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Segues of our lives: F and B

Tehilla R. Goldberg
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Segues of our lives: F and B

Life’s points of departure are always a challenge. How do you leave a life or a world behind and embrace a new, different one?
Navigating these transitions is never easy. There are always those places, geographical, emotional or spiritual, that beckon and hold us close. And yet. Sometimes, there are competing dreams and you feel caught between worlds. Caught between where you are and where you are going, and where you might want to be.

Sometimes it’s a clash of worlds, sometimes it’s nurturing a dream of returning to a world — a way of life, or a path once taken and then abandoned.

Many of us live between two worlds, between two places, be it in real time, or in our mind’s reality.

It’s a matter of crossings. How do we cross from one place to another? How do we disconnect from one place in order to enter and connect with a new one?

It’s a question of fusion. Of fusing two places, two cultures, two homes, perhaps also fusing our multiple identities. Integration — and separation — and back to integration again.

Over time we all learn to meet the art and challenge of riding the segues of our lives with as much openness, grace and poise as possible.

As one aspect of our life runs its course, we prepare for the next one we will greet — as they eventually dovetail into the whole of our lives.

Of course, our journey is not usually so clean and sequential and compartmentalized. It’s usually messier, and simultaneous, and porous — demanding a lot of emotional juggling.

Ever since I met my friend David, I’ve heard about his quirky sidekick, also named David. These two are known by their last names and I’ll refer to them by the first initial of their last names, respectively: F and B.

F and B are a team. Through the years they have bobbed and weaved in and out of some tight and difficult life spots together. With boyhood bonds and an affectionate rivalry and competitiveness that is alive between them, they are the best of friends.

From listening to their story of the razor close call of who won valedictorian in the eighth grade to stories about going through Columbia law school together and then living in “The Pit” together for years on the west side of Manhattan — listening to them, watching them together with their snappy rejoinders — it’s like being in an award- winning live sitcom.

When it’s F and B at a Shabbos meal these two spunky, sarcastic and quirky best friends are the scene stealers — in a good way, and their repartee carries the meal. There is always plenty of laughter to go around, and then some.

Then came the news: B got an amazing job offer in Israel. A great career opportunity that is simply too good to pass up.

And so the round of goodbyes began. B, for years, a prayer leader (baal tefilla) on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, running around Manhattan from minyan to minyan — because his special and heartfelt expression of prayer and nigunim is sought after by so many — and especially because he always davens at the minyan at Mount Sinai Hospital, prayed what was to be his last time as ba’al tefilla in America.

It was neilah of Yom Kippur.

The next night an “evening of song” was organized by Abby as a farewell to B. What more appropriate farewell for a guy who is constantly teased about everything, actually, but especially, about how he is always humming his melancholy and haunting Yom Kippur melodies for every song and every occasion throughout the entire year — even at festive times such as the holiday of Purim!

So everyone came and went from “The Pit” — as B and F’s apartment came to be known over the years. It was goodbye.

Or so we thought.

Turns out B never left.

There was a delay . . . something came up . . . a glitch . . . an opportunity . . . don’t ask, because I don’t know exactly, but somehow B kept sticking around.

All I know is that by this week, eight months since then, here is a sampling of some of the e-mails I have received from F:

“So he claims that he has a ticket for this Thursday (yes, 2008). Obviously those of you who have been to 14 goodbye events are exempt — wait, that is all of you so you are not exempt . . . ”

“Update #1 out of #47 . . . so far the exit polls are looking good . . .”

“In honor of the alleged imminent departure of B there will be a farewell l’chaim . . . ”

“I’ll send a confirmation e-mail tomorrow night depending on . . .

“a) is B going to show?
“b) is B going to leave Thursday?
“c) am I (F) going to show?”

Through the years part of F and B’s whole thing is creating this aura of them together as two fly-by-night whackos who can never get their act together.

Meanwhile, of course, they are two super accomplished, humble people who deflect attention from their achievements by caricaturing all their quirks. What can I say, it’s a fun show.

And after the second evening of song organized by Shif, and after Deb’s creative question game highlighting B’s shtick and idiosyncrasies that brought on a montage of memories, such as B’s drinking his milk with peas (everyone else hates peas but B is all about “contraire!” and so peas it is), or B’s wearing what was coined as his “talking shoes” because they were so old the soles had separated (being the Land’s End model since B is known by the light blue shirt he always wears) — or B’s insisting on giving himself haircuts instead of going to a proper barber, driving his beat up Volvo, letting the words “Shabbos, Shabbos” escape his lips as Friday, erev Shabbos wanes, noting that whenever any memory of note happens or a humorous story is recalled, it invariably happened in the year taf shin lamed chet (1978) . . . and so much more.

Last night was the real and final goodbye.

Apparently it has been confirmed — B’s got a ticket.

And maybe everyone there was not his blood family, but there was definitely a spirit of an extended, collective sense of family.

The evening was marked by the usual fun and jokes and laughter, but maybe everyone knew this was the real goodbye, not so much because B finally got a ticket, but because the evening was tinged with a sense of real departure that the previous goodbyes lacked.

The parting shot of the evening was when B spoke.

He shared how watching the movers pack up the past 13 years of his life into some boxes was hard. And that leaving has been so hard.

But that he is glad that it was so hard because it taught him how much the strong bonds of friendship he built during this time meant to him.

