Returning women to the Hanukkah story

Mrs. Maccabeus
(sung to the tune of "O Hanukkah")
by Ben Aronin

Each Chanukah we glorify brave Judah Maccabeus
Who had the courage to defy Antiochus, and free us,
Yet it is not fair that we should forget
Mrs. Maccabeus, whom we owe a debt.
She mixed it, and fixed it
She poured it into a bowl
You may not guess, but it was the latkes
That gave brave Judah a soul.
You may not guess but it was the latkes
That gave brave Judah a soul.

The Syrians said: "It cannot be that old Mattathias
Whose years are more than 83 will dare to defy us!"
But they didn't know his secret, you see
Mattathias dined on latkes and tea.
One latke, two latkesAnd so on into the night
You may not guess but it was the latkesthat gave him the courage to fight.
You may not guess but it was the latkesthat gave him the courage to fight.

Now this is how it came about this gastonomic wonder
That broke the ranks of Syria like flaming bolts of thunder
Mrs. Maccabeus wrote in the doughPortions of the Torah then fried them so.
They shimmered, they simmered,
Absorbing the olive oil
You may not guess but it was the latkes
that made the Syrians recoil.
You may not guess but it was the latkes
that made the Syrians recoil.

Now these little latkes brown and delicious
must have hit the spot 'cause with appetites vicious
All the heroes downed them after their toil
Causing in our Temple a shortage of oil
One latke, two latkes,
And so on into the night.
You may not guess but it was the latkes
that gave us the Chanukah light.
You may not guess but it was the latkes
that gave us the Chanukah light.

Happy chamucka!

Purportedly, this photo was taken at a Greenwich Village grocery: Balducci's on 8th Ave at 14th Street. What a hoot.

Reminds me of the time I found challah for sale on the Osage Indian Reservation in Oklahoma with the two braids colored bright yellow and bright orange. The sign said: "circus bread."

Before you do your online shopping ...

... log onto this website at www.goodsearch.com/goodshop.aspx and use the links on that website to visit the websites where you would normally do your online shopping. This includes Amazon, Target, Overstock.com etc etc. There are hundreds of retailers participating.

You select a charity before you follow this link, and anywhere from 2-4% of your purchase price is donated to that charity!

The cost of using this site is ZIPPO, and the prices listed through the Good Search link is identical to the prices you would find if you went to the sites directly. COOL DEAL!

To view the lists of charities there are to choose from, click on "Participating Nonprofits" in light gray at the very bottom of the page. You can search by cause (ie, Animals, Disabilities, Environment, Education), as well as alphabetically.

Colorado friends, the Wild Animal Sanctuary - Rocky Mountain Wildlife Conservation Center is among them, as well as the Lakewood kitty shelters Cat Care Society and Angels with Paws!

If you're looking for a good general recommendation, you know I'm always a big fan of the Jane Goodall Institute and all of her great conservation work for primates in Africa, as well as the D.C.-based group, the World Wildlife Fund.

Meow.

Military chaplaincy

Last week, I had an interesting experience at the Fort Dix military processing center in New Jersey. I am reluctant to draw any sweeping generalizations about the makeup of our military based on such a limited experience, but I thought it might be interesting to pass along what I saw there, and let you, the reader, infer as much or as little as you find appropriate.

First, some background:

Before beginning rabbinical school, I had heard about military chaplaincy and had read several interesting books on the topic. Among them were An American Rabbi in Korea: A Chaplain's Journey in the Forgotten War, a fascinating inside account of a war I never studied much growing up, and the experiences of a Jewish chaplain.

A second is the highly troubling memoir called For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire. Written by a Muslim chaplain with the rank of captain, it tells how the Army wrongly accused him of treason after he began serving inmates held at Guantanamo Bay. Both are really worth reading.

I also began reading about the first female rabbi to serve as a chaplain in the U.S. military, Bonnie Koppel. It turns out, she is a Reconstructionist, and I called her a few years ago at her home in Arizona, and we had a fascinating conversation about her experiences as a liberal, a woman and a Jew serving 28 years in the Army Reserves.

My interest is also partly personal: My paternal grandfather served in World War II, and was, to my knowledge, one of the people in charge of overseeing the oil and gas supply lines to the troops in Europe. He narrowly survived numerous bombing raids from his position in London, where I believe he was mostly based.

My family never spoke about his military service as something to be proud of – though this might have partly been a reaction to who he was as a person: A bit on the grumpy side and emotionally remote. It might also be because of his own attitude about military service. It was a real source of pride to my father that he resisted his own father’s intense pressure to enlist. Apparently, this pressure took the form of blackmail against both my father and his brother: If you don’t join the service, I won’t pay for your college. My uncle acquiesced, and my father did not.

I can understand why my dad never thought much of military service, but I have to say that I never really understood why no one ever thought that what grandpa had done was admirable in any way. The more I’ve moved into observant Jewish life and community, the more I can’t relate to this kind of thinking. Plainly put: I think it’s pretty cool my grandfather helped kick it to the Nazis. And, as a liberal Jew, I feel tremendously grateful to be living in the one place where it has been easier and better to be a Jew than in any other place in the world (and that includes Israel!)

Chaplain candidate program
The military offers a unique training opportunity for all seminary students enrolled in accredited programs of study. The Army, Air Force and Navy/Marines (which is combined) each offer “chaplain candidate” enlistments whereby you basically receive paid chaplaincy training throughout your time in school. When you graduate, you have the option (but not the obligation) to enlist, either in Reserves or Active Duty. The program has protected status; you are guaranteed not to be forced into Active Duty or to do anything that would compromise your academic study.

Once you complete chaplain school (which for the Army is one month in January and one month in June), you can work as much or as little as you want with your local reserve unit doing chaplaincy-type stuff. You’re paid an hourly wage at whatever your rank is, which to start out is as an officer, second lieutenant.

I called all three branches before I started school 1.5 years ago. I was 34 at the time, but I wouldn’t actually begin school until I was 35, which is the official cutoff for all military enlistments. It turned out to be a Catch 22. You can’t enlist after age 35, but you can’t be approved to be a chaplain candidate until AFTER you’ve begun school. After many months of phone calls, the Army was the only branch willing to work with me and try to secure an exemption. I’ll spare you the long convoluted story, but basically, it’s taken 1.5 years for that to happen.

Last week, all of the exemptions finally in line for my (old!) age and various physical ailments (shoulder injury, LASIK surgery, etc etc), I drove over the bridge into New Jersey to the Wyndham hotel where the Army was putting me up for the night. It turned out, the “MEPS” has a permanent office there on the second floor. Six days a week, everyone going to Fort Dix for enlistment physicals or tests for any of the branches are sent to this hotel the night before. The reason is simple: 4 a.m. wakeup call.

Okay, try not to laugh. Try not to bust up any new sutures. Yes, yours truly really did wake up at 4 a.m.

I arrived at about 10 pm the night before, and my roommate was arriving at the same time. 17 years old, Stacy was a senior in high school and after taking one look at me, blurted out: “How old ARE you?” followed by “Which service are you enlisting in?” When I told her the Army, she made a face and fell silent.

“What are you enlisting in?” I asked her, to which she quickly answered “Oh the Marines, I’m Marines. They’re the best. I know because I researched it, and so they’re the only ones I wanted to join.”

