My Article Was Published on Tablet Magazine

It's a deeply personal piece about my mother. the link is here.

Can You See God Through Those Google Glasses?

(my newest post on the Faithblender blog)

Google has recently revealed a prototype of high-tech glasses. Project Glass, as it’s called, looks like a pair of glasses, except the lenses (actually, an empty space) are miniature screens. As one walks, electronic data, like weather forecasts and news, pop up on the side of the screen; even data about the person you are speaking to can be pulled up via voice command.

Project Glass is yet another example of how technology changes our lives for better and for worse. It will make life simpler and so much more fun; yet at the same time, we become increasingly isolated from each other. Technology has had an isolating effect on our communities; from radio and television, which kept people at home instead of heading out to theatres and shows, to the internet, which has people texting instead of talking to each other, advances in technology has made social interactions less common and less personal. And now Project Glass comes along, and even when we see people face to face, we won’t really see them; we’ll be looking at the weather instead!

Yes, there’s an unprecedented amount of social connection going on today; one can be in touch with thousands of Facebook friends and Twitter follower with the push of a button. However, the connections are superficial, and are all about information rather than companionship. The Bible makes it clear that connecting hearts is fundamentally a face to face experience (Proverbs 27:19). And there’s no question, sitting together as companions, with or without words, is critical to the friendship experience (Psalms 133:1). 

This loss of personal connection also changes our connection to God. Jewish thinkers as different as R. Schneur Zalman of Liadi to Martin Buber have all made it clear that our relationship with God is founded on our relationship with our fellow man. The road to God is built on human friendship; and if Google Glasses obscure our ability to see our fellow man, they will certainly disconnect us from God as well. 

How Should We Treat Our Seniors?

(my newest piece in the Faithblender blog)

It’s a lot harder for the elderly to get respect in the 21^st century. We live in the era of the cutting edge; technology rules, and technology changes daily. To be up to date, you need the latest gizmo, something that is often uninteresting or even confusing for older Canadians. In addition, our video driven culture is all about what you can see: videos, pictures, images. Our society is driven by the visual; and superficial qualities like youthful attractiveness have become far more important than in previous generations. In a culture of technology and youth, the elderly are the odd man out.

Sadly, as we forget our elderly, we forget our souls. A Jewish attitude to the elderly would recognize both society's need for wisdom as well as the imperative of gratitude.

The Talmud remarks that the Hebrew word for elder (zaken) is an acronym for “one who has wisdom” (zeh shekanah chachmah). The elder may not know the minutiae of technology, but life experience has given him wisdom. Wisdom is the ability to see the critical aspects of any decision; wisdom is the maturity to avoid getting caught up in hype. Wisdom reminds us that good values never go out of style. Sadly, in a society enamored with the new, wisdom is forgotten; this loss of wisdom is noticeable everywhere, from bank lending practices to marriage breakups.

But some of our elderly have declined, and are no longer wise. Age has taken its toll, and those who were once caregivers now need caretakers. How do we relate to the elderly who are infirm, who are no longer what they once were?

The Talmud has a beautiful note on this topic. The Bible tells us about the tablets with the Ten Commandments that were brought by Moses from Mt. Sinai; not once, but actually twice, because the first set were smashed by Moses during the episode of the Golden Calf. The two intact tablets were kept in the Ark of the Covenant, and housed in the center of the Temple.

But what about the first set of tablets, which were broken by Moses? Where were they housed? The Talmud tells us they were housed in the Ark as well. The lesson of this, says the Talmud, is even when a wise man loses his wisdom, he is still worthy of the same respect.

The Talmud is teaching us a profound lesson. There are times when we must show respect because of awe, out of an awareness that this person is far greater than I am. But there are times that we show respect out of gratitude. We need to consider the person’s past contributions to our family and community. I need to respect the old World War II vet, even if he longer remembers my name, or his. I need to show gratitude for accomplishments past, because without them, I would not be here today.

Did Religion Inspire Mohamed Merah to Kill?

(my newest piece in the Faithblender blog)

Religion can inspire man in many ways; sadly, it can also inspire murder. The Bible says that the first murder was inspired by a religious dispute; Cain murders Abel because he is jealous of Abel’s sacrifice. Indeed, the Midrash (an ancient Jewish commentary) says Cain learned to kill from observing his father offering sacrifices; the Midrash seems to emphasize that in this murder, religion is the inspiration. Right at the outset of human history, religious fanaticism erupts on the scene.

Religion is filled with enormous passion; we desperately want closeness to God, and are willing to do anything to achieve that closeness. But like anything valuable in life, religious passion is a double-edged sword. Religious violence is inspired by that very passion, a passion that is often manipulated by groups like Al Qaeda in pursuit of a political agenda.

