Throughout the Torah the people who we sometimes anachronistically refer to as "Jews" and with abbreviation refer to as "Israelites" are more precisely, b'nei yisra'eil - the children of Israel. So common is this phrase that we don't even notice it's significance. It is a name that brings past together with future, a name that defines the present as a way of honoring the past. The Israelites are those people who are the children of a particular person: Israel, that is, Jacob.
This collective, national recognition of the power of our antecedents to define us, is made more particular in our Jewish names. Every traditional Hebrew name - the name by which we are called to read Torah - follows the formula of "So and so, son of so and so." We take our stand at the Torah under the protection of our father's (and now also our mother's) name.
My name is Yehoshua ben Ha-Rav Imanuel. I am very much my father's son. My father is Rabbi Emanuel Rose. It is certainly no coincidence that he is a rabbi and I have followed that path - sometimes in pursuit of him, I think. He made his own significant mark upon the Jewish life of his community, drawing on the spiritual fire of the Prophets to guide and goad his congregation, involving himself as a voice of conscience in national and local issues of moral importance, teaching Jewish wisdom and inspiration to generations of Jews in Portland.
He built his congregation to a place of strength spiritually, ethically, and materially. Any rabbi will tell you that it is no small feat to accomplish all of these. He is now Rabbi Emeritus but was Rabbi for 46 years at Beth Israel in Portland. Before that he was at Temple Emanu-el in New York City.
My father passed on to me his deep love for Jewish teaching, for Jewish thinking, for the Jewish moral vision that emerges from the poetry of Jewish wisdom. His commitment to Torah as a way of seeing the world is inspiring and beautiful.
As a father he has supported me in finding my own path to Torah. My path has been quite different from his - it has wandered more, it has drawn on a style of observance that is not his own, it has challenged some dimensions of his own thinking. He provides counsel and support, empathy and patient, very gentle rebuke. In doing so he has allowed me to discover my own place at Sinai, a place where I stand in debt to him for his teaching, his infinite patience, his encouragement and his endless support.
My father's way of teaching has sometimes been from a distance. Proverbs 22:6 says "Train a child according to his way." My father knows my stubbornness, and more than once the space he has allowed me to grow has enabled me to find an answer that I suspect he wanted me to find.
Kiddushin 29a describes a father's obligations to his son. They are to circumcise his son, to perform [the mitzvah of] ‘Redemption of the firstborn,’ to teach him Torah, and to teach him a trade, and (some say) he must also teach him to swim.
Yasher Koach, Aba. Thank you.
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Sunday, June 12, 2011
The Intolerable Chutzpah, Ctd.
The effort to ban circumcision in Santa Monica has been derailed. The woman backing the bill has decided to withdraw it. This comes following outrage in response to a comic book that apparently used horribly anti-semitic imagery to criticize circumcision (I say apparently because I have seen a few images from the book but haven't seen the book itself). Some more information on the withdrawal of the bill and the comic book here and here.
The author of the comic book is named Matthew Hess - definitely a famous Jewish last name, for whatever that's worth.
While I'm happy that the bill has been withdrawn, it is unfortunate that it wasn't rejected on the merits. The woman who was pushing for the bill, as far as I know, had no connection to the author of the comic book. So, in a sense it was a fortunate accident that the bill was derailed - this comic book author accidentally destroyed a bill he supports.
The New York Times article contains a confusing and misleading sentence: "...many leaders expect that similar efforts will crop up in other cities." Expect Shmexpect: there is a proposed ban in San Francisco that will be voted on in November.
The author of the comic book is named Matthew Hess - definitely a famous Jewish last name, for whatever that's worth.
While I'm happy that the bill has been withdrawn, it is unfortunate that it wasn't rejected on the merits. The woman who was pushing for the bill, as far as I know, had no connection to the author of the comic book. So, in a sense it was a fortunate accident that the bill was derailed - this comic book author accidentally destroyed a bill he supports.