We had an interesting conversation as we got into bed, in which I learned that she works part time at a grocery store, and that her mother is very opposed to her enlisting, “but it’s not up to her.” Stacy doesn’t know what job or training she wants to receive – she had been interested in medical, but the Marines doesn’t have any medical training. Since she cared more about being in the Marines than doing anything medical, that meant she stuck to the Marines.

Stacy asked me if I was excited to go to boot camp, and I tried explaining that I wouldn't go to boot camp – I would go to chaplain-training school. But I don’t think she knew what a chaplain was. For her part, she was VERY excited about boot camp, which begins in July and which lasts 13 weeks -- the “longest of any of the branches.” This was clearly another source of pride for her.

I should add here that Stacy is black, my height (5’3”), and can’t way an ounce more than 105 pounds. When I told her the hotel would be giving us a wakeup call at 4 a.m., she said: “What’s that? How are they going to do that?” and when I suggested she look at the thermostat and turn up the heat in the room, she said: “What’s a thermostat?”

I must tell you friends, my heart really broke for this poor girl. She really had no bloomin’ idea WHAT she is getting herself into; all she knew is that she is getting out and away from a life she can no longer tolerate.

At Fort Dix
The next day, a bus took everyone to the military base about ½ an hour away. My recruiter had told me to follow behind the bus in my own car, which I really didn’t understand. When I asked the guy in the MEPS station why I should do this, he said: “Because you’re an officer candidate and your recruiter assumed you wouldn’t want to ride with all the enlistees in the bus.”

I took slight offense at this idea – that I would think I’m somehow too good to ride on a bus with everyone else – but it turned out to be for the better. It only took four hours to process me because as an officer candidate they push you through first. Also, there were so few women, things like the urine tests (which only accommodate two people at a time) went much more quickly. If I had taken the bus, I would have had to hang out there another six hours waiting for a bus ride back to the hotel and my car.

The physical wasn’t nearly as bad or embarrassing as it’s cracked up to be. Yes, a woman watches you pee in a cup to take your urine sample, but she was sweet and kind about it, and apologized to all of us for having to do so. And yes, you do have to stand around in a room in your underwear and crouch down and do the duck walk in front of two doctors. And yes, a doctor does briefly check where the sun don’t shine as part of the overall exterior exam. But all in all, it wasn’t so bad.

Out of the 50 or so people being processed that day, there were only four women. The other three were all 17 or 18, and either black or Hispanic. Only one of the 50 was an officer candidate (as opposed to an enlistee), and that one was me. The code on the sticker I wore on my shirt made this distinction to anyone who worked there, and so I was always given “important” duties like helping pass out pens and making sure every new person who came in the room was given a breathalyzer tube.

It’s just a guess, but I’d say overall, about 10 or 15 percent of us were white. Blacks were the most common, followed by Hispanics, and Asians or general darker-skinned people of color.

So am I an official chaplain candidate?

No, not yet. Stay tuned.

Ten shares of righteous indignation please

By this weekend, I had really had it. I had been waiting three months, and that was 2.5 months too long.

Back in August, I applied for a family gym membership at the JCC near my house. Having heard that they offer “scholarships” – membership discounts based on income – I also filled out an application for that, which required a copy of our taxes and W-2s, and a written statement about our financial situation. I really had no idea what qualified someone for this money, or just how broke applicants usually are, but I thought it was worth a shot.

I handed in the paperwork in mid-August, and was told I would hear back within “a week or two”. I then proceeded to go back to the JCC every one or two weeks for the next three months, inquiring about my application. Every time I went in, it was some new person at the front desk, who I had to tell my story to, and every time all I ever heard was “Oh I’m sure you’ll be hearing very very soon!”

Finally, five weeks ago, I marched back to the office of the woman who actually reviews the applications, and she assured me I would be hearing within a week.

“You know, if we don’t qualify or something – that’s okay,” I told her. “We would just really like to know one way or the other so we can proceed with joining. We really want to start working out.”

“Oh no, no,” she assured me, “it isn’t about that. We just haven’t had a chance to work through them all yet!” She took down my name and number and promised to personally call me within a week and let me know.

Four weeks later … nothing.

Last week, I called and got her on the phone. She hurriedly said: “Yes yes yes, you will hear by Friday! You will get a letter in the mail!”

“Okay!” I told her, still trying really really hard to sound chipper. “But do you realize I’ve been waiting for three months now?”

“Friday!!!!!!” she hollered.

Friday came and went … no letter.

That’s when I decided *I* would write a letter. I know mom, try not to roll your eyes… But really, this was too much. It’s bad enough having people lie to you week after week, month after month, for three months – in any situation. But it’s way over the top worse when what is at issue is how a major Jewish organization treats people who are basically expressing a need for charity. Forcing people to publicly reveal their need time after time, and to basically beg for a handout, and then responding to their appeals like they are second-class citizens, not worth the basic courtesy of an honest and timely response – it goes against every basic Jewish teaching of what constitutes ethical behavior toward “the poor.”

We have been studying precisely this issue in my mishnah class at school. Mishnah Peah I is all about how farmers are required to leave “peah” on the corner of their fields for the poor to collect – and the rabbis who wrote the mishnah wrote entire chapters on what kinds of food qualify as peah, and how the quantity is established, and how it must be done in a way that people can collect it anonymously, and how it must be left at certain times of the day so the poor don’t “waste their time waiting around all day waiting for the farmer to leave the peah.”

What it describes, in other words, is a scenario 100% opposite of how the JCC is giving out their peah.

In my letter, addressed to the president of the JCCs of Greater Philadelphia, I laid out what exactly had been going on, and what I thought about it. It was three pages long. After Aaron finished slogging through it, he handed it back to me with a shrug and said: “Well, I don’t know, J, if you pack any more righteous indignation into that thing, it might spontaneously combust.”

He had a point. I waited several more days, gave myself an imaginary Qualud, and took another crack at it. It lost a page, and the high-handed moralizing was replaced with more thoughtful and calm reflection. Maimonides (pictured) even made an appearance. Just to be safe, I decided to wait a few more days before mailing it. And so you can imagine my surprise when yesterday, I came home and found a letter addressed to me from none other than the local JCC.

By way of introduction, let me just say this: If any of you have ever seen me in one of my fits of righteous indignation, you can just imagine what my reaction was when I opened up the envelope and read this:

“Dear J and A:
Thank you for your recent application for scholarship assistance from the Kaiserman JCC. According to the financial documents you submitted, you qualify for a 10% scholarship. But because AARON is a full time rabbinic student and part-time Jewish professional, we would like to extend a 25% Jewish communal worker discount to you in lieu of a scholarship.”

Part 7: The Babylonian exile

For the 150 years that the Israelites were reduced to the Southern Kingdom, their neighboring superpowers of the Babylonians and Assyrians skirmished with each other. With the rise of Nebuchadnezzar II in 626 BCE, the balance of power began shifting to the Babylonians’ favor. In 605, he conquered Egypt, and in 598, the first Judeans began being deported to Babylonia. The governor at the time, Zedekiah, rebelled in 587, and the kingdom fell in 576. Zedekiah’s sons were killed, and he was blinded and also shipped away.

(Above right: The Middle East, c. 600 BC, showing the extent of the Neo-Babylonian empire).

Judea’s priests, scribes and land-holding elite was sent to Babylonia, and the 50 years they spent in exile there have been the subject of much academic debate. It used to be thought that the five books of the Torah were finalized during this time – an activity of intense scribal activity by an exile community desperate to cling onto their identity. But this is no longer believed to be the case.

