Answers for the People of Chelm and Any Other Curious Souls - Year 2009

December 2009

1. The best answer as to why Chanukah is not a major holiday is that it is not mentioned in the Hebrew Bible. With the sole exception of Purim, only the holidays mentioned in the Bible like Pesach and Shavuot require cessation from ordinary activities. The Books of the Maccabees describe the retaking of the Temple in 165 BCE, more than 300 years after the last of the Davidic line was king in Jerusalem. The Books of the Maccabees are not part of the Hebrew Bible, although these books are included in the Catholic Bible.  Judah Maccabee and his family were not descendants of King David or of his tribe of Judah, but the Hasmonean dynasty that the Maccabees founded did rule successfully for over a hundred years. The Romans ultimately turned over kingship to the Herodians. The Talmud actually has quite a bit to say about Chanukah, including even down to a discussion of the order in which the candles should be lit.

2. The attempt to explain and unravel the meaning of Biblical passages is called Midrash.  Midrash also refers to a specific explanation or rabbinic commentary on a Biblical story, usually emphasizing a lesson or point of law. Finally, the word Midrash is applied to the entire collection of literature to which this interpretive activity gave rise.  The rabbis of old, assuming that no word of the Biblical text was superfluous, generated a vast midrashic literature, including most of the Talmud. However, the work is never done and Midrash continues to be created, as we interpret the Scriptures in the light of modern experiences.  The word itself derives from a Hebrew root meaning "to inquire, study, investigate”. A synagogue is to serve as a “Beit Midrash”, a house of study, as well as a house of prayer (Beit Tefila) and a house of assembly (Beit Knesset).



3. Boaz Tabib is one of those everyday heroes who restore our faith in people. Despite the scarring of his body as a result of war, his thinking is clear as a bell. When asked why he did not make the rounds of the lecture circuit with his remarkable story, he says that is not what he wants to do now. Boaz explained that people, having different personalities, process events differently.  He was at a point where he preferred to focus on his family. He remains centered on life, and is now most involved in raising a lovely family. This is a healthy, life-affirming Jewish response. Others in the audience recalled the traumatic experience of parents and relatives who lived through the Holocaust. Afterwards some Holocaust survivors remained captured by the events, and can think and talk of little else. Other survivors, however, find a middle ground, somehow gain the strength to move on and establish new lives, just as Boaz had done.

November 2009

1. There is a tradition that the Torah itself can complete a minyan. In this case, the leader Dan Klein was quite aware of and content with this knowledge. For a more elaborate or formal event, like a B’nai Mitzvah, no doubt one of us in the audience would be asked to go find others, but for this Sunday service, all were quite happy with this situation.



2. Fred Kogos’s charming little book, “1001 Yiddish Proverbs”, contains Yiddish sayings that deal with all aspects of life, from homely happenings and wry humorous observations, to the deepest human insights and aspirations. With some knowledge of Hebrew and German and some reasoned guesses, it just might be possible to match the Yiddish and English in each of columns. Here are the proverbs translated:   .                   

3. Professor William Schniedewind’s “How the Bible Became a Book: The Textualization of Ancient Israel” traces how the basis of authority in ancient Israel moved from oral tradition to written texts. The two passages on the giving of the Ten Commandments provide an illustration. He argues that the Exodus account, which never even mentions any writing down of the commandments, demonstrates its antiquity because it “reflects a time before books were central to Jewish culture”. This is very different from the second telling of this story in Deuteronomy (please recall that Deuteronomy literally means “second law”). Here God Himself writes the Commandments on two stone tablets, reflecting a later movement toward a literate culture. Remember the Book of Deuteronomy, the last of the Pentateuch and most advanced in style, was “found” in the Temple in late seventh century BCE during the reign of the great King Josiah. By this time, literacy was widespread and the importance of the written word was well established.

October 2009

1. “Jewish Wisdom”, another of Rabbi Joseph Telushkin’s wonderful works on Judaism, opens with an explanation of the four probing questions from the Talmud’s tractate Shabbat. These are the four that are to be asked each of us when we go before the heavenly court for judgment. The first and most important question is “Did you conduct your affairs honestly?”. The Talmud clearly asserts the primacy of ethics and fairness here. In another passage, it is written “If one is honest in business dealings and people esteem him, it is accounted to him as though he had fulfilled the whole Torah”. The next question should be no surprise - “Did you set aside regular time for Torah study?”. Next is “Did you work at having children?”. And finally, “Did you look forward to the world’s redemption?”.


