27 and Shabat and the triumphant return of the LONE STAR SIDUR PROJECT!

Today is day 27 of the Omer as well as Shabat. After a semester-long hiatus I’m back to contributing to my blog project, the Lone Star Sidur Project. Oddly, my least popular posts are those that I most enjoy writing. That is, I love writing about litrugy more than anything else, yet none of you seem to enjoy reading about. Unfortunately for you, this is all about Kabalat Shabat.

Kabalat Shabat is a standardized set of t’hilim (pslams) and piyutim (litrugical poems) set in stone by the kabalists in Tzfat. It consists of, in this order, T’hilim 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, and 29; Ana B’ko’ach; L’chah Dodi; and T’hilim 92 and 93.

As per usual, I have some issues. First of all, I hate mysticism, but Kabalat Shabat is an kabalist invention. For once, I am in agreement with the kabalists. Though I’m no fan of nigunim because they are nothing more than substance-less mood-setters (more on that here, where I wrote about music’s role in t’filah), I like a full Kabalat Shabat. I think that we should go into Shabat in a euphoric way. Music is a great way to put people in that sort of mood. Though that borders on what I would call substance-less, at least Kabalat Shabat has textual content.

When it comes the piyutim, the poems, in Kabalat Shabat, it is a different story. I have no problem with Ana B’ko’ach in principle. It says little of great import, leaving me luke-warm on the subject. Here’s the thing that turns me off about it: go google “ana bekoach.” All you need to do is look at the first five results to see that all Ana B’ko’ach has ever been used for is kabalistic pandering nonesense. Apparently it has 42 words, the first letters of which spell one of God’s secret names. Right. I’m just kind of pissed off by this, but confess that I would keep Ana B’koa’ach because, like I said, I can’t argue with it on genuine principle.

L’chah Dodi is no walk in the park for me either. It has two verses with explicit Messianic references that I consider in need of re-write. The Reform movment however, has traditionally, not surprisingly, reacted to these verses by getting rid of them entirely. They even go beyond this, taking out 5 of L’chah Dodi’s 9 verses, basically crippling the poem. I would leave all of the verses, making only slight changes to two of them. Verse 4 traditionally mentions “At hand is the Son of Yishai (Jesse), of Bethlehem.” This can only refer the restoration of the Davidic line and the personal messiah. I change this verse:

הִתְנַעֲרִי מֵעָפָר קֽוּמִי,
לִבְשִׁי בִּגְדֵי תִפְאַרְתֵּךְ עַמִּי,
עַל יַד הַזְמַן הַעֵידָן מֶשִׁיחִי,
קָרְבָה אֶל נַפְשִׁי גְאָלָהּ.

The troublesome line now reads, “At hand is the time, the Messianic Age.”

Another verse reads in one line, “At hand is the Man, the Son of Peretz,” another refernce to the Davidic line and the personal Messiah. I alter the verse again:

יָמִין וּשְׂמֹאל תִּפְרֽוֹצִי,
וְאֶת אדוני תַּעֲרִֽיצִי,
עַל יַד הַעֵידָן מֶשִׁיחִי,
וְנִשְׂמְחָה וְנָגִֽילָה.

It now reads, “At hand is the Messianic Age.”

Luckily for the tradionalists among us, the new Reform sidur, Mishkan T’filah, gives us a complete Kab Shab, including all of L’chah Dodi. Here’s the problem: no one is doing all of L’chah Dodi. All anyone knows is the four verses that were in Gates of Prayer so people continue doing those four, awkwardly skipping about the piyut so that they hit the right verses.

Many sidurim have sought to add to L’chah Dodi, expanding it with other Shabat songs that one might want to spend time on before services. Sim Shalom does this, addind Y’did Nefesh, Shalom Aleichem, Shabat Hamalkah and several others. I’m not opposed to more songs, but they’re not part of Kab Shab. Kab Shab is standardized and consists of certain things. It’s like taking the Amidah and tossing in a few more prayers, just because, well, they’re nice. I find it toally acceptable, however, to present a selection of songs, before Kab Shab begins. For once, Mishkan gets it right here. MT has a section called Shabbat Songs which has all of the type of thing that Sim Shalom tacks onto Kab Shab. After Shabbat Songs is over, MT gives us a near-complete Kab Shab missing Ana B’ko’ach. MT’s Kab Shab, anomylously, ends with Shalom Aleichem. Whatever.

