Category Archives: Talmud

Let me begin by telling you about one of the worst sins that I committed this past year.

Al chet she-chatati: for the sin which I committed by accidentally insulting a van driver at Ben Gurion Airport.

I arrived in Israel on Thursday, July 7.

When I arrived at Ben Gurion Airport, I picked up my luggage, and went out to the arrival area, and as I usually do, I found a van a jitney service (in Hebrew, a sherut ) that was going to Jerusalem.

Do you have room for me? I asked the driver in Hebrew.

He told me that his name was Aviyonah. He appeared to be in his seventies. No kippah. Probably an Iraqi Jew.

Here put your stuff next to me, up front.

By which I thought he meant: Put your backpack and your briefcase next to me, up front.

When we got to Jerusalem, he asked me: Where is your suitcase?

My backpack and my briefcase were there. Not my suitcase.

My suitcase was still on the curb at Ben Gurion Airport.

With this, I had a total meltdown in Hebrew, because Aviyonah did not speak English.

Aviyonah called me a few insulting names, several of which I deserved.

Then, he asked for my phone number, and he gave me his number as well.

We have to go back to the airport! I screamed.

Lo, he said. No.

He made a phone call, and a few moments later, coming across the speakerphone were the magical words: Keyn, matzati oto. Yes, I found it.

I could not believe it. Someone another driver had found my suitcase!

Aviyonah pulled into a gas station in Jerusalem.

He got out of the van, walked a few yards and he came back with my suitcase.

This was a miracle, especially because, in the brief interval between the luggage carousel and the sidewalk, the luggage tag had fallen off. Even if someone else had found it, there would have been no way that they could have identified it as my bag.

It also meant something even more ominous. In Israel, an unidentified large suitcase left on the sidewalk would have been a suspicious object. Security forces would have surrounded it, and destroyed it. My bag was moments away from being toast.

I was beyond joy. I was in tears. I reached for my wallet.

Aviyonah said to me: Ma zeh? Tip?

Yes! Yes! What can I give you? I asked, fumbling with the shekels in my wallet.

He shook his head, and this is what he said to me.

Katuv ba-Torah It is written in the Torah.

He then proceeded to quote me from memory this passage from the book of Deuteronomy, chapter 22:

If you see your fellow Israelites ox or sheep gone astray, do not ignore it; you must take it back to your peer.

If your fellow Israelite does not live near you or you do not know who the owner is, you shall bring it home and it shall remain with you until your peer claims it; then you shall give it back.

You shall do the same with that persons donkey; you shall do the same with that persons garment; and so too shall you do with anything that your fellow Israelite loses and you find

Then, he said these words to me:

Anachnu achrayim! We are responsible!

Ah, you will say.

He did you a mitzveh. What a nice man!

But, read and say this carefully to yourselves, because there is a world of difference in one small vowel.

He did not do a mitzveh a Yiddish word for a nice thing to do. He did not do what he wanted to do, because he is a nice person.

He did a mitzvah a Hebrew word for what he was obligated to do because he is a Jew.

In those few moments, Aviyonah taught me two things.

He taught me or, he reminded me about the elegant, simple mitzvah of hashevat avdah returning lost objects. It is a Jewish obsession. There is an entire tractate of the Mishnah and Talmud about this. In the ancient Temple in Jerusalem, there was actually a lost and found.

But, it was far more than that.

It was what he said to me: Anachnu achrayim. We are responsible!

These are the maps of responsibility the moral and spiritual GPS that we bear within our souls.

In the words of Rabbi Yosef in the Talmud (Baba Metzia 71a):

If you are lending money to the poor, the poor of your people takes precedence over the poor of another people

the poor of your family take precedence over the poor of your city;

the poor of your city take precedence over the poor of other cities.

Our responsibilities might wind up being global, but they start with ourselves, and with our tribe, and with our people.

That is why I committed a minor sin that day.

I was wrong to have offered Aviyonah a tip.

I saw myself as a customer.

But, Aviyonah saw me as someone with whom he lived in covenant.

It was the voice of our mutual ancestors, saying in a great chorus: This poor shlep of an American Jewish tourist who sits in the van with you you are responsible for him.

We need more of this in American Judaism. I do not mean that we should all have memorized the Torah, and that we should be able to quote passages from the Torah to absolute strangers, at a moments notice (though worse things could happen).

No. I mean something like this.

A cat was pursuing a mouse. The mouse ran into its hole, and when the cat came sniffing, the mouse said: Meow.

The cat walked away.

One of the mouses fellow mice asked him: What was that all about?

The mouse replied: And so you see that it is helpful to know a second language.

Americanism, secularism, individualism: these all combine to create our first language.

But, it is helpful to know a second language, and that is the language of Jewish responsibility.

One of my favorite Israeli authors was the late, lamented Amos Oz.

These are his words:

We have inherited a household of furniture from the Jewish past. We must now decide what will go into the attic, and what will go into the living room.

You take the entirety of the Jewish past and present and this is how you create a Jewish future for yourself.

You figure out what is relevant to you, and for the times in which we live.

Then, you move into the 3 H system of having a responsible Jewish life.

The three Hs are: head, heart, and hand.

Every serious Jew majors in one H.

You then minor in a second H.

As for the third H, you might not ever get to it. Or, you might. But, it will not be your strength.

Which is perfectly acceptable, because the person in the row behind you in synagogue will have that H, and together, we create a whole Jewish community.

One last thing.

Right before Rosh Ha Shanah, I called Aviyonah. I still had his phone number.

I asked him if he remembered me the poor American tourist who had lost his suitcase.

He not only remembered me. He remembered the exact address where I was going!

This is what I told him:

Aviyonah, I have studied with the greatest teachers in the Jewish world.

I have sat in classrooms and lecture halls, and I have heard the best of the best.

But, no teacher that I had studied with ever taught me as much Judaism, in as little time, and in as small a space, as you did that day from the front seat of your van at a gas station in Jerusalem.

He was in tears, and he blessed me for a good year.

Then he asked me if he could bless my congregation as well from afar:

I send blessings to you and to your community, that you should have a good and sweet year.

That was from Aviyonah, to all of you.

A good and sweet year, from a master teacher of Judaism.