2.  Moses Maimonides is by all accounts the greatest Jewish thinker, Talmudist, and codifier of the Middle Ages. He has been an inspiration for all who wish to have a faith based on reason. He also strongly influenced Christian and Islamic theologians who followed him. In addition to his roles as court physician and leader of the Jewish community in Egypt, this remarkable man was a prodigious author on all aspects Jewish law. One of his best known works, “Guide for the Perplexed”, was written in his old age. This book advanced the theses that science can add to our understanding of spirituality and that science and scripture were in fact complementary. Much of the religious establishment of the time, both Jewish and Christian, could not tolerate these ideas. The revealed word of God in scripture alone – which they interpreted – could be the only legitimate basis for belief. In his wonderful new book, “The Hidden Face of God”, MIT-trained physicist and biologist, Gerald Schroeder, follows this path of Maimonides into the modern world. He finds that the dazzling new discoveries about our DNA and the extent of our universe do indeed provide positive reasons for faith.


3. The reason there was no word for “religion” in early Judaism was that religion was all pervasive. It is a part of everything, not a separate activity, as we think of it today. The early Jews did not need to delimit religion from other facets of life in antiquity and so never gave it a name. As Professor Greenstein points out religion was “not a segment or area of life, but an entire world view that permeated, ordered, and shaped the full range of human behavior. … Perhaps on account of its pervasiveness, religion was not distinguished in the Bible by a name of its own; there is no word for ‘religion’ per se in Biblical Hebrew.  

September 2009

1.  Early in the twentieth century many more millions of Jews spoke Yiddish as a native tongue, not the Hebrew that was then confined to religious services and to scholars. Thus the older mother pleads to her son to “talk Yiddish” like the Jews she knew. Yiddish bound the extensive Eastern European Jewish community together. And what an expressive, nuanced language it is! In the “The Joys of Yiddish”, Leo Rosten captures this vitality in numerous affectionate examples and tales like this one about the tenacious Tel Aviv mother. Though it is practically the only language never spoken by a ruler in power, its sheer genius has allowed it to survive and now to revive.

2. Abraham Joshua Heschel was one the greatest Jewish thinkers – and doers – of the past century. It was he who wrote, “I did not ask for success; I asked for wonder. And You gave it to me”. What a great prayer of thanks! When he died in 1972, Heschel was justly revered by many for his leaning, his poetry, his work in spiritual renewal of Judaism, and interfaith initiatives. Many may recall the famous photo of him next to Dr. Martin Luther King, marching down the dangerous streets of Selma, Alabama, during the heyday of the Civil Rights era.

3. For Rosh Hashanah, the only positive commandment is that the shofar be blown. The first verse of Numbers 29 repeats the injunction of Leviticus 23:24-25 against normal work on this day, and then commands “you shall observe it as a day when the horn is sounded”. Thank you to all the shofar blowers here and around the world for this mitzvah. But there is one important exception; shofar blowing is not performed when Rosh Hashanah occurs on a Sabbath. This year the first day of Rosh Hashanah falls on a Sabbath, so the usual high-spirited activity at Beth Elohim must wait for the following day. But wait until next season! Herm Kabakoff and the crew will be there with horns-a-plenty.

July/August 2009

1. Jewish tradition holds that King David is the author of most of the Psalms. No doubt this is due to his legendary ability with the harp and lyre and importance in Biblical history. Some Psalms, however, clearly must have been written well after David’s time. For example, Psalm 137 is a lament for Zion written “by the rivers  of Babylon” during the Babylonian Exile, a event which occurred more than four centuries after David’s rule.


