avakesh

Digital Torah: An opportunity

 

Tagged Tanakh: This ambitious project would create digital versions of ancient Hebrew text and allow users to append their own comments and links.

The Jewish Publication Society, a 120-year-old organization devoted to publishing ancient and modern texts on Jewish subjects, has begun work on a project to publish the Jewish Bible, or Tanakh, as an electronic, online text, integrating the original Hebrew with JPS’s English translation and selected commentaries. But the most radical part of the project is an ambitious plan to make the text of the Tanakh into an open platform for users of all stripes to collectively erect their own structure of commentary, debate and interpretation, all linked to the text itself. The publishers hope that the project will radically democratize the ancient process of Talmudic disputation by bringing it into cyberspace.

“The Talmud only had a limited amount of space to allow Rashi and Tosafot and the bigwigs of the Jewish world to have their interpretation,” said J.T. Waldman, director of JPS Interactive and the project. “Now we want to allow everybody to have a space at that table.”

The JPS project, nicknamed the “The JPS project would harness the enormous resources of the Internet — and, like Wikipedia, the collective energy of individual users. Those behind it hope to use the Hebrew Bible as a foundation for an online version of the beit midrash, the traditional house of study where Jews study sacred texts through a process of discussion and debate.

“If you’re able to bring to bear better information, to facilitate more questions and more engagement than in a printed text with a document about which we have a lot of information, then you have a chance to achieve a major goal, which is to imprint [the text] more deeply on someone’s mind and heart and to provoke a dialogue,” said Gregory Crane, editor-in-chief of the Perseus Project at Tufts University, a similar online effort with classical Greek and Roman texts, who has consulted with JPS on the Tanakh project. “It starts a chain reaction of inquiry that can pull you in.”The Tagged Tanakh has a long way to go before it sees the light of day. The project, in its current form, was conceived in November of 2007. In July 2008, JPS received a grant of $200,000 from the Ziering Family Foundation to put together a prototype and to work out a business plan.

According to JPS CEO and editor-and-chief Ellen Frankel, by the beginning of June 2009, JPS expects to make the first 20 chapters of the book of Exodus, tagged and with links to established commentaries, available for a limited group of testers. By early 2010, a preliminary version should be available to the public. It will take three to five years to get the Torah — the Bible’s first five books — tagged and online, and another five years to put up the rest of the Hebrew Bible. Frankel estimates the total cost at $2 million to $3 million.

Though JPS has a fairly clear concept of how it wants the project to turn out, there are major obstacles to navigate. JPS must figure out how to link across the original Hebrew and the English translation, how to screen users to ensure that their comments are appropriate, how to integrate existing software tools, and how to create an architecture flexible enough to incorporate new and unexpected functions that may not yet even exist.

The most unpredictable part of the project may be how people will actually use it. Will it be a path to serious engagement or succumb to the lowest-common denominator of discussion prevalent in many Internet forums?

Comment: I wish they consulted some Orthodox scholars to make this usable to Jewry as a whole. I would have advised that the classical commentators are formatted differently than the "comments of a nurse in Milwaukee", and that there be domains dedicated to various methods of commentary, pshat/drush/remez/sod, acedemic etc, as well as a way for readers to pre-view what they are about to see. Withouu attetion payed to ideological and methodological issues I expect this to turn into a Conservative romp-playground and an opportunity lost.

By the way, who are the bigwigs of the Jewish world and who does that mean? Ramban, Rashbam, Netsiv, Ohr HaChaim...? Disrespecting the classics at the very inception of the project is a bad sign.

Thoughts on Judaism and Buddhism

 I recently tangentially posted on Buddhism and Judaism and Micha made an important comment:

"Take Buddhism, strip out the pre-Buddhist deities.

One now has a religion that claims to have no god, but rather talks about everything being illusion and instead there is a single unifying Buddha nature.