(Excerpted from my Yom Kippur morning sermon at Temple Israel in West Palm Beach, Florida)

See the rest here:

The greatest contemporary teacher of Judaism is a van driver in Israel - Religion News Service

I would not normally respond to a letter to the editor which mentioned me or challenged my take on an issue.However, to David Gray I would say that some rabbis do, indeed, take political stands when morality, ethics and national threats are involved.We do not tell our congregants for whom to vote.That would be a violation of being a 501(c)(3) which involves nonprofit organizations such as synagogues and churches. Since I am a retired rabbi, I am no longer encumbered by those strictures.

I see former President Donald Trump, his advisers andsomeof his followers as threats to American democracy. I spoke up and will continue to do so.The tactics, motivations and tone which Trump continues to use, the lies he continues to spew about an election he clearly lost and the violence he is even now able to generate all make him the danger that I described.If you do not see Trump in the same vein as I do, I suggest that you re-watch Ken Burns first episode about America and the Holocaust.See if you do not see what I did.If not, then so be it. The Talmud contains a record of many disputes, some of which never find an agreed upon answer.

Read more here:

Letter to the Editor: Rabbis do take political stands when morality, ethics and national threats are involved - Summit Daily

Whoever needs, come and eat.

Thats the quote from the Talmud the book of Jewish law that welcomes customers to Goldies Bagels in Columbia, Missouri, telling them that people who cannot afford to pay can get a coffee and a bagel, with cream cheese, free of charge.

The promise is core to the shops mission. Launched as a popup in 2020, Goldies aims to imbue Jewish values into its daily operations.

My whole thing in opening Goldies is were going to be so outwardly proud to be Jewish, founder Amanda Rainey told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this week, after a sign about the Neighbours Account initiative went viral on social media.

Rainey, who previously worked as a Jewish educator, first opened Goldies inside Pizza Tree, a restaurant owned by her husband. It moved to its own location, bringing along a sourdough starter thats used in its bagels. Per baking tradition, the starter has a name Seymour.

In addition to bagels, Goldies serves traditional Ashkenazi desserts such as babka and rugelach. Its Instagram account showcases fluffy round challahs, egg sandwiches made with zhug, a spicy condiment that originated with Yemenite Jews, and tzitzel bagels, a rolled-in-semolina confection thats unique to St. Louis. The wifi password is MAZEL TOV and this year, the shop hosted a Pesach seder for its staff.

The seder inspired the sign. The principle of feeding the needy is so ingrained in Jewish tradition that the Talmud quote posted at the counter is traditionally recited in Aramaic at the seder, when the Israelites exodus from Egypt is recounted.

Goldies had already been handing out free bagels to unhoused people in downtown Columbia, just as Pizza Tree had been doing with slices. And it had already been subsidising that effort with donations that other customers made informally. Sometimes people would slip us some cash awkwardly, Rainey recalled.

But after the seder, a staff member suggested explaining the initiative and citing the quote from Talmud on a sign in the store. The sign explains that customers who cannot pay can ask the staff to charge their meal to the Neighbours Account.

After the sign went viral, people from around the country offered to donate, Rainey said. But she said Goldies is committed to keeping everything local.

We have so many generous people in our community, Rainey said. Those people should give money to somebody where they live; their own neighbours.

Rainey says the shop gets maybe two $5 donations a day, which help pay down the balance of the account, and the store doesnt take donations unless theres an outstanding balance. She hopes the initiative will encourage other restaurants in the area to take on something similar. During the pandemic, other businesses began offering free meals to families with children, and mutual aid groups serve people who are unhoused.

But the point of the Neighbours Account is to welcome people into the store and give them more than just a meal.

Its a bagel and a coffee but when youve slept on the street at 7am, a bagel and a coffee is really helpful, Rainey said. And also we learn peoples names, we check in on them. We treat them like people. And then other people in the community see that and hopefully are inspired to act better.

JTA

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Taking inspiration from the Talmud to feed the needy - Australian Jewish News

Honoring women-focused narratives with thoughts and recipes.

Kenden Alfond is an American in Paris whos spent her adult life working for NGOs and the United Nations from India and Afghanistan to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Switzerland, and Cambodia. But a constant in these past eight years is Jewish Food Hero, a food blog created to connect with other Jewish people who care about healthy food and modern Jewish life.

At Jewish Food Hero, we create cookbooks that reflect what we are passionate about: conscientious food preparation and uplifting Torah study, says Alfond.

As of 2022, four cookbooks have been published under the banner of Jewish Food Hero and the fifth one is forthcoming in 2023. The most recent, Feeding Women in the Talmud, Feeding Ourselves, is what Alfond calls a community cookbook. Shes referring to the 129 Jewish women from around the world who contributed recipes and essays to the book. This includes 60 rabbis, rabbinical students, Jewish teachers, and emerging thought leaders who contributed to the Talmudic narratives of the cookbook as well as 60 female professional chefs and passionate homecooks.

The addition of this female-focused point of view to these womens Talmudic storieswhich were recorded and edited by menis a bright and encouraging testament to a modern generation of women engaging in Jewish learning, says Alfond.

The cookbook is the second volume of the cookbook series that Jewish Food Hero started in 2020 with Feeding Women of the Bible, Feeding Ourselves. The woman-focused narrative highlighted 20 compelling female biblical heroines from the Hebrew bible paired with two healthy plant-based kosher pareve recipes inspired by the characters experience.

The idea for these cookbooks came from my desire to create true food for thought by creating a cookbook/study book that retells the stories of women in Jewish text and honors them with our contemporary thoughts and recipes, says Alfond. These books seek to add more Jewish female stories and delicious vegan and plant-based foods to our tables, so we can connect to Judaism and healthy food at the same time.

In Feeding Women in the Talmud, Feeding Ourselves, each chapter is devoted to one female character in the Talmud. Theres a concise, true to the text story, context that seeks to enhance the stories by exploring their historical, social, literary and/or liturgical background for the story, a description of what happens before and/or after the particular story in the Talmud, and an exploration of how the context and position of the story reveals more about its meaning.

Then comes the aggadah or a modern commentary, sometimes in the shape of a fictional story that uplifts the subjects voice without attempting to neutralize her imperfections, flaws or struggles. Readers are then given meaningful questions intended as prompts to inspire further reflection on the story before finishing with the food offeringone vegan or plant-based recipe, each inspired by or honoring the female Talmudic character.

