Iran Yarkoni

Yes, and now this Midrash, when it comes on the traditional Haggadah, First of all, it divides into parts, so it’s hard to understand it, but never mind. It ends, yes,

אֲרַמִּי֙ אֹבֵ֣ד אָבִ֔י וַיֵּ֣רֶד מִצְרַ֔יְמָה וַיָּ֥גׇר שָׁ֖ם בִּמְתֵ֣י מְעָ֑ט וַֽיְהִי־שָׁ֕ם לְג֥וֹי גָּד֖וֹל עָצ֥וּם וָרָֽב׃

וַיָּרֵ֧עוּ אֹתָ֛נוּ הַמִּצְרִ֖ים וַיְעַנּ֑וּנוּ וַיִּתְּנ֥וּ עָלֵ֖ינוּ עֲבֹדָ֥ה קָשָֽׁה׃

וַנִּצְעַ֕ק אֶל־יְהֹוָ֖ה אֱלֹהֵ֣י אֲבֹתֵ֑ינוּ וַיִּשְׁמַ֤ע יְהֹוָה֙ אֶת־קֹלֵ֔נוּ וַיַּ֧רְא אֶת־עׇנְיֵ֛נוּ וְאֶת־עֲמָלֵ֖נוּ וְאֶֽת־לַחֲצֵֽנוּ׃

וַיּוֹצִאֵ֤נוּ יְהֹוָה֙ מִמִּצְרַ֔יִם בְּיָ֤ד חֲזָקָה֙ וּבִזְרֹ֣עַ נְטוּיָ֔ה וּבְמֹרָ֖א גָּדֹ֑ל וּבְאֹת֖וֹת וּבְמֹפְתִֽים׃

This is all a quote from Dvarim. It’s like in the origin. Here on this point, the quote from the traditional Haggadah stops.

וַיְבִאֵ֖נוּ אֶל־הַמָּק֣וֹם הַזֶּ֑ה וַיִּתֶּן־לָ֙נוּ֙ אֶת־הָאָ֣רֶץ הַזֹּ֔את אֶ֛רֶץ זָבַ֥ת חָלָ֖ב וּדְבָֽשׁ׃

Okay? When he took us out from Egypt, but What we missed here, we missed the last sentence. And the last sentence is, This part is missing in the traditional Haggadah. Now, when it’s missing, it’s just a miss all the idea, because the idea of this story is, Va Yotzienu, take us out, and Va Yevienu El HaEretz Hazot. (And he took us into this land)

20:35 – Iran Yarkoni

But what is the problem? The problem is that the traditional Haggadah was created during the exile. So, they could not say around the table, Va Yevienu El HaEretz Hazot, because they are not sitting here.

They didn’t sit there.

20:50 – Iran Yarkoni

And when the first generations of pioneers came to Israel, they could not put this text on their table because they are sitting here. And so, they need to renew it and to add the missing sentence that was not a part of the Haggadah for 2,000 years. And this is, I think, one of the main renewals that they did. And because they were part of the history, they needed that the text will be full “Shalem”. So, this is one of the main changes that they did.

21:35 – GS

But let’s just stop there for a second, because you say it’s very easy to say a change, but the truth is they made a better Haggadah that was more loyal to its source, because Magid is the most important part and it’s telling the story, and the traditional Haggadah doesn’t tell the story. And then in terms of the last part of the Bikurim, the Mishnah in Pesachim says you have to say it “ad hasof”. And they don’t do it. Yes. And so what’s ironic is that the kibbutznikim, as Chiloni as they were, were actually fulfilling the original intention of the Haggadah more than the quote-unquote traditional Jews.

22:15 – Iran Yarkoni

This is it.

Yes. This is it.

22:17 – GS

But all the three Regalim were agricultural holidays initially. And the other thing that the Haggadah does, which I’m sure you’ll get into, is it gets into Tal (The prayer for rain/dew) and it gets into Aviv and celebration. So they again brought it back to its source. At the traditional Seder, you say, why is there salt water and parsley? And you say, because it’s aviv, or egg aviv. But they put it back into the Haggadah. So everything that they did was actually authentic and going back to the original roots.

22:52 – GS

You said in the beginning that they took us back to Tanakh and the story, but they did actually add two midrashim that are not part of the traditional Haggadah, but a lot of people discuss. One is that when the Egyptians were drowning, the angels started to sing, and God says, why are you singing when my children, meaning the Egyptians, are dying? So, I always thought that was a reform movement in America of a Western humanist, but this is part of Haggadot that are from Nitzuli Shoah (survivors of the Holocaust) that Seconds later, they’ll have talks about Shavuot Hamadka and actually talk about the Holocaust or talk about members of the kibbutz who were killed in guard duty.

23:41 – GS

So they weren’t, these were not kumbaya pacifists, but nonetheless, they brought this amazing midrash. At my seder, we always take a little bit of the wine and we dip it on the side. When we talk about the plagues, for the Egyptians that drowned. So that to me is always amazing. And then the other Midrash that they always bring is about Nachshon Ben Amin Adav, which again, in the Torah itself, it says Moses prayed right before the Yom Suf split. And the Midrash says, God said to Moshe, what are you praying for?

24:20 – GS

This is not a time to pray, it’s a time to act. And Nachshon, was the one who walked into the water and opened it up. And he was a chalutz, so when Ben-Gurion created the campaign to break the matzur, the siege of Jerusalem, that was Operation Nachshon. And there are at least three other operations in the military that are named after Nachshon, and they were Nachshonim, they were kibbutzim called. He was a critical semmel. For the Zionists, and they put that into…

24:56 – Iran Yarkoni

This is one of the first Haggadot that we have. This is from the group who established Beit Hashita, before the time of Reu, in 1928. There were a group that trained themselves to be pioneers in Hadera, and Passover arrived, Passover Eve, and they decided to write to themselves an Haggadah. Now, During the 20s This is the first generation of the Kibbutz Haggadot. The situation was that every Passover Eve there was only one generation around the table. Because they didn’t have sons yet.

25:41 – GS

And their parents might still be in Europe.

25:44 – Iran Yarkoni

Yes, their parents were in Europe. And they didn’t have children. So the main idea of Passover VeHigadata l’bincha (and you shall tell it to your child) didn’t fit. So, they decided to write a special text that it will fit to them and will tell them the story. It’s become a kind of a idyllic booklets with all the typical text and the ideological ideas that they wanted to promote. And because this is the holiday of redemption. So the brought all their ideals of the redemption into this booklet called Haggadah. So this, listen, we have here more than 2,000 copies of Haggadot, of different Haggadot.

