Reading Dani Shapiro's Devotion

For our first gathering of Clal's Rabbis Without Borders Fellowship (of which I am among the participants of the cohort) next week, we are to read Dani Shapiro's Devotion: A Memoir. I am not used to reading such books - most of my reading consists of either the New Yorker or academic articles - in fact, this book is probably the first memoir I've read (unless there were some in college I read (but that's been a while)).  This book was both interesting to a read because it was an unfamiliar genre as well as somewhat frustrating to read because of Mrs. Shapiro's perspectives.  As this book was assigned reading to a bunch of rabbis coming together to discuss, my initial thought was that it was about a woman seeking to connect Jewishly and how we can learn from her and trying to reach out to Jews who are on the periphery - I was sort of correct.
       Fortunately, due to my 2.2 mile walk to shul, I read 1/5th of it walking to shul on Thursday on the first day of Sukkot, the second 1/5th walking back, the third fifth walking there on Friday on the second day of Sukkot, the fourth walking back home, and finishing the last fifth on Friday afternoon before shabbat. It was nice to have such an enchanting walking partner as this book, for it was definitely a book who desires an attentive reader and I was certainly sucked in, even thinking about the book whilst in shul.
     Shapiro presents herself in this book as seeking out an emptiness in her life - a spiritual emptiness which he has tried involving herself in yoga but still looking for more.  The most salient expression of her place is found early on (10-11):

I needed to place my faith in something.  I didn't want our family's life to speed by in a blur of meals, schools, camps, barbeques, picnics, vacations - each indistinguishable from the next.  I wanted to slow it down - to find ways to infuse our lives with greater depth and meaning.  My own childhood had been spent steeped in religious ritual.  There were rituals for eating, speaking, sleeping, praying.  I never knew why we did what we did - it was simply the way it was.  I had fled this at the earliest opportunity, but replaced it with nothing.

        What greatly frustrated me about her telling her Jewish journey was how many lacunae there were! If a/the central point of this book is her trying to wrestle with incorporating Jewish practices into her life, her family and especially with her son, what happened on the opposite end, so to speak? How did she drop what she had Jewishly growing up? She mentions (frequently) that she grew up not only going to Jewish schools, but yeshivos, no less, so she presumably learned a lot about Judaism. Where did that go? She mentions that she learned by rote and understood nothing, but then what? That would seem to me to be a big crux of her story - how and why did she drop her Jewish upbringing? She briefly mentions going to college and changing things, but she doesn't mention what caused or underlied that decision....
      I wonder if a part of that lack of description of her drifting away isn't a part of a broader issue of her being somewhat - for a lack of a better term - fuzzy relationship with Judaism.   It seems that whenever it comes to Jewish matters, there is a fuzziness and uncomfortability with what is going on through her telling. Why is her relationship with Judaism so? It seemed throughout that she made decisions about guiding her life in certain ways and then doesn't understand why she arrives at such consequences in her life. It seems like she's gone through life worrying about a career and a husband and a child and hasn't really thought, aside from her yoga practice, much about her life.
     Anyways, she has plenty of frum family members and her Jewish identity is largely wrapped up in her parents. While she struggles throughout with her deceased mother, she loves her deceased father greatly. It is him to whom she largely attributes her Jewish practices and greatly admires. She views him as representative of Jewish tradition.  It is a really dear and sweet relationship she has with her father, I must say.
     As a Modern Orthodox Jew, it was interesting to see that her family has a significant connection to the YU world.  She mentions that Rabbi Zev Reichman and Rabbi Daniel Feldman are in her family (80), but the most significant piece was an excerpt about the Rav (195):

I remembered a story my aunt Shirley had once told me.  A famous Orthodox rabbi, Joseph Soloveitchik, paid his respects to my grandmother during her convalescence after a massive stroke following my grandfather's death.  My grandmother had already lost use of the left side of her body, and had lost most of her ability to speak.  But through Shirley, she managed to convey her question to the rabbi.  why, she wanted to know, would God visit such hardship on an ordinary woman?  She understood the trials God inflicted on great men like Abraham and Isaac, but why on someone like herself?  The rabbi's answer was this: Mrs. Shapiro, do you realize what you're asking?  You're asking to have a dialogue with God.