Here are my money thoughts on this: We’re in a pretty critical time in terms of t’filah attendance in the Reform movement. I’d like to humbly suggest increasing numbers by, shock of al shocks, making Firday night services longer. That’s right. I said “longer.” What better way to put people into a great mood than begin services with a lot of good music. I’m picturing temple bulletins that say: “Kabbalat Shabbat - 7:00 | Services - 7:15.” You’d get people showing up early, for God’s sake! Not to mention, the group of people who would inevitable form, like the Torah Study group, who would come only for this one little thing every week.

And now, the Omer:

26 and AIPAC rival J Street is offended–and they probably should be

Day 26! We’re more than halfway to being a mature law-abiding nation!

AIPAC, the evil empire of Israel advocacy grip on the American government was weakened recently with the opening of the only rival lobby group in DC focused in Israel. Where AIPAC claims to represent a majority of American Jews’ views on Israel, J Street actually does. J Street is a pro-diplomacy left-of-center Israel lobby and they’re making waves. And President George W. Bush is an asshole. What’s the connection? I’m on J Street’s mailing list an I received today this email from them:

Dear J Street Supporter,

George Bush just called us delusional.

Speaking to Israel’s Parliament today, the President accused those who believe in diplomacy to make America and Israel safe of indulging in a “foolish delusion” and the “false comfort of appeasement.” [1]

More offensive, he likened us to those who favored talking to rather than defeating Adolf Hitler on the eve of World War II. How dare he invoke the memory of the Holocaust to justify his disastrous policies?

Write to Bush now and tell him - Shame on you!

For seven and a half years, this President’s policies have fueled the fires of extremism rather than dampening them. His delusions led us into a disastrous war in Iraq. His disdain for diplomacy has alienated friends and emboldened enemies.

And the results? The forces of extremism are stronger than ever. Al Qaeda is on the move - into Iraq and elsewhere. Moderates are on the defensive from Lebanon to the Palestinian territories and elsewhere. And the United States and Israel are less secure.

This is Bush’s legacy. And he has the nerve to accuse us of indulging in “foolish delusions”?

Write to Bush now and tell him - Shame on you!

After you’ve taken action, forward this message to 3 friends.

This, Mr. President, is not what we want to hear on the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. Real friends of Israel know that only a US-led diplomatic offensive in the region will resolve the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israel conflicts and ensure Israel’s security for another 60 years.

Take action now.

- Isaac

1 - Prepared Text of Bush’s Knesset Speech: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121083798995894943.html

So go check out the text of the speech–it’s pretty audacious stuff. And now, the Omer:

25 and Half-way Day

So we’re half-way through the Omer today with day 25. I took a final yesterday and turned in a monstrous final paper at 9:00 last night. Then I did something perhaps less-than-wise: I went bowling, drank, watched most of Saved, scaled a building and hung out on its roof, almost got caught by campus security, hung out in a closed coffee house, and then went to bed at like 3 or 4. Today I packed and packed and packed and left school to spend a night at a friend’s house. Tomorrow night I fly home. Whew.

Point is, I’m tired and incapable of saying something intelligent in honor of Half-way Day. Instead, a little Jewish blogosphere roundup is in order:

Daniel Sieradski of the excellent blog Orthodox Anarchist brings us a totally compelling summary of a panel he attended recently that was apparently a microcosm of everything wrong with Jewish establishment leadership.

And Brooklyn’s senior Rabbi at Congregation Beth Elohim, Andy Bachman, whose blog, Ideas, is always compelling and articulate reading, brings us two interesting posts of late. The more recent of the two is his apt dissection of the ongoing crises being caused by the boundless lunacy of Israel’s Rabbinic courts. The older one, made all the more interesting by its still-ongoing comment thread, which you should all go weigh in on, is about the inherent conflict involved in the Reform idea of choosing when, where, and how to be commanded. Go read it.

Laila tov. I’m tired as hell. Here’s the Omer:

24 and DovBear hits the tz’dakah nail on the tz’dakah head

24 days into the Omer and I’m gonna talk about tz’dakah again. I also wrote about it a couple of days ago.

The blog DovBear is written by a few diverse traditional Jews of a variety of subtly different, but generally progressive outlooks. The blog functions, for me, as a supremely sarcastic window into the frum world.

Today DovBear brings us “My insight of the day”. His insight is this:

“Charity” and “helping the poor” aren’t one and the same. The torah obligates us to help poor people, not to have our names, and the names of our grandparents put on as many plaques in as many shuls as possible. The idea is to improve the lives of other people, not to glorify our own names.

And because supporting the poor is a Torah value, someone who cares about Torah values might legitimately choose to support a political program that promises to help poor people.