26:44 – GS

So, you know, the collection is huge.

26:45 – GS

That’s just the first. But this is the reason that we’re here.

26:49 – GS

I buy Haggadot at auction. And this is, I bought this year the first edition of the Haggadah from Be’eri. In 1938, so I have this at home, and I looked at the notes that came with it from the auction house, and it was the first time I learned about your institute. It’s crazy that I hadn’t heard about it before, but this is what brought me here.

27:18 – Iran Yarkoni

Because I told you about the only one generation that sat around the table, so after a decade more or less, then when they already had children, they had a question what to do now, because from one hand, on one hand, this became the main holiday of the group when they brought all their, as I said, all their important texts into the Haggadah and they didn’t want to miss it. On the other hand, You can’t bring children to sit around a seder that takes two hours of reading and talking. So, they had to decide if they are going to quit from their seder or find a different solution.

28:17 – Iran Yarkoni

And they found a radical solution that during the Passover Eve, they will separate from their children. And they created a Haggadah for children. And you can see here the story from Sefer Shemot, from Exodus, and you can see here all the symbols of the Seder, just for children. So, the children had their own seder with their educators, and the adults sat in the Cheder Ochal (dining room) and did their seder with… (In Hebrew Aya Gur “But that contradicts the whole point of the seder?”) because, as I said, it’s a radical idea to separate it. I mean, it’s less educational.

29:04 – Iran Yarkoni

All the education people were very qualified and they took it very seriously as a mission to make it a different Haggadah for the kids to how you teach it and educate and it’s not like it’s not important.

29:18 – GS

But what it did was, it made it from a pedagogic point of view, if a typical kid sits through the traditional service, they get nothing. And so they created, they realized that, I mean, we’ll get to another part of the Haggadah, the four children. In the Kibbutz Haggadah, you see different types of pictures. You see the Rasha (evil) sometimes dressed as a bourgeois in a suit and tie like a yeka (German – Bourgeois Jew) . And the Chacham is, doesn’t studying books, he’s out in the fields. So, they’re all using it for teaching, and that is a great segue into what this institute does, where it’s not just historical data here, it’s how do we continue the pedagogy, the teaching of what was behind the Haggadah.

30:09 – Iran Yarkoni

We talked before about the Man Nishtana. This is from 1915. Gvar Am. Gvar Am is one of the kibbutzim that today is still evacuated. And you can see about the Man Yishtana here. “When all the Jews will come to Israel?” “Why we held weapon?” “When will there be peace in our land and in the whole world?” This is from the 50s. Because they said that if we have an opportunity to ask questions, we need to ask the most difficult questions.

31:04 – Multiple Speakers

Banal and difficult.

31:06 – GS

So last year, when the demonstrations were going on, they created a Haggadah. Yes. But they used a traditional Haggadah and they supplemented it.

31:17 – Multiple Speakers

And it was such a lost opportunity. Yes.

31:20 – GS

But it’s because to write a Haggadah like this you have to be very knowledgeable. And the kibbutznikim were very knowledgeable because they were just one generation away from very strong Jewish learning.

31:33 – Iran Yarkoni

And you need a community that will come with you. And I think this is it because people are afraid not to use the traditional Haggadah or I don’t feel comfortable with this. And this is something that you have a large community

GS: And they don’t feel comfortable changing it.

The joke about Israelis is that the synagogue they don’t go to is Orthodox. Or the God they don’t believe in is Orthodox. As opposed to saying, that’s your Judaism, this is mine. And they’re afraid to change the Orthodox because somehow, they think it’s authentic. And they (the kibbutzniks) didn’t have that problem. You mentioned rites of passage. How did the kibbutz handle marriage? Did they write their own ceremonies?

32:25 – Ari Bar-El

Yes, yes. I mean, this is a part we haven’t yet reached organizing, but they have their own ketubot and they have their own ceremonies.

32:35 – Iran Yarkoni

This is Haggadah for Independence Day. This is not for Passover. Now, this was written by Aaron Meged, one of the famous authors in Israel, and he wrote it in 1949, after the end of the Independence War. Now, one of the questions or one of the challenges he wanted to deal with is what will be the text of Independence Day? Because he was afraid, and you’re also right, that if we will not have a text, This important holiday will be empty and we will stay only with the barbecue.

GS: Like July 4th in America.

33:33 – Iran Yarkoni

So, he creates a Haggadah. That takes of the same template of the Haggadah, the Passover Haggadah, but the story is not the Exodus from Egypt, the story is the Independence War. According to the different stages of the Independence war this Haggadah was copied to Tzahal because the IDF, they asked for a text for Independence Day. This Haggadah was copied to the Army because the Zahal asked for a text for Independence Day. But what happened in this Haggadah, he created on the same language of the Passover Haggadah, he created a new Haggadah. Now, one of the paragraphs, it said,I and not an Angel

לֹא עַל־יְדֵי מַלְאָךְ, וְלֹא עַל־יְדֵי שָׂרָף, וְלֹא עַל־יְדֵי שָׁלִיחַ, אֶלָּא הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא בִּכְבוֹדוֹ וּבְעַצְמוֹ.

Now, because of this, The Rabbinate of the IDF.

35:03 – GS

So just to translate, he took a very traditional saying that when the Jews were redeemed from Egypt, it wasn’t by the hands of an angel. It wasn’t by any intermediary. It was just from God alone. And here they quote the whole text verbatim, except at the end, they say at the hands of the defense forces of Israel, Tzahal.

And so you’re saying the Rabbanut was not happy. So what happened? The Rabinate was not happy?

35:31 – Iran Yarkoni

The Rebbinate decided to destroy all the copies of this Haggadah, and this Haggadah never arrived to soldiers. And we have here in the archive only one copy.

Dror Zilberstein: How much? (laughs)

Iran Yarkoni : And for the Fiftieth anniversary of Israel, we decided to print it again. So, this is a copy of the first original. But till we did it, it was, you know, ganuz (hidden) nobody knows about this text. Only because of this paragraph.

36:14 – GS

Okay, so that’s amazing, but we just threw out a word here, ganuz. In Jewish studies, there’s the Cairo Geniza, changed everything about a study of traditional texts, because in the Geniza, which is an archive, but in traditional societies, instead of throwing out a book that had a terror in it and God’s name, they would put it into the Geniza. But that is what you’re doing here, and this has the potential of change, just like the Cairo Geniza changed. So we’re not going to tape everything.

36:49 – GS

What I’d like to do, just to end our podcast, is to segue into how the institute, your institute, …. what your plans and activities are in terms of spreading the thoughts, the ideology, the creativity of the kibbutz movement in Judaism around the rest of the country and the world.

