August 7, 2003

Hearing God

Leave a Comment / Torah / Rabbi John L. Rosove

Watching the sunrise over Lake Tahoe is one of my great summer pleasures. I usually awake before my family and, in solitude, watch as the contours of the lake begin to take shape in the morning light. The serene stillness of this mountain silence is punctuated later only with the distant sounds of speed boats and water skiers, the mute screams of glee from those sailing beneath billowing parachutes pulled by fiberglass vessels. And if it is quiet enough, I can hear the flapping sounds of sails riding on crafts as they slowly pass me.

I have always had sensitive ears. I don’t enjoy loud cacophony. My taste in music tends toward the classics and jazz. I prefer the mellifluous to the abrasive. Additionally, I enjoy sitting in a quiet place to listen to the sounds of my own breathing, as if to reassure myself who I am and from whence I’ve come, who is my Creator and what is my unique and special truth.

I thank my colleague Rabbi Levi Meir for sharing with me years ago his translation of an essay on the significance of the sense of hearing written in 1928 by Dr. Adolf Altmann, the late chief rabbi of the town of Trier, Germany. Altmann concluded in his essay that the command "Hear, O Israel" — which appears in this week’s Torah portion — is more than a mere call to the people to pay attention. Rather, he explains, something deeper was being articulated. Altmann notes that the command "Shema!" is an appeal not only to the abstract realm of concepts, but also to one of the senses, that the keenest perception of all must embrace both the realm of thought and the sensory experience of hearing.

Altmann argues that hearing is the only sense through which God’s presence was revealed to the Israelites directly and definitively. At Mount Sinai the people apprehended God through the voice of the prophet Moses. The "Shema" in effect affirms that those who heard God’s voice must continually "hear" God’s word everyday.

But why hearing? Why not touch, sight, taste or smell? Altmann suggests that the tonal stands nearest to the purely spiritual among the senses. Tradition understands hearing to be, therefore, the best medium of sensory revelation, the most easily amplified into the infinite. As Mozart understood only too well, hearing is the means through which sense and spirit touch and the corporeal and incorporeal are joined.

Jewish mystics speak of the religious seeker’s goal of hitbodidut (solitude) — i.e., communion with God — of reaching outward and inward to that moment of meeting in which simultaneously God hears the stirring of the human soul and we humans hear God’s voice. Some say that God’s voice in this instance is the kol d’mama daka (still, small voice), like the sounds of a baby’s breath, or that which is produced as air passes quietly through the lips. In that moment of God hearing, Israel becomes aware of God’s unity.

Our tradition understands that each mitzvah (commandment) is a living transference of God’s voice that once sounded to Israel at Sinai. Every word and letter of Torah is the encasing vessel of God’s holy sparks, preserving them so that they may be rediscovered as they are articulated in the ears of every generation. Rabbi Leo Baeck taught that in encountering the God of Israel, the Jew discovers both the mystery and the commandment. Thus in the mitzvot are the spiritual and ethical linked, the metaphysical and the moral joined together.

Altmann has written: "Through the silent walls of hard prison cells hear the sighs, Israel; out of the lonely huts of deserted widows and orphans; from the bed of pain of the sick and suffering; from the quietly restrained anguish of the rejected and disenfranchised; from the mute looks of the timid and sorrow-laden; from the pale lips of the starving and needy, you, Jew, shall hear the cries of pain, without their having to be emitted. The cry of the suffering is the cry of God, which emanates from them to you. As the psalmist lets God speak: ‘With the oppressed, I am one in suffering’" (Psalms 91:15).

We Jews who say the "Shema" and understand its spiritual dimensions and ethical obligations become witnesses to God in the world. It is not an accident that the two enlarged letters of the "Shema" (the ayin and dalet) spell "witness."

The silence of a Lake Tahoe sunrise; the still, small voice in every life breath; the God- filled words of Torah; the screams of human suffering — all command our attention as if we, too, stood with our people at Mount Sinai.

John L. Rosove is senior rabbi at Temple Israel of Hollywood.

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7 Days In Arts

Leave a Comment / Picks and Clicks / Jewish Journal

Saturday

A band of gypsies arrives at the Skirball today as the cultural center’s Saturday concert and film series, Cafe Z, continues. The afternoon begins with music by Balkanova, an Eastern European fusion band that blends rock and jazz with Turkish, Bulgarian and Macedonian gypsy sounds. Following the performance is a screening of the film “Latcho Drom,” a documentary without dialogue that tells the gypsy story through visuals and the subtitled lyrics of their music.Noon. Free. 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles. (310) 440-4500.

