Pacific Jewish Center | Rabbi » holier-than-thou

Have You Been Invited To A Brachos Party Or An Amen Party?

rabbifink — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 18:24:34 +0000

This post has been cross-posted to DovBear – more discussion there.

The newswires have been full reporting the massive scandal in NY / NJ the last few days. There is a strong correlation between the scandal and something prevalent in contemporary Orthodox Jewish society.

You may think you are far from a money-laundering, tax evading, kidney-dealing, FBI snitching, tax-evading, “knucklehead”. You may even be have the cleanest books on Wall Street and third party audits to prove it. Yet, our entire generation is infected with the same virus that the “knucklehead” are carrying.

The instant gratification / no effort, big payoff virus. (Yeah, I know, the name needs work, help me out in the comments.)

We, as a group are all looking for shortcuts. For some folks, the shortcuts are business shortcuts. Those are the “knuckleheads” who are going to jail. For others, the shortcuts are in the form of Jewish Magic (sometimes known as Segulos).

We have become overly reliant on the practice of Segulos. We want instant answers, we want instant gratification, we want an incantation to make things better, we want protection from evil all with minimal effort.

(There may be a place for Segulos in Judaism. What irks me is the proliferation of pop-Segulos. I may have mentioned this with regard to Kupat Ha’ir as well.)

Case in point: The Brachos Party (aka the Amen Party). Women (usually younger women) gather on a weekday evening. A little bit of food from each of the Brachos categories are brought to the table, beginning with some grape juice and ending with a jelly bean. Prior to each blessing a kabbalistic interpretation is provided including ideas like “making a mezonos will provide parnasa” and “making a haetz will bring children”. Then the blessing is made, a resounding amen is heard. People really do this. I am not kidding.

There also less formal, impromptu amen parties. Like in a summer camp, when everyone goes to wash netilas yadayim, girls calls over all of their friends (waiting for them to come, motioning and making a halachic hefsek) so they can hear her blessing and say amen.

Sounds pretty harmless, right? I disagree.

This is another shortcut.

Chazal reported that there are special benefits to a blessing and an amen recited properly. The point of this is to remind us to take our blessings seriously and to constantly include God in our physical lives. In fact this is a main theme throughout Torah. We are physical beings with the ability to transform the mundane into the sublime by our actions. One of the beautiful parts of Judaism is the constant tension and connection between our physical and spiritual existence. Blessings are a major part of that connection.

By relegating blessings to magic tricks, we lose the whole point of the blessing.

Further, the Aruch HaShulchan writes that one may not use “tricks” to get to the 100 blessing a day threshold mentioned in halacha. It must come organically. Additionally, he writes, saying amen to an “unnecessary blessing” is a terrible thing to do. These are not “unnecessary blessings” but a random drink of grape juice on a Wednesday, purely for the sake of making a blessing is awfully close.

When challenged, an “on the fence Brachos Party participant” told me that she learned that the whole reason we eat is to make blessings, so it is harmless to make more.

That really got me. The reason we eat is to live. When we are eating to live we make blessings. This integrates spirituality into our physical life as stated above. Further, the food “belongs to God”, making a blessing gives us the right to enjoy His world as per His instructions to us.

Eating so we make brachos is like going to the bathroom so we can make an Asher Yatzar. We go to the bathroom because otherwise we would burst. When we go successfully we acknowledge and thank God.

Here’s an idea. When you are done eating and drinking at the brachos party, go make an Asher Yatzar party!

I truly believe this is another symptom of the instant gratification / no effort, big payoff virus. We want to reap the benefits of the blessing so we invent ways to try and get those benefits.

It doesn’t work like that. There are no freebies in Judaism. Judaism is about working hard to follow the Mitzvos and refine one’s character. If the bored women want to do something to help the world, volunteer at Tomche Shabbos or homeless shelter, or go to a Torah class, or even say some Tehillim.

You can’t fool God. You can try and scam the government, you can try and scam your business associates and you will probably get caught or turned in, but please do not try and scam God.

Shame on Gizmodo | Shame on Us Too

rabbifink — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:21:20 +0000

One of my favorite gadget blogs ran a despicable headline for a post yesterday. Gizmodo is a great blog when it comes to getting information, reviews and opinions on the latest technology and gadgets. Unfortunately, yesterday they disgraced their reputation with a pretty offensive headline.

The headline garnered enough attention that they ultimately changed it to something less offensive.

There is a normal Orthodox Jewish couple who have a vacation home. Originally, the building did not have motion sensing lights but recently changed the system to a motion sensing system. On Shabbos the couple did not wish to be forced to walk in a hallway that would trigger the lights on. They requested the building swap the new system for the old one at their expense. The building refused. The couple sued.

