rabbijaffe

My Yom Kippur got off to an interesting start.

Sunday afternoon. I head off to synagogue for mincha (afternoon prayers).

I sat myself down in the back, starting to feel the intimidation of the upcoming day. The room was jam packed. The prayers began. I opened up my siddur (prayer book) and got started.

My prayers were Divine. I was so connected to God above…

(pause)

(pause) 

And then someone kicked me out of his seat…

Now I understand that people purchase seats for the holidays. But… #1: It is very unclear to me whether that applies to the afternoon before the holiday. #2: It was Erev Yom Kippur!! How in the world could someone begin their Yom Kippur with an act of selfish entitlement!?

He has his challenges.

And I have mine.

* * *

I had an interesting insight as I sat in synagogue for the reading of Yonah (the story often known as “Jonah and the Whale”).

The synopsis:

Jonah is given a clear (yet frightening) directive from God.

He hops on a boat hoping to escape his Divine responsibilities.

But apparently hiding from God isn’t easy. The boat suffers from tremendous weather issues, which the passengers eventually discover is the fault of Jonah. God “followed” him, so to speak, and they determined that as long as he’s on the boat, they’re all unsafe.

Jonah was tossed off, and swallowed by a giant fish.

After three days of sitting in the fish’s belly, three days of deep contemplation, Jonah comes to the conclusion that he must follow God’s will. He’s spit out by the fish, carries out God’s command, and suffers no repercussion despite his earlier fears.

* * *

While I sat in synagogue, tired and hungry, I had this thought, reading the story as one big allegory to teshuva (repentance) and what God wants from us on Yom Kippur. 

We all have at least one major challenge. It’s our key challenge, and for most of us it’s blatantly obvious, but we tend to shove it so far in the back of our minds that we barely even notice we’re doing anything wrong.

It’s our Divine command that we’re running away from, so to speak.

And terrible things happen in this world to remind us. It’s hard for many of us, but tragedy  is ideally a wake up call. It’s God telling us to look into our own deeds and figure out what we’re doing might be causing this whole mess.

And when that doesn’t work, He throws us into the belly of a fish.

The fish? A full day in synagogue. Nothing but you and God.

No sustenance. No focus on meals or guests.

Just contemplation.

And by the end of the whole experience you will discover what you should have known the whole time, and you will hopefully walk away and fix what you need to fix.

And you a have a Divine promise that your doing so will only go well for you.

The other day I had an eye opening experience that taught me a very important life lesson, and one that will forever help me understand what Yom Kippur is supposed to mean to me as a Jew.

I was leading a program with a group of kids at my school.

Someone passed along the message to me that one of the kids was meeting with a teacher, crying because his brothers had just been in a car accident.

I was worried. And remorseful…

And then I was told who his brothers were. I knew them well. They were a couple of teens who I cared about very deeply.

And my stomach began to hurt.

My voice started stuttering.

I felt myself struggling to hold back tears.

For ten minutes I was in the dark, no knowledge whatsoever of what had happened.

All I had was this minimal information, and an overactive imagination that began the process of emotionally preparing myself for the worst.

And then I got the info…

It was a minor fender bender with no injuries, and a very emotional younger brother.

And after what would be a minor event for many, perhaps even a little embarrassing, I feel like a different person now. 

I felt like I’ve been acquainted with so many of the feelings associated with the fragility of human life. It was real, so very real.

And I started thinking that maybe the timing of this event wasn’t a coincidence.

Here I stood between Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur, during a period which we call the Ten Days of Repentance (Aseret Yemei Teshuva), a period where Jewish tradition tells us God is making big decisions based on our merits. He’s deciding this year who among us will live, and who of us will not.

And many of us mention this each and every year.

But how many of us really believe it? How many of us truly feel the reality of our fragile existences? How many of us stand frightened before our Creator knowing with complete certainty that our fate is being sealed?    

I wish I could say that I always do.

But I don’t.

And I feel that these ten minutes have helped me so much. I feel like I’ve been hit hard with the feelings that should accompany me my entire Yom Kippur.

Only I won’t be panicking about someone else. My life will truly be in God’s hands.

May we all experience a most meaningful Yom Kippur. 

This world is nuts!