Sunday

More soulful music tonight — this time alfresco. The Brandeis-Bardin Institute presents Danny Maseng in “Soul on Fire,” the latest in its Concert Under the Stars series. Pack a picnic and hear Maseng perform songs from his “Soul on Fire” CD, which includes renditions of classic Jewish Hebrew songs like “Ma Tovu” and “Hashivenu/Return Again.”7:30 p.m. $15-$25. 1101 Peppertree Lane, Brandeis. (805) 582-4450

Monday

Jeremy Irons is Valentin, an occasionally armed andoften disarming jewel thief who dreams of someday making amends with hisvictims. French singer Patricia Kaas is Jane Lester, a nightclub singerrecovering from a painful love affair. Both suffer from bouts of amnesia, andcross paths in Fez, Morocco, outside of a club where Jane is performing. Sobegins the very European and cerebral love story directed by French Jewishdirector Claude Lelouch, “And Now Ladies & Gentlemen.” The film continues intheaters this week. www.paramountclassics.com/andnow

Tuesday

It’s the last week to view galerie yoramgil’s submission for the Absolute L.A. International Biennial Art Show. Returning Israeli sculptor Dalit Tayar carves human figures into (not out of) stoneware and porcelain. The cracks and fabric of the stone remain, surrounding many of her figures and resulting in an exploration of texture and nature. Her people gesture quietly from within their stone surroundings, creating contrast and mystery.10 a.m.-6 p.m. (Tuesday-Saturday), 11 a.m.-4 p.m. (Sunday). Runs through Aug. 17. 319 N. Canon Drive, Beverly Hills. (310) 275-8130.

Wednesday

Happy Jewish Valentines Day. Tu B’Av, The Jewish Festival of Love, has arrived again, and ATID (a program of Sinai Temple) and The Jewish Federation’s Young Leadership Division are celebrating with an Israeli film screening, discussion and schmoozefest. Meet Israeli director Dan Katzir after watching his award-winning film, “Out for Love … Be Back Shortly,” then find someone to spend the rest of the romantic evening with … or the rest of your life — wink, wink.7 p.m. $15-$18. Sinai Temple, 10400 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles. R.S.V.P., (310) 481-3244.

Thursday

Rise and shine this morning (or set the VCR) to catch “The Bronx Boys,” a documentary hosted by Carl Reiner. Fifteen boys from the Bronx who met at P.S. 80 in 1936, reunite over a long summer weekend to celebrate their 70th birthdays, remember old times and play all the games they once enjoyed on the schoolyard, from stickball to marbles to chestnuts to basketball. Included in the group are clothing designer Ralph Lauren’s older brother and business partner, Lenny Lauren, film writer John Herman Shaner and producers-managers George Shapiro and Howard West.9:30 a.m. Cinemax. www.cinemax.com.

Friday

Chick lovers and chick-flick lovers might be the mostobvious target audiences for “A Family Affair.” Not to be confused with “KissingJessica Stein,” this other Jewish, lesbian romantic comedy was called “a WoodyAllen trifecta reconfigured with sharp wit,” by Variety. It also picked up somefilm festival prizes and is released this month on DVD and video. $24.95 (DVD),$39.95 (VHS). www.amazon.com

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The Friend Zone

Times’ Shalhevet Article Is Not News

Leave a Comment / Opinion / Rabbi Dov Fischer

I have tried explaining it to friends outside Los Angeles. But the Los Angles Times of Sunday, Aug. 3, cannot be explained in words alone. One must have held the paper in hand to appreciate what appeared that day.

A dear friend from the East, who that morning had e-mailed me the story that captured Page One, still would not appreciate what I felt as I physically held the paper. It was the Sunday edition, the biggest paper of the week. The story occupied virtually half the front page — it was gigantic.

Turn inside and the continuation occupied an entire page inside Section One. Turn the page and the story occupied another complete page and another page. And — this is just amazing — yet another page. There was not a column inch set aside on any of the pages for advertising. Just one page after another after another after another.

It appeared to be the biggest story in Los Angeles since 19 Middle Easterners — 15 of them from Saudi Arabia — commandeered some civilian airliners and crashed two jets into the World Trade Center, another into the Pentagon and another in a field in western Pennsylvania. As big a story as the destruction of the space shuttle. The story of the year.