And that he feels a real sense of accomplishment in knowing he is leaving behind such deep and strong friendships, that he will always be connected to them wherever he might be in the world.

B spoke of how his parents have always dreamed of making aliyah, but somehow until now it never worked out. And now, by his going to Israel he is in some way fulfilling their life’s dream.

And so, the cards of time have fallen. It seems, finally, now is the time for the great synergy of these two cities and homes to connect — the synergy of New York and Jerusalem, as will be expressed within B.

So…so long, B. We know we will hear great things from you!

‘What do you do for a living?’ — ‘I design bullets’

Hillel Goldberg
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‘What do you do for a living?’ — ‘I design bullets’

“My favorite topic: how to kill people, that is, how best to kill people.”

That wasn’t the actual headline, but it could have been.

This bullet vs. that bullet.

Bullet #1 works best at long range. Otherwise, it actually goes right through the person and may shock him, but unless it hits an organ or the spine directly, it hardly hurts a person.

Bullet #2 works the opposite.

Which bullet is best for Iraq?

I read this through.

I shuddered.

I wondered what G-d thinks of His creations.

Some say it’s not the bullet that counts.

It’s the aim.

Doesn’t matter what bullet you use — if you aim well, you kill. If not, well, you yourself might just get killed even though your bullet did hit the person you were trying to kill.

Shop talk.

War talk.

The nuts and bolts, so to speak.

And, yes, probably most of us would agree that sometimes war is necessary, and that, yes, if you send yourself or your child or your countryman off to war, you do want everyone to do his best to make sure he or she has the best equipment.

And, that, yes, therefore, there must be people who make such things as bullets, and who test them, and who devise different kinds, and who measure what’s the best bullet for killing people at short range and what’s the best for killing them at long range.

Necessities, all.

If you believe that self-defense is legitimate.

Which most of us do.

I still wonder what G-d thinks of His creations. Self-defense is of course legitimate, but who says there needs to be an attacker to begin with?

Shop talk: “The M855 round lacks the punch for fighting in today’s urban battlefield, some say.”

Take it from Richard Larner, of AP, in the Denver Post and the Rocky.

Translation: “The bullet does exactly what it was designed to do. It just doesn’t do very well at close ranges against smaller-statured people that are lightly equipped and clothed.”

Say, what do you do for a living?

“Actually, I’m very educated. I design bullets.”

Necessary, yes.

Uplifting, elevated, reflective of the Divine image in man, no.

“The faster a bullet hits the tissue, the more it’s going to fragment,” says a former combat surgeon, who says the problem is the gun, not the bullet. “Bullets that go faster cause more damage. It’s that simple.”

Nice to have our simplicities in place.

It would be nicer, though, wouldn’t it, if our simplicities were confined to life, peace, food, joy, health.

I could live without bullets that go faster cause more damage, it’s that simple, but not everyone can.

Those who can’t require gun barrels to be long enough “to create the velocity needed for an M855 bullet to do maximum damage to the body.”

The current problem with the M855 is that it was “designed decades ago to puncture a Soviet soldier’s helmet hundreds of yards away,” but now, “the M855 rounds [are] prone to pass through a body like a needle through fabric…”

Unless, as noted, the M855 hits the spine or a vital organ.

This is what humanity has come to.

Or, perhaps, has always been.

Something about immersing myself in velocities and shapes and sizes of bullets, and in how they “work” best, made me shudder.

And wonder.

Yes, I would like access to G-d’s mind as He watches all this.

Watson, meet Nakamura

IJN Editorial Staff
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Watson, meet Nakamura

Have you heard this joke? As you’ll see, it’s not entirely a joke.

A Jew spends years teaching his parrot to daven the entire High Holiday services. The parrot’s owner bets huge sums with other congregants that his pet bird will indeed recite the services. Comes Ma’ariv, however, and the parrot is silent. $25,000 loss. Comes shacharit, more silence, more thousands down the tubes. By the time Rosh Hashanah is over, the parrot’s owner is six-figures poorer — and furious at his parrot, who has davened absolutely nothing. Zero. Zip. The man glares at his parrot: “I know you can do it! I’ve heard you do it a hundred times. Why the silence?” “Ah,” the parrot smiles cooly and calmy, “just imagine the odds we’ll get on Yom Kippur!”

Well, the following is no joke.

Two weeks ago, an African gray parrot flew out of its cage in Tokyo and made a soft landing on an empty roof, where it perched totally alone and bereft. The police rescued the parrot and brought it to the station –– but the bird did not like the police and remained resolutely silent. While the cops hunted for additional clues in the case, they transferred the parrot to a nearby veterinary hospital. The vets cajoled the bird, fed it, and no doubt babbled idiotic featherisms. No go — until a couple of days later.

Suddenly, the parrot announced to the vets, in perfect Japanese, “I’m Mr. Yosuke Nakamura.” Then the parrot supplied its home address, complete with the street number, and broke into a few Japanese tunes. Well, the vets were floored. Professionally dubious, the police nevertheless checked out the street address provided by the parrot and searched for a family or person named Nakamura.

Yes, Watson, the Nakamura family lived on that very street. “So we told them we’ve found Yosuke,” police said Tuesday.

After they were reunited with their parrot, the Nakamuras explained that they had been teaching Yosuke how to say its name and address for two years. Now, who is smarter, the parrot or its human guardians? We think they both deserve lots of praise.