While it appears the exiles were allowed to live in the same areas and maintain their worship practices in Babylonia, they would not have had access to the foundational texts these books based upon – they would be back in Judea. Further, the absence of any Babylonian descriptions of any kind of flourishing Judean community in their midst suggests that there wasn’t one – that they were small, subsistence and basically living under the radar.

The 43 years of Nebuchadnezzar’s reign were apparently quite spectacular. From Kuhrt Amelie:
Some of the splendour and wealth of Babylon and its court is echoed by the legendary anecdotes and romantic stories … the late second century book of Daniel being the best-known. But there are many more: the fabled hanging gardens were counted among the seven wonders of the world, and Babylon became a byword for luxury and cosmopolitan life. Nebuchadnezzar himself later counted as a world conqueror, reaching the frontiers of the known world. The immense wealth commanded by the Babylonian kings is reflected in their large-scale building projects, with their magnificent temples and towering ziggurats, now lying in sad ruins. The royal inscriptions describe in loving detail many more impressive royal constructions is which nothing has survived. The colourful embellishments and decorations in precious metals, too, have vanished. Some evidence for the manufacture of perform, oil and purple dye for textiles and fine wines on royal estates in Judah has been teased out.

The extensive cuneiform records reveal a great deal about Babylonian life and social structure, and significant among them is the evidence that the citizen body was an exclusive group. Gaining membership into the body of privileged inhabitants was neither automatic nor easy – and the Judean exiles were most certainly not a part of this group.

It was at this juncture in Israelite history that the term “Jew” entered the lexicon. The term derives from the Aramaic yehuday, or Judean, which was meant to distinguish the expatriate Judean from those still residing in Judah. In one Babylonian ration list, a man named Ur-milki is designated a “Jew,” as are several others in vicinity on the list.

What percentage of the population was actually shipped to Babylonia is not known, nor are the exact regions of their settlement there. However, some evidence suggests that the bulk of the expatriates were north of Babylon, with smaller numbers in the south. The names of some Jewish settlements -- mound of ears (of grain), mound of deluge and mound of potsherd – suggest they were sent to inferior agricultural areas that had been abandoned by the Babylonians due to salty soil or other destructions.

One possible new religious development in this period was the synagogue, Amelie says. The synagogue became in the beginning simply a gathering place of people, either in private resident or open air. Later, actual buildings were constructed for this purpose.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch in Judea
We don’t know a ton about the Judean exiles’ life in Babylon but we know even less about the Judeans who remained in Judea after the conquest. The archaeological record shows that the population shifted from the urban to the rural areas and living standards fell precipitously, but the written record is sparse.

Nabonidus, the last king of the Neo-Babylonian dynasty, was overthrown by Persian king Cyrus in 539 BCE (at right), who instituted more liberal measures toward the peoples who formed part of the Babylonian empire. From Assyria to western Iran, he returned local divine images to their temples and organized the return of people to their homelands.

To say that theJudean exiles “returned” to Judea, however, is a bit of a misnomer. The exile lasted 50 years, and back then, 50 years was a lifespan. So it was really the next generation who “went back” to a land that most of them had even known.

Part 6: The Southern Kingdom (722-587)

Judea is rarely mentioned outside the Bible prior to the fall of the North to the Assyrians in 722 BCE. This suggests its sparse populace and development didn’t attract the attention of the neighboring powers.

But with the fall of the North, the South explodes onto the biblical scene. For one thing, there was a huge influx of refugees who started streaming into the south and settling the lands. For another, several books of the Bible give a careful outline of the actions of the Southern kings during these 150 years.

According to these biblical accounts, almost all of these kings got it wrong – they were bad leaders and bad worshipers who led the people astray. The lengths of their reigns, however, actually suggest the opposite – that they were not only effective, but popular, and they oversaw periods of stability and affluence in the region. So what’s the deal with this discrepancy?!?

The answer to this question can be seen if you look at the only two kings the biblical writers actually liked during those 150 years – and those were Hezekiah and Josiah. These two kids had one very important thing in common, and that is that they were centralizers: they tore down rural and regional temples and altars of Ba’al, who is depicted as a bull on many ancient Israelite artifacts; they centralized worship to the YHVH god at the Temple in Jerusalem; and they purged the Temple of the many sculptures and altars to Ba’al and the feminine goddess Asherah that were inside the Temple.

As my teacher explained it, Hezekiah and Josiah were the “Stalinesque” kings of the day, who centralized their power contrary to what were clearly the normative religious practices of the people. We know YHVH, Ba’al and Asherah worship (as opposed to YHVH worship exclusively) normative because the moment these two kings left power, the temples and altars and figurines to these other gods reappeared. “The brevity and scarcity of the periods of ‘reform’ under Hezekiah and Josiah show us that heterodoxy was much more common than orthodoxy,” our teacher explained.

The attitudes of these Southern kings toward the limited polytheism of the people is detailed quite clearly in the Bible, and they are reinforced by the archaeological record. There is evidence of destruction at the major cultic sites outside Jerusalem during the periods of Hezekiah and Josiah, and there is evidence that these sites were rebuilt in the periods after their reigns.

It’s fascinating isn’t it? The one thing Judaism is most famous for is that it was the foundation of monotheism in the Western world. We are now up to the year 587 BCE, and what we see is that the “Judaism” of the day was still not actually monotheistic! It will become monotheistic to be sure – but these roots don’t originate anywhere close to the period of Abraham and Sarah, the mythic progenitors of Judaism and monotheism. That duo ostensibly lived back in Part 1 of this series, at the settling of the central highlands in Canaan in the 13th century.

So, to summarize early Israelite religion up until this point:

From 10th-6th century BCE, the majority of Israelite worship took place outside Jerusalem at temples and altars around the Northern and Southern Kingdoms. Asherah, a female goddess; Ba’al, a young storm God depicted as a bull; and YHVH, depicted as a “box” (aka the desert tabernacle) were worshipped by the people. There was a cult of the dead, and practice of divination was widespread. The profusion of small household cultic objects suggests worship was largely a home-based practice fully integrated into people’s daily lives. (At right: Ba'al with raised arm, 14th-12th century BCE, found at Ras Shamra.)

The “orthodox” religion of the era was limited polytheism. When kings like Hezekiah and Josiah came along and tried to institute monotheistic “reforms,” they were the minority opinion, and their reforms did not last. In effect, they were the elite trying to impose their beliefs on their subjects, and patterns in other cultures suggest their efforts probably involved some amount of violence (though the biblical texts don’t tell us that).

Monotheism would become a learned and taught ideology after the Babylonian exile. It did not come about as a “given truth,” as the biblical writers would have us believe. The biblical writers came from the South, and represented the minority pro-monotheism, pro-YHVH, pro-Temple elite. At the end of the day, their views would become the majority views, and the ideological propaganda they waged on the pages of the Bible would completely transform the course of Jewish theology and history.

Part 5: The Northern Kingdom (928-722)

The monarchic period was a crucial one in the development of Israelite society. At the time, the land was divided between Israel in the north and Judea in the south, but the Northern Kingdom was clearly the dominant one. The bulk of the people we call “the Ancient Israelites” lived in the north, and it contained the largest settlements and evidence of material advancements. Key religious sites include the shrines at Beth El and Beth Dan.

