In 1509, Johannes Pfefferkorn, a Dominican monk who was also a converted rabbi, published Mirror of the Jews, an anti-Semitic book proposing that all works in Hebrew, including the Talmud, be burned.

Johannes Reuchlin, a Bavarian humanist, dismayed by the possibility of such desecration, formally protested to the emperor. Jewish scholarship should not be suppressed, he argued. Rather, two chairs in Hebrew should be established at every German university. Pfefferkorn, he wrote, was an anti-intellectual “ass.”

Furious, the rabbi who had become a monk struck back with Hand Mirror, accusing Reuchlin of being on the payroll of the Jews.

The controversy raged for six years. Five universities in France and Germany burned Reuchlin’s books, but in the end he was triumphant. Pfefferkorn’s fire was canceled and the teaching of Hebrew spread.

Pfefferkorn was the boogieman of my childhood. He was the ultimate self-hating Jew. It wasn’t enough for him to have converted and become a monk, he wanted to burn every Hebrew book in Europe. He wanted to destroy anyone who would defend Jewish scholarship.

“Ham, the father of Canaan, saw his father’s nakedness and told his brothers outside. And Shem and Japheth took a garment, laid it upon both their shoulders, and they walked backwards, and covered their father’s nakedness.” (Genesis 9:22-23)

Ham ridiculed his father; He rejected the place from which he had come. Shem and Japheth honored their past, even when they were fully aware of its failings. They refused to look at their father’s nakedness. Ham felt that the only way to build the future was to reject the past with all its mistakes and failings. His father, Noah, represented the generation before the Deluge. When Ham saw his drunken, naked father, wallowing in his wine, he felt justified in cutting off the past, as the Sages teach, “Ham castrated Noah.” (Sanhedrin 70a)

Ham was the first Pfefferkorn. He was not satisfied in building a future; he wanted to wage war against his roots. He believed that the only way to move ahead was to destroy the past.

Shem and Japheth acknowledged the failings of the previous generations, but they understood that the future could only be built upon the past, even its ruins.

Noah deprived Ham of his future: “Cursed is Canaan; a slave of slaves shall he be to his brothers.” (Verse 25)

Shem, the ancestor of Israel, was rewarded with the Mitzvah of Tzitzit. Japheth was rewarded with a promise that his soldiers’ bodies would be honored with burial after Armageddon. Both were rewarded in the future that would be theirs as a reward for the honor they paid to the past.

Tzitzit reflect God’s promise that all we do has the potential of an eternal future. Japheth, who followed Shem but did not act on his own, merited honor for the bodies of his descendants; honor for the lives they lived, honor of their past, but without the promise of an eternal future.

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My friend and I were sitting and having a deep conversation. During the long silences, I could hear the ticking of the clock behind me. The volume of the ticking rose and fell every few seconds. I did not need to look behind me to understand that the volume increased as the second hand past the 3 and pointed down, and decreased as it passed the 6 and began to rise. The sound increased with gravity.

We began to discuss the interaction between gravity and sound when I glanced at the calendar above my companion’s seat: Van Gogh’s The Mulberry Tree. The branches and leaves are pointing up. The sound may have increased with the fall of the second hand, but the visual image was more powerful for its reach.

A Succah is an interesting combination of ups and downs: We look up at the S’chach and the stars that shine through its open spaces. The Mitzvah is to sit in the Succah. We are down low but our eyes are lifted up.

It’s similar to prayer, where we are instructed to lower our eyes but to lift our hearts. We bow in prayer according to specific instructions, but we then lift our bodies based on precise rules. (See Bowing)

We often speak of God as the One, Who “humbles the haughty to the ground, and lifts the lowly on high.”

Service of God demands both the high and the low, the up and the down. We look up and aspire even while we look down in humility. We look up to the heavens, but we focus on living in the here and now. We point our Lulavim up and celebrate and we point them down and do the same. We actually move beyond directions and space and connect with the Creator, Boundless and Infinite.

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The Talmud teaches that there is actually a better Hallel than our Hallel! The title of this other Psalm of Hallel is Hallel Hagadol – The Great Hallel. Why is it considered the Great Hallel? Rabbi Yochanan explains that because the Psalm develops from one great idea to another and as it reaches its peak it praises God “Who provides bread for all flesh”. We praise God for His unlimited strength, for his role in history, for His great miracles, and for His awesomeness, and yet we consider His attention to each individual as the quality most deserving of praise.

Rabbi Joshua ben Levi explains the title of The Great Hallel as based on its 26 verses, which correspond to the 26 generations of humanity before God gave the Torah – when we were granted the ability to earn existence – when the world existed entirely on God’s abundant mercy. The Maharal explains that it is not coincidental that the numerical value of God’s Ineffable Name – which represents His Unlimited Mercy – is 26.