And what was this story of the year? The recall of Gov. Gray Davis? Nope. The search for weapons of mass destruction? Wrong again.

Rather, the story of the year was that, well, more than a year ago — in June 2002 — a local modern Orthodox middle school opted not to rehire an English literature teacher. Hold the front page of the Sunday edition! Block out four full pages!

The English teacher had been teaching students at the Jewish parochial school to reassess the Middle East situation, to see things from the Arab viewpoint. Religious faculty objected. Some parents objected.

He had them read a novel about a Palestinian American family that moves to the West Bank from St. Louis and encounters Israeli militaristic barbarism while there. Now — get this — some parents objected! Big news!

The notion that parents pay $6,000 or $8,000 or $10,000 or $12,000 tuition to send their child to a yeshiva, instead of a public school, to study Judaism, instead of moral relativism, pales when compared with the censorship and blockheaded closed mindedness of a liberal Jewish administration that chose not to rehire this guy. Wow!

The guy was not even fired. The liberals at the school actually let him stay the school year. They let him continue teaching the book. They simply did not rehire him.

And then a whole school year passed. A whole doggone school year passed, from June 2002 to July 2003. Then, suddenly, on Sunday, Aug. 3, 2003, that became the biggest story in the Los Angeles Times since Sept. 11.

Los Angeles is a city without a second major daily newspaper. Competition is gone. Mediocrity rules.

There is neither rhyme nor reason to the utterly skewered treatment of Israel in that newspaper. And, when there are no Israelis to fry, the paper will turn a minor incident that happened a year ago in a seventh-grade classroom into a story that rivals the paper’s coverage of the Columbine shootings and the space shuttle Columbia tragedy.

It is for that reason that the paper reaches fewer homes in the pro-Israel community. So many of my colleagues and congregants just do not care. Whether Israel will stand, whether she will hold Judea and Samaria — none of it seems interrelated to the coverage in the Los Angeles Times. So we care less.

It is remarkable that Shalhevet permitted a character like this fellow to teach his politics there in the first place. Not Page One remarkable — just small-time remarkable. So he taught. He is gone. A year passed. End of story.

Faced with the ultimate plight of the liberal, Shalhevet drew from distinctly nonliberal sources — Jewish sources — and ultimately made a gentle decision that the right to survive is not a subject for debate. Liberal to the end, it did not require the English literature teacher to stop teaching nonsense or to go home. It let him finish the year.

But, in the end, Shalhevet swallowed hard and chose Jewish survival. As a result, it taught some of its students that there are red lines that many Jews will not cross. And survival is one of them. Survival is not for discussion. Survival is not for debate.

And the greater community of Los Angeles read all about it in the Sunday Times.

Dov Fischer, an attorney and political affairs commentator in Los Angeles, is rabbi of Congregation Kol Simcha of Calabasas, a modern Orthodox synagogue.

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Settlements Plan Spotlights Dark Issues

Leave a Comment / Opinion / Leonard Fein

The conventional explanation for Israel’s more controversial measures, including, in particular, the security fence under construction and the new marriage law passed by the Knesset, is that these are responses to the ongoing conflict. (The new marriage law cancels the automatic citizenship hitherto accorded Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens.)

But underlying that explanation, there is a darker and infinitely more problematic reality: Israel does not know what to do with or about the 1.2 million of its citizens (20 percent of the total population) who are Arabs — or, as they increasingly choose to define themselves, Palestinian Israelis.

While all the hubbub about fences and settlements and such continues, at quite a distance from the real-time radar screen, a new drive has been launched in Israel that perhaps more explicitly than ever highlights the issue — or, if you will, Israel’s dilemma. The World Zionist Organization is undertaking a project to build 30 new settlements in the Negev and the Galilee — that is, within the Green Line.

So wherein lies the problem? These are not controversial settlements in the West Bank or Gaza. No one questions Israel’s right to build wherever it chooses to within the Green Line. Everyone knows that too much of Israel’s population is concentrated in the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, and that the Negev and the Galilee are relatively sparsely populated.

The name of this new program reveals its problematic aspect: "The New Challenge: A Zionist Majority in the Negev and Galilee."

Please understand, no test of Zionist conformity will be administered to would-be residents of the new settlements. The word "Zionist" in the title of the project is really a euphemism; the intention is a Jewish majority. But it would be at the least impolitic to say it quite that baldly, so the word "Zionist" is used as a substitute or subterfuge.