The New York Times article contains a confusing and misleading sentence: "...many leaders expect that similar efforts will crop up in other cities." Expect Shmexpect: there is a proposed ban in San Francisco that will be voted on in November.
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Black Fire on White Fire
Last night began Shavuot, the day on which we received and receive Torah. Midrash Tanchumah describes the Torah as being black fire on white fire. And the Shulchan Aruch, the principal code of Jewish law, begins its summary of how Jewish tradition instructs us to wake up in the morning with the beautiful and mysterious sentence, "One should rouse oneself like a lion to get up in the morning and serve the Creator so that he awakens the dawn."
This happened this morning, the morning of Shavuot. I wasn't able to figure out what time this happened - if someone has that info, I'd love to know. I would like to think it was right after shacharit prayers.
More detail:
This happened this morning, the morning of Shavuot. I wasn't able to figure out what time this happened - if someone has that info, I'd love to know. I would like to think it was right after shacharit prayers.
More detail:
Monday, June 6, 2011
Gilad Shalit Update
Gilad Shalit is the IDF soldier who was captured by Hamas nearly five years ago (June 25th, 2006). His father, Noam Shalit, is now filing suit in Paris that he hopes will put pressure the French government to in turn put pressure on Hamas to release him.
What a horrible ordeal for this young man, for the family, and for the nation. May he be kept safe and healthy and be returned soon.
More information on Shalit here and also in the column to the right, under "Kosher Sites."
What a horrible ordeal for this young man, for the family, and for the nation. May he be kept safe and healthy and be returned soon.
More information on Shalit here and also in the column to the right, under "Kosher Sites."
Sunday, June 5, 2011
The Intolerable Chutzpah of the Anti-Circumcision Movement
The New York Times has an article here about anti-circumcision activists gaining ground in California.
As you might imagine, I have very strong feelings about this. My feelings are grounded not only in my belief in the centrality of brit milah (the covenant of circumcision) in Judaism but also in my political makeup. So, even if legislators contemplating a ban include an exception for religion, I'm am still strongly opposed to this foolish and offensive movement.
This is a very long post, so I'll present brief summaries of my major points up front.
1) The state must not interfere with rights of parents unless there is a significant danger to a child.
2) There are harmful things than circumcision that parents do to children that are widely accepted in our culture.
3) Circumcision does not harm the baby.
4) There is no analogy to female circumcision, which is something that is widely abhorred in the west.
5) The idea that there is no moral justification for making a choice like circumcision for a child before the age of consent is refuted by our common experience in the world.
6) The philosophical basis for the anti-circumcision movement is flawed.
Those involved with this movement are referred to as anti-circumcision activists, but they should be called value-imposers, and that's how they'll be referred to here until I think of a better phrase. The reason I'm changing the language is because what is really material in the debate is not circumcision and it's harm - they are welcome to try to persuade whomever wants to listen. What is significant about the movement is that these people seek to impose their own values on others.
Here's why the value-imposers are terribly wrong:
1) The state needs to be kept very, very far away from the relationship between parents and children. Are there limits? Obviously, there are. The state must intervene if a child is being abused, if parents are so neglectful that the child is in danger, etcetera. But there is no basis for making this argument about circumcision. The burden of proof must remain on those who want to dictate to other people what decisions they can make for their families - not on parents who are choosing a medically accepted practice that causes no harm.
2) There are far greater harms that a parent can do to a child - should the state prevent parents from piercing the ears of little boys and girls? Of course not, but ear piercing is a purely decorative practice, it does not have any health arguments on its side (as circumcision does), nor does it have thousands of years of cultural tradition behind it. Should the state make it illegal for parents to feed junk food to babies? I've seen babies that are clearly not eating healthfully and are way too fat at a very young age. Those parents are doing far more harm to their child than circumcision does. What would be the argument against state interference in the diet of the baby? What about the choice to expose children to the wildly materialistic values inculcated by television? While I don't judge it, nor would I ever have the chutzpah to seek to make the state prevent it, I believe that it is obviously and demonstrably true that parents who expose young children to television are doing far, far more damage to their children than I've done to my sons by circumcision. The logic of the value-imposers would dictate that children should be age 18 before they can watch.
