Excited About Going to Tribefest 2012

Having returned yesterday from spending the previous day and a half in Las Vegas, I am looking forward to going to Tribefest this year (and, yes, I made sure I registered today).  I am not looking forward to it just because the weather should be great (of the four times I've been there it's either been winter or summer, whereas the weather should be excellent in March) and, plus, I'm not into gambling, card playing, etc., so that's also not why I'm excited for Vegas.
       So why am I excited?  The primary reason is the people. Jews [roughly] my age from all over the continent will be there, which will be great on its own and I love such gatherings (it's part of the reason I became a rabbi). First, it'll be great to reconnect with folks I haven't seen in a while; second, there should be new cool people to meet, which is super; third, professional networking; and fourth, making myself available as a rabbinic resource for young Jews all over and, of course, to young Jewish adults in Southern California.

Tribefest 2012 will be taking place at the Venetian

       Last year, I had wanted to attend, but, alas, our second daughter was about to be born.... So, this year, both my wife and I will both be able to attend :)
       Although I didn't hear such great things about last year's sessions at Tribefest, if there is anything decent, that'll be exceeding my expectations.  Plus, maybe since it was the first Tribefest, there may've been some patches that needed smoothing over.  Also, while the schedule was just released today, I also discovered there is a clergy track for sessions for rabbis and cantors, which should be awesome getting together with other young-ish rabbis!
       Lastly, though, it'll be awesome with all the alcohol that there is in Vegas, that'll be the icing on the cake to make it fantastic!

Rabbinic Popularity in the Tosefta V: סדר קדשים

Continuing in my attempt to count up the most frequently mentioned sages in the Tosefta, I have now counted up the appearances in סדר קדשים (for previous posts in the Tosefta, see the following: סדר זרעים, סדר מועד, סדר נשים, and סדר נזיקין).

Unsurprisingly, Rabbi Yehudah once again is the most frequently mentioned sage in סדר קדשים, although surprisingly, Rabbi Shimon was close for the first time in appearances.  Also of note is that Rabbi Eleazar breaks into the top ten of a seder for the first time thus far in the Tosefta.
For a comparison for this same סדר in the משנה, see here.

Top ten most mentioned sages in סדר קדשים:

1 - רבי יהודה

2 - רבי שמעון

3 - חכמים

4 - רבי אליעזר

5 - רבי מאיר

6 - רבי יוסי

7 - רבי עקיבא

8 - רבי

9 - רבי יהושע

10 - רבי אלעזר

For the most mentioned in each tractate, here is the listing:

זבחים - רבי שמעון
שחיטת חולין - רבי יהודה
מנחות - רבי יהודה
בכורות - רבי עקיבא
ערכין - רבי יהודה
תמורה - רבי שמעון ורבי וחכמים
מעילה - רבי עקיבא
כריתות - רבי שמעון

שלשים לכח: Introductory Comments

Both before, during, and after turning thirty a few months ago, my mind turned to perhaps the most famous rabbinic statement regarding changing ages - that of Yehudah, son of Tema, found toward the end of the fifth chapter of tractate Avot, wherein he goes through every decade of ones life and a few other ages, as well and characterizes them.  Regarding turning thirty, he says simply "שלשים לכח".  It's not simple to translate it - there are multiple options: thirty to power, thirty to ability, thirty to strength, thirty to energy, etc. (or strength at thirty, ability at thirty, etc.).
     Now that I'm thirty, what does this mean for us aged 30-39?  There's no simple answer; furthermore, inasmuch as traditional commentators have penned much regarding the earlier ages, there is very little written on 30.  By the way, 30's an exciting age, so it should be a special one.
      In any event, here is what some traditional commentators have written on the matter:
Rabbi Menahem Meiri, wrote (in his Beit haBehirah): "כלומר שאז נתמלא כחו והוא בתכלית הכח יתבונן שלא יוציאנה רק לעבודת השי"ת כמו שנאמר בלוים שלא היו כשרים לעבודת משא אלא מבן שלשים ומעלה".  Rabbi Shimon, son of Zemah, Duran wrote (in his Magen Avot): "למדנו מלויים, שמבן שלושים שנה היו מקימין המשכן ומפרקין אותו, וטוענין העגלות ונושאין בכת".  Similarly, Rabbi Ovadiah, son of Abraham, of Bertinoro, wrote (in his commentary): "שהלוים היו מקימים את המשכן ומפרקין וטוענין את העגלות ונושאין בכתף מבן שלשים שנה ומעלה".  Rabbi Israel Lipschitz wrote (in the Yakhin part of the Tiferet Yisrael) "כבר נתבשל כחו שבגופו בכל האפשרי".
      The upshot is that some of them say that hitting thirty is the apex of one's strength, and they commonly say that there is a connection with the levites who, at 30, are able to carry the implements of the tabernacle and generally serve there.  It's interesting to me to consider the strength element, especially since I took a two and a half month hiatus from lifting, before getting back into it.  For me, generally, I have enjoyed lifting weights and have seen it as an integral part of my identity.  I was kind of sad that I let it go for a few reasons, but it has been reinvigorating to get back into it and I am totally enjoying returning to work on my strength-building, which is very much in line with the Mishnah!

