March 30, 2012 | 4:23 pm

Take the cultural competency quiz

Posted by Los Angeles Magazine

The April issue of Los Angeles magazine offers a compelling look into the ethnic mosaic that makes up LA.  The problem is, in a city whose residents speak over 100 languages, belong to dozens of religions and hail from a UN of nations, few of us really get to know our neighbors in all their diversity.  The reasons are varied—traffic, settlement patterns, legacies of redlining, weak public transportation—but enough with the excuses.  You can travel the world in Los Angeles, and it’s time to start.

To test your baseline knowledge of LA’s diversity, the magazine provided a very challenging quiz. With the permission of Los Angeles magazine editor Mary Melton—the hardest working woman in publishing—we’re reposting below.  Try it yourself, try it on your friends, and add your own questions to the comments section below.

March 30, 2012 | 4:20 pm

Another Bad Seder [VIDEO]

Posted by Ohr HaTorah

Got my parsley
Got my wine
Gonna have me
A real good time
If it takes all night
And I got a feeling it might

Got that shankbone
Those bitter herbs
Got me thankful
I’m stuck in the burbs
And not enslaved in Egyptland
Like we once were…
Now we’re talking ‘bout Freedom risin’ We got clear horizons We got no pharaoh to tell us what to do But it’s been two hours and we’re still on page 2 Send my soul a liberator I can’t take another bad Seder

Moses cried
Let my people go
But it doesn’t fly
In a monotone
Makes me wanna jump and shout
At this rate
We would have never got out Freedom risin’ We got clear horizons We got no pharaoh to tell us how to be But it’s been three hours and we’re still on page 3 Send my soul a liberator I can’t take another bad Seder -Instrumental- Destiny testin’ us
Way back in Exodus
Tryin’ to bring out the best in us
Tryin’ to Charlton Heston us
It’s history
But not if we take it a bit more personally Freedom risin’ We got clear horizons We got no pharaoh to give us the score But it’s been four hours and we’re still on page…well, still 3, actually Send in the defibrillator I can’t take another bad Seder

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March 30, 2012 | 12:09 pm

Establishing Community Medicine Banks Around the World

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Did you know that about 30,000 individuals die every day from curable diseases? Some evils are entirely dreadful because they are not preventable; there is little we can do in the face of a hurricane or tsunami. But it is even more tragic when we ignore preventable human suffering. 

Yesterday, I took my UCLA Hillel students to volunteer at the Refuot community medicine bank in Buenos Aires, Argentina, funded by the Fundación Tzedaká. Since 1999, Refuot has distributed around 580,000 medicines to more than 12,000 Jews and non-Jews through 70 Jewish centers in Argentina. I left the medicine bank inspired by their heroic work and yet deeply troubled by how much more work there is to do to improve medicine access worldwide.

One story among thousands is that of Juan Granovsky. He was born in 1937, and worked for decades in a fumigation and disinfection company. He receives about $90 a month in retirement benefits, but it is not enough to cover the cost of the medicines he now needs. He suffers from diabetes, high cholesterol and blood pressure, and has had six heart bypass operations. Granovsky typifies the patient who would have no access to medication without the help of the medicine bank. Where would Juan turn if the medicine bank wasn’t here for him?

Usually these needed medicines are donated from pharmaceutical laboratories, but if someone is in need of another medicine, the medicine bank purchases it after searching for the best drug prices on the market. The Argentinian government covers some HIV and cancer treatments, but the community medicine bank is needed to treat patients with other diseases such as Parkinson’s, Crohn’s, and diabetes that the government is not equipped to address. All medicines are packaged and then sent to hospitals and health professionals, where they are dispensed to patients.

The idea that we are responsible to ensure that others have access to medicines is not a new one. The great Talmudic sage Rav Huna set the model for the importance of granting others access to the drugs they need. “Whenever he discovered some [new] medicine he would fill a water jug with it and suspend it above the doorstep and proclaim, ‘Whosoever desires it let him come and take of it’” (Ta’anit 20b). Rav Huna understood the loss of human dignity felt when an individual is unable to meet personal health needs and those of loved ones. Further a society based on intellectual, moral, and spiritual values cannot thrive if all must be consumed with their basic physical survival needs.