Gizmodo posted the following headline: “Orthodox Couple Imprisoned By Superstition Blame Motion Sensing Light Instead”.

Proof:

Subsequently, the headline was changed to “Orthodox Jewish Couple Sues Over Motion Sensing Light“.

I posted the link on Facebook hoping to get some comments from my Facebook friends. I got a few interesting responses.

One commenter hit the two points that I want to discuss on this blog.

1 – The halachic ramifications of motion sensors and Shabbos for the Orthodox Jew.

2 – The reaction of a non-Jew to a halacha adherent Jew.

I do not want to get into a nitty gritty halachic discourse of motion sensors on Shabbos. Suffice to say, the issue is not black and white. On Shabbos one may not act in a way that will automatically produce a desired result that violates Shabbos. Completing a circuit to turn on a light is a violation of Shabbos. By activated the sensor, one automatically produced the desired result of turning on the light.

There is leeway when the result is not automatic or when the result is not desired.

I am all for striving to keep halacha. When I am met with a choice between what I want and what halacha demands I try my best to choose halacha. So for example, if I am driving late at night and I pull into a rest stop and they have a fast food joint serving burgers that are not kosher I have a choice. I want a burger but halacha demands that my burgers be kosher. I choose to leave the rest stop burgerless. I will not sue the restaurant for not providing kosher burgers. Right?

Now, I know this is a little different from the vacation home. But, it is the same principle. If halacha will not allow for me act a certain way, guess what? I am not going to act that way. Even if I really, really, really want to. So, I know that in the vacation home there are other factors, such as broken promises and flawed reasoning. However, if it were me, or anyone that I advise I would trade that place for a new one.

Adhering to halacha is about making a choice to allow halacha to control your life and not your whims and desires at any given moment. There will be times where the choice is hard or the alternative is very tempting, those are the times where you show your strength of character by making what you believe to be the right choice. Those are not the times to sue because you have been made uncomfortable in your adherence to halacha.

There may be great merit to the lawsuit. I find that all irrelevant. I think, avoiding a legal brouhaha over halacha is more important than the principle of who is right and who is wrong in this situation.

Second, the offensive headline that originally appeared on Gizmodo bothered me. I am NOT an overly sensitive person. I do not cry “Anti-Semitism at every opportunity I get (ala Uncle Leo). I don’t even call this “Anti-Semitism”, I call this insensitivity.

There is nothing against Jewish people, per se, when calling religion a superstition. But there is a tremendous breach of sensitivity.

Gizmodo writer, Jack Lofton doesn’t believe in religion in general and that’s okay. I am not going to call him names about his lack of faith or question his theology publicly. That is just not appropriate for a gadget blog. If he were writing on a religion blog, or even an anti-religion blog then Jack’s opinion about religion might be relevant. Here, it was not and inserting his bigoted opinion was insensitive.

I do not read the headline as an affront to Judaism or even religion in general. I read the headline as an affront to civility.

We live in a big world, with a lot of people. Not everyone is going to agree. You can try and convince everyone you are right or lash out against those who do not. But ultimately, we are not all going to agree. So let agree on this, let’s choose not to fight about our disagreements and otherwise be friends. I mantioned this revolutionary concept on this blog a little while ago. We have more in common than not. Let’s stop fighting about God, or anything else we feel strongly about and move on.

Also, Jack, Gizmodo is the wrong place to make your point about religion.

Time and place, Jack. Showing your prejudice against religion is ugly, it is especially ugly when it is not at all connected to the content of your post. I read Gizmodo for technology news and content. Just because you have a soapbox does not mean you can shout whatever you want whenever you want. Time and place.

Jack, please don’t make fun of other people’s beliefs on one of my favorite gadget blogs. Thanks.

Update: To his credit, the writer apologized.

How To Avoid "Holier-Than-Thou" Syndrome

rabbifink — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:44:50 +0000

I saw a very interesting column in the New York Times today.

The column presents some evidence that a large chasm exists between what an individual will claim they would do in a given situation and what one would actually do in that given situation.

In other words our actions betray our feelings of righteousness. (How funny is it that the columnist’s named is Benedict? well, it made me smile…).

As I was reading the article, which I highly recommend I kept thinking: Why is this idea so natural to me? Where else have I seen this?

The answer was really obvious.

The article talks about the “holier-than-thou” effect. People overstimate how they would behave if they were in a specific situation. For example, most of us probably think that we never take steroids if we were athletes, or that if we were investment bankers we never would have inflated the market for personal gain, or any other time you have been morally horrified.