37:17 – Anna Gilboa

Basically, so we have talked a lot about the past and the history and the legacy. But we’re here now and there is a very strong connection between the past and the future. We cannot have the future without the past, obviously. So based on all the amazing collection that we have here, we’re doing educational work in several levels. And I must say that our work has become much more relevant than ever after the events of October 7. And so just to name a few and then we will elaborate later.

38:00 – Anna Gilboa

We work with educators and agents of change. So, this is, for example, army IDF officers and teachers and cultural coordinators in the kibbutzim. And so, we work with them to train them to bring into the study also humanistic and Zionist values, and pluralism also, so that everyone can find their own voice within the variety of Judaism. This is exactly what you were talking about, Geoffrey. So this is one level. Another type of work that we are about to do now is the restoring the resilience of the evacuated communities from Western Negev and this is a new project that was we’re launching now actually this Passover due to the terrible events and we’re about to work with 12 communities, the Kibbutz community that were evacuated from Western Negev and the Gaza envelope.

39:15 – Anna Gilboa

And the ultimate goal of that is to bring them home eventually as a community, not just as individuals, with hope, with the values of settling the borders, of taking responsibility for this region and healing and rebuilding. And this is something that you can do with means of culture and cultural work. And our work will be based on a unique model that we developed with the help of two leading mental health professionals on the field that deal with post-traumatic growth. This is Dr. Miriam Shapira and Professor Yossi Levy-Belz, who are specialists in this field, how to implement cultural and Jewish-Israeli texts and content. In order to build resilience in a society that was really obviously very distorted and shaken up. And to bring more cohesion, more feeling of belonging, of togetherness, and to build the communities back again from this abyss.

Note from Anna:

As to Dr. Miriam Shapira and Prof. Yossi Levy-Belz (this is the exact spelling of their names) – our model is based on the extensive research of Prof. Levy-Belz – please see here more info about him and his research. In addition, we received professional guidance from Dr. Shapira, who is a clinical psychologist and a leading scholar in the field of resilience and post-traumatic growth. Here is an article about her and her work (in English), maybe you will find it interesting.

40:40 – GS

I mean, everywhere you go, you see signs of the b’yachad yinatzeach together we will be victorious. Unity is so important, but to have unity, you need a safa meshutepeh, a shared voice and our texts. Since everybody, one way or the other, is going to be celebrating Pesach or Shavuot or whatever, it’s the opportunity to bring us all together, which is becoming more and more important. So there’s an exhibit that you’re putting on in Palma in Tel Aviv that’s opening up?

41:10 – Anna Gilboa

Yes, we’re participating in an exhibition, a unique exhibition, and our part is the part of the Haggadot, that it will be open to the public and some of the evacuated community, that the exhibition will travel to them, and present them the collection and also have some experiential activity for the community.

41:37 – GS

Well, I’m sure that our seders this year will be different than every other year. For sure. And what you’re doing will enrich it and I think even this conversation will enrich how we conduct our seders this year.

So, thank you very much.

41:51 – Anna Gilboa

Thank you.

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Tagged as kibbutz, kibbutz culture, kibbutz judaism, kibbutzim

April 5, 2024 · 9:50 am

Where have all the helmets gone?

a conversation with professor daniel polisar of shalem college

Earlier this week I spoke with Professor Daniel Polisar, co-founder of Shalem College and his assistant, Hannah Liberman. We talked about the miraculous and sui generis emergence of the Hamal Yerushalyim; The Jerusalem Civilian Command Center, at the beginning of the October 7^th War. We also tried to quantify and comprehend the IDF’s Cataclysmic Failure to provide basic protective gear for our troops.

See Daniel’s blog post in Times of Israe;: https://blogs.timesofisrael.com/what-if-idf-donors-get-tired-before-hamas-does/

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April 1, 2024 · 4:38 pm

Haredi Soldiers Speak

In the Negev to meet with soldiers in the 97th Netzah Yehuda Battalion.

Join Geoffrey Stern in the Negev to meet with soldiers in the 97th Netzah Yehuda Battalion, previously known as Nahal Haredi, a battalion in the Kfir Brigade of the Israel Defense Forces. The soldiers are all Haredi and you will be hearing first from the commander and then from one of the new recruits, both of which spoke English and approached me to tell their story. While the government of Israel is on the brink of collapsing over the issue of haredi draft, these young soldiers provide a little light and a lot of inspiration. Enjoy and be sure to click on the link to see the original videos of these two pioneers!

To learn more about (and support) Netzach Yehuda go here: https://nahalharedi.org/

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Tagged as haredim, IDF, Nahal Haredi, Netzach Israel

March 30, 2024 · 9:07 am

Veterans of the Yom Kippur War are Heard

Elimelech Crystal, a veteran Yom Kippur tank commander speaks out.

Join us for a conversation with Elimelech Crystal; one of the leaders of Beyahad Em Lochamey Kippur 1973, an organization dedicated to supporting Israel’s combat soldiers while at the same time protesting the current government.

To Donate: Beyahad Em Lochamey Kippur 1973

Transcript:

Welcome to Madlik. My name is Geoffrey Stern, and it is Shabbat in Tel Aviv. Tonight, I’ll be going to Hostage Square to show my solidarity with the hostages and their loved ones, and then on to Kaplan Street to protest the current government. You’re about to hear a conversation I had with one of the leaders of the Veterans of the Yom Kippur War called BiYachad Im Lochmei Kippur 1973. Last July, I saw these 70-something veterans protesting the judicial reform from atop a tank. Once the war started, they pivoted to support today’s soldiers by putting mobile showers on flatbed trucks and offering a warm shower to active soldiers at the front.

0:50 – GS:

Join me for a conversation with Elimelech Kristol.

1:02 – GS:

Okay, we are in a car. I’m with my friend Elimelech Crystal, who is wearing a t-shirt that says LoChmei Kippur, Fighters of Kippur. And the first time I came across that t-shirt was at the demonstrations before October 7th, and a friend of mine pointed out a bunch of guys, probably in their 70s who were on top of a tank, and these were veterans of the Yom Kippur War. And they were protesting for democracy. And we’re going to find out what they did once the war started. But first, let’s say hello to Elimelech.

1:48 – GS:

And thanks for driving us today and participating in the Madlik podcast. How are you, Elimelech?

1:54 – Elimelech Crystal

I’m fine, very fine.

1:56 – EC:

And I’m optimistic.