This isn’t hard to prove. Just look at the news. If you usually don’t, it will probably just take one quick glance to emphatically agree with me. 

Every single day something happens that makes my mouth drop, every single moment people are hurting others in ways that the average person cannot even fathom. 

What does it take to hurt another person? How can you sleep at night knowing that others are suffering because of you? How do you live with yourself knowing that your actions may have caused irreparable, repeated damage!?

And as we get a step closer to Yom Kippur I can’t stop thinking that there’s a part of me that’s happy that the world is so damn insane…

Why?

We live our whole existences understanding things in terms of contrasts. One who never hated could never fully understand what love is. Prosperity feels so much greater to he who has experienced adversity. And a lit match seems so much brighter the darker the setting in which it is found.

I’m not perfect.

I make mistakes.

Often.

And through those mistakes sometimes I hurt others. I don’t mean to, but it happens. I’m flawed. I’m human. I wish I was better, and hopefully someday I will be.

And I live with myself despite my errors, and I sleep at night despite the fact that I’ve caused others pain, because I can look at the world around me and see how ‘not so bad’ I really am.

If it were not for this crazy depraved world I live in, if murders and rapes were extremely rare as opposed to daily occurrences, and instead the average newspaper read like a laundry list of simple white lies and misunderstood, well-intentioned teasings, I might think of myself as equal (or close to equal) to the worst the world had to offer.

And as long as the world continues its twisted pattern of absolutely depraved madness, I will continue to be able to look at myself in the mirror as someone that ‘ain’t half bad’.

May we all be blessed this Yom Kippur to be worlds away from the ubiquitous sickness and awful immoralities of our society, and hop a step closer to the pure and perfect clean slates we all have the potential to be. 

Fact #1:In the year 2000 the city of Shechem (Nablus), the city in which the famous Biblical figure Yosef HaTzadik (Joseph) is buried, was given over to control of the Palestinian Authority, and Jews were no longer praying there on a regular basis.

Fact #2: In this week’s Torah portion we are told these beautiful and memorable words:

“Remember the days of old, understand the meaning of each generation. Ask your father and he shall instruct you, your elders and they shall tell you…” -Devarim/Deuteronomy 32:7

Many, including myself, believe these words speak of a Jewish obligation to be familiar with our history, and to learn all the lessons that should hopefully accompany such study.

Fact #3: They’re coming to the table again.  For what will likely be another fruitless barrage of President Obama telling Netanyahu to not allow for settlement expansion, the politicians are at it once again.

* * *

So what?

What do all these facts have to do with each other?

The answer: EVERYTHING.

You see, I remember it like it was yesterday. Shabbat Parshat Haazinu, nine years ago (!), we were told the awful news. We were told that in yet another attempt to appease the seemingly unappeasable, the Israeli government had relinquished all control over the Nablus region, and handed the keys, so to speak, over to the Palestinian Authority. 

Did these measures achieve peace? Did they even set us a step closer? Have we gained in the slightest by the actions of our former (sort of) government officials?

No! Quite the opposite, in fact. The attacks persisted. Insecurity reigned. The Jews lost the tomb of Joseph!!! Not only did we lose a site oozing with kedusha (holiness), but the Palestinians immediately proceeded to wreck and desecrate the grave site.

During Parshat Haazinu we learn to listen to our past and learn from previous errors. On the Shabbat of Parshat Haazinu we created new history when we sacrificed for a noble but unlikely cause. Now the opportunity is here again. Netanyahu has let us down before, and paid the price for it. May he be blessed to carefully delve into our past and understand that not all endeavours are worth taking, not all advice worth listening to, and not everything others wants for Israel is right for Israel. 

Something that recently popped into my head…

Remember everyone’s favorite Barack Obama moment, when he said that the Cambridge police acted stupidly, despite admittedly not having all the facts, and it being basically none of his business to comment upon? (see 1:30)

And of course the famous follow-up (especially between 2:00-3:30):

What’s the take home lesson, boys and girls?

When a celebrity or public figure butts in where he doesn’t belong, and publicly embarrasses or insults someone, apologies are not really necessary, it all really serves as one big teachable moment, and all can be solved with a beer.

Right?

