Monthly Archives: April 2021

In popular mindset, the 12-month mourning period (avelut in Hebrew) is about the mourner who is obligated to observe the customs and prohibitions of the period. It might therefore surprise people that Jewish law permits parents to request that their children not observe these prohibitions after the initial 30-day period.The basis for this ruling is a discussion in the Talmud whether a person may demand not to be interred. Jewish law rules that we do not respect this request because the commandment to be buried relates to ones inherent dignity, rooted in being created in Gods image, that cannot be simply waived. In contrast, mourning rituals done for the deceaseds benefit or honor may be waived in ones lifetime. Requests for no eulogies or modest writings on headstones must be respected since they are intended to praise the deceased, who may choose to give up on these honors.

The Talmud, however, did not address questions relating to avelut itself, such as shiva and shloshim, the seven- and 30-day periods of mourning observed for ones immediate relatives. In the 16th century, rabbis Yaakov Reischer and David Oppenheim ruled that we respect the wishes for a person who request that his or her loved ones not observe avelut. The case, perhaps not surprisingly, dealt with someone who was on their death bed in the period immediately before their childs wedding date and wished that the ceremony should still take place. Rabbis Reischer and Oppenheim asserted that mourning rituals are done for the sake of the honor of the deceased and therefore their wishes should be respected.

This ruling, however, was in opposition to the position of Rabbi Moshe Isserles, who followed Rabbi Yaakov Weil (15th century, Germany) in asserting that one could not waive these periods of avelut. This was either because they were concerned that mourning is ultimately for the sake of the mourners, or that these periods are a bona-fide obligation that, whatever their rationale, may not be waived. The generally accepted position affirms that these initial periods of avelut must be observed.

This disagreement was only regarding the shiva and shloshim periods, which are standard in all cases of mourning. What about the extended 12-month period, which exclusively marks the passing of ones mother or father? In this circumstance, Rabbi Weil asserts that parents may waive this requirement since the extended period of mourning is only done out of a sense of honor for them (kibbud av vaem). This position is approved by Rabbi Yoel Sirkes and subsequently by all other decisors, such as rabbis Yehiel Epstein, Chaim Medini, Avraham Danzig, Ovadia Yosef, and many others.

To appreciate the widespread acceptance of the parental ability to waive the 12-month avelut period, it pays to compare it with the various rabbinic positions taken to a similar question. Can a parent request a child not to recite kaddish for them? The mourners kaddish emerged in the 12th century as a form of intercessory prayer that would help atone for the sins of the deceased and reduce their suffering in the afterlife. One might assert the deceased should be able to waive recitation of kaddish since this is for their benefit, like a eulogy. While this conclusion was accepted by a few decisors, including Rabbi Yekutiel Greenwald and Rabbi Feivel Cohen, it was rejected by a significant majority of decisors, for a variety of reasons.

These include: 1) concerns that not reciting kaddish might create the mistaken impression that the children was of illegitimate origins or not actually his seed, thereby impugning on his reputation; 2) the parents potential motivation to want to avoid imposing on the child to regularly attend services; since a child must try to attend synagogue anyway, this is not a sufficient justification; 3) most fundamentally, in light of the great benefit the deceased receives from the kaddish recitation on his behalf, the deceased would certainly regret this decision. Given its spiritual benefits, a person simply does not have the ability to waive such lofty assistance, and therefore children should ignore this request and recite kaddish. As such, one does not see the option of waiving kaddish in contemporary handbooks of halachic literature. Decisors do not respect the potential motivation nor do they think that it is in the best interests of the deceased. This is in contrast with waiving the 12-month avelut requirement, which was widely accepted.

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Interestingly, two prominent legal decisors, rabbis Eliezer Waldenberg and Yosef Elyashiv, innovatively asserted that even if the deceased did not expressly waive the mourning requirement, we can assume that he would in cases when it is clear to the mourners that their parents would have clearly desired for their children to participate in a family celebration, such as the wedding of a grandchild. Not all decisors, including Rabbi Yaakov Kamenetsky, agree with this suggestion of simply assuming this is the case.

