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Jewish Journal

Connect. Inform. Inspire.

February 25, 2011

Real Chuck Lorre Is in the Cards

Leave a Comment / California, Circuit, Culture /

After Charlie Sheen’s rants against Chuck Lorre yesterday—referring to him as Chaim Levine (more on this later), calling him a “clown” and a “stupid, stupid little man and a p**sy punk”—I was thinking to myself: “Who is Sheen talking about?!”

Following a sit-down with Chuck Lorre at Comic-Con in 2009, the vibe I got from him was one of a menschy, thoughtful, self-critical guy. And if you read the vanity cards at the end of “Big Bang Theory” and “Two and a Half Men,” the portrait that emerges is one of a middle-aged Jewish comedy writer struggling with work, life and dating. And until Sheen’s meltdown, Lorre believed that no one was reading them—save for the die-hard fans who record the shows and freeze-frame at the exact second the card is visible (they’re also collected online at chucklorre.com, stretching back to his “Dharma & Greg” days).

Starting this week, Lorre is taking a break from the vanity cards. Last night’s “Big Bang Theory” card read: “Censored!” (you can read the card that should have run here).

The tabloids have made a lot of Lorre’s cards recently, because he’s been using them to vent his frustrations over Sheen. In the Feb. 14 “Two and a Half Men” vanity card, he kvetched about his efforts to live a long, healthy life: “I don’t drink. I don’t smoke. I don’t do drugs. I don’t have crazy, reckless sex with strangers. If Charlie Sheen outlives me, I’m gonna be really pissed.” For the Feb. 17 “Big Bang Theory” card, he wrote: “Strong Nielson ratings guarantee employment, not self-esteem. Actors can smoke cigarettes because they’re immune to carcinogens.”

A month earlier he wrote: “Do not attempt to replicate what you saw in tonight’s episode of Two and a Half Men. Despite the seeming lack of serious consequences and regardless of the hilarity that ensued, this is extremely dangerous behavior and could result in injury or death. Please keep in mind that we employ a highly-paid Hollywood professional who has years of experience with putting his life at risk. And sadly no, I’m not talking about our stunt man.”

When radio host Alex Jones brought up the vanity cards, Sheen said it was “one of the few compliments that clown has paid me in the last decade.”

It wouldn’t be shocking to learn that Sheen got “Chaim Levine” from reading the Feb. 7 “Two and a Half Men” vanity card, which Lorre wrote from Israel—apparently his first trip to the Holy Land. Like many first-timers, Lorre glowed about being surrounded by other Jews, but in his own geeky way: “I didn’t realize how much my double helix yearned to be around similar strands.”

Giving us insight into his Jewish identity, Lorre continues: “Why have I spent a lifetime moving away from that group? How did Chaim become Chuck? How did Levine become Lorre? The only answer I come up with is this: When I was a little boy in Hebrew school the rabbis regularly told us that we were the chosen people. That we were God’s favorites. Which is all well and good except that I went home, observed my family and, despite my tender age, thought to myself, “bull$#*!.”

Also, look no further than “Big Bang Theory’s” Howard Wolowitz to find out what kind of Jew Lorre is. Lorre told GeekHeeb that Wolowitz — the shiksa-dating, assimilated Jew — is a blend of his own Jewish background as well as that of the actor who plays him, Simon Helberg.

Unlike the broad jabs at Texas through Sheldon Cooper (Jim Parsons) and India via Rajesh “Raj” Koothrappali (Kunal Nayyar), the Jewish humor in “Big Bang Theory” is almost always familial. Take Wolowitz’s off-screen mother, played by Carol Ann Susi, whose main form of communication is yelling:

“Things are loud in a Jewish household. Conversations are up here,” Lorre said, lifting his hand above his head, “they’re pitched pretty high. That’s just the way we talk. Other people go, ‘Why are you yelling?’ I’m not yelling; I’m making a point! That was the fun of creating that off-camera mother. That’s how communication happens in some households, and it’s normal in that house.”

When asked when he writes the vanity cards, he told GeekHeeb, “On the bus to school.” IOW, at the last minute.

Spend some time, read through his cards. That’s where you’ll get to know Chuck Lorre.

(Wendy J. Madnick contributed to this article.)

Follow me on Twitter
http://twitter.com/GeekHeeb

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Wisconsin is a Jewish issue

Leave a Comment / United States /

There are moments – this is one such – when I envy America’s Roman Catholic Church.  I felt that way back in 1983 when the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued a remarkable pastoral letter on war and peace, and again in 1986 with the USCCB letter on Catholic Social Teaching and the U.S. Economy.  These are authoritative documents, bold statements of the normative beliefs of the Church.  And I felt the same twinge of envy earlier today, as I read the words of Bishop Stephen E. Blaire, chairman of the USCCB Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development in a February 23 letter to Archbishop Jerome E. Listecki of Milwaukee.  He wrote, “You and our brother bishops in Wisconsin are offering a timely reminder of what the Church teaches on the rights and duties of workers, including the right to form and belong to unions . . . . Catholic teaching and your statement remind us these are not just political conflicts or economic choices; they are moral choices with enormous human dimensions. The debates over worker representation and collective bargaining are not simply matters of ideology or power, but involve principles of justice . . . .”

