May 17, 2012 | 6:00 am

Incredible Tribute to Leslie Sabo, a"h, Vietnam War Hero

Posted by Rabbi Asher Lopatin

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After being a bit strident in my last posting, for which I apologize, I want to turn to something really beautiful and loving that I happened to see live yesterday as I was on the treadmill.  It’s so easy for me to write in strong language on this blog or any blog from the comfort of home, in safety and tranquility, but once in a while you come across accounts of people who are really making the ultimate sacrifice and putting their lives on the line.

Please take fifteen minutes to watch this powerful tribute by President Obama to Leslie Sabo, a”h, an casualty of the Vietnam war who heroically gave his life to save his fellow soldiers.  It was one of the most stirring speeches I have seen.  May God bless the memory and soul of Leslie Sabo and all those who gave up their lives for the United States and for Israel – two great allies in a world of of grave dangers.

As we head for Yom Yerushalayim on Sunday, may Hashem bless all of us and the holy city of Jerusalem with peace.

Rabbi Asher Lopatin

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April 5, 2012 | 10:09 pm

The Passover Seder: When we all must become children

Posted by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

Photo by Wikipedia/Yoninah|Yon

“One is obligated to see themselves on the Seder night as if they are actually now leaving Egypt.”  -Maimonides

“The child at the Seder asks: “Why is this night different from all other nights?  On all other nights we eat leavened or unleavened bread but on this night only unleavened.  On all other nights we eat regular vegetables but on this night bitter herbs….””                                                                -The Talmud

If the Passover Seder meal is one of remembering that God redeemed the Jewish people from Egyptian slavery, why not do precisely that?  Read the Biblical account of the Exodus (which we do not); ask about slavery and freedom, divinely brought plagues and miracles, nationhood and history.  Why all the questions about why this night is different?

Children live in the present, their questions straight forward; they observe and ask, observe and ask.  According to some Jewish sources we do strange actions at the Seder meal, like dipping our food, drinking many cups of wine and delaying the meal, precisely so that the children will notice and ask: “Why is this night different?”

“When your child shall ask you: “What is all of this ritual?” Then you shall answer them, “With a strong hand did God take us out of Egypt.””      -Exodus 13:14

God did not take “us” out of Egypt, God took our ancestors out, and that was over 3500 years ago.

The past is long gone, yet always at hand.  Only the present is real, yet always a product of our past.  The Passover Seder is paradoxical, a meal of recalling the 3500 year old Exodus, an experience very much lived in the present:  “Why is this night different?”  It is the child, who always lives in the present from whom we must learn this.

One hundred years ago Sigmund Freud and his circle of psychoanalysts discovered that though we live in the present, we do so almost entirely conditioned by experiences we have had, and ways we have lived, in the past.  The past can not really be integrated or changed through remembering what is past; it must be experienced and understood in the powerful present.  The past is formative but, as a memory, impotent.  The present integrates our past.  The here and now is colored by our past but much more powerful.  Thus the present can lead us to insights about the past and about whom we are, more so that remembering and analyzing past experience.

The Passover Seder is like the process of psychotherapy.  Its function is to understand, to clarify, to integrate the exodus of the past in our present lives, yet this can only be accomplished in any real way, though living in the present.

We do not ask: Why did we leave Egypt? How did we leave? What did it mean to leave Egypt? Why did God think it so important that the Jews be enslaved and redeemed?  Such would only be an intellectual process of remembering the past.

Instead it is the child who asks:  Why are we dipping twice now?  Why are we reclining now when we eat?  Why the flat unleavened bread?

Children know how to be in the present.  All they have is now.  On Passover we must all be children.  Living the past in the fully present we must leave Egypt in our lives now -a gift from the past.

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March 30, 2012 | 10:40 am

“Great Wealth” and Mega Millions — Rabbi Barry Gelman

Posted by Rabbi Barry Gelman

“Great Wealth” and Mega Millions – A Kavannah Before Buying A Lottery Ticket: Rabbi Barry Gelman
A Kavannah Before Buying A Lottery Ticket:
I will be using the traditional Shabbat Hagadol drasha to speak on the topic of: Jews and Money.

