Rabbi's Blog - May 2012

Should the Internet Be Banned?
Read It Here...Online!

22/5/2012

It was in early 2007 when the aidah charedis – the ultra orthodox rabbinate in Israel, issued their edict against using the internet. Just several days ago a large gathering in excess of 40,000 people assembled in New York’s Citi Field stadium to continue the conversation. So what happened during the five years in between? Pretty much the same thing that happened this past Sunday: “Huge event – no huge solution,” as one blogger put it. When the internet ban was issued in 2007, many people heard about it through Yetid.com – the Israel based, ultra-orthodox online media forum. And when people couldn’t make it to Queens to attend the event last Sunday, they were able to watch a live stream on their computer – through the internet.

What this reflects, plain and simple is that the internet is as real to society today as the telephone was when first introduced back in 1876. The internet is the single most advanced means of communication in our twenty-first century and it’s not going away. Of course the risks introduced as a result are unprecedented. The plethora of illicit material is accessible to any age at the mere click of a button. Only a week ago a children’s sleepover made international headlines after an eleven year old boy was exposed to a bombardment of pornography two other similar aged kids who accessed sites on their mobile devices. “They knew exactly to go and exactly what to look for,” the boy’s mother said. “My son was such an innocent naive little boy and it all changed in one night.”

Against that we have of course previously unfathomable advantages. There is a plethora of information in every academic, religious, scientific and medical field, and countless others besides. Virtual libraries give one unlimited access to texts and books enabling unparalleled research and study opportunities. Thousands of classes are available online at any one time. The opportunity to connect is there like never before.

So do we impose a ban forgoing all the obvious positive prospects for fear of the other blatant risks; or do we appreciate the vast opportunities so readily available and look for nate solutions?

The fact that notwithstanding a ban issued by Israel’s “good and G-dly,” there was a need to call together an emergency rally five years later and the fact that this rally produced no concrete resolutions means that it’s time to think out of the box. Bans only work within reason. Even the Talmud acknowledges this: “A decree which the populace could not be reasonably expected to abide by would not be enacted.” The logic is simple. Don’t introduce something you know the people are not going to adhere to.

The Rabbis behind all the internet bans ought to look at the verse in the Torah (Leviticus 19:2): “Thou shall be holy!” Our Sages qualify this command by stating: “Sanctify yourself with that which is permissible to you.” By definition, there are many things in life, not least in the technological world, that could be used for either positive or negative purpose. The particular challenge is to determine how to maximise the potential while establishing safeguards against the risks. Modernity can be your obstacle or your tool. In the voyage of life you don’t block the road such that the journey ends here. You navigate a safe passage and continue trekking toward your destiny.

There’s been much debate in the media recently over whether the government should put a blanket ban on internet porn. Many, including the behemoths in the internet industry have resisted. I maintain they’re right. The onus is on parents to take control of their children’s lives. You block the channels you don’t want your kids to watch on TV; you restrict which movies you allow them to view in the cinema; you keep an eye on what they’re accessing on the internet and put in blocks and filters so required. What you don’t do is buy them Smartphones, iPods and what not and then let them roam freely in the WiFi jungle of unbridled access.

I have no doubt the alarms going off in New York or in Israel is because of the ever increasing scandals whether high profile cases of paedophilia or the more common breakdown in marriages, many triggered in one form or another by the internet. The mother of the sleepover child said that her son’s ordeal had made her more vigilant about his internet use. It need not take for a sleepover or a scandal to wake one up to reality. Nor does it take for a ban to respond to the concerns at hand. Staying alert, educating people, beating the drum to maintain a constant awareness about the inherent risks, and restricting children’s internet access rather than banning the internet the home, is the solution lies.

On a practical level, learning how to instil security, filtering systems and blocks on websites, not to mention the ‘kosher’ ISP’s that are now out there, is a much more reasonable way forward. More information about all that is available – on the internet of course.

