Embodied Torah

A Walker Among Those Who Stand

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Leviticus 18:4 teaches:  “You shall observe my rules, and keep my laws, to walk in them, I am YHVH [your God].”

Our job, according to Leviticus 18:4 is to walk in God’s rules and laws.  We are supposed to be walkers and movers, as in Zachariah 3:7:

Thus said YHVH of Hosts: If you walk in My paths and keep My charge, you in turn will rule My House and guard My courts, and I will make you walkers among those standing there.

There are many people who are just “standing there;” who live their lives inside a narrow box, always doing the same things, eating the same foods, watching the same types of movies and television program, reading the same kinds of books.  You know the type – they are the kind of people who run away from change.  When they have the chance to do something different, they avoid it at all costs.  They like the way things are right now – change, by definition, is negative and to be avoided.  Is this such a bad thing?  Halakha doesn’t change, does it?  Keeping kosher, reciting the Shema, praying regularly, wearing tefillin and giving tzedakah every day (except Shabbat) – all of this is a routine mandated by God’s laws and rules.  Standing firm on God’s laws without compromise is a good thing, right?

Right, except it seems to be better to be a walker than a stander.  So who are the walkers?  What do they do?  The Hasidic Rabbi Moshe Chaim Efrayim, author of the Degel Mahaneh Ephraim, taught:

All that we do – in Torah study, in prayer, in keeping the mitzvot and doing good deeds – is directed toward raising up the Shekhinah to unite her with Her Husband.

A person is called a “walker (holekh),” for people are constantly moving from one spiritual stage to another, either diminishing in capacity, or increasing in awareness each day upward and upward. This is the intent of our verse, “You shall observe my rules, and keep my laws, to walk in them” from stage to stage (level to level), all with the focus of “I am YHVH.”

Walkers are also people who devote themselves to Jewish practices, to mitzvot, just like standers.  The walkers, however, are open to learning to do things differently.  Not abandoning traditional practices necessarily, but finding new and meaningful ways to enhance those practices.

Kashrut, for example, is all about eating kosher food — but it could also be about eating healthy food, grown in sustainable, cruielty-free ways?   It could also be about the ethics of food production.

Walkers occasionally stumble.  Not every movement is going to be up the spiritual ladder towards increasing awareness.  Some movements are going to be downward, spiritually deflating.  But in order to reach the highest possible elevation, we need to risk the occasional falls.  Rabbi Moshe Chaim Ephraim concludes his lesson in good mystical fashion:

That is, we are to join and unite “I (ani)” – another name for the Shekhinah (the Divine Presence) – with “YHVH.” This is the combination of HVY”H (that is, YHW”H) and ADN”Y, the unification of the blessed Holy One and His Shekhinah.

Rather than focus solely on the mechanics of a mitzvah, the mystical tradition encourages us to focus on the goal of the mitzvah — to unite God’s presence down here on earth with the Infinite and unknowable mysterious Holy One, of Blessing.  He encourages us to be open to new paths towards the recognition and enactment of God’s unity.  He asks us to use God’s rules and laws, to direct all of our Torah study, prayers, mitzvot, and good deeds towards the union of the Shekhinah and the Kadosh Barukh Hu.

R. Moshe Chaim Efrayim of Sudylkov is the grandson of the Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism.  He was born in 1742 or 1748 and died in 1800, on the eve of Lag Ba’omer (this year, his yahrtzeit will be the coming Shabbat).

Eating Animals – Jonathan Safran Foer

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Keeping kosher is expensive.  We pay a premium for kosher meat.  No doubt our parents’ or grandparents’ generation paid more for kosher than non-kosher meat, but it seems like the relative difference between kosher and non-kosher meat is much higher now than it used to be.

I have always thought that the reason for this difference can be attributed to two factors:

  • • the move to a standard of Glatt kosher, and
  • • the fact that the soaking and salting of the meat is done by the processing plant rather than by the purchaser

I suspect that consumers are not complaining about paying a little bit more to avoid having to soak and salt the meat themselves, a somewhat lengthy process intended to draw the blood out of of the flesh.

