Whose Fault?

Haiti, then Chile, one earthquake after another has brought death, suffering, dislocation, and torment. And as ever, everyone seems to be asking, "Did God do this? And why?" All the usual holy rollers of all religions trundle out the old tired theories about what we did wrong to deserve this.

Indeed, often there may well be a good reason why the tragedy was so much worse than it needed to be. We humans made mistakes, such as not building adequate defenses, or putting up cheap vulnerable buildings. Sometimes governments are too corrupt or ineffectual to protect beforehand or deal with the crisis afterwards. If humans choose to build and live on the San Andreas fault, is God to blame when the earth shifts? If skiers get in the way of an avalanche, is it not human error that is to blame? And what is now a cliché, the question is not where God was in Auschwitz, but where was humanity.

The Lisbon earthquake of 1755, followed by fire and tidal waves, was a cataclysmic series of disasters that had a profound impact on European thought and politics. All the major thinkers of the time grappled with its theological implications, then as now. Traditional political systems began to crumble in the face of their impotence. The Catholic Church suddenly became much stricter and more authoritarian, because it thought that religious backsliding was to blame and God was sending a message when the cathedral collapsed.

On the other hand, Voltaire argued that this proved that there was no God to get involved and gave this example in "Candide". It was up to humans to do the best they could. And Kant, while not rejecting God, argued that physical phenomena functioned according to verifiable scientific rules, while God (if you believed in Him) simply allowed nature to do what nature needed to do. Two hundred fifty years on, nothing much has changed.

The Talmud says that if bad things happen, you should examine your ways. But this is another way of saying that any catastrophe or accident is an opportunity for reflection, self-analysis, and hopefully self-betterment. It also wonders whether God could possibly act in an unfair manner, just as Abraham wondered about the destruction of Sodom. It recognizes that God functions on a different level than humans, and therefore we have no way of fathoming the "Mind of God". Such thoughts about Divine justice can only be rhetorical, not logical. Can you imagine logically what arrogance it must take for any human to say with certainty, "I know that this is why God acted this way?"

But of course, they do. Anything that strikes down your enemy is the Hand of God, and every competing ideology looks for signs that it alone is right. Did you see during the Winter Games how almost every competitor's mother was busy praying to her God? And did you hear of any losing finalist abandoning his religion as a result?

Dealing with tragedy is a question of self-reassurance, of trying to cope, ourselves. Facts or scientific explanations don't help remove pain. If we believe nothing happens on earth without God's approval, we can make no logical sense out of most of what happens on earth, whether it comes from Nature or Mankind. We do not know why God allowed Auschwitz to happen. Though do know that humans committed unspeakable crimes. Our beliefs either matters of faith or wishful thinking. They may reinforce our sense of our position in the universe, but they can hardly be objective or scientific. If we believe, as the Talmud also says, that the world functions according to its own rules regardless, then we accept our limitations and try to deal with life and God in the best way we can. I don’t consider this passivity or defeatism, just realism.

The Talmud asks, "Why do bad people prosper and good people suffer?" The beauty of the Talmud and of Jewish theology, as opposed to those who purvey black-and-white certainties, is that it offers various and different ways of understanding the world, our position in it, and what happens after death. We can buy the answers or not! We can choose which of its approaches best satisfies our minds and our souls. This is why religious thinkers have always ranged from strict rationalists to weird mystics.

A blessing is an expression of human desire (just as a curse is no more than an expression of hatred), a way of giving people support and strength. It can be very comforting, but it is never a guarantee that anyone is listening, or that He or She will decide to act on your behalf or on someone else's. Still it helps one to feel that one is proactive rather than passive. The Torah is a book of life, one which helps us to live in the here and now.

Life is a constant struggle. We are all subjected to pressures and tensions at certain moments in our lives, no matter how holy we are. There are no answers. Certainty is an illusion. There are only ways of dealing with the crises, setbacks, and disasters as they arise, and of trying to become better human beings as well.

Assassination

The outpouring of protests over the assassination of a terrorist in Dubai is another case of hypocritical anger and symptomatic of a complete loss of moral compass.

From a Jewish ethical point of view, if someone is trying to kill you, you have every right to disable or remove the threat in any way you can (preferably without killing). If this threat comes from a country, then you attack the country. If it comes from an army, you attack the army. If it comes from an individual, you attack that individual. And when in doubt, your safety comes first. In no way do I compare the removal of a threat, to torture which is always wrong. I have yet to be persuaded that torture ever provides accurate information that other means of interrogation cannot.

