Month: September 2011

NY Times’ Misguided News Alerts

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 11, 2011

Last week, the Zionist Organization of America issued a press release expressing its shock that President Barack Obama omitted Israel in his list of countries suffering from terrorist attacks. ZOA was appalled by the omission.

The Obama Administration released the President’s talking points for the forthcoming tenth anniversary of 9/11 and while the speech included eight cities were terrorism has occurred, he didn’t include an Israeli city. This is the statement the ZOA took issue with: “As we commemorate the citizens of over 90 countries who perished in the 9/11 attacks, we honor all victims of terrorism, in every nation around the world … We honor and celebrate the resilience of individuals, families, and communities on every continent, whether in New York or Nairobi, Bali or Belfast, Mumbai or Manila, or Lahore or London.”

The ZOA press release also referenced a 2008 speech Obama delivered as a candidate when he mentioned six cities plagued by terrorism but failed to include an Israeli city. I thought the ZOA’s statement was unnecessary. It is clear that President Obama was using alliteration in his speech and sought to provide some examples of where terrorism has occurred. Perhaps if terrorism were more prevalent in a major world city like Johannesburg, he could have included “Jerusalem or Johannesburg” in his speech. The President wasn’t giving priority to these world cities over any other location where terrorism has occurred, he was merely stating that we should honor and celebrate the resilience of people everywhere. Just as Chicago would be included if we say “in New York or LA,” so too Jerusalem and Tel Aviv are included when the President says “Lahore or London”.

So, I didn’t think the ZOA’s rant was necessary. I do, however, raise my eyebrows at the NY Times’ decision to not issue an email news alert about yesterday’s storming of Israel’s Egyptian Embassy by thousands of protesters in Cairo and the necessary evacuation of its diplomats by Israeli military jets.

I’ve been receiving email news alerts from the NY Times for many years. Most of the time they are legitimately “breaking news” stories. Sometimes the news alerts refer to breaking political news and sometimes they let you know if a major sports milestone occurred. Oftentimes they alert us if a notable person has died.

I was surprised last night after Shabbat when the only news alert I saw in my email inbox from the NY Times let me know that actor Cliff Robertson had died. Who was Cliff Robertson? Exactly!

Even though over 80 personnel and family members of Israel’s embassy in Cairo had to be saved in an emergency rescue operation after violent riots erupted there, the NY Times felt that the only “breaking news” that had to conveyed to its news alert subscribers was that a little known actor had died. In the alert, the Times even described Robertson as an actor who “never quite reached the top echelon of movie stardom.”

I don’t think President Obama deserves to be attacked for neglecting to include an Israeli city in his brief listing of world cities where terrorism occurs (everyone knows Israel has had her share of terrorist attacks), I do think it is curious that the NY Times is so misguided when deciding what news actually deserves an email news alert.

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Torah From Terror

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 9, 2011

Following the Jewish High Holiday season in 2001, I decided to collect the sermons that rabbis had delivered about 9/11. I knew that on September 11 most rabbis already had drafts of their High Holiday sermons completed, but after the attacks that day these rabbis would have to rewrite those sermons. That tragic day left us speechless, but rabbis had to come up with the right words to bring comfort to those sitting in front of them on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur in the days following 9/11.

The tragic events of September 11, 2001 cast a dark shadow on the Days of Awe 5762. Many rabbis, after discarding their already prepared sermons, found their voices and were able to construct the appropriate words to bring a sense of comfort during those uncertain days.

I was in rabbinical school at the Jewish Theological Seminary at the time and I told my teacher, Rabbi Neil Gillman, about my idea for a project. Rabbi Gillman agreed to be the co-editor of the “Torah From Terror” project and we sent out requests to Reform, Reconstructionist, Conservative and Orthodox rabbis asking them to submit a sermon from either Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur that dealt with the 9/11 tragedy. Immediately, the sermons began pouring in. I organized the sermons into the Torah From Terror website.