1:58 – GS:

Okay, so we can stop the podcast right now on that positive note! But why don’t we start from the beginning? Where were you before the war? And by that, I mean the Yom Kippur War. Tell us about what makes you a lochmei Yom Kippur.

2:17 – EC:

I was a commander of a tank, Patton, and a day before the Yom Kippur War, on the 5th of October, I was supposed to go to a vacation release from the army. I had two weeks’ vacation, and then I’m going to a base in the center of Israel. And released from the army. I was based in Rafah, in Rafiach. And I was on the bus to go home. And 12, 12.30, they told us that we cannot go. Something, maybe something is happening and we cannot go home. So we got off the bus and we stay in the base all of us all of the people in the base we had a Shabbat dinner and we had a good mood and we celebrate and then In the morning of Yom Kippur we sensed that something bad is going to come and around 11 o’clock, 12 we understood that something happened on the Suez Canal and I think around one o’clock We got the order to arm the tanks and to go on the wheels (as opposed to transport on flatbed trucks) to the Suez Canal.

4:34 – EC:

We came to the battlefield around Sunday morning. It was quite a mess. Nobody knew what’s going on around. And we understood from friends that we met close to the Suez Canal we understood that many of our soldiers on the front line was killed and that the Egyptian penetrate the Sinai desert in two or three places and they are on the east side of the canal. Our fortification was bombed. And we have around 22 fortifications along the Suez Canal. And we started to understand that some of them were conquered.

6:01 – EC:

Of course, Sunday you heard bombs. We were worried because we didn’t hear airplanes So we understood that something happened to our Air Force that is not around. We didn’t sleep this night we couldn’t sleep and Monday morning we got the order to attack and we were start, you know, driving the tanks towards the canal. And we came to a place close to the Firdan Bridge. We saw the water, we saw the bridge. But all around was full of Egyptian. They were running between our 22 tanks with missiles, with small suitcases that they have rockets there.

7:28 – EC:

And they were shooting and they were hitting the tanks and we you know for the people that grew up on the legend that when the Egyptian hear the noise of the tank coming we will see shoes (because these simple peasant arabs will throw off their army boots and run) and we won’t see any soldier because they will all run away. This was the stories and the legend that we grew up in the armed tank. So, we see people running towards us with the missiles, ammunitions. And unfortunately, about 16 (out of 22) tanks were burning. Our regiment was kept in surprise, completely surprised.

8:34 – EC:

And the tanks were being hit one after the other. At one moment, because I was a half body out of the shell, how do you call it? The turret. In the turret. Yes. So I found myself flying in the air and hearing a bomb. Below me I was like I felt that I’m burning in my face and I found myself on the sand and my tank keep on driving to go towards the Suez Canal a hole in the chest I couldn’t breathe well. My eyes, right eye, I see only blood. And I was burning. All the right side of my face and the shoulder was burned.

9:56 – EC:

And they put me on this tank. We went out of the battlefield. And I found myself in the field hospital. They put a tube in my chest to try to help me to breathe. Took me with an helicopter to the hospital in Refidim. From Refidim they took me by another helicopter to Be’er Sheva, to Soroka. And after two months in three different department in the hospital, I was fixed very well and they released me home. And this is my participation and the remembrance of Yom Kippur. I must admit, when I came back to Jerusalem after releasing from the hospital, I couldn’t understand how life is keeping as usual.

11:19 – EC:

Most of my friends, were killed in this war and I saw that things are you know like nothing happened we were not surprised that we were not a tank that everything is okay. We almost lost the country, but the government is still there.

12:08 – Multiple Speakers

Golda is still there.

12:11 – EC:

In December, the end of December, they made an election and Golda Meir and Dayan won 50 remember 51 seats in the Knesset and they formed a new government and this is when one of … the only fortification in Suez Canal that didn’t surrender and the commander of this fortification Motti Ashkenazi came to Jerusalem… I remember in the winter of ‘74 January 74 and he stood alone in front of the Prime Minister building in front of Golda and he demand that Golda and Dayan will resign and I was I was between the first 50-60 people that joined him there and from week to week a movement of the veterans became stronger and on April ‘74 Golda resigned and Dayan resigned and they formed another government.

13:58 – GS:

So, before we get to the parallels between what you just described and today, I want to pause for a second because you also told me that after the war it changed your attitude to life. And I think we would be remiss if we didn’t pick up on that as well. I think you said something to the effect that you decided to be happy every day. Something along those lines…. What did you tell me? How did it change you? You were given a new life?

14:28 – EC:

I was in the hospital and you know all the news from the battlefield are coming very quick and day by day, I heard that this friend was killed, the other friend was killed, when they crossed the canal, the Suez Canal, and get the army, the third army surrendered, these two guys killed. Many many of my friends that were on the front line in Yom Kippur War and when they cross the Suez Canal for the other side and when they were fighting in the Suez, in Suez town were killed.

15:35 – EC:

So I told myself and I thought about the place, the hell that I got off and if I’m saying that 16 tanks were burned, were hit in this battle on Monday, the 8th of October. You multiply this in four, you can understand that not only that the tanks were burned there, also 64…. how much?

16:22 – EC

I’m a lawyer, I don’t know mathematics.

16:26 – EC:

64 soldiers were killed from our regiment in this day. And I asked myself how come that I’m out of this hell and I realized that it’s like somebody gave me a present gave me life back and if I have to live my life I must be optimistic I must be happy I must do the right thing.

I want to mention this to you.You know I have a very good friend from Kibbutz Dovrat; Ephraim Yisraeli and Ephraim Yisraeli and me were very good friends we started the army together bed beside bed for one year in the intensive life of the army for one year we’ve been together and Ephraim was killed when he crossed the Suez Canal with his tank I think it was 21^st 22^nd of October His younger brother that also were in the armed tank were killed as well.

18:10 – EC:

And every Memorial Day, since then, we are a small group of people meeting at the memorial day before the Independence Day of Israel. We’re meeting in the cemetery in Kibbutz Dovrat. And I’m asking myself if the sacrifice of this, if I’m worth that they sacrifice their life for me and for the others if what did we do the last year that we deserve their sacrifice if you understand what I’m trying to say and this is why I was trying to do Good stuff, good things. Always to be, always to live with a half full glass, not the empty glass, and to do the right things.

19:31 – EC:

To me, to my family, but also to the community around.

19:38 – GS

So fast forward.

19:40 – GS:

It’s obvious at this point that you’re an optimist, that you’re a patriot. You’re a successful businessman, a successful real estate lawyer. You took part in protests after the Yom Kippur War. Fast forward 50 years. Let’s go back a few months before the war. And you were part of a movement of veterans who were continuing the same type of protest that occurred after the Yom Kippur War. Tell us who you are, what this group is, what were you protesting for, and then let’s talk about how things have changed since the war on October 7th.