The north oriented north, and the south oriented toward Jerusalem. Once the north falls to the Assyrians in 722, the whole focus will shift to the south – and careful reading of the Bible reveals that most of the authors of the books related to this time period actually came from the south, and they were writing after the north's collapse. Their writings will reveal all kinds of “reasons” why the north fell – usually having to do with “wrong" worship practices and “bad kings”. These are the biases that must be carefully sifted out when trying to discern a more accurate historical view of what was really going on in the monarchic period.

But … I’m getting ahead of myself. To go back …

According to the Bible, the Kingdom of Israel came into being in 928, and was conquered by the Assyrians in 722. Extra biblically, the kingdom is first mentioned about 75 years later as a force to be reckoned with. This is good confirmation that at least in this particular detail, the Bible is basically accurate.

The North’s history can be seen in two periods: Its first half as an independent state, and its second half as a vassal of the Assyrians. Of the North’s many kings (which are listed in a great timeline on page 2111 of the Jewish Study Bible), eight of them are mentioned in extra-biblical sources. The first one mentioned is the dynasty of Omri; and the others include Ahab, Jehoram, Jehu, Jeheash, Menoken, Pelcah and Hosea. The extra-biblical sources come from victory steles and annals written by the neighboring Assyrian superpower, and scholars are able to match up the chronology of the kings in Tanakh with these other sources.

Ahab was a particularly successful Israelite king – despite the fact he is totally vilified by later southern writers for marrying a Phoenician princess and engaging in all sorts of “improper” worship practices. In Assyrian annals, it is clear he was an imposing figure on the international stage, and his marriage to a Phoenician is proof of a strong political allegiance with that neighboring power. The annals also indicate that Ahab was part of a coalition of Assyrian kings that worked together in diplomatic endeavors.

It was under the Israelite kingship of Menoken that the North became an Assyrian vassal state, thus losing its status as an independent kingdom. The Annals of Tigleth-Pileser III (747-727 BCE) talk about this Assyrian king’s creation of the Neo-Assyrian empire, which included his incursion south into Israel in 732. Tigleth-Pileser (in a relief at right) is considered one of the most successful military commanders in world history, conquering most of the world known to the ancient Assyrians before his death in 727.

Becoming a vassal was not necessarily a bad thing. “Vassaldom” gave the Israelite people access to the riches and stability of a major superpower. However, after Tigleth's incursion, he began shipping Israelite inhabitants to other parts of the Assyrian empire -- a practice that was commonly enacted by his predecessors.

Why the North went from being a mere vassal to actually being conquered and pretty thoroughly decimated by the Assyrians in 722 is not 100 percent clear. Assyrian rulers after Tigleth (Shalmanaser V and Sargan II) continue moving further south, until all of the northern kingdom is decimated. With the north fully fallen, the empire would then set its sights on the Southern Kingdom. But conquering it would prove harder than it might have seemed.

Part 4: The judges and united monarchy

The Israelites of the central highlands were governed by chieftains – tribal leaders who delivered their people from oppression. In Hebrew they are called shoftim, which in English is usually translated as judges.

During the 11th and 10th centuries BCE, the Israelites often needed protection from violence, perhaps because their olive fields and vineyards garnered envy; or maybe just because human beings have a glorious history of being jerkwods and ransacking their neighbors. Whatever the reason, these people would band together during times of shared threat, often under the banner of a shofet.

Some shoftim were military leaders (Othniel, Ehud, Barak, Gideon, Jephthah); some were lone warriors (Shamgar and Samson); and some were prophets (Deborah and Samuel). Thus, a shofet is a term that covers a wide range of leaders who flourished in the period prior to the united monarchy.

At some point, the chaos and instability of living under these imperfect rulers became too much, and the Bible tells us that the people began clamoring for a king. More likely what happened is that a handful of these chieftans began winning greater military victories until finally, thanks to the success of what was basically his junta, King Saul was anointed king. This was effectively the birth of the monarchy.

The United Monarchy
The Book of I Samuel describes the transition of rule from the judges to the monarchic system. It is a monarchic system unique in the ancient Near East, for it is not absolute. Kings are not free to do however they wish, and they are bound to a higher power and morality, which is upheld by the prophets.

Saul was a sketchy king of dubious character, and it wasn’t until King David that the full potential of the monarchy was reached. What were once juntas becomes a full-blown standing army. The king resides in a “house of cedar,” which would be a substantial dwelling in those days. We see divisions of labor with the roles of priests and scribes. And a corvee’ and taxation system is established to support the growing bureaucracy.

What we know about this period from outside the Bible is very little, because the neighboring powers of Assyrians, Arameans, Egyptians and Libyans were preoccupied with their own wars. This might explain why the Israelites had the peace and independence to even develop a monarchy.

That said, there is reason to believe that there is some genuine historical accuracy to these books of the bible (Judges, I Samuel, II Samuel) – at least if you filter through the biases and assumptions made by the authors.

The books were written about 400 years after the events took place, but some of the content has been corroborated through archaeology and extra-biblical sources. This is clear indication that these books were based on earlier scrolls or records, which were lost after the Bible’s redaction.

The only extra-biblical mention of King David is in the famous Tel Dan Inscription dated to the 9th century. Found in the upper Galilee near the Golan, it refers to a “House of David” being situated in the southern part of the kingdom.


Another important extra-biblical source is a stele from the Egyptian Pharoah Shishak (945-924 BCE). The Shishak Relief in the Karnak Temple records his conquests in the land of Canaan, and mentions an astronomical phenomenon that enables us to date his expedition precisely to the year 925 BCE.

Amazingly, a parallel expedition by a king of almost the same name is described in I Kings 14:25, and archaeologists have uncovered destruction in several cities both the relief and the Bible record. What this gives us is what might be called “The Magic Trifecta”: three-pronged proof of a series of specific events.

Meanwhile…
Under the united monarchy, settlements in the highlands grew. Gezer, Megiddo and Hazor were the largest, touting double casement walls, fortified gates, large buildings and little domestic architecture. They also belie architectural influence from Syrians, Hittites and Phoenicians.

We see continued widespread worship of limited polytheism among the Israelites. Baal, the storm god, enjoys an upsurge in the north, and the Yahwists, who dominate the south, start to see this worship as problematic. A growing division between the two camps emerges.

Elijah and other radical prophets start ranting against Baal worship – although that story was written in the south, after the north falls to the Assyrians, so it’s hard to know how much of it is retroactive fault-finding. In both regions, archaeology shows that cults of all four gods are the common folk practice of the Israelite people.

Part 3: What about the Exodus?

If you were even half awake during my last posting, you might have noticed the omission of a small little thing called the “Exodus story.” If early Israelites and Canaanites were one and the same, what about the bulk of the content of the Torah – which describes the Hebrews’ flight from Egypt and return to Canaan?

All I can say is: the Exodus from Egypt very definitely didn’t happen the way the Torah says it did, it very possibly didn’t happen it all – and I hope I’m not the first person you’re hearing this from.

This is the consensus of modern biblical scholarship. How so? Because of the absence of evidence of an exodus, and the profusion of evidence of an indigenous Isreo-Canaanite culture (and I think I made that last word up).

