My other heart...

January 4th is a sad day in my mind. For many of you it is a day of no significance, but for me it is a sad day on the Calendar. You see, January 4th, 1994 was the last time I set foot in Israel. From Sept. 1992 until that day (with a ten week gap in between) I lived in Israel. While many students who spent the year in Israel, say they studied there for a year, I say I lived there because, in my mind, I truly did. For 16 months I became (at least partially) Israeli. I spoke Hebrew every chance I could - even in the Anglo-speaking neighborhoods; I taught Hebrew and Yehadut to Ethiopian immigrants, I met people from all walks of life, I even spent a week on a farm in Gaza picking tomatoes alongside olim from the FSU, Ethiopia and migrant workers from Thailand.

Everywhere I went from Yesha to Herziliya, from Eilat to the Golan , I loved every minute.  I was determined to make Aliyah, and yes I was well aware of the consequences of making Aliyah alone, that serving as a Hayal Boded was not 'cool', but difficult, that once my parents stopped sending cash, it would not be as fun. And yet, here I am, almost 14 years to the day after I left and I haven't been back.

Recently, I've been talking to several friends of mine who are contemplating Aliyah (including some that are going this summer!) while it hasn't quite brought back an immediate desire to jump on a plane and relocate my entire family, it does make me more and more aware of the long gap since I've been there. I really want to go, and I really want to take my wife and my sons and bring them there. To bring them to all of the places that have special meaning to me, and to the new places I've yet to see. To show them how wonderful a country Israel really is - despite its government and the morons around the world who say otherwise.

When I lived in Israel, I wrote a poem about the thoughts of Aliyah that danced in my head. While I don't know whatever happened to the poem, the crux was that I had a difficult choice to make between my two hearts - one being the American lifestyle, and the other being the land of me and my people. I pined in the poem that it is difficult to choose from among two hearts, and while I've made my decision to remain in Galut, I definitely think I owe it to myself, my wife and my kids to pay my other heart a visit.

Celebrating Thanksgiving... Yesterday and Everyday

Yesterday was the first time in a long time that we didn't have a real Thanksgiving dinner. Usually, we have my in-laws, parents and siblings over, but because of the fact that we had a six-week old baby in the house, we decided to forgo that tradition this year. Nonetheless, I was reminiscing the other day about my days in Yeshiva and how Thanksgiving was one of the 'Red Flag' absence days.

What are the 'Red Flag Absence Days?' those are days in which the Yeshiva would give you an extra hard time if you were absent, because it presumptively meant that you were doing something on those days that wasn't appropriate in the eyes of the Yeshiva. Thanksgiving was one of those days, the other was the day of the Salute to Israel Parade in NYC (I guess the school was against celebrating any type of government?). Obviously, on Thanksgiving, this meant that you skipped out on learning Torah (there were no secular studies that day, because the secular teachers - usually moonlighting public school teachers - couldn't be persuaded to work) in order to celebrate a 'goyish' holiday. While I understand their dismay in the bittel torah (loss of Torah Learning time), I am dismayed at them for not recognizing the original meaning of Thanksgiving.

It's not about putting money in the hands of Turkey farmers (kosher and otherwise), it's not about football, or about the Wampanoag, or about stores getting ready for their 'Black Friday' deals - it is about giving thanks to G-d for all that has given, is giving, and will give to us, and to thank him for allowing us to live in a place, where our religious freedom is one of the most respected rights granted to us - Jew and non-Jew alike.

People take religious freedom for granted. They either don't know or turn a blind eye to some of the forces that would love to eradicate Jewish practices in this country - Shechita (ritual slaughter of meat) and Milah (circumcision) are two examples of areas where many people are trying to attack our religious life and practices, and thankfully they haven't been successful.

My children wake up every morning, make Brachot (blessings) over Kosher food, wear their Yarmulkas and Tzitzit with pride, and go to Jewish Schools. These are things that were not possible for my in-laws under Soviet rule, and things that were taken away from my grandparents in Hitler's Europe. Something that I and all of my family are grateful for, and a very good reason, IMVHO, for us to eat turkey once a year.

It is for these very reasons that I listen with as much intent to the prayers for the US Government and its soldiers as I do those for the Israeli soldiers. Americans in Uniform in Iraq, Afghanistan or wherever, are serving our nation and protecting our freedom. The least I can do is pay attention in Shul when we collectively ask for their safe return home and answer Amen. 

Of course, we don't just say this prayer on the weekend following Thanksgiving, we say it every week - which leads me to share this thought with you - Everyday is Thanksgiving. Everyday is a day where we need to be thankful for what we have, and especially for the freedom to follow our beliefs and serve G-d without and restrictions imposed by the government.

So on that note, please accept my wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving, Yesterday, Today, and Every day.

An exciting program

Two Jewish Organizations - The Jewish Funders Network (JFN) and the Partnership for Excellence in Jewish Education (PEJE) have announced that they will match any first time grant to a day school with $0.50 per dollar. There are several catches of course - the grant needs to be the first grant given by the donor to any school, or it needs to be at least 5x times larger than any previous gifts, and the pool is only $5 million. That being said, there is still money to be had, because all told, this campaign will hopefully raise $15 million for day schools around the country.