20:25 – EC:

In January, January 22, no, 23, Yariv Levin, the Minister of Justice, came on the TV and he declared a war on the Supreme Court in Israel. And we sense by his speech we sense that we are in danger we are in danger because Netanyahu create a very extreme right government but until you know at the first day we didn’t realize the danger that it could bring but from this day I remember We were shocked. For one week, we were shocked and we understood that something bad is happening. And a week, two weeks later, a group of veterans from Yom Kippur, we got together and we started to think what we should do.

21:54 – EC:

And the fights in the Knesset started, fights in the street started, and we wanted to contribute extra value to the arguments and to the discussions and the fights in the streets. So we are all from the armed tanks. We went and we found in Ramat HaGolan an old tank that was burned in the war and it was thrown away in Golan Heights and we thought that we should take this tank we should put him on a truck We should stretch the independence declaration on this tank and we’ll go to the citizens in Israel, we’ll ask them to be together, to go back for the base where the country was established and when the independence declaration were written and signed by our leaders and to say, to spread the message that if change is needed, then we should make the change by a mutual understanding, wider as it could be, and based on the principle, the three things in the independence declaration.

23:58 – GS:

I would think that based on the fact that you all risked your lives and gave your best friends, your brothers, for this country, that you were hoping that your voice would be heard a little bit louder. We were talking earlier today and I asked you about the future. Where are we going to get our leaders? And you started talking about where we need to look for our leaders, and you said something to the effect that we shouldn’t be looking up, we should be looking around. And I think part of that is amongst the soldiers who are fighting now. Did I hear correctly?

24:36 – EC:

Yes, of course, of course. There are, I believe, I believe the politicians, yeah, our politicians failed us. I believe that it’s not only our Prime Minister. The Prime Minister is the first, and he’s the blame, and he’s doing all the wrongs to turn us into some kind of dictatorship. But he will fail it. He won’t succeed. He didn’t succeed. But it’s not only him. I think also other leaders that became to be professional politicians should go away. And I believe that our leaders now are fighting in the north, fighting in Gaza, and are walking between us.

25:40 – EC:

And we have to look for them and to encourage them to and to push them to the first line and to try to bring them to the that everybody will see them and focus on them and we need to go back to the basics.

26:04 – GS:

So you know that I run a charity and since the war we’ve been overwhelmed by requests for assistance to Israel, support for the soldiers, trauma, the citizens of Israel that have been relocated. But your organization, and I think you, sent me a request that I have to say, of all the requests that we received, I don’t know if the right word is to put a smile on my face, but the request was your group had come together, you’d pivoted right after the war started. And decided how could we serve the soldiers and you came up with the idea of putting showers on the backs of flatbed trucks with heaters, with water, with everything that would possibly be needed to provide showers for the soldiers and bring them to the border so that when the soldiers were given an hour or two or a half day off, they could come and take a warm shower.

27:14 – GS:

And that in and of itself was just a beautiful offer. But what really inspired me was this image of veterans from the last existential war coming, welcoming, supporting soldiers of today’s existential war. And this connection between what you’ve experienced and what they’re experiencing, and of course what you just said now. Your goals, your hopes, and all of our hopes with those soldiers. And today, we went to the border of Gaza. We met with a group of young soldiers, and we took a look at one of those showers.

27:57 – GS:

And I’d love to hear what else you’re doing, but I do believe that I’m sure the irony is not lost on you. And that you understand that when you speak, and your fellow veterans speak, you have a voice that is stronger than any of ours. And when you go and reach out to those young 18-year-olds who are fighting today’s war, I’ve got to believe there’s a special kesher, there’s a special connection between you both, and you probably both give each other strength.

28:36 – EC:

Look. The situation in ‘73 and today was the same the only difference was that we were fighting 200 kilometers away from the borders of Israel…. the Suez Canal and they are fighting inside Israel what happened that they (the Hamas terrorists) conquered kibbutzim, they conquered places, they came to Ashkelon, to Sderot, and to Zikim. It was worse because people really had to fight for their houses. To protect their houses, not in theory. And we saw it today in (Kibbutz) Nirim. We saw it, that the houses, the burning houses and what happening, and we heard live evidence of what happened there.

29:59 – EC:

I think that the solidarity of the civilian community in Israel and the mutual guarantee that we feel towards each other is much, much stronger than any of our enemies can imagine. Although we had this argument, although we were fighting in the street, you know, 130% of the Miluimnikim, of the veterans, went to the war, went and wear a uniform again. And it was after a very bad year that somebody divided us to if you are with me then you are okay if you are against me you are a traitor everybody Everybody in Israel, the citizens.

31:31 – EC:

Take myself for example. It doesn’t matter if I am right or left. If I don’t support Bibi, I am a lefty traitor. This is the sticker that he put on us. And we have to fight it. We have to change it. And we are going to do it and we are we insist to keep on doing it and we are not going home we are not going home if tomorrow will be election we will be in the street if the government will be elected and we will form another government in Israel we are going to sleep with one eye open we are not going away after what happened and I’m sure many others will join us on this because we have to secure the life of our grandkids.

32:38 – EC:

I’m not talking about my kids, I’m talking about grandkids. I want to be sure that they will have the best country in the world. With values, with the base values that our founders created and we grew upon them. Liberty, freedom, justice, If you want to be a religious, you are free to be a religious. If you don’t want to be religious, everything is okay. If you want to be a liberal, democrat, liberal, we’ll accept you. If you want to be religious, we’ll accept you. We have to live together.

33:27 – EC:

We know that we don’t have any other choice. If we will be weak, All the communities of the Jewish people around the world will be weak and we cannot expose ourselves and we cannot expose them to threats.

33:49 – GS:

So I think the story that’s being told is that all of the groups that were part of the protests before the war, whether it’s your group or Achim LeNeshech, whatever they are, they pivoted and stopped demonstrating and went down to help the war effort and support the citizens. But what I’m hearing from you is that it wasn’t a pivot. You didn’t change direction. It’s the same direction. And we’re driving now back from the showers that we saw that you were providing. And we’re going to meet Saturday night at the demonstrations in Kaplan.

34:34 – GS:

It’s not one or the other, it’s the same fight. And the same fight that you were fighting for before the war, you’re fighting for during the war, and will be after the war. The strength is that our people are together. Kol Yisrael Arevim, Ze’la’zeh. Our strength is the optimism that you show. Our strength is the history that you have in your bones. You’ve lived this state. And we have to take all of that and save this country for your grandchildren, as you said. So I look forward to seeing you at Kaplan on Saturday.

