BKH goes to Habayta

Habayta is an organization for new and old immigrants alike.  In terms of Jewish and Israeli identity, Habayta seeks to create a broad and spectacular social mosaic. In doing so, it strives to create a meaningful community experience for Olim that will strengthen their sense of identity and belonging, shedding light on their path to becoming part of the Israeli story while still preserving their own unique cultural voice.

Last week Beit Knesset Hanassi participated in the Habayta conference which was held in nearby Heichel Shlomo. This event, which attracted over 250 people, offered sessions in Hebrew, Russian, Spanish and Portuguese and its focus was on how to accept Olim, especially in this time of war. The impressive cast of speakers included Minister for Aliyah and Integration Ofir Soffer, MK Oded Forer, Rabbi Leo Dee and Rachelle Fraenkel, among many others.

Habayta offers a variety programs from which members of the shul may benefit. You can find them on the Habayta website at https://habayta.org.il/en/.

Thank you, Paul Bloom, for contributing this item.

Longing for peace :Ki Teitzei 5784

In this week’s parsha the Torah portrays an accurate if unforgiving view of war and its personal consequences. No one who participates in a war escapes these consequences unscathed. Those who are killed or wounded take a physical toll. But even those who have emerged safely from the battle are affected by their involvement in it. This is the supremely important, albeit subliminal, message of the beginning of parshat Ki Teitzei. 

A Jewish soldier, according to the ritual requirements of becoming such a soldier and being accepted for the battle, is a God-fearing patriotic and observant person. Nonetheless he somehow enters into a sexual relationship with a non-Jewish woman—a relationship which, Rashi points out, will only bring him future grief and regret. The heat and passions of war cannot be confined to the actual battlefield alone. They spread within the psyche and the body of the combatant, finding different ways to show themselves other areas of human life and experience. The observant Jew becomes a sexual predator. Is this not the strongest message possible that the Torah wishes to communicate to us about the deleterious effects of military combat? 

The opening to our parsha shows how the exigencies of war demand the abandonment of personal inhibitions. Without inhibitions there can be no morality or piety. As all of us who live in Israel are aware, war is a constant state of affairs in our national and personal lives. The Jewish people have been at war in the Land of Israel for almost all of the past century. These wars may not be of our choosing or instigated on our initiative, but they are omnipresent in our lives. 

Given this difficult state of affairs, Israeli society has been affected and even shaped by the constant threat of armed combat. Many of the rough spots that still exist in our society—the divisiveness, the absence of courtesy, the endemic social aggression—these are consequences of our being in a perpetual state of war. Where this is so, inhibitions and piety are hard sustain. 

Peace is not merely the absence of military engagement. It is a state of mind that induces tranquility, rationality and all-round general goodness. That is why peace is so exalted in the works of the prophets, throughout the Talmud and in Jewish tradition. And that is why we pray three times daily that its presence should be felt amongst us. With both inner and outer peace, such events as are portrayed at the beginning of this week's parsha simply do not occur. 

There is no people that longs for peace as greatly as do the people of Israel. May the Lord bless us with the achievement of peace and thereby restore us to normality, piety and eternal goodness. 

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein

A visit to the Knesset

 Last week a group of 35 intrepid Hanassi members spent the best part of five hours on a fascinating and most informative visit to the Knesset Building, the current home of Israel's parliamentary democracy. Aided by the superlative skills of tour guide Joel Rabinovitz, we toured the sights, studied the dramatic Chagall artwork (a sample of which appears on the right), sat in the debating chamber and experienced the cold intimacy of the committee rooms -- the place where the real decisions are made and deals struck in order that the country's fissiparous political groupings can achieve any sort of consensus that might be turned into an actual law.

Our guide gave us an account of the Knesset that embraced its historical, political, legislative and technological functions. My impression was of a building that was very much bigger on the inside than it appeared to be from the outside, and that it was designed in such a way as to enable the many people who work there to have enough space for comfort and confidentiality while being sufficiently compact that no-one would be too remote as to be imaccessible. Whatever criticisms and grievances may be directed to Israeli governments past, present and no doubt future, they are not the fault of the building that houses them! 

One thing that struck me was the parallel between the Knesset's state-of-the-art technology for monitoring the activities of MKs and an old mishnaic prescription for the avoidance of sin. When MKs are in the debating chamber they sit, stand and speak before a battery of cameras. Their every word is recorded and stored in the Knesset's computer system and stenographers write it all down for posterity so that it may be printed out and read at leisure.  This echoes Avot 2:1 where Rabbi Yehudah HaNasi urges us to remember that, even though we are not MKs ourselves, whatever we do is seen, heard and recorded by an authority even higher than the Knesset.