3) Circumcision does not harm the baby. Those who are attempting to impose their personal beliefs on others like to call it male genital mutilation. It is not. It does not change the essential function of the sexual organ of the child. Yes, it does change the appearance, and what I find interesting about this is that if this is the basis of calling it mutilation - which it must be, since no harm to the function of the penis comes from circumcision - then it is quite tellingly a particularistic and biased movement. It is using the aesthetic standards of a particular culture, of North America, protestant/secular culture, in the 21st century, to make judgments about what is right.
Billions of healthy males have lived healthy lives - sexual and otherwise - for thousands of years with this practice. And yet the value-imposers would have us believe that suddenly this should be considered an intolerable harm imposed upon a child?
4) The value-imposers want to you associate circumcision with female genital mutilation, as though these two things are the same (When someone's argument depends on discrediting by association, you know they are on the losing side of the argument). Female genital mutilation falls in a different category - it is, in fact, mutilation. Here's why the two are essentially different. First, the female genital mutilation I have heard of (I believe there are other kinds) involves removal of the clitoris, permanently and drastically altering the future sexual function of the baby to whom it is done. The difference between the sexual life of a woman with a clitoris and without is fundamental and vast. There is no way to make the argument that anything similar happens with a male. Circumcised males lead full and complete sexual lives. Second, the practice of removing the clitoris takes place in patriarchal societies in which women have very little power and the most significant choices in life are determined for them by men. Male circumcision is practiced on males in cultures that are overwhelmingly patriarchal and come from patriarchal traditions in which men are the ones who have made the rules and norms. Patriarchy isn't something to be proud of, but the point is that we're talking about a (harmless) practice that affects the most powerful people within the society. Males in North America, whether secular, protestant, Muslim, or Christian, are at a power advantage in the society, and circumcision cannot be seen as an expression of oppression.
5) Finally, we hear all the time that we mustn't do something to a child until they are old enough to decide for themselves. If they want to circumcise themselves at age 18, they may. This argument is impossible for me to take seriously. It is revealingly blind and naive. Is there such a thing as an infant who makes choices for him or herself? Did they choose to grow up in families in North America? Might they not be better off somewhere else - a place with more balance between work and leisure? The United States is nowhere near the top of the happiness indices that have developed over the last few years, indices which compare the relative happiness of the populations. My sons did not choose to grow up in this culture in which happiness is a bit further out of reach than elsewhere. But their life here is just a fact.
Parents many all of the most significant choices in a child's life for the child, choices that will define the boundaries of the child's life, their intellectual environment, their values, etcetera. Raising a child in an environment in which it is normal to play video games, or only listen to Britney Spears without exposure to much more complex and beautiful art does more damage to a child than an essentially harmless snip.
There are of course, thousands of other examples of very significant aspects of life that are chosen for us, not by us. Circumcision is a slight ritual that simply affirms and recognizes this reality - a reality that, for me, has religious significance. That we are NOT essentially free to choose essential aspects of ourselves and our identity - whether our culture, our DNA, our religion, our secularism - is to me an essential feature of existence. Westerners are deeply uncomfortable with this existential fact. Our entire political philosophy, the entire idea of the social contract, is founded upon the notion that a person attains total freedom when they are left alone by all others, when no decision is made for them. This is a fantasy that exists only in theory.
I am not suggesting that there is an analogy here between choosing to circumcise your child and passing on your DNA, or raising your child in a given country. My point is to identify what I think is the philosophical foundation of the value-imposers. I believe that these people are beholden to a false notion about what constitutes freedom, and choice. They consider this falsity (that a person should choose everything that happens to them) to be a universal truth, and therefore they believe they have the right to impose it on others. My point is that the philosophical foundation for their outlooks is wrong. The world isn't like that.