Fascinatingly, one lesser-known scholar, Rabbi Gershon Ephraim Marber (Warsaw/Antwerp, 18721941) suggested that parents should explicitly waive the extended 12-month period so that children will not fail in the difficult obligations imposed in this period, especially when it comes to family celebrations.

Is this a good idea? In the most recent issue of the journal Hakirah, I expound at great length on the wisdom of this suggestion to encourage waiving the avelut requirement. It should be clear, however, that the prerogative of a parent to choose, on their own initiative, to waive avelut for their children after the 30-day mourning period remains entirely acceptable.

The writer is co-dean of the Tikvah Online Academy and a post-doctoral fellow at Bar-Ilan University Law School. His book, A Guide to the Complex: Contemporary Halakhic Debates, received a National Jewish Book Award.

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Jewish law: May parents waive childrens obligation to mourn for them? - The Jerusalem Post

I used to think old people were either cute or sad.

The cute ones were Kirk Douglas or Ruth Bader Ginsburg doing push-ups, and gray-haired couples animatedly talking to each other or walking hand in hand in the park.

The sad ones were stooped, infirm, inept, crotchety, disheveled, occasionally incoherent, and mostly invisible.

I used to laugh when comedians mocked elderly men who still flirt when a pretty girl passes by, and 80-something women who still dress with panache and take pains with their make-up as if they had a prayer of attracting the male gaze. In other words, having absorbed from the world around me its negative stereotypes of seniors, and its cultish adoration of youth, Id succumbed to the plague of ageism.

Since turning 60, then 70, then, incredibly, 80, Ive cringed at age-related stereotypes and raged not just at the dying of the lightDylan Thomas immortal phrase for mortality tremorsbut at the maddening societal attitudes that dismiss my cohort as over the hill has-beens.

In 2017, Americas seniors totaled more than 46 million, a number expected to nearly double over the next 30 years. Yet children and young people are still being indoctrinated with the same disparaging images and demeaning mindsets about age and aging that I grew up with.

Jewish tradition, though more balanced, sends mixed messages. On the one hand, our liturgy and sacred texts constantly refer to elders as repositories of wisdom, compassion, experience, understanding, judgement, and insight. The Torah reminds us that Moses was 80 and Aaron was 83 when they made their demand on Pharaoh, an act of immense courage and chutzpah. The Talmud calls 80 the age of strength. Proverbs describes a hoary head, (gray hair) as a crown of glory, implying that longevity is the reward for a life of righteousness.

On the other hand, we also encounter descriptions in granular detail of the depredations and burdens of agedimmed vision, physical weakness, mental confusionand perplexing paradoxes. Leviticus commands, You must rise up before the aged and honor the face of the older person; you must fear your God, aligning the will of the deity with the dignity of the aged and suggesting that Adonai stands ready to police ageism.

Yet during the High Holy Days, Shema Koleinu has us reciting the Psalmists plea, Do not cast us off in old age; when our strength fails, do not forsake us. Surely, Im not the only one who hears those words as an indirect expression of, dare I say it, the divinitys occasional slide into ageism. Why else would God require an explicit request to not abandon those who are weaker than they once were.

Just as our inherited tradition tries to reconcile these contradictions, so should we tackle the scourge of age-bias and confront the idolatrous worship of youth. We must assume the best (imputing to older people personal value, continuing capacities and aspirations), while accommodating to the worst (the inevitable depletions of age) by providing care and kindness until the end of life. Anything less will be a plague on humanity and a shanda for our people.

This piece was produced in partnership with Jewish Book Councilas a part of a Passover supplement for Dwelling in a Time of Plagues. To download the full Passover supplement, which includes ten authors and ten artists responding to ten modern plagues, please click here.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

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This Passover, Im contemplating the plague of ageism - Forward

This essay originally appeared on Alma, 70 Faces Medias feminist Jewish culture site.

Had you asked me 20 years ago, 10 years ago, even last year (truthfully, last month) if Id ever quote the Torah in a piece I was writing, I probably would have (respectfully and nervously) laughed in your face.