     She deals with other topics in the book, but the Jewish pieces were the real points of interest for me.  I look forward to discussing it next week when our fellowship gathers :)

Watching "UN Me"

Yesterday afternoon, as part of a Beach Hillel program, I saw the movie "UN Me".  Now, while I attended partly because of my job and association with Beach Hillel, I was interested to hear criticisms of the UN.  It wasn't a topic I had ever particularly given any thought, let alone any attention.  So, I watched.
     The movie, itself, discusses what the UN is supposed to be and provides several in-depth examples of how it is sadly incompetent/ineffective, such as peacekeeping operations in Rwanda & Cote d'Ivoire, the IAEA & Iran, and the terrorism specialist not dealing with terrorism, amongst others.  The movie would've been horribly depressing were it not for the amusing string of humor woven throughout the movie by the "star" of the documentary, Ami Horowitz.  

      One of the cool things about the showing was that Mr. Horowitz was on-hand to take the audiences questions, both on-stage and off.  Some of the students, it should be noted, were certainly tremendously appreciative of such an intimate audience with Mr. Horowitz.
     Coming away from the movie, I felt two things: 1) Thankful to be informed about the dysfunctionality of the UN and, more strongly, 2) Frustrated and sort of upset about the whole situation with the UN.  Although Mr. Horowitz said an important course of action that people can do is to contact our congressional representatives and express our concern with them, I wished more could be done directly.  A severe issue is peacekeeping, which the peacekeepers often fail at doing - I wish I could bring a team or multiple such teams to an area such as either Darfur or Southern Sudan to enforce the peace and protect the innocent people there, whether by myself or, if I had millions upon millions of dollars, to provide for such personnel.  Ah well, I am sure more can be done by people, but, ultimately, the simplest method is what Mr. Horowitz suggested.  

    I look forward to when the finished version is released in the springtime and hope it receives a large viewership.

PDF of Minhah for the Ten Days of Repentance

These last couple of days during this time on the Jewish calendar known as עשרת ימי תשובה - the ten days of repentance - I was struck with a challenge: in the afternoons, I am typically somewhere out and about and I need to daven מנחה (the afternoon prayer).  Now while during the rest of the year, I can do so by heart, there are several liturgical insertions for this time period and I haven't yet memorized them.  But, I was thinking, what if there was an on-the-go version for which I wouldn't need a סידור (siddur - prayerbook).  So, mostly going off of a Word document template I had been sent years ago, I put together a file of the prayers for minhah (also transliterated as minchah or mincha).
However, I know I am not the only one in the world facing this issue, so the pdf version of the file is online here and you can feel free to print it out, download it to your mobile device, etc....  
I have two things I would like to note about it: 1) It is really a simple file and nothing fancy about it - it's just the straight Hebrew and 2) There are no choreographical directions, etc....
Enjoy and גמר חתימה טובה.

Rabbinic Popularity in the Tosefta III: סדר נשים

Yesterday, I finished up going through סדר נשים of the Tosefta in counting up how frequently our sages appear (just as I've done with סדר זרעים and סדר מועד).  Below, you will see the top fifteen sages (for a comparison of everything that follows below, see the posting for the same סדר in the Mishnah): 

1 - רבי יהודה

2 - רבי מאיר

3 - רבי שמעון

4 - רבי יוסי

5 - רבן שמעון בן גמליאל

6 - רבי עקיבא

7 - רבי אליעזר

8 - חכמים

9 - רבי שמעון בן אלעזר

10 - רבי

11 - בית הלל ובית שמאי

13 - רבי יהושע

14 - רבי אלעזר

15 - רבי טרפון ורבי יהודה בן בתירה

For the most in each מסכתא:

יבמות - רבי יהודה

כתובות - רבי יהודה

נדרים - רבי יוסי

נזירות - רבי שמעון

סוטה - רבי יהודה ורבי עקיבא

גיטין - רבן שמעון בן גמליאל

קידושין - רבי מאיר

At this point, I've tackled half of the entire Tosefta, so I wanted to provide an update on who the most popular are thus far. What follows are the top twenty most frequently mentioned sages in the Tosefta in the first three sedarim. Of note is that the top ten all have been mentioned more than 100 times, whereas the next ten are mentioned between 30 and 73 times, so the top ten (and especially the top four) have quite some separation between them and the rest. 