It doesn’t work that way for Jews.  We are blessedly non-hierarchical, often indeed bordering on the anarchical.  And on the issue at hand, the effort by the governor of Wisconsin to neuter the public employees’ unions of his state (except for the police, the firefighters’ and several smaller public safety unions), we have explicitly taken a pass.  As JTA reports, “The Jewish federations of Madison and Milwaukee have decided not to take a position on the issue.  ’It’s really due to the diversity of our donor base,’ said Jill Hagler, executive director of the Madison federation. . . . The Jewish Community Relations Council of Milwaukee also is refraining from taking a position, and for the same reasons, according to director Elana Kahn-Oren.”  Which means that on the noisiest and perhaps even the most consequential domestic quarrel of the day, we are officially mute.

That’s not to say that Jews as individuals and some Jewish organizations and institutions are not engaged.  We have no data, but it is a safe bet that among Jews involved with the issue, in Wisconsin and around the country, there’s overwhelming opposition to Governor Walker’s proposed legislation.  Perhaps they react as viscerally as I did to a sign at the Tea Party counter-rally in Madison the other day, a sign reading “Unions Are Un-American.”

There’s ample and unfortunate precedent for Wisconsinites to determine who is American and who is “un-American.”  But even Joe McCarthy might have thought this sign absurd.  There’s a middle class in America (albeit badly wounded) principally because of labor unions and the post WWII GI Bill.  There’s a middle class because unions fought to ban child labor, to establish a 40-hour work week, to provide health insurance and pensions for working people.  There’s a middle class because in 1909, in a strike that would have major implications for trade unionism in general, 20,000 shirtwaist makers, mostly women between the ages of 16 and 25, the largest strike by women up to that time in American history, called a strike that transformed the International Ladies Garment Workers Union into a major force in the labor movement and led, a year later, to another New York strike, this time of 65,000 cloak and suit workers, demanding, among other things, a union shop.  A Boston lawyer named Louis D. Brandeis was invited to mediate the dispute, and the workers won, and so did the garment trade workers in Chicago just three weeks later, striking 50 different manufacturers and becoming soon after the Amalgamated Clothing Workers of America.  [Full disclosure: My late mother-in-law was a piece worker at Craigmore Clothes in Chicago; without the on-site Amalgamated clinic she’d have had no way of dealing with the frequent punctures she experienced as she worked with basting needles.]

The preposterous notion that it is the pension and health benefits of public employees rather than a brutal recession, looming cutbacks in federal aid and the persistent impact of corporate greed that have brought Wisconsin and other states to impossible deficits is contemptible.  The arithmetic doesn’t work – and, in any event, the unions Walker has targeted have already indicated their readiness to accept cutbacks in their benefits.  What they resist, and what the battle is about, is the governor’s effort to destroy collective bargaining.

All this is “a Jewish issue” because, hierarchy or not, Jewish texts and teachings on worker rights are strikingly and unambiguously progressive.  It is a Jewish issue because of people like Sam Gompers, David Dubinsky, Irving Bluestone, Sidney Hillman, Morris Hillquit, Morton Bahr, Ralph Hellstein, and Albert Shanker, to say nothing of Andy Stern and now Randi Weingarten and a host of others who played and still do central roles in America’s labor history.  It is a Jewish issue because when last spring the International Trade Union Confederation dealt with an effort to label Israel an apartheid state, it was the Jewish Labor Committee and the American labor movement, joined by their counterparts in Australia and Germany, who successfully derailed the measure.  (And the ITUC added a kind of exclamation point by elevating the head of Israel’s Histadrut to its executive committee.)  It is, finally, a Jewish issue because justice is everywhere and always a Jewish issue.

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Evidence Mounts in favor of Weight Loss Surgery

Leave a Comment / Blogs /

Readers who have been following my posts for a few years know that weight-loss surgery is amassing an impressive body of scientific evidence supporting its effectiveness and safety. (Links to my previous posts about weight loss surgery are below.)

This week, two studies in the Archives of Surgery attempted to compare the different kinds of weight loss surgery. An LA Times article (link below) has a clear explanation of the different kinds of surgery and summarizes the findings of the studies. The studies suggest that gastric bypass may be more effective than gastric banding or than sleeve gastrectomy for certain important outcomes. One of the studies randomized moderately obese patients with type 2 diabetes to gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy. 93% of the bypass group had their diabetes resolve, compared to 47% of the group that had sleeve surgery. The amazing thing isn’t which surgery was better; the amazing thing is that these patients don’t have diabetes anymore. We don’t have medications that can do that.