The Torah makes me anxious because I know that it holds the potential to oppress me as a genderqueer trans Jew. And I know it informs so many Jews of their strongly held beliefs, and those beliefs directly oppress me and others. They use the Torah to justify hate and bigotry and embolden some to actively and directly harm people. As Jewish as questioning and challenging everything is, I was never taught to actually do it. So when these particular Jews would weaponize different Torah verses and decide that their one interpretation was the Word of God, that was it for me. Fin. I never questioned it. I just took it at face value. Add the fact that Id never really seen myself reflected in any of the stories Id heard, and I never even saw the purpose of trying to connect to the Torah.

Still, I struggled. As I work at Keshet, a national nonprofit that works for the full equality for LGBTQ Jews and our families in Jewish life, I am constantly faced with the question of how relevant the Torah can be as I run workshops and teach about inclusion as a Jewish value. I point to our poster of Seven Jewish Values for an Inclusive Community and recite my spiel. I have to admit that when I first started teaching this four years ago, I dont know that I truly believed what I was teaching; I hadnt quite internalized it yet. I was in the beginning of my healing journey with Judaism. Id felt so deeply rejected so much of my life that I didnt even know it was possible to connect again to Judaism in an authentic way as a queer and trans person.

One of the values from our poster that continuously stuck out to me and replayed over and over in my head was btzelem Elohim, the notion that we are made in the image of God (or the divine) pulled directly from Genesis. As the poster explains, if we see each person as created in the image of God, we can see the humanity and dignity in all people. True inclusion is built upon this foundation.

This made sense to me, yet I still had a difficult time applying it to myself.

The questions kept coming: Do I even believe in God? If I was made in the image of God, then why do I need to change my body to relieve my dysphoria and see/be/feel myself? Why do I even feel dysphoria? Was I a mistake? Am I broken? If God is real, why do humans suffer? And why do humans suffer at the hands of other Jews?

Over the last few years, Ive been training myself to think outside the binary in more ways than just gender. Ive been rewiring my brain to think in a both/and instead of an either/or kind of way. Either/or stops a conversation, while both/and invites expansion and possibility. If this is true, what else can be true? Is this the only truth? There must be more to the story. Can two things be true at once? Its a lot to hold, and its not always easy.

Ive never been interested in text studies. I didnt want to dig into Torah. It felt like Id be giving too much power and attention to this thing that I kept thinking was my oppressor. Then one day I decided I needed and wanted to push myself on this. I wanted to face the thing that scared me as Id done with so many other aspects of my life.

So with my colleague Rabbi Micah Buck-Yael, a trans person who became a rabbi in part to challenge the patriarchy and help carve space for queer Jews, we started chatting Torah. And I pushed back on every single word they said. I asked them a million questions. Even questions like: What is the Talmud really? What is midrash really? Then we started talking about the moment we are in now: on the precipice of rereading, reimagining and reinterpreting Torah and doing it through a queer lens. There are many queer and trans folks who have been queering the Torah for years, individually and through programs like Svara, while actively working to make queer Jews more visible.

Then it dawned on me: Id been approaching Torah all wrong. Its not an either/or. Its a both/and. Its not either this verse is the law of the land or nothing; instead I get to decide what Torah means to me. I get to choose which meanings resonate with me. And if none do, I get to create my own. If the sages and rabbis get to, why cant I?

Maybe the concept of btzelem Elohim needs an update for those of us who arent sure we believe in God. Because whether or not we believe doesnt change the fact that transness is holiness. I am divine. I find my strength from within and dont need any outside sources, God included, to be my own constant, my own divinity. I was made the way I am because its who I am meant to be. Every move or mistake Ive made, every lesson Ive learned, has made me who I am, and I wouldnt trade any of my experiences to be born any other way.

When Im in Jewish spaces where Im feeling on the fringes, or have moments when Im questioning if I really belong or if anyone really, truly sees me, I can dig within and remember that I exist, therefore I am visible even if only to myself and, ultimately, thats what matters most. I am btzelem Elohim, divine and holy. And the Torah gave me that.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of JTA or its parent company, 70 Faces Media.

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It is hard to connect to the Torah as a trans Jew. Here's why I'm trying anyway. - JTA News - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

BAGHDAD--The death of Dhafer Eliyahu hit Iraq hard, not only because the doctor treated the neediest for free, but because with his passing, only four Jews now remain in the country.