35:13 – GS:

I look forward to learning more about what your group is doing. I know it’s not only the showers, you’re doing trauma relief and other efforts to support the soldiers. And together, we’ll make sure that the country is victorious in the truest sense of the word.

35:35 – EC:

Yes, sure. You saw the religious soldier in the place that we now have been. And you saw how they are sticking together, all of them. We’re one people. Yes, one people. One tribe. We should be one tribe. But what Bibi did, he divide us. He divide us. But he will go. He will go away. And we will recover.

36:15 – GS:

Well, thank you again. Thank you for driving us today. Thank you for sharing the country. And thank you for being who you are. Shabbat shalom. All the best.

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Tagged as Oct 7th war, veterans, Yom Kippur War

March 27, 2024 · 1:23 pm

The Next Day with Ruth Calderon

an interview with Ruth Calderon at Alma – Home for Hebrew Culture

Join Geoffrey Stern in conversation with Ruth Calderon. In Israel while the war in Gaza rages on and with over 100 hostages still in captivity, we sit down with Talmud scholar and founder of Amla; Ruth Calderon to discuss the need to reclaim Jewish texts and create a shared cultural language in Israel….. now more than ever.

Sefaria Source Sheet: www.sefaria.org/sheets/554640

Transcript

Welcome, Madlik listeners. I am in Tel Aviv today. It is March 27th, and I have the absolute pleasure to be meeting with Ruth Calderon from Alma. And you may have heard of Ruth. When eleven years ago you became a member of the Lapid party, Yesh Atid, and you spoke at the Knesset, and maybe it was the first, hopefully it wasn’t the last time, that Talmud was taught by a woman from the from the podium of the Knesset, and I’m going to put a link to that speech in the notes because we’re going to talk about it a little bit.

But first, I want to say hello, Ruth.

2:56 – Ruth Calderon

How are you? Hello, and thank you for having me on your podcast.

2:59 – GS:

It’s wonderful to have you. So in that speech, it was unique, wasn’t it? I mean, that someone would teach Talmud a piece of Agadah, if I recall correctly. And in the YouTube video, The videographer is panning and looking at the faces of both the secular Knesset members and religious ones, and you have their attention. To me, the most meaningful thing was at the end. I guess it was the speaker of the Knesset, clearly religious, and he was so warm and wholehearted when he wished you luck and thanked you for your teaching.

3:41 – GS:

Was that a moment in time?

3:43 – RC:

That’s a beautiful thing to remember. Yes, I, I, it was Haver Knesset Yitzhak Vaknin from Shas who was the speaker that day. Then later on I became also a speaker. And usually, you sit there and you are bored. And you have to wait for hours until, you know, things and people say things to be recorded. I did not know that it’s not a custom to teach. I just came in a week before, it was my maiden speech, and because I come from education and what I do is Talmud, I thought the way to introduce myself is to teach a little piece of Talmud.

4:27 – RC:

And when I did, he started talking to me about it while I was speaking. And I really enjoyed it because it was like a partner. But the people from Yesh Atid thought that he’s arguing with me when he really was just taking part. And at the end, he was really very warm and he became in many ways my teacher in the Knesset, my, like, mentor. I learned a lot from him. He was the oldest Knesset member until he retired, and I really felt some closeness to the Shas people. They reminded me always of my father, Sephardic Jews.

5:08 – RC:

So yes, that was the maiden speech, and the everyday life there was not exactly the same, but I did feel and somewhat surprised. I was somewhat surprised that still it’s such a big deal for a person to study Talmud. Both the secular people were amazed and the orthodox people were kind of shocked. And you know, the truth is I didn’t know it is recorded. It wasn’t a world that is all wired yet. I didn’t realize. And then somebody put it online and I started getting messages from people in Australia, in Poland, in America, and it was really moving.

5:51 – RC:

And I learned what is the power of being on the Knesset platform. And I still, to this day, think that more good people and intellectuals and people in education should go into politics, because if you’re not at the table, you’re on the table. Somebody else makes the decisions.

6:14 – GS:

And I think that what you did, because the story that you told, you could have just taken a very safe route and just teaching Talmud by itself would have been enough, dayenu. But you told the Talmudic story about a great rabbi who used to come home every year on Yom Kippur, and he got so engrossed in a piece of Talmud, he didn’t come home. And his wife was waiting for him and waiting for him and waiting for him. And if I recall correctly, he died.

6:43 – RC:

He didn’t come. When she realizes he will not come this year, when you say in the beginning, every Yom Kippur, it’s already cynical, because you can’t say every once a year. But she kind of gave him space, but when she realized they blow the shofar and she realizes he’s not coming this year, she cried one tear. She let one tear drop. And when her tear dropped on her cheek, he was sitting on the rooftop in Babylon, and he fell to the ground and died. So there’s a symmetrical movement of the tear and the man falling.

7:24 – RC:

And I chose the Aggadah not just to teach Talmud, but to say something about today, about reality, about us as two communities in Israel. That both feel that we are keeping home and the other one is having a good time. Both the ultra-Orthodox think that they save Talmud and we, secular Jews, are dancing on the roof. And we, the non-Haredi, non-Orthodox Jews, feel that we are keeping home. We go to the army, we pay taxes, and they sit up on the roof and studying Torah and not seeing us. I wanted to share with this ancient text some of the pain that is on both sides and that we need to talk to each other as opposed to just get hurt because the end, as the storyteller of the Talmud shows, if you don’t talk it’s very bad.

8:26 – GS:

You know, this week’s parasha in Vayikra is very difficult to do any nice philosophizing, but it’s all about Father’s passing on their craft to their children… for the first time, there’s almost a worker’s union. It’s Aaron and his children. Aaron and his children. There’s this sense of passing on a tradition the way you would if you were a metal crafter or if you’re a part of a particular type of work, a guild. So I’m focusing on that because I think what you do is you’re trying to reclaim our patrimony. And in your own way, what you’re saying is, even though the Orthodox would like to say they represent our past, we all know that they have reinterpreted, reinvented, some would argue corrupted beyond recognition.

9:18 – GS:

But the point is that we all have a patrimony. And what you’re doing is reclaiming our patrimony as Jews, whether it’s in the Talmud, whether, you know, you say that Israelis study, you say, from Tanakh to the Palmach. It’s a lot of the Bible itself, but they’ve lost everything in between in terms of Talmudic learning.

