Jewish Continuity
What good was it if God blessed Abraham and Sarah "with all things" if they had no one to pass their spiritual inheritance down to? You could say they faced the first ever crisis of Jewish continuity. In last week's parsha we saw they had lost hope in ever having an heir, notwithstanding God's promise, "to make of them a great nation." Then, after he is nearly sacrificed on the altar, their prodigal son Isaac shows little interest in marrying or starting a family of his own. Perhaps part of the problem was that his parents forbade him from taking a wife from amongst the local Canaanite maidens, like his half-brother Ishmael did, and there were no Yiddeshe maidlach in the area. In sending his servant Eliezer abroad to find a wife for his scholarly homebody of a son Isaac, Abraham in effect created the world's first concierge dating service!
The Jewish community is as concerned today about the Jewish future as Abraham and worries about the same challenge: how do you make a compelling argument for the value of particularism and tribalism in today's increasingly universal and pluralistic world? Are these values, in fact, mutually exclusive?
Instead of answering this question directly I'll invite you to join me for the 25th Anniversary of Lou Balcher's YJLC, Young Jewish Leadership Concepts, at 5:30PM Sunday afternoon, December 11th, downtown at Congregation Mikve Israel. We can discuss the relative importance of our enduring Jewish values directly with GenY.
Yesterday our synagogue hosted all the congregational Rabbis and Jewish educators from the counties on both sides of the Delaware for an exclusive lecture and discussion (and bagel brunch) with Dr. David Bryfman, a Jewish internet maven. He did not just come to promote J-Date. Rather we talked about bringing virtual resources into the classroom, and sharing more values-laden Torah online. We'll be exploring the quickly changing ways we can engage our children and grandchildren in Talmud Torah and Jewish living at services this Shabbat.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Shalom Plotkin
By the way...Care to guess the two most common queries on JewishLearning.Com? First, how do I mourn for and bury my loved one in a traditionally respectful way? That's actually another dilemma Abraham faces in Chayyei Sarah, and he buys a cave in Hebron called Marat HaMachpelah. What's the second most asked online Jewish question? The best recipe for hummus!
Sunday, December 11, 2011
Tragedy of Bari
The Tragedy of Bari
On this day in history Dec. 3rd 1943 the tragedy of Bari occurred. (I first heard about this when I was in the port of Bari, Italy during my service as a Navy Chaplain 42 years later!) It was like a second Pearl Harbor, but in this case the German Luftwaffe sent over 100 fighter/bombers in a surprise attack against allied shipping destroying 17 ships, damaging 7 more, and killing over 1000 merchant marines. There was a secret cargo of 2000 poisonous mustard gas bombs aboard one American Liberty ship that was blown up that caused 628 people to suffer "mysterious burns". 69 died with two weeks.
What amazes me is that the British historian writing the article says: "The Bari raid produced the only poison gas incident associated with WW2, made worse by the perceived need for secrecy in wartime. " He goes on to report that the ship, "John Harvey, already on fire, suddenly blew up, disappearing in a mighty fireball, casting pieces of ship and her deadly cargo of mustard gas all over the harbor. Mustard gas gives off a garlic odor, and now it combined with oil in the harbor, creating a deadly and volatile mixture. People were noticing a smell of garlic in the air, already doing its deadly work. "
I beg to differ. The only gas incident??? We were allowed to handle an actual gas mask worn by a Jewish slave laborer in Dachau, one of the Nazi death factories, during our synagogue's tour of the Holocaust Museum at the Klein branch JCC recently. Does the gassing of millions of Jews with Zyclon B gas by the Germans and their allies in the death camps not count as an incident? What about the gassing of "imbeciles" who were forced into specially rigged "vans" so that the exhaust gasses would kill the human "cargo?" Perhaps the author decided that since the Germans, who had invented Sarin gas, never deployed it on the battlefield, that this was the only "incident?"
Continuing the legacy of never again...
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Shalom Plotkin
On this day in history Dec. 3rd 1943 the tragedy of Bari occurred. (I first heard about this when I was in the port of Bari, Italy during my service as a Navy Chaplain 42 years later!) It was like a second Pearl Harbor, but in this case the German Luftwaffe sent over 100 fighter/bombers in a surprise attack against allied shipping destroying 17 ships, damaging 7 more, and killing over 1000 merchant marines. There was a secret cargo of 2000 poisonous mustard gas bombs aboard one American Liberty ship that was blown up that caused 628 people to suffer "mysterious burns". 69 died with two weeks.
What amazes me is that the British historian writing the article says: "The Bari raid produced the only poison gas incident associated with WW2, made worse by the perceived need for secrecy in wartime. " He goes on to report that the ship, "John Harvey, already on fire, suddenly blew up, disappearing in a mighty fireball, casting pieces of ship and her deadly cargo of mustard gas all over the harbor. Mustard gas gives off a garlic odor, and now it combined with oil in the harbor, creating a deadly and volatile mixture. People were noticing a smell of garlic in the air, already doing its deadly work. "
I beg to differ. The only gas incident??? We were allowed to handle an actual gas mask worn by a Jewish slave laborer in Dachau, one of the Nazi death factories, during our synagogue's tour of the Holocaust Museum at the Klein branch JCC recently. Does the gassing of millions of Jews with Zyclon B gas by the Germans and their allies in the death camps not count as an incident? What about the gassing of "imbeciles" who were forced into specially rigged "vans" so that the exhaust gasses would kill the human "cargo?" Perhaps the author decided that since the Germans, who had invented Sarin gas, never deployed it on the battlefield, that this was the only "incident?"
Continuing the legacy of never again...
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Shalom Plotkin
Gift of Life Shabbat/Organ Doantion
In this week's parsha Vayishlach, our matriarch Rachel was in child birth and she had hard labor. The midwife said to her at the height of her pain, "Have no fear, you're going to have another boy." However she was in so much pain she had trouble focusing on the fact that God was answering her prayer for another boy and instead she said, "Name him Ben-Oni, child of pain or child of mourning, because he is killing me." Then she died and she was buried on the road to Ephrot which is now the city of Bethlehem. Her husband, Jacob, said, " We won't call him Ben-Oni instead we will call him Ben-Yamin," (Benjamin) which means son of my right hand.
I wonder how Rachel's difficult birth might have played out in a modern hospital today. God willing, her life might have been saved through an emergency C-section or another of today's revolutionary lifesaving techniques. However, had Rachel passed away, it's possible that her family might have remembered a discussion they might have had about organ donation. Or possibly they might have seen that she marked "organ donor" on her driver's license and after she passed away they might have donated her organs in order to save another person's life. In that case her body would have been treated with the utmost dignity and still could have been prepared for a Jewish burial according to our traditions without any undue delay.
This coming Shabbat morning Seymour and Donna will be sponsoring the Kiddush in honor of their son Garren's full recovery. We will be celebrating Gift of Life Shabbat to recognize the mitzvah that Garren donated half of his liver to a very sick young man he had never met named Marco, and Garren will share his experience. If you would like to test yourself to see what you know about Jewish law regarding organ donation, you could take this quiz from the Halachic Organ Donor Society, just click HODS quiz.
Shabbat Shalom,
Rabbi Shalom Plotkin
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