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IT SEEMS TO ME: In support of the right to decide - Leader-Telegram

Destroying lives through false accusations, innuendo and distortions has never been easier.

In his book Other Peoples Money and How Bankers Use It, Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously wrote, Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. Shining a spotlight on an issue can expose and reveal corruption, dishonesty, fraud or abuse that otherwise might go unnoticed, ignored, or even excused. Brandeis wrote these words well before the Internet was a thought in anyones mind and he likely could not have even dreamt of the sunlight it would shine and the accountability it would generate.

The capacity for instant access to information also makes us better informed, allows us to think more critically, and empowers us to ask crucial questions that make us safer, healthier, and stronger. If you want to know more about your doctors education, read reviews of your landscaper, or see what your childs teacher posts on Facebook, the endless information is now just a click away.

Unfiltered sunlight can also be harmful, toxic, and cause cancer.

Brandeis was absolutely correct. Sunlight is indeed a great disinfectant. The internet has sanitized our world by holding people accountable for their behavior, choices, actions, positions, and writings. But what Brandeis didnt mention is that unfiltered sunlight can also be harmful, toxic, and cause cancer.

There has never been a greater vehicle to disseminate gossip and slander than the internet. Lives have been literally destroyed because of false accusations, innuendo, distortions, and untruths. Once upon a time thoughts, ideas, and opinions were only printed if they had merit and were deemed worthy and carefully screened by a publisher. Journalists had to vet their stories and fact checkers confirmed all assertions before an article went to print. While the system wasnt perfect, the result was authors gained credibility and readership based on their education, expertise, experience, and peer review.

Today, anyone can publish his or her ideas and opinions and even his or her version of facts with no expertise or credentials and with no consequence or accountability. Readership and popularity are often a function of salaciousness and sensationalism, not truth and accuracy.

Readers have an enormous burden to be vigilant and judicious before blindly accepting everything.

In his book, The Death of Expertise: The Campaign Against Established Knowledge and Why it Matters, Thomas M. Nichols elucidates this concept: People are now exposed to more information than ever before, provided both by technology and by increasing access to every level of education. These societal gains, however, have also helped fuel a surge in narcissistic and misguided intellectual egalitarianism that has crippled informed debates on any number of issues. Today, everyone knows everything: with only a quick trip through WebMD or Wikipedia, average citizens believe themselves to be on an equal intellectual footing with doctors and diplomats. All voices, even the most ridiculous, demand to be taken with equal seriousness, and any claim to the contrary is dismissed as undemocratic elitism.

All of this places an enormous burden on us, the readers and consumers of information, to be vigilant and judicious before blindly accepting everything we come across in print, online, or in person. Especially in the information age, we must ask ourselves, who is the author or speaker of these words? What authority or credibility do they have? How does what they are saying match up with what I know about the person, place, or issue being discussed? Is there another side to this story? Do I have all the facts and information to draw a conclusion?

The Torah instructs us to distance ourselves from falsehood. The Talmud says that Gods insignia is truth. To be Godly one must have ferocious loyalty and fidelity to the truth. Exaggerating, distorting and bending the truth distance us and alienate us from the Almighty.

When it comes to lying, it isnt enough to be committed to the truth and devoted to never lying, but one must distance themselves completely from lies and from liars.

The burden of making sure that the internet functions as a disinfectant and not as a toxin is on the readers and consumers of its content. We must be judicious, careful, and extremely vigilant, not only in what we write, but in how we process and accept what we read.

There is another danger of non-judicious consumption of what is available on the internet. Even when what is being reported is true, is it our business, do we need to know, will the knowledge help us or hurt others? The craving for salacious details and the appetite to know the story emanates from a unhealthy sense of inquisitiveness and our insatiable need to be in the know.

This phenomenon expresses itself in many scenarios. When some hear about a couple getting divorced, their first response is what happened? as if they are entitled to a report about the most personal and private details of a couple and often children going through a difficult time.

Many pay a shiva call and feel a need to ask, How did he or she die? Certainly the mourner is free to volunteer the cause of death if they like, but is it really our business and do we truly need to know?

When we ask, Why did he lose his job? or why did they break their engagement? or why is she still single? are we asking because we care about them, or is finding out somehow satisfying something in ourselves?

Judaism places great value on peoples right to privacy.

For some, the need to know stems from a sense of information is power. Information is social currency and the more we know, the richer and more powerful we are. For others, the need to know stems from an inability to live with tension or mystery. And yet, for others, the need to know is similar to whatever draws us to slow down and look at the accident on the highway even though it has nothing to do with us at all and only creates traffic for others.

Judaism places great value on peoples right to privacy. Jewish law demands that we conduct ourselves with the presumption that all that we are told even in pedestrian conversation is to be held in confidence unless it is explicitly articulated that we are free to repeat what we heard. We are forbidden to look into a neighbors property in a way that violates their privacy. We are instructed not to spread gossip, even if the information is absolutely true and entirely accurate. The Talmud (Bava Metzia 23b) goes so far as to tell us that we are permitted to distort the truth in circumstances that someone is prying for information that is none of their business and that they are not entitled to have.

The internet can be a great resource and blessing in our lives but the burden is on us to remain vigilant not to assume everything we read is true, or to read even things that are true, just because they are available to us.

Link:

What Happened to the Truth? - aish.com Personal Growth, Featured, Spirituality - Aish.com

This week, I printed out a copy of the declaration of intent to become a United States citizen made by my great-grandfather, Wolf Landsman, in the city court of Utica, New York. My sister Ellen found this document a few years ago, which is dated July 8, 1893.

In it, my great-grandfather declares that he renounces all allegiance to the czar of Russia, which I cant imagine was very difficult for him. What was difficult for him was English. The document is filled out in beautiful handwriting, but not his; it belongs to Clarence Stetson, a court clerk who, a couple of decades later, became president of the Common Council, Uticas city council. Mr. Stetsons impeccable penmanship records Wolf Landsmans city of birth in Russia, though it looks to me like the clerk just made up some approximation of what he heard my great-grandfather say. All my great-grandfather could do was mark an X.

Wolf Landsman was 18 years old when he landed in New York City, and he was 21 years old when he came to the court in Utica for this declaration, and thanks to him and my other seven great-grandparents, 130 years ago, give or take, I am a citizen of the United States of America.

When I was 21 years old, I decided to leave the United States, and while I was still 21, I decided once and for all not to. I turned 21 in Israel, living for a year in fulfillment of an intention I declared when I was just about to turn 18. On July 8, 1988, 95 years after Wolf Landsmans declaration of intent to become an American citizen, I was in between, just back to the States and with a plan to spend the next seven years studying before I would make aliyah. But sometime in the last two months of my age, I realized I still wanted to be American.

Two things happened that fall when I returned to college from my year away. One was I met a girl, who is now my wife.

The other is a bit harder to describe, because it has to do with ideas. I realized that the ideas I found most compelling, even after a year in Israel, were American ideas, and the questions that I couldnt stop talking about were American questions.

The life of my mind was American. What I found engrossing was: freedom and individuality, and how freedom and individuality are the biggest challenges to community and the soil in which community grows or does not grow. And how freedom and individuality are the biggest challenges to figuring out how much we are responsible for one another, which is the fundamental question of politics and government.