The verb “parrot,” meaning “to imitate the words or actions of another, especially without understanding them,” might be a good behavior for many of us –– particularly children and the elderly — to learn in this chaotic world. You don’t have to understand the meaning. Just remember the words. They might help you find your way home.

Time for President Bush to nominate judges

IJN Editorial Staff
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Time for President Bush to nominate judges

Under the best of circumstances, legal proceedings take time. Patience is required no matter what side of the table one is on. It is incumbent upon all concerned to do their best to ensure timely trials and proceedings. Usually, “all concerned” are the plaintiffs, defendants, attorneys and judges. But not always.

And not now, not in Colorado, anyway. When judges die — as the beloved Judge Phil Figa did recently — or when judges retire or take senior status — as two Colorado federal judges recently announced — politicians determine the speed of justice.

Under our system of government, the president of the US nominates federal judges and the Congress approves or disapproves them. (Added wrinkle: the FBI checks their security clearance.) And even before all this, it is customary for a state’s senators to recommend candidates to the president.

With a potentially devastating loss of three judges (out of seven) on Colorado’s US District Court, Colorado’s two senators recommended many qualified candidates to the president — Sen. Salazar six weeks ago and Sen. Allard six months ago. Based on independent vetting procedures, both senators agreed on two candidates: CU Counsel Christine Arguello and Greg Goldberg, a former Colorado district attorney now in private practice at Holland and Hart. (Full disclosure, Goldberg is a close relative of the IJN Goldbergs.)

The Rocky Mountain News last week urged the White House to forward these two names to the US Senate’s Judiciary Committee. The Denver Post did the same this week. The Faculty of Federal Advocates weighed in with the same recommendation. The reason is clear: A court cannot administer justice with three of seven judges missing in action.

Justice should take precedence over politics. Perhaps, Democrats in the Senate desire to wait until a better day, when they believe they will get all three candidates they want under Democratic presidency, which they predict for next year; or, perhaps, Republicans in the White House desire to wait for the same reason, only in reverse. Either way, it’s bad for Colorado and bad for justice.

Remember, the White House can forward three names, not just two, to the Senate, and not necessarily even the two whom Allard and Salazar have agreed on. However, the senators’ bipartisan agreement on two candidates does auger well for confirmation. The White House should listen to the signal and forward their names to the Senate, which should “advise and consent.”

Should Israel dismantle checkpoints to make life easier for the Palestinians?

IJN Editorial Staff
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Should Israel dismantle checkpoints to make life easier for the Palestinians?

Checkpoints criss-cross the West Bank and the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel. They make it difficult for Palestinians to travel to work, to friends or relatives, to shop, or for any other purpose. They are an inconvenience at best, a severe depressor of Palestinian freedom and the Palestinian economy at worst — depending on how long it takes to get through.

Palestinians see checkpoints as still worse: as humiliations. It might take, say, 30 minutes to get from one’s home to one’s work as the crow flies, but in practice the trip might take hours on account of Israeli checkpoints.

Why are there checkpoints? Should they be dismantled to make life easier for Palestinians?

Checkpoints are a function of terrorism, nothing else. If there were no terrorists, there would be no checkpoints. True, the number of terrorists who try to breach a checkpoint are relatively small. Most Palestinians are not terrorists. However, as we all know, it takes only a single terrorist to kill many innocent people, and while one might not set up an entire system of checkpoints due to a single act of terrorists, we all also know that there is no such thing as a “single act of Palestinian terrorism.”

A gruesome reminder of this occurred this week when Israeli soldiers killed a Palestinian at a checkpoint. Killed? That’s a very serious response. Look at the accusations, the investigations, the hot tempers, the terrible consequences of a killing by a policeman in Denver. If Denver police sometimes err, or even engage in police brutality, it would seem that the same level of investigation should follow every killing of a Palestinian at a checkpoint — and it might seem that the same frequency of police brutality or error occurs at these checkpoints.

Alas, Palestinian society is not American society, and the frequency of attempted terrorist attacks, and of the necessary Israelis responses, far outstrips anything ever seen in Denver, not only on a per capita basis, but even in absolute numbers.

Take the incident this week at the Hawara checkpoint outside Nablus, on the West Bank. Israeli troops stationed there shot a man after he behaved suspiciously. The man refused soldiers’ order to lift his shirt — a standard precaution for spotting terrorists with bomb vests. And, no doubt, a humiliating procedure for the many Palestinians who do not wear bomb vests. However, in this case, the Palestinian, after refusing to lift his shirt, made a sudden move toward his midriff. Alert Israeli soldiers shot him dead.

See for yourself what was wrapped around the Palestinian’s body. The picture is printed with this editorial. It shows three pipe bombs which, as we say, were found on the dead man’s body. Clearly, Israeli soldiers needed to shoot to kill because the would be terrorist, if only wounded, could still have detonated his bombs. This, too, is a proven terrorist technique.

Yes, it would be nice if Israel could dismantle its checkpoints — and not only for the Palestinians. Do you think a single Israeli soldier wants to man a checkpoint? For Israelis, too, it is humiliating to have to ask people to lift their shirts, and a monumental waste of time and money to spend all day long delaying people on their way to work or anywhere else — not to mention, it is potentially deadly work. Israeli soldiers would far prefer to be in university or yeshiva building their knowledge and careers.