-- There is no record in any Egyptian annals outside of the previously mentioned Merneptah stele, of a people called Israel, of an exodus, or of a series of plagues.
-- It would be impossible for an encampment of one million people (which is beyond enormous given the population numbers of the ancient world) to leave no archaeological trace, and yet there are none in any of the areas where the route could have occurred.
-- Even an exodus of much smaller numbers than the Torah reports – say 20,000 – would have left traces, and yet there are none.

+ The homes that suddenly proliferated in the highlands are the same architectural style found in the coastal Canaanite cities.
+ The pottery styles are also Canaanite (though of lesser quality, as previously mentioned)
+ The widespread use of cult objects, such as Asherah goddesses, and symbols for the gods of Baal, El and Yhvh, all of which are Canaanite in origin, are also found in the central highlands where ‘Israel’ is unanimously identified by the Bible, the Egyptians and the archaeological record.

What modern biblical scholarship cannot say with consensus is whether an even smaller group of slaves left Egypt, traveled to the central highlands of Canaan, and melded with the growing population of Canaanites fleeing the coastal cities. Their story could have merged and become part of the burgeoning self-identity of these people, and in time become part of the collective history.

Given the centrality of the Exodus narrative to Jewish tradition, theology and psyche, it seems a pretty reasonable assumption to make.

Part 2: The real origins of Israel

According to the Bible, the tribe of Israel originated with Abraham in Mesopotamia; he travelled from Ur, north through Canaan, and then south into Egypt. Joseph's descendants in Egypt eventually become enslaved to Pharoah, who, compelled by a series of horrible plagues, "lets the people go" back to Canaan. And so a nation is born.

From the perspective of literary analysis, this version if Israel's origins is probably a melding of two stories: one the tribal history of Abraham and his generation, and the second a national history telling the birth of a nation.

The Bible offers two versions of how the people ‘Israel’ resettled the land of Canaan. In Joshua, it describes a blitzkrieg resettlement across the Canaanite lands; in Judges, it describes a more gradual resettlement alongside the Canaanites.

What archaeology shows us fairly clearly is that in the period of the 13th century (aka the early 1200s BCE), Canaan was settled by Canaanites. Most of the population was on the coast, where trade with other Meditteranian peoples took place (such as the Phoenicians).

Major escavations have taken place at several sites the Bible lists as areas of Israelite conquest in the 1200 BCE era. Two of the five show major destruction in that time period, which means the other three are contradicted by the archaeological record:

Jericho (Joshua) No settlement or conquest in the 13th century
(A town there was burned to the ground in the 14th century, but it
was abandoned after that)
Ai (Joshua) Unoccupied in the 13th century
Gibeon (Joshua) Unoccupied in the 13th century
Lachsish Big destruction in the 13th century
Hazor Big destruction in the 13th century

At these escavation sites, there is no evidence that the conquering peoples came from a foreign culture or language.

The first extrabiblical reference to a people called ‘Israel’ is found in a funerary monument in Egypt in 1208 BCE called the Merneptah Stele. In it, King Meneptah documents his military victories in Canaan in a poetic fashion, and boasts that "Israel is laid waste; its seed is not."

Based on the location of other victories in the stele, it is possible to plot the route he took, and based on that, 'Israel' is located in the central highlands of Canaan, where the book of Judges also places the early Israelites. Archaeological evidence also places ‘Israel’ in the same geographic region.

Where are the central highlands, exactly? Basically in what would be called the lower Galilee today, north of Jerusalem.
The 13th century BCE – the time that this stele was written – was a crucial period of development in the land of Canaan. The archaeological record clearly shows
· a major population decrease in the coastal Canaanite cities and a major population increase in the central highlands
· the widespread use of six-pillared houses in the highlands
· a decline in the quality of pottery in the highlands
· a decrease in imports, or luxury goods, from outside Canaan
· the emergence of widespread adoption of agricultural terracing around small settlements of pillared houses, indicating groupings of extended families.

We also know from the Egyptian record, the Amarna Letters, that Canaan was under Egyptian control in the 14th century, and that by the 13th century, this city-state system had began to fall down. Local Canaanite rulers were getting very powerful and bands of marauders were wreaking havoc on the coastal settlements.

This, coupled with strong archaeological evidence, suggests that Canaanites began fleeing these towns, settling in the highlands, and adopting terracing systems for the growth of olive trees and vineyards.

The history of the land of Canaan is one marked by many periods of shifting populations from the coast to the highlands and back to the coast again. Life on the coast was usually easier due to rich trade routes and soil. The rocky highlands had less predictable weather, too much rain, and difficult soil. But in times of political instability, the highlands are safer and easier to protect, so populations often shifted there during times of coastal instability.

The population shift of the 13th century was different, however, because this time, the population stayed. They didn’t go back to the coast. And for reasons that remain a mystery, at some point these people began to distinguish themselves from their Canaanite neighbors and self-identify as ‘Israel’.

Terracing takes a tremendous amount of man-power. This might be one reason why they stayed. Once they had invested so much labor into their settlements, and began the profitable production of two highly prized commodities of the day – wine and olive oil – there was no reason to leave. The labor needed to make these terraces might also explain why pottery quality took a nosedive in these settlements. They had too many other things to do.

So, to summarize, Mark Smith explains:
"Despite the long regnant model that the 'Canaanites' and Israelites were people of fundamentally different culture, archaeological data now casts doubt on this view. The material culture of the region exhibits numerous common points between Israelites and 'Canaanites' in the Iron I period (ca. 1200-1000). The record would suggest that the Israelite culture largely overlapped with and derived from 'Canaanite' culture... In short, Israelite culture was largely Canaanite in nature. Given the information available, one cannot maintain a radical cultural separation between Canaanites and Israelites for the Iron I period." (pp6-7).

Part 1: An introduction to Biblical scholarship

This is the first of a series of posts I would like to write about the content of my Biblical Civilizations class. The course is essentially an academic overview of Israelite history, based on the latest scholarly thinking, and bringing into mind not just the biblical texts (some of which are deemed reliable and some are not) – but also extrabiblical texts, archaeological evidence, and what might be called socio-scientific analysis.

By extrabiblical texts, it means such things as Egyptian engravings, and Assyrian and Persian annals and scrolls; and by socio-scientific analysis we mean those generalities that can be inferred by patterns in human settlement and organization that are seen across all cultures. An example might be: If you have housing settlements done in small groupings, this generally means extended families lived there, and that is true worldwide, regardless of language, religion or culture.

Our teacher is a PhD in the field of biblical literature. I credit her namelessly for all of the information I’m offering, with the caveat that any mistakes I inadvertently make in relaying this information are entirely my own. This information is also extremely abbreviated, for readability sake. I hope you find this stuff as fascinating as I do!

About the Field of Biblical Scholarship
The study of Israelite history has changed radically in recent years. It used to be that the Bible was considered the starting point of what we knew about biblical civilization, until it was disproved otherwise – but that is no longer the case. There have been enough challenges to the biblical text (archaeologically, extrabiblically and otherwise), that the Bible can no longer be considered the starting point.

**The Bible tells us more about the thinking of 10th century Judeans than it does about the topics they were writing on.**

What is the Bible Exactly?
The Bible is a collection of texts circulated as scrolls that were eventually considered sacred by Jews and Christians. Different communities had different compilations and different versions. The version of the Bible known to most people is the Masoretic Text dating to the 10th century CE, though there is clear indication that parts of it are based on writings that are much older. The famous King James and JPS translation are based on this version.