In the past you could settle a war by sending two champions to fight in single combat and the two armies didn't need to massacre each other. Alexander didn’t offer the Persians that option. The niceties of medieval warfare and chivalrous challenges were relevant to knights in armor. The tactics of terror are altogether a different matter. There are no Geneva Conventions of Terror.

The rules of international law are all well and good if you dealing with someone who feels bound by international law. But not where an enemy organization explicitly and uncompromisingly calls for your destruction. In the asymmetrical modern battlegrounds around the world today where there are no rules of chivalry or legitimate combat or separating civilians from combatants. It is a matter of kill or be killed. If one is facing an enemy who is buying arms to use against civilians, assassination is a legitimate form of self-defense. So is confiscating a boatload of arms heading for enemy shores.

It is indeed dangerous to argue that just because assassination has been and is being used by states and individuals therefore it is legitimate. If the USA, and indeed Britain, practiced it once with regularity against regimes they disliked, they are nowadays a little more concerned with appearances. Usage is not a moral argument, but self-defense is. Even if world public opinion thinks everyone can defend himself, apart from Israel.

As for infringing sovereignty and due process of law, what happens when the perpetrators are protected by regimes which tacitly support their aims? What happens if everyone else is not standing up for justice? Was Israel wrong to ignore International conventions to land in Entebbe and rescue hostages? Has anyone ever suggested Von Stauffenberg was wrong to try to assassinate Hitler? Would the USA be wrong to assassinate Bin Laden? Why should not Israel target those who carried out terrorist attacks against its citizens on Israeli soil and beyond?

It is argued that this is a reasonable deterrent, to warn potential attackers that for the rest of their lives they would remain wanted, hunted, and potential targets. Although it hasn't worked too well as a deterrent judging by the numbers increasingly willing to blow themselves up.

The protests in Europe are really a smokescreen for NATO and USA assassinations by drone in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Civilians are killed in collateral damage or by errors of arms and information. Why have I not heard anyone suggesting that NATO forces be charged with Crimes against Humanity? Why can China get away with oppressing its minorities and the Tibetans, and the UN and most world governments simply kowtow to them? Why are both the USA and Europe so craven towards Saudi Arabia and most of the Arab world? It is money and politics stupid, not morality, not justice, not fairness.

Israel was and is used as the scapegoat for all Arab and Muslim woes. Blame the Jews, blame the Israelis, and this will deflect criticism from barbaric, incompetent rulers. Now the disease has spread to Europe. Your economy is in a mess? Find a distraction. Blame Israel for everything. Make a huge issue over forged passports.

Actually the tactics that were used in Dubai are behind the game. Things have progressed. With modern surveillance and passport technology, using old Cold War methods gives too much away. Remote control, drones--these are the new tactics and indeed Israel excels at them. That is why I am not convinced this was not the work of Fatah, even if some Israelis might have helped.

I hate violence and war. I wish it would all go away and we could all live in peace, and Israel could spend the money on education, health, and welfare that it now has to waste on arms. But wishing never won anything or got Nazis to go away.

No, of course two wrongs do not make a right. A great rabbi living in Spain 800 years ago said, "If the law is not applied fairly and equally to all citizens, it cannot just bind one part of the population and not the other." And if that was true of Christian Spain, it is also true where the Nations of the World do not apply one fair and equal standard across the board. Two wrongs do not make a right. But, conversely a right is not necessarily wrong!

Purim 2010

One of the most well known quotes from the Talmud goes, "Rava said: It is a man's duty to get so drunk on Purim that he cannot tell the difference between 'Cursed be Haman' and 'Blessed be Mordecai'" (Gemara Megilah 7b). The text goes on to give an example of how too much wine can lead to murder, and as a result the overwhelming majority of rabbinic authorities, while agreeing one should loosen up a little to celebrate Purim, are strongly opposed to getting drunk.

This week one of the major figures in American Orthodoxy, HaRav Shmuel Kamenetzky, who heads the Talmudical Yeshiva of Philadelphia, called excessive drinking on Purim an "aveirah" — a sin. "Chas v'shalom that our Torah would consider getting drunk to be a mitzvah!"