Mohamed Merah, a follower of Al-Qaeda, went into the Otzar Hatorah school in Toulouse and brutally murder three young children along with a young father. This murder truly frightens me, as my own children attend a school similar to the Otzar Hatorah school. It truly frightens me that there are Muslims being taught to hate Jews, all in the name of religion. It frightens me that the spirit of Cain still walks the earth, in all faiths and all walks of life.

The only way to prevent religious violence is by ensuring that both our minds and our hearts are engaged in religion. We need to make sure that the ethical demands of the mind never get overwhelmed by the ferocious passion of the heart.

We need to reaffirm our love for Abel, even before we pray to God.

A Rabbi’s Advice to Pope Benedict in Cuba

Religious leadership requires a great deal of courage.

Pope Benedict XVI is visiting Cuba. For most of us, Cuba is a charming tourist destination; but for Cubans, Cuba is a repressive Communist dictatorship, with a government that routinely jails its opponents and on occasion murders its critics.

It’s easy for a pundit like me to advise Pope Benedict to use his visit to oppose the Castro regime. But protest is a very difficult choice. Pope Benedict knows that the Castro regime will respond to his words and exact retribution from Cuban Catholics after he leaves. While the principles of human rights push him to defy the regime, on a practical level, he has to deal with the Communists. Pragmatically, he needs to make sure not to enrage the dictatorship of a country with millions of Catholics.

Pragmatism is a double edged sword; it can help you survive in turbulent times, but at the same time it can cut your principles into shreds. In the Talmud, a story is told about negotiations that took place before the destruction of the Temple. Jerusalem was besieged, but a leading Rabbi, Yochanan ben Zakkai, defied the political leadership to left to meet with the Romans. He was taken to meet with the Roman general, where he negotiated a deal. But the deal was very modest; instead of asking for an end to the siege, Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai requested that the main Rabbinic academy be saved. He felt he would not be able to get the Romans to end their siege, and it was best for him to take something smaller, but valuable, that he would be certain to get in the negotiations.

For years since, a debate has raged about Rabbi Yochanan ben Zakkai’s actions; was his pragmatism a practical yet wise move, or was it a failure, an act of abandoning principle?

This question is not easily answered. But Communism is different. It is not just a government; it is an ideology, one that is hostile to both religion and freedom. With Communism, there can be no compromises. The Pope’s predecessor, John Paul II knew this, and he courageously fought Communism throughout his tenure.

Sadly, Pope Benedict’s visit to Cuba has gotten off to a poor start. Human rights activists have been removed from a church by the Cuban Cardinal, Jaime Ortega. The Pope needs now to find the courage to stand up to Cuba, and to insist that it give freedom to all its citizens.

During the years of Communism in the Soviet Union, tens of thousands of Jews defied the regime, and insisted on retaining their Jewish identity. One of the great inspirations for these freedom fighters was the Passover Seder, which commemorates the Exodus from Egypt. The remarkable thing about the Exodus is that Moses, even before he became the great lawgiver of the Bible, was a freedom fighter. To be a true religious authority like Moses, you need to first stand up for freedom.

Pope Benedict XVI is having his Moses moment today. I hope he remembers that the first task of a religious authority is to defy the Pharaohs of the world, and stand up for human rights.

Between Syria and the Super Bowl

After two weeks of waiting, it was finally here. Like millions of football fans, I couldn’t wait for the 6:29 P.M. on Sunday night, when the Patriots and the Giants finally took the field. And the game did not disappoint. It was a true classic, and my heart raced until the last play of the game. Ecstatic that the underdog Giants had won, I rushed to Twitter to tweet about the game. It was then that I discovered the following message from The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg: “My twitter feed is half Super Bowl, half Syrian slaughter. Seems obscene.”

This tweet punctured my good mood; I immediately felt guilty. After all, while civilians were being massacred in Syria, I was celebrating the triumph of a group of hulking millionaires in a child’s game. China and Russia had vetoed a resolution that might have stopped the carnage in Syria, but I sat comfortably in my den, watching 22 grown men chase after a pigskin. As the child of a Holocaust survivor, I am well aware of how American Jewish leaders had looked away while their brethren in Europe were massacred. When members of the Polish underground tried to pass on information about the Holocaust in an attempt to rouse Jewish leaders to action, they were often met with indifference. One of them described the experience of speaking to Jewish leaders this way: "Jewish leaders abroad won't be interested. At eleven in the morning, you will begin telling them about the anguish of the Jews in Poland, but at one o'clock they will ask you to halt the narrative so they can have lunch. This is a difference which cannot be bridged. They will go on lunching at the regular hour at their favorite restaurant, so they cannot understand what is happening in Poland." Yet amidst all the suffering in Syria, I sat down in front of a flat screen TV to watch football. Was I any different than those feckless, lunch-eating Jewish leaders?