Rabbi Eliezer Waldenberg, the great 20th century Jewish legal authority taught that Jewish law demands that every community must play a crucial role in granting access to medicine: “When poor people are ill and who cannot afford medical expenses, the community sends them a doctor to visit them, and the medicine is paid for by the communal fund” (Tzitz Eliezer 5:4).

The most strategic way to address sickness is by improving exercise, nutrition, lifestyle, and preventive care. But where health counseling, governmental funding, and education are unavailable or insufficient, medicines are especially crucial. We should consider helping to financially support Refuot, establishing more amazing community medicine banks, and advocating pharmaceutical companies to donate more medicines to those in need worldwide.

Pharmaceutical companies must do more to provide universal access and government must provide tax incentives that help companies to do so. Most importantly, like Refuot, we all can and must support local and foreign organizations ensuring the just distribution of drugs to those who need them.

There are few situations in life as terrifying as a life-threatening disease without access to the necessary medicines. How can we let innocent individuals die around the world when a pill that costs less than one cent to produce can save their lives? G-d commands us to take care of the poor, the starving and the sick and with 30,000 dying every day of curable diseases we don’t have much time to delay.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

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March 29, 2012 | 4:43 pm

AMIA and Minority Insecurity: How Do We Attack Corruption?

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

A few days ago, I took my students to visit AMIA, the Jewish community center of Buenos Aires, Argentina, that was bombed in 1994, leaving 85 killed and hundreds injured. It was heart-wrenching to hear the personal stories only a few days after the attack at the school in Toulouse.

It is crucial when minorities are attacked anywhere in the world that everything possible is done to help them feel safe and that the justice system makes clear that these attacks are never tolerated. Because there was no justice in Argentina and no one went to jail, the community still feels very vulnerable and insecure. When minorities are attacked, due to anti-Semitism, homophobia, Islamophobia, etc., it is not only an attack upon individuals but upon the whole group, making all feel vulnerable. We cannot only speak up when it is our own people and sites attacked. Hate and violence must be condemned wherever it pokes its head.

According to 2010 FBI statistics on 8,208 hate crime victims, 48% were victimized due to race, 19% due to religion, and 19% due to sexual orientation. In racial bias, 70% of victims were black; in religious bias, 67% of victims were Jews, and nearly 13% were Muslims (a rising figure); in sexual-orientation crimes, nearly all victims were homosexuals and lesbians. 

Corruption is more difficult to quantify. Transparency International monitors perceived corruption on a worldwide basis (with 0 as most corrupt and 10 as least corrupt), and the results may surprise you. According to its Corruption Perceptions Index 2011, The United States only ranks 24th (7.1 score), behind most of Western Europe, Japan, Barbados, Qatar, and Chile. Israel fares worse, at 36th (5.8 score), behind Uruguay, the United Arab Emirates, and Botswana. However, both are significantly less corrupt than Argentina, which is in a twelve-way tie for 100th place with its dismal 3.0 score.

While we cannot state that there is a direct correlation between a government’s level of corruption and its ability or willingness to combat hate crimes, it is probable that a more corrupt society will not successfully prosecute these crimes. For example, no one has ever been convicted of the AMIA attack, and the Argentinean government has come under scrutiny for incompetence and corruption in mishandling the investigation. While this is discouraging, our disillusionment with politics cannot lead us to disengage. We must continue to attack corruption proactively. Governments that allow for corruption, intolerance, and injustice must be challenged. We can tolerate political difference, but we cannot tolerate scandals and corruptions.