When do we sing Hallel Hagadol – The Great Hallel? The Talmud tells a story of Rabbi Tarfon: There had been a long drought in Lod and the community fasted every Monday and Thursday pleading for Divine Mercy. One day they fasted and it began to rain before noon. Rabbi Tarfon instructed his community to “eat, drink and celebrate a holiday!” Everyone went to celebrate, and towards evening they sang The Great Hallel.

The Rashba , alone among all the Rishonim – early Halachic authorities – rules that Hallel Hagadol should always be recited in response to such a miracle. However most of the other Rishonim rule that we recite The Great Hallel only if the miracle occurred on the day we were fasting! We do not recite Hallel Hagadol if we fasted for rain on Monday and it only began to rain on Tuesday. We only recite Hallel Hagadol if you experience that moment in which your prayers are answered. We do not recite the Hallel if the positive response to our prayers is not immediate. We sing Hallel Hagadol when we immediately experience the power of our prayers with their direct cause and effect.

These authorities hold that Hallel should be sung in a moment of heightened experience of God’s care, attention and love.

Application:
• Practice singing Hallel, without a blessing, when you experience an immediate response to a prayer so that you begin to associate it with that feeling.

The Music of Halacha: The Focus of Hallel Part One
The Music of Halacha: The Forms of Hallel Part One & Part Two

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Hallel as Sanctification
Rabbi Daniel HaBavli derives the Biblical obligation to sing Hallel from a different verse: “You shall not profane My holy Name, and I shall be sanctified amongst the Jewish people. I am God Who sanctifies you.” (Vayikra 22:32) The prohibition against profaning God’s Name is that we shall not allow a vacuum to exist around God’s Name. If we do not sanctify God’s Name we allow a vacuum to develop. We create a Chilul – a vacuum – whenever we do not grow. The only way not to profane God’s Name is to sanctify it. Why does the verse add, “I shall be sanctified”? This is teaching a special Mitzvah to sanctify God’s Name. There is no greater way to sanctify God’s Name than with the Hallel. This is the Biblical source of the commandment to sing Hallel.

“Holy, Holy, Holy, God, Master of Hosts, whose Glory fills the earth.” The Targum of Yonatan ben Uziel explains the three expressions of Holy as, “Holy in the highest heavens the abode of His Presence, Holy on the earth the product of God’s strength, and Holy forever and ever.”

The Maharal points out that we find all three levels of sanctity in the Hallel:
“May the Name of God be blessed from now and forever,” corresponds to the third Holy: “Holy forever and ever.”
“From the rising of the sun until its setting God’s Name is praised,” corresponds to the second Holy: “Holy on the earth the product of God’s strength.”
“God is exalted above all the nations, His Glory is on the heavens, “ corresponds to the first Holy: ““Holy in the highest heavens the abode of His Presence.”

The Maharal continues by pointing out that these three levels of holiness are repeated throughout the Hallel. The Hallel is constantly referring to one level of Holiness or another.

The Zohar Harakia also teaches that the obligation to say Hallel is Biblical. He bases this on the verse, “In the fourth year of a vineyard or tree, the fruit of the tree shall be holy Hilulim” (Vayikra 19:24) – Hilulim is the plural of Hallel. He teaches that you should say Hallel when your tree produces fruit in its fourth year and that will make it holy. Hallel is the process of taking what you have and sanctifying it.

The Jerusalem Talmud derives from the word “Hilulim” that you should make your fruit holy by singing Hallel just as you sing when you make an offering in the Temple. Sing Hallel when you eat a fruit and sanctify what you are about to eat. We do this by making a blessing. The Jerusalem Talmud understands a blessing as a miniature Hallel.

“The servants of God shall praise God, praise the Name of God.” We are praising God for two reasons: The first reason is that now we are no longer the servants of Pharaoh but the servants of God. Whenever you praise God for a specific reason you should also praise God’s Name because God is God. Don’t limit yourself by the immediate reason leading you to sing Hallel: The immediate thing you are celebrating, whether a fruit or a miracle, should be a trigger to praise God because God is God. If I take something good that happened to me as a trigger to praise God, I am sanctifying the fruit or the experience that triggered the praise.

You are taking your gifts and sanctifying them. You are changing your existence. You are going from earth to heaven and then to eternal existence: The three levels of Holy.

It is interesting to note that we derive the power of a blessing from a verse in the Hallel: “The heavens belong to God and the earth is given to man.” When do we make the earth ours? When we make a blessing.