The treasurer of the Jewish Agency says essentially as much, explaining that "the settlement drive is the only way to ensure that Israel remains a Jewish state."

Demography is on everyone’s mind these days. We’re told that such "painful compromises" as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may be prepared to make in negotiations with the Palestinian Authority derive from his appreciation that if Israel retains the West Bank and Gaza and the Palestinians who live there, it will be only a few short years before Jews are a minority in the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan.

So in order to preserve itself as a Jewish state, Israel must disgorge the land it has occupied since 1967 — that, or as Israel’s far right members of the governing coalition would have it, disgorge the Palestinians who live on the disputed land.

But demography within the Green Line? Yes indeed, to the tune of $40 million a year for the project’s first two years — that’s Jewish Agency money — plus a promise not likely to be fulfilled of an additional $400 million from the government. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency reports that "to attract Jewish families to Arab regions, the Jewish Agency plans to invest heavily in local educational resources" — better teachers, longer school days, an upgrading of regional colleges.

The irony here is that by every available measure — teacher training, dropouts, kindergarten availability, special education, per capita pupil expenditures and so forth — the Arab educational sector has never experienced anything near equality with the Jewish educational sector nor has it enjoyed the extraordinary infusion of funds that is here contemplated.

Now put yourself in the shoes of an Arab citizen of the State of Israel, told again and again that you have greater freedom and a higher standard of living than Arabs in neighboring countries. But because you are an Israeli citizen, your natural population of reference is not the Arab citizen of Lebanon or Syria, it is the Jewish citizen of the State of Israel.

And now imagine that you are informed that it is a goal of the Jewish people, as represented by the Jewish Agency, to see to it that "real Zionists" — never mind that a large number of those "real Zionists" are non-Jewish immigrants from Russia — outnumber you even in regions within Israel where your ethnic/religious group has long been predominant.

This is not about being gracious to the stranger, because we were strangers in Egypt. We are talking here about Israeli citizens.

The fact that 20 percent of Israelis are Palestinians creates real tensions around the definition of a "Jewish state." By all indications, Israel has done and is doing a miserable job in dealing with those tensions, aggravating them rather than defusing them.

To be sure, the conflict has exacerbated the problem — but think for a moment how very differently the conflict might have played out had Israel, from its inception, opted for genuine equality for its Arab citizens. The fact that Israel is explicitly a Jewish state need not have precluded it from making a real home for all its citizens.

Instead, it has relied on a mix of crumbs and rhetoric to address the matter. And now, 55 years into a policy of shameful neglect, it finds itself on the brink of a whirlwind and flails about in ways that will newly aggravate the already strained relationship.

It turns out that we here in America are directly implicated in this latest aggravation: the chair of the task force charged with developing the details of the program is the incoming chairman of the board of United Jewish Communities, and the project is part of Partnership 2000, a Jewish Agency program that links Diaspora Jewish communities with Israeli communities.

Sorry, folks. This is not the Zionism in which I was reared — nor the Judaism.

Leonard Fein’s most recent book is “Against the Dying of the Light: A Father’s Story of Love, Loss, and Hope (Jewish Lights, 2001).

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A Mitzvah for Ayelet

Leave a Comment / Personals / Vered Kashani

Last year on the seventh of Av, my cousin, Ayelet, was traveling on bus No. 189 from B’nei B’rak to Emanuel with her 10-month-old twin daughters, her 2-year-old son and her mother. The bus came under terrorist attack killing nine and injuring 20. Her daughter, Sara Tiferet, and mother, Zilpa, were killed. When Gal, Ayelet’s husband, rushed to the scene to find out what had happened to his loved ones, terrorists murdered him, too. While Ayelet and her son were injured, her other daughter, Galia Esther, didn’t have a scratch.

My aunt Zilpa had won a battle with cancer four years before. There is only one word to describe her: angel. Gal was a wealthy, good-looking pilot who gave tzedakah. Running on the freeway to the murder scene, he had to ask for a ride from a stranger since he sold his own car to help a friend. The sight of a 10-month-old corpse being laid into a fresh grave — well, there’s no way to eulogize someone so young.

Last year, my husband and I had the privilege of hosting a group of terror victims from Israel. While we tried to keep a cheerful spirit, we could not ignore the painful experiences each one of them carried. A young woman, Shiri Shefi, told me the heart-wrenching story of how her 5-year-old daughter, Danielle, was murdered in her arms. I cried for Shiri, for Ayelet and for all the suffering we have to endure.