My guilt feelings aside, it’s overwhelming to live a life of constant sensitivity. There have always been hot spots of oppression and brutality. If we’re obligated to be perpetually conscious of suffering around the world, we’d never drink a beer or laugh at a joke. Life would become an unremitting loop of earnest seriousness. Must we be forced to choose between laughter and compassion, between caring about Syria and caring about the Super Bowl?

Clearly, a happy medium must be found. The Talmud (Taanit 11a) makes it clear that there are times when joy must be put aside, because we need to participate in the pain of the community. It is simply distasteful to go on with life as usual when the rest of the community is grieving. And of course, if you can actually make a difference in the battle against genocide, don’t break for lunch.

But there also times when we must put sad news aside as well. As much as we might like to, we simply cannot feel the pain of every victim; otherwise we’d fall victim to “empathy fatigue”, and we’d burn out before we could be of help to anyone else. The Talmud (Ketubot 50a) wisely places limits on one’s generosity, saying that charitable donations cannot exceed a fifth of one’s income. Otherwise, people could potentially become victims of their own generosity. Compassion too must have its limits, otherwise we’ll end up traumatized and heartbroken.

Yes, it’s o.k. to watch the Super Bowl, even when there is so much tragedy in the world. Yet I’m glad that Goldberg’s harsh tweet made me feel guilty.

The custom at Jewish weddings is to break a glass during the ceremony. This purpose of this custom is to remind the young couple that the even as they celebrate, the world is still broken and in need of fixing. We want the couple to pause their personal joy for a moment and reflect on their obligation to make the world a better place. This lesson is necessary all the time, at every celebration. Even if we want to party, we need to pause for a moment and remember how broken this world is, from Syria to North Korea to the homeless on the streets of Montreal.

Even the Super Bowl needs a moment of “broken glass”, a reminder that what’s happening in Syria is obscene, and we have to do something about it.

What Freedom Sounds Like

Passover is all about talking. No, not just the argument about politics you will have with uncle Louie; actually, the Passover Seder, which is structured around the Haggadah, is meant to be a symposium of conversation, an evening of dialogue and discussion. Even telling the story of the Exodus isn’t quite enough; you’re supposed to speak about the slavery and freedom as much as possible, until you fall asleep at the table. Indeed, the great Kabbalist, the Arizal, says that the word Pesach should be broken into two words, “peh sach”, which means a speaking mouth, because Passover is a time for talking.

Freedom is always noisy, always filled with a cacophony of voices. That’s why the Seder features conversation; we celebrate the evening by asserting our freedom of speech.

Slavery, on the other hand, is about silence. As Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik puts it: “Before Moses came there was not even a single sound…..The slaves were gloomy, voiceless and mute”. A slave keeps his mouth shut; he forever in perpetual fear of his master. And silence suits the slave, who sees no point in complaining and cannot imagine any possibility of change.

We can see a reflection of the slave mentality in today’s totalitarian governments. Citizens may speak, but only what’s approved by the regime; their own thoughts must be silenced. Nicholas Kristoff describes a visit to North Korea he took in 1989: “I stopped in a rural area to interview two high school girls at random. They were friendly, if startled. So was I when they started speaking simultaneously and repeating political lines in perfect unison. They could have been robots.”

These girl’s robotic responses are the words of slavery. In them you hear a soul too frightened to express itself or even dream of hope. The heart of the slave is silent, unable to express its’ own thoughts; only the Pharaoh, the master, the dictator, can express themselves.

The Zohar says that when Moshe arrived in Egypt, the voice of the Jewish people emerged. Moses, at first too frightened to talk himself, eventually finds his voice; and when he does, he begins the fight for freedom. And since Moses, Jews have never lost their voice. And as we sit around the Passover Seder, we should remember that a direct line connects Moses’ call of “let my people go” to the words of Isaiah, and on to the words of Theodore Herzl, David Ben Gurion and Menachem Begin.

Perhaps the most remarkable characteristic of Jewish history is how the Jews never lost a sense of self-determination in years of crushing exile. Unquestionably, the Passover Seder kept the minds of the Jews free, even when their bodies remained in chains. Even during the Holocaust, Jews could speak to each other of freedom, and remain free in their hearts. Yaffa Eliach recounts an improvised Seder in Bergen Belsen. Rabbi Israel Spira, the Bluzhover Rebbe, spoke to the children and said “We, who are witnessing the darkest night in history….. will also witness the great light of redemption”, and he quoted Isaiah's messianic vision: "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned". Rabbi Spira told the children they too could hope for redemption, and dream of the day they would walk out of darkness into light.

Even in Bergen Belsen, Jews continued to speak of freedom. Even in the hell of the Holocaust, a few whispered words at the Seder could keep the dream of freedom alive.

At many Seders, the Haggadah is an impediment, something that gets between us and the brisket. But when you feel the urge to ask “how long will it take to finish the Haggadah?”, remember that it’s words, and in particular the words of the Haggadah, that have brought freedom to the world.