I was utterly surprised to discover that I was still American deep down, after a year in Israel immersed in Talmud, which I had never studied before, and after working so hard to become a fluent speaker of Hebrew, and finally being comfortable in the yeshivish banter that makes religious Jewish college students feel like one of the crowd. My ratio of non-Jewish to Jewish friends had dropped rapidly. That was the 21-year-old who decided he was permanently American. That guy was studying Talmud in his free time, with Thoreau and Emerson and Tocqueville and Carol Gilligan sitting on his shoulder and stuck in his head.

Obviously the girlfriend was a factor, since she had no interest in aliyah but we had just started dating, so how big a factor could that have been? What I think actually happened is that I noticed how little sleep I was losing about this difference between us. That was surprising too, since I was a brooder by nature. But I didnt feel any inner tension, like this was an argument we were going to have to have one day about the future of our relationship. Thats what I noticed, thats what clinched it for me: This isnt hard for me. I really am going to stay here in America.

My candidate for president got destroyed that year; my political philosophy was repudiated nationally, which is to say my own interpretation of these ideas about freedom and individuality and community that were all I could think about and talk about. But I didnt say to myself: See, you dont belong here. Just the opposite.

I was coming to realize that I was addressing the American ideas at the core of my life in a Jewish way, on all kinds of levels.

In my mind, this is how I think about freedom and individuality: Henry David Thoreau, who would not compromise one bit with conventional society and went off to live in the woods all on his own, who went to jail rather than pay taxes that would help fund what he thought was an unjust war he is talking to Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus, who in the Talmud was banished after he couldnt persuade the rest of the rabbis to set the law his way, even when God sent miracles and a voice down from Heaven to back him up. Ralph Waldo Emersons essay on individualism talks to Rav Yosef Soloveitchiks essay on shlichut, on finding ones unique individual mission in the world.

I think about how freedom is the basic, precious truth we learn from the Exodus, and how much more precious that freedom is than what John Locke or Thomas Jefferson ever wrote about. How that freedom compels us to stop at Mt. Sinai and enter into covenant, and what that teaches about the kinds of covenants free people in America have to make or ought to make.

I think about how freedom is what allows us to think new thoughts and be wrong without being thrown in jail, and what forces synagogues to be compelling or wither away, instead of just being the thing your parents did so you do too.

I think about how freedom is also the fundamental challenge to our humanity, even the basic idol. It was free people who chose the make a golden calf and worship a thing made of gold. It was free people who imagined themselves trading the challenge of rising spiritually for the fleshpots back in Egypt and the thought of a life free of difficult decisions and moral agency. That Torah about freedom talks to the challenges today, of freedom that opens up to mere materialism, to unrestrained competition and social competitiveness. A freedom that can make everything a commodity, including ourselves allowing our interests, our time, even our unique talents to be valued in our own eyes by what they are worth in the short-term to others. Freedom can overwhelm us with the present moment, with all the choices right now of what to do or buy or think or be outraged about. All of which can disconnect us from the larger and longer stories we are part of, which we author and co-author.

I think about how the tradition that views tzedakah more as taxation than charity wants us to understand the blessing we say first thing in the morning, praising the Divine sheasanu bnai chorin, who has made us free people. How does the person who wakes up into freedom also wake up into responsibility? I want to know how in talmudic detail and philosophical detail and political detail how do we deal with the question of freedom and mutual responsibility.

Some look at the phrase Jewish American, or American Jew, and see a space between the words, a gap between two aspects of consciousness. Or they see a dash like a minus sign, where one word or maybe both take something away from the other. I see rather a chemical bond, not ionic, but covalent. A sign of the energy that flows uniquely when two entities are bound together, and something new emerges that is different from either atom on its own.

The hyphen in Jewish-American is one of the most exciting things I know. What made me decide to be American, to file my own declaration at the age of 21, just as my great-grandfather had, is that hyphen. Being Jewish is how we understand being American; being American is how we find the greatness in Judaism.

Ive been talking about ideas in my head, but those ideas are tied up with stories, about my past and the teachers and role models related to those ideas, and the projects and mitzvahs and failures around those ideas, and the communities made possible around those ideas. I teach regularly that we each need to reconnect to our own ideas about freedom and individuality and community and responsibility, and to the stories of our lives and our legacies. It has soothed me this past week to do this; it has soothed me whenever America has been hard to celebrate.

But its about more than soothing. Our environment of free press and free expression, which are great freedoms that environment can also take our breath away quite literally. The only way we reclaim the capacity to act freely is to reconnect ourselves to our ideas and to the stories around those ideas. We become bigger than the difficulty of the moment we get more breath and breathing room when we think about freedom, and when we tell the kinds of stories I am telling, and bring all the characters in those stories to our side again.

There is nothing more practical in this moment. We need our ideas, and we need all those stories. We need them in our minds and we need to share them in conversations, our partners in action and the people who matter to us the most. The people who get things done, who make a difference in our country, are people who know in depth what they think about freedom and responsibility, and why.

You may think this doesnt matter, that someone has decided what the official answer is to all these questions, and what difference does it make what you think. But freedom isnt just about what the Supreme Court says. Its about our culture. Its about what we teach and model for our young people. Its about how freedom and community are expressed in our cities and towns, which are very much under our control. Its about how we build community in conditions of great freedom and individuality among Jews. And its about how we understand ourselves, in every way we have agency.

I pulled out my great-grandfathers citizenship declaration this week because I was invited to say some words at an event this week about immigration issues. At the last minute, I found out that our talks would be translated on the fly for those whose English is comparable to my young great-grandfathers. And when the evening was over, I thought about how remarkable that Wolf Landsmans American declaration could be read out 129 years later almost to the week by his great-grandson, the rabbi, in a New England church, his Russian-speaking X and the court clerks beautiful English becoming a story retold extemporaneously in Spanish. Then, in the hour that followed, I listened to familiar themes and to new stories, from people and groups I dont know well enough, who are new to this country in our generation. Now their ideas about individual freedom and the potential for community join the mix in my head, and remind me that I have to keep engaged in thinking and working on the same ideas and the same questions. And so too must we all.

Thats hard work, but good work. It has been a difficult couple of weeks and more, but still we deserve a celebration. To help us look back, and look around, and look in our minds to locate ourselves again on this weekend of celebrating American freedom. We will find ourselves and become larger again. This is where we are supposed to be. Right here, in the United States of America. Choose America, again. Find yourself here, and you wont find yourself alone.

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Inheriting America, then choosing America | Jon Spira-Savett | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

SUMMER VACATION SERIES

Edited by Aryeh Werth

Is it proper to go on vacation to a place with no minyan? What about achildrens day trip where there will be no minyan?

For many people the concept of a vacation is time away from the usual routine. Now if the destination includes a local synagogue with minyanim that is great. However, what if the particular locale has no synagogue, but is a tourist destination with greatsightseeing, should one not go?

The Talmud (Berachot 31a) relates the following. The custom of Rabbi Akiva was when he prayed with the congregation, he used to cut it short and finish in order to not cause inconvenience to the congregation [who would wait for him to conclude his Amidah before they would begin the chazarat hashatz.] But when he prayed alone: If one left him in one corner he would later find him in the opposite corner on account of his many bowings and prostrations.

