It’s the fast of 17 be’Tammuz and again begins the perennial question what are we mourning in these next three weeks. Does the destruction of the Temple and the end of Jewish sovereignty in the year 70 still hold emotional and political weight? After all we are living in Israel, Jerusalem is built and being rebuilt all the time. We have a government, an army, a transportation system, and so on.

Ironically the Rabbis who crafted these days of national mourning put in place a really healthy model for Jewish identity and meaning without a national land. They envisioned a network of courts and local Rabbis and teachers, connected though several larger centers of learning. Unity was based on holidays and a shared calendar, study of single yet growing canon, and letters and petitions for tzedaka, which crossed the borders of other nation states.

Did they institute these fasts to instill a sense of peoplehood and history or to highlight a real political ideal: the temple, the Sanhedrin, sovereign government?

I don’t think anyone wants to go back to being a vassal of the Roman Empire, though life in the Babylonian-Sassanian empire seems like it was pretty good- maybe like being a Jewish minority in the US today. It’s a moot point. Israel exists. We have an independent Nation State once again.

Yet on this fast day, I am not overly focused on mourning the destruction in 70 but rather the challenges of rebuilding this country. Recently a law was passed here that erodes the rights of free speech by allowing the government to sue anyone who plans a boycott against the State. Now there are more bills on the table that the ‘right’ wants to pass to give them the ability to squeeze and limit the ‘left’. As an American I feel some a deep panic attack brewing. I don’t want to live in a tyranny even if its expressed goal is to protect me.

In the Diaspora over the last two thousand years we developed a way to be unified and yet diverse. I realize I am romanticizing the past and there were many vicious debates about who was in and who was out of the Jewish community. But there were no laws against speaking one’s mind. If an idea or a movement had the weight of a community to follow then no big brother could stop it. The overarching sense of the Jewish people remained even as we diversified and went in different directions.

We have a lot to learn from our years in the Diaspora and the current global Jewish communities and we in Israel should take notice. I don’t want to live in a country where opinions are monitored. I don’t want to live in a country where there is a centralized religious establishment. I seek today a society built on mutual respect and freedom of thought and practice. I fast for liberal democratic rights, for a little chaos of ideas within the boundaries we call home. Returning to power must not mean an abuse of that power. 

 

The week of Yom Haatzmaut, as I prepare a shiur on whether one should say Hallel to celebrate the founding of the State, the police are blowing up a Chefetz Chashud outside my window.

First I hear a cop speaking into an intercom telling people not to cross the police line, but that could just be the end of a Hachnasat sefer torah or a street fair, which are frequent in the neighborhood.  But then I hear the sound of the police robot shooting into a chefetz chashud, blowing up a suspicious object that might be a bomb. They are unmistakable loud tight targeted shots.

I am forced to think about Rav Ovadiah’s claim that the miracle of the founding of the state is incomplete; that we can’t say Hallel on a country that still isn’t safe and secure, to the extent that there are suspicions of bombs on a quiet residential street. I think of his claim that we can’t say Hallel over a war that was so bloody and the limbo state in which we are still suffering casualties.

But then I see, in the lamplight, the silhouette of the policeman in his bulky ephod, proud as a Cohen Gadol, saunter down the street. He takes off his helmet and tells the people on the sidewalk they are free to walk down the street. There is something in his swagger, in his pride to sound the all clear to the neighborhood children, that reassures me. With all its dangers and shortcomings, this is our country and we take care of each other here, and that is reason enough for me to say Hallel.


 

This article, which outlines the current political battle between civil and Rabbinic courts in Israel for adjudicating monetary issue of divorce, doesn't per say blame the Rabbinic courts any more than the system as a whole. (Though the article does describe the mad dash to file for divorce: the women in civil court - where she'll get a fair hearing, and the man to the Rabbinic court, where he'll get favorable treatment.) We are a schizophrenic country with competing courts and confusion and injustice abounds.

 

I was struck by one of the Mishnayot at the end of Masechet Ketuboth. Both a woman and man can force their spouse to move to Israel and if either of them refuses then it is grounds for divorce in both directions.

This statement stuck me as radical found at the end of a masekhet that treats men and women as diametrically opposite beasts. Even while women are protected, or benefited, or controlled and men are given power and have their power limited, the two sexes are positioned differently in every institution mentioned: Marriage, Ketuba, divorce, widowhood, inheritance, responsibilities towards children, relationship to parents- you name it.

Not only does the Mishna mention the law, but the words
אחד האנשים ואחד הנשים
 emphasize the long awaited parody between husband and wife.

The final chapter, especially the last few pages, of most Masechtot often throws us a curve ball as part of the summation. Perhaps here the Mishna is winking at us. Despite the differences in how the sexes function in marriage and divorce - deep down we all want the same thing. Both mates want to live the good life, to move to Israel, which for the Rabbis meant to bask in messianic fulfillment. What is our “Israel” our messianic hope? Husbands and wives the world over ultimately don’t want fair divorce settlements or cold but regular food for their children; they want to live in the nice house in the right neighborhood, receive compassion, companionship and love from their partner, (and throw in good sex) and meaningful relationships with their children.