In Argentina, I spoke with Rabbi Ernesto Yattah, a community leader working to address governmental corruption. Others here told me that almost everyone cheats on their taxes, pays bribes, and accepts the corruption, and just lives with it. Rabbi Yattah is calling upon Jews to reverse this cycle. He told me that first we must understand corruptology (how corruption permeates society) so we can address it systemically. The word “corrupt,” from the Latin corruptus (meaning “abused” or “destroyed”), connotes something that is “utterly broken.” It is a critical defect in any society.

According to what Rabbi Yattah called “the politics of inclusion,” corrupt politicians make society more corrupt so that they alone are not blamed. For example, they often ensure that the police force is corrupt, operating through bribes. When corruption is systemic, everyone just throws their arms in their air, enabling corrupt politicians to benefit from the inertia. When we attack the peripheral manifestations of corruption, we are attacking the base as well.

Combating is rarely easy or risk-free. According to “the politics of reflection,” one standing up to corruption has to be willing to face countercharges that he or she is also corrupt. When you fight corruption, the established force will come back at you with ten times the strength. Nevertheless, we know that corruption can be overcome. The Book of Genesis (6:12), for example, describes a world before the flood where “everyone on earth was corrupt.” In a post-flood world, order was achieved.

Today, no problem can be ignored or relegated to others who face corruption in remote areas as the world is now too interconnected to live with the veil of isolation. Just as an economic crisis in Asia or South America affects Europe, so too, hatred anywhere in the world is a threat to all. Corruption is a force that creates insecurity, fear, and a foundation for injustice. We cannot look away from it. Thus, the role of the Jew in the public square is to be a voice of conscience, challenging those who shatter social trust, and in support of all victims of injustice.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

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March 27, 2012 | 4:56 pm

Living and Leading with Soul

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Antennae galaxies. Photo by Wikipedia/NASA

Since the beginning of time, humans have sought to discover the essence and location of the soul, the Divine essence constitutive of our humanity. Some scientists today claim that le siege de l’ame (the seat of the soul) is in the temporal lobe of the human brain (“the God spot”), and V.S. Ramachandran demonstrated in the 1990s that patients with temporal lobe epilepsy were particularly affected by religious experiences. Others reject the claim that the soul has a physical location, thus preserving its mystery. But more important than knowing the soul’s location is to understand the soul’s value. Today, in a world flooded with external stimuli, we often forget the greatest treasure we have access to—the depths of our own souls. 

To the Jew, the soul is not some esoteric mystery to wonder about, but a force to be accessed and lived with. We should neither neglect nor obsess over the body and soul. Activism requires both mental work, to understand the issues and come up with a strategic response, and physical work, to apply that response in practice, in our streets. More important than mind and body, however, sustained social justice activism needs the soul, to inspire the deeper sensitivity that ensures we help, more than harm, others. The soul is where our moral and spiritual choices leave their eternal mark. In today’s world, and especially in Jewish social justice activism, the soul has in many ways been forgotten. It is of tremendous importance that we return to our spiritual essence.

The soul is our holy transcendental channel to the infinite and eternal, our source of immortality. Those who choose enlightened life can access spiritual wisdom: “For G-d speaks time and again, though man does not perceive it. In a dream, in a night vision, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, then it is He opens people’s understanding” (Job 33:14-16). Our social identities in this world are helpful but not eternal: We can embrace them but we must also transcend them. Eckhart Tolle in The Power of Now explains this well: “Death is a stripping away of all that is not you. The secret to life is to ‘die before you die’—and find that there is no death.” Remembering that we have a deeper essence inspires us to live and strip away the falsity surrounding the self.

Further, our soul serves as a reminder that this life is fleeting. “Do not rely on the mighty to save you, or on any human being. His breath gives out, then back to earth he goes—on that every day, his projects are all for naught” (Psalm 146). The soul is our reminder that our soul is on loan in order that we return it even more beautiful than how we received it. The sages of the Talmud refer to the soul as a pikadon (a deposit), since G-d has entrusted us with this divine light to use and guard during our days. Maimonides taught that if we cultivated something very beautiful with our lives, when the body ceases to operate, the soul will continue to flourish. If we neglect the soul, nothing will continue to exist after our body is buried. The afterlife is not, G-d forbid, only for those with a particular religious affiliation. The rabbis teach that “The righteous of the nations have a share in the world to come” (Tosefta Sanhedrin 13:1). The soul, the foundation of human existence, is universal. 