Now true, its beyond our imagination to comprehend the power of Rabbi Akivas tefillah to pierce the heavens as compared to ours, even when we are part of a congregation. Notwithstanding, we see that at times he did not pray with a minyan.

The Jerusalem Talmud (end of Tractate Kiddushin) teaches: In the future time [when all will be judged] a person will be called to give an account for all that his eyes saw [that was permissible] and he did not partake thereof. In that regard I heard from Rabbi Avigdor Miller, ztl, that one is duty bound to see the wonders of Hashem in everything that he encounters. Additionally, for us to forbid people who work hard the pleasure of rest and change of scenery is in and of itself forbidding. And if one asks, should travel on an airplane be forbidden, the answer of most gedolim is surely not.

Insofar a childrens day trip, if it is being sponsored by a Jewish day camp or the such, I am positive there are usually sufficient staff available for a minyan. There is enough guilt in our community, lets not turn a vacation into a guilt-trip.

Rabbi Yaakov Klass is Rav of Khal Bnei Matisyahu in Flatbush; Torah Editor of The Jewish Press; and Presidium Chairman, Rabbinical Alliance of America/Igud HaRabbonim.

* * *

The ideal is to vacation in places where ones spiritual level can be maintained. Almost every city in the world worth visiting has a shul with daily minyanim. Think of the effect on children when, in a foreign country or strange city, they join with other Jews, daven, and see before their eyes the wide reach of Torah and the great variety of Jews. For children, it will enrich the bond of Jewish nationhood in a way that no lecture or speech ever can. I remember visiting France as a child and feeling out of sorts in shul until they started singing Vayehi binsoa haaron in the same melody we sang at home. I felt an immediate connection to my fellow Jews. (I learned some French as well when the rabbi asked the congregation, in French, to stop talking.)

That being said, there are places that some people consider worth visiting where minyanim are not readily available. That engenders a discussion of the precise obligation of tefillah btzibur. The Shulchan Aruch (Orach Chaim 90:9) uses the term yishtadeil one should try to daven in shul with the community. That means it is not an absolute obligation, and certainly where there is no shul in the vicinity. It also means that it is improper to daven at home with a small minyan when there is a minyan in shul, something that people often take for granted today.

Nevertheless, Chazal extolled the virtues and reward of those who daven in shul every day, and it should not be lightly ignored. If one is in a place without a minyan, the Mechaber says that he should try to daven at the same time the community elsewhere is davening, so at least then his tefillah is somehow linked to the communitys tefillah.

So, it is proper, and it is even more proper and beneficial to seek out minyanim on the road so our spiritual level and love of our fellow Jews are enhanced.

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is Israel Region Vice-President for the Coalition for Jewish Values and author of Repentance for Life now available from Kodesh Press.

* * *

Of course, it is desirable to daven with a minyan. Unfortunately, there are times, not only when one is on vacation but also in business or on an airplane that one finds oneself in situations that a minyan cannot be secured. In that case you just daven byichidut.

However, if one has an obligation to say Kaddish, every effort should be made to be sure that one has a minyan wherever they travel.

Rabbi Mordechai Weiss lives in Efrat Israel and previously served as an elementary and high school principal in New Jersey and Connecticut. He was also the founder and rav of Young Israel of Margate, New Jersey.His email is ravmordechai@aol.com.

Read the rest here:

Is It Proper To Go On Vacation To A Place With No Minyan? - The Jewish Press - JewishPress.com

I PLAY GAMES: video and board games. Im ashamed of it, and ashamed that Im ashamed ashamed because such games carry an air of childishness and frivolity, and ashamed at my shame because, well, why should anyone care? But I do care, so I play my games in private, sitting in my bowl of feelings, engaged but discreet.

C. Thi Nguyens Games: Agency As Art is about games, and about why nobody should be ashamed of them playing them, designing them, or discussing them with other adults. I read the book, and I stopped being ashamed. Unfortunately, I dont know what a game is anymore. This is a review about that.

The first thing that struck me about Nguyens book is what it did not say, the place where it did not begin. For more than half a century, games video games especially have been blamed for everything from hooliganism to school shootings. Studies to the contrary notwithstanding, the weight of these accusations is felt in every serious conversation about the activity; despite the artistry in modern game design, non-gamers still dont ask, Are they good? but only, Are they safe? For all of the industrys users and the numbers are indeed massive this flavor of pastime is still stuck on the far side of respectability. At work you might talk about Succession, but not Animal Crossing.

Nguyen, a philosopher at the University of Utah, is not interested in engaging in this debate. Instead, his book addresses a critique that seems more minor but is ultimately harder to shake: that even if games arent bad, they are certainly a waste of time; they are simply a voluntary attempt to overcome unnecessary obstacles in the words of Bernard Suits (quoted early in the book) the operative word being unnecessary. Furthermore, games offer nothing that could not be provided through some more worthy pursuit.

Now, even amateur gamers will intuit that this cant be true, but Nguyens philosophical firepower is directed at explaining why it is not true. If you think games are a waste of time, argues Nguyen, it is only because you have fundamentally misunderstood how humans decide to spend their lives. Specifically, you have forgotten about interactive experiences, and it is the creation of exquisitely personal interactive experiences that separates games from all other pursuits.

It is in shoring up the human desire for experiences that Nguyen makes his most profound observation: yes, humans think in terms of means and ends, but the latter is sometimes just an excuse for the former. Sure, sometimes our ends dictate our means I go to the store so I can satiate my hunger but just as often we select ends because the means themselves are appealing. A person who sets forth on a long hike through a national park, on a trail that will deposit them exactly where they started, is clearly using get to the end as a thin excuse to have a glorious day. A college student playing the board game Settlers of Catan only ever cares about acquiring sheep and wheat cards because those goals allow her to have an experience with friends. Many modern board games are more fun if youre bad at them, and a father playing Checkers against his child might not be trying to win at all. Goals, argues Nguyen, can be enduring I brush my teeth because I want them to remain healthy but they can just as easily be conveniences, assumed to enable an experience, and quickly discarded once the experience concludes.

But Nguyen then takes it a step further: if games are enjoyable experiences propped up by flimsy objectives, and if games are judged by their enjoyability, then game design is the art of engineering paths to success that make for a pleasurable, beautiful experiences. The game designers special tool to do this is the rule, which confines the player to a particular set of choices and win conditions. Because of this, games arent always pleasant to observe; some, like those that make you strap a VR headset to your face, are downright off-putting. But this is fine; unlike music or film, the aesthetics of games unfold through doing, not looking (though millions of Twitch streams might disagree on this point). Sometimes you just have to be there.

Its the intentional use of well-crafted goals to create unique experiences that makes games special. Every game, from Candy Land to Call of Duty, places the gamer in the position of agent, responsible to perform, to choose. We adore games because we adore being agents; we like making choices, we like sitting in someone elses chair, and we especially like the rule-based constraints that force our choices to be blissfully less complicated than actual life. Nguyen also makes the keen insight that we like our games to be just hard enough to make us feel that we have used our all to win; it is games like these that grant us the ever-elusive sense of achievement.