An Excellent Place for QR Codes in Jewish Life: Kashrut Certificates

While on vacation in Florida, a difficulty presented itself to us: we would see a kosher certificate with a rabbi's name on it, but know nothing about the rabbi. Thus, even when there is a kashrut certificate (תעודת כשרות), that gives the [potential] consumer very little information regarding either the kosher supervising agency or the rabbi providing the supervision. Although for big cities, people may frequently not know who the particular rabbis or certifying agency is, but especially so when travelling and one has no sense of the local rabbinate. Now while one could do a quick google search on one's smartphone while pondering the restaurant, there could be an easier way of informing the consumer.

Just as I have suggested for zoos and for Jewish communal agencies, it would be helpful if, on the kashrut certificate, it would include a quick response (QR) code (it looks like a two-dimensional barcode). The QR code that would appear on the kosher certificate would send the potential consumer to a webpage either on the supervising kosher agency's website, the supervising rabbi's website, or the restaurant/supermarket's website.

(As an aside, this would also be helpful in the case of the Tav HaYosher, which would send the potential customer to either a page with information about the Tav HaYosher in general, a Tav HaYosher page with information about the particular restaurant, or a page on the restaurant's website.)

The inclusion of a QR code (or Microsoft Tag or any other similar products) would be a quick and easy way for informing customers and it wouldn't be much more difficult to include on the kashrut certificate.

Rabbinic Popularity in the Tosefta IV: סדר נזיקין

Onward on my quest to count up the most prevalent mentions of rabbis in the Tosefta, I finished yesterday on סדר נזיקין (you can see previous posts on סדר זרעים, סדר מועד, and סדר נשים). Of note, Rabbi Yehudah was, once again, far ahead of everybody else in the seder. After him were the חכמים, followed by a bundle of of the next three, all pretty close to each other. I am listing the top fifteen, all of which have double digit mentions or more. One peculiar note, though, is that עדיות was somewhat anomalous in that there were many more rabbis being mentioned than is typical when compared to others.  (For a comparison of this סדר in the Mishnah, see here.)

1 - רבי יהודה

2 - חכמים

3 - רבי יוסי

4 - רבי מאיר

5 - רבי שמעון

6 - רבן שמעון בן גמליאל

7 - רבי עקיבא

7 - רבי שמעון בן אלעזר

9 - רבי

10 - רבי אליעזר

11 - בית הלל

12 - רבי יהושע

13 - בית שמאי

14 - רבי ישמעאל

15 - רבי אלעזר

For the most mentions in each tractate, here is the listing:

בבא קמא - רבי יהודה

בבא מציעא - רבי יהודה

בבא בתרא - רבי יהודה

סנהדרין - רבי יהודה

מכות - רבי יהודה

שבועות - רבי שמעון

עדיות - חכמים

עבודה זרה - חכמים ורבי מאיר

הוריות - רבי יהודה ורבי מאיר ורבי יהושע וחכמים

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....