Our souls also give us accountability, serving as reminders that not only are all our actions watched, but all our motives and desires are known: “A man may do whatever he wishes, but his soul reports it back to G-d” (Pesikta Rabbati 8). From cognitive perception in this world, we live with moral ambiguity; all of us do good and evil. But the soul is more black and white. Based upon our true motives, it is known if we lived committed to good or evil, self-worship or other-serving. The options are to “choose life or death” (Deuteronomy 30:19). When it comes to the soul, there is no in-between. In our activism, the soul, the home of the conscience, can help as a guide through the morass of gray. The deepest inner voice only knows truth.

The soul is our inner light. If we can tap into our spiritual channel and access that light, we can share it with the world. This is the work we are called to.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

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March 27, 2012 | 11:51 am

Shaquille O’Neal speaks Hebrew on The Daily Show

Posted by JewishJournal

NBA legend Shaquille O’Neal talks about going back to college for his Ph.D. in Human Resource Development.

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March 26, 2012 | 12:59 pm

The Transformative Power of Ritual

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

I wake up to an inbox full of dozens of emails, global news demanding reaction, and a daily agenda triple the size of what will prove achievable. How am I to pause to turn inward? When I put on my tefillin each morning, I consider what I need to become liberated from in order to fully return in servitude back to my highest callings. The straps bind me to that mission.

Rituals are non-utilitarian, symbolic acts that involve and promote the cultivation of mindfulness. The transformative power of ritual is achieved when we take the opportunity to explore ourselves, our hearts, and our ideals. We step out of this world to cultivate a meaningful experience and then to return to life changed. This is why we seek to perform ritual on our own and not by proxy. There are various explanations for, and values to, the performance of ritual.

“Ritual”, in its essence and spelling, is the root of “spi-ritual” because we can only really access the depths of our minds, hearts, and souls when we perform certain physical acts with our bodies consistently as rituals. Rambam explains that the deepest human learning comes from habituation. Returning to ritual each day of lives helps to condition us to live by our ideals.

Some explain that the great power of ritual is social since the performance of rituals indicates commitment to a group and to an identity. Rituals add stability to community and tighten social bonds through the sharing of meaningful practices. Others suggest ritual allows for catharsis, emotional purging, since in ritual one can emotionally distance oneself from certain life events and experience feelings with some separation.

The danger in ritual is that one can use the power of the structure to avoid internalization. One can sit shiva as their act of mourning yet never truly embrace the grief and loss. One could embrace kashrut yet never seek the deeper spiritual and ethical components to the ritual. One could pray from a siddur every day yet never really concentrate on the deep meaning of the words recited. Ritual, at its worst, distracts us from real life. But at its best, ritual can enhance our mindfulness with which we live. 

I recently heard Jonathan Safran Foer speak about the “room servicing of life,” how the tendency today is to prefer that others do things for us then we do them for ourselves. Ritual is the radical reminder that we live our own lives.

The greatest power of religious ritual, in my view, is the opportunity to deepen one’s self-awareness about one’s own moral and spiritual values. Too rarely do we pause to give birth to our dreams and visions that make our lives unique. As Erich Fromm wrote, “Man always dies before he is fully born.” Ritual gives us the chance to pause to assess how we are living and to give birth to our spiritual potential. It is done with urgency since we never know when our time on this earth will run out and we will have passed away before we’ve given birth to our great contributions in this world.

Even further, it reminds us of our ability to slow down. A recent study in the Academy of Management Journal showed that when confronted with clear choices of right and wrong, when people take some time to think about the issue rather than make a quick decision they are five times more likely to do the right thing. Pausing to reflect provides moral clarity.

