I’m glad I found this guy David. I hope one day to meet him in real life. He always gives me good food for thought.

He posted today something about judging people inwardly. It was a personal thought about a personal trait, how he reacts to it in his life and how he feels about it.

Monday night in Talmud class, the teacher referenced the famous Talmudic phrase “Make for yourself a teacher; aquire for yourself a friend; and judge everyone favorably.”

The truth is, when I first learned this saying from the Talmud, only the first two parts stuck in my mind. I think I may not have even learned the third part with the first two. Honestly, I think that I first learned the phrase when I read The Chosen by Chaim Potok when I was a kid, and I’m fairly certain that only the making of a teacher and acquisition (or choosing, in Mr. Potok’s preferred translation) of a friend were referenced.

The past couple of mornings, walking down the street, I have found myself muttering this third principle to myself on the way to work. I walk on 42nd street toward 5th avenue from the subway station exit and I look around. I look at the trees in Bryant Park bending inward toward the lawn away from the shadows of the buildings, and I look at the people sitting under those trees. I look at the folks walking with me down the street on their way to work like me. I look at the Greenpeace kids in their green jackets, asking everyone if they have a minute. I look at the AM New York and Metro distributers saying good morning to everyone who comes out of the station, offering them a free paper.

I look around at everyone and I say to myself, over and over “Judge everyone favorably. Judge everyone favorably.”

This. Is not easy.

It sounds nice to say “judge everyone favorably.” It sounds like a very nice principle. It sounds like the kind of thing that no one could object to.

But, lets put up a couple of easy examples: I do not want to judge Jews for Jesus street preachers favorably. I want to rip into them for their ignorance and their co-opting of my religion. I don’t want to see that they are advocating for something that they truly believe in, misguided though they might be.

I don’t want to judge the anti-zionist protesters at Union Square favorably. I want to be angry and them for spreading a message of thinly-veiled hatred, even if the hatred is not theirs, but merely what they have been duped into repeating without knowing facts or history.

I don’t want to judge that Ultra-Machmir Chasid favorably who calls upon Jews to shun other Jews as “phoneys” and “pretenders” and “fakes” because their conversion or their mother’s conversion was not performed under Orthodox auspices, and seems not to care about the feelings of people whom he does not consider to be Jewish and as much as says so.

What does it mean to be someone who judges everyone favorably? Does it mean never to criticise? To always assume that someone means well, even when their words or actions suggest otherwise? Does it mean to be always an appeaser? Does it mean to go through life smiling mildly like a labotomized Zombie with never a harsh word for anyone? Does it mean never to be angry?

There are lots of yesses and nos in this, I think. There is, of course, the argument that this actually means judge every Jew favorably. After all, at the time in which this was written, it would have been very dangerous to judge every non-Jew favorably. It still may be.

Though there is wisdom in the general rule of trying to assume, at least initially, that the people with whom we interact on a daily basis, generally do mean well, and to remember that each other person is an “I” just like you are. Think about yourself and how you try your best, all day, every day, to be the best person that you can be. Then look at the person next to you and think how likely it is that they are doing the exact same thing, as best they can.

One day I was walking with Aaron to the subway. We were coming into Grand Central and we were talking. I noticed a woman struggling with a suitcase and so I said “Here, let me help you with that.” And I did. We got to the bottom of the stairs and Aaron turned to me and said “Look at you, being all helpful and stuff!” I said the first thing that popped into my head to say which was “I have to assume that she would have done the same for me.” He looked at me like I was crazy. And maybe I was. Because actually, no. Not everyone would do the same. But I know that I would. I do. And looking at another person, I have to remember that the “I” that I am, the way that I look out of my eyes and think my thoughts and feel my feelings and feel breath come into my body and go out of it… the person in front of me is an “I” in the same way. What I would do, the right that I would do by them, they can just as easily do the same right by me. In a strange way, thinking that that is the case and acting accordingly makes it seem all the more likely to me that, even if they would not have, maybe they will anyway because I judge them as being someone who would.

Judging others favorably begins with you, and what you do because it is for you to see yourself in others. Be a person that you want others to be and you’re on your way.

Rescue vehicles exploited as Terrorist Tools:

…an Israeli television station aired footage of armed Arab terrorists in southern Gaza using an ambulance owned and operated by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) — which has received more than $2.5 billion in taxpayer subsidies. Palestinian gunmen used the UN emergency vehicle as getaway transportation after murdering six Israeli soldiers. Senior UNRWA employee Nahed Rashid Ahmed Attalah confessed to using his official UN vehicle to bypass security and smuggle arms, explosives and terrorists to and from attacks. Nidal ‘Abd al-Fataah ‘Abdallah Nizal, a Hamas activist, worked as an UNRWA ambulance driver and admitted he, too, had used an emergency vehicle to transport munitions to terrorists.

It continually amazes me how people can see and hear such reports as these and continue to lay blame and cries of “disproportionate response” at the feet of Israel, how they can still naively believe that what looks like a civilian facility must necessarily be a civilian facility and only a civillian facility, and when all else fails, fall back on the ever-popular “Well, if they really hate Israel that much, then I guess Israel doesn’t belong there.

I mean, really. The mind boggles.

I realized this morning that I’d only once looked into Jen Freidman’s LiveJournal, and decided that it was about time to go exploring further becuase… well, she’s a soferet. That’s already pretty damn cool and definitely warrants investigation. Her LJ led me to her website. I printed out her essay on women and sofrut for further study later (more on that to come, I think) and I started looking around at her work.