I decided to speak on this topic long before the Mega Millions frenzy started.
I have long been fascinated with the idea that part and parcel of the promise of redemption is great wealth.

Here are the verses from Bereishit

יג) וַיֹּאמֶר לְאַבְרָם יָדֹעַ תֵּדַע כִּי גֵר יִהְיֶה זַרְעֲךָ בְּאֶרֶץ לֹא לָהֶם וַעֲבָדוּם וְעִנּוּ אֹתָם אַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה

יד) וְגַם אֶת הַגּוֹי אֲשֶׁר יַעֲבֹדוּ דָּן אָנֹכִי וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן יֵצְאוּ בִּרְכֻשׁ גָּדוֹל

13 And He said unto Abram: ‘Know of a surety that thy seed shall be a stranger in a land that is not theirs, and shall serve them; and they shall afflict them four hundred years; 14 and also that nation, whom they shall serve, will I judge; and afterward shall they come out with great substance.

I can’t help but think of the coincidental relationship between the lottery drawing this week and the “great wealth” that the Jews took with them from Egypt.

Maybe this shabbat is called Shabbat Hagdol the Great Shabbat in anticipation of the “Great Wealth” – “ִּ”רְכֻשׁ גָּדוֹל”that the Jewish people would amass.

The promise of wealth even makes its way into the text of the Haggadah suggesting that in order to properly fulfill the MItzvah of Sippur Yetziat Mitzrayim (retelling the Exodus story) one must discuss this aspect of the events.

בָּרוּךְ שׁוֹמֵר הַבְטָחָתוֹ לְיִשְׂרָאֵל, בָּרוּךְ הוּא. שֶׁהַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא חִשַּׁב אֶת הַקֵּץ, לַעֲשׂוֹת כְּמַה שֶּׁאָמַר לְאַבְרָהָם אָבִינוּ בִּבְרִית בֵּין הַבְּתָרִים, שֶׁנֶּאֱמַר: וַיֹּאמֶר לְאַבְרָם, יָדֹע תֵּדַע כִּי גֵר יִהְיֶה זַרְעֲךָ בְּאֶרֶץ לֹא לָהֶם, וַעֲבָדוּם וְעִנּוּ אֹתָם אַרְבַּע מֵאוֹת שָׁנָה. וְגַם אֶת הַגּוֹי אֲשֶׁר יַעֲבֹדוּ דָּן אָנֹכִי וְאַחֲרֵי כֵן יֵצְאוּ בִּרְכֻשׁ גָּדוֹל.

Blessed is He who keeps His promise to Israel, blessed be He!For the Holy One, blessed be He, calculated the end [of the bondage], in order to do as He had said to our father Abraham at the “Covenant between the Portions,” as it is said: “And He said to Abraham, `You shall know that your seed will be strangers in a land that is not theirs, and they will enslave them and make them suffer, for four hundred years. But I shall also judge the nation whom they shall serve, and after that they will come out with great wealth.’”
This is an interesting point to discuss at your seder table – why must we talk about the great wealth gained by the Jewish people as part of retelling the story?

A related issue is the use and misuse of wealth.
That same wealth that the Jewish people took with them from Egypt was then used to build the Golden Calf. This represents the profanation of money. (more on this at the Drasha)

The Golden Calf represents the danger of wealth itself being worshipped and viewed as an end in itself. (It can actually get worse. For example, when wealth becomes the determining factor of value in a society – more on this in the Drasha (from Rav Nachman of Breslov) as well)

On the other hand Rabbi Soloveitchik talks about of “Redeeming The Economy”. (See Festivals of Freedom pg. 168 – 172)
In a similar vain, Rabbi Jonathan Sacks defines tzedek as social or distributive justice.
Here are some of his words: “The Judaic vision aims at a society in which there is equal access to dignity and hope. Unlike socialism it believes in the free market, private property and minimal government intervention. Unlike capitalism it believes that the free market, without periodic re-distributions, creates inequalities that are ultimately unsustainable because they deprive some individuals of independence and hope.”