Alfond was drawn to the project given her long interest in learning more about female stories in Jewish texts. These projects, specifically of the Feeding Women series, is how she's been able to learn and study alongside women in the Jewish community. The Talmudic spin was especially helpful for Alfond, who says it was emotionally comforting and intellectually inspiring during the increased social isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This Golden Tumeric Lemon Cake from Feeding Women in the Talmud, Feeding Ourselves is based on the Talmudic characters of Yirmatia and her mother.

In the cookbook, Rebecca Whitman, a doctoral student in mathematics at UC Berkeley, describes how the Talmud records her donation to the Temple in an amount of gold equivalent to her daughters weight. Alongside an overview of the Talmudic narrative, Rebecca offers a modern aggadah and prompts for reflection.

This Golden Tumeric Lemon Cake recalls the gold that Yirmatias mother donated to the temple, says Alfond, and is a variation of a sour milk sponge cake.

This cake mixes apple cider vinegar and soy milk to create sour milk and uses a reduced amount of caster sugar and applesauce to give added texture and sweetness, she explains. Applesauce is also a fantastic vegan substitute for the setting properties of eggs. Dense texture can be the curse of some plant-based cake adaptations. But the combination of baking soda and apple cider vinegar stops this turmeric cake becoming claggy. Instead, it gives a light crumb with that vibrant golden color throughout. The soy milk soured with apple cider vinegar adds the perfect tangy taste to the finished cake.

For serving, Alfond recommends combining a slice with a bright tea or cup of coffee.

Thanks to the lower sugar quantity in the recipe, you can serve it with sweet toppings, she says. It can take a dusting of powdered sugar and/or a dollop of raspberry jam without becoming overly sweet.

More here:

Kenden Alfond Finds Culinary Inspiration from the Talmud - aish.com - Aish.com

Whoever needs, come and eat.

Thats the quote from the Talmud the book of Jewish law that welcomes customers to Goldies Bagels in Columbia, Missouri, telling them that people who cannot afford to pay can get a coffee and a bagel, with cream cheese, free of charge.

The promise is core to the shops mission: Launched as a popup in 2020, Goldies aims to imbue Jewish values into its daily operations.

My whole thing in opening Goldies is were going to be so outwardly proud to be Jewish, founder Amanda Rainey told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency this week, after a sign about the Neighbors Account initiative went viral on social media.

Goldie's Bagels, Columbia, MO. pic.twitter.com/ec34eyfmh6

Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg (@TheRaDR) August 25, 2022

Rainey, who previously worked as a Jewish educator at the Hillel at the University of Missouri, first opened Goldies inside Pizza Tree, a restaurant owned by her husband. It moved to its own location last winter, bringing along a sourdough starterthats used in its bagels. (Per baking tradition, the starter has a name Seymour.)

In addition to bagels, Goldies serves traditional Ashkenazi desserts such as babka and rugelach. Its Instagram account showcases fluffy round challahs; egg sandwiches made with zhug, a spicy condiment that originated with Yemenite Jews; and tzitzel bagels, a rolled-in-semolina confectionthats unique to St. Louis. (Its not kosher: Theres a sandwich with both meat and cream cheese on the menu.) The wifi password is MAZEL TOV. And this spring, the shop hosted a Passover seder for its staff.

The seder inspired the sign. The principle of feeding the needy is so ingrained in Jewish tradition that the Talmud quote posted at the counter istraditionally recited in Aramaicat the seder, when the Israelites exodus from Egypt is recounted.

Goldies had already been handing out free bagels to unhoused people in downtown Columbia, just as Pizza Tree had been doing with slices. And it had already been subsidizing that effort with donations that other customers made informally. Sometimes people would slip us some cash awkwardly, Rainey recalled.

But after the seder, a staff member suggested explaining the initiative and citing the quote from Talmud on a sign in the store. The sign explains that customers who cannot pay can ask the staff to charge their meal to the Neighbors Account.

After the sign went viral, people from around the country offered to donate, Rainey said. But she said Goldies is committed to keeping everything local.

We have so many generous people in our community, Rainey said. Those people should give money to somebody where they live; their own neighbors.

Rainey says the shop gets maybe two $5 donations a day, which help pay down the balance of the account, and the store doesnt take donations unless theres an outstanding balance. She hopes the initiative will encourage other restaurants in the area to take on something similar. During the pandemic, other businesses began offering free meals to families with children, and mutual aid groups serve people who are unhoused.

But the point of the Neighbors Account is to welcome people into the store and give them more than just a meal.

Its a bagel and a coffee but when youve slept on the street at 7 a.m., a bagel and a coffee is really helpful, Rainey said. And also we learn peoples names, we check in on them. We treat them like people. And then other people in the community see that and hopefully are inspired to act better.

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Missouri bagel shop goes viral for effort to feed the needy J. - The Jewish News of Northern California

It is probably hard to find a YU student who has heard about the five core Torah values (the Five Torot) and does not have an opinion about them. It is probably even harder to find a student who has never found him or herself in a (perhaps heated) discussion about the Five Torot and their legitimacy. Many students are cynical about the fact that a Jewish institution and its president can choose specific values seemingly at random. Why five? Why these five? Perhaps there should be fewer? Why not more? Some argue that yes, the Torah might speak about the Ten Commandments, the Mishnah about the three pillars of the world and the Talmud about foundational mitzvot; but who are the Jews of today to say that certain values are more essential than others? Some say that YU, as a part of the larger Jewish community, should not have its own set of values. Rather, we should all join the Jewish people as a whole and subscribe to the core Torah values of the Torah community, whatever they are.

Yet many students are supportive, or at least not critical, of the core Torah values. While they acknowledge that the specific values are not divinely chosen nor inspired, they were thought out by President Ari Berman. Described in his biography as an active and erudite spokesman for the Jewish community, he is certainly entitled and capable of thinking about the core values of Judaism, at least from his own perspective. Furthermore, they say that there is nothing wrong with a Jewish institution having a mission statement. Indeed, as Rabbi Berman likes to say, we all started at Har Sinai (roughly represented in the value of Emet) and we are all heading towards redemption (alluded to in the value of Tziyon). But still, due to nuanced and yet significant diversity within the Torah community, different individuals and organizations will find different statements to embrace our shared mission.