Open the Tanya, and compare to the Alter Rebbe's take on yeish meiAyin (capital "a" intentional). -- I originally threw a lehavdil in there, but how do I say "compare" and "lehavdil" in the same sentence?

For that matter, is a memutzah hamechubar all that different than a buddha?

I'm not saying that L since "Atzmus" actually is Buddhism. However, it's hard to see how one can be Torah and the other altogether avodah zarah.

-micha"

In response, I point out that Eastern religions are generally hard for Westerners to understand and get their heads around. This is because they are not theologically defined, in words, concepts and books, but are rather experiential, with meditation as the tool of this experience. One either knows and understands or not. For someone not brought up within the experiential framework of Buddhism, it will always remain an enigma. With that said, we must remember that, as R. Arye Kaplan used to say, Judaism is also an Eastern religion. If not for its encounter with the Greco-Roman world, would Judiasm possess a well-worked out rational theology, or would it have remained an intensely personal and national religion that one is either brought up in and "gets", or not?

Yes, Zen speaks of Buddha consciousness or Buddha reality, but it is something that is known through experiencing it in meditaton. Attempting to compare it to any Jewish concept is ultimately misleading because words and inner states do not speak the same language.

Finally, even if there were similar or shared concepts in both religions, bringing them together commits the sin of syncretism. I am certain that the Jewish worshippers of Baal also had a way in which their worship of Baal could be joined seamlessly, at least in their own mind,  with their Jewish commitments. The bottom line is that seeking for Truth in Buddhism violates many central Jewish beliefs, such as centrality of Torah, Election of Israel, and primacy of Jewish historical and communal experience over individual advancement and salvation.

Kuzari 13: What is ONE

Download What is ONE

Leonard Cohen: Another Jew-Bhu

On the Road, for Reasons Practical and Spiritual

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From the New York Time

Leonard Cohen: Pop Music’s Perpetual Old Man, Now 74, Is Back on the Road (February 21, 2009)

 

“I’ve had choices since the day that I was born,/There were voices that told me right from wrong,” Mr. Cohen crooned in his stern baritone. “If I had listened, no, I wouldn’t be here today,/Living and dying with the choices I’ve made.”

Religious devotion weighs heavily in both music and life for Mr. Cohen, and it takes many forms. After a five-year stint in a Zen Buddhist monastery and various legal distractions, he is back on the road: an undertaking that seems to combine his quest for spiritual fulfillment with an effort to regain his financial footing, lost when his former business manager made off with his money while Mr. Cohen was living as a monk on a mountaintop above Los Angeles......

Jennifer Warnes, the singer whose 1986 recording of “Famous Blue Raincoat” helped revive interest in Mr. Cohen at a time when he was out of critical favor, said: “He has investigated a lot of deities and read all the sacred books, trying to understand in some way who wrote them as much as the subject matter itself. It’s for his own healing that he reaches for those places. If he has one great love, it is his search for God.”

Mr. Cohen is an observant Jew who keeps the Sabbath even while on tour and performed for Israeli troops during the 1973 Arab-Israeli war. So how does he square that faith with his continued practice of Zen?

“Allen Ginsberg asked me the same question many years ago,” he said. “Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I’ve practiced, there is no prayerful worship and there is no affirmation of a deity. So theologically there is no challenge to any Jewish belief.”

Zen has also helped him to learn to “stop whining,” Mr. Cohen said, and to worry less about the choices he has made. “All these things have their own destiny; one has one’s own destiny. The older I get, the surer I am that I’m not running the show.”

Comment: Some time ago I heard a song by Leonard Cohen and wondered: "How does a Jew become an American folk singer (Bob Dylan aside)?".  Well, here is the answer. One who can combine Jdaism and Buddhism can do anything.