The Talmud teaches that Israel sang the Hallel as they brought their Paschal Offering. How did they know that they should do that? The Talmud answers with a question: “Can you imagine a Jew bringing a Paschal Offering and not singing the Hallel? Can you imagine a Jew shaking a Lulav and not singing Hallel?” The joy of taking a Lulav naturally leads us to sing Hallel!

The Music of Halacha: The Focus of Hallel Part One

The Music of Halacha: The Forms of Hallel Part One & Part Two

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The Shofar stirs people to return to God, as the verse (Amos 3) says: “If a Shofar is blasted in a city, will the people not tremble?”

The Sages taught that the Shofar blast of Rosh Hashana confuses Satan who believes that it may be the Shofar of the Messiah. It seems strange that Satan does not know that we blow the Shofar on Rosh Hashana and can be so easily confused.

The message of the Shofar is so powerful that Satan expects us to repent and merit the Shofar of the Messiah! (Kli Yakar, Genesis 22:13)

If only we would believe as much as Satan in the Shofar’s power!

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Let me get this over with: Will each and every one of you please forgive me for anything I may have done to hurt

you over the past year? I’ll take that as a yes. Thanks. I feel much better. That wasn’t even too hard!

We must make amends. We are charged to do so before Yom Kippur. The day may bring atonement for sins against God, but it cannot atone for sins against other people. Many have the custom of asking everyone they know, friend, family and foe to forgive them. I do not believe that such a custom works. In fact, there is probably a simple way to determine how effective it is: will the person I am asking for forgiveness fell comfortable saying no? We only have a few moments, if that much, for all the people to whom we must make amends. How much regret and compassion can be expressed as we rush from one person to another asking, “Do you forgive me?” Is there a husband in the world who can summarize a year’s worth of moments of insensitivity, 365 days of words that hurt, twelve months of the things taken for granted, and put them in a simple “Do you forgive me?” The four words may actually make things worse!

We are about to spend a full day asking God for His forgiveness. We probably cannot afford 24 hours for each person, but they deserve more than four words. In fact, if we can appropriately address just one person to make amends we will learn how to better speak to God on Yom Kippur. If we are willing to hear a “No!” from someone too hurt to forgive in a snap, we will remember that forgiveness can not be taken for granted.

Asking and granting forgiveness demands effort, care and attention. It’s worth it!

Tools:

*Make an effort to make the other person feel better. Do it for them, not for you.

*Be willing to take “No!” for an answer. Find out why.

*Listen carefully to others asking for your forgiveness. Don’t answer without thought.

*Be prepared to spend time making amends.

*The closer the person; the more effort.

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The right horn of the ram offered by Abraham will be used as the Shofar of Redemption. (Pirkei D’Rabbi Eliezer, Chapter 31.) We blow the Shofar on Rosh Hashana to recall the merit of Abraham’s great deed, which happened on Rosh Hashana, and to mention the promised Redemption.

Nachmanides (Exodus 19:13) asks: “how the horn could still exist to be used at Sinai and the Redemption, if Abraham offered the ram as an Olah – Burnt Offering?” He answers that perhaps God gathered the ashes of the horn and restored it to its original state.

Nachmanides sees a hint of the Resurrection of the Dead in the Shofar. The original Shofar, although consumed by fire, was restored.

The Shofar speaks of many great things, but perhaps we can add the idea of God rebuilding and recreating even those things, or people, who have been consumed by life, and have lost their spiritual form.

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If a homicide victim should be found lying in a field in the land the Lord your God is giving you, and no one knows who killed him, your elders and judges must go out and measure how far it is to the cities in the vicinity of the corpse. Then the elders of the city nearest to the corpse must take from the herd a heifer that has not been worked – that has never pulled with the yoke –and bring the heifer down to a wadi with flowing water,6 to a valley that is neither plowed nor sown. There at the wadi they are to break the heifer’s neck. Then the Levitical priests will approach (for the Lord your God has chosen them to serve him and to pronounce blessings in his name, and to decide every judicial verdict, and all the elders of that city nearest the corpse must wash their hands over the heifer whose neck was broken in the valley. Then they must proclaim, “Our hands have not spilled this blood, nor have we witnessed the crime. Do not blame your people Israel whom you redeemed, O Lord, and do not hold them accountable for the bloodshed of an innocent person.” Then atonement will be made for the bloodshed. In this manner you will purge out the guilt of innocent blood from among you, for you must do what is right before the Lord. (Deuteronomy 21:1-9)