But this is life in the “neighborhood.” Terrorists. Would be terrorists. “Body vests.” Bloodshed. On this beautiful and largely desolate land of the West Bank, on which there is plenty of room for all of the Palestinians there, and all of the Israelis there, and millions of more people besides, a significant number of Palestinians seek to kill. Israelis seek to stop them. That’s why there are checkpoints. No other reason. And that’s why Israel should not dismantle them, even though it would make life easier for Palestinians.

The Palestinian Authority is the first to concede that it does not have the moral suasion, the political will or the police capacity to stop Palestinian terrorists. Under these circumstances, it would be suicidal for Israel to meet the Palestinian Authority’s request for the mass removal of West Bank checkpoints.

The ghost’s ghost

Hillel Goldberg
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The ghost’s ghost

I’ve never had a ghost writer.

But what about a ghost’s ghost?

That would be Andrea Jacobs, IJN senior writer.

I drift by Andrea’s window, tossing out the standard, “Andrea, what am I writing about this week?”

She knows I’m only half kidding.

Not only does she give me good ideas, she often tosses out a few offhand phrases that I can reformulate into the the skeleton of a column.

As in last week’s musing about keeping Shabbos as Shabbos, absent comments (and complaints) about work.

And so, this week, too, “Andrea, what am I writing about?”

“Sorry, you’re on your own this week.”

Doesn’t rile me.

She says that every week.

So I repeat.

“Right. So what am I writing about this week?”

“Too bad you don’t do a religion thing.”

“Religion, I don’t do religion?”

“The Omer. I still don’t know what the Omer is. Would be nice if you could make a contemporary metaphor. I don’t know what we’re counting and why.

“And I don’t think a lot of our readers do.”

Andrea turns the corner, approaches my computer, and declares: “Don’t you dare use me in that column. I will deny any knowledge of it.”

OK, the Omer it is.

Andrea takes a quick glance at my computer before I quickly close the screen — don’t want to get caught tipping my hand!

“Wait,” Andrea insists, “I don’t want to make my synagogue look bad. I’m sure Rabbi Rheins and Rabbi Zwerin taught us about the Omer many times.”

No problem. I, too, drift off and space out from time to time as my good rabbi is sermonizing; and, really, everybody needs a refresher on everything. That’s why we begin the Torah-reading cycle over again each year.

So, here goes, Omer.

Contemporary metaphors:

High school senior: “Only 31 days of school left!”

Synagogue bulletin: “Only 43 days until our annual dinner . . . get your reservations in.”

High school sophomore or junior: “Only 17 more days before I can take my driver’s test.”

Seriously ill patient: “Only two more weeks of chemotherapy. Then I’m done.”

Exasperated automobile owner: “Only six more days — it’s been a month already! — and my car is out of the shop.”

People count down to things that are important to them. We count down to milestones. It’s a natural human tendency.

We count up, too. If our favorite sports team has a winning streak, we say, “The Rockies have won three in a row. Will they make it four tonight?”

If the National Jewish Medical and Research Center has been named the #1 institution of its kind in the US for 10 years running, it hopes it will be named for the 11th year, too.

Counting is a normal part of human existence. And so, to emphasize the centrality of the Torah, we count up from Passover to Shavuos, the holiday that marks the anniversary of the giving of the Torah on Mount Sinai.

We do not count up (or down) to Tisha b’Av, the day that marks Jewish tragedies; nor do we count toward Rosh Hashanah or Sukkot or even Passover. But we do count from Passover to Shavuos.

There is another numbered span, the “ten days of repentance,” between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. It’s a critical period, but we do not count it, either up or down. The only full count is to Shavuos.

As I write, it is the 30th day of the Omer — the 49-day period between the second day of Passover and the eve of Shavuos.

When this issue is scheduled to be published, it will be the 33rd day of the Omer.

The Omer count acquires layers of meaning. Beyond the basic idea of the centrality of the Torah — the re-anticipation of the anniversary of its origin at Sinai through 49 days of counting toward it — there are three more layers.

First, the omer was a dry measure of flour brought as an offering in the ancient holy Temples in Jerusalem.

The Omer was Part 1 of a two-stage process.

Once the omer offering was brought in the Temple on the second day of Passover, the new season’s grain could be used for general use. This is Part 1.

Fifty days later, another offering, the “Two-Breads” offering, was brought in the Temple, and with that the new season’s grains could be use for Temple offerings. This is Part 2 of the Omer.

The Omer, then, is a 50-day period, begun by one offering and concluded by another, and corresponding to the time between the second day of Passover and the first day of Shavuos.

In counting up from Passover to the anniversary of the giving of the Torah on Shavuos, we are also marking the time between the release of the new season’s grains for general use and for Temple use.

The agricultural-material cycle and the holiday-spiritual cycle overlapped and intertwined for the 49-day Omer period.
With the destruction of the ancient holy Temples, we have lost that integration and balance.

We are left with the counting of the Omer toward Shavuos — the holiday-spiritual cycle alone.

The second layer of the Omer is historical. During this period in antiquity, thousands of disciples of Rabbi Akiva died because, our tradition tell us, they did not have sufficient respect for one another.

This accounts for the Omer period as one of semi-mourning, marked, for example, by a ban on haircuts, on music and on weddings.