Good books have a funny way of making trouble for themselves. As I read Games, I found myself agreeing; as I read more, I found myself agreeing too much. The core problem of Games is that Nguyens answer is stronger than his question, and as the book proceeds it becomes more and more difficult to understand why the book should focus on the things we traditionally call games in the first place. With the concept aesthetic striving play, Nguyen gives us a way of finding games in all corners of our lives and if its no longer shameful to do so, why not call those things games, too?

Im asking this question abstractly, but Im thinking about it in terms of one text, a passage derived from the Talmud that celebrates the righteousness of Jewish pastimes above all others.

We are thankful to you, our God, for putting our lot among those who sit in the study hall and not among those who sit on the corners. We get up early and they get up early: we get up early for Torah, and they get up early for frivolous things. We work and they work. We work and are rewarded; they work and are not rewarded. We run and they run. We run to a life in the World to Come, and they run to an empty chasm.

But why should this be so? Following Nguyen, the cacophony of the beit midrash, the study hall, is not much different from a busy night at the board game caf: both are forms of aesthetic striving, both involve friendly competition, and neither is designed to make anything. Indeed, the idea that Torah study is a form of play helps example both why it is so beloved in certain Jewish communities and why people who are not engaged in that learning find it so hard to appreciate; it is, in the parlance of the Talmud, supposed to be done lshma, for its own sake. To take it further: Why not imagine all religious ritual as a kind of game or even all secular ritual? Why should we not situate ourselves in a world full of games?

Nguyen acknowledges this extension but seems hesitant to pursue it. Toward the beginning of the book he gestures at Johan Huizinga, whose 1938 book Homo Ludens did in fact make the case that games are genetically linked to rituals, performances, and all sorts of activities that take place within the so-called magic circle, in which the normal rules of life are suspended and we enter what the book Ritual and Its Consequences calls an as if or could be universe. Nguyen says that he thinks games are different, but he never really gets around to explaining how. If anything, Nguyen acknowledges the fuzziness of his category: late in the book he warns against companies that gamify employee work goals, providing a fantasy of value clarity that obscures the essential messiness of the real world. In an interview with Ezra Klein, he notes that QAnon and other conspiracy theories have turned American politics into research that serves as a kind of self-fashioned puzzle box. If we are willing to admit it, life is full of games. The people who worry that games will remove us from reality need not be concerned; in the modern world, there is no unified reality from which we can be removed.

This actually strengthens Nguyens case for the categorys importance because it addresses the books other major fault: its inability to recognize that the reversal of means and ends is never permanent, that the two run into each other constantly and that this confusion of means and ends is a basic element of our emotional lives. Consider it: the football player whose college scholarship is riding on the outcome of a match. The almost comical number of video games that are metaphors for depression. The trauma survivor who plays Candy Crush to ease his symptoms. The concept of the sore loser. Such messiness has already motivated more than one academic critique of the book, and while Nguyen tries to accommodate them by putting up taxonomies, the simpler solution is simply that games are porous to reality and will always be so.

Of course, it is still possible to waste ones time. Ironically, Nguyens defense of unnecessary obstacles allows us to evaluate whether the particular unnecessary obstacle weve selected is well chosen. No defense of games will shake off the idea that some people are getting up early for frivolous things, are running toward an empty chasm. There will never be agreement on how best to live life; life, as Nguyen tells us, is too complicated for that. In a game, for once in my life, I know exactly what it is that Im supposed to be doing, he says. I feel this. There is never any shame in finding ones purpose.

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In Defense of Wasting Time: On C. Thi Nguyen's Games: Agency As Art - lareviewofbooks

It came to me last night. It was terrifying.

Dahlia Lithwick alluded to it during her segment on MSNBC. But she didnt say it all out loud. She merely said that the recent SCOTUS rulings had no basis in law, they were just predetermined outcomes in search of a rationale.

Then I realized what the outcomes were supposed to be.

What basis could SCOTUS be using for rulings that subjugate womens rights, that permit unrestricted proliferation of weapons, that prevent governments from regulating environmental damage, that permit Christian prayers at school football games, that restrict the voting rights of wrong people?

Why would the justices be encouraging, even celebrating, the demise of American culture, the end of the longest secular democratic experiment on Earth?

Climate scientists have warned for decades that unmitigated continuance of our current lifestyles, our population growth, our cultural mores would almost certainly result in the extinction of life on the planet. But imagine for a moment that thats not really a problem. Imagine instead that thats the fulfillment of scripture. Weve always thought that climate deniers were misinformed and deluded. But what if theyre not? What if the extinction of all life is really the objective?

It is no coincidence that all the conservative justices are Catholic.

The basis for the SCOTUS rulings is clearly not the Constitution, nor the body of law generated by hundreds of years of precedence. Its the Bible.

But lets be even more clear. Its not the Torah, nor the Talmud. Its not the Bible of the Gospels. Its not the Christian Bible of compassion and hope and love. The justices are taking their cues from the Book of Revelations. Its the End Times. Its the Apocalypse. Its the Second Coming of Jesus Christ.

For years and years, the damn liberals have stood in the way. Tried to improve society. Tried to build a better future. Tried to make America a land of justice and compassion. Tried to put lipstick on the pig of sin. But finally, scripture will prevail. Jesus is coming. Let the smiting begin.

It all finally made sense. The perfect model of American society is not Camelot or Athens. Its not Shangri-La or Valhalla.

Its Jonestown.

Hallelujah. Welcome to Hell.

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Have you figured it out yet? - Daily Kos

Supporters of President Donald Trump enter the US Capitol as smoke fills the corridor on January 6, 2021 Photo by SAUL LOEB/AFP via Getty Images

Senior Contributing EditorRob EshmanJune 26, 2022

Its very clear what the direct Jewish stake is in the Supreme Courts ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, aside from the not incidental fact that Jewish Americans overwhelmingly support abortion rights. Making abortion illegal may, as the lawsuit filed by a South Florida claims, infringe upon Jews religious freedom.

Its also clear what the direct stake of the Jewish community is in the recent Supreme Court rulingthat a New York law requiring residents to prove a good reason to carry concealed firearms in public violates the Constitution. Making it easier to carry a gun into or near a synagogue or Jewish institution cannot help but endanger the people inside.

But its not immediately clear whats at stake for Jews in the Jan. 6 committee hearings. Thats why so much of the coverage has focused on the Jew-ish aspects: which committee members are also Members of the Tribe, which rioters were Jewish, what Jared and Ivanka said, how many times the Bible was invoked.

But Id argue these stories miss the biggest, most obvious Jewish angle: the importance of finding, and telling, the truth.

Its so simple its almost corny. The seal of the Lord is truth, the Talmud says, while the Torah commands us to, Distance yourself from words of falsehood, a phrase used nowhere else in the Bible, and Pirke Avot reminds us. On three things does the world stand: on justice, on truth and on peace.

And what is Yom Kippur but a time when we distance ourselves from untruths we have spoken, reciting the Kol Nidre to disavow false oaths? Our most solemn holiday is about speaking, and living, in truth.

The Jan. 6 hearings put that value on TV. As much as they are about exposing the actions of the people involved in the attack on the Capitol, the hearings are really about correcting a lie, the so-called Big Lie, that the 2020 election was fraudulent.