Before buying that ticket ask yourself: How can I make sure that this wealth (hopefully you will win) will be redeemed?

BTW – It’s actually a good question to ask even if you do not buy a ticket.

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March 21, 2012 | 10:00 am

Muslims and Jews Speak about the Terror in Toulouse

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

Dalil Boubakeur, Gilles Bernheim, Richard Prasquier, and Mohamed Moussaoui in Paris Mar. 21. Photo by REUTERS/Benoit Tessier

Within Jewish circles, we often comment (complain) that the Amerian Muslim community does not speak out against anti-Jewish acts of terror that are committed by Muslims in the name of Islam. In light of this, I thought it was worthwhile to share the follwing statement that came out this morning from the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC):

Earlier this morning, French authorities identified the suspect believed to have killed seven people in France over the past 10 days, including three children. The alleged shooter has been identified as Mohammed Merah by French media outlets. He is a self-proclaimed al-Qaeda member and has had a long criminal and extremist record, including an arrest for possible terrorist-related activities in Afghanistan. “MPAC condemns these attacks in the strongest terms possible and is relieved that this criminal is no longer able to cause fear on the streets of France,” said Salam Al-Marayati, MPAC President. “We offer our condolences to the families victimized by this horrific act and call upon the people of France to come together and not allow their national resilience to be impacted by these acts of terror.”

The victims of the 10-day killing spree include at least three French Muslim paratroopers and four French Jews, three of whom were children ages 7 and younger. All seven victims were shot at very close range and directly to the head. The fact that this tragedy took place in a religious institution and targeted children is even more disturbing. The sanctity of life and religious institutions is paramount in the principles espoused by the Quran.

French Muslim and Palestinian leaders have condemned the terrorist acts.

“These acts are in total contradiction with the foundations of this religion,” said Mohammed Moussaoui, President of the French Council of Muslim Faith. “France’s Muslims are offended by this claim of belonging to this religion.” 

Meanwhile, Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad said, “It is time for these criminals to stop marketing their terrorist acts in the name of Palestine and to stop pretending to stand up for the rights of Palestinian children who only ask for a decent life.”

Also intertesting is the following from the Voice of America whose final paragraphs are:

At Beth Hanna (in Paris) Rabbi Azimov is focusing on healing. “We have a special tradition that says that when bad things happen, you have to add on kindness and goodness and prayer,” he said, “we have a belief that when you have light, darkness disappears.”

Muslim and Jewish leaders are organizing a remembrance march for the Toulouse victims in Paris on Sunday. They say the march makes no sense unless it is done jointly.

Read the rest here.

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March 9, 2012 | 12:48 pm

The Holy Society -by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

Posted by Rabbi Hyim Shafner

Old Jewish cemetery in Wrocław. Photo by Wikipedia/Emmanuel DYAN

“Hyim we will need your help tonight with a tahara,” said my father.

“But I have never done one,” I replied.

“There are only two of us available, and I hear the man was heavy, bloated, so we will need you.”

A tahara (literally “purification”) is the Jewish process of washing, dressing and preparing a dead body for burial. It is performed by a quiet dedicated group in every Jewish community called the, chevrah kadisha, literally, “the Holy Society.”  Since Jews do not delay burial, the process invariably occurs late at night, on short notice, in preparation for burial the next day.

The groups’ name comes from the modest, profoundly giving work it does without any recompense. It is a Jewish holy act to bury the dead, a chesed shel emet, a “true kindness.” An act with no expectation of repayment, for its recipient cannot. Even the deceased’s family usually has no idea who washed and dressed their loved one, who like a baby can do nothing for themselves and is treated with care by the holy group.

