Rabbi John Rosove’s Blog
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October 27, 2013
My Teacher
American Jews believe in education. I know that seems like a generalization, but I can’t think of a single American Jewish person who would say that education should not be a priority for their children. So let’s say that an American Jewish child comes home to their parents from a tough day in Middle School and says that they want to quit Beginning Algebra. Few parents would allow their children to stop or to say just finish Middle School and you’ll never have to learn Math ever again. Therefore, it seems puzzling to me that those same American Jewish Parents seem to allow their children to quit learning Hebrew at exactly that same point in their life.
Hebrew is the lifeline of our religion. It is the language of the Torah. It is the language of our people. We are so intertwined with those boxy letters that when Zionism and the Modern State of Israel took hold within the worldwide Jewish community, modern Hebrew was reborn as a living language. Simply put, Hebrew is inextricable from any aspect of the Jewish narrative. Even when Hebrew wasn’t spoken casually, it was because Hebrew was held on a pedestal as the “Lashon Kodesh” or the Holy Language.
Much of Rabbinical School feels to me like a Graduate Program in Linguistics. First, learn Hebrew. Then, learn Babylonian Aramaic. Then, learn to read the thousand years of writing when people spoke neither language but insisted on writing in them to remain within the tradition.
When I arrived in Israel with my wife and kids, I was happily surprised that my wife Blair decided to enroll in an Ulpan (a ten day crash course in Hebrew). She hadn’t learned Hebrew since her Bat-Mitzvah. And although English is spoken in Israel, especially when seeing Israel through a tourist perspective, Hebrew is required to ride in local cabs, shop in local supermarkets, read labels on groceries and a whole lot more. Ten days in her Hebrew Intensive hasn’t made Blair fluent but I am so proud that she can order in a restaurant, she can understand a Taxi driver – and has once again entered our two-thousand-year-old conversation, which has always been spoken (and argued) in Hebrew.
My friends often ask why Judaism fascinates me to the point that I want to study it with such intensity. After all, they all studied Judaism as well before their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs. I often respond by saying that it would be difficult to find literature engaging as an adult if one stopped reading at the age of twelve or thirteen. (I use that metaphor for writers, but it works for any profession.)
I spend so much time around teachers of Torah, Talmud and Halacha that I often forget to recognize my greatest teachers in life. Last week when Blair texted me the picture of herself holding the Diploma from her Ulpan, I suddenly remembered why I was studying the Sugya of Gemora I had in front of me at that moment. The two-thousand-year-old conversation cannot end. Education in all things, even Jewish education, must continue throughout one’s life and not be limited to a specific time window.
Blair is not only my teacher, she is also a teacher for our children. And this message about Hebrew is one I have always dreamed of teaching them. They were so proud of her. I invite you to follow her example and reenter our generations old conversation as a religion and as a people. If you know Hebrew, try to read a new Hebrew book. If you don’t know Hebrew, try to learn it even in your adulthood.
What is the last truly new and challenging thing that you have learned? If you can’t think of an answer quickly, go find a teacher. Spend some time with that teacher and broaden yourself. I promise it will be both exhilarating and frustrating and reinvigorate your life. And then thank the teacher. And if you’re lucky enough, marry her so that she can pass her Ulpan Diploma around the table at dinnertime.
Headlines & Reads: UAE Ups Aid to Egypt, Rice’s Modest Middle East Strategy, On Religion Without God
The US
Headline: Rice Offers a More Modest Strategy for Mideast
To Read: John Kerry writes an op-ed descrying President Assad and stressing the importance of putting pressure on the tyrant before winter exacerbates his country's unbearable humanitarian situation-
Merely expecting a regime like Assad's to live up to the spirit, let alone letter, of the Security Council statement without concerted international pressure is sadly unrealistic. A regime that gassed its own people and systematically denies them food and medicine will bow only to our pressure, not to our hopes. Assad's allies who have influence over his calculations must demand that he and his backers adhere to international standards. With winter approaching quickly, and the rolls of the starving and sick growing daily, we can waste no time. Aid workers must have full access to do their jobs now. The world cannot sit by watching innocents die.