That lie is what motivated protesters to come from all corners of the country, and then to trespass federal property, assault police officers, threaten lawmakers, all in the belief they knew the truth.

Perhaps thats why our tradition puts so much emphasis on truth: Look what else falls apart when it is subverted.

When leaders and institutions willfully ignore facts, democracy falters, the solid ground beneath our nation shakes. If this sounds partisan, it isnt meant to be: No side possesses the whole truth, and no side is above lying.

But: with all the jaw-dropping, behind-the-scenes drama that the Jan. 6 Committee has brought to light, its easy to overlook the fundamental truth behind the election itself: there was no widespread fraud.

Consider this:

I dove deep into this data in my new position as head of the A-Mark Foundation, a nonpartisan nonprofit that compiled it. What Ive learned is that its not hard to find the facts, but its a real challenge to get them in front of the people who believe otherwise.

The Jan. 6 hearings may not result in prosecution. They may not change a single mind. Their sole power may be in establishing the truth, and hoping that enough fair-minded people are able to understand it and act, and vote, accordingly.

But, yes, we live in a time when that hope may seem far-fetched.

The facts are that making abortion illegal doesnt result in less abortion just less safe abortion. The fact is 59% of Americans and 67% of American women disapprove of the Supreme Courts decision to overturn Roe v. Wade didnt seem to matter.

The facts are that states with more gun regulations have lower rates of gun death. New Yorks 100 year-old law regulating concealed carry, which the Supreme Court just overturned, contributed to the states low gun death rate, the fifth-lowest in the nation. The majority of Americans support more sensible gun regulation, not less. Didnt seem to matter.

A majority of Americans say the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol was planned, and 58%, in the latest poll, believe former President Donald Trump should be charged with a crime for his role in it. Will that have any impact? TBD.

These are truths that should matter, but seem not to. The will of the American people on abortion, the tragic statistics behind gun violence, the integrity of our election all of it is apparent to those who want to see. But we are all seeing something else happening instead.

Where this ends I have no idea, but Im not alone in worrying about what hangs in the balance when facts dont seem to count.

Yes, American Jews have specific Jewish issues we care about and fight for. But our ability to do that, to live and love freely in this country, depends on one thing.

Democracy is not just another issue, writes Steve Sheffey in his pro-Israel Chicagoland blog, it is the fundamental issue on which our ability to advocate for all other issues rests.

As the Jan. 6 hearings draw to a close, remember: Truth itself is the Jewish stake. And the stakes couldnt be higher.

Rob Eshman is Senior Contributing Editor of the Forward. Follow him on Instagram @foodaism and Twitter @foodaism or email eshman@forward.com.

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

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The Jewish stake in Jan. 6 is bigger than you think - Forward

Medieval Europe was almost constantly at war. The Wikipedia page listing conflicts in Europe has over 50 battles fought in the 14th century alone. Many of these were part of the Hundred Years War, between England and France. This war nominally began in 1337 when King Edward IIIs claim to the throne of France was rejected, and didnt end until 116 years later with the Battle of Castillon on July 17, 1453.

Battle in the 14th century had strict rules and customs. There was a hierarchy among the soldiers. The main fighters would be the knights, with their horses, armor and a retinue of foot soldiers to support them. Due to the cost, knights were mainly from the nobility (and conversely, those who were not of high birth but managed to become knights joined the ranks of the nobility later on). The knights were supported by light cavalry wealthy commoners protected by lighter armor carrying lances, javelins, bows or crossbows. The lowest class of soldiers was the infantry. These foot soldiers were often serfs, recruited by the landowning knights, or mercenaries from all over Europe. The infantry was by far the most numerous part of the medieval army, but often considered the most disposable.

With their sense of chivalry, tradition and hierarchy, the knights looked down on the infantry as unimportant. But they also considered them insignificant in battle. Often, the knights would charge headlong to fight one another, focusing solely on their social counterparts, and virtually ignore the infantrymen.

Edward III of England. (Public Domain/ Wikimedia Commons)

But King Edward III realized that the traditional hierarchy with its battle tactics wasnt the best way of winning wars. His grandfather, Edward I had defeated William Wallace at the Battle of Falkirk largely due to his reliance on the longbow. Although a longbow looks like a simple piece of wood preferably yew it took years of training and practice to master the weapon. But what a powerful weapon it was. A skilled man could shoot half a dozen arrows a minute and each arrow was capable of killing a man at over 200 yards. It could penetrate armor and bring down the horses upon which the knights rode.

So, in 1363, Edward III mandated that every adult man practice archery on every feast day, Sunday and holiday (and at the same time banned soccer and other sports):

The King to the Lord-lieutenant of Kent, greeting: Whereas the people of our realm rich and poor alike, were accustomed formerly in their games to practice archery whence by Gods help, it is well known that high honour and profit came to our realm, and no small advantage to ourselves in our warlike enterprises and that now skill in the use of the bow having fallen almost wholly into disrepute, our subjects give themselves up to the throwing of stones and of wood and of iron; and some to handball and football and hockey; and others even to other unseemly sports less useful and manly; whereby our realm which God forbid will soon, it would appear, be void of archers.

We, wishing that a fitting remedy be found in this matter, do hereby ordain, that in all places in your country a proclamation be made to this effect: that every man if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows and so learn and practise archery.

Moreover we ordain that you prohibit under penalty of imprisonment all and sundry from such stone, wood and iron throwing; handball, football or hockey or other such idle games.

With this decree, not only did he ensure he would have a well-regulated militia of longbowmen he could call up when necessary, but also elevated the role of the archer to become an important part of the army and strategy. And the requirement for every adult man to practice shooting closed the gap somewhat between the cavalry of nobles and the infantry of commoners. They were all united in their knowledge of archery.

English longbow made of yew, 1.98m (6 6 long, with 470 N (105 lbf) draw force. (Public Domain, Hitchhiker89/ Wikimedia Commons)

Edward had upended tradition of reliance mainly on the mounted knights by recognizing the importance of the longbow. And this led him to some stunning victories.

Just 13 years after his archery decree, Edward fought the French in the Battle of Crcy. On July 12th, 1346 , Edward and his army, transported on more than 700 boats, landed in the Contentin Peninsula to claim the Kingdom of France that he believed was rightly his (he was the nephew of the previous king). His men began fighting their way along the Seine, towards Paris sacking towns on their way. By August 12th, the English were encamped only 30 kilometers (20 miles) from the French capital.

There were somewhere between 7,000 and 15,000 English and Welsh soldiers on the outskirts of Paris. The French King Philip VI had at least twice as many men, and according to some estimates as many as 120,000. His troops were supported by Genoese crossbowmen. This Italian elite corps of professional soldiers would go into battle protected by pavises large shields carried by a soldier behind which three crossbowmen could shelter to protect themselves from enemy arrows. These well-trained Genoese soldiers could fire only two arrows a minute, and their range was shorter than that of the English and Welsh longbowmen.

Despite superior numbers, the French were decimated at the Battle of Crcy. The English had time to rest and encamp, digging pits before their positions to halt any cavalry charge. They had set their position at the top of a hill and were well rested, having been there since dawn.