Let’s take another example:

But it’s OK, right? It’s a teachable moment for all of us. Kanye was probably frustrated because a white person won, and African-Americans have understandable angst after generations of suffering. Obviously Kanye and Taylor should get together with Beyonce at the West house for a beer.

Hey, wait a second…

Every year right before Rosh Hashana I feel like I’m standing on top of a mountain. And I’m constantly trying to figure out whether or not I’m raising my arms in the air in triumph and glory…

or tumbling down the side to my violent and premature demise.

And with each passing year, as I make more and more mistakes, meet more people, and acquire more baggage, I am more fearful of the latter.

I feel farther and farther away from finding the people I’ve wronged. I sense the utter impossibility of even fathoming all those I’ve hurt but don’t even know it.

And that’s why I’m putting out a white flag, and hoping and praying that everybody I’ve ever known stumbles upon it along the way. There can never be too much hope…

If I have wronged you outright, and I have not yet sought you out for forgiveness, please know that I definitely feel bad for what I’ve done. Please understand that if you were in front of me right now I would ask you for forgiveness, and beg if necessary. Every time I hurt another person I despise myself for it, and it eats at me until I can right my wrong.

But if I hurt you and do not know, I am pleading with you to let me know what I did wrong, so I can confront you with knowledge and sincerity of my words or deeds, and seek out the place in your heart where forgiveness lies. If I made fun of you and misjudged how it made you feel, I am sorry. If I in any way made your life more difficult than it needed to me, even if for only a brief time, I am sorry. If I have interfered with your well-being, physically or emotionally, I am truly sorry.

I am not always a great judge of my own impact on other people, and if I have not apologized to you it may very well be that I don’t even know I hurt you. You owe me nothing, but I humbly request that you nevertheless help me make amends with you, because if I knew I hurt you I would have already tried.

If we have grown distant, and the reason is because of something I had said or done, please believe me when I say that anyone who is or HAS EVER BEEN my friend is still very dear to me. You are a part of who I am now, and I would still do anything for you. If we have grown distant because of something that is my fault, let me know. I never meant for it to be, and would like to apologize.

If I have not gotten back to you in a timely fashion, I recognize it as a great fault of mine, and I am sorry. If through my weaknesses in keeping contact with people we have grown distant, I am terribly sorry. I still care for you as much now as I did then.

Please understand my pain and hurt, and don’t misjudge my sincerity. Where I have strayed in my relationship with God, that is between me and Him, and we will have more than enough time to chat about in synagogue this weekend. But if I knew everyone I wronged, in big ways or small ways, believe me when I say I would sit in front of the phone until I had spoken to each and every one of them.

This Rosh Hoshana needs to be different…

It just needs to be…  

It’s a rare treat that I listen to the radio in the morning and a story I hear inspires me to think about Rosh Hashana. Here we are, just a few days a way from the ultimate opportunity to connect with our Creator, to return to Him in perfect repentance, and the ultimate lesson in character development comes to us on the Video Music Awards, as taught by Kanye West and Beyonce.

If you’re part of the one percent of America who has not yet heard what happened, read about it here.

My comments:

Here you have a young girl (Taylor Swift) standing on stage, receiving a very special award for her very first time. You can see how excited she is, and you can hear the slight crying in her voice. Someone jumps on the stage (Kanye West), pulls the microphone from her hand, and proceeds to tell her that her video is not as good as someone else’s.

In a word: What a jerk!

What in the world could he have been thinking? The audience let him know immediately that his actions were not appreciated in the slightest. It’s impossible for me to understand why he thought his opinion mattered at that moment. I can’t fathom how arrogant and atrocious of a person one would need to be to publicly stomp on a person’s heart the way he did.

He represents for me the shining example of wickedness in this world. He represents for me a person who lacks any filter whatsoever which defines what crossing the line is all about.

And we should remember him as such forever. Any time we ever consider hurting someone or reaching for unnecessary attention in the middle of someone else’s spotlight, we need to remember Kanye West. We need to remember how terrible we appear and hurtful our actions truly are.

But we also need to remember Beyonce.

Here you have a 28-year old woman who conquered these awards, who beyond the shadow of a doubt deserved all the glory of her victory. But what did she do? She gave every last drop of it to Taylor Swift.