I find the accumulation of evidence in favor of weight-loss surgery a fascinating trend because of the comparisons to diet and exercise. Though I constantly recommend diet and exercise to my overweight patients, the long term scientific evidence for it is quite shaky. Most overweight people eventually regain weight after dieting, and long-term success stories are the exception not the rule. I have certainly had motivated patients who have lost weight and kept it off, but large studies suggest that most patients can’t (or don’t). So the counter-intuitive truth is that weight loss surgery is actually a more evidence-based treatment for obesity than diet and exercise.

The other interesting facet about this trend is that obesity is an illness in which surgery is clearly more effective than medications. In many diseases such as heart disease and stomach ulcers surgical treatments are becoming much less common as medications improve. Coronary bypasses will be quite rare in our children’s lifetimes because of the improvements in cholesterol and blood pressure medicines. But for obesity, the medications thus far have been dangerous and ineffective while surgery seems to be providing good results.

So until you discover a safe pill for weight loss, I’ll be recommending surgery for very overweight patients who don’t achieve results with diet and exercise.

Learn more:

LA Times article: ” target=”_blank”>Gastric surgeries compared

Archives of Surgery article: ” target=”_blank”>Gastric Bypass vs Sleeve Gastrectomy for Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus

My previous posts about weight loss surgery:

” target=”_blank”>Laparoscopic Gastric Banding Can Cure Diabetes in Obese Patients

” target=”_blank”>Gastric Banding is a Reasonable Treatment Option for Obesity

Important legal mumbo jumbo:
Anything you read on the web should be used to supplement, not replace, your doctor’s advice.  Anything that I write is no exception.  I’m a doctor, but I’m not your doctor despite the fact that you read or comment on my posts.  Leaving a comment on a post is a wonderful way to enter into a discussion with other readers, but I will not respond to comments (just because of time constraints).

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Oscar Party Food

Leave a Comment / News /

A couple of years ago I interviewed Chef Micah Wexler, who was then working at Craft in Century City, the West Coast Tom Colicchio outpost.  It was Oscar weekend, and Wexler was tasked with making the hors d’oeuvres for Craft’s Oscar night party.  He shared them with me, and I, in turn, made them at home.

And they’re good.

These days Wexler is about to launch Mezze, a contemporary California-Middle Eastern restaurant on La Cienega in the old Sona space.  I’m convinced from speaking to him breifly about the menu that Mezze will do for za’atar and sumac what Angeli’s did once upon a time for sundried tomatoes and balsamic.

Here’s my story, and his recipes, from Oscar Bash ‘08.

At this time last year, Matt Accarrino was gearing up to throw the most talked-about Oscar party in town.

Vanity Fair magazine had tapped Craft Los Angeles, the restaurant where Accarrino is head chef, to host its annual post-Academy Awards bash. A year earlier, the magazine had held the party at Morton’s, and 800 people, from Oprah to Al Gore to that evening’s winners, had shown up to dance, dine and be photographed until the wee hours.

Now it was Craft’s turn to shine, and expectations were high.

Craft is the West Coast outpost of celebrity chef Tom Colicchio’s burgeoning empire. Patrons can’t help but judge its kitchen with the same stink-eye stare that Colicchio levels at the sweating, panting contestants on his hit show, “Top Chef.” Craft also holds down a corner of the Creative Artists Agency’s glassy, Apple Store-like headquarters in Century City — it’s an Industry commissary that should know how to wow A-listers.

The key to it all, Accarrino told me, is staying true to your cooking philosophy, no matter who’s coming to dinner, no matter how fancy the party.

“Dresses make parties fancy,” he said. “We have not ever really dramatically had to change what we do here at Craft to make it more or less fancy. We believe in serving the best ingredients we can find at their best. I may add a bit of personal style, but the quality of the food is the star.”

The menu he designed for the Vanity Fair party reflected that style: appetizers of fried brandade (dried cod purée) with caper aioli, piquillo pepper marmalade and spiced almond; trays of wagyu beef tartare with chimmichurri sauce, compressed cucumber and garlic toast, and pass-arounds of roasted baby beets, pistachio puree, goat cheese and blood orange.

But Accarrino hadn’t sliced into his first blood orange when Craft got word: the party was off. In the midst of the writer’s strike, Hollywood wasn’t in a partying mood.

“After much consideration, and in support of the writers and everyone else affected by this strike, we have decided that this is not the appropriate year to hold our annual Oscar party,” said a statement posted on VanityFair.com.

The cancellation came early enough so there wasn’t any food lost, and Accarrino took it in stride: the restaurant filled that night anyway with a private Oscar party for another client.

Craft isn’t kosher, but when I asked Accarrino to come up with recipes for a kosher Oscar party, he didn’t blink. The man has been around.

The New Jersey native took to the idea of cooking seasonal, locally farmed food while he worked at the Michelin guide-rated Antonello Colonna restaurant in Labico, Italy.

Back in the States he worked as an opening sous chef at chef Thomas Keller’s Per Se in New York, also putting in time at the restaurants of Rick Moonen, Charlie Palmer and Todd English.