2.  Many scholars feel the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls is the greatest event in the history of archeology. At least from the point of view of understanding Judaic and Christian history, nothing else comes close. Since the first discovery in 1946 of a cave in Judean desert containing seven ancient scrolls, over the next decade another ten local caves were found to also contain treasures. In total, the remains of about 870 separate scrolls have been found, consisting of thousands of fragments. All are devoted to religious subjects and date from the first or second century B.C.E., before the books of the Bible had been fixed or “canonized”. This cache includes the oldest known versions of every book of the Bible (except Esther), many with “editions” of books never before seen. There are previously unknown versions of psalms and prophecies, new stories of Abraham and Noah, and new writings claiming Moses as the author. There was a very torturous path in making the immense amount of Dead Sea Scroll material publicly available but this finally happened in 1991, so translations are now available to all of us.



3. It seems the ancients needed time to warm up to the idea of incorporating any part of God’s name into those of their children. In time, however, it became quite common not only among the Israelites but also among their neighbors. The Canaanites frequently used Baal (“Hannibal”) as part of a name; Egyptian Pharaohs were named after gods. And for Israelites, commoner and king alike, the Jehu (Jehosaphat) or Josh (Joshua) root was a reference to Yahweh. Elisha, Elijah, and Elihu relied on the other ancient name for God, El. But the first appearance of a prominent name incorporating a root for God does not occur until the middle of Genesis, at the time of the Patriarchs. The name is Judah or Yehudah, Leah’s fourth son, the progenitor of the tribe of Judah and ancestor of King David and his 20 successors. And Yehudah also gave rise to “Jew” and that’s very good lineage indeed.

June 2009

1.  Observing Shabbat is considered the most important mitzvah by many rabbis. According to one popular midrash, “all those who keep Shabbat are as if they fulfilled the entire Torah”. As one learned rabbi put it, this day is God’s “wedding gift” to the Jewish people and, by disregarding Shabbat, we reject the bond with God. Our wedding is off. Other rabbis also maintain that all other mitzvoth flow from this one. This centrality of Shabbat seems a very appropriate practice, especially in today’s overly busy times.



2.  When a wedding party and funeral train meet at a crossroads, the wedding travelers should take precedence. The reason is that Jewish tradition always affirms life first. So in this case the life-affirming wedding celebration has priority over another significant mitvah of burying the dead. Also please remember any mitzvah can be disobeyed or ignored if doing so helps preserve or save life.



3. To make sense of this question, you needed to know that originally the husband was deaf and the wife blind. These handicaps contributed mightily to a happy and harmonious union, since the husband was incredibly ugly and the wife an incorrigible shrew. Before the physician healed them, she could never see how ugly he was nor did he ever hear her constant scoldings!

May 2009

1.Many rabbis interpret Deuteronomy 29 this way: every Jew ever to be born was at Mt. Sinai with Moses when the covenant was given. We are all included among those who are “ not here with us this day ”. Just as we are all personally liberated from slavery on Passover, so each Jew is a direct participant in the establishment of the covenant on Shavuot.

2. The Dalai Lama wanted to learn from Jewish leaders how Judaism succeeded in maintaining a faith and tradition when forcibly uprooted from its homeland. In Judaism's case, the uprooting occurred over a thousand years ago when the Jews were forced out of Israel after the Bar Kochba uprising against the Roman Empire . For the Dalai Lama, the immediate problem today is how can Buddhism succeed and flourish away from Tibet . Before the Chinese government forced him out in 1959, the current Dalai Lama (the 14 th ) and his predecessors have, since the 17 th century, headed both the Tibetan Government and his Buddhist community, from the Tibetan capital of Lhasa.

The Dalai Lama is, in a sense, shaping the modern Buddhist Diaspora. In the process, he has become the world's most travelled religious leader, even stopping in Boston often. On April 30 th , he is coming again to MIT. We are grateful to him for seeking peace in the world…and to Ellen Valade for passing along the Zen Judaism gems. And we close with a final one: “Wherever you go, there you are. Your luggage is another story”.

3. Today Ohabei Shalom occupies a magnificent Byzantine building on Beacon Street in Brookline. This is Boston 's oldest congregation, founded in 1842, in what is today the Theatre District of the South End. They built Boston 's first synagogue in 1852 on Warrenton Street (then called just Warren Street ), which runs off Stuart Street between Charles and Tremont. The next home for Ohabei Shalom, from 1863-1886, situated diagonally opposite from the first synagogue, was the building that now houses the Charles Playhouse on Warrenton Street . In 1887 the congregation moved to still larger quarters further into the South End. And in 1928 they moved to their current site in Brookline . The Touro Synagogue was found by descendants of Spanish and Portuguese Jews, who had arrived in Newport as early as 1658. Boston 's was established by recently arrived German and Polish Ashkenazi Jews.