Still, too many people nowadays who ought to know better, ignore what their rabbis and rebbes tell them! Hoards of drunken religious neophytes staggering down main roads of Jewish ghettos around the world on Purim, accosting passersby with foul breath and vodka bottles, throwing up in alleyways and buses, is hardly the finest side of Judaism.

This whole issue is emblematic of the varieties of Judaism even within the confines of Orthodoxy. On the one hand you have those serious, rather killjoy sort , usually associated with Musar and the Lithuanian wing of Orthodoxy, who argue for sobriety and self-discipline. They will tell you that there is indeed an ancient obligation to drink wine, as there is to celebrate Shabbat and festivals, and on Purim one should indeed go further than normal to celebrate the great occasion. They will point out that the word used by Rava in the Gemara is "besumeh", which also means "perfumed" or "exhilarated", and may refer either to the wine or the person--but anyway is not the common word used in literature for a drunk, which is "shikor". It probably means "pleasantly merry".

The Purim story is indeed about a drunken king who makes disastrous decisions he regrets when he sobers up. This illustrates the difference between religiously ordained "controlled" drinking, and pagan unbridled excess. In Lithuanian pilpul, not knowing the difference between "curse Mordechai and bless Haman" is turned into a game of numerology, or theologically and it is taken to explain why only the Divine spirit differentiates between evil and good. Without it we are all capable of the worst standards of behavior. But even the Litvaks allow yeshiva students to make fun of religious authority with skits and satire (rhymes, called "gramen") on Purim day, to emphasize the contrary and revolutionary nature of the festival.

On the other hand there are the Chasidim who frankly don't need an excuse to get drunk at any time of the year. Their approach to life is that our inhibitions are the reason most of us are unable to reach or communicate with God and therefore alcohol performs an important role in removing inhibition and opening up the channels to God. Of course I agree that we are inhibited in spiritual matters and that is why I favor mysticism; but if God can only be reached through an alcohol-induced miasma, then I doubt very much if they and I are talking about the same god.

I recall, as headmaster, asking the Lubavitcher Rebbe for teachers because I valued the warmth, hospitality, and selflessness of Chabad graduates. He obliged. But the day after their first Shabbat at the school I was inundated by protesting parents who thought that giving 12-year-olds shots of vodka in the name of religion was going too far.

Of course nothing I say now will part a Chasid from his vodka, or indeed me from my malt. And nothing I say is going to stop the drunken masses of all wings of Judaism giving religion a bad name on Purim or any other time. Any more than I can control the hundreds of high school kids who take a gap year off in Israel and use yeshiva as an excuse to indulge in orgies of drink, drugs, and sex.

We Jews have never been prohibitionists. On the contrary, it has always been a matter of pride that we have avoided a culture of drunkenness. Poor suffering Eastern European Jewish peasants didn't have much other source of relief in eras gone by, so no one wanted to deprive them of a drink. And it was always argued that Jewish drunks rarely resorted to the violence usually associated with inebriation. Still given the almost universal excesses of our times, we who proclaim religious values, need to be educating our children, by example to exercise control. And even if I agree we should relax it on Purim, relaxation does not mean excess.

There is a positive side to this. Too often religion is seen as a killjoy. And Judaism is a disciplined religion with lots of demands. Still it is nice to know that on occasion we are commanded to have fun and let our hair down. We should drink and be merry. But not drunk.

Special Blog Post - Carmel College Reunion

Carmel College Reunion - March 20th, 2010
Village Hotel, Elstree, London

Carmel College was a magnificent adventure and experiment in Anglo-Jewish education that lasted from 1948 until 1997. For many people it was a defining experience in their lives.

Having been involved in Carmel through my father, as a pupil and later headmaster, I remember vividly how difficult it always was to get former pupils together and how the OCA (Old Carmeli Association) always struggled to maintain any momentum. Perhaps it was because so many Carmel graduates came from and returned to places scattered all around the globe and keeping track was much harder in previous times.

As Carmel graduates get older and the memories fade, nostalgia steps in. So recently there seems to be a renewed interest in getting together. Jill Kenton organized a great reunion last November for those graduating from the mid-80's to the 90's, and its success has led to a follow up for the 60's and 70's.

Because Carmel graduates are so scattered and the records so inadequate, if you happen to know of any Carmel graduates who might be interested in coming or finding out about future reunions, please pass this message on and ask them to contact Jill Kenton at info[at]connections-events.co.uk.

