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The J Street U opening program has just finished. Technically, this program beings and ends a day earlier than the regular J Street conference, so our individual programming takes place throughout the day tomorrow. In the evening, we join the conference, and go through their programming on Monday. We then have the option of our own advocacy session on Capitol Hill, or staying in the regular conference for Tuesday and going to their advocacy session on Wednesday. I’ve elected to take this option, and so, it turns out, has one of our guest bloggers, Moriel Rothman, whom I bumped into at the beginning of the opening program.

We turn out to have a lot in common (such as as both beatboxing), and we’re spending some time talking about how to cover the events here meaningfully as we go through the program. Tonight has been very constructive. I’m looking forward to crashing at the hostel a few blocks away where a lot of us are staying. Tomorrow’s an even busier day.

There’s a palpable sense of excitement in the air. But people are surprisingly level-headed. No one’s flying off the handle with radicalism or unfounded idealistic dreams of changing the world right away. But there’s real hope here. We heard some speakers talk about the role college campuses play in the shaping and realization of U.S. Middle Eastern policy; it’s empowering to have people address you like that. So tomorrow, when we actually make good on these ideas, and have real discussions with real facts, it’s going to come home – we have a job to do, and we’re here to learn how to do it.

I’ll continue to tweet the student and regular conferences.

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

This high holiday season was new for me in many ways. It was my first away from my family, it was the first time I fasted without drinking water, and it was also the first time I didn’t go to services during the day on Yom Kippur. This last one, and a related concept I’ve been thinking about a lot recently, are what I want to talk about here. As anyone who’s done it knows, praying is not a simple concept. It’s a big category within the religion (as in it encompasses a lot of practices and ideas), and there are a myriad of opinions about every single aspect of it. When, how, where, and why you should do it, and so on. Like many Jews, I’ve always had a complicated relationship to prayer. I was raised religious, but without much connection to a synagogue. Although very nice, the shul in our town never excited us that much (I think I’ve talked about my struggles with this a bit in a previous post), and I’ve looked for other options for a long time. (more…)

As a young Jewish man, I have often wrestled with the dilemma that dating poses: that is, do I confine myself only to Jews?  In my view, the question it comes down to is one of priorities.  Which is more important, an uninterrupted or unimpeded relationship, or my obligation (desire?) to raise my kids Jewish?  Are they mutually exclusive?

Theoretically, and in my ideal world, they wouldn’t be.  But in actuality it’s a lot more complicated.  In my hometown, for instance, there are a lot of families with one Jewish parent, usually the father.  I have many close friends like this.  And almost universally, they are completely non-religious.  I don’t say this in any sort of condescending, not-Jewish-enough-for-me kind of way.  What I mean is that they as a family have no interest in being Jewish.  Now that is obviously their own personal choice, and as such I have no intention of criticizing it, but I fully intend to have a Jewish family.  Here’s the issue: how many of those people did too?  How many went into that relationship convinced that they could do it, convinced that their spouse would be interested, engaged, capable, and that they would have Jewish kids if not a Jewish family (i.e. their mom wasn’t really a part of it)?  The answer is that I don’t know.

Of course, it’s entirely possible that none of these men went into the marriage with the intent of having a Jewish family, as I do.  Again, a personal choice.  But I doubt that’s as universal as the lack of that concept’s actual instances in the real world.  It’s definitely food for thought.

Thus, there is an issue of whether I can even do it if I try.  But I suppose the more basic question is, should I try in the first place?  Is it moral for me to insist to whoever I marry that my religion take precedence?  Is it okay for me to be the influence?  Is it Jewish?  Obviously “mainstream” Jewish teaching is in favor of the maintenance of the heritage.  But that same teaching frowns on intermarriage, and, in my opinion is, as a philosophy at large, responsible for the seclusion Jews have often held themselves to.  It’s true that Jews have been historically discriminated against in many respects, but there has definitely been an element of deliberate self-seclusion, perhaps in response to that discrimination.