1 - רבי יהודה

2 - רבי יוסי

3 - רבי מאיר

4 - רבי שמעון

5 - רבן שמעון בן גמליאל

6 - חכמים

7 - רבי אליעזר

8 - רבי

9 - בית הלל

10 - בית שמאי ורבי שמעון בן אלעזר

12 - רבי יהושע

13 - רבי אלעזר

14 - רבן גמליאל

15 - רבי יוסי ברבי יהודה

16 - רבי אלעזר ברבי צדוק

17 - רבי אלעזר ברבי שמעון

18 - רבי טרפון

19 - רבי אליעזר בן יעקב ורבי נתן

 Thus far (halfway through the Tosefta), the leaderboard for most references in most tractates looks like this

 1 - רבי יהודה

2 - רבי שמעון ורבי מאיר

4 - חכמים ורבי יוסי ובית שמאי ובית הלל

8 - רבן שמעון בן גמליאל ורבי עקיבא ורבן יוחנן בן זכאי ושמעון בן אלעזר

9/11 Reflections Ten Years Later as a Student in Jerusalem

On 11 September 2001, I had been in Jerusalem for two weeks, where I was studying at Ohr Somayach through Yeshiva University, where I had studied the previous semester. On the day in question, I had woken up late, although the planes didn't crash into the buildings for another couple of hours.  It was actually still during our big lunch break that the planes went into the buildings.  Now, although I had spent the previous spring in New York City, I wasn't familiar with what the World Trade Center buildings  were (I grew up in central Ohio, after all), so I neither understood their significance nor how many people were there....  
There are two other important pieces of the context of my experience of 9/11: the first of these was that there had been numerous bombings - suicide and otherwise - in Israel and we had to be careful about riding buses and going certain places because of Arab bombers. With these planes being led into the towers by Muslim extremists, this wasn't so peculiar, as we were acutely aware of Muslim/Arab terrorism in Israel. You could almost say that Arabs/Muslims wanting to do harm to do Jews and to the West was already on our radar.
The second of these was that, being at Ohr Somayach, we didn't have tvs around - so I never saw the news breaking about the planes hitting the Twin Towers. Moreover, to this day, I still have not seen the footage of the planes hitting the towers. Now, granted, I've seen a brief clip or two of the plumes of smoke emanating from the towers, although I've never seen either the full clips of them being hit, nor have I ever seen any of the coverage. Now, in our day, I'm pretty sure I can easily find coverage of it, but I feel somewhat weird about it, as it would simply be watching an historical event, almost like watching the Hindenburg go down or violence in Rwanda - it's trying to understand a historical event that happened somewhere. In the immediate aftermath of the attacks on September 11th, we heard (whether rightly or not) that America / President Bush had given essentially a carte blanche to deal with it's Arab terror issue, since America now understood, to some degree, what it's like to deal with terrorism. Now, having been at yeshivah, we didn't get newspapers nor have any tvs around (although we could go to Internet cafes and catch up on what was going on in the world, check email, etc.), so I wasn't terribly aware of how people back in the US were dealing with the events on 9/11. However, I remember a week or so following the attacks that I was on a bus (yes, I know not the safest activity...) and seeing a newspaper discussing it, but not having seen anything about it at all afterwards.
When I returned Stateside in January 2002, there were two strange things that I noticed: 1) there was a greater sense of nationalism/patriotism in the US, which was not simply strange, but was significantly different than when I had left. When going to another country, I know that things are going to be different than they are in the US, so I don't encounter culture shock. However, when I returned home, I experienced the most significant culture shock of my life: I didn't expect that my own country would be different when I returned(!).
The second thing that was peculiar to me was that the terrorist attacks in September were still in the newspapers(!). Every day, there was something being discussed about the attacks. In Israel, there were attacks, they got covered, and people moved on. 
Anyways, I would say that we in yeshivah did not experience the same panic that gripped my fellow America citizens in the US at the time and that being aware of terrorist attacks by Arabs/Muslims was already part of our world. I also imagine that other college students studying abroad at the same time may also not have experienced 9/11 the same way those still Stateside did....