I totally agree. I recall a conversation I had with my mother months ago, which I recalled today. Contributing to your synagogue, no matter what they tell you, is not tz’dakah, unless you’re contributing to a specific program targeted at the poor. Contributing to a local museum or to a local theater group or arts group, while a good thing to do that I totally support, is NOT tz’dakah. We are obligated to give to the poor, not to the arts.

I’ll refer you to Partners in Health and their segment on 60 Minutes again.

And now for the Omer.

23 and The JTA Telegraph takes a dump on my Google Reader

Day 23 of the Omer yadda yadda blah blah etc.

JTA reports on some strange, unsubstantiated stuff sometimes and often refuses to intelligently question what people in positions of power feed to them. That aside, I usually find their blog, the The Telegraph (”Odds & ends from the staff of JTA”) to be fairly interesting, englightening, whatever, etc. And yet, today, one of its contributors, Ami Eden posted a couple of pieces of nonesense, causing me to have an aneurism.

First, Eden tries to argue that Bush is really the man for the job as far as Mideast peace goes. I dunno where Eden’s been these last two presidential terms, but are you kidding me? In what universe does that make sense. And, by the way, ”I believe, for reasons that I don’t want to go into, that for Syria, the road to Washington must cross Jerusalem. I know what I’m talking about” is really not enough to convince me. “I know what I’m talking about”? Really? What are you talking about? If you know, could you perhaps enlighten the rest of us? This sound like the kind of half-asses nonesense I write sometimes. Here’s the difference: I’m a 19-year-old with a WordPress account; Ami Eden is a professional writer for a real-life news outlet.

Second, Eden quotes Saree Makdisi, professor of English and comparative literature at UCLA and the author of “Palestine Inside Out: An Everyday Occupation”,  trying to convince us that two-state solution is no longer a viable option. What’s changed according to Eden and Makdisi? “Israel has irreversibly cemented its grip on the land on which a Palestinian state might have been created.” What the hell is irreversible about it? I’m just confused on this point, I guess.

22 and some thoughts on tz’dakah

Today is the 22nd consecutive that I’ve managed to write something intelligible here, which I think is pretty remarkable when you consider my propensity for giving up on new habits–and my habit of sticking to old ones.

I saw a video yesterday that got me thinking about tz’dakah, a topic near and dear to me. It ocurred to me that I have never written about tz’dakah here. So I will. Here goes.

In the early days of the Reform movement, our Reform forebears relabelled the mitzvot bein adam l’chaveiro (commandments between and man and his fellow) and the mitzvot bein adam l’Makom (commandments between a man and God) as the ethical commandments and the ritual commandments, respectively. One train of Reform thought at one time was that we would surely abandon the meaningless ritual commandments, insofar as they are “hard to do–whine, whine, etc.” and henceforth only feel bound by the ethical commandments.

As I’ve written before, I think this whole construct is shifty. One man’s ritual pratice is another’s ethical practice and vice verse. I, for one, don’t wear tzitzit for God, but for the people around me that the fringes remind me to be less of an ass toward. But, that is really all a tangent.

The commandment to give tz’dakah does not quite inhabit a nebulous region under this dichotomy. Clearly, giving tz’dakah is between a person and another person, and clearly it is an ethical thing to do–no ritual can be construed as being involved. And yet, it takes an Orthodox Rabbi like Dovid Bendory to come up with the maaser guide and the maaser calculator. Things like this should be our Reform bread and butter! We should be obsessed with this stuff! “Ten percent” should be our motto, for God’s sake!

Anyway, far be it from me to tell you what to do, you autonomous, choice-making Reformers. The video referred to is a recent clip from 60 Minutes about the monthly destination of my ten percent, Partners in Health. The video is here. I think that the clip, though 60 Minutes hams it up quite a bit for us, tells you all you need to know about PIH. But, if you want to know more, you can check out this excellent book, Mountains Beyond Mountains by Tracy Kidder about PIH and its founder, Doctor Paul Farmer:

21

Yesterday, we read parshat Emor, which contains the rules for counting the Omer!

15. And you shall count from the next day after the sabbath, from the day that you brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven sabbaths shall be complete;

16. To the next day after the seventh sabbath shall you count fifty days; and you shall offer a new meal offering to the Lord.

20 and Shabat

Shabat Shalom everyone! Only 29 days of the Omer left now! On an interesting blog-related note, my total page views for today are at 100 right now. This is the highest I’ve been since November of last year when I was reporting on the study abroad problems here at Drew and commenting on the Austin Area Interfaith Ministries contorversy back home.