He joined Colicchio’s team in 2005, after writing the chef something of a fan letter (judging from many e-mails, Accarrino’s a fine writer, too).

In coming up with a kosher menu, Accarrino said his sous chef Micah Wexler would help him with the assignment.

The 26-year-old Wexler was in charge of all special events and private parties at Craft for 2008. Not only did the San Fernando Valley native work for Wolfgang Puck, Gino Angelini and, in New York, for Atelier Roubchon, he’s a graduate of Adat Ari El Day School and Milken Community High School. He’d better know kosher.

For an Oscar night menu, Accarrino and Wexler chose three dairy dishes that draw on bold fresh flavors and preparations that highlight the ingredients. When food is competing for attention with Vera Wang’s dresses and Bruce Vilanch’s punch lines, Accarrino’s advice is to “go for broke. Even when food is not the event, it’s no reason to make it anything less than special.”

In this case, special means smoked whitefish or salmon formed into a rillette, or French-style country paté, then rolled in traditional Moroccan brik pastry and fried. A second dish involves fresh goat cheese melted on a crisp homemade flatbread together with onions that have been sautéed slowly until sweet and caramelized. The most complicated dish is a ravioli of earthy yams stuffed into a seasonal chestnut pasta. The finished ravioli are sautéed in brown butter and fresh sage, then served on spoons with chestnut slices, more sage and pomegranate seeds.

OK, not so simple. But Accarrino also has sound advice for a foolproof (and kosher) menu that would work for any party, at any season:

“Serve great cheeses, marinated farm-fresh vegetables, cucumber and tomato in the summer, cippolini onions and wild mushrooms in the winter. Serve great charcuterie. Although traditionally made with pork, there are great kosher examples, such as bresola [Italian air-dried beef] and prosciutto made from lamb or duck instead of pork. Serve things that can stay at room temperature and serve them family-style. It makes a great and generous presentation and keeps people together and social.”

“Simple things can be transcendent,” Accarrino reminded me. “The important thing is that the food is a   quality product and it tastes good. There is no substitute for flavor.”

Goat Cheese & Onion Flatbreads

Ingredients:

1 package dry yeast

2 1/2 tablespoons water, warm

1 cup and 3 tablespoons water, room temperature

1 ounce olive oil

2 cups and 2 tablespoons flour

2 teaspoons kosher salt

1 tablespoon sugar

1 cup caramelized onions

1 cup goat cheese

1/2 cup pitted Nicoise olives, sliced

1 tablespoon chopped fresh thyme leaves

Mix yeast with warm water in mixing bowl; let stand till bloomed, five to 10 minutes. While you are waiting, mix dry ingredients. With the paddle attachment and machine on low speed, stir in water and oil till incorporated.

Gradually add dry ingredients, still on low speed. Mix two minutes. Change to the dough hook. Mix for two minutes more on low speed. Now on medium speed mix for three minutes more. Place in a well-oiled container and cover. Place in refrigerator and proof overnight.

The following morning, take dough out of refrigerator and let it come to room temperature for one hour. Remove dough gently and place on lightly floured table.

While dough is rising, prepare caramelized onions (recipe follows).

Divide dough into equal portions and shape into balls. Store in container that has been floured. Allow to rest for 20 minutes in a warm place. Punch down and roll out to a round shape.

Place on a pizza peel; top with caramelized onions, black olives and goat cheese. Slide onto preheated pizza stone in a 400 F oven. Bake eight to 10 minutes or till golden. Sprinkle thyme leaves over top and cut into wedges. Serve hot.

Caramelized Onions Ingredients:

2 onions

1/2 cup olive oil

salt and pepper

Slice two onions in half lengthwise, then cut into 1/4 inch slices crosswise.

Heat 1/2 cup olive oil in a large heavy skillet over medium heat. Add the onion, stir to coat with the oil, reduce the heat to medium-low, cover and cook, stirring occasionally until the onions are soft and have just begun to color, about 30 minutes.

Remove the cover, sprinkle with salt and pepper to taste, increase the heat to medium and cook uncovered, stirring frequently, until the onion is deep golden and caramelized, about 25 minutes.

Warm Smoked Fish Cigars and Salsa Verde

Fish Filling

1 pound flaked smoked whitefish or king salmon

1/4 cup diced steamed potato

1/4 cup diced sautéed carrot

1/4 cup diced sautéed celery

1/4 cup minced shallot, marinated with a few drops of red wine vinegar

1 tablespoon Dijon mustard

1 tablespoon crème fraiche

1 tablespoon fines herbs (chervil, parsley, tarragon, chives), chopped

Wrapping

1 package brik dough

1 egg beaten with 1 tablespoon water

Oil to fry (canola or vegetable)

Salsa Verde

3/4 cup chopped fines herbs (chervil, parsley, tarragon, chives)

1 tablespoon toasted pine nuts

1 tablespoon capers

1/3 cup bread crumbs

1 clove roasted garlic

2 tablespoons Parmesan cheese, grated

3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil

Combine flaked fish with warm potato and vegetables in a stand-up mixer fitted with paddle attachment. Mix to combine. Add in mustard, crème fraiche and herbs to combine. Season and chill.