Daily ritual is an opportunity to pause, reflect, and step out of our routine to hear the voice of our inner conscience. Viktor Frankl explained that moral life exists in the moment between stimulus and response. Ritual reconditions us to make more of those crucial moments in our life that elevate us from base to noble and can be used to enhance our psychological processes and internal incentives.

Every year we return to the haggadah and the shofar. Every week we return to candle lighting and Shabbat song. Every day we return to text study and prayer. These rituals are about religious worship, intellectual development, community building, and emotional stability. But they are also important for the creation of the just society, ensuring that we all take moments to return to non-utilitarian acts that do not advance our self-interest but challenge us to stop and listen. In an age of honking, buzzing, and texting this may be one of our greatest moral salvations. The performance of ritual is the timeless channel back to purpose. 

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

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March 22, 2012 | 11:23 am

Is Prayer for Activists?

Posted by Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz

Photo by Wikipedia

Our basic premise as activists is human responsibility. We, not someone else, must step up to create change in the world. To turn to others before ourselves is for cynics and critics not change makers. What about prayer? Is it a cop out? I would suggest that prayer offers us three vital opportunities as activists: 1) Reflection and Self Awareness, 2) Reminder of Values and Recharge, and 3) Humility.

First, we know that activism can make us hot-headed, and impulses can run high. Prayer is the opportunity to check back in with our essence. Rav Kook, first Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi of Israel, explains: “Prayer is only correct when it arises from the idea that the soul is always praying. When many days or years have passed without serious prayer, toxic stones gather around one’s heart, and one feels, because of them, a certain heaviness of spirit.  When one forgets the essence of one’s own soul, when one distracts his mind from attending to the innermost content of his own personal life, everything becomes confused and uncertain. The primary role of change, which at once sheds light on the darkened zone, is for the person to return to himself, to the root of his soul” (Olat HaRa’aya, 2). Prayer reminds us that we must slow down, reflect upon our actions, and become very aware of our feelings and our spiritual integrity.

Second, prayer is a time to recharge, pausing to remind ourselves of core values and reaffirming our highest moral and spiritual commitments. Activists are consumed with opposing some of the most immoral forces on the planet. Prayer is a return to idealism, to hope, and to faith that justice will prevail. The 20th century philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin explained: “We are not physical creatures having a spiritual experience. We are spiritual creatures having a physical experience.” By connecting with our spiritual values, we can return to the material world with a broader, fresher, and more idealistic spirit.

Third, in prayer we humble ourselves. We remember that we do not control the world. We do not naively believe that we will succeed in all of our endeavors or that G-d will merely fulfill our requests. Rather, we seek a humble connection above, without expectations, as we affirm that the job of G-d is taken. Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik explained that G-d listens, but prayer is more about relationship and connection than wish fulfillment. “We have the assurance that God is indeed a shomeiah tefillah, One who hears our prayers, but not necessarily that He is a mekabel tefillah, One who accepts our prayers, and accedes to our specific requests. It is our persistent hope that our requests will be fulfilled, but it is not our primary motivation for prayer. In praying, we do not seek a response to a particular request as much as we desire a fellowship with God” (Reflections of the Rav, volume 1, p. 78). When we seek a relationship with the Divine, we not only humble ourselves but fill ourselves with wonder.  Biologist J.B.S. Haldane said it well: “The world will not perish for want of wonders but for want of wonder.” Prayer reminds us of how small we are amongst the cosmos.

To be an activist is about taking responsibility for the injustices and oppressions in society. A spiritual life that embraces prayer is not at odds with this goal. Rather, prayer may be one of our most important tools to build community, spiritually recharge, and enhance our collective efforts to create a more just world.

Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz is the Founder & President of Uri L’Tzedek, the Director of Jewish Life & the Senior Jewish Educator at the UCLA Hillel and a 6th year doctoral candidate at Columbia University in Moral Psychology & Epistemology. Rav Shmuly’s book “Jewish Ethics & Social Justice: A Guide for the 21st Century” is now available for pre-order on Amazon.

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