The glatt standard, however, was intended to be a premium standard of kashrut, for those few who could afford the higher prices.  Glatt is a Yiddish word meaning smooth – it refers to the lungs of large animals.  If the lungs have small removable adhesions, and the lungs themselves have no punctures, the animal is kosher, but not glatt.  I have read estimates of the number of animals kosher slaughtered who were found to be glatt ranging from a low of 20% to a high of 60%.  Realize what this means … 40 – 80% of animals who have gone through the kosher slaughter process need to be sent to a non-kosher meat distributor.  This alone significantly raises the price of kosher meat.

However, the glatt standard only affects the price of beef.  The lungs of chickens and turkeys are not inspected for adhesions.  Yet, the relative price of kosher poultry has risen just as much as the relative price of kosher beef.

After reading the book Eating Animals, by Jonathan Safran Foer, I am wondering if there is another reason that kosher meat is so much more expensive than non-kosher meat.

Foer makes a devastating case against factory farming methods of raising chickens and turkeys (and pigs!), as well as the meat slaughtering industry.  There are virtually no “family farms” raising poultry for consumer consumption, although most cattle ranches still raise the animals naturally and humanely.  Factory farms breed animals for a narrow set of physical characteristics aimed at producing the greatest amount of meat, artificially manipulate the environment to grow the animals as quickly as possible, and feed the animals massive amounts of antibiotics to compensate for unnaturally crowded living conditions.  Factory farmed animals are have large numbers of physical defects, are generally unhealthy, and methods of handling and transport result in a large percentage of broken bones and sores.  Their is no way to effectively dispose of all the waste produced by so many animals in such a small space – it is a major source of environmental pollution and probably diseases such as asthma, influenza, and antibiotic resistent strains of infections.

He makes the case that the large poultry producers, such as Perdue and Tyson, have used factory farming techniques to keep the prices artificially low.  The price of poultry has increased at a much slower rate than the price of any other food item.  Meat is the only thing that has become less expensive in the past generation.  This has happened only because in the calculus of how meat is priced, we are ignoring the huge cost of producing factory meat to the environment and to the health care system.

I wonder if kosher meat has actually increased in price in a natural way, rather than having been kept artificially low.

If an animal is diseased; if an animal has broken limbs; if an animal is not killed carefully and properly; it will not be kosher.  While the problems with certain kosher meat slaughter plants are well known, the case that “Eating Animals” makes against the meat industry primarily, though not exclusively, apply to the non-kosher industry.  There is a significant financial disincentive for kosher processors to mistreat the animals.

There is a larger argument in the book, though, that affects both the kosher and non-kosher meat industries.  The argument, quite simply, is that the raising of meat for food is unsustainable.  The very act of killing animals on a large enough scale to satisfy our current desire and expectation for eating meat is dehumanizing.  It cannot be done better, because it is inherently cruel and desensitizes those who engage in slaughter to the horror of the mass killing of animals.  We have destroyed so much of the genetic diversity of chicken, poultry, and pork and we have concentrated so much production is so little space and we have destroyed virtually every small animal farm, that there may be no way to roll back time, change our societal expectation of how much meat should cost, and rebuild an infrastructure of small individually run farms raising animals for slaughter at small, local, processing plants.

Foer writes that the book is not a straightforward case for vegetarianism.  It is much deeper and more complicated.  It explores the relationship between food and memory, animal flesh and forgetting.  It explores the stories we tell about ourselves by the foods we eat and don’t eat.  It explores the words we use and don’t use when speaking about our animal diet.

For vegans, vegetarians, selective vegetarians, selective meat eaters, and proud meat eaters, it is worth reading “Eating Animals.”  I have not even touched on the problems he raises with the fish/seafood industry, the egg industry, or the dairy industry.  Foer does not touch on the problems that corporate farming has raised in the non-meat farms.  The overuse of fertilizers, pesticides, genetic engineering, the reduction of genetic diversity, the patenting of plant species … we really don’t know what effect all of this is going to have on our planet, on our health and the health of the next generation.