Munich Olympics - 40 Years On

17/5/2012

For several months now the International Olympic Committee has been lobbied to consider a moment of silence for the Israeli Olympic sportsmen massacred by terrorists in Munich back in 1972. Letter writing, a Facebook page and even a petition delivered by the Israeli government, all fell on deaf ears as the IOC rejected the request.

To be sure, this same request was made every year since the initial massacre. It was rejected each time. What with this year being the fortieth anniversary it was felt the request might be heard more favorably. It met with the same indifference.

Should a country be pushing a personal agenda on a wider populace, especially that country is Israel and the populace is made up of representative countries around the world, many of them hostile toward Israel? The answer it would seem is no. It tends to be counterproductive, especially in the current Middle East climate and will leave several feeling uncomfortable.

That, I presume can be the only so-called justification in the twisted mindset of the decision makers at the IOC who have consistently denied Israel’s request to grant their fallen boys a moment of dignity. But then surely the writing was on the wall the very day following the massacre as the games back then carried on.

When several months ago Bolton Football Club’s Fabrice Muamba had a heart attack on the pitch, the game was immediately suspended. It would have been the epitome of insensitivity had he been carted off in an ambulance, substituted, and the game carry on.

Granted the game could always be rescheduled for a later date, as it was, but what of the Italian football chiefs who, one month later called off all league games for an entire weekend when footballer Piermario Morosini suffered a fatal heart-attack while playing for Livorno against Pescara. Could the IOC not have also considered postponing the games several days to allocate time for mourning? This wasn’t a heart attack – it was a terrorist atrocity of eleven athletes in the heart of the Olympic village.

When killings took place at Columbine High School or Virginia Tech, the schools didn’t consider time-sensitive studies or tests. The enormity of the tragedy and the appropriate response and tribute to such promising young lives was foremost on their agenda. Was it too inconvenient for the IOC to grant the same respect to eleven young and promising lives so suddenly wiped out back in 1972? The Olympic motto is Citius, Altius, Fortius – “Swifter, Higher, Stronger.” Alas, like the Greeks of old, it is more about the physical body and less about the human heart.

For forty years the families of those killed in the Munich Olympics have lobbied for a minute silence at the beginning of the games. For forty years they’ve been consistently turned down. That the IOC offers to send a representative to a commemorative event held annually at some outside venue is a meager and meaningless gesture. This tragedy didn’t happen at an outside venue. It took place in the Olympic village, the athletes were under the IOC’s jurisdiction. If the sporting fate of every one of those athletes was in the hands of the IOC at that time, then frankly, the lives lost while in their hands deserve a little more personal input.

Is this an Israel thing? I think that must be left up to individual perception. I also think it is safe to say had 9/11 happened on the first day of the Olympics, quantitative difference notwithstanding, there would have been some annual commemoration and certainly on special anniversaries, just as there are at Columbine University, Ground Zero, the Pentagon, etc. Imagine the outcry if the commemorations were held ‘else’ and a school or government representative was sent.

The Olympic logo this year is “Inspire a Generation.” It is forty years on. There was only ever one such tragedy in the history of the Olympics. Terror is a buzz-word on everyone’s radar today. Sparing a moment to think about those who lost their lives at the Olympics to terror and demonstrating a basic sensitivity in the middle of the world’s biggest sporting competition, would give some perspective to an increasingly competitive and ruthless society. It would go farther than anything else to inspire a generation.

Learning the Past -
Building for the Future

7/5/2012

On April 2nd 1999 I delivered a sermon at my Synagogue in Mill Hill in which I decried the “fashionable trips to the concentration camps in Poland.” It was the festival of Passover and I made the point that we don’t put a whole lot of emphasis on time and suffering spent in Egypt, rather we celebrate our Exodus Egypt. Similarly, I argued, one shouldn’t be putting emphasis on the misery of the Holocaust but rather on the celebration of Jewish life post Holocaust, with the founding of the State of Israel and the renaissance of Jewish life around the world.

“Why,” I argued, “should we be looking to guilt trip Jews into observance whilst standing on the blood soaked soil in the valley of the shadow of death, when we could inspire them through a more positive experience as in trips to the land of Israel.” This was in the days before Birthright, an organisation that has sponsored tens if not hundreds of thousands of Jewish youth around the world to experience Israel in all its glory.