Cut brik dough into 4-inch-by-4-inch squares. Form about one tablespoon of fish mixture into a log and roll brik dough around filling. Take care to fold in the sides. Seal the edge of the dough with egg wash. Reserve cigars for later.

In a blender, combine herbs, pine nuts, capers, bread crumbs, roasted garlic, Parmesan cheese and extra-virgin olive oil. Blend on low speed until a chunky but even paste forms. Season and reserve.

When ready to serve, fry cigars in 350 F oil until golden. Make sure you use a pot that is at least four times the volume of oil you plan to fill it with — you do not want it to overflow. Cut each cigar in half on a bias and serve with salsa verde.

Yam-Filled Chestnut Ravioli

Yam Filling Ingredients:

1 2/3 cups roasted, peeled yam 1 1/2 teaspoons brown butter

1 tablespoon mascarpone

1/2 teaspoon acacia honey

1 pinch kosher salt

5 turns black pepper

Combine all in food processor. This may take several batches. Cool.

Chestnut Pasta Dough Ingredients:

1/2 cup Italian 00 flour

2 1/2 tablespoons chestnut flour

1 whole egg

1 egg yolk

1 teaspoon whole milk

1 teaspoon extra-virgin olive oil

Combine all dry ingredients. Combine all wet ingredients. Mix wet to dry in stand-up mixer on medium for seven minutes.

Ravioli Ingredients:

Yam Filling from above

Chestnut Pasta Dough from above

Parmesan cheese

Unsalted butter

Fresh peeled chestnuts, sliced thinly

Sage leaves

Pomegranate seeds

Roll out chestnut dough using a pasta roller to the next-to-thinnest setting. Pipe teaspoon-size mounds of yam filling from a piping bag onto half the dough.

Fold the dough over and seal to form ravioli. Punch out with a round cutter (keep in mind these need to be small enough to fit on a spoon) and thin the edges all around to both seal the ravioli and ensure they will cook evenly. Cook the ravioli in simmering salted water till tender.

Meanwhile brown the butter in a sauté pan with the chestnuts, cooking them to a crisp and golden brown. Add the sage and fry to release the flavor. Add the ravioli and toss gently to coat in the browned sage butter.

Season and finish with grated Parmesan cheese. Place ravioli on spoons with chestnut slices, sage and garnish with pomegranate seeds.

 

Oscar Party Food Read More »

What I learned from Desmund Tutu

Leave a Comment / Worldwide /

I was nervous about going to hear Archbishop Desmond Tutu this past Sunday at All-Saints Church.  I was nervous because, despite his remarkable life story, which of course includes fighting and winning the battle against apartheid in his homeland, South Africa, he has made comments in the past about Israel and the Palestinians that have made him unwelcome in the mainstream Jewish community.  So, in choosing to attend the service, sit in the VIP section up front, alongside other dignitaries, interfaith leaders and Hollywood actors, among others, rather than stand outside with a picket sign, as I imagine some in our community would have rather me do, I was nervous about what I might hear from this renown voice for civil and human rights, especially in light of the fact that just 2 days earlier, the United States had chosen to veto a U.N. resolution calling the Israeli settlements illegal, even though our stated foreign policy agrees with that resolution, not to mention all of the unrest and turmoil in the greater Middle East.  I sat anxiously, surrounded by Muslims and Christians, and because it is an Episcopal Church, a few Jews as well, and waited for Bishop Tutu to preach. 

He is about to turn 80, but he has a presence and fortitude that belies his age.  Not much more than 5’4” tall, a higher pitched and sweet sounding voice emanates from his throat, overlaid with an accent that sometimes makes him hard to understand.  He rose to speak, looking out over the capacity filled church, including hundreds watching on video monitors outside, and gave us the following message: God is holy, therefore we are all holy; we are God carriers, God’s stand-ins, God’s viceroys.  He told us that each human being, no matter what color of skin they have, is created in God’s image, therefore is a piece of God, therefore is holy, therefore deserves respect, dignity, compassion and love.  It was a message of deep spiritual depth, one that he brought around for just a moment, at the very end, to today’s reality.  More on that to come.

Bishop Tutu was echoing the scriptural reading of that morning, one that we Jews are really familiar with: Leviticus 19, known in our tradition as the holiness code.  It is here that we get some of the more famous lines about how to live a life of holiness, as the Torah calls us to ‘kedoshim t’heeyu, you shall be holy, ki kadosh ani adonai eloheichem, for I, Adonai your God am holy.”  Don’t put a stumbling block before the blind, don’t insult the deaf, don’t hate your brother/sister in your heart, don’t hold a grudge or take revenge, and of course, love your neighbor as yourself.  He preached that we have become desensitized to the notion of holiness, for which he placed no blame, but stated as fact.  Do we see the face of God in every person that crosses our path?  Do we remember the teaching, in the Jewish tradition he said, that tells us of the midrash that an angel walks in front of our every person, no matter man or woman, young or old, straight or gay, black or white or brown, Jew or not, an angel walks in front of us and announces, “make way for the image of God, make way for the image of God.”  We are all God-carriers, he kept repeating, God’s stand-ins, God’s viceroys.  And, we don’t remember it.  Tutu asked what the world would be like if we all believed, truly believed, the words of our respective scriptures, the words that we hear in synagogue, church, mosque, shrine, or other “places of worship,” that tell us this week in and week out.  Would we kill one another, would we hate one another, would we destroy one another, if we truly believed the words of our tradition?  Would we kill others if we believed it was killing a part of God every time?  What do you think? 