But the modernized Jewish philosophy that I tend to associate with in most cases, the same one that says that a two-state solution is better than a “pure” Jewish homeland, and that gay marriage is acceptable in a synagogue, tells me that I need to keep my religion out of other people’s way.  That they have as much a right to theirs as I do to mine.  That all religions are created equal.  So do I have a basis for almost arbitrarily imposing my religion on my future family within Judaism?  I could certainly mix-and-match between Jewish schools of thought, borrowing from more orthodox viewpoints (maintenance of the bloodline at all costs) to allow for my raising my kids Jewish, and still maintaining an attitude of general tolerance.  Nope.  That seems completely immoral and subversive to me; using orthodoxy to enforce the spreading of progressivism, in a sense.  I need a progressive basis for raising a Jewish family with a not-born-Jewish wife.  Or I need to prove that none exists, and drop the idea entirely.

I guess I could say that it depends on the person I marry.  If that person is up for becoming Jewish and raising Jewish kids, then we’re all set.  Otherwise, I can say goodbye to having a Jewish family.

Do I want to leave it up to chance?  Or what might as well be chance, because I’m not really going to screen who I date by how likely I think they’d be to want to convert at some unspecified point in the future.  That’s just too much to ask.  Picture meeting someone in high school or college (I’m there now!), and telling them you can only date them if they’d convert if you got married.  That’s almost a more difficult criteria than “I won’t date you if you’re not Jewish”.  At least not being Jewish is an immediate disqualifier – I’m not asking someone to look ten, twenty years into their future, and decide if they will a) still be with me, b) want to marry me, and c) want to convert at that point.  You can’t start a relationship by looking at how you want it to end.

But no more can you ignore its end.  I don’t like the idea of starting a relationship with the intention of ending it, in any case, whether it’s because you don’t really want to stay with the person, or because you don’t think they’ll convert.  Either of those is just manipulative.

This is as of now an unresolved issue I’m thinking about.  I certainly haven’t confined myself to dating only Jews in the past, and I don’t think I will in the future.  I see intermarriage and intermingling as beneficial to any group; being insular is ultimately weakening.  So I suppose that, because of my desire to have a Jewish family, I’m looking for a way to ensure it within the moral bounds I’ve set for myself (equality, etc.); a fail-safe.  I haven’t yet found it.  I think I can do it, but I don’t want to step on anyone along the way.

Ultimately, this is the struggle of being a modernized Jew; how do you maintain the practice of a religion while simultaneously subscribing to ideas of universal religious equality?  They’re not mutually exclusive by any means, but you can’t just sit back and expect them to coexist.  You have to self-define and expand your boundaries constantly.

To me, that’s the most Jewish practice of all.

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

You may not be looking for the promised land, but you might find it anyway / Under one of those old familiar names / Like New Orleans, Detroit City, Dallas, Pittsburg P.A., New York City, Kansas City, Atlanta, Chicago, and L.A.
-James Brown, Living in America

“We have to be all those difficult things like cheerful and kind and curious and patient, and we’ve got to study and think and work hard, all of us, in all our different worlds, and then we’ll build…”
“And then what?” said her Dæmon sleepily “build what?”
“The Republic of Heaven.”
-Phillip Pullman, The Amber Spyglass

People grapple with how to make something larger than themselves significant in a personal context all the time. Obviously, religion is no exception. And when one tries to extrude one’s own understanding of a concept such as religion onto others, the consequences are disastrous.

That being said, I personally have found it extremely productive to learn more about other people’s approaches to difficult concepts. I struggle to maintain a balance of originality (i.e. not adopting someone else’s viewpoints) and applicability (not becoming so caught up in my own opinions that I become insular and self-centered) in my opinions. I talk to experts, I weigh their opinions, and I try to form my own based on a hopefully well-informed view of the situation.

So it was when I started wearing tzitzit and covering my head after freshman year. I spent time with some Modern Orthodox Jews, I talked to some more Reconstructionist-ish rabbis, I talked to friends and family, and I spent time just thinking about it myself. I ultimately came to the conclusion that it was something I wanted to do, to help provide me with the sense of constant responsibility and Jewishness that I felt I had been missing.