An even older version has been found since those translations were made, however. The Leningrad Codex dates to 1008 CE, and it is this text that is today published under the name Biblia Hebraica Stuttgartensia.

The differences between the Masoretic and Leningrad Codex are not huge, but they can be significant. It is for this reason the BHS is the text we use in our Biblical Text class, and why BHS is used by biblical scholars in general. The Etz Chaim Torah also uses the Leningrad Codex.

A still older version of Tanakh, called the Aleppo Codex, was found in Tiberias and made its way to Egypt, Syria and then Israel. It is dated to 800 CE, but parts have been missing since 1947. Therefore the Leningrad Codex is the oldest complete manuscript in existence.

Second-career rabbis

Israel's largest newspaper, Haaretz, has published a report on the growing trend toward second-career rabbis. They cite the statistic that 15% of the incoming class in the Reform movement is 'second-career'.

I would bet the percent in the Reconstructionist movement is more like 40% or 50%. In other words, I wasn't the only one to come up with this idea! The above picture illustrates how old we all are going to be before we actually graduate ...

http://www.blogger.com/www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/904579.html

Protest poetry

From the translation of With An Iron Pen, an Israeli collection of 99 poems by 45 Israeli writers protesting the occupation of Arab lands in West Bank and Gaza. The English translation of the book has yet to find a publisher.

Retinal Tear
by Dvora Amir

"All people are the same in their nakedness, as are houses when they become heaps of rubble."*

One could feel there the atmosphere of just before something terrifying.
A heavy engine inserted a blast into the earth.
Into my widened pupils a house collapsed,
crumbled, landing in the eye's depths.
A puzzle of frozen dryness, as on the bottom of a dying lake,
was etched into my eyes. "Retinal tear," you said,
and I know, there are some sights for which there is no repair;
an armless old man flapping his empty sleeves toward his face,
a girl looking for her notebook in the ruins.
And later, the curses of women who were torn from the walls of their home
drilled into my eye-socket, and you told me,
whoever scars a person's home--in the end his eyes will be scarred,
whoever demolishes a person's home--in the end his soul will be demolished.

Translated by Rachel Tzvia Back

*Written by Olga Friedberg in the ruins of Leningrad under siege.

Rachel Tzvia Back

We had a wonderful opportunity to attend a reading and discussion with American-Israeli poet Rachel Tzvia Back this week. She read selections from her new collection, On Ruins & Return, which tracks the cycle of violence that continue to mark the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians, as well charmed us with poignant and painful observations about our modern world. If you appreciate great poetry, definitely check her stuff out. http://www.amazon.com/Ruins-Return-Rachel-Tzvia-Back/dp/1905700377/ref=sr_1_1/105-2045045-8076407?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192305846&sr=8-1

One highlight from the evening I'd like to share:

In 2005, the first collection of Israeli protest poems was published. Called With An Iron Pen (a quote from Jeremiah), it featured 99 poems by 45 Israeli writers protesting the occupation of Arab lands in West Bank and Gaza. The collection had a huge impact in Israel, where it shot up the best-seller list, and was talked about widely in both print and broadcast media.

One look at the book and Rachel knew it simply had to make its way into English. Although she has lived in Israel for 29 years, she writes her own poetry in English, and she teaches English literature at a college near Haifa. She set about doing the translation herself.

One-and-a-half years later, the book is ready. It is, as she explained, finalized in every way: "Every T is crossed. Every I is dotted."

So why haven't you seen it yet? Because they can't find an American publisher. No one wants to touch it with a 10-foot poll, she said, not even the small presses, or printing houses openly sympathetic to its political stance. Most especially the Jewish presses are not interested. "What this goes to show is that expressing dissent or criticism against Israel is far more accepted in Israel than it is in the U.S. Here, people just can't deal with it at all."

their sons my sons

Lost limbs again
this time in a strawberry field

Early morning January sun rises
gently talks softly to yesterday's
rain lingering still at field's edge

where perfect strawberries are ready for eating
first day of the feast festival of the sacrifice
Ishmael taken to the hilltop Isaac carried away

This time it is mother Maryam who does not know
the boys her boys woke early to a school-less day
they are racing now through the strawberry field

The red fruit is full sweet with dew and dawn
is collecting night's blankets day is waiting to spread
her arms around us all in the fields and the boys cannot

say how from where there was no sign a bomb would fall
in the early morning family field the boys do not know their legs
are bleeding their bodies lie still their limbs scattered half-boys

and dead boys none of them know how
later before the funerals after the hospital Maryam
will return to the charred and beautiful

bleeding strawberry field
to gather in her scarf scattered flowers
and flesh

[Gaza 11-1-05: bomb falls on 12 boys in a field. 7 boys killed; the 5 wounded all lost limbs]

Rachel Tzvia Back

Mordecai Kaplan's diaries

Jan. 15, 1931

I know very well what I mean by God. God to me is the process that makes for creativity, integration, love and justice. The function of prayer is to render us conscious to that process. I can react with a sense of holiness and momentousness to existence because it is continually being worked upon by this divine process.

I am not troubled in the least by the fact that God is not an identifiable being; for that matter neither is my ego an identifiable being. Nor am I troubled by the fact that God is not perfect. He [sic] would have to be static to be perfect. Nothing dynamic can be perfect since to be dynamic implies to be in the state of becoming.

-- Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan

New Jewish music

My friend and masterful musician Eyal Rivlin has just released his first CD of Jewish chants on a major record label. Take a moment to listen to some of his beautiful work, and consider supporting a wonderful up-and-coming Israeli-American artist!

www.HebrewChanting.com

and on the web at www.Amazon.com and iTunes

(search: "Temple Coming Home")

Hag sameach!

Free download ... enjoy!

http://download.yousendit.com/D829767911E74A65


Ushpizin @ Geela Rayzel Raphael 1993

Welcome to our sukkah, come and be our guest
You'll eat, drink, and study, sit- enjoy your rest.

Chorus:
Ti-vu Ti-vu Ushpizin ee-lah-een
Ti-vu Ti-vu Ushpizin Ka-di-shin.

Welcome Father Avraham, G-d put you to the test
Bring your faith and hesed, join us as we bless.

Welcome, Mother Sara, Let your laughter ring
Bring your wisdom and your light, join us as we sing.

Welcome Father Yitzhak, in the afternoon you prayed
Bring a meditation, join us here today.

Welcome, Mother Rivka, we've heard your voice so clear
Come and bring your oracles, come and join our cheer.

Welcome, Father Yaakov, you wrestled through the night
Come and bring your vision, help us get this right.

Welcome Mother Rachel, you weap on our behalf
Come and bring us mandrakes, come and join our laugh.

Welcome Mother Leah, seven kids born to you,
Come and bring fertility, help us to renew.

Welcome Brother, Yosef, a colored coat you wore
Come and bring us happy dreams, sit with us some more.

Welcome Sister Tamar, a widows clothes you wore
But come and bring your cleverness, we'll greet you at the door.

Welcome holy Moses, you met G-d face to face
Come and bring your leadership, we've saved you a place.

Welcome Sister Miriam, you danced across the sea
Come bring your tof and timbrel, dance to set us free.

Welcome Brother Aaron, our glorious High Priest
Come and bring us holiness, come and join our feast.

Welcome brave Devorah, you battled brave and strong
Come and bring your torches, join us in our song.

Welcome Queen Batsheva, found your beloved true
Mother of King Shlomo, his wisdom came through you.