The Torah offers us a pathway to think about this idea of holiness, of course, in the same section that was read that morning, Leviticus 19.  That got me thinking about an idea, one that crystallized during my weekly meditation sitting group here at PJTC.  There is a difference in life between living ethical and living holy, between setting up a society that seeks fairness and equity and a society that goes further and seeks holiness amongst the people.  In parshat Mishpatim, which comes after the experience at Mt. Sinai, we get pages of laws, rules and guidelines for establishing ethical communities, from treating slaves fairly (which was a huge improvement for the time), restitution for damages, civil law, injury law, fair treatment of workers, money lending, caring for the poor, as well as not mistreating the stranger, widow or orphan, a running theme in the Torah.  I noticed something interesting in this whole section: only at the very end, and really in relationship to not eating flesh torn from the beasts of the field, does it say anything about being holy.  These laws are what God expects of us humans in building a community, the ethical import of differentiating ourselves from the animals.  We need laws to function more efficiently and in safety; we need laws to ensure that everyone is treated with respect and dignity.  But, these laws say nothing, really, about being holy.  For that, we need Leviticus 19.

One Saturday morning, an old, shabbily dressed man happened to be walking through an elegant suburb when he spotted a huge, beautiful synagogue. He entered during the service, and took a seat in the rear pew.  The well-dressed congregation was unnerved by his appearance. As he was leaving the service, the rabbi told the old man, “Before you come back again, please pray and have a talk with God. Ask God what God thinks would be the proper clothes for worshipping in this synagogue.”  The next Saturday the old man returned to the synagogue in the same shabby clothes. After the service, the rabbi again asked him whether or not he had talked to God about the appropriate attire for synagogue.  “I did talk to God,” the old man replied. “God told me that He wouldn’t have any idea what was appropriate attire for worshipping in your synagogue. God said that’s because God’s never been in here before.”  This little joke illustrates what Leviticus 19 has to offer in regard to holiness.  Unlike Mishpatim, in this part of the Torah, in the parsha called Kedoshim, literally meaning holiness, we are exhorted to dig deeper into ourselves and work to create a society that is not just fair and just, but truly holy, emblematic of God here on Earth.  “You shall be holy, for I, Adonai Your God am Holy,” is how the parsha begins.  It then goes on to teach about about the Sabbath, the danger of idol-worship, tells us to leave the edges of field for the poor, not to swear falsely by God’s name, not to steal from one another, not to put a stumbling block before the blind or insult the deaf, to deal with rich and poor alike with justice, don’t stand idly by the blood of our neighbor.  And then comes the really big ones: Don’t hate your kinsfolk in your heart, don’t take vengeance or bear a grudge, love your neighbor as yourself.  And, over and over again, the phrase ‘ani Adonai, I am God,’ is repeated, reminding us of the source of holiness.  And unlike the laws in Mishpatim, I see these moral clarion calls of holiness exhorting us to raise ourselves higher and higher, to truly be what Tutu called God carriers, to go beyond ethical and fairness in laws and to seek pathways of living that elevate us beyond human capacity and into the true realms of being created in the image of God.  We are holy when we work to eliminate hate from our hearts, for there is no law against that; we are holy when we don’t insult the deaf, for there is no law against that; we are holy when we turn away from revenge or holding a grudge, for there is no law against that.  We can’t legislate holiness, it is the truest essence of being created in the image of God.  We are God carriers, and this is our mission in life.  It is not enough to create ethical societies, for that is just the beginning.  Laws are needed, for sure, but holiness, kedusha, is what makes us “a little lower than the angels,” (Psalm 8:5) as the psalmist says.  We are angelic when we overcome hatred and love the stranger, love our enemy, not because we are legislated to do so, but because we are God carriers.

After 20+ minutes of his sermon, which kept everyone rapt in attention, Tutu said, again, we are all God carriers, God’s stand-ins, God’s viceroys.  Then he said, “Even Mubarak.”  The Palestinians, the Jews, Americans, Arabs, South Africans, all of us are God carriers.  And that is the hard lesson he was driving at, which he said explicitly at the end.  It is easy to love those similar to you, to love those you already love.  To be holy, to be God carriers, he said, is to love those you don’t like, even those you hate.  To find the spark of holiness, the spark of God, in every person, in every human being.  In that, the archbishop, knowingly or unknowingly, was calling to mind the great Chassidic masters, particularly the Baal Shem Tov and Rebbe Nachman of Bretslov, both of whom called us to love our enemies, to pray for those whom we despise, and most powerfully, when we see evil in others, use it as a mirror to see what is wrong with ourselves.  That was all Tutu said about the situation today, leaving us to imply, infer and distill his message, so my nervousness was for naught. 