While students often talk about their opinions on this matter, the opinions of YUs rabbinic leadership on the matter are not as well known. Perhaps some have spoken privately to a YU rosh yeshiva about his opinion of the five core Torah values, but until this past August, I personally had not heard of any rosh yeshiva addressing the Five Torot publicly or on a recorded shiur online. Moreover, when discussing this matter with my peers, I also dont recall anyone referencing the view of one of the roshei yeshiva. Thus, it was surprising for me to hear two YU leaders address this issue in the same week. During the first week of class of the Fall semester, Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz and Rabbi Menachem Penner spoke to students on Wilf Campus, and on that occasion, they both alluded to and relatively embraced the core Torah values.

Rabbi Aryeh Lebowitz is the director of the Rabbi Isaac Elchanan Theological Seminary (RIETS) Semikha program and the rabbi of Beis HaKnesses of North Woodmere. During the first week of classes of the Fall semester, Rabbi Lebowitz delivered a sichas mussar on Wilf Campus, where he shared with the students five eitzos (pieces of advice) to thrive specifically in a yeshiva like Yeshiva University. His third piece of advice was about taking advantage of the opportunity of having a rebbe and deepening ones connection with him. However, in this context, he also stressed the importance of learning from other rebbeim. He emphasized the tremendous meritin his words, uncommon giftsYU students have to learn in the beis medrash with some of the greatest poskim of the generation. On a more general note, he asked the students not to be so quick to disregard ideas or other people, because he warned, an attitude of bittul [cynicism and cancelation] does not enhance your middos tovos.

At around minute 24, he asked the listeners that the next time instead of making a snide remark of the five core Torah values, maybe pay attention to what does the president mean by them. How does he identify and formulate the goals of our Yeshiva? He included a clear endorsement and praise of President Berman: You know like many of you guys admire the Kollel Elyon guys because they are the strongest guys in learning and they are the guys who seem to be matzliach [successful]? When I was a talmid in the Yeshiva, that was Rabbi Berman. He was the Kollel Elyon guy, who then became a rebbe, who was one of the most matzliach guys in the Yeshiva. And thats before thirty years of accomplishment, that earned him to be the president of the Yeshiva. Rabbi Lebowitz then returned to the issue of the core values, asking, Maybe he has something in mind? Maybe its not just off the wall? Or maybe just on the wall? Maybe there is something there? Dont be mevatel [canceling or disregarding] things.

During the second week of class, he delivered a similar statement on Beren Campus. Towards the end of the first episode of the Teshuva Talks series, Beren Campus Rabbi Azi Fine asked Rabbi Lebowitz about teshuva concerning misguided beliefs or paradigms hitting the Jewish community today. His answer was the lack of genuine Torah values. At that moment he was not apparently referring to YUs Five Torot. However, right after that he rhetorically asked the audience if they had heard about Torah values by any chance. He said, Having real Torah values is so essential to being a good Jew. I happen to be a huge fan, with all the cynicism and the jokes and whatever, and the Purim shpiels, and everything else; Im a huge fan of the presidents five core Torah values. He then proceeded to justify his support explaining that what the President has done is that he said when we look at the world, we look at the world through Torah. And so much of what we do, were just wearing the wrong glasses. Were looking at the world through a perspective, through a value system that the Tannaim never heard of; the Ammoraim never heard of. This answer was a more developed and explicit shout-out of his appreciation for the Five Torot. Furthermore, after the talk was over, I approached Rabbi Lebowitz to tell him that I was writing this article based on what he had said earlier at the sichas mussar. When we spoke he emphasized that he was a huge fan of Rabbi Berman. He also added that he thinks that the recently published draft of A Life of Faith, Meaning and Purpose: Nineteen Letters to Our Students, Rabbi Bermans elaborate presentation of YUs cornerstone values, is amazing.

Rabbi Lebowitz was not the only one to endorse the Five Torot. Rabbi Menachem Penner, Dean of RIETS and the rabbi emeritus of the Young Israel of Holliswood in Queens, also implicitly endorsed the Torot during the opening week of the Fall Zman. At this years annual Pesichas Hazman Kennes Rabbi Penner spoke about taking advantage of everything the Yeshiva has to offer. Understand, use this time to figure out whats important to you. You may have seen in one or two places around the campus, these core Torah values; hiding behind doors, things like that, he said. You know what? We need to have core values. We have to know what it is that we believe and what is important. However, he did not imply that YUs five core Torah values are the core values every student should have. Do those five things resonate with you? Get to know what they are! he emphasized. Whats more important is that you leave Yeshiva University understanding what your values are. If you leave without values, without core things that you believe in, then weve failed; then youve failed.The message here is pretty clear. While our roshei yeshiva did not definitively state that the five core Torah values are the absolute truth, they certainly implied that there is something valid and worth pondering in them. While its easy to disregard and tempting to be cynical, our leaders are asking us to be thinking human beings, to learn from and value what others have to contribute instead of being dismissive.

_________

Photo Caption:Students, faculty and roshei yeshiva listening to President Berman in the Glueck Beit Midrash

Photo Credit: YUNews

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What Do Some of YU's Torah Leaders Think of the Five Torot? - The Commentator - The Commentator

Real history is complicated. Its long-term moral arc might bend toward justice, but it zigzags on the way there, and it certainly takes its own sweet time.

Sometimes, though, someone does something thats straightforward.

According to Alexander Smukler of Montclair, the Russian-Jewish migr who is our analyst for Russias war on Ukraine, thats true of Mikhail Gorbachev, who became the Soviet Unions youngest leader in 1985, its only president (his title kept changing, becoming progressively less clunky), and then fell from power and died in near obscurity at 91 last week.

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Although many people, including Mr. Smuklers friend and mentor Natan Sharansky, think that Gorbachevs decision to let Russian Jews go was the result of a combination of the global pressure and the increasing strength of the internal movement to release Soviet Jewry, Mr. Smukler feels nothing but pure gratitude toward the Soviet president.

Whoever saves one life saves an entire world, he quoted the Talmud. Gorbachev saved many lives, and therefore many worlds; when you count the descendants of each saved Jew, who have full universes.