The exception is the 33rd day of the Omer — today — when the plague that took Rabbi Akiva’s disciples let up.

The third layer of the Omer is mystical.

As each of the seven mystical “spheres” interact with each other, there is a total of 49 interactions, one for each day of the Omer.

I can hear Andrea’s mind turning: What are the seven mystical spheres?

This would take much more than a column, as people far greater than I have been investigating this for centuries, indeed millennia.

Good and bad

Tehilla R. Goldberg
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Good and bad

Something difficult happened the other day when someone’s knee jerk reaction was blithely declaring that everything G-d does is for the best. They proceeded with a mini-lecture about how everything G-d does is good, how it’s all good.

I was offended for the person involved.

When something difficult hits someone, or when a person is enduring a painful experience, I feel the only appropriate response is empathy — to try to truly care, and truly feel, the pain of someone else’s suffering.

We do not know why G-d does anything. Even being a G-d defender, expressing with certainty how a particular trial or tribulation must be good, is inappropriate and definitely pompous.

If we were so sure of everything about G-d, we would be G-d! When we are tested by G-d, all we can really do is humbly submit to His will and endure it with all the the faith and grace and poise that lies within us.

Plenty of things feel really bad or wrong or painful. That’s OK. In Judaism, we say that we must bless the bad, just as we bless the good. When a person passes o, we do not recite the blessing of Ha-Tov ve-Hameitiv, of thanking G-d for bestowing good upon us. Rather, we acknowledge that He (in his infinite wisdom) is the true judge.

We hold back at such a moment from focusing on G-d’s goodness, even though, of course, He is good, and we try to accept the painful decree from Above.

But we do not look at something bad and pretend it is good.

Does this mean that painful and harsh experiences are not for our good? Does this mean that we are not meant to experience a particular test or difficulty? Certainly not. It is all G-d’s will, and it is all there to catalyze and spur us into action to enable us to change and grow, so that we may repair or change or self-reflect about something important in order to draw closer to each other and to G-d.

Of course, even then, we never know for certain what the correlation is between times of challenge and our behavior. All we know for sure is that, when the pain is there, so is an opportunity to choose how to handle it so that our reaction has the potential to transform the challenge into an achievement of inner development, maybe even a triumph.

Why are people afraid of emotions? Why, especially in the traditional Jewish community, are we socialized to immediately declare G-d’s goodness and say that awful things are wonderful? Why is sadness or anxiety or disappointment associated with weakness, while joy is seen to imply strength?

There are things in this world that are universally recognized as good and others that are universally recognized as bad. There are situations and places and circumstances we all avoid, and then there are all other situations and places and circumstances we all desire. Some things are objectively misfortunes.

Obviously, G-d holds sway over it all —over the cosmos and over us. And when a bad thing happens, as much as we may struggle with it at first and wish it were not so, I think we do ultimately come to accept it as our path and, in some mystical way, understand that it was, indeed, meant to be.

We all have the things we carry in life, and we all have our emotional and spiritual reserves that get us through them. Intellectually, we all know how fragile and tenuous life can be. But sometimes we come face to face with it and feel it on our skin. In a fraction of a second, one’s life can change.

We do not live in a perfect world. Even when certain pain is there as a way of healing or preventing a far greater pain from taking place,  isn’t this still more bad than good? Even if the bad — or good, depending on how you look at it — is “heart surgery” in order to save someone’s life, one is still in the hospital for heart surgery! Wouldn’t it still be better not to be in this situation in the first place? Isn’t that what good is?

Everything is good in the sense of being G-d’s will, but it would be nice if the situations we are put in, here on earth, would be good in the sense of being revealed to us as good, as we here know the good in our full humanness.

Even better is to try to accept what comes without labeling it. Not as good, but not as bad, either. It is what it is. And it is mine. And I am who I am because of it. So as long as we are receiving more out of than it is taking out of us, it is my package and my purpose. It is the soul I must appreciate within.

Copyright © 2008 by the Intermountain Jewish News

Amidst Bush’s visit to Israel, rocket attacks

JTA
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Amidst Bush’s visit to Israel, rocket attacks

JERUSALEM — Fifteen people were wounded, including four seriously, by a Grad-model Katyusha rocket that scored a direct hit on a shopping center in Ashkelon on May 14 — hours after US President George W. Bush arrived to celebrate the state’s 60th anniversary.

The rocket, fired from Beit Lahiya in northern Gaza, struck the Hutzot Mall in southern Ashkelon, causing considerable damage. Several people were initially trapped under the rubble.

The four people in serious condition included a 24-year-old woman and her young daughter. In addition, 87 people were treated for shock.

Earlier in the day, infantry from the Givati Brigade’s Shaked Battalion, backed by tanks and Engineering Corps units, swept into southern Gaza, taking up positions on the outskirts of Khan Yunis.

Five Palestinians — including two civilians, according to medical officials — were killed during the ensuing clashes.

The attack on Ashkelon came as Bush was meeting with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem and two days after a 69-year-old woman was killed by a Kassam rocket in Moshav Yesha. Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility for the rocket attack in a statement on its website.

Calling the attack “entirely intolerable and unacceptable,” Olmert said the government was committed to “stop it” and would “take the necessary steps so that this will stop.”

Olmert made his comments in a speech in Jerusalem May 14 at a gala event marking 60 years of US-Israeli friendship.