Quote: “We can’t just be consumed 24/7 by one region, important as it is,” she said, adding, “He thought it was a good time to step back and reassess, in a very critical and kind of no-holds-barred way, how we conceive the region.” Rice telling her aides about the President's view of the Middle East.
Number: 1000, the Post has found that over 1000 American NGO's have suffered from significant diversions in their accounts, due to theft, embezzlement and such.
Israel
Headline: Gov't divided on issue of prisoners' release
To Read: James Loeffler takes a look at Gil Troy's book about Daniel Patrick Moynihan's defense of Israel-
Troy’s careful analysis of Moynihan’s motivations is one of the strengths of this book, if a bit redundant at times. In an era when both critics and advocates of the American-Israeli alliance often blithely assert that domestic politics drive US foreign policy (be it Jewish lobbying or Christian Zionist votes), it is an important lesson to remember that Israel often functions as much as a symbolic proxy for American identity in foreign affairs as a strategic ally or special interest issue. “In defending Zionism,” writes Troy, “Moynihan was combating what he saw as an ideological assault on Western values and American power.”
(take a look at our q&a with Gil Troy right here)
Quote: “It was appalling to listen to Britain's former foreign secretary. His remarks reflect prejudice of the worst kind. We're used to hearing groundless accusations from Palestinian envoys but I thought British diplomats, including former ones, were still capable of a measure of rational thought“, former Israeli MK Einat Wilf responding to some controversial remarks made by Britain's former FM Jack Straw.
Number: 9, nine Israelis and one Palestinian were hurt in an rock attack incident in Hebron
The Middle East
Headline: UAE signs $4.9 billion aid package to Egypt
To Read: Eric Trager takes a look at the rants and conspiracy theories of the Times' new Egyptian columnist Alaa al Aswany-
“A simple experiment,” he tweeted in July, “Go to the website of any global newspaper and read its coverage of Egypt, and you’ll find that most of the writers that defended Israel are now mostly defending the Brotherhood.” Indeed, in Aswany’s twisted worldview, Washington’s displeasure with the way in which Morsi was ousted and Western reporting of the rising Brotherhood death toll must have Israel in mind first and foremost. And so being pro-Brotherhood—as Aswany defines it—must be a Zionist position.
Quote: “Enrichment to 20 percent is continuing”, Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the head of parliament’s national security and foreign policy committee, admitting that Iran's uranium enrichment is still on.
Number: 16, the number of Iranians who were reportedly hanged in retaliation for a eadly border attack.
The Jewish World
Headline: Republican Jewish Coalition to Senate: Approve new Iran sanctions bill
To Read: Moshe Halbertal takes a look at Ronald Dworkin's posthumous book, which examines the notion of 'religion without god'-
The notion of “religion without God” is first defined negatively. It stands for a rejection of naturalism, which claims that the world consists exclusively of matter governed by laws of nature that are in principle described by science, and that qualities such as beauty or value are not independent of the mind but are humanly constructed responses to the world. Dworkin’s rejection of naturalism consists of two crucial elements. The first is the affirmation that human life has an objective meaning and importance. Our values and moral convictions are not humanly contrived responses that can be exhaustively explained as an outcome of the evolutionary process. “Cruelty is wrong” is an objective statement that has been discovered by us rather than invented by us, and its objective foundation is, for Dworkin, internal to our experience of the prohibition on cruelty. We encounter it as an absolute. If we examine the set of our convictions concerning the realms that are independent of our mind, we might genuinely entertain a Cartesian doubt as to whether we exist, but we cannot imagine a world in which it would be fine to run over an innocent child with a car because we were late to a party.
Quote: “The success and mission of Limmud FSU is building a family of young Russian-speaking Jews. Look around you: These are the best and brightest of Russian society. They come because this conference gives them a sense of pride and family” Limmud founder, Chaim Chessler discussing the organization's role in revitalizing Russia's Jewish community.
Number: 1000, over one thousand people showed up for a neo Nazi rally in Athens.