Philips men were spotted by the English around noon. Philip set up a council of war where the French officials were confident of victory but advised waiting until the next day before attacking. However, the soldiers whether at Philips command or out of simple confusion and chaos began the battle immediately.

As the Genoese crossbowmen moved forward, a sudden rainstorm broke over the field. The English longbowmen removed the strings from their bows and placed them under their hats to keep them dry and prevent them from becoming slack. The Genoese had leather strings in their bows so could not protect them from becoming wet. They were also without their protective pavises which had been left behind in the chaos with the baggage along with their reserve ammunition. They quickly shot no more than two volleys and turned to flee from the rain of arrows coming from English archers.

But Philips knights following behind hacked the crossbowmen down as they ran. The nobles didnt think much of the archers at the best of times, didnt bother to wait for them to be prepared or properly armed, and now viewed them as cowards. Because they thought that the real fighting was for the mounted knights.

King Johns tomb in the crypt of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Luxembourg City. (CC BY-SA, Dozura/ Wikimedia Commons)

The English longbowmen continued firing into the carnage of the French killing, their own archers. The ground was now muddy, slippery and treacherous, especially for the horses. And the English, standing at the top of the hill, continued to unleash volley after volley at the French.

Time after time the French charged towards the English. Each time the soldiers and their horses were met with a barrage of arrows, which could penetrate armor and bring down the unprotected horses. Yet they continued charging late into the night. In a tremendous display of bravery, John of Bohemia rode out towards the English intending to bring them down with his sword, despite the fact that he was 50-years-old and completely blind. The medieval chronicler Jean Froissart described the event:

for all that he was nigh blind, when he understood the order of the battle, he said to them about him: Where is the lord Charles my son? His men said: Sir, we cannot tell; we think he be fighting. Then he said: Sirs, ye are my men, my companions and friends in this journey: I require you bring me so far forward, that I may strike one stroke with my sword. They said they would do his commandment, and to the intent that they should not lose him in the press, they tied all their reins of their bridles each to other and set the king before to accomplish his desire, and so they went on their enemies.

The lord Charles of Bohemia his son, who wrote himself king of Almaine and bare the arms, he came in good order to the battle; but when he saw that the matter went awry on their party, he departed, I cannot tell you which way. The king his father was so far forward that he strake a stroke with his sword, yea and more than four, and fought valiantly and so did his company; and they adventured themselves so forward, that they were there all slain, and the next day they were found in the place about the king, and all their horses tied each to other.

Eventually, Philip abandoned the battle. Thousands of nobles had been killed more than 2,200 heraldic coats were taken from the field as war booty by the English and well over 10,000 lower-born foot soldiers. The French losses included one king (John of Bohemia), nine princes, ten counts, a duke, and archbishop and a bishop. This was in keeping with the prevailing chivalric ideals that it is better to die in battle than to dishonorably flee the field.

Edward III counting the dead on the battlefield of Crcy. (Public Domain/ Wikimedia Commons)

Meanwhile, the English, who had upended the traditional rules of chivalry with their reliance on archers, suffered only about 40 casualties (though some historians think it may have been about 300).

Edward went on to conquer Calais which the British held on to for the next two centuries.

King Philip and his army had tradition on their side. They held firm to the hierarchy of battle and the noble goal of dying honorably in battle. Meanwhile, Edward had realized more than a decade earlier that the way to win wars was to rethink the battle strategy and rely heavily on his archers, though they were not high-born or even wealthy. From then on, the longbow became a dominant weapon in the battlefields of Western Europe and English and Welsh archers were highly prized mercenaries.

Time and again, battles and wars were won by one army using new tactics and weaponry while their opponents clung fast to tradition and honor. In the struggle of tradition against innovation, often the traditionalists are forced to rethink.

It is not only in war that traditionalists are left behind as the reality evolves around them. One area where this concept is clear is in religion. Many religions adapt with time, due to new realities or a change in social values. In doing so, they leave behind those who are still wedded to the old order of things.

The destruction of the Second Temple in the year 70 CE was a time of great upheaval for the Jewish community in Israel. The priestly-led, Jerusalem-based religion was forced to adapt into a rabbinic-led faith centered around the synagogue and the study hall. Many were unable to adapt and disappeared from the tradition.

But an equally important change happened in the process of halacha.

But first, lets talk about the weekly Torah portion, Hukat. The portion begins with the laws of the red heifer. The ashes of the red heifer were used to purify people who had come into contact with a corpse. It was essential for the functioning of the Temple, because everyone who came there (and everyone had to come three times a year) had to be ritually pure to partake of the sacrifices.

Yet the laws of the red heifer were full of contradictions. For example, when sprinkled on someone who was ritually impure, the ashes made that person pure. Yet at the same time, the person who did the sprinkling became impure, and had to immerse in a mikva before partaking in anything holy.

The laws of the red heifer are so difficult that even King Solomon, the wisest of all men, was unable to fathom the reasoning behind them. Bamidbar Rabba 19:3 says:

King Solomon said: All these I explained. But the section of the red heifer, I investigated and asked and examined, but I said will get wisdom, yet it was far from me, (Ecclesiastes 7:23).

The red heifer is considered the ultimate statute, beyond human logic and reason. However, the midrash (Pesikta de-Rav Kehana: Para) associates the laws of the red heifer with one particular rabbi:

Rabbi Acha said in the name of Rabbi Yossi bar Chanina: When Moses went up to Heaven, he heard the Voice of the Holy One, blessed is He, who was sitting and learning the section of the Red Heifer. He was saying the halakha in the name of the one who said it: Rabbi Eliezer says, A heifer is one year old and a cow is two years old (Mishna Para 1:1). Moses said before the Holy One, blessed is He, Master of the Universe, the upper and lower [worlds] are in Your dominion yet You sit and say the halakha in the name of [a creature of] flesh and blood?

The Holy One, blessed is He said to him, Moses, in the future there will be one righteous man who will stand in my world, and he will begin with the section about the Red Heifer first [Moses] said before Him, Master of the Universe, may it be Your will that he should be a descendant of mine. The Holy One, blessed is He, said, By your life he is a descendant of yours, for the verse says, The name of the one was Eliezer (Shemot 18:4). This means that the name of that unique [righteous person] is Eliezer.

Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrkanos was the ultimate traditionalist. He was described by his teacher, Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, as A plastered cistern which does not lose a drop, (Avot 2:8). He retained everything he was taught and boasted (Nida 7b) that he only ruled in accordance with what he had learned.

It was taught: R. Eliezer said to R. Joshua, You have not heard but I have heard; you have only heard one tradition but I have heard many; people do not ask him who has not seen the new moon to come and tender evidence but only him who has seen it.

Rabbi Eliezer was the standard-bearer of the tradition. In fact, his contemporary, Rabbi Yehoshua compared him to the Torah that Moses received at Sinai (Shir Hashirim Rabba 1:3):

Rabbi Eliezers Yeshiva was shaped like an arena, and in it there was a stone reserved for him to sit upon. Once, Rabbi Yehoshua entered [Rabbi Eliezers Yeshiva]. He began kissing the stone [upon which Rabbi Eliezer had sat] and said, This stone is like Mount Sinai, and the one who sat upon it is like the Ark of the Covenant.