April 2009

1. For a wine, to be certified as “kosher”, it must fulfill all the requirements noted in the original questions, except that the grapes need not be grown in Israel. How else could there be any of the excellent New York and California kosher wines? Thus to become kosher, the equipment used must be dedicated exclusively for the making of kosher wine, must only involve Sabbath-observant Jews in its preparation, and must be produced from grapes of just one variety. And if the wine is to be “Passover kosher”, in addition it must be free of yeast or leavening products.

2. Only the second of the statements is true. The first Passover does mark, in a very real sense, the creation of the Israelite people since it defined the “community” as those who took part in this observance. In fact, Exodus 12:19 states that the person who eats leavened food during this time “shall be cut off from the community of Israel ”. The commandments about the observance of Pesach (such as the obligation to eat matzah) are not the first ones in the Torah, but they do include the first COMMUNAL mitzvot, like the requirement to eat together. The very first mitzvah, found in Genesis 1:28, is simply to procreate. Chapter 12 of Exodus stipulates that the meal be held on the fifteenth of the month, at the time of the full (not the new) moon. In the Hebrew calendar, the “day” begins at dusk and the months are lunar months, so Pesach was then and is now celebrated on the evening of the first full moon in spring. We should recall that the very first Passover took place while the Israelites were still in Egypt , just before the tenth plague and the Exodus itself, so the first Passover did not take place in Canaan . This is the Pesach Mitzraim, the Passover in Egypt . However, the Exodus ended forty years later with the celebration of the second Passover at Gilgal, just outside Jericho , as recounted in Joshua 5:12.

3. All but one of the events cited in this question happened on that one momentous day back in May 14, 1948. Only the UN General Assembly vote for a partition plan for Palestine preceded the other events mentioned. The vote was taken on November 29, 1947 and, thanks in a large part to U.S. President Harry Truman's urging, it passed 33-13. Nonetheless the tension and guerilla warfare continued in the region until May 14, when a series of events unfolded quickly though not unexpectedly. And the sequence was the same as in the question. Though the British colonial mandate over Palestine was due to end by the 15 th , the Union Jack was lowered in Jerusalem early on the morning of Friday the 14 th . Hours later, Arab armies were on the attack, with soldiers from Egypt , Syria , Iraq , Lebanon , and highly trained crack Jordanian troops. The actual establishment of the new state of Israel was marked by David Ben Gurion's reading of the Scroll of Independence in the Tel Aviv Museum at 4PM that afternoon. Very soon after, President Truman recognized the new country. So as we remember the birth pangs of our country during Patriot's Day this April, we can also be reminded of Israel 's struggle as well.

March 2009

2. The clarinetists are especially grateful for the Klezmer revival which Hankus Netsky helped usher in. They have not had it so good since Benny Goodman's “swing” era of the 1930s. The clarinet is a standard instrument in Klezmer bands, and frequently has the lead. Incidentally, Benny Goodman started out as a Klezmer musician before switching.




3. The Yiddish (meaning "Jewish") language grew out of German. The home territory was the Rhine valley around the turn of the first millennium (1000 C.E. or A.D.) where Jewish communities adopted the German spoken around them, while borrowing many Hebrew words. Jews migrated east as trade and settlement spread throughout Poland and later to the Ukraine , and they took their vernacular language with them. All the while it was growing more expressive and grafting new words on top of its German grammar. Thanks to the exceptionally high birth rates of the Ashkenazi Jews, especially in the 1800s and early 1900s, the number of Yiddish speakers reached 11 million people, or three quarters of the world's Jewish population just before World War II. Today, because of the Holocaust and assimilation, it is spoken by perhaps 4 million at least but thanks to the efforts of Aaron Lansky, Hankus Netsky, and so many others inside and outside the National Yiddish Book Center , it is undergoing quite a revival.