Even before the attack, in a press statement after meeting with Bush, Olmert said Israel would not “tolerate continuous attacks on innocent civilians.”

“We hope that we will not have to act against Hamas in other ways with the military power that Israel hasn’t yet started to use in a serious manner in order to stop it,” the prime minister warned.

Referring to the visit here earlier this week by Egyptian intelligence chief Omar Suleiman, who was trying to broker a cease-fire, Olmert said, “The fact is that while Gen. Suleiman was visiting here, Kassam rockets were still shot at innocent people in the south of Israel, and two people were killed, and this is a very threatening signal. An organization which pretends to want to stop terror can’t continue to shoot at innocent people.”

Olmert said the cease-fire depended on Hamas’s responding positively “to the principles set forth by me and by the Israeli cabinet in order to stop these operations.

“These principles include the release of kidnapped soldier Cpl. Gilad Shalit, the end of the arms smuggling into Gaza, and the cessation of rocket and terror attacks from the Strip.”

A senior diplomatic official said last week that Hamas was “overplaying its hand,” and that rather than prodding Israel into accepting a cease-fire, these types of attacks were likely to push the cabinet into approving a major incursion into Gaza.

“There is a war of nerves,” he said. “Hamas thinks this will force Israel to accept their conditions, but I think they are misreading the country’s mood.”

The official said that following Suleiman’s visit, the balance could have gone either way regarding whether to accept the truce offer he had brought. “I think that this will push the balance toward rejecting the cease-fire,” he said.

Southern District Police chief Cmdr. Uri Bar-Lev said the rocket that struck the Ashkelon mall had been made in Iran.

“We are familiar with this type of rocket and have dealt with them on a number of occasions in the past. We can say, unequivocally, that we know the country of origin for this rocket, which is a Grad-type Katyusha,” Bar-Lev said.

Bar-Lev praised the swift response of rescue services, adding that police officers had helped with some of the operations to free people trapped in the rubble.

The police’s Southern District command held a situation assessment following the attack; the district’s alert level had already been raised.
All officers have had their leave canceled, and police will increase their visible presence on Ashkelon’s streets, Bar-Lev said.

The rocket attack on Ashkelon came on a day when a number of officers from the city’s police force were deployed in Jerusalem to help secure the visiting heads of state, including Bush, who are in the capital to celebrate Israel’s 60th year of independence, Ashkelon police chief Cmdr. Haim Blumenfeld said.

“Police officers from neighboring areas have been streaming in to support us,” Blumenfeld said.

Ashkelon police have created a rapid-rocket-response force in recent months as the city has increasingly become the target of Gazan rocket attacks.

Following the rocket strike, Defense Minister Ehud Barak invited visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to accompany him on a tour of the scene of the attack, but she declined the invitation.

Barak met with Rice at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel, and the two discussed a series of regional, political and security issues.

Public Security Minister Avi Dichter and Industry, Trade and Labor Minister Eli Yishai visited Ashkelon to show solidarity with residents.

Holding a loudspeaker, Yishai said, “We will act with all our strength, and the required [IDF ground] operation will take place.”

A crowd heckled the ministers, shouting, “Bring down the government!”

Meanwhile, two Kadima lawmakers called on the government to kill Hamas leaders.

“Hamas leaders must be assassinated. We need to prove to Bush and to the world that Israel can fight terror,” said MK Shlomo Mula.

Knesset House Committee chairman David Tal, also of Kadima, said “Israel must sever the hand that is launching rockets at Israel.”

The Likud released a statement calling for a “policy of strength” and urging the government to “topple the Hamas regime.”

Separately, Likud MK Gideon Sa’ar said the Ashkelon attack was the result of the government’s “continuing weak policy of restraint” that he said was effectively “the abandonment of residents of the South.” He called for a broad-scale military operation in Gaza “to restore security to southerners.”

US Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama condemned the attack.

“As the US joins Israel in celebrating its 60th anniversary, today’s cowardly rocket attack and tragic injuries remind us of the ongoing threats that Israelis face with courage and resolve,” he said.

Iowa copes with fall out from raid

Ben Harris, JTA
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Iowa copes with fall out from raid

WATERLOO, Iowa — In a makeshift courthouse at a cattle exhibition center here, Angela Noemi Lastor-Gomez appeared before a federal magistrate judge on charges

that she had used false documents to gain employment at the nearby Agriprocessors meatpacking plant, the nation’s largest kosher slaughterhouse.

The smell of stale cigarette smoke hung in the air as Lastor-Gomez, shackled at the hands and waist, the laces removed from her white sneakers, entered a guilty plea Monday before Judge Jon Stewart Scoles.

It was over in minutes.

With federal agents leading her, Lastor-Gomez waddled from Scoles’ courtroom — housed in a ballroom with a pink neon sign out front, across the grounds of the National Cattle Congress — to another makeshift court for sentencing.

The chief judge of the US District Court for the Northern District of Iowa, Linda Reade, told Lastor-Gomez through an interpreter that the charges against her carry a potential penalty of up to 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

But under an agreement reached with federal prosecutors, Lastor-Gomez would be given five years probation and sent back to her native Guatemala.

Lastor-Gomez’s federally appointed attorney, Jane Kelly, told Reade that her client wanted to return home, having only come to the US to work and support her family. The judge then asked Lastor-Gomez if she wanted to address the court.