I knew then that that wasn’t at all a final step in my religious deliberations, but I’ve definitely gone in some directions since then that I didn’t anticipate. One in particular seemed to me a good topic for a post; my recent attendance of the weekly Quaker meetings in Northampton. My father was raised Quaker, although his family was Jewish by blood, so the RSoF was always on my radar in a vague sort of sense. I knew that Quakers worshipped in silence, and that one stands up and just speaks if one has something to say. I suppose I had thought a bit about the theological implications of this form of worship, but not extensively. So, about a month ago, I went to a meeting.

I have quite a few Quaker friends, so I had a bit of an insider view on the community from the beginning; I could sort of see it through their perspectives. There were not that many people at the first meeting I went to, owing to a annual meeting elsewhere in the area that drew a lot of regular members, but it was still very interesting. There were a couple “messages” given over the one-hour period. One woman spoke about a trip she took to Austria, and an experience she had in a small village where no one spoke English. She had a hard time understanding the local dialect, but she did know that everyone was very friendly, because whenever anyone passed anyone on the street, they would greet each other familiarly. It took her a while to figure out that what they were saying was Gruss Gott, which translates as “Greet G*d”.

The format of Quaker meetings can be taken in a lot of different directions. Some of my friends informed me that there’s a name for when too many people are giving messages at a meeting. They call it “popcorn”. So there’s a subtle stigma towards talking too much. But my perception was that that’s not because they don’t encourage thought. It’s that they encourage room for thought. The format of the meeting is deeply rooted in the Quaker belief that G@d is within everyone. The meeting is designed to provide space for you to clear your thoughts and share them if you feel that it’s appropriate.

My father remembers the meetings feeling very oppressive as a child. I can see how this would be true. A woman I talked to last Sunday told me about the childcare service the Northampton Friends’ Society provides; they bring the kids in for only the last ten minutes. Clearly, it would be difficult for a lot of kids to sit in silence for an hour. Even for adults, it’s difficult in some ways. But I’m continually surprised at how subtly natural it feels to just be with people. I find it refreshing. As much as I like to think that I’m unflappable, that I’m capable of forming rational opinions and coming to valid conclusions under even the most pressing and stressful of circumstances, I’m not; I’m only human. And since we live in a not-exclusively-Jewish community, my family has sacrificed any kind of Saturday Shabbat worship, instead focusing on being together Friday night. Thus, Quaker meeting on Sunday mornings is ironically enough my Sabbath.

I was taught in dayschool (before I dropped out) and then Hebrew school (before I dropped out of that too) that Go_Od is everywhere. The Friends’ Society embodies that fully and faithfully. Like the progressive Judaism that I have tried to form for myself, Quaker meeting embraces the notion of humanity, rather than denying it. Instead of condemning personal flaws and limits of ability, it recognizes them and calls on me to work within those constraints to fashion something useful and beautiful.