The truth is, that most of us would have made the same decisions. How do we know? By setting people up.

Like 83% of college student at Cornell believed they would buy a flower to benefit cancer research and that only 56% of their peers would buy a flower.

In reality only 43% actually bought flowers. That is very few.

The article then veers into murky waters.

One practice that can potentially temper feelings of moral superiority is religion. All major faiths emphasize the value of being humble and the perils of hubris. “In humility count others as better than yourself,” St. Paul advises in his letter to the Philippians.

The article concludes that those who are religious have an even higher percentage of individuals who think they will outperform their peers in moral challenges.

Maybe the element of humility is not the key to avoiding “holier-than-thou” effect.

In Judaism we have a basic precept to avoid this problem.

One who sees someone sin must concoct an excuse or rationale for the wrongful behavior they witnessed. We are not permitted to think that someone else did wrong. It is irrelevant and mostly harmful to ourselves. There is a couple of great books that train us how to do this. You learn how to judge others favorably.

Further, we also have the following rule. “Do not judge your friend until you stand in his place”. This is exactly how to avoid “holier-than-thou” syndrome. Don’t think about it. You are incapable of making a moral judgment as an outsider. Until you are in the exact same situation you cannot possibly assess whether the other person made a good or bad judgment. In truth, you will never stand in his place. You will never know what his state of mind or affairs was. Nor do any two people have the same challenges.“Do not judge your friend until you stand in his place”.

Finally, we have another rule to avoid the “holier-than-thou” effect. “Do not trust yourself to avoid sin until the day you die”. We must be vigilant until our final moments because we can always fall. When you are aware that you are susceptible to failure, you are more likely to stay off the high horse. It also shortens the gap between those who are good and those who they think may not yet be so good. You can fall at any time. Don’t get “holier-than-thou”.

Now it all makes sense. The columnist helped me review these rules by showing how without these rules society runs a huge risk. It makes me more thankful to have been taught these ideas and now I am sharing them with you.

Live by these rules and I guarantee you will find more things to smile about, more things to brighten your day and more way to bring happiness to others.

No related posts.

Madoff's alleged misdeeds spark feelings of betrayal, outrage in L.A.'s Jewish community – Los Angeles Times

rabbifink — Thu, 25 Dec 2008 01:15:03 +0000

Madoff’s alleged misdeeds spark feelings of betrayal, outrage in L.A.’s Jewish community – Los Angeles Times.

This LA Times article actually encompasses the points I made yesterday in my post about a similar NY Times article.

Except there are still some Jewish elitists who “disown” Madoff (the first “Rabbis” mentioned in the article”). Rabbi Adlerstein and Harriet Rossetto echoed my sentiments of learning from the incident and Madoff’s opportunity for Tshuva.

Rossetto even goes so far to say that maybe Madoff is the messenger teaching us to redefine our values. That is a good approach. That is a healthy approach.

Divorcing ourselves from Madoff by saying “Madoff does not represent the Jewish people, not even remotely” is useless and inaccurate. Firstly, no one represents the Jewish people, we each represent ourselves. Secondly, that kind of disownment is not our place as humans and fellow Jews. He is still a Jew and yes he made mistakes but haven’t we all?

In Madoff Scandal, Jews Feel an Acute Betrayal – NYTimes.com

rabbifink — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 05:43:08 +0000

In Madoff Scandal, Jews Feel an Acute Betrayal – NYTimes.com

This NY Times article raises some interesting issues. Firstly, does Madoff reflect on “Jews” – are we all judged as a nation / religion by the actions of individuals? Is it anti-semitism when non-Jews express displeasure with the actions of Jews who act like idiots? Is there really no teshuva for Madoff? the last “rabbi” quoted seems to thing the Madoff is doomed to hell with no chance for redemption. Last I checked teshuva was always an option.

Besides all those questions what really irked me about this article was the self-righteousness of these non-observant Jews looking down from their pedestal of morality on Madoff. He is not excommunicated from the Jewish people because he is a thief! He is a Jewish thief and he is still our brother. He needs his people now more than ever to be sympathetic to his dire situation. He is not excused but we are not allowed to judge him either. Everyone does things that are wrong, everyone fails a moral challenge along the way. We are no different from Madoff. His sins do have grander repercussions and resonate more strongly throughout the world but at the end of the day he is just another person who messed up.

It is useless to paint him as a non-Jewish Jew because of his mistakes. As Jews we believe that mistakes are inevitable, it is how we dael with those mistakes that defines us. Not a bunch of “Rabbis” telling the NY Times that Madoff isn’t really Jewish because he is a crook!