February 2009

1. The word “Torah” means “teachings or instruction”. Literally it denotes just the first five books of the Bible – Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy, which contain the mitzvot, God's commandments. But just as often it refers to the larger body of Jewish teaching.

2. In the great tradition of the prophets, Dr. Martin Luther King had a way of engaging in the everyday battles while at the same time connecting people's efforts to much larger, universal moral themes. Dr. King was in Memphis that April of 1968 to lead a march in support of striking sanitation workers of the City of Memphis . Over 1,300 garbagemen walked off their jobs in support of better working conditions and union recognition. They were paid abysmal wages, had intolerable working conditions and no benefits of any kind, and could be fired for any injury incurred on the job. The strike assumed national significance, galvanizing support on both sides. A few weeks after Dr. King's death, the city did grant union recognition, and this led to further gains for public workers all over the South and in other parts of our country. In the last weeks of Dr. King's life, he seemed to have a premonition of his own death. Some mentioned that he thought he might die in a few weeks during the planned Poor People's March to Washington . In his last major speech given the night before his death, he shared that he “had been to the mountaintop”. He had seen the promised land and knew that we as a people will get there. The “we” includes us and our new President Barack Obama.




3. The Jewish social groups of Medieval times answered the then current religious requirement that certain objects must be "owned" by those participating in a ceremony. A bride had to be married in "her own" dress and had to be given a ring the groom had "purchased". Likewise for a proper circumcision rite, rabbinic interpretation required that the mohel have his own instruments. In the poor Ashkenazi communities, most families did not have the resources to comply, so they "bought" - albeit on temporary basis - the items to fulfill these requirements. Later on the group conveniently bought them back. This system obviously worked well when items were needed neither continuously (e.g. a burial shawl) nor simultaneously by all members of the community (e.g. Passover dishes). More recently, it is worth noting that the design of Boston 's largest private umbrella social service agency, the United Way , was strongly influenced by the formation of the first independent federation of Jewish agencies, established in Boston in 1895. We should remember these charitable traditions in these difficult times.

January 2009

1. Jewish people should be honored that the stirring words of the prophet Isaiah were chosen for the engraving on the cornerstone of the UN. The passage is from early in the Book of Isaiah, Chapter 2, Verse 4. The prophet's vision of the ultimate reign of God, when the lion shall lie down with the lamb and the sword will be beaten into a plowshare, has inspired many in the western world. His messages of comfort are read as the prophetical portions in the synagogue in the weeks following the fast of Tu B'Shvat in January. Interestingly, the same passage also appears in Chapter 4 Verse 3 of the Book of Micah. The prophet Micah preached about the same time as the better known Isaiah.

2. Because of his great stature as the leader - and in a doctrinal sense the very embodiment – of the world's largest religion, every deed and word of a Pope is magnified. And far more than any of his predecessors, John Pope II made entreaties to the Jewish people and to address the Church's role in the suffering of centuries. He did many things that have moved scholars and common people alike. The one that most moved James Carroll, however, was not the most publicized. It occurred when the Pope “stood in devotion before that remnant of the Temple ” and offered a simple prayer at the Western Wall, following the sacred custom of Jews for ages. The Pope thus honored Jews at home in Israel . Because of the importance he attaches to mending the historic breach and ending persecution, Carroll found the Pope's gesture the “single most momentous act of his papacy”. Carroll's own work is also an important step in building bridges between the two faiths. But there is more to do. As encouraged as he is by the Pope's efforts, Carroll believes the Pope's and Church's work is still far from completed. He closes “ Constantine 's Sword” with a call to his fellow Christians for reform in several critical areas.

3. Reverend Martin Luther King had a very special affection for Jewish people, and the feeling was mutual. In fact, during the heyday of the civil rights movement in the 50's and 60's, it is estimated that Jews contributed about half of the support funds – far out of proportion to their numbers in the general population or even the progressive community. It is worth noting that Dr. King also had a special connection with the Boston area. He received his doctorate at Boston University . His use of nonviolent civil disobedience to achieve social goals earned him a Nobel Prize as he further developed this great tradition, rooted in the writings of Concord 's Henry David Thoreau, that India 's great Mahatma Gandhi brought to the world's attention