Some Reflections on the Second Annual Hillel Institute

A week ago, I left and returned from attending the second annual Hillel Institute. In the spirit of some of my recent posts (including my conference anticipations), I'm going with ten reflections on the conference:
1) I was happy to see more tweeting (cf. picture to the right) taking place at this year's conference than at last year's conference. It seemed that not only that there were about twice as many people tweeting about the conference, but the plenary address by Wayne Firestone had some active tweeting, which was excellent, allowing even people not there to follow along with his address. I am hoping that next year's address will have an even more robust parallel conversation taking place!
2) The highlight for me was the rabbis sessions. It wasn't just hanging out with the other YCT graduates (which was great(!)), but engaging in discourse about delivering Jewish content to the students, which is a core element of Hillel. Moreover, one of the fascinating aspects of the rabbis' discussions was that we bring much different view of Hillel and the Jewish world than do engagement or programming associates, for instance. We are critical of Hillel because we want to see good Jewish identity growing - it's fascinating stuff :)
3) Once again, we visited the very trippy City Museum, which seems to get stranger and more random every step one takes in a mind-blowing way....
4) Wayne Firestone turned in another Steve Jobs-like performance.
5) The Richard M. Joel Exemplar of Excellence Awards and Milestones once again went smoothly, quickly, and excellently! (Pictured to the left: Wayne Firestone speaking at the awards ceremony)
6) When I read the paper that was sent out to conference attendees, I was enthralled and impressed by the author's understanding of leadership and how to employ that through the vehicle of narrative. Granted, my skills as a raconteur are lacking, but it's a tool I need to develop....
7) The bulk of our sessions were "Track sessions" which were based around the aforementioned paper. I think they weren't that great: they were based off of a good idea, but we didn't need that much time to deal with it (and it was a fair degree of writing). (For a more positive assessment of these, see this post.) Interestingly, over the weekend, I then realized it actually was more helpful than when I was in the moment (nevertheless, it was too much time...). Personally, it would have been nice to have a couple of sessions of didactic information (e.g. How-Tos)....
8) Now that I've sort of beaten up on the aforementioned sessions, we did develop a better sense of where we wanted to take Beach Hillel this coming year, which would not have occurred were it not for the conference.
9) There was some great networking there - whether it was with other Hillel professionals there or representative of organizations at the organizational fair. For some organizations and Southern Californian Hillels, it was how could we work together, which is eminently helpful. For some people, it was nice to meet such interesting and good people. For others, it was who I might want to work with me in the future.
10) I got to hear a tremendously simple, yet helpful guiding question of What are we trying to accomplish in any given activity, whether it is a shabbat dinner, class, or Rabbi's Hours? For me, sometimes the answers are so obvious I don't even think about it/them. However, re-investigating the questions and then articulating the answers can better serve me in being effectual.

Overall, the conference was good, once again, and I look forward to attending next year (if possible).

Once Again, Some Great YCT Representation at Hillel Institute

Last week, during our last night at the second annual Hillel Institute of Hillel: The Foundation for Jewish Campus Life, someone asked me about the seemingly numerousness of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah (YCT) graduates in Hillel. In truth, in no way were YCT graduates the majority of rabbis there, but it was noticeable. For one thing, when we began the Beit midrash session on Wednesday morning, Rabbi Andy Kastner opened it up while Rabbi Ben Berger framed it for everybody. There were lots of options of sessions, although I chose to go to the one led by another two graduates, Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz and Rabbi David Kasher.
I've already listed most of the YCT graduates at the conference, with the other three being Rabbi Seth Winberg, Rabbi Josh Feigelson, and myself. And while we have different positions,* we all are involved in our respective Hillels.
Having enjoyed not only the presence of YCT graduates last year, but also the responses regarding them, I was tremendously looking forward to seeing my fellow YCTers at the conference. I wasn't disappointed. Although the foremost reason for being excited to see them was having been trained in the same, special environment of YCT where there was not only a concerned discourse of general matters, but certainly when it came to Judaism (especially in (North) America), an intensive involvement with texts, and overall awesomeness. However, what may have contributed not only to seeing each other being special and catching up with each other, but also another matter: while at YCT, there is a feeling (largely unarticulated, but something that I felt nearly every day there) that we had a lot of potential in revitalizing the (North) American Jewish community; at the Hillel Institute, we got to hear and see some of the amazing energy being actualized by our fellow graduates. Not only that, but we got to hear further ideas and be inspired by each other.
By far, my favorite aspect of the conference was the sessions where all of the rabbis got together (which is another discussion altogether); however, again, the YCT graduates stood out, especially since three of them were Senior Jewish Educators at their Hillels. I could see how the person who mentioned to me that YCT guys were all over could get that impression....
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*Aside from me, there was Rabbi Ben Berger ('09), senior Jewish educator (SJE) at the Hillel at The Ohio State University, Rabbi Josh Feigelson ('05), previously campus rabbi at Northwestern Hillel; Rabbi David Kasher ('07), SJE at Berkeley Hillel; Rabbi Andy Kastner ('10), campus rabbi for Washington University; Rabbi Seth Winberg ('11), associate director at U. of Michigan Hillel; Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz ('10), SJE at the Hillel at UCLA.