On this, the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks I have decided to reformat the Torah From Terror website. The sermons are now available at http://torahfromterror.blogspot.com. Now visitors are able to leave comments on the different sermons. Also, the search capability is much improved from the original site.

I hope you will visit the Torah From Terror website, and through those words of wisdom you will find comfort and hope. May those words be a remembrance of that horrific day in our nation’s history and may we continue to find inspiration in words of Torah.

Our world has changed immensely in the past decade as a result of the terror attacks on September 11, 2001, but we continue to pray the memories of the victims will be for blessings. God bless America.

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Happy Birthday Adam Sandler

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 9, 2011

Happy Birthday to Adam Sandler, who turns 45 today. Sandler doesn’t always get the respect he should as a comedian, actor and writer but I’ve always been a fan. I recently watched “Funny People” for the second time and was left impressed with Sandler’s range as an actor. Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, Waterboy and Big Daddy remain my go-to movies when some mindless humor is in order.

I had a chance to meet Adam Sandler in November, 1999 when he was filming “Little Nicky” on the Manhattan streets just around the corner from my apartment. Walking from 110th Street and Broadway up to the Jewish Theological Seminary at 122nd Street for morning minyan on a brisk November morning at 7:00 AM I did a double-take when I spotted Adam standing by himself on 112th Street trying to stay warm. We started talking. He told me about his brother who studied in a traditional yeshiva. After talking for about twenty minutes, he invited me to come back around lunch time to watch him shoot the movie.

There was a crowd of people trying to watch the filming when I returned to the set around noon with my rabbinical school classmate. Sandler recognized me and told his assistant to let us move up to the front so we could have a good view of the action. Over the next couple days I had the chance to be on a movie set (my first time) and shmooze with Adam Sandler between takes. On his final day of filming I presented him with a suede yarmulke with the Jewish Theological Seminary logo on it and we took a photo together.

For those who think that Adam Sandler’s only talent is making movies with sophomoric humor and silly voices, you should watch “Spanglish,” “Funny People” and “Reign Over Me.” Not only has he made some very good movies, he’s also educated people about Hanukkah with his series of Hanukkah songs and the animation “Eight Crazy Nights.” And not only did he try to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with his humus-loving Zohan character, he donated 400 PlayStations to Israeli children whose homes were damaged in rocket attacks.

Happy Birthday Adam Sandler!

9/11 Forgiveness Holidays Jewish Rabbis Terrorism

Rabbi Jack Moline on 9/11 Forgiveness

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 9, 2011

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 approaches, commemorations are taking place everywhere. People are discussing how life would be different today had 9/11 never occurred. We are all reflecting on where we were that day and how it changed us. Memorials to honor the dead will take place all over the world.

However, there is one theme that I haven’t heard discussed very much as we mark the tenth anniversary since that dreadful day. Has it been long enough to forgive the terrorists? There are differences in belief among different faith groups when it comes to forgiveness; especially after such heinous crimes. My colleague and teacher Rabbi Jack Moline published his thoughts on this topic in the Washington Jewish Week. I found his words to be fascinating and have decided to post his op-ed in its entirety below.

Rediscovering trust in a future

by Rabbi Jack Moline

On Sept. 14, 2001, I was interviewed on the PBS program Religion and Ethics Newsweekly. Another panelist, Dr. Thomas Long of Emory University, suggested that the process of forgiveness needed to begin immediately for us. My reaction was visceral, and I suggested that he had illustrated the bright line between Jewish theology and Christian theology: to speak of forgiveness without contrition, I said, was obscene.

I have had 10 years to think about that exchange, as has anyone who remembers it. I still believe it to be true. What made for provocative television then ought rightly make for serious conversation today. Interfaith conversation, and not only between Jews and Christians, has never been more important in this country (and even globally) than it is today. The reason, I believe, is because of what was created, or perhaps accelerated, by the terrorist attack of Sept. 11, 2001.