" Leonard Cohen, dubbed by his critics as "the poet laureate of pessimism," "the grocer of despair," and "the godfather of gloom,"was born in Montreal in 1934. His maternal grandfather, Solomon Klinitsky-Klein, was a rabbi and a scholar. His paternal grandfather, Lyon Cohen, was a central figure in Montreal Jewish life who strongly believed that knowledge of Jewish history and letters and the performance of mitzvot were essential for all Jews. Cohen's childhood home was steeped in Jewish tradition: Sabbath prayers, regular attendance at the Shaar Hashomayim synagogue (presided over by his grandfather Lyon), and observance of Jewish holidays and ceremonies.

Given Cohen's biography, his preoccupation with Jewish themes is not surprising, nor are the Judaic allusions often present in his poetry, prose, and songs. Cohen has always identified himself as a Jew, even when he became a Buddhist monk ("I'm not looking for a new religion. I'm quite happy with the old one, with Judaism," he said). He has, however, expressed concern regarding the current state of Judaism. In The Favorite Game  (1963), his first (semi-autobiographical) novel, Cohen expressed disillusionment with the superficial form of religiosity he observed through his protagonist, Lawrence Breavman:

"He had thought that his tall uncles in their dark clothes were princes of an elite brotherhood. He had thought the synagogue was their house of purification...But he had grown to understand that none of them even pretended to these things. They were proud of their financial and communal success. They liked to be first, to be respected, to sit close to the alter, to be called up to lift the scrolls. They weren't pledged to any other idea. They did not believe their blood was consecrated...They did not seem to realize how fragile the ceremony was. They participated in it blindly, as if it would last forever (pp. 123-4)."

It is curious how observance and theology is conflated by this otherwise elegant and sharp thinker. Some years ago I read an essay in some book from the sixties that attemtped to contrast and compare Hassidism and Buddhism - in terms of their teachings, story telling methods and mentor-student relationship. A perceptive writer, but I can't remember who he was, pointed out that the essence of Zen is that all of reality is illusory and a self-deception. Properly understood, this also means that religious faith is a delusion; there is only a mirage and nothing but a mirage. Judaism, on the other hand, is defined by a passionate affirmation of some kind of the reality of God. One can, perhaps, avoid actual idol worship, but to believe, like so many of our errant brothers and sisters now do, that an observant  Jew can also at the same time be a Buddhist, is a grevious misunderstanding of both religions and... a self-delusion.

Gold, Siver, and Copper

Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that gives it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which you shall take of them; gold and silver and brass... ( Shemos 25, 2-3).

We discuss a passage in Yalkut Shimoni 5, 7.

This teaches that the Holy One Blessed He showed them three offerings: one of tabernacle, one of the First Temple, and one of the Second Temple, as it says: gold, silver and brass.

Gold- to reflect the Tabernacle that Moshe made, which was beloved by the Holy One Blessed be He as gold.

Silver-this is the First Temple that Shlomo built of which it is written: silver was not valued at the days of Shlomo at all (Chronicles 9).

Brass- this is the Second Temple that was missing five things: the Ark, the Ark-cover, Cherubim, (heavenly) Fire and Holy Spirit[1].

This particular midrash is best understood as belonging to a group of Midrashic comments that can be termed responsive rather than exegetical. In other words, they respond or echo outstanding structural, linguistic or stylistic features of the passage under discussion. One can extract the stimulus that lead to a misdrashic comment of this kind but the point of the midrash itself is to respond rather than expound. Among Western literary forms it is closest to a meditation, a poem or essay inspired by another poem or essay. This process is a kind of conversation between the reader and the text; while listening to the exchange, the original text can be seen to yield up hitherto only implicit possibilities. It is quite worthwhile to try to determine to what the midrash is responding. Trying to find the stimulus leads to a richer and more varied understanding of the text.

On the simplest level the midrash takes note of the unusual structural pattern in the first several verses of our parsha. Whereas the more common structural convention of Biblical writing is parallelism, or groupings of two units in a sentence, our passage employs groupings of 3.

Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me an 1.offering: of every man that gives it willingly with his heart ye shall take my 2.offering. And this is the 3.offering which you shall take of them;
1.gold and 2.silver and 3.brass.
And 1.rams skins dyed red, and 2.badgers skins, and 3.shittim wood.
1.Oil for the light, 2.spices for anointing oil, and 3.for the sweet incense. 1.Onyx stones, and 2.stones to be set in the ephod, and in the 3.breastplate...

The midrash reacts to this structure by responding with the 3 holy sites to which these offerings may be related: the tabernacle and the two temples.

On a deeper level the offerings are characterized as an offering, my offering and the offering. Correspondingly, there is the tabernacle which is usually used with an indefinite participle (mishkan) and the Temple, which is always used with a definite article (Beis Hamikdash). More, the middle offering specifies that its source is an individual- every man whose heart moved him, and it corresponds to the second temple, which was uniquely built by an individual and out of his own funds - Shlomo. As described in Kings I, 9-11, however, Shlomo built other palaces as well and the tone of that account is rather flat when compared, for example, with the pathos and feeling with which David's attempt to build the Temple is recounted. The mention of from each man whose heart moved him is significant for Shlomo is the King of whom it states: his wives turned aside his heart... and his heart was not perfect with the Lord his G-d as was the heart of his father, David (Kings I 11, 3-4).

It worthy of note that the verse cited can be read as minimizing Shlomo's contributions. It essentially suggests that silver was not worth much to him and that is hardly what we would have expected. There are quite a few other more complimentary mentions of silver in the passages of Kings and Chronicles; yet this is the one that the midrash selects. The midrash deliberately discounts the value of Shlomo's contribution. It brings out the latent discomfort in the account in the book of Kings in response to the salient features of our passage. Again, the method is to note unusual features and employ and intensify them in its own meditation upon the text.

This discomfort is fairly close to the surface of the account in Kings and had been picked up by others. Siforno to Shemos 39, 21 explains that the Tabernacle was built by righthouse people and it contained the tablets of the law, therefore it has never been destroyed and will exist forever. ...But the temple of Shlomo whose builders were from Tyre, even though Shekhina came to dwell there, parts of it came to be worn out and it required a renewal (Kings II, 22, 5) and at the end it fell into hands of enemies. However, the second temple that did not have either of this two conditions (tablets of testimony and having been built by tsaddikim; instead it was generated by the Persian monarch Koresh), Shekhina did not dwell therein.

The midrash goes on to note the definite article used with the third mention of the offering (hateruma) and connects it to the 5 (hei) things that were missing in the Second Temple[2]. This homiletic comment rounds off the message.

The Midrashic comment in the Yalkut illustrates a particular genre of midrash, one that responds rather than explains. It organically extends the range of meaning inherent in the stylistic peculiarities of the text under discussion, in the process sensitizing us to the wider issues reflected in a particular text.

 

---

1 The Talmud in Yoma 21b adds also Shekhina and Urim vTumim. Other sources vary in other important details in regard to what was missing - see Yafe Einaim ibid.

2 We find the reading of the definite article hei as number five in other places as well, for example, the hei of hasadeh referring to the five sins that Eisav committed on the day Avraham died, Yalkut Shimoni Breishis remez 79 and Targum Yonasan to Breishis 25, 29. As Rashi explains in Yoma 21b, the omission of a hei is the scriptural source for the five things that were missing in the second temple.

The Quarrel

Based by a book on Chaim Grade, permeated through and through by the thought of Novarodok.

THE FIRST PART OF THE FILM CAN BE FOUND  HERE.

Here is a discussion and a stage version

Recession and Torah study

Recession is impacting on Torah study, from Haaretz

Comment: It has often been argued that the solution to poverty among kollel students is part-time work. However, that is not the case according to this report. Part-time jobs are the first ones to suffer in difficult economic times, they usually do not pay well, and come with no benefits. Perhaps with the massive expansion of socail welfare programs under the Obama's stimulus bill, full-time learning is about to become once again a better financial option than part-time work.