Should we hand over to the state these acts that have a much greater impact (and greater harm) on the child? Why not? Is the answer 1) that there is some essential difference between circumcision and other forms of harm that we impose on children? Or is it 2) that banning these other commonly accepted practices just wouldn't be practical? That is, we'd like to create laws to ban all harm that a parent might do, but it isn't politically feasible. If the answer of the value-imposers is answer #1, they have an obligation to explain their reasoning - because it is hard to imagine what it would be. If it's #2, then we should all - regardless of our religious tradition, political affiliation, or cultural traditions - be very afraid of the value-imposers, because they would be speaking the language of dangerous fundamentalists.
More to come on this topic, for sure.
As you might imagine, I have very strong feelings about this. My feelings are grounded not only in my belief in the centrality of brit milah (the covenant of circumcision) in Judaism but also in my political makeup. So, even if legislators contemplating a ban include an exception for religion, I'm am still strongly opposed to this foolish and offensive movement.
This is a very long post, so I'll present brief summaries of my major points up front.
1) The state must not interfere with rights of parents unless there is a significant danger to a child.
2) There are harmful things than circumcision that parents do to children that are widely accepted in our culture.
3) Circumcision does not harm the baby.
4) There is no analogy to female circumcision, which is something that is widely abhorred in the west.
5) The idea that there is no moral justification for making a choice like circumcision for a child before the age of consent is refuted by our common experience in the world.
6) The philosophical basis for the anti-circumcision movement is flawed.
Those involved with this movement are referred to as anti-circumcision activists, but they should be called value-imposers, and that's how they'll be referred to here until I think of a better phrase. The reason I'm changing the language is because what is really material in the debate is not circumcision and it's harm - they are welcome to try to persuade whomever wants to listen. What is significant about the movement is that these people seek to impose their own values on others.
Here's why the value-imposers are terribly wrong:
1) The state needs to be kept very, very far away from the relationship between parents and children. Are there limits? Obviously, there are. The state must intervene if a child is being abused, if parents are so neglectful that the child is in danger, etcetera. But there is no basis for making this argument about circumcision. The burden of proof must remain on those who want to dictate to other people what decisions they can make for their families - not on parents who are choosing a medically accepted practice that causes no harm.
2) There are far greater harms that a parent can do to a child - should the state prevent parents from piercing the ears of little boys and girls? Of course not, but ear piercing is a purely decorative practice, it does not have any health arguments on its side (as circumcision does), nor does it have thousands of years of cultural tradition behind it. Should the state make it illegal for parents to feed junk food to babies? I've seen babies that are clearly not eating healthfully and are way too fat at a very young age. Those parents are doing far more harm to their child than circumcision does. What would be the argument against state interference in the diet of the baby? What about the choice to expose children to the wildly materialistic values inculcated by television? While I don't judge it, nor would I ever have the chutzpah to seek to make the state prevent it, I believe that it is obviously and demonstrably true that parents who expose young children to television are doing far, far more damage to their children than I've done to my sons by circumcision. The logic of the value-imposers would dictate that children should be age 18 before they can watch.
3) Circumcision does not harm the baby. Those who are attempting to impose their personal beliefs on others like to call it male genital mutilation. It is not. It does not change the essential function of the sexual organ of the child. Yes, it does change the appearance, and what I find interesting about this is that if this is the basis of calling it mutilation - which it must be, since no harm to the function of the penis comes from circumcision - then it is quite tellingly a particularistic and biased movement. It is using the aesthetic standards of a particular culture, of North America, protestant/secular culture, in the 21st century, to make judgments about what is right.
Billions of healthy males have lived healthy lives - sexual and otherwise - for thousands of years with this practice. And yet the value-imposers would have us believe that suddenly this should be considered an intolerable harm imposed upon a child?