Welcome Melech David, you danced a mighty dance;
Its time for the Mashiach, its time we had the chance.

Welcome Grandmother Ruth, you chose to be a Jew,
Come and bring your loyalty, bring Naomi too.

Welcome Melech David, you wrote many psalms
Come and bring your etrog, myrtle, willow and palms.

Fair trade Judaica

In the spirit of the season, I want to draw your attention to a wonderful new resource for planetary t'shuvah -- a new Web site at www.fairtradejudaica.org/. The site features fair trade Judaica products.

The Fair Trade Judaica site contains thorough and accessible information on fair trade and Jewish values, rooted in the exhortation to pursue justice: Tzedek Tzedek Tirdof. It explains how to identify fair trade products, stressing principles such as fair pay, worker independence, safe and healthy workplaces and environmental sustainability. And it links us to producers and distributors of everything from kippot to challah covers to kosher coffee!

G'mar chatimah tova

Run, don't walk

I'm in love.

And, since school is now officially under way, and those glorious summer days spent hand-in-hand with a great book are wistfully over, I'd like to share the two keepers of the season. Really folks, you gotta read them. You can't possibly live one more day of your life without them...

Beware of God: A collection of stories
by Shalom Auslander
He's a recovered Orthodox Jew, 30something, and hands-down the best American Jewish writer living today.

A chimpanzee suddenly achieves "total conscious self-awareness.... God. Death. Shame. Guilt" — a burden he cannot bear.

A yeshiva student wakes one morning with a brawny, goyishe body and is reviled by his community.

A man enrages all major world religions with his discovery of original Old Testament tablets preceded by the disclaimer, "The following is a work of fiction."

God suffers from migraines, stalks a modern-day prophet and appears as a large chicken, among other incarnations. "Beautiful day," an adman says, making small talk at a pitch meeting with God. " 'I made it myself,' God answered loudly."

A Girl Named Zippy: Growing up Small in Mooreland, Indiana (memoir)
by Haven Kimmel
It's hard to believe that someone in their early 30s could write such a poignant, touching and compelling memoir about her childhood -- but she did. And it's a childhood blissfully sans drugs and abuse and psychotic meltdowns.

Less a formal autobiography than a collection of vignettes comprising the things a small child would remember, the book is set in a small town of only 300 people. Her prose is lush yet simple, and it is infused with pearls of third-grade wisdom: "Julie in a dress was like the rest of us in quicksand";

and "There are a finite number of times one can safely climb the same tree in a single day";

or, regarding Jesus, "Everyone around me was flat-out in love with him, and who wouldn't be? He was good with animals, he loved his mother, and he wasn't afraid of blind people."

Redemption in 5768

Well, I have redeemed myself. What better way to start out the new year than self-redemption?!? To explain, I'll need to tell a background story ...

Two weeks ago we had our orientation Shabbaton at the college -- for all mekhinah and first-year rabbinical students. This was my second (and last) Shabbaton, and relative to most of the other people on the trip (the bulk of whom are mekhinah year), I'm considered an "old hand." I've been around for a year. I should know something by now.

This fact made it all the worse when, without any warning, the dean of the college came up to me right before dinner and asked me if I would do motzi -- the blessing over bread. The person originally slated to do so wasn't there, and they needed someone to fill in. Motzi, motzi, motzi, could I do motzi? The words raced through my head like I was on some sort of steroids. My eyes bugged out of my head in what must have been an abject look of horror and I said: "Yeah, sure, okay."

Well, you don't become the dean of a rabbinical college if you have no abilities in social subtexts, and I didn't fool her for a minute. "Are you sure about this?" she asked very sweetly, and perfectly sincerely. "You can say No you know."

I beamed right back at her, bobbed my head up and down eagerly, and heard my mouth actually saying the words: "Uhhh, okay no then. I think I'll say no!" Then, realizing what I was saying was just so totally and completely lame, I added on the equally lame explication of: "I just need to mentally prepare myself for these types of things. I just need a little more warning."

If any of you reading this aren't able to grasp just how totally and completely pathetic it is to be in rabbinical school and tell your dean you can't lead motzi, let me put it this way: This would be like telling someone you don't know the tune to Happy Birthday. It would be like telling someone you need to "mentally prepare yourself" -- for several days no less -- to start a group singing it. It's just ... pathetic.

As the final candle on the cake as it were, guess who lead motzi instead of me. Guess! guess! Her 4-year-old daughter.

Oye. That really hurt. I literally spent the rest of the afternoon pulling aside my closest friends and telling them in a sharp, horrified whisper: "Oh my god, you're not going to believe what I just did! I just told the dean I wouldn't lead the motzi! What the hell is wrong with me!?!"

It's been two weeks, but I have redeemed myself. The dean might not know it -- but I know it. I was up at the congregation where I work in Allentown for Rosh Hashana, and attended a nice dinner with a group of 18 people from the congregation. Without any warning at all, they asked me if I would lead kiddush (the long blessing over wine), whose melody I learned 6 months ago and have never done in front of anyone. I said SURE! -- having exactly zero confidence I would really remember it -- and proceeded to belt out the first line before coming to an abrupt stop when I discovered that the Rosh Hoshana version was different than the Shabbat version. Whoops. Sorry everyone, I told them, I guess I don't know this version.

They shrugged and didn't appear to care. Then, when the woman tapped to do motzi couldn't do it, I grabbed the bread right out of her cold, clammy hands and belted it out in all of my a-tonal off-kilter glory.

And THEN, just to really drive the point home, after the meal I launched into an impromptu rendition of Brich Rachamana (a song sung after meals). And despite being one of only two people in the group of 18 who really knew it, I kept plowing ahead. I sang and sang and sang, and if I sounded like hell, I didn't care. There was pretty much nothing that was going to stop me from doing what I was there to do this time around!

Amen.

Back at school

I must admit, my buddy Erica and I have been a bit bummed lately. Ugghhh, school is starting. Not that it isn't great ... it is. But, truthfully, we still feel tired from last year... Eighteen hours of classes per week. The expectation we will study "two hours" for every hour we are in class. Twenty hours of work work on top of that.

Just thinking about it made us want to role over in our respective beds and pull the blankets over our heads. I, for one, wanted more sun time eating funnel cake on the Jersey shore.

Like all things in life though, no matter how much you dread something, the fateful day will arrive. And it did. The alarm woke me up way earlier than I wanted to get up. I played bumper cars for 45 minutes of rush hour City Line Avenue traffic to arrive in time for Shacharit. I wearily walked into the building, made my way to the assembly area, and was stopped dead in my tracks when I discovered I could barely get in the door.

It was Opening Circle, the one day a year when virtually all of the 70+ students and 20+ faculty and staff converge, and there was nary an empty seat in the house. Crammed into our humble daveening space, the room positively hummed with energy. There were so many people in there, we ran out of the Kol HaNeshamah siddurim, and then, we even ran out of the Orthodox and Conservative siddurs kept for backup.

Ahhhh, it was great to be back. And, as another classmate who was in Mekinah year with me last year commented: It's a great feeling to be out of Year Zero and officially in Year One. Now, just five more years to go ...