I and my family and probably thousands of others are members of Gorbachevs list, Mr. Smukler said. Its thanks to Gorbachev that we are living as Jews, living free and happy here, being Jewish, and celebrating Shabbes every week.

Yes, of course the West influenced him, but Gorbachev was different from the others, he said, comparing him to the line of outwardly stolid, gray-suited, gray-faced Soviet leaders who presided over the failing superpower.

Gorbachev was a different person inside, Mr. Smukler said. He had a heart. He had neshuma. He had a soul.

Heres the story, as Mr. Smukler tells it.

As weve recounted in another story (Living Through History, November 12, 2021) Aleksandr Smukler Sasha to his friends was born in Moscow in 1960, to Jewish parents whose Judaism was a deeply buried part of their identity, themselves children of Jewish parents deeply scarred by the Holocaust and World War II. After meeting refuseniks a group largely half a generation or so older than he was and feeling drawn to them, and then joining them; after many adventures and machinations, he, his wife, Alla Shtraks, and the two oldest of their three sons left the Soviet Union on September 20, 1991. (My third son was born in Mountainside Hospital in Montclair, he said, with pleasure.)

Mr. Smuklers first of what turned out to be several meetings with Gorbachev was in 1991, he said. The Russian leaders peak was well past; his power and strength were waning, and he soon was to be toppled temporarily by an ultimately failed coup.

In 1991, Alexander Smukler, with his back to the camera, greets then-President Mikhail Gorbachev.

When we left, I had no clue that Gorbachev would resign on December 25, 1991, Mr. Smukler said. And if someone had told me that the Soviet Union would completely collapse and break into 15 different states. I had no idea. I had no reason to think that would happen.

We left because after being refuseniks for seven years, waiting for our exist visas, Gorbachev was the one who gave us permission to emigrate, like hundreds of thousands of other Soviet Jews who live happily in the West and in Israel now.

He was the first pharaoh who let our people go. That is why for me he is a righteous person.

My grandson was born in the United States, and his name is Theodore. He was named after Theodor Herzl. I could never have imagined, living in the Soviet Union, behind the Iron Curtain, that my grandson would be born in the United States and that my son would name him after Theodor Herzl without fear, without pressure, without feeling any antisemitism.

Mr. Smukler disagrees carefully and respectfully with some of Mr. Sharanskys conclusions about Gorbachev conclusions that the onetime Prisoner of Zion, the first political prisoner that Gorbachev released, who later became an Israeli politician and for years was the head of the Jewish Agency, and who remains a widely respected figure in Israel, published in an op-ed in the Washington Post.

Mr. Sharansky said that Gorbachevs actions were the result of outside pressure. But Gorbachev changed the Soviet Unions policy toward Israel, Mr. Smukler said. It took him more than five years, and an incredible fight inside the Politburo and with other Soviet leaders. But Gorbachev is the one who established diplomatic relations with Israel. He did that just before his resignation on December 25, 1991; the first Soviet ambassador arrived in Israel on December 19, after 29 years without diplomatic relations. So Gorbachev was the one who established that, not Yeltsin.

I wasnt the only one to think that the Soviet empire wouldnt collapse. I think that even Gorbachev didnt realize that it would explode so quickly. The situation was shaky for him that December thats when Yeltsin was trying to minimize Gorbachevs role as president of the Soviet Union, working hard to prepare the meeting of the leaders of some of the republics in Belarus, where they signed a treaty about every republic being independent that was the Belovezhskaya Pucsha Agreement but I dont think that he realized how dangerous it was, even 10 days before he was forced to resign.

Gorbachevs outstanding importance is that he let the Soviet Union collapse without bloodshed. He could have been like Khrushchev or Brezhnev. He could have sent Russian tanks to the Baltic states or started a civil war against Yeltsin and the others who signed that treaty.

But Gorbachev was the first leader to accept that he would resign his enormous power without spilling human blood, and without starting a civil war to protect the dying Soviet empire.

Thats why he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, which he got in 1990, after the peaceful reunification of Germany.

Mr. Smukler talked about a conversation that he had in early 1991 in the British embassy in Moscow with the woman he refers to by her nickname, the Iron Lady thats Margaret Thatcher, prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1979 to 1990. She was coming to Moscow because she was visiting Gorbachev, he said. She felt a great sympathy for him, and particularly for his wife, Raisa. I agree with Natan that Gorbachev would never have let our people go without people like Ronald Reagan and the Iron Lady, and without the trust that existed between them.

Gorbachev really listened to them because he opened up to the outside world, Mr. Smukler continued. He grew up inside the Soviet system, and he was like other Soviet and Communist Party leaders because he had been isolated from the outside, from the civilized Western world. He opened that world for himself; he was hungry to learn how the outside world worked, how real democracies existed, how they operated, how the system worked.

Former UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher is flanked by Alexander Smukler, left, and refusniks Valery Engel and Roman Gefter in 1990.

Thats why his communications with Reagan and with Bush Senior were so important. Not many people know that Gorbachev met with those two American president 11 times in five years. He met with Mitterrand Franois Mitterrand was the president of France from 1981 to 1995 and was personal friends with Kohl. Helmut Kohl was Germanys chancellor from 1982 to 1998. And after the Iron Lady retired as prime minster, she came to Moscow almost every month. It was pure friendship and common sympathy. Theyd been friends, together with Raisa.

The Iron Lady told me that she that Gorbachev had changed, and his ability to feel softness as the leader of the last empire in the world amazed her. She talked about his ability to listen, to learn, to change, to leave communist dogma and hardline ideas behind, and that it was because of the incredible influence of the Western leaders hed built real personal relationships with.

Thats my major disagreement with Natan. I think that by the end of his term, Gorbachev was a completely different person than he was when he started.

I agree that without enormous pressure, he probably never would have let Jews go. But he fully understood that the Jewish movement in the Soviet Union was the leading group in the dissident movement. In my conversation with him after he resigned, he told me that the Jewish dissident movement, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, changed him deeply.

He said it was the Jews who made the first crack in the Iron Curtain.