At 11pm that night my father, my cousin, and myself, rendezvoused in the funeral home’s deserted parking lot. We slipped into the building through its back door, entering the section of the building blocked off from the public. Like being behind stage, the area is unseen, I imagine, in an effort to shield the public from the reality of death and the hands-on concreteness of body they would rather not know.

Sinks, tables, sponges, buckets, mops, crazy glue and a prayer book and box of tachrichim, white linen shrouds with no pockets (since you can’t take it with you), that we had brought along. Tucked in the box was a small sack of dirt from the ground of Israel to place under the dead man’s head; a little piece of the ancestral holy land in which Jewish people since Abraham have made fervent efforts to be interred.

The man lay before us, covered from head to toe by a plain sheet on an operating room like table. Long after the doctors of the living have left, we have come to carefully cleanse and meticulously dress, to cut nails and glue cuts, to recite psalms, and ultimately to return the final product of our intense work to the dirt from whence it came.

It is eerily quiet since we do not converse in the presence of the dead. He cannot join in, and we are entirely focused on him, the one lying before us. There is much ritual and respect, but no place for emotion. In its stead we have work, lifting dead weight, washing him, drying him; his private parts covered with a towel, as the body is holy and deserves modesty and respect.

“Do not pass anything over him,” cautions my cousin, “it is the law, out of respect for the dead.” Indeed, the body is not an object to be moved like a sack of potatoes, and yet we must grapple with this weighty corpse.  We treat him with more quiet deference than we might a living being. In the stark face of death, we are all equal, all there to serve each other. Something unsaid intimately links him and us: as we do the burdensome, precarious work, of clothing him by hand, in the back of our minds we know one day someone will do this to us, for us.

I was quietly grateful that there was no talking, my mind racing anxiously faced with the first dead body I had seen up close. I recited the traditional psalms, taking comfort in an act that only the living can do, reading, praying, reciting.

“Lift…carefully,” says my father, “he is heavy. Hold his legs while I turn him to get the water under him. If you want gloves I think there are some.”

For generations my family has been the chevrah kadisha in our home town, a small Jewish community on the east coast. In the late 19th century my great grandfather, the head of the Holy Society, did taharahs in houses and in the linoleum tiled front parlor of his home.

Though I never had the guts for the real work of the taharah when I was young, I remember, as a youth filling graves with my father after a funeral of adults whom I did not know. When everyone had left but the grave was not completely filled my father told me to stay with him and complete the duty with shovels by hand. “The burial of the dead should be complete,” he would say.

The dead man oozes a bit of blood from a sore. “Use the crazy glue there,” says my cousin.

We mop the blood with a paper towel and place it in the coffin, as the human body must be respected and entirely buried, not thrown away. “You are dirt and to dirt you shall return,” fulfilling the words of God as stated in the Bible at the very beginning of Genesis.

When he is cleaned and dried we pour the water. Nine kabim, an ancient Talmudic measure of water, as specified in Jewish law. Three large buckets worth, uninterrupted, for the waters that purify must be poured without lapses in between. We recite Hebrew words of prayer as we tie his plain rope belt, put on his linen booties, lifting him, turning him, getting his shirt on straight; the loose, clean, white clothing of a newborn. When I was young and would ask my mother what death is like, she would tell me, “it is like before you were born.”

The experience, my first of the kind, was shocking but also a bit exhilarating. I felt initiated into the clandestine Holy Society. In the middle of the night, fueled by humility, ritual and profound respect for others; an other I did not know, an other who could never repay us.

To look death in the face without belittling it, with out denying it, to see in it the deep respect and caring owed to one made in the image of God, this is the work of the chevrah kadisha.

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March 6, 2012 | 12:35 am

Purim’s Gift

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

Hamantashen. Photo by Wikipedia/Infrogmation

I remember the Purim that fell during the year that I was mourning the loss of my father. Early on, I mentioned to my wife that I just wasn’t going to be in the mood to go to the Purim Seuda being held at shul, and she lovingly and generously offered to make a low-key Seudah at home with just family and maybe some close friends. But I turned this offer down as well, and wound up eating the Seuda by myself, in the kitchen. Which for me at least, felt about right.