You might argue that Americans were naive about the world before that fateful day. What fell away was a sense of trust in our own future. The crises we had faced before were met with steely resolve and a sense of purpose. For reasons sociologists and anthropologists can debate, Americans retreated into two camps. There were those who believed we had not been effective enough in promoting the American values of tolerance and equality, and we needed to redouble our efforts. And there were those who concluded that some segment of humanity was permanently resistant to our truths and needed to be punished or isolated. The loudest voices are not always the wisest, but the extremists on both sides managed to muffle the middle.

What is true of Americans in general is true of American Jews in particular. The frantic way many Jews pursued reconciliation with Muslims in particular was virtually without discrimination. (I attended an iftar dinner at a local mosque that November where I was greeted by the imam, Anwar al-Aliki.) And the sudden rise of people obsessed with the notion that we were repeating the run-up to the Shoah, with Muslims playing the Nazis, played into anger and fear. While our community has always had its extremists, over the past 10 years those people have attempted to define the middle. And absent a coherent alternative, just like in American politics, an ideological tug-of-war has replaced insight.

Israel has become the surrogate for this culture clash among American Jews. It is safe to say that most of the combatants have no intention of making aliyah, thereby making the consequences of their certainty someone else’s problem. Instead of insisting that the Jewish national homeland is a value which we all honor, it has become an issue defining whether you are (depending on your stance) a humanitarian or a bigot, a realist or a victim-in-waiting.

In the process, we have generated a heated rhetoric about Christians, Muslims and others that rely on stereotypes, which, if applied to us, would increase the membership in every one of our defense organizations. Meanwhile, as both extremes point fingers at the other, we contribute to a divisiveness in American society in general that holds us back from addressing the very genuine challenges of our changed world.

It all sounds so political, but in fact it is the essence of spiritual concern. Any approach that dehumanizes our opponents, within or without the Jewish community, violates the intentions of our Creator. Any approach that reduces the state of Israel to a litmus test compromises its real and metaphoric roles as the destination of the in-gathering. Any silence that allows extremism an uncontested platform abandons the pursuit of justice, which is never without dissent.

The 10th anniversary of Sept. 11 occurs in the very heart of Elul, the month of introspection and outreach. The former is a profoundly personal and solitary endeavor. The latter cannot be accomplished alone. They both lead, of necessity, to a place between extremes – of collective engagement, personal honesty and acknowledgment of differences. They both lead to the bright lines between our theologies and the bright light we all yearn to shine. They both lead to a rediscovery of trust in the future and of the role each of us plays in promoting a better world that the one we know.

Rabbi Jack Moline is the spiritual leader of Agudas Achim Congregation in Alexandria.

Do you think we are ready to forgive? Please leave your opinion in the comments section below.

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Curb Your Enthusiasm Minyan with Bill Buckner

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 7, 2011

Larry David’s TV show “Curb Your Enthusiasm” on HBO is known for forging into new territory for television shows. This most recent episode certainly marked a few TV firsts. To begin with, I don’t believe the following statement had ever been uttered on TV before: “I don’t wanna’ be in your stupid minyan anyway.”

I also believe this was the first time that the Jewish concept of a minyan was ever defined on a TV comedy. In one of the most creative episodes in the show’s history, Larry David attempted to revive the career of disgraced Boston Red Sox first baseman Bill Buckner. Just about 25 years ago in the 6th game of the World Series, Buckner botched a slow rolling hit off the bat of the NY Mets’ Mookie Wilson to allow the winning run to score. The Red Sox eventually lost the World Series in the 7th and deciding game.

Larry David brought in Mookie Wilson and Bill Buckner as guest stars in this episode which gave Buckner the opportunity to poke fun at his fielding error from a quarter century ago. But the highlight of the episode was the minyan scene.

As Larry is walking on the street with Bill Buckner, they are approached by a Jewish man (played by Jerry Adler who was Hesh on the Sopranos) who asks if they are Jewish. Buckner says he’s not and Larry is reluctant to answer affirmatively. The man explains that it’s an emergency and they need one more to make a minyan to say Kaddish before going to the cemetery. Larry explains to the confused Buckner that a minyan is “when a Jewish person dies you need to have ten men in a room to say a prayer.”