At the Habibiya Jewish cemetery in the capital Baghdad, wedged between the Martyr Monument erected by ex-dictator Saddam Hussein and the restive Shiite stronghold of Sadr City, an aged Muslim man still tends to the graves, but visitors are rare.

The day of Eliyahus burial, it was me who prayed over his grave, the doctors sister said.

There were friends of other faiths who prayed too, each in their own way, she added, refusing to give her name.

To hear Jewish prayer out in the open is rare now in Baghdad, where there is but one synagogue that only opens occasionally and no rabbis.

But Jewish roots in Iraq go back some 2,600 years.

According to biblical tradition, they arrived in 586 BC as prisoners of the Babylonian king Nebuchadnezzar II after he destroyed Solomons Temple in Jerusalem.

In Iraq, they wrote the Babylonian Talmud on the very land where the patriarch Abraham was born and where the Garden of Eden is considered by some to have been located, in the heart of the Mesopotamian marshlands.

More than 2,500 years later, in Ottoman-ruled Baghdad, Jews were the second largest community in the city, making up 40 percent of its inhabitants.

Some were very prominent members of society like Sassoon Eskell, Iraqs first ever finance minister in 1920, who made a big impression on British adventurer and writer Gertrude Bell.

Turning point

At the start of the last century, the day of rest and prayer was Saturday, as per the Jewish tradition, not Islams Friday, as it is today.

Today, one prays at home, said a Baghdad resident knowledgeable of the citys Jewish community, who also chose to remain anonymous.

And when people with a Jewish name deal with the administration they will not be well received, he added.

According to Edwin Shuker, a Jew born in Iraq in 1955 and exiled in Britain since he was 16, there are only four Jews with Iraqi nationality who are descendant of Jewish parents left in the country, not including the autonomous Kurdish region.

A turning point for Jewish history in Iraq came with the first pogroms in the mid-20th century. In June 1941, the Farhud pogrom in Baghdad left more than 100 Jews dead, properties looted and homes destroyed.

In 1948, Israel was created amid a war with an Arab military coalition that included Iraq.

Almost all of Iraqs 150,000 Jews went into exile in the ensuing years.

Their identity cards were taken away and replaced by documents that made them targets wherever they showed them.

The majority preferred to sign documents saying they would voluntarily leave and renounce their nationality and property.

Still today, Shuker said, Iraqi law forbids the restoration of their citizenship.

By 1951, 96 percent of the community had left.

Almost all the rest followed after the public hangings of Israeli spies in 1969 by the Baath party, which had just come to power off the back of a coup.

Promotion of Zionism was punishable by death and that legislation has remained unchanged.

Continued haemorrhage

Decades of conflict and instability with the 1980s Iran-Iraq war, the invasion of Kuwait, an international embargo, the 2003 American invasion and the ensuing violence completed the erosion of the Jewish community.

By the end of 2009, only eight members remained, according to a US diplomatic cable.

And the haemorrhage didnt end there.

A jeweller threatened by militiamen who coveted his goldsmiths work went into exile, followed by Amer Moussa Nassim, grand nephew of author and renowned economist Mir Basri, in 2011.

At 38, Nassim told AFP he left Baghdad to finally live a normal life and get married, as the only remaining Jewish women in the city of millions of people were two elderly ladies.

Six months ago, one of the two, known as Sitt (lady in Arabic) Marcelle, a tireless advocate of the community, passed away.

And on March 15, she was followed by Elyahu, aged 61.

Israel, on the other hand, is now home to 219,000 Jews of Iraqi origin.

They left behind in Iraq homes and synagogues, which, up until 2003, were in perfect condition and each owner identifiable, Shuker said.

All it takes is a vote in parliament to return everything to the families.

But today, the buildings still stand empty, padlocked and crumbling from neglect, carrion for war profiteers in a country where corruption and mismanagement reign.

Link:

Virtually no more Jews left in Iraq, only empty buildings | | AW - The Arab Weekly

This essay originally appeared on Alma, 70 Faces Medias feminist Jewish culture site.