I should mention two other important features of the Hanassi tour. The first, chronologically if not in terms of its significance, was our opportunity to sample the many and varied delights of the Knesset canteen, where an excellent and tasty lunch may be picked up at a most modest cost. 

The second, which concluded our visit, was an opportunity to engage in a question-and-answer session with one of the MKs, a lively young man by the name of Ohad Tal. (pictured, left, with Rabbi Kenigsberg). We tried our best to ask him his opinions on some inevitably sensitive and topical subjects, though sometimes the temptation to give him our thoughts instead was well-nigh irresistible. 

 It only remains to thank the Women's League for organising this event, with special mentions for Shirley March and Avelyn Hass.

Law, order, justice -- and an open mind: Shofetim 5784

Law and order are the hallmarks of a functioning democratic society. The idea that someone who has suffered damage or hurt can receive fair redress through an equitable system of established justice is central to the concept of a free society that grants individual rights to its citizens. But dictatorships also provide law and order for those who live under their rule—and perhaps rather too much of it. It is in this contrast that we find an eternal contest between an ordered and properly functioning society and respect for an individual’s inherent freedoms and rights. 

Anarchy and dictatorial rule are literally poles apart. The Torah addresses this issue while allowing for a great deal of human and national choice in the matter. The general tenor of Jewish tradition is to be wary of big and powerful government. Avot teaches us not to make ourselves known to government, adding that the nature of government is to demand, albeit in a seemingly benign manner, much from the individual. Thus government appears friendly and helpful when it is for its own benefit to do so—but it may be unavailable to help the individual who is hard pressed and in need of outside help. Even so, Pirkei Avot also stresses the necessity for government and the requirement to pray for its success and welfare, for otherwise civilized life could not exist. As in all matters of human existence, the Torah here demands from us a good sense of proportion, wisdom and sophistication in dealing with government and society. The Torah does not lay down absolute rules, but rather establishes general parameters for righteous judicial systems and equitable standards of law enforcement. 

The Torah is clear in its condemnation of corruption and bias, especially in judicial and legal matters. The poor and the wealthy, the scholar and the unlettered, the well-connected and the unknown—all are to be equal before the eyes of judges and the law. The Torah defines true justice as being the pursuit of righteousness and fairness by just means. No unjust means can be condoned, even in the pursuit of apparently righteous causes. 

The Torah abhors every form of corruption in all forms, basing its attitude on recognition that corruption is a natural state of being for humans. We are all somehow corrupted by our past experiences and our pre-set worldviews. It is interesting to note that, for example, the outcome of many cases brought before the United States Supreme Court is almost always predictable, given that the individual justices reflect strongly held views held before they hear an appeal. They are certainly not corrupt in the criminal sense of the word, but in the world of the Torah they are certainly not free from the taint of corruption. The Torah demands an open mind, a listening ear, flexibility of thought and an understanding of human nature and of the ways of the world from those who would serve as judges of other humans. These qualities are not found in abundance, but they are to be searched for and respected in Jewish life and law. True and absolute justice may be unattainable in this world, but the concept of true justice must always be present in all matters of Jewish law and life. 

Shabbat shalom, Rabbi Berel Wein

Exclusiveness and Tolerance, by Jacob Katz (Book of the Month, Elul 5784)

 Jacob Katz, born in 1904 in Magyargencs, Hungary, was an acclaimed Jewish historian and educator. He was also something of an innovator, bringing sociological methods into play in his study of Jewish communities, with special attention to changes in halachah and Orthodoxy. In his youth he pursued both religious and secular studies, receiving rabbinic ordination and a doctorate in social history. Awarded the prestigious Israel Prize in 1980l he died in Israel in 1998.

Published in 1959, Exclusiveness and Tolerance is a scholarly account of one of the most difficult and persistent issues faced by Jews in the diaspora: how to live as Jews in a non-Jewish world.

Subtitled ‘Studies in Jewish-Gentile Relations in Medieval & Modern Times’, this work is divided into three sections. The first sets out the author’s methodology and terms of reference. The second reviews the 10^th to 14^th centuries and the third spans the 16^th to 18^th centuries. In an even-handed approach, Katz examines both Jewish and Christian sources and materials.

You can find this book here in Beit Knesset Hanassi, in the Marvin N. Hirschhorn collection.