Halachikly - and more than just halachikly - Purim isn’t Yom Tov. The arrival of Purim does not terminate a shiva or a shloshim that is in progress, the way that the arrival of a Yom Tov does.  And the Halacha concerning the mourner and the Purim Seuda is actually rather unworked out, with opinions ranging the gamut. This is very different from Yom Tov meals, which even a mourner is to enjoy in the company of family and friends. There’s clearly a fundamental difference between the nature of the joy of Yom Tov, and the nature of the joy of Purim.

This difference is expressed in another way as well. Purim features this very unusual encouragement toward drunkenness, raucous noisemaking, and the wearing of masks and costumes, none of which are associated with the joy of Yom Tov. Which leaves us asking, “What exactly IS Purim? And what exactly are we doing when we celebrate it? “

I remember once hearing a theory, quoted in the name of Rabbi Soloveitchik, which explained the distinction between the joy of Yom Tov and the joy Purim. The joy of Yom Tov - ideally at least – is organic, naturally occurring. On the anniversary of our redemption from slavery, or on the anniversary of the Revelation, or as we sit beneath the schach, and celebrate the plenty with which we’ve been blessed, the joy wells up within us, organically, almost irrepressibly. “And you shall rejoice on your festivals” is as much a description of what will be, as it is a command.  And when this organic state of joy collides for someone with his or her personal state of mourning, the Halacha presumes that one of them must step aside for the other.  And by halachik tradition, it is the mourning that yields, and the joy that is given expression. This is also the reason that there’s no need to artificially manufacture joy on Yom Tov through wearing outlandish costumes or imbibing intoxicating amounts of drink. The joy is there; it’s in the glow on everyone’s faces as they recite Kiddush at the Seder, or sit down at the table that first night in the Sukkah

But the nature of Purim, the joy of Purim, is entirely different. This was first expressed in the Talmud, which notes that we don’t recite Hallel on Purim. Why was Purim not a day of Hallel?  Because on the day after the great victory over our foes, we woke up to find ourselves still in Shushan, still ruled the “great fool”, as the Sages delicately refer to Achashverosh. We knew that the next Haman could already be waiting in the wings. We had dodged a bullet this time, but there was no guarantee that there wasn’t going to be a next time.

As my friend Joelle Keene put in a 1997 column in the short-lived but much-beloved Jewish Voice of Greater Los Angeles,
“On Purim we are giddy the way people are giddy after narrowly escaping a car crash, or following a biopsy that came back normal. Contained in that kind of relief is the freshly irrefutable evidence that we’re terribly, terribly vulnerable. In Shushan, a whole community came within a hair’s breadth of annihilation. Next time we may not be so lucky, and in other places and times, we haven’t been.”

Purim does not generate organic, naturally-occurring joy. As such, there is no head-on emotional collision between Purim and mourning, There is no need for mourning to give way. The two will co-exist, awkwardly perhaps, but without pushing one another off the table. And this is why Purim is characterized by noisemaking, costume-wearing and even drinking. We need to consciously manufacture the joy, to work ourselves up into a state of celebration, to employ external stimulants to bring us into the Yom Tov proclaimed by Esther and Mordechai - the Yom Tov beneath whose surface vulnerability stubbornly lurks.

But if this is so, what is the point of celebrating Purim at all? Why push ourselves to feel a state of joy? The answer, I think, is that Purim is a metaphor for life. And life must be celebrated.

I won’t ever forget what seemed at the time to be an unremarkable visit to 7/11 a little over a decade ago. Our older boys (12 and 8 at the time) were negotiating loudly and insistently with my wife over what size Slurpees that were entitled to, all while she holding our infant, who was crying. I was standing at the cash register looking exasperated, doing all I could to contain myself as I said, “two medium Slurpees, please”. The man at the cash register looked up at me and without even a hint of sarcasm said, “You are a very lucky man”.  Six words out of the mouth of a stranger. The best “mussar shmooes” I have received in my life.