Before heading up to the apartment Larry asks Buckner if he’s ever had Jewish food before to which he responds, “Koufax gave me some kishka one time.” Once they actually make it to the shiva* one of the men refuses to allow Buckner in the room since, as a devout Red Sox fan, he can never forgive Buckner for his error in the 1986 World Series. I guess it wasn’t the best pre-Rosh Hashanah message about forgiving others for their mistakes.

*As Ami Eden of JTA correctly noted, there’s no shiva minyan before a funeral (only after). Apparently no one on the show consulted with a rabbi on that one. Oh well, it was still a hilarious episode in my opinion. Here’s the clip:

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Social Media and Religion

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 6, 2011

I read yesterday’s article in the NY Times about how people are interacting with religion through social networking sites like Facebook and was amazed at the success of the Jesus Daily Facebook page. It is one of the most popular Facebook pages with over 8.5 million fans. I figured there should be a similar Facebook page that offers users a daily dose of Torah wisdom so I created the Torah Daily Facebook page this morning. The page quickly amassed 100 followers and will continue to grow. The Torah Daily Facebook page will offer daily inspiration from Jewish texts provided by anyone with some wisdom to share.

Here is the blog post I published on The NY Jewish Week’s Jewish Techs blog after reading yesterday’s NY Times article on social media and religion:

With about a billion users between Facebook and Twitter alone, more topics than just Justin Bieber and Lady Gaga are being discussed on social media networks today. Religion is certainly one of them.

An article by Jennifer Preston in yesterday’s NY Times (“Jesus Daily on Facebook Nurtures Highly Active Fans”) reports that “while it’s too early to say that social media have transformed the way people practice religion, the number of people discussing faith on Facebook has significantly increased in the last year, according to company officials. Over all, 31 percent of Facebook users in the United States list a religion in their profile, and 24 percent of users outside the United States do, Facebook says. More than 43 million people on Facebook are fans of at least one page categorized as religious.”

The article was prompted by the wild success of the Jesus Daily Facebook page, which was launched by a diet doctor from North Carolina who posts a few motivational quotes from Jesus each day. The Facebook page, created by Dr. Aaron Tabor, has close to 8.5 million fans and, according to AllFacebook.com, in the past three months has had more daily interaction (likes and comments) than the official Justin Bieber page with 3.4 million interactions last week alone.

There are now over 750 million people on Facebook so it shouldn’t be surprising that users are interacting with pages to find an online spiritual community. If you’re already navigating around the Facebook site on a computer, tablet or mobile phone it’s much easier to read a spiritual teaching in your news feed than to actually attend a synagogue or church service.

Rabbi Laura Baum, a social media maven who is part of OurJewishCommunity.org was quoted in the article explaining how social media has changed our lives. She said, “There are those people who prefer to check out our tweets on their phone or listen to our podcast. I don’t think the use of technology needs to be for everybody. But we have found a community online. Many of them have never felt a connection to Judaism before.”

An increasing number of synagogues have found that it is much easier to connect to the membership through a Facebook page than through a traditional website. Like a website, the Facebook page is an efficient way of disseminating information for a congregation, but it adds the social interaction features that promote community and have made Facebook the killer app of social media. Linda Jacobson, the president of start-up congregation B’nai Israel Synagogue in Michigan has used Facebook to connect with members and reach potential members. “Our website is great for publicizing calendar events, displaying photos and telling visitors about our congregation. But Facebook goes well beyond that,” Jacobson explained. “It allows our followers to interact with that information and with each other. There’s an entire ‘backchannel’ that brings people together virtually to share photos from our congregational programming, comment on lifecycle events, create sub-communities based on interest categories and coordinate meals when there’s a death in the congregation.”

Jacobson seems to have put social media to good use because she’s seen her congregation’s membership rolls steadily increase over the past year. Rev. Kenneth Lillard, author of “Social Media and Ministry: Sharing the Gospel in the Digital Age,” was also quoted in the NY Times article and he concurs that social media tools like YouTube, Twitter and Google Plus in addition to Facebook represent “the best chance for religious leaders to expand their congregations since the printing press helped Martin Luther usher in the Protestant Reformation.”