Why, you may ask, are my numbers back up so high? Because of the the single photo of Natalie Portman that I posted yesterday in my Yom Ha’atzma’ut report. Apparently any time Natalie Portman appears anywhere in the world and pictures are taken, the psychic obsessives at the various Natalie Portman message boards post links to them.

Shabat Shalom!

19

There’s been a lot of talk in the Jewish blogosphere these past few days about our liberal discomfort with celebrating Yom Ha’atzma’ut. There’s been all this talk of recognizing not just Independence, but the Nakba, “The Catastrophe” as Palestinians refer to our moment of national triumph.

I take no issue with recognizing or taking responsibility for the ongoing plight. In fact, I think doing both of those things is an obligation. However, I fail to see the point in sullying a celebratory day past a certain point. It’s good to acknowledge the problems our Independence caused, but let’s examine this post from chillul who? on Jewschool:

My roommates objected to my proposal for a Yom Ha-Atzma’ut House Party by saying they wanted to avoid propaganda or the appearance of it. “Maybe we should have something about the nakba too.” “We don’t want to look right wing.” “How about we go to a Brit Tzedek talk instead.” Something about Independence Day made us uncomfortable.

We should acknowledge the Nakba, but to allow it to totally paralyze our attempts to celebrate is pointless. During Pesach, we acknowledge the Egyptians that died for our freedom, but we move on with the celebration.

P.S. My housemate Chris demanded that I note that he says hi in this post.

18 and Yom Ha’atzma’ut and the biggest post this blog has ever seen

Get ready for the biggest blowout most gigantic very large post this blog has ever seen.

First, some general Israel-related bloggery that has come across my Google Reader recently:

One of my Jewish history teachers from my semester in Israel is featured prominently in this new ad for El Al. He is the first guy that you see in the commercial, with the striped shirt, slight beard, and a kipah on his head.

Gilad Benari, an Israeli photographer who I previously featured here, posted this beautiful picture of the moment of silence in Israel on Yom Hazikaron.

David Singer, blogger of Thinking Jewish, has these thoughtful, touching sentiments for us in honor of Israel’s 60th.

Jewlicious’ summary of some of the stuff going on outside the event with which the rest of this post concerns itself.

On to my review of last night’s Yom Ha’atzma’ut festivities.

A few weeks ago I heard about this big concert at Radio City Music Hall in honor of Israel’s 60th. It sounded pretty good, but I didn’t think much of it, figuring I couldn’t afford a ticket. A few days ago, however, I got an email from Hillel telling me that Lisa Brenner, a professor at Drew had come into a few extra tickets to the event and would I like to go? I immediately emailed back that, yes, of course I would like to go.

And so, last night I set out from Madison for Radio City Music Hall with Erik Emdur, immediate past president of the Drew student body; Lara Portnoy, leader and founder of Drew’s Middle East Student Association (MESA) and the sole reason Drewids can now stud abroad in Israel; Mike Chevinsky, the ironically Jewish president of College Republicans; Professor Jonathan Golden, Hillel advisor; and Golden’s fiancée, Priscilla.

We arrived at Radio City to find that across the street were some pro-Palestinian protestors. I’m frankly glad that they were there because it is easy to become swallowed up in national pride on this of all days. But, like the Egyptians that died for our redemption from slavery, there are now Palestinians suffering because of our modern sovereignty in our homeland. We cannot forget that and we must take responsibility for it. On a more humorous note, across the street from the protest was a pro-Israel counter-protest.

Outside the entrance to Radio City was an insane mess of Jews of all stripes all trying to figure out how to get inside. One man I exchanged a glance with in the crowd said to me, “It’s like a Birthright event gone crazy!” Once inside, our bags were searched and each individual person was magic wanded. In addition to the Radio City security guys, there were a bunch of barrel-chested Mosad agents standing around menacing everyone. We finally made our way up to the second mezzanine where our seats were. We had an unobstructed view of the stage, but we were about 87 miles from it and all the performers looked like ants. Luckily, they had cameras and were projecting the proceedings up on two big screens on either side of the stage.

There was a moment of silence for Yom Hazikaron in progress when we arrived. This was followed by Habanot Nechama’s American debut, singing Hatikvah. Over the course of the next 45 minutes or so we received speechifications from Israeli UN Ambassador Dan Gillerman, a variety of UJA bureaucrats, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Governor David Patterson. Patterson, the first black, blind governor in US history apparently was recently genetically tested and found that he had some distant Eastern European Jewish blood. With this in mind, he temporarily appointed himself “a member of the Twelve Tribes” for the night, which caused a bunch of Orthodox folks to visibly squirm. (“He hasn’t even been to the mikvah!”)