Perhaps all the squeaky grimy machinery revealed in this Masekhet is meant to work back stage, so that the potential fulfillment and ecstasy of human relationships can take center stage.

If only the wonders of aliyah today would outshine the hardships- maybe we’d have more happy couples moving into our neighborhood.

 

Some important legal protests to the current state of the Rabbinical Courts have appeared in the papers this week.

Mavoi Satum and several other groups sued the Minister of Justice in the Supreme Court of Equity. The supreme court actually moved to open the protocols of the committee that chose the latest batch of nepotistically appointed judges. This is a wonderful sign that perhaps people/politicians are becoming aware of the problem of selection of Charedi judges 

Also in recent news, Rachel Avraham, backed by the Center for Women's Justice, is suing the Ministry of Justice for the negligence and malice of the Rabbinical courts which kept her waiting 18 years for a divorce from an abusive husband. If you want to know how problematic these judges are and how terrible it is that men can manipulate the system while women can barely use the system- read this article.

 

Today I joined the Women of the Wall in their monthly prayer group that meets at the Kotel, the Western Wall. We stood at the far right rear of the women’s section and when the first Charedi woman started to scream the chazanit invited everyone to stand closer together and need step further into the tight crowd. “Assur Assur” one woman yelled “you can’t sing there are men hear they will hear you.” She wasn’t moved by the fact that we didn’t seem swayed. Another woman was ranting about we were making a laughing stock of their Judaism and that Christians would kill us Jews if they went to pray in their churches. I’m not sure if the analogy was that we were as foreign to the Jews at the Kotel as Jews in a church and that we should be killed for praying out loud at the Kotel.

I had the shivers for most of the prayer. I don’t know if I have ever pushed myself into a place where people would yell in public at me. I didn’t like it. I have mixed feelings. I don’t know if praying at the Kotel specifically in a group is worth the fight. If I want to put myself in danger of being yelled at or much worse for this cause. Nor is it a particularly meaningful davening for me when people yell insults publicly. On the other hand to give up on the right seems absurd. Do the Charedim actually have more authority over the kotel than other types of Jews? Perhaps just once a month it is important to demonstrate that devoted Jews pray in different ways. Men cannot be the only ones who have the right to express their prayer in song at our holiest of sights!

If you are interested in more details, Women of the Wall have been fighting for years for the right for women to pray as a group and sing together at the Kotel. They are presently not allowed to do Torah reading a the wall because it provokes others to “disturb the peace” by throwing things and rioting. Recently their story was recorded in a documentary. I salute them.


 

I was fascinated to learn this piece of halachik sociology on daf 6a of Ketuboth. There is a debate over whether a man can have sex with a virgin on a Friday night, for it is normally prohibited to wound or draw blood on Shabbat.

In the end the Rabbis decide that one is allowed to sleep with his virgin bride on a Friday night. However, in one beit midrash they allow it and believe that the rival beit midrash does not allow it; while in the very same rival beit midrash they do allow it but believe that their counterparts do not.

There seems to be a deep seated desire, that when permitting a leniency and allowing a certain act that might have originally been assur (prohibited), to know that someone out there is still being Machmir, some other group is maintaining the stringency.

I wonder if we see this today in Israeli society, where many Israeli’s are not religious but they still think of “authentic” Judaism as being the charedi way. They unfortunately do not see the beauty in modern versions of halacha. More accurately perhaps for this gemarah, I also think we in the modern orthodox community like the taste of rebellion and the feeling of testing the limits while others tow the line.


 

On Rosh Hashana we say that Teshuva- Repentance- and Tefila- Prayer- and Tzedaka- Charity- will change our decree. To me this means, mental, emotional and tangible action needs to be taken simultaneously to start our year off right, to change our habits, shed unwanted weight and start over.

Problem is, for those of us Orthodox Jews, once Rosh Hashana starts we won't be writing checks to charity. So it occurred to me this year to think about charity the week before the holiday starts. I'm throwing a gambling party where once you buy in your money goes to Tzedaka, specifically all the money will be donated to Mavoi Satum, one of the many organizations that work to help agunot. Here are some other women's organizations in Jerusalem you might want to support this year.

 

Last Wednesday I attended a demonstration outside of the Misrad Hamishpatim, the Ministry of Justice. Inside they were appointing yet more Charedi (ultra Orthodox) judges to sit on the Rabbinic Court. The court serves all segments of the population of Israel (Modern Orthodox to Chiloni or secular) except surprisingly the Charedi community itself, on issues of marriage and divorce. The judges are political appointments, often chosen not for their knowledge, ability, or empathy but to pay back favors and soothe political relationships.

Unfortunately the mood was calm, almost chatty. The groups assembled (Icar, Mavoi Satum, and Neemani Torah V'Avodah) who are concerned with helping the cause of agunot, seemed to know that the decision was already sewn up, despite the 20-some who had shown to protest.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/898255.html