Study

Education has been the bedrock of Jewish religious life for thousands of years. The Torah insists that "you should teach your children". We recite this phrase at least three times a day whenever we say the Shema (a declaration, not a prayer).

After the Bible, the next greatest book in Judaism is the Mishna (which together with its companion the Gemara came to be known as The Talmud), compiled in the second century. It starts with these words:

"These are the obligations that have no fixed limits--leaving corners of the field for the poor, first fruits, appearing at the Temple on festivals, kindness to other human beings, and studying Torah. These are the things that return one a benefit in this world but the absolute return is in the World to Come--honoring one's mother and father, kindness to other human beings, hospitality, visiting the sick, helping girls get married, participating in funerals, and studying Torah" (Peah 1).

Somewhere in the first millennium the second part was modified to read

"These are the things that return one a benefit in this world but the absolute return is in the World to Come--honoring one's mother and father, kindness to other human beings, attending the Study House morning and night, hospitality, visiting the sick, helping girls get married, participating in funerals, concentrating on prayer, making peace between people (and between a man and his wife), and studying Torah is worth all of them."

And this text, with minor variations, has entered our prayer books.

The list of priorities is significant. Notice how much emphasis is put on what we would call inter personal relations! The final reiteration of Torah study is based on a line in the Talmud that says, "Study is the greatest obligation of all precisely because it leads to practicing everything else." (Kidushin 40b). In theory, of course, that should be true but it is strange that what is thought of as a great spiritual tradition should put so much emphasis on an intellectual activity.

The opening phrase seems to me to have been written during Temple times and the second after its destruction, for those elements dealing with the Temple and the Land of Israel have been omitted. This would also explain the increased emphasis and priority on studying Torah. By then it was blindingly obvious that we would survive as a people only if we maintained our traditions, and the best way of perpetuating them was to study them and to teach them. This had already been clear during the first great exile into Babylon. It became even more so as the challenges of Greco-Roman civilization forced us to respond in an intellectually demanding and educationally rigorous way.

There was a difference of opinion in the Talmud as to the relative priority of prayer over study, and in the end a compromise was reached. But ideally the two should be interrelated, like two arms are essential to the balance and effectiveness of the body.

From an early age I remember my father emphasizing at home, at school, and on the lecture circuit, the necessity of a Jew knowing his heritage. "An ignorant Jew," he would say, "could not possibly be an authentic one." This was part of his great Lithuanian heritage of intense intellectual involvement in studying Torah, which has become the hallmark of Orthodoxy today. In my youth you could be "Orthodox" and be completely ignorant of most of Jewish Law.

Since then the Jewish State, through welfare and financial and moral support, has enabled centers of Torah study to proliferate. Everyone now recognizes the primacy of the Israel Torah community, if for no other reason than that so many of their elite have actually gone to live there. Financial support coming from the Diaspora has also encouraged growth. And in this modern world of individuality, and freedom to choose to belong or not, knowledge as well as a sense of commitment are factors in keeping one "in".

Many Jews still have no inclining of how demanding and tough, intense Talmudic study is. Nothing I ever went through at university compared to the demands and disciplines of Torah study. This is one reason why so many who have had this tough training do so well when they go out into the world to compete in professions and commerce. And there's another plus--continuing to study into old age is wonderful for preventing senility. Not only, but it gives elderly people a sense of value and pride in their old age. In secular society, people are often valued according to how much they earn. With us, ongoing study not only fills the vacuum of retirement but gives one status and significance too.

Study, says the Talmud, must lead to action, and in the end human relationships and obligations are what define a good person. After all, the great "Musar" movement was initiated by Rabbi Israel Salanter in the nineteenth century precisely because, as he saw it, study was not impacting sufficiently on behavior. Still, study is a very solid basis from which to start, because it constantly reminds one of the nobility of our tradition and its obligations.

I am immensely proud that I belong to a tradition that values study. We are not just the People of the Book, we are the People who Study the Books. And everyone is involved; it is not just for priests and clergy. That is why we have survived against the odds. It is why Israel, for all its faults, has done so amazingly well in almost every sphere where brainpower counts. And why if they do not do something soon about the abysmal state school system, yeshiva graduates might soon be the only educated Israelis left.