I take great pride in my ability to base my belief in God beyond reason. I do not question Ayelet’s tragedy more than I question the death of little Danielle. A death is a death is a death. Every death is painful; we should ponder death and question it.

However, it is more important to question life. We tend to question the painful and take for granted the essential. I do not think God is in a need of a public defender. It is we who need a reality check.

Six months ago, Ayelet gave birth to a beautiful healthy baby girl. She named her Chaya Nechama (a living counsel). Ayelet was three months pregnant when her loved ones were murdered. By the time the paramedics were able to cut through the bulletproof bus, Ayelet lost a lot of blood and an eye. Just before losing consciousness, she whispered to the surgeons: “I am pregnant. Please, save my baby.”

Is Ayelet lucky? I believe she is. Sometimes it is difficult for me to see why. Ayelet lost her child, her mother, her husband and her eye. But being lucky is a matter of perception.

“We are so lucky, Vered!” Ayelet told me in a phone conversation after the attack. “We get to hold these precious gifts in our hands, to hug them and to kiss them. There are so many people trying for many years to conceive and we take it for granted.”

A year later, Ayelet’s perception cannot be mistaken for a state of “shock” or “denial.” In our weekly conversations, Ayelet always makes sure to make me laugh. If her courageous words could have been put into capsules, she could have put Prozac out of business.

Out sages tell us that the time of the redemption is analogized to labor — it is a difficult time, full of pain and frustration, but as we get closer to our redemption, the contractions are getting longer and closer together. Judging from the situation in the world, I think it is time to push. Sure, we can philosophize and ask, “Why? Why me?” — or we can do something.

In order to cheer Ayelet up, I launched a mitzvah campaign called GAZIT (an acronym for Gal, Zilpa and Sara Tiferet). Gazit were also the stones used to build the Temple in Jerusalem. I ask people to perform one of the 613 mitzvot in honor of Ayelet’s loved ones and write her about it. It can be binding tefillin, affixing a mezuzah, lighting Shabbat candles or honoring family purity (Ayelet’s favorite).

God is a socialist: He gave his mitzvot to the poor and rich, the Reform, Orthodox, Conservative and nonaffiliated. I urge you to do a mitzvah and write to Ayelet about it. You will get the mitzvah of making Ayelet happy.

For more information about GAZIT, contact now.moshiach@verizon.net .

Vered Kashani is a mother of five, studies philosophy at UCLA and is married to Rabbi Shimon Kashani of the Southern California Jewish Center.

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Seek the Right Motivation for Fetes

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas / Rabbi Avi Shafran

Meet Lorne Hughes, a young non-Jewish gentleman from the Virgin Islands clad in a form-fitting black outfit, who “regularly spends his weekends dancing with 13-year-olds at bar mitzvahs,” according to an article that appeared in The New York Times on May 30, 2003.

The report was ostensibly about Hughes’ “lucrative and competitive” profession — he is a “party motivator.” But its detailed descriptions of the devolution of bar/bat mitzvah celebrations in some circles could only have left any reader sensitive to the Jewish religious tradition deeply depressed.

Party motivators are paid to attend bar mitzvahs and other events to make sure “that young guests are swept up in dancing and games,” according to the report. Hughes was described as smiling ecstatically at one bar mitzvah” as he danced to Ricky Martin and Jennifer Lopez songs with middle school students [and with their parents].”

“Whether you can have a successful bar mitzvah without at least a handful of motivators,” the article asserts, presumably in the name of parents who employ such services, “is debatable.”

One female motivator at a bar mitzvah “in a black tank top” was observed at the “children’s cocktail hour” enthralling the 13-year-old boys in attendance.

“She just talks about, like, sex and girlfriends,” explained one of the young men, clearly motivated.

Some of the parents are similarly adolescent. While sometimes, the report notes, “they request that their motivators dress modestly — sometimes they request the opposite.”

“Dads especially” often indicate their preference for provocative women motivators, according to the owner of one entertainment agency. Then he heads, unconsciously alighting on an apt metaphor, “to our stable of people” to find the right one for the job.

Were it all a Purim skit, it would be, if in poor taste, perhaps funny. As reality, though, not even the word “tragic” does it justice.

How horribly far the concept of bar mitzvah has drifted from its true meaning in these materialistic, vulgar times.