Purim’s gift was not liberation from slavery, or the hearing of God’s voice from atop the mountain. Purim’s gift was not the recapturing of the Temple from the hands of Antiouchus and the Syrian-Greeks. Purim’s gift was simply giving people a new lease on their ordinary, everyday lives. The upshot of the Purim story was that the Jews of Persia were given the renewed opportunity to go to work and to derive the satisfaction that their work brought to them, to experience the warmth of friendship, and the intimacy of family. They were given the gift of more days of ordinary, everyday life. It’s true that when our alarm clock rings at 6:30 AM at the beginning of another ordinary day, we aren’t usually possessed of irrepressible, Yom Tov-like joy. But on the 14th of Adar many years ago we realized that we would do well to find a way to celebrate the blessing of ordinary days. And we understood that if we are unable to arouse ourselves to celebrate ordinary living, than we are probably not really living at all.

This is the reason that we work so hard to rejoice on Purim. This is what we are doing when we celebrate the day.  And yes, the ways we celebrate Purim are over the top, an extreme effort at generating joy. But that’s because we need for Purim to echo through a whole year of ordinary, regular days, till Purim comes round to remind us again.

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February 26, 2012 | 2:58 pm

A Jew and a Mormon walk into a Bar…

Posted by Rabbi Barry Gelman

Salt Lake Temple in Salt Lake City, Utah. Photo by Wikipedia/Entheta

Recently the issue of the Mormon church engaging in posthumous conversions has resurfaced. The Wall Street Journal reports that:

“Researchers recently discovered that Mormons had similarly baptized the parents of famed Nazi hunter Simon Wiesenthal, whose mother died in a Nazi extermination camp in 1942. And one Mormon recently proposed for proxy baptism the still-living Holocaust survivor and Nobel Laureate Elie Wiesel.”

Naturally Jews are disturbed and insulted by this. No doubt, it has a serious icky factor.

Besides these factors, there is something else, something more religiously important at play here. For the Mormons, salvation is simply a matter of Divine Grace. Without any effort, sinners are excused for a lifetime of sins.

Judaism looks at salvation, or as we call it, forgiveness in an entirely different manner. Rabbi Yitzchak Blau, in an article on Tradition 28:2 explains this approach, popularized by Rabbi Soloveitchik.

Rabbi Blau begins by quoting a Talmudic passage that expresses the difficulty in understanding repentance to begin with.

It was inquired of Wisdom, “What is the punishment of a sinner?” Wisdom said “Evil pursues the wicked.” It was asked of prophecy, “What is the punishment of a sinner?” Prophecy said to them, “The sinful soul shall perish.” It was asked of the Holy One, “What is the punishment of a sinner?”, and He said, ”Let him repent and he will be forgiven.”

The article then goes on to explain the need for human initiative and creativity in the process of repentance.

“Most significantly, Rabbi Soloveitchik employs this theory of repentance as an illustration of the creativity of Halakhic Man. For the Rav, creativity represents an essential characteristic of Halakhic Man:

“The most fervent desire of Halakhic Man is to behold the replenishment of the deficiency of creation, when the real world will conform to the ideal world, and the most exalted and glorious of creations, the ideal Halakha, will be actualized in its midst. The dream of creation is the central idea in the halakhic consciousness the idea of the importance of man as a partner of the Almighty in the act of creation, man as a creator of worlds”

From this perspective, the Rav interprets numerous Jewish texts and explains many mitzvot, including repentance, in a new light. Here, the Schelerian view of repentance is crucial. If one views atonement as the miraculous intervention of God against all logic, then man plays at best a passive role in the process. Repentance would certainly not be so significant a component of man’s religious personality.However, the Schelerian understanding of repentance shifts the focus from God’s activity to that of man. Repentance exhibits man at his most creative, as he remolds and refashions his own personality. Rav Soloveitchik points to the halakha that repentance is manifested by changing one’s name. Through repentance, man recreates himself and truly deserves to be referred to by a different name.