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

I said before that I would share some biographical information about myself, so here it is. The real reason I’m writing this post is to talk about some issues that I thought of while deciding what sort of biographical information to share. One criticism of the internet that I hear a lot, particularly regarding blogger, concerns anonymity. People don’t like the idea of someone being able to write whatever they want without their name or identifying information attached to it. I’ve been thinking about what this means from a Jewish perspective. What ethical responsibilities do I, as a blogger, have to those who read my writing? Do I owe them information about myself? I don’t think I do. There’s no reason a blogger can’t write responsibly, with well-researched and well-cited information, while still maintaining anonymity. I personally have no problem with people on the Internet knowing who I am, but there a lot of cases where that’s not true. The key is this: there’s a difference between anonymity and cowardice. I can write under a handle without ever linking that handle to any kind of real-world information, but I still have a responsibility to provide honest content and to respond honestly to criticism. Using anonymity as a shield for ignorance or deception is not acceptable. That’s true in any field, and the blagotubes are no exception. Neither is it acceptable to use my anonymity to spread lashon hara. So from a Jewish ethical perspective, as well as one of scholarly responsibility, with great anonymity comes great responsibility. Given the pitfalls of anonymity, are there any advantages? Well, if one provides useful content free of charge (most bloggers dont’ get paid), it could be considered a form of tzedakah. I’m not trying to sound self-centered here, but ideally blogging is a useful form of information and perspective, in donation form. Maimonides said that one of the higher levels of tzedakah is giving anonymously to an unknown source. So if a blogger writes an anonymous post, they’re engaging in a high level of charitable giving. They don’t know who’s going to read their post; it could be anyone in the world. That’s the beauty of the medium. And the person reading it doesn’t know who wrote it. So there’s been an exchange of significant information between two people, neither of whom have any idea who the other is. There’s no ego involved (“look how much I know about this topic”), just learning. That, to me, exemplifies both the ideals of Jewish text study or chevrutah and those of journalism; the pure exchange of ideas. So in this case, as in most, the internet makes it easier to do really good work or really bad work. The question is, which one will you choose?

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.

Hi everyone.  My name is Harpo Jaeger.  I’m a new poster on Jewschool.  I’ve been blogging for a little over a year now at my personal website, harpojaeger.com.  I’m really excited to start blogging here!  Some of the other Jewschoolers I know from the NHC Summer Institute, some I don’t know at all.

At some point in the future I’ll be updating my biographical information, but right now I am here with the intention of posting about something very specific.

Being a pluralistic community, the Summer Institute (which I’m currently at) has some interesting halakhic quirks.  For the members who don’t carry items on Shabbes, we create an eruv, a quasi-physical boundary around the campus that halakically turns the campus into one building, thus allowing those people to carry siddurim, a talit, and so on, between buildings.  For several years, I’ve been a coordinator of this construction process, and I’ve learned a lot from it.  BZ suggested I write a post about this, as a sort of “DIY eruv”, which is a very good way of putting it, so here it is.

The essential idea of an eruv is a series of simulated doors.  To do this, we use a series of lecha’in (singular lechi, which translates as “doorpost”), with string run over the tops, representing the header of the door frame.  There are various other components of the eruv in addition to sticks and string.  For instance, a hill can act as a natural boundary around an area if it is steep enough.  Part of the campus here is on a steep hill, so we can place a lechi at either end and use the hill as a go-between.  Additionally, an existing cable such as a telephone wire can be used if alechi is placed below it and the cable sags less than about eleven inches (inaccuracy due to conversion from biblical units of measure).

What’s interesting about the process we’ve gone through is that neither myself or my friend with whom I coordinate have a great deal of experience with this halakha.  We’ve learned it from those who do, we’ve internalized it, and at this point it’s become a DIY ritual more than anything else.  Without having a pre-existing complete grasp of the spiritual and traditional elements of the eruv, we are able to create one that is completely in line with all of the requirements.  Also, it’s pretty fun.  We stay up late drinking tons of caffeinated beverages, drive around in a golf cart with lumber and power tools, drive around the perimeter with one of the halakhic experts to verify the whole thing, and then sanctify it by saying a blessing (al mitzvat eruv) over a “communal meal” (in today’s case, half a bagel left over from yesterday’s sunrise hike up Mt. Monadnock).  That meal is then eaten after the eruv no longer needs to be sanctified (although I anticipate the bagel being rather stale by then).

So, starting from a mere interest in construction, and with the counseling of some persons with more halakhic knowledge, we’ve learned a lot about the practice, had a bunch of fun, and helped some of our co-Institute-goers observe Shabbes more easily.

If you have the opportunity, I’d highly recommend getting involved in the construction of a local eruv.  It’s a fabulous way to learn about some very interesting halakha and its modern implementations, as well as explore a host of pluralistic issues.  Great all around.

That’s all for now.  It is time to light candles here, and I must away.  I hope this first post is food for thought, and I’m really looking forward to writing here.  Shabbat shalom!

This post originally appeared on Jewschool.