Had you asked me 20 years ago, 10 years ago, even last year (truthfully, last month) if Id ever quote the Torah in a piece I was writing, I probably would have (respectfully and nervously) laughed in your face.

The Torah makes me anxious because I know that it holds the potential to oppress me as a genderqueer trans Jew. And I know it informs so many Jews of their strongly held beliefs, and those beliefs directly oppress me and others.

They use the Torah to justify hate and bigotry. It emboldens some to actively and directly harm people. As Jewish as questioning and challenging everything is, I was never taught to actually do it. So when these particular Jews would weaponize different Torah verses and decide that their interpretation was the Word of God, that was it for me. Fin. I never questioned it. I just took it at face value.

Add the fact that Id never really seen myself reflected in any of the stories Id heard, and I never even saw the purpose of trying to connect to the Torah.

Still, I struggled. As I work at Keshet, a national nonprofit that works for the full equality for LGBTQ Jews and our families in Jewish life, I am constantly faced with the question of how relevant the Torah can be when I run workshops and teach about inclusion as a Jewish value. I point to our poster of Seven Jewish Values for an Inclusive Community and recite my spiel. I have to admit that when I first started teaching this four years ago, I dont know that I truly believed what I was teaching; I hadnt quite internalized it yet.

I was in the beginning of my healing journey with Judaism. Id felt so deeply rejected so much of my life that I didnt even know it was possible to connect again to Judaism in an authentic way as a queer and trans person.

One of the values from our poster that continuously stuck out to me and replayed over and over in my head was btzelem Elohim, the notion that we are made in the image of God or the divine, pulled directly from Genesis.

As the poster explains, if we see each person as created in the image of God, we can see the humanity and dignity in all people. True inclusion is built upon this foundation.

This made sense to me. Yet I still had a difficult time applying it to myself.

The questions kept coming: Do I even believe in God? If I was made in the image of God, then why do I need to change my body to relieve my dysphoria and see, be, and feel myself? Why do I even feel dysphoria? Was I a mistake? Am I broken? If God is real, why do humans suffer? And why do humans suffer at the hands of other Jews?

Over the last few years, Ive been training myself to think outside the binary in more ways than just gender. Ive been rewiring my brain to think in terms of both-and instead of either-or kind of way. The latter stops a conversation, while the former invites expansion and possibility.

If this is true, what else can be true? Is this the only truth? There must be more to the story. Can two things be true at once? Its a lot to hold, and its not always easy.

Ive never been interested in text studies. I didnt want to dig into Torah. It felt like Id be giving too much power and attention to this thing that I kept thinking was my oppressor.

Then one day I decided I needed and wanted to push myself.

I wanted to face the thing that scared me, as Id done with so many other aspects of my life.

So with my colleague Rabbi Micah Buck-Yael, a trans person who became a rabbi in part to challenge the patriarchy and help carve space for queer Jews, I started chatting Torah. And I pushed back on every single word they said. I asked they a million questions. Even questions like: What is the Talmud, really? What is midrash, really?

Then we started talking about the moment we are in now: on the precipice of rereading, reimagining and reinterpreting Torah and doing it through a queer lens. There are many queer and trans folks who have been queering the Torah for years, individually and through programs like Svara, while actively working to make queer Jews more visible.

Then it dawned on me: Id been approaching Torah all wrong. Its not an either-or, its a both-and. Its not either this verse is the law of the land or nothing; instead I get to decide what Torah means to me. I get to choose which meanings resonate with me. And if none do, I get to create my own.

If the sages and rabbis get to, why cant I?

Maybe the concept of btzelem Elohim needs an update for those of us who arent sure we believe in God. Because whether or not we believe doesnt change the fact that transness is holiness. I am divine. I find my strength from within and dont need any outside sources, God included, to be my own constant, my own divinity. I was made the way I am because its who I am meant to be. Every move or mistake Ive made, every lesson Ive learned, has made me who I am, and I wouldnt trade any of my experiences to be born any other way.

When Im in Jewish spaces where Im feeling on the fringes, or have moments when Im questioning if I really belong or if anyone really, truly sees me, I can dig within and remember that I exist, therefore I am visible even if only to myself. Ultimately, thats what matters most. I am btzelem Elohim, divine and holy. And the Torah gave me that.