4) The value-imposers want to you associate circumcision with female genital mutilation, as though these two things are the same (When someone's argument depends on discrediting by association, you know they are on the losing side of the argument). Female genital mutilation falls in a different category - it is, in fact, mutilation. Here's why the two are essentially different. First, the female genital mutilation I have heard of (I believe there are other kinds) involves removal of the clitoris, permanently and drastically altering the future sexual function of the baby to whom it is done. The difference between the sexual life of a woman with a clitoris and without is fundamental and vast. There is no way to make the argument that anything similar happens with a male. Circumcised males lead full and complete sexual lives. Second, the practice of removing the clitoris takes place in patriarchal societies in which women have very little power and the most significant choices in life are determined for them by men. Male circumcision is practiced on males in cultures that are overwhelmingly patriarchal and come from patriarchal traditions in which men are the ones who have made the rules and norms. Patriarchy isn't something to be proud of, but the point is that we're talking about a (harmless) practice that affects the most powerful people within the society. Males in North America, whether secular, protestant, Muslim, or Christian, are at a power advantage in the society, and circumcision cannot be seen as an expression of oppression.
5) Finally, we hear all the time that we mustn't do something to a child until they are old enough to decide for themselves. If they want to circumcise themselves at age 18, they may. This argument is impossible for me to take seriously. It is revealingly blind and naive. Is there such a thing as an infant who makes choices for him or herself? Did they choose to grow up in families in North America? Might they not be better off somewhere else - a place with more balance between work and leisure? The United States is nowhere near the top of the happiness indices that have developed over the last few years, indices which compare the relative happiness of the populations. My sons did not choose to grow up in this culture in which happiness is a bit further out of reach than elsewhere. But their life here is just a fact.
Parents many all of the most significant choices in a child's life for the child, choices that will define the boundaries of the child's life, their intellectual environment, their values, etcetera. Raising a child in an environment in which it is normal to play video games, or only listen to Britney Spears without exposure to much more complex and beautiful art does more damage to a child than an essentially harmless snip.
There are of course, thousands of other examples of very significant aspects of life that are chosen for us, not by us. Circumcision is a slight ritual that simply affirms and recognizes this reality - a reality that, for me, has religious significance. That we are NOT essentially free to choose essential aspects of ourselves and our identity - whether our culture, our DNA, our religion, our secularism - is to me an essential feature of existence. Westerners are deeply uncomfortable with this existential fact. Our entire political philosophy, the entire idea of the social contract, is founded upon the notion that a person attains total freedom when they are left alone by all others, when no decision is made for them. This is a fantasy that exists only in theory.
I am not suggesting that there is an analogy here between choosing to circumcise your child and passing on your DNA, or raising your child in a given country. My point is to identify what I think is the philosophical foundation of the value-imposers. I believe that these people are beholden to a false notion about what constitutes freedom, and choice. They consider this falsity (that a person should choose everything that happens to them) to be a universal truth, and therefore they believe they have the right to impose it on others. My point is that the philosophical foundation for their outlooks is wrong. The world isn't like that.
Should we hand over to the state these acts that have a much greater impact (and greater harm) on the child? Why not? Is the answer 1) that there is some essential difference between circumcision and other forms of harm that we impose on children? Or is it 2) that banning these other commonly accepted practices just wouldn't be practical? That is, we'd like to create laws to ban all harm that a parent might do, but it isn't politically feasible. If the answer of the value-imposers is answer #1, they have an obligation to explain their reasoning - because it is hard to imagine what it would be. If it's #2, then we should all - regardless of our religious tradition, political affiliation, or cultural traditions - be very afraid of the value-imposers, because they would be speaking the language of dangerous fundamentalists.
More to come on this topic, for sure.
Friday, June 3, 2011
All Night Long - Shavuot
Please join us for what will be an amazing night, on June 7th at 8:30 pm at Rembrandt Yard, 1301 Spruce in Boulder. Traditional learning, yoga, music (Mark Megibow from FACE), rabbis leading discussions on finding Jewish meaning, Coffee by Ozo, ice cream, cheesecake, cereal and more. Hope to see you there. (Click on the image to see a bigger version) 
Thursday, June 2, 2011
What's the Deal in Israel? Ctd.