On 19 December 1916, in the last December of the Romanov Empire, a corpse bobbed to the surface of the Malaya Nevka River in Petrograd. Ice-encrusted with a mutilated face. But the most startling thing was its hands. It bound hands were raised. For there, under the icy water, that extraordinary individual, although beaten and shot, had still been alive, and had still been trying to break free of his fetters. And, as the police would later write in their report, great numbers of people hurried down to the river with flasks, jugs, and buckets to ladle up the water in which the awful body had just been floating. They wanted to scoop up with the water the deceased’s diabolical; improbable strength, of which all Russia had heard. (The Rasputin File by Edvard Radzinsky, Page 1)

My grandfather, Rabbi Yaacov Yitzchak Ruderman zt”l explained why the elders of the city declared “Our hands have not spilled this blood”: The Talmud says that no one had escorted the person from the city. My grandfather asked: How did they know? How would an escort from the city have saved his life?

He answered that someone who leaves a city alone, feels alone and therefore weak. Someone who leaves with an escort feels honored and therefore stronger. He would have fought back.

We can literally give someone the strength to fight, or fight harder for his life by simply treating him with greater respect. The Egla Arufa teaches us that we bear some responsibility for people we know who give up without a fight.

Consider the Russian peasants who were so inspired by the evil and hated Rasputin’s fight for life that they wanted some of the water in which he fought his final battle. We are moved and inspired by fighters. The Egla Arufa reminds us that we can nurture the will to fight in the people we know and meet.

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“In the “Judgment” of the Book of Changes, whenever one encounters dangerous circumstances the advice is always: “Cross the river.” One can see from this that the real purpose of boats is to deliver people from danger rather than to provide comfort.” Pleasure Boat Studio by Ou-yang Hsiu (1007 – 1072)

We seem to take Hsiu’s advice quite seriously. We refer to our first patriarch, Abraham as “Ivri” – what Hsiu would call a river crosser. In fact, many people referred to us as Ivrim for a long time.

But we do not cross the river to avoid dangerous circumstances. We actually cross towards them: “For you are crossing the Jordan to come and possess the Land that God, your Lord, gives you.” We are certainly river crossers, not to avoid, but to confront.

Our definition of Ivri is not “from the other side” but one who can bridge both sides of the river. Our challenge is to stand on both sides of the river – to bridge the spiritual and physical worlds.

We also differ from Hsiu’s definition of a boat’s purpose: “This world is like the shore and the World to Come like the sea.” (Kohelet Rabbah 1:36) The Midrash compares the World to Come as a journey on the sea. There will be no dangers to escape. The journey will be filled with joy and comfort.

We are Ivrim – River Crossers and Bridges – in order to prepare for the ultimate journey on the sea of the Coming World. No wonder we live by Halacha – Instructions for Journeying!

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The fruit on the left is known by a Jewish name: Mangosteen, although some pronounce it Mangostein. No matter the pronunciation, this magical, tasty and wonderfully shaped creation, one of the benefits of globalization, has challenged my choice of blessings. I will make the blessing for fruit: “Who creates the Fruit of the Tree”. I play out the blessing in my mind: 1) Wonder: The four buds at the bottom of the stem. The reddish-brown-black speckled color of the shell. 2) Wonder #2: Observe and admire whole, garlic-shaped fruit inside thick container. 3) I will check the fragrance of the outside and then the inside of the shell. I will then sniff the fruit, and if it has a special fragrance, I will recite an extra blessing: “Who gives a good fragrance to fruit”. 4) I will take my time opening the fruit into pieces. I will pay careful attention to texture and moisture.
The problem occurs at this point: I must recite a second blessing after “Who creates fruit of the trees”: “Shehechiyanu”: The blessing we recite over a new fruit. The problem, specifically because of globalization is this:
The fruit on the left is a Noni. Just a glance at this fruit and its flowers and buds catches my attention, even before I consider its taste. I want my “Shehechiyanu” to be on the best fruit in front of me, and the Noni certainly offers serious competition to the Mangosteen. You have small, light-green buds, and slightly larger white buds that have yet to unfold, and then you can see the flower with the little world inside its petals. When placed just next to a ripe Noni, as in the photograph, you can see how each buds enlarges as it ripens. I wonder if it is a form of cactus. How shall I choose between the Mangosteen and the Noni for my “Shehechiyanu”?
Just as I am about to flip a coin: which is not a very good way to choose a fruit for this important blessing, some chocolates appear.
One minute: They look like chocolate truffles but they are not. They are Acai berries. I can’t flip a coin between three possibilities of “Shehechiyanu”.
To make things even more confusing, some Goji berries appear.
Each deserves its own “Shehechiyanu”. How shall I choose? That is my problem with globalization!

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