Both Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua had seen the Temple. They had lived in Jerusalem until just before its destruction. But in the post-Temple era, Judaism needed to evolve and change. It was a new world and innovation would be the only way to survive.

Rabbi Yehoshua embodied the new Judaism, which would be based on reasoned argument and majority rule. Rabbi Eliezer held fast to the old-world order, where everything was in accordance with Gods will. This dispute came to a head in an incident described by the Talmud in Bava Metzia 59b.

[Rabbi Eliezer] replied, If the halacha is like me let the Heavens prove it. A voice came out of heaven and said, Why are you arguing with Rabbi Eliezer for the halacha is like him in every case? Rabbi Joshua stood up on his feet and said, It is not in Heaven.

The Talmud goes on to tell that many years later, Rabbi Natan met Elijah the prophet and asked him what God did at that time. Elijah said, God smiled and said, My children have defeated Me, My children have defeated Me.

According to the rabbis of the Talmud, God Himself agreed to the new system of halachic decision-making. Which then became the basis of all future Judaism. This is why the Talmud (Menachot 29b) tells of Moses traveling through time to visit Rabbi Akivas study hall and being unable to understand anything being said there.

Moses prayed that Rabbi Eliezer should be one of his descendants. And like Moses, Rabbi Eliezer was unable to adapt to the new halachic process. Although his views are recorded throughout the Mishna, the halacha is almost never in accordance with his opinion.

But his traditionalist approach is why God invoked Rabbi Eliezers name and teachings in connection to the red heifer. In the new system of logic, argument and reasoned decision making, the red heifer was an enigma. But it fit in perfectly to the worldview of Rabbi Eliezer, where the word of God was all that mattered. No matter how much things changed, regardless of the new reality of a post-Temple Judaism, Rabbi Eliezers views remained fixed at Sinai. He was the ultimate originalist.

King Philip clung to tradition, but lost the battle to King Edward who upended the heraldic codes of war. Rabbi Eliezer continued the traditions of Moses, but his views were written out of the later halachic books.

As society evolves, the originalists cling to the past. But ultimately they are swept away by the new reality and the world moves on without them.

Thanks to Tim Harford, who spoke about the Battle of Crecy on his Cautionary Tales podcast.

My current series on WebYeshiva is entitled, Rebuilding After Destruction Through Text and islive every Tuesday. I spoke last week about Rabbi Eliezer and the other students of Rabban Yochanan ben Zakkai, most of whom were unable to adapt to the new reality. You can listen to the live or recorded Torah classes on WebYeshiva. Ive also started sharing more of my Torah thoughts on Facebook. Follow my page,Rabbi Sedley.

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New traditionalists - Parshat Hukat | David Sedley | The Blogs - The Times of Israel

Polytheists have many names for God because they have many Gods; just as every human has many names for his or her many relatives and friends.

But how can monotheistic religions like Judaism, Christianity and Islam have many names for the One and only God in whom they deeply believe?

The explanation is that only one of the One Gods names, is an unique personal name; all the other names are appellations or titles that refer to one of One Gods many attributes (creator, ruler or redeemer) or Gods character traits (merciful, just or forgiving).For those religions that trace their prophets back to Prophet Abraham; the many names or appellations (titles and descriptions) of God simply describe different aspects or attributes of the one Gods multifaceted personality.

Thus to say that God is a King, a Judge, or a Savior describes one of many ways God acts and relates. To say that God is a Creator, a Lover or the Compassionate One is to describe one of many character or personality traits of the one and only God.

While each name is only one of the many appellations of the One universal creator of space and time; Christianity, Islam and Judaism each have one Divine personal name that is always in the believers heart and soul.

In English the word God is not the name of the one and only God. It is the generic term for any and every deity, similar to the West Semitic root word EL as it is found in Sumerian and Akkadian, Ellil-Enlil, in Hittite and Hurrian as Ellel, in Hebrew El-Elohim in Arabic as Al-Ilahi, the God or Allat, a pre Islamic Goddess, one of three daughters of Al-Ilah worshiped in Palmyra as Allat and referred to by Herodotus as Alilat, and worshiped as Allatu by North African Carthaginians.

This name Jesus for Christians, Allah for Muslims and YHVH for Jews, differs from all the other names that are just philosophical terms for various universal aspects or roles of God. This Divine name has a very intimate special meaning for each of the three religious communities of believers that is lacking in all the other names.

This personal name is connected to the covenant the One God YHVH made with Moses (Exodus 3:13-15) with Jesus (Matthew 3:16-17), and with Muhammad (Quran 33:7)

Yet, because all the many names of God, call upon the same One God, it is not surprising that some of the 99 beautiful names of God in Muslim tradition, also appear in Jewish tradition, which sometimes refers to the 70 names of God (Midrash Shir HaShirim and Midrash Otiot Rabbi Akiba).

Since Arabic and Hebrew are brother languages; in some cases the names even sound alike:Arabic Hebrew EnglishAr-Rahman, Ha Rakhaman, The Compassionate One;Ar-Rahim. El Rakhum, The Merciful One;Al-Quddus, Ha Kadosh, The Holy One;Al-Bari, Ha Boray, The Creator;Al-Aliyy, El Elyon, The Most High;As-Salam, Oseh Shalom, The Peacemaker,Malik ul Mulk, Melek Malkay Melakim, The king/ruler over all the kingdom/kings;Al-Muhyi, Ha Michayah, The Giver of Life;and Al-Mumit, Ha Maymeet, The Taker of Life.

Although in every generation there could have been many individuals who worshipped the One God, who was indeed the God of all humans; yet for more than 40 generations only one group of people maintained an ongoing monotheistic community.

This is why all the Biblical prophets connect the generic name of God Elohim to the only religious community in Biblical days who worshipped the One God: Elohei Yisrael- the God of Israel, or Elohei-God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. So Ezra, the most narrowly focused of prophets, uses both Elah Yisrael-God of Israel (Ezra 5:1) and Elah Shmaya VArah- God of Heaven and Earth (Ezra 5:11).

Christians personalized the name of God by connecting it with the name of a very special person, whose message and passion inspired them to transform their lives. The Quran, true to its universalizing perspective uses the generic name Allah; but with intense presence that Allah became personalized in the Muslim communitys experience.

The words El, Elah, Elohei and Elohim are all pre Abrahamic west Semitic generic terms for a God or for many Gods. In these various forms they appear almost 3,000 times in the Hebrew Bible.

But the most important name of the one God, the name that God himself reveals to Moses at the burning bush, is YHVH: which appears more than 6,800 times in the Hebrew Bible.

In Exodus 3:13-15, Moses said to God, If I go to the Israelites and tell them, The God of your fathers has sent me to you, and they ask me, What is his name?what should I say to them? And God said to Moses, Ehyeh asher Ehyeh.

Ehyeh is the verb to be future tense singular and means I will/could/might/may be/become Who I may/could/will/might be/become i.e. Ehyeh is The God of Potentialities, The God of Possibilities, The Living God of Becoming and Transforming, the One who can liberate Israel from bondage in Egypt.