Yet Another Embarrassment in the Israeli entanglement of Religion and State

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Jewish tradition treats the body as a sacred vessel for the soul.  After death, the body is treated with the same respect as when it was alive.  It is carefully washed and dressed before burial.  Burial takes place as soon as possible – it is not respectful to leave the body unburied.  Autopsies are not permitted, unless doing so will directly save the life of another identified person.  Mutilating the body for the purposes of profit, experimentation, or education is not permitted.

Yet, it is widely accepted that halakha permits organ donation, even in the Orthodox world.  The Conservative movement believes that signing on organ donor card is a positive mitzvah – an obligation.  You can read a teshuvah on the topic here.

Organ donation, however, generally requires accepting the cessation of brain activity as a criteria for death, rather than heart death.  The reason is simple and obvious.  It is generally considered to be the case that once the heart stops beating long enough to pronounce the patient dead, the organs have been deprived of oxygen long enough no longer to be suitable for transplantation.  I have read some material suggesting that in some cases, a criteria of non-heart beat for a period of less than 5 minutes might be enough to declare death and harvest organs, but this is controversial.

Nevertheless, many Jews believe that organ donation is not permitted – that a body must be buried completely intact in order to be resurrected in the messianic era.  My response to this is if God could create my body from joining together two cells, then God can recreate my body even if it is missing a few organs!

Consequently, the rate of organ donation in Israel is embarrassingly low.  Only 8-10% of Israelis are registered as organ donors, compared with an average of 35% in other Western countries.  The Knesset has passed a law giving those who agree to be a donor a higher priority if ever they should need an organ.  The deputy health minister, however, is a follower of Haridi rabbi Yosef Shalom Elyashiv, who does not believe in a brain death criteria.  His followers are not allowed to donate organs.  They are, however, allowed to accept donated organs (is this the definition of hypocrasy, or what?)!  The deputy health minister is apparently going to refuse to implement the new law because he and the rest of the 100,000 followers of Elyashiv would be bumped to the bottom of the organ queue.  You can read stories about the law below.

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/28295/israeli-organ-policy-may-be-d-o-a/

Israeli Organ Policy May Be D.O.A.

Innovative idea could discriminate against sect

BY MARC TRACY | 4:21 pm Mar 15, 2010 |

n an effort to raise its quite low 10 percent organ-donor rate, Israel has been planning to give those who agree to be donors a leg up when it comes to receiving organ donations. They would move up in the queue, in other words, should it ever come to that.

While bioethicists say this is perfectly kosher—“reciprocal altruism” is the apparently not-oxymoronic term—the plan has come under fire for allegedly discriminating against some ultra-Orthodox Jews who believe they are religiously barred from being donors. (Never mind that they’re not, assuming the organs are being used to save a life and not for profit.) Specifically, Rabbi Yosef Sholom Elyashiv’s 100,000 Israeli followers believe they are not allowed to donate their organs until after cardiac death (at which point the organs are dead, too). In case you were wondering, yes, they are allowed to accept donated organs.

The Knesset has passed a law enacting this whole thing. Implementation, however, is up to the health minister … there is no health minister currently, so instead it is up to the deputy health minister … the deputy health minister is—of course—an Elyashiv follower. So, we’ll see.

Does Radical New Way To Boost Organ Donation Discriminate Against Ultra-Orthodox Jews? [AP/Vos Iz Neias?]
Earlier: Israel’s New Organ Donor Policies

Tattooing and Body Piercing

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I have been teaching my 7th grade class about Jewish ideas of body and soul for the past month.  I entitled the class “Our Body and Our Selves:  Owning vs. Renting.”

One of the most interesting places that this idea plays itself out is in the arena of body art — tattooing and body piercing.

If we own our bodies, we should be able to do with it what we want:  color the skin,and pierce the skin and hang decorations wherever we want.  When we own a house, we are permitted to make whatever renovations we want without any restrictions.

However, if we are only “rentors,” temporary inhabitants of our bodies, it would make sense that the LandLord wouldn’t want us to paint the walls crazy colors.  It would also make sense that we shouldn’t be allowed to put nails in the walls and hang pictures all over the place in haphazard ways.