My classes for the semester:
Biblical text (Torah text study)
Biblical Civilization (Learning the history and social contexts of the Bible and its authors)
Leshon Hazal (aka rabbinic Hebrew and Aramaic)
Lifecycles (aka how to officiate at lifecycle events)
Modern Hebrew (It's Greek to me; only in Hebrew)
Ed supervision (aka teachers and education directors get together and swap stories)

Leaving the Saints

I'm reading a fascinating book by Martha Beck, a therapist/life couch and columnist in O Magazine. It's about her upbringing and official abandoning of the Mormon religion, with some amazing fascinating details about the inner-workings of the church.

Did you know that Bringham Young University, in its library of over 1 million volumes, actually goes through and censors out any published article that criticizes or contradicts official church doctrine?

Did you know sexual abuse and incest rates are probably far higher in Mormonism than any other religion in the U.S.? (And you'll have to read the book to understand Beck's theories why).

Did you know it is still the official church position that women are lesser forms of men who cannot get to heaven without marriage to a Mormon man (who, conveniently, upon his death, will turn into a God himself, with his own planets and wives to rule over)?

Uhhhh ... yeah ... I didn't know that. Fascinating stuff. Here is an excerpt I found particularly shocking:


Latter-day Saints are taught to test religious claims against their own sense of truth. This approach of learning, encouraged by (Mormon founder) Joseph Smith and his successors, made Mormonism very appealing to the religious seekers of the 19th century – but of course it has its exceptions.

One day, when I mentioned Mormon truth seeking to a non-Mormon friend, she said “Wait – I’m utterly confused. Wouldn’t that mean they’d encourage discrediting Church claims that aren’t true?”

“Utterly confused” is exactly how I felt most of the time I was Mormon because the “seek your own truth but believe in the Gospel” tradition is one huge double bind. It goes something like this: Before you accept any religious claim, you must scrutinize it to see if you really believe it’s true. However, if it’s an official church doctrine and you feel that it isn’t true, this is the work of a sloppy soul, or, worse, the devil. On the other hand, if you accept the advice of a Church leader, which then turns out to be wrong, it’s your own fault for not “discerning” that in this particular case, the leader was mistaken.

To deal with these contradictory instructions, Mormons are advised to use something called “the shelf.” “Put it on shelf” is the phrase used to describe the tidy act of deliberate denial that allows the Saints to keep occasional surges of disbelief from troubling them.

If it bothers you to know that Joseph Smith said the moon was populated by small humanoids who dressed like Quakers, “put it on the shelf.” Likewise if you find it improbable that God gives his favorite Latter-day Saints their own special magic rocks, called “seer stones,” which allow them, among other things, to find buried treasure. Or if you don’t wholeheartedly believe that there is a trio of immortal pre-Columbian American Jews, known as the Three Nephites, who were spared by Jesus from the curse of death and have spent centuries wandering the American continent, assisting Latter-day Saints with anything from missionary work to flat tires.

The improbability of these ideas needn’t inconvenience any Saint who has a sturdy, commodious and well-maintained shelf.

“Leaving the Saints: How I Lost Mormons and Found my Faith” by Martha Beck (p 230)

The other side of Israel

A fellow classmate is fulfilling our school's Israel residency requirement by living in the West Bank and working on Palestinian justice issues. She's keeping a fascinating blog, which is worth visiting if you have the time:

http://palestiniantalmud.blogspot.com/

Home again, home again jiggidy jig

It took 25 hours door to door (including a missed connection in Paris and a diversion to Montreal), but I am back home. Tired, hungry and happy.

Check back in another few weeks, once school has started, and I'll keep you apprised of the latest goings on at school. Thanks for reading!

The B'hai Temple

Today we went to visit the B’hai Gardens – the most famous site in Haifa. It is considered the second-most holy site for the B’nai faith, because its founder is buried here.

The gardens, as you can see, are spectacular. It’s as perfectly manicured and arranged as a Japanese garden. Our guide said that their gardeners literally walk around with measuring tapes and trim the plants and bushes to centimeter-specific guidelines. The architect was a famous guy who also built a prominent temple in India, although, sorry Aaron, I can’t remember which one. I’m sure it is google-able.

Laura, my roommate from Holland, was also on the tour. She and I agreed that the whole place is pretty amazing, but we both had mixed feelings about the amount of money and labor it takes to maintain such a place – and then keeping it basically barricaded away, so it can’t really be enjoyed.

Japanese gardens are places for quiet strolls and silent reflection. At the B’hai Gardens, you can’t go in without a reservation, made several days in advance; then, when you arrive, two tour guides shuttle you through briskly, forbid photographs in all but designated places, and tell you to hurry up and “stay with the group” if you linger too long on a landing. All the grassy areas are roped off, of course, and the few benches dispersed around the gardens are inaccessible. Even drinking the water we were carrying was forbidden, and it was 110 degrees outside.

Eze basa I learned to say today. What a pity.

Laura had a neat idea. Wouldn’t it be cool, she said, if you could enter the gardens and linger as long as you like, and placed discretely on little plagues with inspirational sayings or quotations from the B’hai faith, which one could sit and contemplate.

Yeah, that would have been cool!

Our place

It’s official. All the residents in our apartment have cast their votes, and the verdict was unanimous: We have the coolest group of gals on the University of Haifa campus!

Laura is 34 and comes from a working class Catholic family in the Netherlands. In two months, she is flying to London for her conversion ceremony because her Conservative shul back home doesn’t have a rabbi. This is her second summer studying Hebrew in Israel because, she believes, it’s important to know Hebrew if you’re going to be a Jew. In her other life, she works as a laboratory technician in a research facility. Since coming here this time though, she’s strongly weighing her options. Rabbinical school maybe, or at a minimum, moving to New York and earning a master’s in Jewish education at JTS. Next year, she says, she will come to the U.S. instead of Israel, to scope out her options.

Trish just celebrated her 50th birthday – though she has the skin tone of a 35 year old! She lives with her husband and three nearly grown daughters in San Francisco, where she is earning a master’s degree in sociology. She’s thought on and off over the years about becoming a rabbi, but because her husband isn’t Jewish, there’s no where she can go. And, as she says, “I still think he’s kinda cute.” She’s not sure where her new degree will take her, but most importantly, she is enjoying the journey.

Monique is about to begin the third of her fifth year of rabbinical studies at Leo Beck in London, although she is an American. Her new husband, an Irishman, manages an animal sanctuary/camp-type facility a few hours outside the city. Nigel is in charge of the facility, and when she’s home on the weekends, she helps out. She’s also had the chance to officiate at several weddings there. They have about 40 children – all of them with at least four legs. I’m so jealous. Hopefully I’ll get to visit them someday!

Favia, also in her late 40s, is a French wig master and makeup artist for the Paris opera house. She used to be a professional acrobat, but after a serious injury, she learned her new craft and stayed with the theater. She travels around the world several times a year to accompany them on their shows. She’s here to learn Hebrew, in part because she’s Jewish and in part because her boyfriend has many friends here and might, someday, like to buy a vacation home in Israel. Her English isn’t super strong, but she actually learned hairdressing in Germany, so she talks to me in German, I answer her in Eng-Ger-Brew, and between all that, we eventually figure each other out!

Finally, our one brave Israeli roommate, Hadass, is an undergraduate student at Haifa, studying psychology. Her English is pretty impeccable and she has shown gracious patience listening to the rest of us slaughter the holy language on a daily basis. I’m a little confused by all the seemingly disparate school schedules everyone has here, but from what I can figure out, she is still taking exams and is preparing for a big exam to apply to the psych master’s program in another year.