A mitzvah, of course is a commandment, one with its source in the ultimate Commander. And the “bar” refers not to what a bartender tends but rather to the responsibility of the new Jewish young adult to shoulder the duties and obligations of a Jew — the study and observance of the Torah.

And so, a truly successful bar mitzvah is one where the young person has come to recognize that responsibility. Dancers, decadence and the lowest common denominators of American pop culture are hardly fitting motivators for such.

The issue is not denominational. There are excesses to be found in celebrations of Orthodox Jews as there are in those of Jews of other affiliations. While the motivators phenomenon might represent a particular nadir of Jewish insensitivity, none of us are immune to the disease of skewed priorities, the confusing of essence with embellishment, the allowing of the true meaning of a milestone to become obscured by the trappings of its celebration.

In fact, a group of highly respected rabbis in the American Charedi (ultra-Orthodox) community, have called for their followers to tone down wedding celebrations (where party motivators are unneeded to get people dancing but where excesses of food and trimmings are, unfortunately, not unheard of). And many of us have taken the initiative to do the same with other celebrations as well, including bar mitzvahs.

As it happens, one of my own sons is, at this writing, about to celebrate his. He will read the Torah portion on the Shabbat after he turns 13, but for the Wednesday before, his Jewish birthday, my wife and I are planning a modest meal for relatives and a few friends — and, of course, our son’s friends and teachers.

There are only three things on the agenda for the evening:

My son will deliver a d’var Torah (a discourse on a Torah topic) and each of his grandfathers will say a few words.

My wife’s father will likely, as he always does at family celebrations, thank God for allowing him to survive the several concentration camps where he spent the Holocaust years, and where he and his religious comrades risked life and limb to maintain what Jewish observance they could.

And my own father will surely feel — and may well express — the deep gratitude he feels to the Creator for protecting him, during those same years, in a Siberian Soviet labor camp, where he and his fellow yeshiva students similarly endured terrible hardships to remain observant, believing Jews. Both grandfathers will take pride in how their children’s children are continuing the lives and ideals of their parents’ parents, and theirs before them.

And I will pray that my son will grow further to recognize the mission and meaning of a truly Jewish life, and follow the example of his grandfathers and grandmothers, parents and siblings, uncles and aunts and cousins, many of whom will be there to celebrate with him.

Neither Hughes nor his fellow entertainers will be present, but motivators will be everywhere.

Rabbi Avi Shafran is director of public affairs for Agudath Israel of America.

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A Ramah Union

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas / Matt Rosenbaum

David Ross and Lauren Schmidt met for the first time in Los Angeles in May 2000. Or at least, the couple is pretty sure that was the first time.

Raised in Palo Alto, David was an active member of United Synagogue Youth since his early childhood, and spent every summer at Camp Ramah in Ojai, first as a camper and then as a staff member.

Little did he know that his future wife slept only a few bunks away during those summers at Ramah.

Lauren grew up in Austin, Texas, and was involved with Young Judea and various Jewish summer camps. In the summers of 1992 and 1993, Lauren traveled west to work as a counselor at Camp Ramah.

Despite spending summers at the same camp and sharing a passion for music, Lauren and David did not remember meeting each other when their paths crossed again through a mutual friend in 2000.

"It’s almost impossible that we never even said ‘Hello’ through two entire summers at camp," David said. "But we really didn’t remember each other at all."

Although they sensed a connection, Lauren still lived in Austin, and 2,000 miles was enough to dissuade David from pursuing a relationship.

"I remember telling my friends, ‘Too bad she lives in Texas,’" David said. "I thought we really hit it off, so the distance was pretty disappointing."

David’s disappointment soon turned to excitement when he traveled to Texas with his band, Milot Ha’Nefesh, to open for musician David Broza at Young Judea’s 50th anniversary celebration.

Lauren watched, then met David and his band. Even though they barely remembered each other, sparks flew and, three weeks later, David was in Austin meeting Lauren’s family. After a 10-month long-distance relationship, Lauren packed her bags and moved to Los Angeles in February 2003.

Only two months after her move, Lauren found more than matzah in the afikomen bag on the second night of Passover: David had hidden an engagement ring among the broken crumbs.

"Then I got down on one knee, and she said yes," David said. "It worked out well. We had been joking about wedding lists after we were together for three weeks, so it didn’t really surprise either of us."