I’m sure most parents would be happy if it were in fact the case that they could tell their children that the Torah forbids tattooing and piercing.  However, that turns out not to be the case.  The prohibition against tattoos is reasonably explicit (Leviticus 19:28), but equally explicit verses about piercings in the ear and nose (Exodus 21:6, Genesis 24:47, Exodus 32:2) as well as Rabbinic references to women and men with pierced ears make it clear that body piecing is permitted!  Further, there is no compelling argument to permit ear and nose piercing while prohibiting eyebrow, belly button, or other skin piercing.

Rabbi Alan Lucas has written a fascinating teshuvah on the topic, which I will be teaching at an adult education series beginning April 18.  In the meantime, feel free to read Rabbi Lucas’ teshuvah here.

Living With Autism-Encumbered and Blessed

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The spring issue of CJ:  Voices of Conservative Judaism contains a number of wonderful articles, but one in particular touched me deeply.  I have a blind son and a son with a diagnosis on the autistic spectrum.  I have four children, each uniquely blessed with talents and strengths and fears and weaknesses.  Nevertheless, when I meet people with disabilities outside of my family, I ask myself the same questions over and over again:

How well do I see beyond the quirky jerky movements, beyond the wheels on the chair, beyond the blind eyes or augmented ears or impaired speech?  Do I fall into the trap of seeing people with disabilities as superhuman just because they live with disabilities?  Am I seeing impaired humanity rather than embodying the love and wisdom of believing that the face of God is visible within every human being, learning how to look beneath the physical shell of the individual and find the sparks of unique holiness?

Jacob Artson is a powerful communicator, a talented writer.  Jacob Artson has autism.  We should not be surprised that these two sentences are mutually inclusive, not exclusive.

http://www.uscj.org/Encumbered_and_Bless8286.html

Encumbered and Blessed

by Jacob Artson

My name is Jacob Artson and I am a person just like you.

I am part of a wonderful Jewish family, I go to our local public high school where I am in regular English and social studies classes, I play sports, I love to travel, I enjoy hanging out with my friends, and I care about making this world a better place. The only difference between you and me is that I have lots of labels attached to me, like nonverbal, severely autistic, and developmentally disabled.

It is true that I have many challenges, but there are lots of myths and misconceptions about autism out there. Many purported experts claim that people with autism are not interested in socializing. This is totally ridiculous. I love people, but my movement disorder constantly interferes with my efforts to interact. I cannot start and stop and switch my thinking or emotions or actions at the right time. This can make being in a big group very lonely and that is the worst thing about autism. So next time you see someone like me at your synagogue or at your event, remember that they probably feel really lonely and you could be the person to make their day by smiling at them and letting them know that you know they exist.

Another myth is that the majority of people with autism are mentally retarded. In fact, our bodies are totally disorganized but our cognitive skills are intact and our minds are hungry for knowledge.

Every person alive is encumbered by challenges and blessed with gifts. I used to think that my ratio of challenges to gifts was higher than most people’s, but now I realize that my challenges are just more obvious. I have learned that autism can have its advantages. For example, I get a VIP pass at Disneyland and I get to kiss all the beautiful counselors at camp and pretend I don’t know any better. On a serious note, not being able to speak means that you spend lots of time listening. In fact, much of what I know I’ve learned from listening to conversations that other people didn’t think I could hear, or listening through the wall to what the teacher in the next classroom was saying. People often ask me how I became such a good writer. The answer is that my inability to speak gives me lots of time to contemplate and imagine, and it also forces me to hear everyone’s perspective and think about it because I cannot interrupt or monopolize the conversation like people who have oral speech. In the autism world we say that not being able to speak doesn’t mean that you don’t have anything to say. In my experience, the converse is also true – just because you can speak doesn’t mean that you have anything worth saying.