Rabbinic Popularity in the Tosefta II: סדר מועד

I have now finished going through and counting up the most frequently mentioned sages in סדר מועד of the Tosefta (see here for סדר זרעים). Once again, Rabbi Yehudah is the most frequently mentioned sage (if it were otherwise, it would be a surprise), although some rabbis who appear more frequently in the Tosefta than in the Mishnah are, just like with סדר זרעים, are Rabban Shimon, son of Gamliel, and Rabbi Shimon, son of Eleazar. Also, Rabbi Eleazar, son of Rabbi Zadok, appears with a surprising regularity. Also noteworthy is that Rabbi Eliezer appears much less frequently in the Tosefta than he did in the Mishnah.
Instead of the typical top ten, I figured it would be more interesting to see the top fifteen this time (see here for the Mishnah's top ten of סדר מועד):

1 - רבי יהודה
2 - רבי יוסי
3 - רבי מאיר
4 - חכמים
5 - רבי שמעון
5 - רבי שמעון בן אלעזר
7 - רבי אליעזר
7 - רבן שמעון בן גמליאל
9 - בית שמאי
10 - בית הלל
11 - רבי
12 - רבי עקיבא
13 - רבי יהושע
14 - רבי אלעזר
14 - רבי אלעזר ברבי צדוק

And now for the most frequently mentioned sage(s) in each tractate:

שבת - רבי יהודה
ערובין - רבי יהודה
פסחא - רבי יהודה
שקלים - רבי מאיר
כפורים - רבי יהודה
יום טוב - בית שמאי
סוכה - רבי יהודה
ראש השנה - רבי יהודה
תעניות - רבי יהודה
מגלה - רבי ינודה
מועד - רבי יהודה
חגיגה - בית הלל ובית שמאי ורבן יוחנן בן זכאי

Five Quick Thoughts on the OC Fair

Having gone today to the Orange County Fair for the first time, I had some thoughts:
1) It was great that we were able to get in for only $2 instead of the regular price of $11. This rate is only good between 10-11am on Saturdays and Sundays, which is awesome and we did it, although I was surprised on our way out that the lines for getting tickets were long!
2) Not enough tables outside: whenever looking for a table at which to sit, they were typically full. Next year, they ought to put out more of them.
3) It's unfortunate that most of the really yummy food is not kosher, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - I don't need fried frog legs, pepperoni pizza rolls, or pork butts, amongst other items....
4) Although the tag line is "Let's Eat", my favorite part was the halls of vendors selling products (pictured above). Granted, this probably was on account of my not being able to eat most of the food there. OTOH, they did have the largest Dippin' Dots stand I'd ever seen (with different options).
5) People walk so slowly. This was crazy how slowly people were walking - I know people are taking their time and enjoying their surroundings, but when you are in a hurry to get to the restroom or meeting up with other people, it gets annoying how slowly people walk there.
I think I would go back (probably only with the $2 admission fee (I don't think I'd spend $11 to get in)), although in no way does it compare with the Ohio State Fair, which is what I grew up with....

Meeting Some of the Best & Brightest: Picking a Professional Dream team

While staffing BBYO's ILTC last month, I met some staff members who impressed me in certain ways and I thought "If only I had the opportunity to start some sort of organization (or head up something), I know who I would choose to work with me and get things done." What struck me was that I had never had such a thought cross my mind of picking people to work together in an organization with me.
For the past few days, I have been at the second annual Hillel Institute (essentially a Hillel professionals' staff conference) and have met several people that, given the opportunity, I would love to hire certain people and create a team. Granted, I know neither the organization nor when nor how any of it would take place. Then, again, that's why it's a dream team - it's not in actuality....
I guess I haven't been used to being in such positions (although having put together some events this past year (most recently the Tikkun Olam Institute) might have influenced my thinking about finding people to be involved in running certain elements of programs and, more broadly, organizations), which makes it somewhat of a new ability to consider.