Daas Torah: A criticism from Tanya

The concept of Daas Torah, as the specialy granted ability of Gedoei Hador to receive Divine assistance in ruling  on all matters, including those that are not explicitly linked to a Torah source, is often linked to the"chassidic revolution" and the concept of the Rebbe as a guide in all matters of body and soul.

Here is an exerpt of an article that makes this point, here:

"

Some observers, such as Dr. Jacob Katz, feel that the idea that these are de facto binding on the whole community is a novelty to those outside of Haredi Judaism.

Prior to the modern period, rabbis functioned as the primary leaders of every Jewish community. Lay leaders served under the general guidance of the rabbincal leadership regarding religious issues, and often on political matters as well. This was not understood to mean that rabbis, even gedolim, were infallible, but simply that they were seen as the best qualified leaders for the Jewish people (Feitman 1995).

Some argue (e.g. Kaplan 1980) that with the rise of modernity and the wider availability of secular knowledge (and a reduction of commitment to religion), various groups, including groups within the "Orthodox" world, raised challenges to the exclusive leadership role of the rabbis. These theorists suggest that to some degree, this generated a backlash in the Haredi world, intensifying the Da'as Torah concept to imply near infallibility for gedolim.  ...

Many believe that the gedolim receive Divine guidance in their leadership role. Some regard the rise of the Da'as Torah concept as a return of a form of low-grade "prophecy" to Judaism, and a number of social researchers in Israel see the appearance of Da'as Torah possibly as part of a process or reaction, in the Haredi world, to the Holocaust and the establishment of a Haredi society based on a very large proportion of men devoting themselves to full-time Torah study. ... "

Here is how Avo Sharan explains this concept:

"Da'at Torah is not some Jewish equivalent to the Catholic doctrine of papal infallibility. Not only can rabbis make mistakes of judgment, there is an entire tractate of the Talmud, Horiut, predicated on the assumption that they can, that even the Sanhedrin is capable of erring, even in halachic matters. What Da'at Torah means, simply put, is that those most imbued with Torah-knowledge and who have internalized a large degree of the perfection of values and refinement of character that the Torah idealizes are thereby rendered particularly, indeed extraordinarily, qualified to offer an authentic Jewish perspective on matters of import to Jews - just as expert doctors are those most qualified (though still fallible, to be sure) to offer medical advice."

Note that this is a little different in that it has makes recourse to Divine Inspiration.

For an extensive discussion of this concept and how it relates to older similar concepts, see here:

It is interesting that Tanya appears to agree with some of the modern criticisms of this concept (Iggeres Hakodesh, 22);

חכמי ישראל הראשונים והאחרונים

Has such a thing ever happened in days past? Where indeed have you found such a custom in any of the books of the early or latter sages of Israel,

להיות מנהג ותיקון לשאול בעצה בגשמיות, כדת מה לעשות בעניני העולם הגשמי

that it should be the custom and established norm to ask for advice in mundane matters, as to what one ought to do in matters of the physical world?

אף לגדולי חכמי ישראל הראשונים, כתנאים ואמוראים, אשר כל רז לא אנס להו, ונהירין להון שבילין דרקיע

[Such questions were not asked] even of the greatest of the former sages of Israel, such as the tannaim and amoraim, the authors of the Mishnah and the Gemara, “from whom no secret was hidden,” and “for whom all the paths of heaven were clearly illuminated,”

כי אם לנביאים ממש אשר היו לפנים בישראל, כשמואל הרואה, אשר הלך אליו שאול לדרוש ה׳, על דבר האתונות שנאבדו לאביו

but only of actual prophets who used to live among the Jewish people, such as Samuel the Seer to whom Saul went to inquire of G‑d through him about the donkeys that his father had lost.

Why, indeed, were sages of stature such as the tannaim and amoraim not asked about mundane matters?