Fast-forward thirteen years, almost to the day, and I find myself standing before a crematorium in Auschwitz. To be sure, I never changed my view in all the years and would never have found myself in Poland were it not for a community initiative which I was asked to lead. As the Rabbi I couldn’t say no.

I would never have come to know how wrong I was all along either.

The Holocaust was always in some way a part of my upbringing. My mother was one of the hidden children in Holland who spent two and a half years with a priest while her parents were in hiding in a loft else for the same duration of time. My grandfather wrote a privately published book about his war experiences so in many ways I was raised with stories of the war more so than many others. “Second generation survivors” is a term used for those of us who were raised by survivors, more particularly those who were in the camps. My dear wife of twenty-three years was also raised by a mother who was deported Hungary to Theresienstadt. I was therefore never immune to the stark realities of the Holocaust. I suppose that’s what made me feel better equipped to make the statement that I did on Passover 1999.

A group of twenty of us arrived on an early Thursday morning to Warsaw. I spent the night before telling my wife how much I was dreading the trip and wishing I could get out of it. On only three hours sleep our first stop was to the one remaining synagogue in Warsaw – the Nozik Synagogue. I’ve been around Europe. I’ve seen old synagogues. But the fact that it was the only remaining one, and taking in the scenery around, contrasting it to original pre-war pictures, I tried desperately to “get into the mood.” I stood in the courtyard and tried to imagine the many Jews who wandered freely, daily, in and out of the Synagogue for prayer. I tried to picture the mothers and children who would assemble there on the Shabbat. I sought to absorb the impact of the reality of nearly half a million Jews now reduced to just a few thousand.

The next stop was the Jewish cemetery. The largest burial place most people will have ever seen. A seemingly endless array of gravestones amidst thousands of trees, it was like walking through an enchanted forest with so many stories to tell. More than a quarter of a million graves are contained therein, including a special demarcated area surrounding a mass grave said to contain over a hundred thousand people massacred during the war. We recited a memorial prayer there. Then I looked up and expressed aloud that there was no green growing on the trees surrounding this mass grave. The reality of Poland past was suddenly taking its grip, casting me under its spell.

Further stops at the remaining wall of the Warsaw ghetto, Mila 18 men fought valiantly in their final resistance against the Nazis and the Umschlagplatz (collection point), 300,000 Jews were rounded up for railroad transport to Treblinka, was all starting to transform me. 400 Jewish names are etched on the wall at the Umschlagplatz. We were asked to a name each for recitation at a later memorial.

Of course there were precious spiritual moments which I particularly appreciated. Stops at the famous Lublin Talmudic seminary, gravesites of luminary giants centuries ago whose works would have formed part of my studies, and great Chassidic masters such as Reb Elimelech of Lizhensk could only be described as a bonus in the midst of all the devastation. It made one appreciate what an illustrious Jewish place Poland once was.

But it was the stop at Majdanek that really hit hard. We wandered through the camp in the blazing sun. It was uncharacteristically hot for this time of year. It somehow didn’t seem right. Rain would have been more appropriate even if only to reflect our own tears, mostly contained behind sunglasses. The sheer enormity of the horror and the fact that it occurred just off an open road people passed daily, beggars belief. Can one really commute daily past gas chambers and be oblivious? Or perhaps, indifferent…

It was vital to have the Shabbat respite in the midst of this tour. A gathering in an early fifteenth century synagogue in Krakow with Jews different parts of the world including some survivors filled me with a personal sense of pride. It brought home ever so poignantly the stanza we sing each year at the Seder table: “Even as in every generation they rise up against us to destroy us, G-d saves us their hand.” 70 years ago the Nazis thought they would bring about an end to the Jew. Yet here we were, dancing in the Synagogue on a Friday night, celebrating Jewish life once more. Some original Polish Jewish survivors sat looking on as we danced. “What was going through their minds,” I wondered. “Were they sharing in the sentiment of the moment or were they too emotionally damaged by their war experience – sitting in the very same place that to them, despite the dancing, just isn’t the same anymore…”