Mayor Bloomberg (this picture and those that follow are from Lara Portnoy’s camera:

Then, get this, we had a pre-recorded video address from President Bush followed by a video address from Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, who, in true Israeli form “congratulated” us on everything. For some reason, I think that Israelis have special trouble with the word congratulate. They use it for everything when they speak English! “Wow,” said Erik, “two crook politicians back to back!”

President Bush:

Prime Minister Olmert:

When the music finally got started, the absolute best surprise of the evening happened. It was revealed that Natalie Portman (!) was our emcee for the evening. I almost fainted. No joke. This was probably the coolest thing ever. If you know me, you know that I have a major crush on Natalie Portman. What self-respecting straight American Jewish male doesn’t!

Natalie Portman:

Natalie introduced Rami Kleinstein and his band, whom she called the evening’s “house band.” I’d never heard of the guy, but all the Israelis in the audience clearly had, being that they sang along with everything. The guy was quite the performer, climbing up on the vacant private boxes along the sides of the theater. The spotlight-operator has serious trouble tracking him.

Rami Kleinstein:

Video of Rami Kleinstein.

Matisyahu was on next. When Natalie introduced him, she tried to shake his hand, but he got all shomer negiah and wouldn’t do it. I can’t imagine passing up an opportunity to shake her hand! I was pretty excited to see him, but he was pretty disappointing. He sat on stool, all hunched over the whole time, beat-boxing and mumbling some nigunim for a few minutes. Then he sang a rather unenergetic rendition of his song, “Jerusalem, if I Forget You”. He then introduced The Idan Raichel Project, who were way more fun live than they are on CD. Matisyahu stuck around for one number with Idan Raichel.

Raichel and Matisyahu:

Video of Matisyahu.

Video of Idan Raichel.

After Idan Raichel, we got Yael Naim, whom I was looking forward to most. If you don’t about her yet, she’s pretty new on the scene. Steve Jobs picked her single “New Soul” to be in a MacBook Air commercial a while ago and the song immediately rocketed to a top ten position on American charts, a first for an Israeli musician. She lives in Paris now, I think, and sings in Hebrew, English, and French, which make her the sexiest person ever, officially. She sang a couple of her own songs, including, of course, “New Soul” along with a hilariously better-than-the-original cover of Britney Spears’ “Toxic”. Naim’s music is sort of pop singer-songwriter throwback stuff. It has a very first half of the 20th century sound. She was ubercute on stage and her between-song-banter was hilariously adorable.

Yael Naim:

MacBook Air commerical.

All of “New Soul”.

Toxic.

She explained the meaning behind her song, “New Soul”. She said that people are always saying how they think they have an old soul, meaning that their soul has been through many incarnations, but she says she always makes so many mistakes that she must be a new soul.

After her, we got Habanot Nechama, who were quite good, followed by David Broza, the rock star laureate of Israel. He was a totally frenetic, intense stage presence, breaking two strings on his guitar by the end of his set. He sang “Ani V’atah” and “Yihyeh Tov”, which are both very well-known songs in Israel. He explained that he wrote “Yihyeh Tov” with Yonatan Geffen while watching Anwar Sadat step foot on Israeli soil for the first time. He mentioned that he will keep playing the song until peace in Israel is achieved. He thought when Anwar Sadat came to Israel that it wouldn’t be long. Instead, he said, here we are decades later and he’s still singing the damn song.

Video of Habanot Nechama.

Something pretty random happened next. Paul Schaffer (yes that Paul Schaffer) and Richard Belzer (yes that Richard Belzer [OK, so that last clip was irrelevent, but admit it: it's funny] ) came out to do a very strange half-musical not-very-funny translation of a Yiddish comedy routine that their parents used to listen to.

At the end, all the performers (save for Matisyahu) came out, joined by Joshua Nelson and the Kosher Gospel Singers, for a mind-blowing rendition of Leonard Cohen’s “Hallelujah”!

All in all, it was a pretty great evening. Not even when I was in Israel have I ever felt so much nationalist fervor.

And now I leave you with our daily Omer paintings by Pauline Frankenberg and this cool gematria-esque thought: Did you ever notice that the 18th (chai, life, etc) day of the Omer is the day on which our people revived the Jewish Commonwealth?