כי באמת כל עניני אדם, לבד מדברי תורה ויראת שמים, אינם מושגים רק בנבואה

For in fact all matters pertaining to man, except for words of Torah and the fear of heaven, are apprehended only by prophecy.

ולא לחכמים לחם

[As the verse states,] “there is no bread unto the wise,”

כמאמר רז״ל: הכל בידי שמים, חוץ מיראת שמים

and as our Sages, of blessed memory, said, “Everything is in the hands of heaven except for the fear of heaven.”

ושבעה דברים מכוסים כו׳: אין אדם יודע במה משתכר, ומלכות בית דוד מתי תחזור כו׳

Likewise, “Seven things are hidden...: no man knows how he will earn his living, nor when the Kingdom of David will be restored...,” i.e., when Mashiach will come.

הנה הושוו זה לזה

Note that these [two questions] are likened to one another. Just as no one knows exactly when Mashiach will come, so, too, no one knows by what means he in fact will obtain his sustenance.

ומה שכתוב בישעיה: יועץ וחכם חרשים

As for the phrase in Isaiah, “A counselor and a man whose wisdom silences all,” suggesting that Torah wisdom qualifies one to advise in other fields as well, —

וכן מה שאמרו רז״ל: ונהנין ממנו עצה ותושיה

and also, as for the statement of our Sages, of blessed memory, regarding one who studies Torah lishmah, “for its own sake,” that “people derive from him the benefit of etzah (counsel) and tushiyah (wisdom),” —

היינו בדברי תורה, הנקרא תושיה

these teachings refer specifically to [counsel in] matters of the Torah, which is called tushiyah (assistance).

כמאמר רז״ל: יועץ, זה שיודע לעבר שנים ולקבוע חדשים

Thus the Sages, of blessed memory, said: A counselor is one who knows how to intercalate years, making certain years leap years by interpolating an additional month of Adar, and how to determine the months, establishing what day is Rosh Chodesh, the first day of the lunar month,

שסוד העיבור קרוי עצה וסוד בלשון התורה, כדאיתא בסנהדרין דף פ״ז, עיין שם בפירוש רש״י

for in Torah terminology the principle of intercalation is called “counsel” and “a secret,” as stated in Tractate Sanhedrin, p. 87; see the commentary of Rashi there, which states explicitly that the terms “counselor” and “advice” are related to the principle of intercalation.

Of course, this passage must be seen in the light that the Alter Rebbe himself functioned as any Chassidishe Rebbe and willingly dispensed direction and advice about all matters of life, not ony Torah issues.

A note in the Lessons in Tanya makes the folowing point:

"As we all know, however, chassidim in every generation have in fact asked their Rebbe for advice in mundane matters and, moreover, each of the Rebbeim has in fact obliged. How is this possible? Elder chassidim of earlier generations used to explain that the Alter Rebbe himself sanctions this conduct — in the letter that he wrote “close to the time of his passing,” regarding the value of “fraternity and counsel from afar with regard to all family matters....”

Be it as it may, the position expressed above by Tanya should be an important addition to the debate about the validity of the concept of Daas Torah.

Kosher GPS: Say tehillim as you drive

From Jerusalem Post:

It lists thousands of kosher restaurants and includes the Book of Psalms, the three daily prayer services, the Traveler's Prayer, a Hebrew calendar, and two versions of Grace After Meals.

 

Welcome to the "kosher" GPS device.

The state-of the art electronic gadget geared to the religious public will be unveiled Thursday morning at a Tel Aviv press conference in the office of the city's Chief Rabbi Yisrael Meir Lau, who will "give his blessings" to the device.

The device, which was developed over the last year by Mio Technology, will also list thousands of other points of interest in Israel, including holy sites, synagogues, cemeteries, and ritual baths.

In keeping with the strictest religious sensitivities, the device, aptly dubbed Mio Ma'amin ("Mio Believer"), will use only a man's voice and does not have telephone functions or allow Internet access.

Interview with R. Arye Kaplan