Special Blog Post - Proud To Be A Religious Jew

On this blog I have often criticized the abuses of religion. Here's a clip I'd like you to see because this is the other side--a Kiddush HaShem, giving God, religion, and Judaism a good name. I am proud to have gone to the same school as Dr. Tate!

Dr. Joseph Tate on PBS's Religion and Ethics Newsweekly

Dangerous Tefilin

So here is this innocent youngster on a flight in the USA trying to put on his tefilin, modestly and as inconspicuously as possible, in his seat. The air hostess has never seen these funny black boxes and straps before. They look like a device. Could be he is a suicide bomber strapping himself into a bomb. Panic. The kid is restrained. His tefilin are impounded. The plane is diverted and then isolated. Passengers are delayed and inconvenienced; appointments and celebrations are missed. It’s a massive scare. The press is alerted. The FBI moves in. The young man is cooperating with the authorities. And it is not a joke. It happened here in the USA.

Is this just another example of the madness gripping us as Islamic-inspired terrorism spreads? Yes and no. We Jews are a very, very small minority and Orthodox Jews are a small minority within a minority. So in one way it is not at all surprising that most people on earth have absolutely no idea what tefilin are. Besides tefilin themselves are so difficult to explain. Aids to prayer? Surely one does not need leather straps and boxes to pray? And the very English term "phylacteries" sounds a bit like "prophylactic". Are they supposed to prevent some plague or something? Perhaps they are like the Scientologists' "magic boxes". A kind of brain monitor? And why only for men? Are they some sort of male enhancers? I recall plenty of jokes about Jews putting on tefilin in hospital and people thinking they were for taking their blood pressure. The fact is that it is very, very hard to sound logical or sane when describing tefilin to a non-Jew who has no idea and no background.

On the other hand, you see so many Orthodox Jews on flights nowadays, and they are often carrying their talis and tefilin bags or praying at airport terminals. I cannot recall a flight anywhere in the world I have taken without a black hat and beard for company. My tefilin have been checked so often at security that by now, surely, word must have got round. In the past tefilin were used so frequently to smuggle diamonds in and out of Antwerp that I'd have thought there must be diagrams posted in every customs house.

And in most schools nowadays comparative religion is taught, if only to make Westerners more sympathetic to the spread of strange Middle and Eastern religions, that the very basic features and customs of alien religions are now more widely known than ever before. Yet clearly most human beings still seem unable to tell the difference between a suicide bomber's belt and tefilin.

The security situation is getting worse and worse all the time. I have had eau de toilette, shampoo, deodorant, and even hair gel confiscated (not to mention a half a bottle of Drambuie). But it’s the lunacy of political correctness and the civil liberties fanatics that are the real problem. It is utterly ridiculous that the anti-profiling lobby has been allowed to create a situation in which an eighty-year-old lady in a wheelchair is as likely to be searched as dishdash-wearing, heavily bearded, agitated twenty-year-old.

My old schoolmate, Professor Edward Luttwak, had an article in the January 18th Wall Street Journal in which he argued that ever increasing body searches and restrictions will not eradicate the problem nearly as effectively as clever profiling and personal interaction:

Given the power of widely available explosives, the amount that can be carried inside a body cavity—let alone two—is sufficient to destroy ordinary pressurized airliners at normal flight altitudes. That makes "pat downs", or indeed any form of physical inspection that is remotely feasible in any airport … entirely futile. That alone rules out scanners … To screen passengers as persons would reduce costs and inconvenience … because entire categories of passengers could be waived through with a rapid examination of travel documents … [and history].

This is precisely the sort of checking that we have all experienced on flights to and from Israel. Certainly it is more manpower-intensive than machines, but it clearly works. It is true that the number of employees required to monitor the flights in and out of one small Middle Eastern state would be dwarfed by the needs of massive worldwide air passenger traffic. But considering the billions wasted in the US alone on totally ineffective bureaucratic security agencies, it would make more sense to have well trained, well educated men and women on duty than the poorly paid, low rung employees most of us have encountered.

We may agree that security demands we veer on the side of strictness, but sensible and careful profiling will surely eliminate any suspicion that a teenager putting on tefilin is likely to blow a plane up! On the other hand, someone ought to tell him that although there's a fixed time to say your morning prayers, you can put tefilin on at any time during the day and fulfill your duty. Or, of course, you can fly El Al.