Gorbachev was not a philosemite, Mr. Smukler said; in fact, he knew very little about Jews until he attained power. He was from the south of Russia, the place where historically the Russian Cossacks used to live. (As in the villains who dance so well in Fiddler on Roof, but in real life they were far worse, if less balletically gifted; they led pogroms.) It was a very antisemitic area, historically. And Gorbachev was a very high level communist who was promoted to the top of the Communist Party hierarchy by Yuri Andropov, the powerful head of the KGB. Andropov who, as it turns out, had descended from Jews, a truth that he hid died soon thereafter, and Gorbachev continued his rise. Several times, though, Gorbachev mentioned that he always knew that Andropov was a Jew, Mr. Smukler said.

So, there was an ambitious, smart, young, good-looking politician (and onlookers never should underestimate the power of physical attractiveness) who was neutral, on the whole, about Jews. He was always a pragmatist, Mr. Smukler said.

And then, as he gained power, as he gained more insight, his worldview started to change.

In December of 1989, a group of Jewish leaders in the Soviet Union decided to form the first official congress of Jews in the Soviet Union, and we created the umbrella organization called the Vaad. (It was a secular organization, he explained, although generally in North America that word is used to refer to religious leadership groups.)

I was one of the founders of the Vaad, he added. We sent a request to the Politburo to give us permission to gather, with almost 600 deputies from all over the Soviet Union. The Politburo met and discussed it. Gorbachev was on the side that voted for it, and another group fought hard to prevent it. At the last minute, Gorbachev made the final decision and said that as general secretary, he ruled that the congress would take place.

He let us conduct that congress, and after that, after years of being forced to exist underground, Jewish communal life became official and legal in the Soviet Union, and after that in Russia.

So when it came to letting Jews leave, Gorbachev fully understood the danger of letting thousands and thousands of Jews go, and that giving the refuseniks permission to leave would lead to bigger problems in the Baltics and with other republics with strong national movements. Theyd demand similar treatment, and similar freedom to leave. So he always saw Jewish emigration as a small part of a much bigger problem. He understood that it was a small part of a bigger decision to demolish the Iron Curtain, and that letting Jews go would make it necessary to remove the Iron Curtain altogether.

Natan Sharansky

Still, he let them go.

That is why I think that Gorbachev played an enormous role in the history of the Jewish people, Mr. Smukler said. Although he could not save the Soviet economy and as a result he couldnt hold onto his job because he changed the Soviet Unions relationship to the West he completely changed the world, at least for decades. For what he did for the Jews, his name will be written for thousands of years in the history of my people, Mr. Smukler said.

Mr. Smukler also wanted to talk about Mikhail Gorbachevs relationship with his wife, Raisa. She was the love of his life, and she was also a real partner, he said. I saw them together in 1994 and 1995, and I thought about how people can keep such incredibly strong feelings toward each other. He was the ruler of the biggest and strongest empire in the world and fell down, without millions of dollars without any wealth at all and they went down together, but this incredible feeling for each other survived.

Together, the Gorbachevs were responsible for Americans ability to adopt Russian children; that went on until Putin stopped it. The daughter of a member of an American administration in the Soviet Union wanted to adopt a baby; Raisa Gorbacheva helped convince her husband to give the order that opened the door to these kids, Mr. Smukler said. She initiated legislation that allowed American families to adopt Russian orphans; I want to give Raisa credit because 55,000 Russian orphans were adopted.

Had they not been adopted, they would have had no future at all, he continued; they would have languished in Russian orphanages. Some of them had special needs, including severe diseases, heart disease, cleft palates; some were conditions that could be and were fixed in the United States.

Gorbachev and Yeltsin hated each other, but Yeltsins wife also was supportive of the adoption of Russian kids by American families, and they continued to support the process.

Putin closed the door for thousands of orphans, he added.

Raisa Gorbacheva died in 1999, at 67. Her husband survived her by 21 years. He passed away at the age of 92, after a long-term hospitalization and sickness, Mr. Smukler said. His kidneys were not functioning, and he was suffering for several years.

He was living alone in Moscow, Mr. Smukler said; the only people around him were old retainers who had been with him for years. After Raisas death, he was constantly depressed; his daughter Irina, his only child, lived in Germany with her two daughters. He was abandoned. He didnt have a family. He lived in a dacha that Putin gave him. In the last 10 years he hadnt been active in his foundation, which had been slowly deteriorating.

Mikhail Gorbachev was buried next to Raisa in the Novodevichy cemetery, near many other prominent and powerful Russians. Many prominent and powerful and still-living Russians were at his funeral, but Vladimir Putin was not.

As Mr. Smukler put it, with Gorbachevs death, the last giant of the 20th century passed away.

Continue reading here:

Gorbachev was different he had a heart - The Jewish Standard

There is nothing better than a full-bodied glass of wine to help you unwind after a long and busy day. For us vino lovers, wine is synonymous with relaxing. It is meant to be sipped and savored and shared among friends. If you love wine, you will appreciate all of these humorous and thoughtful wine quotes, from famous wine loversthat are sure to resonate with you.

When you love wine, you love everything about itthe taste and aroma, the look of the wine label and, of course, all of the fun words to describe wine. All of these sayings about wine will either put a smile on your face or get you searching for another bottle, stat! Read through and see what you can most relate to with these 50 best wine quotes to ponder.

1. "I cook with wine, sometimes I even add it to the food." W.C. Fields

2. "My only regret in life is that I did not drink more wine." Ernest Hemingway

3. "What wine goes with Captain Crunch? George Carlin

4. "Wine is bottled poetry." Robert Louis Stevenson

5. "Either give me more wine or leave me alone. Rumi

6.It's a smile, it's a kiss, it's a sip of wine ... it's summertime! Kenny Chesney

7.Beer is made by men, wine by God. Martin Luther

8.Age appears best in four things: old wood to burn, old wine to drink, old friends to trust and old authors to read. Francis Bacon

9.I should say upfront that I have never been in a cellar in my life. In fact, I can see no reason why anyone should ever go into a cellar unless there is wine involved. Rachel Hawkins

10.High and fine literature is wine, and mine is only water; but everybody likes water. Mark Twain

Related: 21 Ways To Create Wine Cocktails

11.In wine, there's truth. Pliny the Elder

12.Wine can of their wits the wise beguile, Make the sage frolic, and the serious smile. Homer

13.A bottle of wine begs to be shared; I have never met a miserly wine lover. Clifton Fadiman

14.Men are like wine-some turn to vinegar, but the best improve with age. Pope John XXIII

