Rabbi Daniel Bouskila is the International Director of the Sephardic Educational Center.
What prompted Agnon, a master of original writing, to create an anthology of rabbinic texts relating to Shavuot? As an author with a deep connection to his religious roots, Agnon related to the experience of Shavuot, a celebration of the centrality of books in Judaism.
Both the composition and inclusion of \”Had Gadya\” into the Passover haggadah are shrouded in mystery.
This popular Aramaic song, chanted at the end of the seder purportedly to keep the children awake, is dated no earlier than the 15th century. Composed of 10 stanzas, \”Had Gadya\” follows a cumulative pattern similar to \”The House That Jack Built,\” where a new detail is added in each stanza.
\”This is what we grew up praying for and dreaming of,\” my father told me in a recent conversation, \”so I did not need to read any further.\” Nessim Bouskila made his way to the headquarters of the Jewish Agency in Paris, where he found more than 400 young men and women already lined up, eagerly awaiting the \”privilege,\” as Papa worded it, to help defend Israel.
How do we build a House of God? How do we achieve the spiritual mandate that God placed upon the community when asking of them to build the Mishkan, the dwelling place of God? Anybody who serves a community as its spiritual leader understands that the nature of my question has little to do with the architectural plans of the building, rather it addresses the religious and spiritual atmosphere we are challenged to create within the four walls that we call our \”House of God.\”
In his magnum opus on the history and development of Jewish civil law, \”Ha-Mishpat Ha-Ivri\” (\”Jewish Law\”), Israeli Supreme Court Justice Menachem Elon remarks that basing a viable modern legal system on Jewish Law is no easy task — \”it calls for great intellectual effort, creativity and boldness.\”
While the questions associated with incorporating Jewish civil law into Israel\’s legal system are complex and beyond the scope of this column, I do wish to pose one modest question: Is it possible, in select instances, for the principles and spirit of Mishpat Ivri to serve as a quasi-legal and moral guide on certain matters of Israeli policy?
Throughout our history, my family\’s descendants have been mistreated, traumatized and deceived (just like me), yet somehow, we always survived. We always insisted, either physically or metaphorically, on \”staying in the land and digging wells,\” despite \”the famine.\” So perhaps our people refer to themselves by the names of my father and son, but their inner character and strength as tough survivors comes from me, Isaac. It is my story — the story of a survivor — that is really their story.
I am not sure how your rabbi would react if you sat in the pews reading T.S. Eliot or William Faulkner, but if you were found poring over the pages of 1966 Nobel Laureate S.Y. Agnon\’s \”Days of Awe,\” originally published in Hebrew as \”Yamim Noraim,\” I trust most rabbis would happily approve. So would Agnon. In his introduction, Agnon states that he created this book so that one may read it \”between prayers,\” as a way of intensifying one\’s spiritual experience during the High Holy Days.
It was July 12, 1984, my first day on the Ketziot basic training base, my new \”home\” as an IDF soldier in the Givati Infantry Brigade. One by one, we were issued what was then the standard IDF infantry weapon, the Israeli-made Galil rifle.
Everybody wanted to be in Moscow this past weekend. Leaders from all over the world flew in to partake in history: President George W. Bush, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder all made it, as did President Moshe Katzav of Israel.
A book\’s opening chapter is crucial to setting the mood and aura for the remainder of the book\’s journey. Likewise, the opening scene of a film usually helps set the tone for what will ensue.
The Passover seder is both a reader\’s experience and a moviegoer\’s. We sit around the table and read the haggadah, and we also witness a host of rituals. But how does the seder leader creatively capture an audience and draw it into the experience from the beginning?