While $15 million may not do much on the national level, that money is great for those schools that will get it, and hopefully it will set precedents for other similar programs in the future.

If by chance, you are sitting on a wad of cash, and don't have a particular school in mind, why not give it to my kids school?

A,B,G,D

While it's difficult enough for parents who are trying to teach their kids about their own culture and language in an ever-increasingly assimilated society, it's gets even harder when that culture and its language have a completely different alphabet.

When my oldest son was 3, for his upsherin. We made him a chart (similar to the picture on the right) with all of the Hebrew Alphabet (One might argue that the term alphabet comes from the Hebrew Aleph, Bet and not the Greek Alpha, Beta).  These 22* letters are the core of our Jewish lives, and they are much more than just letters that are used to make words (for example, each letter has a numerical value as well, and numerical analysis of scripture often reveals some interesting facets of the Torah).  Much like any child in any language, we have been teaching our boys the Aleph-bet since they were toddler, and similarly, while children can memorize the symbols in the alphabet quite easily, putting them together to make words is something that typically isn't done until the child is of kindergarten age.

Now that my oldest child is in Kindergarten, at our orientation meeting, his teacher talked about their curriculum and how they have a 'Letter of the week'. Each week will have its own letter, and each week they will be learning words that correspond to that letter. She also made it clear that they would also learning the Hebrew letter with the corresponding sound.

Well, the first week was 'A' which corresponded to the Hebrew Alef. The next week was B- bet. I was anticipating that the third week would be 'C', but instead of 'C' words, my son was learning 'G' words. It took me a second, but then I realized that 'G' corresponded to 'Gimel' the third letter of the Hebrew Alphabet. I was pleasantly surprised to see that they were learning the English alphabet in order of the Hebrew Alphabet.

Needless to say, our son's Hebrew vocabulary is increasing week by week, almost to the point, where he picks up on the conversations that my wife and I have in Hebrew so that the kids don't understand. I think by June we'll have to switch to a new language.

And baby makes three...

I've been very busy over the last three weeks, welcoming our third son into the world.  In addition to Mitch and Mike, I no can share foibles of Jake too!

The Purpose of a Yarmulka

After having just talked about the uphill battle in getting my middle son to wear a Yarmulka, an interesting thing happened to me yesterday, that has led me to reflect on the purpose in general of wearing a Yarmulka.

Last night, on the train, I was studying Daf Yomi. It was a crowded train and I was standing the whole ride. As we stopped at 125th St., a familiar face got on the train. I immediately recognized this person as the Rabbi of one of the non-Orthodox shuls in town. In addition to his suburban pulpit, this Rabbi also teaches at his denomination's seminary as well.

Normally, I am friendly Jew, and I like discussing religion and torah with all those curious around me. But something about this particular Rabbi turned me off completely. He wasn't wearing a Yarmulka.

In the grand scheme of things, this isn't the worst thing on the planet. Many of my friends and relatives don't wear their Yarmulkas to work, and don't necessarily throw them on their heads as soon as they get on the train. But then again, none of them are Rabbis or rabbinic educators!

Were this Rabbi an Attorney, needing to appeal to a Jury and Judge, or a Wall-Street Trader on a trading floor that sounds like a dockside bar, I could understand his lack of headgear - but this is a person who not only purportedly does the work of G-d, but also teaches others to do so as well!

The purpose of the Yarmulka, and the etymology of the word itself (which is why I prefer it to the more generic 'kipah') comes from the phrase - Yoreh Malka - (lit, Fear of the [heavenly] King). While I don't begrudge those of my friends and family who don't wear a Yarmulka in their professional life, how can someone who is a reglious leader and educator not acknowledge the creator above him? That he too, just like all of us, must defer to a heavenly king.

What message is this Rabbi sending - that fear of heaven is only for the synagouge and seminary, but not for the train, the street, and everywhere else? How can he utter the words of the Shema with any degree of sincerity?

I wonder if he even wears a Yarmulka to teach, and if not, what message does that send to his students!

I wanted to ask him this very question. But I was afraid to get into an argument! So I ignored him, which was the wrong thing to do. Maybe next time when I encounter him, I should ask him to learn with me, and offer him my Yarmulka.

Yarmulkas and Kids

To be perfectly honest, I don't remember when I started wearing a Yarmulka on my head. In my parents house, there are pictures of me at 3 without one, and at 4-5 with one, so I am guessing that at some point in between the ages of 3-4 I started to wear one. With my older son, this wasn't a problem. We cut his hair at his upsheren when he was 3, and ever since then, we've had no trouble getting him to wear a Yarmulka, his little brother, however, isn't so keen. We've tried all kinds and types of Yarmulkas, hats, and other head coverings, but alas, none has lasted more than a few minutes (thankfully, at his upsheren he kept the Yarmulka on long enough for us to snip and snap pictures).

I am trying to be a little more forceful with him about it, but I hesitate. I have this inherent fear that if I push him and push him, he will never want to wear one and that this will be the beginning of his association with Orthodox Judaism.

We told him that he needs to wear one everyday to school this year, although his pre-school doesn't enforce it. School starts Monday, I'll let you know how it goes!