Pacific Jewish Center | Rabbi » USC

Attempted Murder in New Square: An Analysis

rabbifink — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 02:52:24 +0000

For some background, see yesterday’s post: Thoughts on Kiryas Joel: The Poorest City in America

The chasidic town of New Square (an enclave that is very similar to KJ) has found itself in the news for all the wrong reasons. Last week an 18 year old goon attempted to burn down a man’s home along with the people inside the home. The target had been a victim of intimidation and vandalism on previous occasions so he had recently installed a surveillance system of cameras around his home. It was on these cameras that the victim first saw the goon. He went outside and confronted the goon.

A short brawl ensued and the goon lit his Molotov cocktail and fled. Both men caught on fire but the house was spared. The victim suffered severe burns all over his body and has already undergone skin grafts.

The arson and attempted murder were escalations of previous action against the victim. Prior to this incident he had been subject to protests in front of his home, broken windows in his car and his home.

What crime did the victim commit that sparked vandalism and violence?

He prayed at an old age home nearby instead of praying in the community synagogue. The grand rabbi of New Square requires that all residents of New Square attend the same prayer service on Friday nights. The victim did not attend. The goons were enforcing the rabbi’s rule.

No one excuses the behavior of the goon. Social pressure is one thing, by violence is inexcusable. It would be unfair for me or anyone to place specific blame on anyone other than the goon who committed this act. There is no hard evidence that he was instructed to do what he did. There is some circumstantial evidence but for purposes of this article, it will be conceded that this person acted alone.

One response that I have seen on blogs, Twitter posts and Facebook comments is that the victim “had it coming”. (See: Avi Shafran on New Square) The village has a rule. He chose to live there and should expect that he will suffer some indignity for his failure to live by the standard of the village. Further, if he doesn’t like the rules, he should have left the village instead of staying AND breaking the rules.

In my opinion, this completely misses the point.

There was another scandal this week. The Head Football Coach at Ohio State University resigned amid a whirlwind of allegations that he assisted and enabled players to break the rules of NCAA. The players are being disciplined and their Head Coach, Jim Tressel has resigned and is being crucified in the media.

Jason Whitlock wrote a really great column about the scandal (Tressel Product of Flawed System). Whitlock contends, and I agree with him, that while Tressel is culpable for his sins, he is really just the product of a system built on lies. The primary lie being that student athletes are amateur. Whitlock has been saying forever, and I have been agreeing just as long, that the NCAA is the biggest fraud in America. They make billions of dollars off of these athletes but the athletes see none of that money. To maintain amateur status they must adhere to thousands of rules that basically prohibit them from taking any gifts or benefits from anybody.

Tressel was just part of the system. He didn’t create the problem. He didn’t make the problem worse. He was just a cog in a mighty machine. Indeed, he broke the rules. However the system is deeply flawed and everyone is breaking the rules that the real criminal here is not Tressel. It is the NCAA. [The same should be said for USC, Reggie Bush, OJ Mayo and Pete Carrol.]

What happened in New Square is the result of a flawed system.

Any system that demands absolute fealty in every respect of one’s life, stripping one of independence and the opportunity to think and choose is a bad system. Any system that demonizes someone for asserting one smidgen of original thought is a bad system.

The perpetrators of violence and social terrorism are cogs in the machine. The machine is the problem. It isn’t the cogs.

To complete the analogy, the arsonist was a football player, the leadership is Jim Tressel and they are all part of a system like the NCAA.

The system needs to be fixed. The cogs are all responsible for their actions but the most frustrating thing is that their actions are justifiable in the system. That is why the system needs to be scrapped. It permits behavior like this to occur. This incident is only one example of a rotten system. There are more.

Maintaining control over people is not easy. But with per se poverty and social terror it becomes easier to enforce. That is part of the reason why the Kiryas Joel situation is so problematic. (See: Thoughts on Kiryas Joel: The Poorest City in America). It creates a breeding ground for anti-social behavior.

According to Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch the Torah is designed to create a positive social environment for growth and spiritual development. It can’t be that poverty, oppression, terror and anti-social behavior are the darchei noam, pleasant ways of the Torah. It just can’t.

Matisyahu, NBC and The Olympic Winter Games Make A Great Team

rabbifink — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 23:25:57 +0000

I first heard of Matisyahu while working as a Campus Rabbi at USC. The Jewish students on campus were really into his music (this was ~5 years ago) and some of my students invited me to join them at a Matisyahu concert.

He was performing at the Knitting Factory in Hollywood which was right near my home. I went and it was really cool. The music was great, the message was equally wholesome and the connection that I got to build with my students was profound.

I liked it enough that I took my wife to a Matisyahu show at the American Jewish University a few weeks later. It was a bad venue for a concert. It was more like a movie theater than the right venue for a reggae concert. Still, we enjoyed the music.

I knew that Matisyahu had made it, when I was listening to my then favorite sports radio show, “The Loose Canons” on AM 570 in Los Angeles (oh how I miss those guys…) and they played Chop ‘em Down as their bumper music. That was an epiphany for me. At that point, Matisyahu has “made it” in my books.

If that wasn’t sufficient proof that Matisyahu had “made it”, I received another clue a few weeks ago. I was playing the NBA 2K10 video game and the background music was… Matisyahu!

I found a video of the NBA 2K10 playlist so you can see for yourself.

I thought that was pretty cool.

But today around the blogosphere and on Twitter the latest Matisyahu news is regarding the new NBC advertisement for the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics.