I am so impressed that on television in view of millions of people someone could sacrifice their moment in the spotlight to do what is objectively the right thing, but is so hard we expect it from almost no one.

Her clearly innate goodness should be contemplated by all. We need to recognize that when we give a piece of oursleves selflessly for the sake of others, we are true stars. We look wonderful in the eyes of others, we make the recipient feel phenomenal, we feel better about ourselves, and God is superemely happy with us.

One can learn how to be a great person from the most unlikely of places. We should all merit to enter Rosh Hashana with pure and joyous souls, having absorbed all the life lessons that surround us each and every day.  

Last week I was rudely awoken to the fact that I am trapped. Modernity has officially kicked me in the face.

I remember just a few years ago asking a student to explain to me what an iPod was, or several years ago when someone surprised me by informeding me that yes, Yitzchak, you CAN copy on to CDs now.

Nevertheless, last week I arrived at the school where I teach only to find that the entire network was down. In a matter of minutes I would need worksheets for my classes. Unfortunately they were trapped inside my laptop, unable to hop themselves over to the printer without a network connection.

So I was forced to spend over two hours winging it through several classes.

Some suggested I e-mail my sheets to someone who could print everything. Unfortunately, that was a waste of a suggestion, being that all internet was down.

I thought I would try and get other work done during the day. I was creating some worksheets, and when I went to spruce things up with some pictures, I was disappointed to find that Microsoft Word seemed to have nothing. That’s when I discovered that Word gets most of its clip art from the web. Once again, I was rendered nearly useless.

In addition, I found myself mildly stir crazy throughout the day, unable to send or receive essential e-mails, detatched from the outside world, incapable of checking my favorite news sites (not even able to update my blog!).  

What has happened to me?

I recall sitting for hours in my college library with (gasp!) books. I even remember when I preferred to do everything without the computer.  Sure it took longer, looked worse, and was more prone to error, but wouldn’t it have served me well that fateful day?

 But alas, I have caught the bug. I am fully addicted. And it seems like there’s no going back now…

Thank God everything was restored the next day…

Recently the Jewish Agency was “forced” to pull an ad because it offended some people. (Read about it on the Haaretz website.)

I want to show the ad and discuss it, because I’m rather disturbed by the final outcome.

 Rough translation of the Hebrew parts:

“More than fifty percent of the Jewish youth living outside of Israel are assimilating, and are going to be lost to us.

Do you know a young Jew living outside of Israel?

Call such-and-such organization and together we will strengthen their connection to the land of Israel, so they will not be lost to us.”

I first started reading an article about a s0-called controversial ad, thinking to myself, “Oh no, what could they possibly have said now?”

I watched the 35 second ad.

Blinked.

And said out loud, “Are you freaking kidding me!?”

I am embarrassed. But not because of the ad.

The ad is fine.

Great?

Not phenomenal.

But most certainly fine.

I am embarrassed that people complained. And I am even more embarrassed that the Jewish Agency pulled the ad because of those complaints.

First of all, my wonderful Jewish brethren, you need to stop whining about every little thing.

This is the second time I’m writing a post angry because some Jews complained about something stupid. (See the first time.)

Someone puts a swastika on your school, OK, get upset. I myself am not particularly fond of allusions to the people who slaughtered six-million Jewish men, women, and children. Being upset is a legitimate response.

But you want to complain because someone has offended you for assimilating? Give me a break. You made your bed, now sleep in it. If you want to be truly assimilated, why would you even care in the first place what someone else feels about it? After all, they’re not really your people, are they?

But you feel how you feel, and everyone has a right to his or her opinion… even if it’s a lousy opinion.

But as for the cowardly response of the Jewish Agency, for this I am truly disturbed.

An organization that wishes to represent the Jewish people, yet feels a sense of shame to publicly declare a dislike for intermarriage or assimilation, should be embarrassed.

I’ll say it, and I’ll say it loudly and proudly:

Intermarriage and assimilation are destroying my precious people. The Jewish nation has endured unimaginable pain and suffering, and have not only survived, but they’ve bounced back after every tragedy to be an overwhelming success.

This is not an accident. There IS something special about us. I’m not embarrassed to say it.