9:42 – RC:

Right, the public school here was based on this Zionism that wanted to tell the narrative of Bible and then we came and kind of not look at all the history in between. And I don’t believe in forgetting part of our past. The past is building the present and the future. Now, I don’t want to say what they [the Orthodox] do with Talmud. I want to say that we need to, we have the right and I think also the obligation to reclaim our patrimony and matrimony and say this is where we come from, these are our ancestors, look at what they gave us, own what we want, put away what we feel that we don’t connect to and build our future and our present from the building blocks of the past together with everything new that we learn now.

10:38 – RC:

But if we don’t know, if we are ignorant, we don’t know ourselves. And a person that doesn’t remember anything about oneself is not, you know, Ahad Ha’am says “you are past and future”. A human being, when you say “Ani”, I, you don’t mean your fingernails and your hair. You mean what was you when you were five, and was you when you were 25 and 37. And today, there’s something that builds the me, the personality of a human being, and also of a people. And so, I cannot just cut and throw away half of what was my past.

11:19 – RC:

I don’t want to. I love studying it. But having said that, I don’t study it in a way that everything that is written I must do. It’s like, you know, my parents, I love them, I respect them, I miss them very much, I lost them both, and I’m very much like them, but I don’t live their life. I live with everything they taught me, my life, and it’s a new circumstance, and I need to build it anew, and the same goes for Judaism. I go to get counsel, with the rabbis. When people are kidnapped, they know about kidnapping.

11:59 – RC:

Do you pay? Don’t you pay? In the Middle Ages, in the old age, what do you do with shvuyot? Can they go back to their husbands? There are questions they ask themselves. Nothing starts now. And my father always told me, when you are in a crossroad, take as much advice as you can and then make a decision and take ownership on it. And that’s what I try to do. Before I think even what my thoughts are about the reality, I try to go for advice to the past and to whatever I can.

12:32 – GS:

When I was watching that video, and you were saying at the end, you didn’t pull any punches. You said, this is about feminism. This is about this woman who, that tear fell. And you also said it was about people learning and thinking that they were in control. And you were saying this to a Knesset. But because you were quoting the sources, everyone was smiling. And I think what I’d like to do is talk about the moment that we’re in right now. Because I look around and everybody talks about unity since I arrived at the airport this morning.

13:07 – GS:

And all of that, but part of that has to be a language, a safa Meshutefet, a joint language. And what you demonstrated in that speech on the faces of the people listening was that if we do have a joint language, we can communicate, even if we don’t agree. So where are we today? And everybody talks about the day after, in reference to the need to talk about a two-state solution. But the day after is also how the Israelis on the street are going to pick themselves up. And some people say this is a new 1948.

13:40 – GS:

We’re like building the Medina all over again. What is your role? How do you see what you’re doing as intersecting with the work that needs to be done the day after?

13:54 – RC:

So there’s a lot of work in front of us. And as you see, there’s a lot of signs of together we will win, but underneath there’s a lot of agony and worry and sadness. We are like under a cloud of sadness and a lot of loss. And people are still out there and in Gaza and you don’t know what’s happening with them. And you feel for the people of Gaza. It’s a very difficult circumstance. My role as I see it is underneath the war of existence that is like 48. That we are fighting to have a homeland for the Jewish people.

14:38 – RC:

I’m trying to think about how to, how do you say it in English? How to put, when you have already a home, you need to not just decorate, but put your furniture inside. What kind of a home will it be inside when we are Hopefully, God willing, save ourselves and live okay with our neighbors and not be in fear. But the home itself, what’s written on the door? And how do you furnish it? And you furnish it with culture. With values, with ethos, with holidays that mean something, with the Jewish timeline, and the holidays.

15:26 – RC:

How do we do Pesach this year? How do we do the Holocaust Day? The Memorial Day and Yom Ha’atzma’ut, it’s not… I spoke in the army to the officers of education that need to do the Memorial Day and one of them told me, it’s not a Memorial Day, I just lost these people. I don’t need to remember them, I’m still feeling the loss. So we have a lot of cultural and spiritual challenges now. And that’s what I and Alma here and the whole movement of Israeli Judaism are trying to build. To do it together with the communities that have lost their homes, that are evacuated, or they went through such terrible trauma, and also with the mainstream writers, musicians, the people who are building the voice of Israel, the sound, what’s written in the papers, what’s on television, in the movies, what kind of songs people sing now, what kind of books are written.

16:35 – RC:

I feel that, as I am not a soldier anymore, my war or my challenge is to build the togetherness. Now, it’s not just a unity from above. You can’t just cover people that can’t stand each other and make them unite because they’re afraid. Maybe that will work while you’re in the tank or in the shelter. When you come out, you need to be loyal to your values. And only if the other person sees you and respects who you are and can live with it, you can also see them and respect what they are. And even if there’s a dispute, we do disputes here at Alma in a very positive way of, that’s what the Talmud is based on, on having a chavruta that doesn’t think like me.

17:32 – RC:

And I can always learn from your point of view, because I have myself, enough of myself, I need to hear another voice. So, I feel the morning after, the day after, is not just in matters of economy and security, but much more in matters of identity. What is a Jewish state today? Can we keep our democracy? Is it going to go to an extremist messianic temple building? A place where women don’t have a voice and non-Jews have no place altogether? Or can we keep our democratic, egalitarian, somewhat modern Jewish state that honors the past but is building the present and the future?

18:27 – RC:

That’s my role.

18:28 – GS:

You know, we’re sitting in your office and you gave me a tour of this beautiful old building that you’re in and it’s full of art. And that was one thing that I wasn’t really prepared for. And each artist has a story because each artist has come through these walls. And what they have learned has affected the art that they’ve produced. And some of them, you told me, were almost dragged in kicking and screaming because they were so negative about Judaism as a religion that had been forced upon them.

19:01 – GS:

And then weeks later, months later, years later, they come to you with a stack of drawings all on themes from the Talmud or influenced by what they learned here. You have these shtenders, which as a former yeshiva student I know is where the student studies with, it’s like a raised table, it’s like a podium when you make a speech. And you realize that when all these artistic types come here and study, they all doodle. And they doodle sometimes on the side of the Talmud, or sometimes on their notebook.

19:36 – GS:

And what you’ve done, whoever curated it is brilliant, is you have these doodles all over, but what you’re trying to do and I think what you’re showing is that for a Jew, expressing our creativity is through sound and music, and it’s through art and the plastic arts, but it’s also through our texts. And we’ve been robbed of that. And you’re reclaiming and reintroducing the vocabulary of 2,000 years of Jewish learning back to the creative cadre of people. And they are all changemakers in a way.