The power of this message was driven home for me, finally, at the end of our meditation class on Tuesday, when I shared my insights.  One of the women who comes regularly, and is a Shoah survivor, breathed a deep breath, looked at us and said the following: “In my darkest days in the concentration camps, when I was losing hope, I thought to myself, there must be some humanity in Hitler, perhaps when he is listening to music, the music he loved so much, maybe at that moment, for a split second, he is human.  And that gave me hope to try and keep living.”  We all sat in shocked silence, for who could say that other than a survivor and not be vilified, not be seen as sick and twisted.  So, I will leave as Desmond Tutu left it, when he said “we are all God carriers, we are all God’s stand-ins, we are all God’s viceroys.”  And he sat down.  And so will I.  Shabbat shalom.

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The Torah of Wisconsin

Leave a Comment / Opinion, United States /

In the streets of Madison, we can hear the echoes of Torah. From Moses to Maimonides to modern day Rabbis across the country, Jews have a long and lively history of supporting the rights of working people. Rabbis Bonnie Margulis and Jonathan Biatch recently reported from Wisconsin that standing for worker’s rights is “absolutely” the Jewish thing to do. Now is a good moment to ask ourselves, why?

For the past 150 years, labor unions have formed the backbone of progressive movements for social change. In Egypt, the winds of change blew hardest when workers from Alexandria to Aswan joined the youth revolution. In America, unions are woven into the story of empowerment for countless generations of immigrant workers, Jews among them, and the struggle of American minorities—from the sanitation workers of Memphis in the 1960s to the janitors of Los Angeles today.

The issue in Wisconsin is no longer about budgeting or steep cuts in wages and benefits—the unions and Governor Scott Walker are in full agreement there. When Governor Walker began targeting the ability of public employees to bargain collectively for their common good, he targeted our country’s most fundamental labor right: the right to a voice on the job. Our Jewish tradition urges us to see this as a shofar call to action.

It is no coincidence that the first lessons we receive after being freed from slavery in Egypt are on the treatment of workers. “You shall not abuse a needy and destitute laborer, whether a fellow countryman or a stranger… You must pay him his wages on the same day, before the sun sets… else he will cry to God against you and you will incur guilt” (Deuteronomy, 24:14-15). The third century mishnah and tosefta instructs employers to meet or exceed local custom in terms of wages and benefits, and the Babylonian Talmud gives town residents the right to intervene between a local employer and a worker to insure that wages are fair. All this is codified by centuries of commentaries, Talmud scholars and jurists.

Contemporary Halakhic (Jewish legal) decisions continue this strong tradition. 

In 1938, Rabbi Ben-Zion Meir Chai Uzziel, the Rishon le-Tziyon (Sephardic Chief Rabbi of the Land of Israel), wrote: “It is obvious that the Sages, of blessed memory, recognized the regulations of a craftsman’s guild or union of laborers or clerks in the general labor federation, or other federations of professionals.” Rabbi Uzziel explicates this further: “Reason also dictates that we should not leave the worker alone, isolated as an individual, so that he would have to hire himself out for minimal wages in order to satisfy his and his family’s hunger with bread and water in meager quantities and with a dark and dank apartment. In order to protect himself the law gave him the legal right to organize, and to create regulations for his fellows for the fair and equitable division of labor amongst them and the attaining of dignified treatment and appropriate payment for his work—so that he might support his family at the same standard of living as other residents of his city.”

And Rabbi Uzziel was not alone. In 1945, Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, a leading Israeli Ashkanzi scholar and posek (authoritative adjudicator of questions related to Jewish law), recognized the right of workers to organize and to have their regulations and rules seen as binding. He also recognized, in certain conditions, their right to strike. Rabbi Moshe Feinstein (1895–1986), a Lithuanian Orthodox rabbi, scholar and posek, concurred in a series of Responsa that extended Rabbi Waldenberg’s holding to include the right of workers to prevent scabs from doing their jobs and to include the rights of religious school teachers to bargain collectively, even though community funds and the religious obligation to teach Torah were at stake. In May 2008, a Responsa by Rabbi Jill Jacobs was passed by the Conservative Movement’s Committee on Jewish Law and Standards, calling on Jewish organizations and synagogues to allow collective bargaining by their employees.

In sum, Jewish tradition has been clear and consistent—the treatment of workers and their right to organize are among the basic underpinnings of a just society. From the synagogue to the state house, Jews must therefore call on those who govern to find the path toward economic justice regardless of how difficult that road is to travel. Our heritage, as the sweatshop workers and copper miners of yesterday, bears witness to it. Our tradition compels it.