It should be noted that Scheler’s approach does not necessitate that man attains forgiveness independently, that is, without any Divine assistance. What his analysis accomplishes is to show how regret and remorse function creatively and positively. Though man may call upon Divine benevolence to achieve atonement, he acts on his own in order to deserve that bestowal of kindness.”

Like the rest of Jewish life, Rachmana Liba Ba’ei – God desires the heart and real religious experience is not defined by the fulfillment of certain rituals or recitation of words. Authentic spirituality is located in the heart and defined by noticeable change in our behaviour.

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February 22, 2012 | 1:22 pm

Not of One Cloth

Posted by Rav Yosef Kanefsky

Rick Santorum speaks during a campaign rally in Phoenix, Az. Feb. 21. Photo by REUTERS/Joshua Lott

An item posted yesterday (2/21) on JTA quoted political commentator Alan Steinberg as asserting that “[Sen. Rick Santorum’s]  stance on social issues will be a plus, particularly in the Orthodox community.” This is a markedly glib assessment however, reflecting both an ignorance of and disrespect for the sophistication and nuance of Jewish law. There may be other reasons that Orthodox Jews may prefer Santorum, but his positions on several social issues stand in stark opposition to deeply entrenched Jewish legal tradition.

Jewish law does prohibit abortion on demand. Not because it regards a fetus as a human being, rather because it sees a fetus as representing potential life.  Though this distinction may seem subtle, it carries enormous legal implications. Jewish Law not only permits but actually mandates abortion in a situation in which a fetus is (unwittingly of course) threatening the life of its mother. This is directed by the same principle that mandates that Shabbat be violated when life is in in danger. In Maimonides’ words, “the laws of the Torah were not given to inflict vengeance on the world, rather [to bring] compassion, kindness and peace to the world. (Laws of Shabbat 2:3)”.  Nor is the halachik discussion about abortion limited to cases in which the threat to a mother’s life is physical, with numerous authorities also regarding the prospect of severe emotional or psychological trauma as grounds for abortion.

And the issue is actually bigger than abortion per se. Jewish law bestows virtually no legal status at all upon fertilized embryos that are not implanted in a mother’s womb. This is why the Orthodox community has always been vocally in favor utilizing such embryos for stem cell research (See for example the statement of the Rabbinical Council of America’s statement). While stem cell research is not as hot an issue as it was a few years ago, its return to research prominence – or the emergence of another, similar technology – is not at all unlikely.

Jewish Law also stands at odds with Senator Santorum’s anti-regulation approach to the relationship between humankind and the Earth. Judaism’s legal approach is defined by the tension between the Torah’s dueling directives that we subdue the Earth (Genesis, Chapter 1) and simultaneously guard over it (Chapter 2). We are thus directed for example, to take full advantage of the earth’s fertility, and are simultaneously prohibited to needlessly destroy fruit-bearing trees. We are permitted to use animals for purposes of work and food, but we are prohibited to cause them physical or emotional distress (even muzzling an animal while it is threshing grain is prohibited by the Torah), or to drive a species toward extinction (see Nachmanides to Deuteronomy 22:6, regarding the requirement to shoo away a mother bird before taking its young). The Talmud (Brachot 35a) charges us with the obligation to navigate the tension between “the Earth and it fullness are God’s” and “the Earth He gave to the sons of man”. We strive for balance, recognizing that we are at all times both “subduers” and “guardians”.  In the words of the Midrash, “At the time when G-d created Adam, He took him around the trees of the Garden of Eden, and He said to him, ‘Look at My works, how beautiful and praiseworthy they are! Everything that I created, I created for you; take care that you do not damage and destroy My world, for if you damage it, there is no one to repair it afterwards! (Kohellet Rabbah 7)

On issues like feminism and even homosexuality Judaism’s worldview is more sophisticated, nuanced and wiser than Senator Santorum’s is. The two should never be confused for one another.

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