20:19 – GS:

They are all influencers in the old-fashioned meaning of that term, whether they’re writing books or they’re painting or they’re newscasting, or they’re writing, doing movies. And that I wasn’t really prepared for. And that is the ripple effect, obviously, but it makes sense that you’re here in Tel Aviv in a sense. Because I think there’s a lot that needs to be done in the periphery. And I’m a big spokesperson for that. But here in the heart of secular Israel, you have to grow an appreciation for our sources, an ownership of our sources, so that people can both share a conversation, but also take part in a conversation with confidence.

21:04 – GS:

And it’s really amazing what you’re creating here. And I think for those people that listen to Madlik Disruptive Torah, We’re really doing the same thing. You are on a much larger scale, but we all have to get strength from each other because our Torah and our Talmud is too valuable to give away and let other people take from us. It belongs to every Jew. It belongs to the world. And you are just, this is just a pleasure to come here surrounded by Sfarim books and art and Beit Medrashim on each floor.

21:43 – GS:

It’s just amazing.

21:45 – RC:

Thank you for your kind eye. I am a follower, a student of Echad Ha’am and Bialik, who talked about spiritual Zionism as opposed to political Zionism of Herzl. And they said, maybe not all the Jews can live in this country, but this country should build some kind of cultural hub that will own all the treasures that we have from the past and go on creating, speaking Hebrew and owning the music and the theater and so on and the writings of what was and what is going to be. And indeed, following Bialik, and, yes, Shlomit, that was the curator of this beautiful exhibition, saw that all the fellows that study here are scribbling in their notebooks and made an exhibition of it, and it’s wonderful.

22:45 – RC:

I felt, when we started in 1996, that following Bialik, the chalutzim, the…

22:56 – Multiple Speakers

Pioneers.

22:56 – RC:

Pioneers of the country, he said, are the artists. And if you can influence the artist, you influence the whole country. Because even in the ends of the country, they watch television. And the people that are writing Shtisel or Fauda, they are in Tel Aviv. And if I get them in, and they fill their bellies with the classic Jewish canon, then when they do their shows, the end customer will get something richer. The public space will be richer. I think Tel Aviv is also a frontier. And as you said, we were robbed of our Jewish bookcase, but nobody took it from us.

23:43 – RC:

We gave it away. I mean, the generation before us gave it away because of their time in history, but it’s our time to reclaim and to say, with all due respect to orthodox reading of it, I have my reading of it. I also own it. It’s my heritage. And it will be even, you know, sometimes when I walk with the Talmud, when I did my daily page [of Talmud], and ultra-orthodox men would look at me and, you know, I have a big Shteinzaltz. And after some time would walk up and say, what are you doing? And I would say, Daily Page.

24:22 – RC:

And he would say, well, Daf Yomi [Daily page of Talmud]. So, where do you stand? And I tell him, can I ask you questions? Of course you can. And we become partners in a minute because we both love this amazing project of Talmud. And so, I don’t, I’m not afraid of different people or different ways of seeing Israel, I think we can learn from each other, we can build together. It’s much more interesting when not everybody thinks the same, but we cannot be ignorant. Ignorance is weakness. And so, the first thing is to know.

25:11 – RC:

And after you know, you can decide what you accept, what you don’t accept, what you want to make of it. And I am really very, I feel like full of thanks to the richness of what artists do with it. They don’t take a piece of Talmud and decorate it. They take it all in and then it comes out in the art in ways that are always surprising to me. I remember Esti Namdal, she’s a script writer. I was watching her series about a police person, woman, and at some episode they were asking her terrible questions in court and really annoying her.

25:54 – RC:

And I called her up afterwards and I said, Esti, it was really hard to watch. And she said, oh, don’t you recognize? It’s the Sotah portion we studied together. They are doing to her what… And I was like, oh my goodness, I didn’t even understand that she took it in…. it became part of her and when she brought it out it looks completely different. It’s not like a nice drawing next to the Sotah portion. It’s a whole new Torah. And so it is challenging, you know, in Israel only Orthodox Judaism is legitimate and funded by the government and so we have a movement of Israeli Judaism, of many different places like Alma.

26:44 – RC:

There’s a secular yeshiva, Bina. There’s Oranim in the North. There’s Yakar. There’s many, many groups. There’s Hadar in Jerusalem. And we all try to survive and work in an environment that is kind of negative to us and I hope the day after this war these things will change and there will be a reclaiming not only of democracy and the public space but also of our identity as Jews and democratic, feminist, egalitarian humanist Jews that don’t see only ourselves but also all our neighbors.

27:33 – RC:

You know, like Herzl that was a script writer and a writer and he came up with this amazing far-out utopia idea of state for the Jews. I believe that if we will give more artists and writers and people that have an imagination the right to dream maybe we’ll think of the Middle East in different ways. Not only war. And not only we will win or they will win. And not only the same general thinking, army thinking, political thinking, that is always in the box. And if you have someone that is creative, and many more women by the table, at the table, there’ll be new ideas.

28:22 – RC:

Maybe the Middle East can be cut differently. Maybe we cannot just have two states for two peoples, but build into the sea. There are a million ways that human beings can fix what is wrong. There are people on the other side of the border. There are women like me and children and men that just want to live. And there are people that are, how do you say, bad. They’re evil. We did watch evil. There are frustration that doesn’t know where to end. It’s not black and white. We are not all white and they’re not all black.

29:08 – RC:

And this is the neighborhood we live in. We need to own it and, you know, I have a neighbor who’s a pilot in the army. And he does these very long flights, like hours, hours of flights. He goes up far away and he says, when I’m up there and I see the whole Middle East, it’s so beautiful. It’s so calm. It’s one of the nicest places in the universe. And if we could go out, zoom out to the way he sees it, and think of this Middle East in a different way, I believe artists will be very valuable at the table.

29:46 – GS:

You know, it’s an amazing vision. We’re finished with Purim, we’re starting to think of Pesach, which is about liberation. And you’re involved with a liberation movement. You are liberating our texts, and our Talmud, and our Midrash, and our Kabbalah, and Yiddish. You’re liberating us to appreciate it, and I love your vision of thinking outside of the box, looking at things differently. And I think we have to. Otherwise, it’s a vicious cycle. God knows we’ve seen what happens.

30:19 – GS:

You can’t ignore it. It just continues. So keep up the amazing work.

30:23 – RC:

I just want to say amen. And that, yeah, you know, remember, even when we came out of Egypt, it’s you go forward and then reverse and then it doesn’t work and people complain. It’s not going to be easy. But I think in a nutshell, what to be Jewish is, is to seek freedom…. to come out of Egypt.

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