“I, Angela Lastor-Gomez, want to thank you, thank you for not treating me badly,” she began in Spanish, her voice cracking and the tears beginning to flow. Lastor-Gomez then asked to be returned to Guatemala. Her family is there waiting for her, she said. Finally, she asked for G-d’s blessings.

Reade then sentenced her to five years probation and remanded her to the custody of US marshals.

“G-d bless you,” Lastor-Gomez said as she was led from the room.

Lastor-Gomez was among the first eight workers to be sentenced in connection with last week’s federal immigration raid at the Agriprocessors plant in Postville, some 75 miles northeast of Waterloo. The other seven received identical sentences.

Authorities describe the raid, which netted 389 illegal workers, as the largest federal workplace immigration raid in US history. It was so large that the government had to rent out the exhibition center, which initially served as a holding pen and now as a federal courthouse.

Throughout Monday, nearly 70 more detainees pleaded guilty to fraud charges in exchange for five-month jail sentences followed by deportation, the Des Moines Register reported. Some detained last week were released almost immediately on humanitarian grounds to care for children. Under an agreement with prosecutors, a larger number were released a few days later because no criminal charges were pending.

The remainder, some 306 immigrant laborers — the bulk from Mexico and Guatemala — are still in federal custody facing charges related to the misuse of Social Security numbers and faking their identities in employment documents.

A court spokesman told JTA he expected the hearings to be complete by Thursday night, May 22.

The raid has wrought havoc for Agriprocessors, which produces more than half the country’s kosher beef and 40% of its kosher chicken, mostly under the labels Aaron’s Best and Rubashkin’s.

The company has scrambled to replace its workforce, importing laborers from across the country or busing them in daily from around the state.

“I see new faces all the time,” said a red-bearded chasid, who said he was a shochet, or ritual slaughterer, at the plant.

One of those new faces is Dan Keller, 41, an unemployed single father who received a call last week from an employment agency saying Agriprocessors was hiring.

A former machine operator at Tyson Foods in Waterloo, Keller now operates a Cry-o-vac for Agriprocessors, sucking the air out of packages of deli foods and other ready-to-eat products.

Each morning at about 5 a.m., Keller boards a coach for the hour-and-a-half ride to Postville. He spends eight hours vacuum-sealing bags of meat — “or product, as you’re supposed to call it” — before boarding the bus back to Waterloo. Keller is paid $8 an hour for his troubles — less than the $12.20 he was paid as a unionized worker at Tyson, but more than the $5 an hour Agriprocessors is alleged to have paid some of its illegal workers.

According to Keller, after taxes and child support payments are deducted, he walks away with just $39 for an 11-hour day. But he’s not complaining. The bus is comfortable and outfitted with televisions, and Agriprocessors even provided lunch the first day.

“So far it’s been awesome,” Keller said. “I think they’re treating us really, really well. They’re just glad to have us at this point.”

Workers like Keller have allowed Agriprocessors to continue to function, though several people with connections to the plant say it is operating at a fraction of its usual capacity.

Keller says his department normally employs 104 people. The day he arrived, there were four. Now, with the additional labor, the number is up to 34.

“They’re not up to speed yet at all,” Keller said. “They’re just trying to survive.”

Founded by Aaron Rubashkin, a butcher from Brooklyn and a member of the Chabad-Lubavitch movement, Agriprocessors has attracted hundreds of Orthodox Jews to this rural pocket of northeast Iowa in the past two decades.

The company first gained national attention in 2000 with the publication of the book Postville, which described the tensions between the company and the local community.

Since then, Agriprocessors has come under fire over its slaughter methods and labor practices, as well as health and safety violations.

As much trouble as the raid has generated for Agriprocessors, it pales in comparison to what the residents of Postville are experiencing.

The raid has decimated the local Spanish-speaking population, which went underground in the days afterward. Children were absent from school, friends mysteriously disappeared and many sought refuge in one of Postville’s three churches.

The owner of Sabor Latino, a Spanish grocery and restaurant in downtown Postville, says his business fell by half since the raid. On Sunday, a sign advertised an all-you-can-eat Mexican buffet — $3.95 for kids, $6.95 for adults. But only one diner was in the restaurant in late afternoon, and he passed out at his table after ordering.

“They’re hiding,” the owner said of his missing patrons.

On Monday evening, St. Bridget’s Catholic Church remained a hive of activity. Two representatives from the disaster relief unit of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America had come down from Chicago, and a number of immigrant workers, union organizers and others had descended on Postville.

Donated foodstuffs sat on a table in the corner as a clutch of aid workers and Hispanic residents scurried about. A color-coded chart in Spanish held information on the various jails around the state where workers were being held.

“This is such a disaster, man,” said David Vasquez, the campus pastor at Luther College in nearby Decorah. A native of Guatemala himself, Vasquez came to Postville the day of the raid to help the families of the detainees. A week later, he’s still at it.

“We tried to get a listing of who was missing, you know, because we didn’t know if they were taken, if people were hiding, what happened,” Vasquez said.
“It felt like some of the images you see after Katrina, where people are just lists on the walls and pictures of people missing. It felt that way because we couldn’t find out where they were.”

A red-haired woman in a pink shirt approached Vasquez for help contacting her brother-in-law. The man had been detained in the raid, and authorities were telling her he wouldn’t have access to a telephone for more than a week, by which time the hearings would be finished.