This is, by far, the best exposure that Matisyahu has seen in the public eye. The commercial is perfect. The content, the timing of the cuts, the slow – motion, the music and the message are woven together to create a really perfect ad. The emotion that the 30 second spot exudes are exactly what NBC wants you to feel.

I like NBC as a network and I hope that they can mount a comeback and become relevant again. This ad is a great start.

I am sure Matisyahu is proud to be part of such a great ad. I am proud to share it with you.

Mourning The Living On The 9th of Av

rabbifink — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 17:06:53 +0000

A few years ago I was a campus Rabbi for the Jewish Awareness Movement (I even made the video on their home page) at USC. One of my primary responsibilities was to lead large groups of Jewish college students on inspiring trips to Israel.

Of course, the personal inspiration for me, was very often, greater than the inspiration for some of the students.

One episode has inspired me since the moment it occurred and it is directly related to today’s Tisha B’Av fast.

We always were sure to take the students on the Tunnel Tours of the Western Wall. For me, it was incredible to see the beauty and grandeur of the gigantic white stones at the original base of the Western Wall. The Talmud in Sukkah tells of the beauty of the Second Temple that Herod rebuilt. It is hard to imagine such beauty when we see the above ground Western Wall today. Erosion and time have taken its physical beauty. But underground the stones are a pristine white and appear good as new.

Our tour guide was always the world renowned Esther Schlisser (who has since passed May Her Memory Be Blessed). Esther Schlisser was a one of a kind woman who took these tours very seriously. She allowed no talking, no photographs of her and she brazenly single-handedly led us through the Arab Quarter at the end of the tour during the second intifada.

We began the tour sitting in front of a really cool model of Herod’s Second Temple and with the magic of technology it transforms into the current Old City layout. The route of the tour took us deep down to the lower Western Wall base stones and along the Wall below the Arab Quarter. What we see of the Wall today, is a fraction of the size of the original Wall.

We finally arrived at my favorite spot. There is a section of floor from the Second Temple era that has been excavated and this is where Esther had us all sit on floor. I really enjoy touching history, and walking and sitting on the floor where our grandparents sat 2000 years ago is very powerful for me.

Esther then begins to tell us where we are sitting and the great men who must have walked these same cobble stones. She then begins to cry. Esther tells us the following (paraphrased to the best of memory):

“These stones are alive!

My husband died many years ago. When he died I was sad. I cried for days, for months, but eventually, I began to heal and I no longer cry for my husband. This is because my husband is dead and we cannot cry over something that is dead forever. I miss him terribly, but I do not cry.

However, I come to this spot, the floor right in front of the Western Wall of the Second Temple at least once a day for the past 10 years. Every single time I come here, I cry. I cry that we are exiled and that we cannot see the Temple in its true grandeur and I cry that we are at the mercy of the nations of the world and we cannot rule ourselves as per the Torah’s command. Jews have been crying here for centuries. We will continue to cry until we are redeemed from this exile.

There is only one way to explain this. The stones are alive. The Wall is alive. There is a soul in the bricks that lives. Its voice is small, it is weak, but it is alive and that is how we can cry centuries of tears for a destroyed Temple. The Temple may have been destroyed but still, it lives.”

A very powerful experience and one I think of very often.

On this Tisha B’Av, remember that we are not crying over a dead Temple. If it were so, we would have stopped crying eons ago. The stones are alive. They are kept alive by the promise that we will see a Third Temple. They are kept alive by the souls of the Jewish people yearning for their Temple to be rebuild. And they are kept alive by the tears we cry on Tisha B’Av every single year.

We're All Family

rabbifink — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:33:20 +0000

This morning I found this article in my inbox. From time to time, PJC board member, Judd Magilnick sends me (and everyone else he knows) interesting links from all around the web, stretching to the outer limits of the blogosphere and conventional media.

Today’s link covers something that is always on my mind.

The column discusses the latest research in DNA testing to identify if one is Jewish. There is a gene that is only passed from the mother to the child and it can be tested using a cheek swab DNA test.

Jewish roots are cropping up in the least likely of places. Al Qaeda spokesmen, Catholic Priests, a former Buddhist Catholic Radio Host to name a few. Historically, Fidel Castro, Madeleine Albright also claimed Jewish ancestry.

Now, it is testable.

DNA testing makes it possible to identify your Jewish gene as well.

What is fascinating to me is the idea that we are all related and it is scientifically “trackable”. The first time I went to Israel as a teen I experienced a profound feeling. I felt like I was among family. Everywhere I went was family. Every person I saw was a relative. I have always felt this way and in Israel it was an elevated sense of consciousness.

When I worked at University of Southern California for Ashreinu I felt it every time I met another Jewish student.

Now, at the Pacific Jewish Center, and especially when we are at the Shul on the Beach, I feel it whenever someone new wanders in to our Shul.

Frequently, I remark to fellow Jews the first time we meet, “We’re cousins ya know! We’re all cousins.” I don’t need DNA tests to prove it to me. I can feel it.

Taken to the next level. Not only are all Jewish people one family. The entire human race is one family. Yes, we have our disagreements about things, but in the end we are all family.

I think this is a powerful idea. I think we should consider this when hate creeps into our minds. I think we should teach this to our children. I think the more we see our similarities in one another the more peaceful our world will be.

Just last week I blogged about a tragedy that happened to one of our “closer relative s”. I think a lot of us felt strongly about the issue raised then because we innately feel that this happened to family. This is a fair reaction.

We must treat our “closer family” like the closer family that we are. But we must also not lose sight of our broader family. The entire world is family, because “we are all related”.