Elissa Barrett is the Executive Director of the Progressive Jewish Alliance.  Rabbi Aryeh Cohen, author of the forthcoming Justice in the City: Toward a Community of Obligation (Academic Studies Press), is a past President and current member of the PJA board of directors, and an Associate Professor of Rabbinic Literature at American Jewish University.

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10 things I love and understand

Leave a Comment / News /

1. Don’t you love those people that use ALL CAPS when typing?  What is the thought there?  That unless you use all capital letters nobody will read your email, or that its a lot more important that other people’s emails?  And furthermore the same people that use all caps, don’t know how to spell and apparently have never learned about punctuation marks or anything else that normal people use when writing…  Do you have any idea how hard it is to read an email that is not only in ALL CAPS, but missing commas, periods and grammatically incoherent?  This is an example of an email I received the other day:

I JUST GOOGLED ALL THE GAMES PLACE SO WE CAN HAVE THE ADD:

THIS WEEKEND ON SUN IT’S AT CORNA GYM @ 2:15 THE ADD IS 502 S VICENTIA AVE, CORONA , CA , 92882

THEN 2/26 @ 2:50 AT LA MIRANDA HIGH SCHOOL ADD : 13520 ADELFA DRIVE, LA MIRADA , CA, 90638

AND 2/27 @ 3:25 AT NORCO RILEY GYM 3900 ACACIA AVE , NORCO , CA, 92860

IF WE WIN WE WILL GO ON TO A 4 TH GAME THAT WILL BE ANNOUNCED.

ALSO WE AS A TEAM HAVE TO PAY A $10 FEE TO THE SCORE KEEPER PER GAME FOR ALL 3 GAMES IT’S LIKE $3.50 PER KID IF YOU COULD GIVE THAT TO THE COACH ON SUN GAME THAT WOULD BE GREAT.

ALSO WAS WONDERING WHAT EVERYONE’S THOUGHTS WERE ON A TEAM PARTY AFTER ALL THE CHAMPION SHIP GAMES ARE DONE?? SHOULD WE HAVE ONE ???

PLEASE EVERYONE LET ME KNOW YOUR INPUT ON THE PARTY ??

*** TREAT AND DRINK I HAVE SEAN FOR THIS SUNDAY MICHAEL FOR NEXT SAT AND WE STILL NEED SOMEONE FOR SUNDAY’S GAME PLEASE LET ME KNOW IF ANYONE CAN DO SUN??? THANKS IN ADVANCE TO THESE PEOPLE FOR BRINGING TREAT AND DRINK AGAIN.THANKS

Can any rational person understand what the hell any of that means?

2. What about those morons that abbreviate every other word!  I am talking about a long email, not a text that only allows you 160 characters.  Are you that fricking lazy that you can’t even write out all the words in your pathetic e-mail?  How the hell am I supposed to know that ADD stands for address and not actual ADD illness?  Or are you trying to tell me that you have ADD, and therefore can’t sit long enough to write out words correctly?

3. How about those of you that feel the need to post your every move on Facebook or Twitter!  “Going to the supermarket with my wonderful hubby, then for some romantic dinner at Blabetty Blahs”  Really?  Do you really think people give a damn?  Or my favorite one: “What a beautiful day! I want to thank God for my wonderful husband, my perfect little children and my perfect little life! If it wasn’t for God, I couldn’t be enjoying this incredible day!”  Yes, we get it you love God, you are a born-again whatever, you found the meaning of life, you are all of a sudden not a miserable person that you used to be, and even though you used to do crack, smoke everything under the sun, steal, lie and cheat, we get it that now you are a changed person, all because you found… drum roll… GOD!

4. Speaking of Facebook, how about those socially inept human beings that post their engagements, pregnancies, and other special, private moments on Facebook prior to actually picking up the phone to share the news with their family and friends!  I am all for people making making their own mistakes, looking like fools and all that but how idiotic is that?

5. Yes, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: Vests!  What a waste of money and material.

6. I absolutely love those people that insist on licking their fingers while eating.  I can not think of a more grotesque habit than that!  Can you imagine sharing food with that animal?  Hey imbecile, that big white thing you just put on your lap is called a NAPKIN, and you wipe your hands on it.  It’s not just there for the food that misses your mouth.

7. How about those parents that refuse to admit that their kid is a brat?  No, my kid would never do that.  You are right, that moron that I witnessed with my own two eyes karate-kicking another moron in the back was obviously not your kid, he just happened to look like your kid who also got into your car afterward, right?

8. No matter what’s happening in the world, everyone blames the Jews.  It doesn’t even matter what it is, wars, recession, Charlie Sheen’s addiction, every single time its the Jews’ fault.  (Read more about that later)

9. People that have to create something out of nothing!  Drama junkies.  Even if there is absolutely nothing, those people will find something to argue about.

10. And my favorite are the women that complain about their husbands losing jobs, yet they continue driving their luxury SUV’s, parading around with their Louis Vuitton bags, and refusing to get a job of their own.

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