The couple currently lives in the Pico-Robertson area and is strongly involved in the Jewish community. Lauren, a graduate of the University of Kansas with a master’s degree in social work from the University of Texas, is a school therapist in Santa Monica. David, who graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in music composition, still works for Ramah and travels with his band. They will be married on Nov. 2, 2003, at Camp Ramah.

"It’s a little bit like ‘When Harry Met Sally,’" David said. "Their paths had crossed several times over 10 years, but nothing happened. The same was true with us — it just proves to us that it was meant to be."

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Eleven Things to Know Before You Go

Leave a Comment / Celebrations/Simchas / Rabbi Daniel Kohn

Congratulations! You have been invited to the bar/bat mitzvah of a friend or family member. Now what? What are you supposed to do there? How do you act? Whether you are Jewish or not, the following is a brief guide to help you feel more comfortable at the worship service and enjoy the events as they unfold. It includes appropriate synagogue behavior, major sections of the service, the synagogue environment and service participants. Because customs vary from community to community, please contact the host family for further clarification.

General expectations for synagogue behavior include:

1. Dress

Guests at a bar/bat mitzvah celebration generally wear dressy clothes — for men, either a suit or slacks, tie and jacket; for women, a dress or formal pantsuit (depending on the congregation where the ceremony takes place). In more traditional communities, clothing tends to be dressier.

2. Arrival Time

The time listed on the invitation is usually the official starting time for the weekly Shabbat service. Family and invited guests try to arrive at the beginning, even though the bar/bat mitzvah activities occur somewhat later in the service. However, both guests and regular congregants often arrive late, well after services have begun.

3. Wearing a Prayer Shawl

The tallit (prayer shawl) is traditionally worn by Jewish males and, in liberal congregations, by Jewish females. Because the braided fringes at the four corners of the tallit remind its wearer to observe the commandments of Judaism, wearing a tallit is reserved for Jews. Although an usher may offer you a tallit at the door, you may decline it if you are not Jewish or are simply uncomfortable wearing such a garment.

4. Wearing a Head Covering

A kippah (head covering) is traditionally worn by males during the service and also by females in more liberal synagogues. Wearing a kippah is not a symbol of religious identification like the tallit, but is rather an act of respect to God and the sacredness of the worship space. Just as men and women may be asked to remove their hats in the church, or remove their shoes before entering a mosque, wearing a head covering is a nondenominational act of showing respect. In some synagogues, women might wear hats or a lace head covering.

5. Maintaining Sanctity

All guests and participants are expected to respect the sanctity of the prayer service and Shabbat by setting your cell phone or beeper to vibrate or turning it off, not taking pictures, not smoking in the synagogue or on the grounds and not writing or recording.

6. Sitting and Standing

Jewish services can be very athletic, filled with frequent directions to stand for particular prayers and sit for others. Take your cue from the other worshipers or the rabbi’s instructions. Unlike kneeling in a Catholic worship service — which is a unique prayer posture filled with religious significance — standing and sitting in a Jewish service does not constitute any affirmation of religious belief; it is merely a sign of respect. There may also be instructions to bow at certain parts of the service, and because a bow or prostration is a religiously significant act, feel free to remain standing or sitting as you wish at that point.

7. The Service: Try to follow the service in the siddur (prayerbook) and the Chumash (Five Books of Moses), both of which are usually printed in Hebrew and English. Guests and congregants are encouraged to hum along during congregational melodies and to participate in the service to the extent that they feel comfortable. During the Torah service (described below), the entire congregation is encouraged to follow the reading of the weekly Torah portion in English or Hebrew.

Major sections of the Shabbat morning service include:

8. The “Shema”

“Hear O Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One.” This passage from the Book of Deuteronomy and the three passages that follow constitute a central part of each morning and evening Jewish prayer service. Probably the most important single sentence in the liturgy, the “Shema” is not a prayer but rather an affirmation of the unity of God.

9. The “Amidah”

“Standing Prayer.” The “Amidah,” a series of prayers recited while standing in silent meditation, is the major liturgical piece of every synagogue service throughout the year. On a weekday, the “Amidah” contains prayers for the physical and spiritual well-being of the one praying as well as of the entire community of the people of Israel; on Shabbat we praise God for the joy of the Shabbat and the rest that we enjoy. It is perfectly acceptable and even desirable that people recite the “Amidah” in English, and worshipers are also encouraged to pray from their hearts if the printed words do not speak to them.

10. The Torah Service

Following the “Shema” and the “Amidah” is a transition from prayer to study. The primary study text is from the Pentateuch, or Five Books of Moses. This text has been written on the parchment of the Torah scrolls by a specially trained scribe.