When your enemy hurts or kills you, there’s usually very little blame that can reasonably be placed on the victim. When one intermarries or assimilates, thus joining the mass of Jews who are currently eating away at our people, he is 100% responsible for his or her own actions. 

To fear these phenomena and to speak out against them is praiseworthy.

To fear these phenomena and ignore them is irresponsible.

To immediately capitulate in the face of conflict with intermarriage or assimilation is deplorable, and a sign of weakness that says you should not represent the Jewish people.

I’m not embarrassed to say that either.

Everyone in America is talking about health care. And yet it all feels new to me. I don’t seem to recall ever hearing about health care issues growing up.

Recently I wanted to understand how in the world we got here in the first place, and to collect my thoughts and restate them in a way that even a person as naive as me could understand.

In a sense this is a follow up to a previous post of mine, An Idiot’s Guide To Why Many Of Us Fear Obama’s Health Care Reform.

Let me tell you how my mind was working when I came to the conclusions I’m about to tell you:

Basically what I did is what one might call “root cause analysis”. I wanted to figure out what the problem is, what caused it, and what caused that, and trace it all back to the one thing that if changed would reset everything, and put us back on track, without having to uproot the whole system with potentially ineffective band-aids on top of the symptoms of the real issues.

So this is all how it all looks to me:

The health insurance companies are charging all of us outrageous fees. In addition, they’re making it so it’s often challenging for us to even get insurance.

We can beat them up all we want for behaving this way, but that would be utterly over-simplistic.

They are businesses. Thus they are profit driven. An analysis was made at some point that in order to make the profits they wish to make, they need to do certain things differently.

Why? Doctors and hospitals were charging so much money, that in order for the insurance companies to stay afloat, their prices needed to go up and their policies needed to change.

So the doctors and hospitals are the problems, right?

Not so fast.

Doctors and hospitals also need to turn a profit. And there’s something in their lives that’s making that a heck of a lot harder. Increasing malpractice insurance bills.

Look at the numbers. They’re out of control! But the doctors need the insurance. If they lose $2 million in one lawsuit then they’re destroyed forever.

Everybody should be able to feed their children. That most certainly includes doctors. So it once again returns to the evil price gouging of yet another faction of the insurance industry.

Are we there? Have we found the problem?

Well, not quite.

We’ve already established that insurance companies are profit driven. Well that’s certainly going to be a giant challenge when THEY now have to flip the bill for the previously mentioned $2 million lawsuit. In order for them to make the profits they wish to make, once again circumstances have forced them into a situation where they have two choices:

1. Shut down

2. Charge a lot

They choose the latter, which means overcharging doctors, which means doctors overcharge insurance companies, which means insurance companies overcharge us.

But there has always been malpractice. Doctors have always been (and should be) kept to a high standard.

So what exactly is different now that has sent us spiralling into crisis mode?

What do I consider to be the ‘root cause’ of the health care problems in the US?

It’s what I call the Stupid Suing Culture of America.

America’s culture has rapidly developed into one where the average American feels like he can sue for any and everything, win, and get a huge payout. And this has been proven time and again.

So one person has a somewhat negative experience by a doctor who made a small but reasonable error, and gets a huge payout, next thing you know the insurance claims are multiplying like fruit flies. Some lose. But some win.

But the ones that win are so astronomical that the cycle begins:

Unreasonable (combined with reasonable) medical law suits and big payoffs

Lead to:

Out of control malpractice insurance costs

Which lead to:

Perverse doctor and hospital costs

Which leads to:

Exorbitant medical insurance costs.

How do we solve it? The government will now provide the insurance for everyone.

The ultimate recipe for creating an entire culture of needy, irrational, greedy people who feel entitled to everything.

That’s right. The country where people sue when they are burnt by hot coffee (yeah, I know-it was really hot coffee) or feel upset that the beer they drank didn’t get them women (despite what the ad might imply), or people who break into houses and sue when they get injured inside the house (everyone should of course be courteous to any and all unexpected guests), will now beg the government to solve the problem it caused to itself.

It’s hard to accept the possibility that it’s a portion of our culture that caused our issues, and not a corporation, a government, or some big, bad doctors. It doesn’t mean it’s not true.

Wouldn’t this be a good place to start to solve our problems? 

P.S.- If you don’t like my opinion… SUE ME!