It disturbed me a little how several groups were eating their individual Shabbat meals in varied rooms at a nearby restaurant. While perhaps only natural and practical, it didn’t seem quite right. Not here. Not in Krakow. Not in a place there was no separation – there were no labels – you were victimised as a Jew regardless of background or religious affiliation. Then a group of young Israeli men another room came dancing in, and within minutes all groups were joined together in one great dance of survival. It was a moment many described as the high of a trip otherwise filled with so many lows. It was the ultimate defiance.

Another high followed the next day during Shabbat services. A young Israeli man who opened a restaurant in Krakow was leading the service melodiously. Some in the background another voice was heard singing along in perfect harmony. At some point during the service they joined for a duet – to the prayer for the State of Israel as recited in Israel. “G-d in heaven, Rock and Redeemer of Israel… Bless our land with peace, O G-d, and its inhabitants with lasting joy…” Their music was spellbinding. It took me to another time, another place as valiant men and women sought to rebuild the ashes…

Several prayers suddenly took on new meaning during the four day trip. I found myself reciting the words of the Amidah prayer, “You are trustworthy to resurrect the dead, blessed are You G-d who resurrects the dead,” in the middle of Auschwitz we assembled for an afternoon service. The words stuck in my throat. I recite them three times daily but never had they held so much significance as at that moment in time.

There is an ancient “moon sanctification” prayer (Kiddush Levanah) recited up until the middle of each month before the moon wanes again. The Jewish nation is compared to the moon for just as it diminishes and seems to all but disappear it re-emerges again the following month with increasingly new light. That resonated with me as the full moon was shining ever brightly over the haunting darkness of Plaszow – today a large empty field and the scene the story of Oskar Schindler took place. I recited the prayer quietly to myself. “Just as I jump toward you and cannot reach you, so my enemies should not be able to reach me in order to harm me…” Inevitable and unanswerable questions creep into my mind…

More questions than answers emerge during such a trip. But as I observed later to one member who had turned to me bitterly as we stood over a pile of ash in Majdanek: “ was G-d?” “I don’t profess to have the answers,” I said. “But it was you who also asked later ‘what time are we doing morning service tomorrow?’” The indomitable spirit of the Jew: “G-d is G-d even when I find it sometimes so difficult to believe…”

A four hour walk through Auschwitz is gut-wrenching. The very intersection the trains stopped and Dr. Mengele pointed his baton to either the right or the left, determining life or death made me shudder all over. I shared with the group a story recorded by Rabbi Zvi H. Meisels about a man who consulted him in Auschwitz on an ethical question regarding the limitations of saving his only son at the possible expense of another. Here in this camp, behind one of the very barracks before our eyes, subhuman beings felt it their right to play G-d, their very victims were still determined to do the right thing by G-d. “Who is like your nation Israel, one nation on earth…”

There is no question this was a life transforming experience for all of us who joined the tour. This was evident when during supper before departure to the airport everyone shared their personal high and low moment of the trip.

I concluded with emphasis on the fact that, that very day was the fourteenth of the Hebrew month Iyar, a date defined in the Torah as the “second Pesach.” This was a specially designated date for Jews who for one reason or another were unable to bring the Pascal sacrifice in the Temple on the original Pesach a month prior. The message of the day is ‘there are always second chances.’ I suggested that we all go home and undertake one special mitzvah for the memory of all those we couldn’t see but who were whispering into our souls. “They had no chance in life. We are their second chance.”

This moment provides me with a second chance as well to set the record straight on remarks I made 13 years ago. To be sure, I still maintain an Israel trip is imperative and nothing quite compares to a Friday night at the Western Wall. But if one has the opportunity at some point in their lifetime to visit Poland and take in the enormity of our tragic past in order to better appreciate the need to build toward a Jewish future, then it must be done.

May the souls of the 6 million be bound in the bond of eternal life