Since I have been asked to write about including people with disabilities in the Jewish community, I want to share with you the ways in which autism has affected my participation in Jewish life. My family has been my greatest support from the day I was diagnosed. My amazing twin sister Shira is my best friend, hero, chief source of entertainment, and fashion consultant. My ema (mother) is my rock and has never let autism be an excuse for failure. My abba (father) has been my spiritual guide and is also really fun to be with. Even though I know they love me, they have carried a tremendous burden and I always feel guilty about that. Unfortunately, the Jewish community has not always helped ease their burden or mine and often has exacerbated it.

I have found great support in God and Torah. Our people’s wisdom has helped me through difficult times and guided me as I strive to become a productive member of society. My bar mitzvah was special because everyone there accepted and celebrated me for exactly who I am. I wrote a siddur commentary and everyone in attendance took turns leading the prayers and reading my words. At the end of the service, everyone came up on the bimah for Adon Olam. I will carry in my mind and heart forever the picture of everyone there smiling at me. I had wonderful experiences when I was in a Jewish preschool and later in kindergarten, even though my teachers had never had a child with autism in their class. What made those experiences successful was the way the teachers modeled inclusion for the other kids. They treated me as a person made in God’s image and not as different in any way. In kindergarten, I had amazing peers. They were mostly Persian and inclusiveness is engrained in their culture. They tried all year to get me to interact with them even though I was usually too excited to focus. I’ve also had wonderful buddies from the Friendship Circle, attended several Jewish camps, participated in a Jewish musical theater program called the Miracle Project, and prayed at Koleinu, a service at Temple Beth Am for kids with special needs.

But there have been obstacles as well. Believe it or not, there is a hierarchy even within programs for kids with special needs. Because many Jewish programs in my community are geared for so-called “higher functioning” children, the first reaction is often that I am too disabled to attend. So whether I’m invited seems to depend on the particular director that year or whether my parents decide to complain and fight for me to participate. Most of these programs could easily accommodate people like me with a little attitude adjustment. My family’s efforts to include me in synagogue life have also been a source of great stress. When I was younger I went to synagogue every Shabbat, but the other kids ignored me. My synagogue started a Shabbat morning service for kids with special needs and that gave us a community of sorts, but now I am a teenager and need to find my own place. I was invited to speak at Ikar, a small synagogue in our community, where I was welcomed just like any other member. I was not given icy stares when I got too excited, so my family joined. The kids there say hi to me even when they are not getting community service credit for interacting with me.

The public schools and secular programs I have attended have been much more welcoming and are built on a model of mutual respect rather than pity. The Los Angeles public schools are overwhelmingly black and Hispanic, and they too seem to have a culture of inclusion. The kids at school treat me like family and pull me into everything they do. I go to a secular camp for autistic kids in Aspen every summer and everyone is welcome there. We do cool things like go tubing and kayaking and I am able to participate in everything because I know they will work with me where I’m at. In my secular inclusive sports program, Team Prime Time, the director has taken the time to allow for sharing on several levels, so the kids all respect me for my intelligence and understand how hard I’m working to make a basket or kick the ball. I have also been part of their new volunteer training and have spoken about autism at school, but I have never been invited to participate in volunteer training for any Jewish program I have attended.

So here is a final thought I would like to leave you with.

The best peers and aides I have had didn’t have any special background. It doesn’t actually take any training to be a leader who models inclusion. It just takes an attitude that all people are made in God’s image and it is our job to find the part of God hidden in each person.

I used to get very upset and offended at the idea of being someone’s mitzvah project or community service project. But now I see that I also have a role to play in helping create the messianic future. It is easy in our affluent society to become dazzled by the material opportunities and privileges that we have been born with. But I have had to struggle from the day I was born to do many things that other people take for granted. Because of that, I have experienced God’s love in a way most children have not. So maybe we are each other’s mitzvah project because I can help them see the glories of the world that they have never noticed, and they can teach me how to look like other kids. All in all, who is getting a greater benefit? In the end, together we bring God’s glory to all of humanity.

Jacob Artson, 17, is a student at Hamilton High School in Los Angeles. He hopes to become a writer and teacher.

http://www.uscj.org/Encumbered_and_Bless8286.html