One of the things I'm becoming interested in is how we talk about Israel within the Jewish community. What parts of the discussion are "out of the question," or "beyond the pale" in the debate? I'm interested in this for two reasons. Philosophically I see deep and powerful and open debate as essential virtue in Jewish life; I see it as a religious principal, really.
Practically, I think that Israel's future depends on our being able to talk in an open way about what is best for Israel. It depends on our not branding anyone as an "Israel hater" if they make an argument about what is best for Israel's future.
Along these lines, as I indicated in a previous post ("What's the Deal in Israel?"), I was pretty confused by the response of many American Jews to President Obama's proposal of using the 1967 lines as the basis for negotiations ("with land swaps," as he put it). This was something that has been part of the discussion for years, it has been the basis of previous negotiations that Israel has participated in, it was the de facto position of the previous two American Administrations....and now everyone is outraged at Obama.
To add to my confusion, I just read an article in which Meir Dagan, the former head of Mossad (Israeli intelligence), urges a return to the 1967 borders and pursuit of the Saudi Peace Plan from 2002.
The point here is not that Dagan is necessarily correct (I happen to think that he is) but that you have the former head of Mossad using the same language as Obama used - language that caused Presidential candidate Mitt Romney to say that Obama was throwing Israel "under the bus."
Does that mean that the former head of Mossad is throwing Israel under the bus? Does he hate Israel? I would hate to be the person to tell Dagan that he's an Israel-hater. This is a guy who headed an elite military unit in combating PLO violence, and who the right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had enough faith in to appoint to head Mossad.
I think the message from the history of actual negotiations, and from the criticism of the present leadership offered by Dagan and many others, is that there is not just one set of solutions that can be considered "pro-Israel."
I think we have to be careful about slinging arrows about people on the Israel issue. Because in Israel, many extremely committed, extremely thoughtful people, from intellectuals to soldiers, people who have put their lives on the line for Israel and whose lives are wrapped up with its future, often propose ideas that over here get you branded as naive at best, or even worse, an enemy of Israel.
Practically, I think that Israel's future depends on our being able to talk in an open way about what is best for Israel. It depends on our not branding anyone as an "Israel hater" if they make an argument about what is best for Israel's future.
Along these lines, as I indicated in a previous post ("What's the Deal in Israel?"), I was pretty confused by the response of many American Jews to President Obama's proposal of using the 1967 lines as the basis for negotiations ("with land swaps," as he put it). This was something that has been part of the discussion for years, it has been the basis of previous negotiations that Israel has participated in, it was the de facto position of the previous two American Administrations....and now everyone is outraged at Obama.
To add to my confusion, I just read an article in which Meir Dagan, the former head of Mossad (Israeli intelligence), urges a return to the 1967 borders and pursuit of the Saudi Peace Plan from 2002.
The point here is not that Dagan is necessarily correct (I happen to think that he is) but that you have the former head of Mossad using the same language as Obama used - language that caused Presidential candidate Mitt Romney to say that Obama was throwing Israel "under the bus."
Does that mean that the former head of Mossad is throwing Israel under the bus? Does he hate Israel? I would hate to be the person to tell Dagan that he's an Israel-hater. This is a guy who headed an elite military unit in combating PLO violence, and who the right-wing Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had enough faith in to appoint to head Mossad.
I think the message from the history of actual negotiations, and from the criticism of the present leadership offered by Dagan and many others, is that there is not just one set of solutions that can be considered "pro-Israel."
I think we have to be careful about slinging arrows about people on the Israel issue. Because in Israel, many extremely committed, extremely thoughtful people, from intellectuals to soldiers, people who have put their lives on the line for Israel and whose lives are wrapped up with its future, often propose ideas that over here get you branded as naive at best, or even worse, an enemy of Israel.
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