“What are they trying to accomplish with this?” Vasquez asked. “Shutting down towns that are thriving?”

Aid workers say the attention has shifted from immediate humanitarian relief to providing legal assistance.

Some residents have still not been able to locate family members, while others are worried that their friends or relatives will sign plea agreements they do not fully understand. Under the eight plea agreements approved by the judge Monday morning, defendants waived their right to appeal.

The uncertainty has spread beyond the Hispanic community. Gabay Menhel, a Lubavitcher who runs a property management company in Postville, hung a sign outside his office Tuesday offering a month’s free rent to lure new tenants.

Menhel said he owns 130 units in Postville. Of the 30 he has checked, 20 were empty on Monday. He said no one had taken him up on his special offer.

In Menhel’s view, Agriprocessors is innocent of wrongdoing. From a drawer he pulled a photocopy of a tenant’s permanent resident card, the same documentation he had likely produced to secure a job at the packing house. Menhel said the man is now in federal custody.

Speaking of Agriprocessors, Menhel said, “If anything in the world, they’re the victim.”

For its part, Agriprocessors has had little to say publicly. A statement issued last week said the company was cooperating in the federal investigation and expressed sympathy for the hardships endured by its former employees.

A press inquiry at the plant Monday afternoon was met with a referral to a public relations agency.

Jeff Abbas, who runs Postville’s radio station, worried about the impact of mass deportations on the town.

“We want to keep these folks here,” he said. “They’ve been a vibrant part of the community for a long time. We don’t want to lose that.”

“If anything happens to Agra,” he added, “if it doesn’t bounce back, if they close it, we’re going to be in a world of hurt.”

Will the real Kabbalah please stand up?

Amy Lederman
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Will the real Kabbalah please stand up?

What do Madonna, Demi Moore and Britney Spears have in common with 16th-century Kabbalist Rabbi Isaac Luria?<

If you ask most Jews, absolutely nothing but a misguided belief that new-age teachings promoted at the Los Angeles Kabbalah Centre represent authentic Jewish mysticism.

With all the accoutrements of an Orthodox shul, including separate seating for men and women, the Centre has transformed Kabbalah — considered by Jews to be the inner sanctum of Jewish devotion and thought — into something like McMysticism, a generic, nondenominational form of magical thinking. According to the Centre’s website, this Kabbalah is “the Secret of the universe as well as the keys to the mysteries of the human heart and soul.”

Mysticism and mystical encounters have been a part of Judaism since the earliest of times. The Torah contains many stories of mystical experiences, from visitations by angels to conversations with G-d to prophetic dreams and visions.

Kabbalah, which in Hebrew means “to receive or accept” is the name used to refer to a broad range of Jewish mystical thinking and traditions. In English the word “cabal” (derived from the word Kabbalah) has a dark meaning; it is a secret group of conspirators. But contrary to many contemporary misconceptions about Kabbalah, there are no evil or sinister practices, potions or devices associated with Kabbalah.

While books of Jewish law tend to focus on what G-d wants from us, the Kabbalah looks at the deeper meaning and essence of G-d and the mysteries of creation.

But this type of inquiry can be dangerous and the rabbis of the Talmud cautioned against it.

A famous Talmudic story tells how four rabbis, Azzai, Ben Zoma, Elisha Ben Abuyah and Akiva, attempted to study Jewish mysticism together. The results were disastrous: Azzai went mad, Ben Zoma died and Elisha ben Abuyah became a heretic. Only Rabbi Akiva survived the experience in peace.

The episode suggests that there is great danger for those who engage in the study of mysticism without sufficient maturity and knowledge.

As a result, Jewish law evolved over time to limit the study of Kabbalah to married men over 40 who were scholars of Torah and Talmud.

Today, contemporary scholars of Jewish mysticism include both men and women, but the caveat remains: It should not be studied without a solid foundation of traditional Judaism. Without that, the esoteric aspects of its wisdom can easily be misunderstood.

In the Middle Ages, many of the Jewish mystical teachings were committed to writing and were asserted to be ancient, secret texts. The Zohar itself was revealed by Moses De Leon, who said that it contained the writings of 2nd-century Rabbi Simon bar Yochai.

Like most areas of Jewish thinking, Kabbalah is open to a wide range of interpretations and it is both daunting and impossible to summarize its teachings. But at its core is the belief that through our conscious efforts, by performing mitzvot and acts of love, kindness, charity and mercy, we can positively affect our inner lives, one another and even the Divine aspects of G-d, as well as bring G-d’s Presence into the world.

So, as my father would ask: “Is it good for the Jews” that Madonna has donated over $5 million to promote the Kabbalah Centre worldwide?

Is it dangerous that the Centre’s store advertises religious objects like the red string that “protects against the influences of the evil eye” and advertises that Kabbalah teaches that we can remove negative influences in our lives by using the red string? I may be a cynic, but I think there are better ways to spend $26 than buying a few pieces of cord.

I am all for promoting conscious efforts that are dedicated to bringing about positive self- transformation and promoting world harmony. But I resent the Kabbalah Centre’s association with authentic Jewish mysticism because this dishonors an ancient, intricate and complex Jewish mystical tradition, reducing it to a pop-cultural phenomenon.

Copyright © 2008 by the Intermountain Jewish News

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