The views and opinions expressed in this article are the authors own and do not necessarily reflect those of the Forward.

Here is the original post:

Its hard to connect to the Torah as a trans Jew. Im trying anyway. - Forward

Passover

This Shabbat, we find ourselves celebrating the 7th Day of the Festival of Pesach and preparing for this weeks special reading of the account of Kriat Yam Suf, the crossing of the Sea of Reeds, which tradition posits took place on this day. And yet, though we are knee-deep in our Passover celebrations, I find myself thinking back to the joy-filled holiday of Purim that we enjoyed just a few weeks back and to one of its primary heroes, Mordechai.

Now of course you are asking yourselves, why? What might Mordechai have to do with the Exodus and in particular with the miracle of the deliverance at the Sea?

According to Rabbinic tradition, Mordechai was a prophet and a member of the famed Jewish legal body known as the Sanhedrin which gathered in the Chamber of Hewn Stones, and whose members were so well-educated and worldly, that they knew all of the 70 languages extant at that time. In this respected capacity, Mordechai helped adjudicate difficult legal matters, and owing to his expertise as an accomplished linguist, he was able to uncover the plot to assassinate King Achashverosh found in the heart of the Purim tale. For this act of bravery and patriotism, Mordechai was ultimately commended by Achashverosh and chosen for a position of power and prominence in the court of the Persian monarch.

Rabbi Carnie Shalom Rose is the Rabbi Bernard Lipnick Senior Rabbinic Chair at Congregation Bnai Amoona. Rabbi Rose is a member of the St. Louis Rabbinical and Cantorial Association, which coordinates the dvar Torah for the Jewish Light.

However, there is one more little-known and intriguing tidbit about the life Mordechai that deserves our consideration. According to the Talmud (BT Megillah 16b), once Mordechai was elevated to serve as Viceroy in Achashveroshs government, many of his rabbinic colleagues determined that his involvement with civic affairs and, in particular, his focus away from the exclusive needs of his fellow Jews and Torah study, made him no longer a viable candidate for serving on the most elevated of Jewish legal bodies. Mordechais abiding concern for gentiles and pagans sullied his heretofore stellar reputation and many of his coreligionists therefore turned their backs on him and some even called for his removal from the Sanhedrin.

This Talmudic passage gnawed at me as I prepared to reread the tale of the deliverance of our people at the Red Sea; the biblical account that we recall and recount today, the 7th day of Passover. As you may remember, the Midrash posits that as the Israelites celebrated their victory over the Egyptians who had been swallowed up by the waters of the Sea of Reeds, a heavenly voice called out: My creations, my children, the work of My hands, are drowning and you are making merry and singing songs of salvation?! (BT Megillah 10b)

Passover is indeed a holiday of liberation. And yes, it is unabashedly the story of OUR (Jewish) deliverance. And yet, it would seem to me that as a people chosen by the Creator to serve as an Or Goyim - a light unto the nations (Isiah 42:6), our liberation and deliverance are incomplete until we do what we can to secure the release and emancipation of all those mired in servitude and oppression. And, in order to do this, we must reject the criticisms and chastisements of those who see our goal as myopically focused exclusively on Jewish survival and flourishing. This reorientation demands that we, like the hero of the Purim saga Mordechai, engage in the needs of the communities that reside beyond the limited boundaries of our own parochial needs. Not, heaven forbid, because we yearn to abandon our Jewish Tradition or neglect our responsibilities to our own people, but rather because we want to live-out the deepest and most profound manifestation of what our Holy Torah comes to teach us.

This Passover, as we retell the powerful story of our peoples freedom from the oppression of tyrants, let us pledge to also help hasten the arrival of the time we allude to thrice daily in our Aleynu prayer by actively working Letaken Olam BeMalchut Shaddai; Perfecting the entire world so that all of the earths inhabitants can experience the awesome power and unequalled beauty of the Almighty. May this era soon arrive speedily and in our day, Amen!

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Moving from the particular to the universal: The highest calling for the Jewish People? - St. Louis Jewish Light