Beyond official synagogue Facebook pages, there are many ways in which users are looking to Facebook for spiritual insight and education. Some popular Facebook pages have been created by rabbis in an effort to share motivational teachings from the Torah. Rabbi David Wolpe, the popular author and spiritual leader of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles, has a Facebook page that boasts over 19,000 fans. Wolpe utilizes Facebook to offer short sound bites that both motivate and challenge his readers. He makes a point of trying to respond to all questions on the page as well, which is not an easy task for a busy pulpit rabbi and a highly sought-after speaker like Wolpe. One follower asked if the rabbi had any marriage advice to which Wolpe responded simply “Shared values; forgiveness; deep attraction; resilience; luck; faith.”

One thing that social networking sites like Facebook have demonstrated is that one need not be an official religious leader, like a priest or rabbi, to dispense wisdom to help guide people in their daily lives. Many individuals and businesses offer a daily prayer or spiritual teaching to inspire their followers on their Facebook pages. Some Facebook users may post an inspirational teaching as a status update. There are businesses that post weekly motivational quotes on their Facebook page as a way to engage their following.

As social media increasingly become part of our daily lives, people will find new ways to interact with religion and spirituality. For some, it may be interacting with like-minded people on a synagogue Facebook page. For others it may be learning a different Talmud text each day through a Twitter feed. In the Digital Age, a minority of virtual religionists will emerge. These will be individuals who do not affiliate with a bricks and mortar religious institution like a synagogue, but are nevertheless engaged in many aspects of a faith community through social networking. Increasingly, people will say they are religious or spiritual or inspired by religious texts, but only because they have chosen to plug in and engage with social media.

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Hebrew Hammer Hinders Homer Hobbling Home

Post author By Rabbi Jason Miller
Post date September 2, 2011

Ryan Braun, known as the “Hebrew Hammer”, is having a remarkable year. The Milwaukee Brewers’ All-Star left fielder, who was the National League’s Rookie of the Year in 2007, has 25 home runs so far this season. He’s also on his way to becoming one of the best Jewish players Major League Baseball has ever seen. He’s also helping his team have one of their best seasons ever.

In recognition of his great season with the Brewers, Braun and some teammates were featured on the cover of Sports Illustrated this week. Of course, that honor had people in Milwaukee nervous. Would the infamous Sports Illustrated Jinx affect Braun and Brewers? I’m not sure if the SI Jinx was in effect Wednesday night, but Braun committed one of the worst base running bloopers I’ve ever seen.

Braun was attempting an inside-the-park homer on Wednesday night when he tripped and fell between third base and home plate. He was easily tagged out as he got to his feet and tried to run back to third base. Not only did the TV cameras catch Braun shamefully walking back to the dugout, but they also caught former NBA star Reggie Miller laughing at Braun’s slip and fall from the stands.

Inside-the-park home runs are an uncommon feat in baseball and Braun blew his chance to add one to his impressive statistics. But Braun did give his teammates some good material for a major league prank. Braun’s teammates Yovani Gallardo, Shaun Marcum and Marcus Hanel created a crime scene with Braun’s body outlines along the third base line. Here’s a photo of their handy work:

It’s great to see Ryan Braun having such a great season. I’m hoping that his Brewers get a chance to meet my Detroit Tigers in the World Series this year. I first met Braun during his rookie season when the Milwaukee Brewers were in Phoenix to play the Arizona Diamondbacks. The Brewers were staying at the same hotel where I was staying and I had a chance to talk with Braun while he waited for the team bus. I told him it was great to have another Jewish player in Major League Baseball and some of his teammates sitting close by were surprised to learn he was Jewish (I guess that isn’t something that a rookie broadcasts in the big leagues).

Braun told me that he lived for a short period of his childhood with his grandfather in a house that previously belonged the great Hank Greenberg. If Braun keeps playing the way he has, that house won’t be the only thing he shares with Hank Greenberg.