15.The first kiss and the first glass of wine are the best. Marty Rubin

16.Life's too short to drink cheap wine... Cliff Hakim

17.Drink freely the wine life offers you and don't worry how much you spill. Marty Rubin

18.If your arteries are good, eat more ice cream. If they are bad, drink more red wine. Proceed thusly. Sandra Byrd

19.The juice of the grape is the liquid quintessence of concentrated sunbeams. Thomas Love Peacock

20.'Never cook with a wine you wouldnt drink,' he said. 'Though I guess that presupposes that there is a wine I wouldnt drink.' Lev Grossman

Related: 6 Gifts For The Wine Aficionado

21.WINE! Because these problems arent going to forget THEMSELVES! Comic Strip Mama

22.Philosophy is like wine. There are good years and bad years but, in general, the older the better. Eric Weiner

23.I need COFFEE to help me change the things I can... and WINE to help me accept the things I can't! Tanya Masse

24.Wine improves with age. The older I get, the better I like it. unknown

(scroll to keep reading)

25.Wine ages gracefully in a cellar, but gets no wiser. Rajesh

26.Next time you drink a glass of champagne, remember that it is essentially a faulty wine from an unpromising place, made great by the genius of man. Neel Burton

27.These are the best companionsfor an intelligent woman: a good book and a good glass of wine. Augusto Branco

28.I want to start a book club. But instead of reading books, we trash talk and drink wine. Tanya Masse

29.Love is the wine as old as time, which quenches our lonely longing. John Mark Green

30.People who want you in their lives, respect you whether you are grapes or fine wine. Sanita Belgrave

Related: How To Cook With Wine, Plus 15 Wine Sauce Recipes You'll Turn To Again And Again

31.If you ask a server for a seriously old wine in my neighborhood, theyll look at you funny and then bring you a half-finished glass from somebody elses table. Gina Barreca

32.The truce is broken?" Clearly this was worrying news, but all I could think about was that wine, and how I wanted to taste it again. Giles Kristian

33.Theres wine spilled all over the floor and I wish to write stories with it. Maya Zaveri

34.Wisdom is like a fermented wine. It's only appreciated when shared. Andrew-Knox B Kaniki

35.Never Drink Boring Wine Keith Wallace

36.I'd suggest meditation to calm you down but that would take time. Wine takes a faster effect... Mystqx Skye

37.I think we all men are like fine wine. We start out as grapes, and it's up to women to stomp the crap out of us until we are turned into something acceptable to have dinner with... Nitya Prakash

38.Wine grapes are as sensitive to assaults as authors. Adam Gopnik

39.The more he drank the nicer he became; wine revealed his charity. Jeet Thayil

40.Love weathers doesn't withers;Just like wine, the older, the stronger Falguni Jain

Related: What Is Natural Wine, And Will It Spare You A Hangover? Here Is Everything You Need To Know

41.Wine is like many of the fine experiences in life which take time and experience to extract their full pleasure and meaning. Douglas Preston

42.True love is like wine, it gets stronger with age. Farid F. Ibrahim

43.Love is like wine, it gets better every day. Vann Chow

44.What chance does logic have against a glass of wine and a kiss? Marty Rubin

45."Penicillin cures, but wine makes people happy." Alexander Fleming

46."Wine... the intellectual part of the meal." Alexandre Dumas

47. "When it comes to wine, I tell people to throw away the vintage charts and invest in a corkscrew. The best way to learn about wine is the drinking." Alexis Lichine

48."If food is the body of good living, wine is its soul." Clifton Fadiman

49."It takes a lot of beer to make good wine." Lou Preston

50."Wine is at the head of all medicines; where wine is lacking, drugs are necessary." Babylonian Talmud: Baba Bathra

Next up, What Is Orange Wine? Get To Know the Trendy TikTok Wine!

Read the original:

50 Best Wine Quotes That Will Have You Breaking Out a Bottle Stat! - Parade Magazine

Love: the strangest and most profound human experience.

Love is a funny thing. Even though most people view it as one of the most important aspects of their lives, they have a tough time defining it. Poets and painters have labored to capture and express its essence through their arts. Scientists and sociologists have probed it, endeavoring to explain its origin and purpose - all with questionable results.

How can we be so confused about something so fundamental to the human experience?

Love is at the root of our most precious relationships, craved in all times and in all places, and, strangely, its a bottomless pit that can never be filled. There never will come a time when we say, "Ah, I've had the last interaction I'll ever need with this person." Even if we lived 1000 years, it wouldn't be enough. If only our beloved could be here just a little longer.

That's why I ask the Lord in Heaven aboveWhat is this thing called love? Cole Porter

There are those who suggest that love is a chemical illusion created by the brain and "designed" by evolution to promote the survival of our species.

If thats the case, evolution did a pretty lousy job. If anything, love is a great hindrance to us. It causes us to make crazy and rash decisions (Romeo and Juliet), to have fewer offspring so that we can pay more attention to each one, and to lay down our lives often for the weaker, less-viable portions of the population.

Other life forms do a perfectly fine job of reproducing in a loveless manner salmon do not carry a torch for "the one that got away," and mosquitoes do not endlessly pine for their departed fore-bearers as there's nothing productive in that. Love seems to be something quite different.

The film Interstellar has a fantastic scene in which two astronauts (Cooper and Brand) are trying to pick which world to explore for possible life as the Earth was slowly dying. With limited time and resources, the decision was critical but how to make it? Brand was in love with another astronaut who had preceded them to one of the planets and had placed himself in a state of hibernation. She suggested that love was enough of a guide to choose that world:

COOPER: It [love] means social utility child rearing, social bonding.

BRAND: We love people who've died where's the social utility in that? Maybe it means more something we can't understand yet. Maybe it's some evidence, some artifact of higher dimensions that we can't consciously perceive. I'm drawn across the universe to someone I haven't seen for a decade, who I know is probably dead. Love is the one thing we're capable of perceiving that transcends dimensions of time and space. Maybe we should trust that, even if we can't yet understand it.

These lines, written by Christopher and Jonathan Nolan, are profound. Perhaps love, the prime directive of all human life, the un-useful yet massively powerful force, is not part of this physical world at all. If so, then perhaps it is the only way to remain connected to those who have departed this material existence and the only hope of plugging the desperate, insatiable hole that opens whenever true love is generated between two people.