The Torah is divided into — and read in — weekly portions, according to a prescribed calendar, so that the entire Torah is read in the span of one year. The cover and accouterments of the Torah scrolls recall the priestly garb of ancient Temple times.

Usually the rabbi, and sometimes the bar/bat mitzvah child or another congregant, delivers a d’var Torah, a word of Torah, that comments on the weekly Torah reading.

Once the Torah reading is over, another person — usually the bar/bat mitzvah child — chants a portion from the prophetic writings of the Torah. The haftarah (concluding teaching), is usually chosen to reflect a theme or literary allusion in the Torah portion. The purpose of the haftarah is not only to provide an opportunity to teach from a different section of the Bible, but also to assert that prophecy serves to reinforce the laws of the Torah.

11. Mourner’s “Kaddish”

Although there is no mention of death in this prayer, the “Kaddish” is recited at the end of all worship services by family members who have lost a loved one in the past year or who are observing the anniversary of a death in years past. Despite sorrow and pain, the mourner rises to declare continuing commitment in praising God’s name, to which we all respond, “Amen.”

Reprinted from Eleven Things to Know Before You Go Read More »

Polish Director Honors Legacy With Classic Tale

Leave a Comment / Entertainment / Naomi Pfefferman

Before her Jewish father died in Polish police custody in 1961, director Agnieszka Holland saw the legendary 1937 Yiddish film, “The Dybbuk,” based on S. Ansky’s play. Decades later, she remembered the movie as she prepared to direct her first Polish film since she was exiled from that country in 1981.

“I wanted to help reestablish the bridge between Poles and Jews,” she said.

Holland (“Washington Square,” “The Secret Garden”) selected Ansky’s tale of possession and exorcism partly “because the mysticism is depicted as part of everyday life,” she said. “Usually when Polish directors tackle Jewish subjects, I feel a kind of irritation because it’s like a fairy tale. But I wanted to show Jewish life in a very realistic way. Realism establishes a direct emotional connection between the characters and the audience, so that even if you have no Jewish background, you can relate.”

Holland’s story is almost as dramatic as the film, which uses Ansky’s text almost verbatim. Her Jewish journalist father lost most of his family in the Holocaust, but was reticent to talk about it “because of his pain and survivor’s guilt,” she said. In 1961, he was arrested during an anti-Semitic purge and allegedly pushed out the window (his death was officially declared a suicide).

Although her mother was Catholic, the half-Jewish Holland, now 54, was rejected from every Polish film school. While she eventually attended the prestigious Prague Film Academy, she spent six weeks in a Czech prison for dissident activities.

Back in Poland in the 1970s, she was banned from the film business until she became a protégé of esteemed director Andrzej Wajda. When he offered to adopt her so she could drop her blackened family name, she declined.

“I wanted to be my father’s witness,” she said.

Holland continued to bear witness to her father — and to her family’s past — by making several Holocaust-themed films. In 1985, she directed “Angry Harvest,” about a Catholic farmer who shelters a Jewish woman during World War II. In 1991, she filmed “Europa, Europa,” based on the true story of a Jewish boy who posed as a member of the Hitler Youth.

She settled on “The Dybbuk” following her 1999 drama, “The Third Miracle,” starring Ed Harris as a beleaguered priest. “After touching on Catholic mysticism, I wanted to explore the Jewish side,” she said.

Ansky’s story of a kabbalist who possesses his beloved fit the bill; because her non-Jewish cast knew nothing about Judaism, Holland invited Poland’s chief rabbi to lecture to them about Chasidism. Her biggest challenge while directing the Polish TV movie: “Getting my actors to play real human beings, not clichéd ‘Jews’ with quaint accents and movements,” she said. “I wanted them to bring to the characters the same kinds of fears and passions experienced by contemporary people.”

Will she return to Jewish themes in her work?

“It will always be a possibility, because it’s always present in myself,” she said.

Holland’s “The Dybbuk” will screen at the Zeitgeist Festival Tuesday, Aug. 26 at 7:30 p.m.; tickets are $4-$6. Holland will also be hosting a screening of Agnes Varda’s “Le Bonheur” on Friday, Aug. 22 at 7:30 p.m. as part of the “How Great Filmmakers Inspire Great Filmmakers” series; tickets are $6-$10. Both events take place at the Skirball. For tickets, call (323) 655-8587.

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