Unfortunately, the Greek and Latin translations of this verse were influenced by the Greek philosophical idea that God was similar to a permanent ideal form (like an equilateral triangle) or an unmoved mover, and is not like a living personality.

Since they thought God must be a static unchanging being. they mistranslated Ehyeh asher Ehyeh as I am who I am rather than its plain meaning of I can be whatever I should be to redeem you i.e. God Almighty

The Torah continues, And God said, You must say this to the Israelites, I am (the usual false translation for Gods self revealed name) has sent me to you.' God also said to Moses, You must say this to the Israelites, Ehyeh, the God of your fathers, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacobhas sent me to you. This is my name forever, and this is my memorial from generation to generation. (Exodus 3:13-15)

When Jews speak of God in the third person, Gods name is YHVH the One who causes being and becoming, the One who brings potentials into existence.

This name (YHVH) was spoken publicly from the time of Moses and throughout the 3 centuries of the 1st Temple of Solomon. But during the period of the 2nd Temple it was pronounced as Adonai (Lord) because of the feeling that Gods actual Holy name was too holy to utter audibly.

In later centuries even the substitution was considered too holy to utter; and the custom among pious Jews till this day is not to use any name for God at all (except in prayer); but to say HaShemthe name (of God) when speaking about God. Thus, while Christians and Muslims love to voice their special personal name for God, Jews avoid voicing Gods name (YHVH) even in prayer.

YHVH replaced a much older name of God: El Shaddai. Exodus (6:2-3) relates: God also said to Moses, I am YHVH. I appeared to Abraham, to Isaac and to Jacob as El Shaddai, but by my name YHVH I did not make myself fully known to them.

In the whole Hebrew Bible the full appellation El Shaddai is used only in connection with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Shaddai by itself appears 31 times in the ancient book of Prophet Job, who was not Jewish, and in a few other poetic passages.

In the Greek translation of the Torah, El Shaddai was erroneously translated Pantokrator, all powerful or omnipotent, instead of The God who is sufficient. The Greek philosophical idea of omnipotence leads to the false contradiction between Gods power and human free will.

But God is indeed, more than sufficient. God is and will always be YHVH, the God who enables human hopes of future possibilities of improvement to become realized.

El Shaddai con also be translated as the Nourishing or Nursing God because in Hebrew Shaddaim means female breasts. This feminine image may help many women today replace the ancient image of God as an old man with a long beard; with something more representative of Gods classical attribute of loving concern for His children.

One name of God that few Christians and Jews know or use today, is a name that I believe will become more important in the future as Christians, Jews and Muslims learn more about each others religions.

This special name, El Roee, only appears twice in the Hebrew Bible and, as far as I know, is not used as a Divine at all in the rabbinic Talmud.

Abrahams wife Hagars name for God is El-Roee. El Roee means A Self-reflecting God or A God Who Sees (literally mirrors) Me. Then she (Hagar) called the name of YHVH, who spoke to her, El Roee, You are a God who sees me; for she said, Have I even remained alive here after seeing Him? Therefore the well was called Beer-laHai-roee; the well of the Living One (Al-Hayy) who sees me. (Genesis 16:13-14)

Neither Sarah nor Hagar/Ha-jar are mentioned by name in the Quran, but the story of Ha-jars exile from Abrahams home is traditionally understood to be referred to in a line from Ibrhms prayer in the Quran (14:37): I have settled some of my family in a barren valley near your Sacred House.

Muslim tradition relates that when H-jar ran out of water, and Isml, an infant at that time, began to die; H-jar panicked and ran between two nearby hills, Al-Safa and Al-Marwah repeatedly searching for water.

After her seventh run, Isml hit the ground with his heel and caused a miraculous well to spring out of the ground called Zamzum Well. It is located a few meters from the Kaaba in Mecca.

Perhaps this previously unique Torah name of God, El Roee or Hai Roee; which are Hagars names for God, meaning A Self-reflecting God or A God Who Sees Me, and the name for the well Beer-laHai-roee the well of the Self-reflecting God; can help bring Christians, Jews and Muslims to see themselves in the eyes of each other better, and thus come closer together in the future.

That would be an excellent example of the power of just one of the many names of the One God to make us better lovers of the One God; and better lovers of the many different religions that the One Gods Prophets have inspired.

Thus if Hagars name for God leads both Arabs and Jews to live up to the ideal that the descendants of Abrahams sons should never make war against each other we will help fulfill the 2700 year old vision of Prophet Isaiah:

In that day there will be a highway from Egypt to Assyria. The Assyrians will go to Egypt, and the Egyptians to Assyria. The Egyptians and Assyrians will worship together. In that day Israel will join a three-party alliance with Egypt and Assyria, a blessing upon the heart. The LORD of Hosts will bless them saying, Blessed be Egypt My people, Assyria My handiwork, and Israel My inheritance.(Isaiah 19:23-5)

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Loving One Name Of God Above All Others OpEd - Eurasia Review

Browse > Home / News / Two new Jewish chaplains appointed to the ADF

July 3, 2022 by J-Wire Newsdesk

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Sydneys Rabbanit Judith Levitan and Rabbi Ari Rubin of Chabad House in Cairns have been Jewish chaplains to the Australian Defence Force.

Rabbi Ralph Genende, Senior Rabbi to the ADF and member of the Religious Advisory Committee to the Services (RACS) said: In the demanding and challenging ADF selection process the two new chaplains were both found to be exceptionally worthy candidates by the ADF. I am particularly pleased and privileged to welcome the first woman to this role. This is thanks to the ADFs deliberate policy of inclusion and diversity.

Rabbanit Levitan is a community educator and lawyer who works at Legal Aid NSW improving legal services for disadvantaged people. She is the Religious Program Coordinator at Maroubra Synagogue in Sydney and also works with Mount Sinai College primary school. She received semicha (rabbinic ordination) from Yeshivat Maharat, an Orthodox institution in New York and serves on the Board of Directors of the National Council of Jewish Women Australia.

Rabbanit Levitan said: I believe I can provide a diverse perspective and an additional point of access for army women and men to chaplaincy services. I see my role primarily as providing a comforting and empathic presence to army personnel on their life journeys and offering support in times of crisis, challenge and celebration.

Rabbi Ari Rubin, who runs the Chabad Centre for Jewish Life in North Queensland, undertook Talmudic studies at the Rabbinical College of Australia and New Zealand and was ordained at the Rabbinical College of America. He also has a Bachelor of Liberal Arts. Rabbi Rubin has undertaken Rabbinical apprenticeships in Pittsburgh, Venice and Jerusalem and has taught at the Kollel Menachem Institute of Jewish Adult Education in Melbourne.

The chaplaincy is a natural extension of a rabbis role, he says. Visits to hospitals, universities, old age homes and defence bases are all part of the pastoral care services he offers.

He added: I am so excited to be a part of the defence family representing our religious values to the men and women. I am proud to be able to give back to the country that has given us so much.

The achievement of the two new chaplains will be marked at an event in Sydney on July 19 hosted by Jewish Chaplaincy, the NSW Association of Jewish Service & Ex-Service Men & Women and the NSW Jewish War Memorial.

The ADF is now served by four Jewish chaplains.

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Two new Jewish chaplains appointed to the ADF - J-Wire Jewish Australian News Service