Perhaps love, the prime directive of all human life, the un-useful yet massively powerful force, is not part of this physical world at all.

In his book "Judaism: a Way of Being" David Gelernter outlines the Jewish concept of human separation from the spiritual realm. We are blocked from accessing it directly though we can come as close as we like our noses almost pressed against the surface to discern its contours and to make inferences about what lies just beyond. The veil both separates and connects but only one thing in this universe is capable of creating that connection beyond the veil - love. Love is the key that unlocks "the other side."

Only one thing can penetrate the veil. 'The People of Israel are beloved,' says the TalmudGod is hidden like the mezuzah text, separated from Israel by a sacred screen that is like a bridal veil opaque except to love.

Love is the key that unlocks "the other side."

What about our dead who we miss so dearly and the love of them which can never be requited? In truth, they are not so very far away they are separated from us by only a thin screen. In describing her near-death experience, Sharon Stone gestured in front of her and said, "[the other world] is so close. It's right here."

In Gelernter's words:

When someone dieswe ask that God grant the departed "perfect peace beneath the wings of God's presence." We ask that the departed be gathered to God's side beyond the veil. The phrase recalls cherubim's wings screening the Ark of the Covenant, curtains screening the Holy of Holies, Moses' veilor the blanket spread over a sleeping child on a cold night. Judaism has developed many doctrines about death over the millennia, but the simplest and deepest is this: our dead are beyond the veil which is opaque, inviolable, and impenetrable, except by love.

In what ways should this knowledge affect us? The generation and enhancement of love between individuals is conceivably the single most significant activity a person can engage in. Most cultures and religious systems acknowledge this few of us follow through. How many of us proactively worked on this today, the day before, or ever?

Nonetheless, it is part of the definition of a successful and fulfilling life. How many of us are consciously engaged in it? What is our plan to carry it out? The good life requires teaching ourselves how to love. As Elizabeth Kubler-Ross once wrote:

I'm going to talk with you about love today, which is life and death; it is all the same thing. If you live well, you will never have to worry about dying. You can do that even if you only have one day to live. The question of time is not very important; it is a man-made, artificial concept anyway. To live well means basically to learn to love.

Love is the unique property of existence that is capable of creating eternal, soul-level bonding that can never be extinguished by distance, time, or death itself.

Dedicated in loving memory to Dovid ben Beryl

Excerpt from:

Love is a Skeleton Key - aish.com - Aish.com

TheTorah columnis supported by a generous donation from Eve Gordon-Ramek in memory of Kenneth Gordon.Ki TeitzeiDeuteronomy 21:1025:19

As the years go on, it becomes more and more clear that Russian President Vladimir Putin is evil.

Putins decision to invade Ukraine has led to the displacement of millions of Ukrainians, cities being razed, a mounting casualty count and reports of war crimes by the Russian military. Of course, Putins brutality predates his invasion of Ukraine. He previously led horrible wars in Chechnya and Georgia, and his support for the Syrian dictator Bashar Al Assad has kept another brutal leader in power.

In this weeks Torah portion Ki Teitzei, we read about Amalek, the perennial enemy of the Jewish people who attacked the vulnerable, famished and weary stragglers among those who were fleeing Egypt.

One can attempt to psychoanalyze Putin and learn about his obsession with Russian nationalism, but his disregard for basic ethical standards makes him a modern-day Amalek.

Amalek is identified in our portion as lo yirah elohim, someone who doesnt revere God (Deuteronomy 25:18). As the Torah empresses upon us, Elohim is a God of morality, a God who at the pivotal moment of revelation offers the people Israel the Ten Commandments an ethical code. By impressing upon us that Amalek not only attacks the innocent but also rejects Elohim, our portion depicts Amalek as a character who rejects morality.

These verses from our portion go on to instruct us on how to respond to Amalek. Deuteronomy 25:19 tells us that when we enter the promised land and God grants us safety from all of our enemies, you shall blot out the memory of Amalek from under heaven. Do not forget!

The wide sweep of Jewish commentary on these verses offers invaluable wisdom on how to respond to contemporary Amaleks.

To begin with, the Jewish tradition at an early point dismisses the idea that Amalek refers to any specific ethnic group. The rabbis of the Talmud argued in Berakhot 28a that it was no longer possible to determine who was descended from Amalek.

Amalek therefore endured in Jewish consciousness as a perennial foe who disregards morality. By being commanded to remember Amalek, we are taught to always be vigilant against the human propensity toward evil.

This offers us a useful lesson. With Putin and his invasion of Ukraine thousands of miles away, we are called on to remain vigilant even if the fighting does not immediately affect us.

There is also a strain in our tradition articulated most notably by the medieval commentator Nachmanides (Rambam) and by the Hasidic Rabbi Levi Yitzchak of Berdichev that we are to internalize this commandment to wipe out Amalek. The Berdichever Rebbe wrote, each Jew has to wipe out that negative part that is called Amalek hidden in his or her heart.

We can learn from the Berdichever Rebbe to respond to the evil of the Putins of the world by filling the world with righteousness.

But I find the most compelling lesson for our times comes from the story of how the Israelites defeated Amalek originally.

The battle against the Amalekites first appears in Exodus 17. When Moses holds up his arms, the people Israel prevail in battle against the Amelikites, but when he tires and lowers his arms, the Amelikites gain the upper hand. And so Aaron and Hur hold up Moses hands and the people Israel prevail.

This story has tremendous symbolic power. It is only by partnering with Elohim, this God who is so concerned with morality, and collectively holding up Moses arms that we can prevail against Amalek.

This teaches us that human partnership and faith in the ultimate triumph of morality will be the way to defeat the Amaleks of the world.

How does this apply to Putin? Even for those of us who are not directly affected by Putins misdeeds, watching the consequences of his actions can take a psychic toll. We can feel helpless before the ongoing nihilism and violence.

But perhaps this image from the Book of Exodus can offer us hope. We have faced Amaleks for our entire existence. Our tradition teaches us to believe that by partnering with others who believe in the importance of a moral world order, we can ultimately prevail.

The rest is here:

We have faced Amaleks like Putin forever, but with morality we can prevail J. - The Jewish News of Northern California