Let’s just say, it’s almost enough to make me want to get married just to have a ketuba of hers on my wall.

David, a friend on a Jewish LiveJournal community took and ran with a line of thought I had brought up the other day regarding egalitarianism, in a reaction-post about my first experience davening behind a mechitzah. He turned it into a question for the community (comprised mostly of the “right-of-center” brand of Jews) about emotional reactions they have to seeing women make use of traditionally male ritual objects (tallis, tefillin, kippah, etc.) and taking on of traditionally male roles (cantor, rabbi, ba’alit tefilah, leyning, etc.) in their congregations or in general, and if, and how this conflicts with their intellectual or philosophical views on the subject of egalitarianism. We got some interesting perspective… 81 comments in all, and all remarkably civil.

So here’s the thing: I do not own tefillin. I want very badly to own tefillin. It is not likely that I will, anytime in the very near future, be able to afford tefillin. However, I started thinking… how wonderful would it be to have tefillin made by Soferet Jen Taylor Friedman? In principle, the answer is quite amazingly wonderful. But, as she says in her FAQ, “According to the halacha as it is currently formulated, if I write tefillin or mezuzot, they will be pasul (unfit for use). That said, I try to respect others’ beliefs, and if you believe that my writing is consistent with your belief system, I will write for you.”

David’s question had been easy for me to answer. I have no inconsistencies. Nope. Nuh-uh. I’m egalitarian, I wear a tallis, I intend to begin to lay tefillin as soon as I am able, I will be a rabbi, I can read Torah, I can lead a service, and that is that.

But today I found an inconsistency: I balk at the notion of having tefillin made by a woman. It is not because I think that it shouldn’t be done, but because we haven’t yet agreed, as a movement, as a community of Jews, that it can legitimately be done.

I think I understand what Neil Gillman has been trying to tell me. I mean, I always understood what he was saying, but I was on some level reluctant to acknowledge its hold, its power, its truth, and my belief in it:

Halacha is binding because we say it is.

We, as a community, have the authority to decide. And it is a system of checks and balances between the community at large and the institution of CJLS that maintains the dynamic tension in which we, The Conservative Movement, as a community, live and thrive.

That doesn’t really, practically, solve any problems. In large part it doesn’t make me feel any better or more secure in the future of The Conservative Movement. But it is good for me to acknowledge that my own sense of what is binding goes beyond my own gut (like the Reform) and neither is it dictated by dogma (as with the Orthodox).

I will say it, out loud. I believe that halacha was written by people. I also believe that halacha is a gift of God. And I believe that lo bashamayim hi. God left us in charge of what we do. God doesn’t change, but people, communities, laws, do.

I’m not ready, I don’t think, to use tefillin made by a woman. I would be, I am philosophically, because I feel myself equally obligated as a man to lay tefillin and because I know that this soferet also lays tefillin, my own personal belief is that, yes, it is sound for me to use tefillin made by her. But my community hasn’t yet OKed it.

And I am also not ready to be a rabbi until CJLS finally makes and declares their decision that it is ok for me to do so and be gay at the same time, though it helps that I’m not worried about this anymore.

I really feel that somehow I’ve gotten somewhere today. I feel like I’ve accomplished something, taken a step in my comfort with my religion and my place and direction in it. I feel also more confident and competant to defend my position.

I have also accqired two new heroes. Soferet Jen Taylor Friedman, and Shira Salamone for similar reasons. I love Amazing Jewish Women ™.

Orin Kerr is right. Along with everyone else, apparently.

Hat tip to Insta

I am applying for a year-long program in Israel for next year starting in the summer. The Conservative Yeshiva in Jerusalem was suggested to me on a yahoo group for Conservative Jews, and further recommended by my friend Neil Gillman. I asked him what he knew about it, and he said that a lot of JTS students start there. When they come to JTS they say they only hope that JTS will be as challenging and nurturing an environment as CY. I took that to imply that perhaps it is not… but Neil is not worried about me at JTS. He wants me to go… seems to want it for me as much as I have ever wanted it for myself.

I want to go to Israel. I want to go now. It’s strange… I have no fear of going. I don’t know what will be happening there this time next year, but for right now, though this is perhaps the most dangerous time in my memory to be traveling in Israel, I just want to be there. I want to be learning. Also, Neil wants me to be learning. When I saw him last week he asked me if I had a Talmud study group. When I told him that I didn’t, he found one for me, and also invited me to take a class that he is giving at The Skirball Center as his guest. “It’s not enough to be reading and thinking,” he said. “You need to be studying.” He also told me, not asked me, told me, when we would meet again in August.

One last thing… he said he was very happy to see that I was no longer intimidated by him, that I could now see him as a friend.

I’m not a blogger. I wish I could be, but I’m not, I’m a journaler. I have a livejournal which I update frequently (no I will not tell you where, silly) with personal stuff, feelings, passions, anxieties… here I try to keep things relevant and within a certain standard of… cleanness. Cleanness in terms of the writing, and in terms of what I’m writing about. No kitty blogging, no talking about crushes on people or camping weekends or irrational anxieties about personal situations or family drama. That is not… pertinent to the world at large.

When things get heated, like with what’s happening in Israel, I know I should be writing here. What I write though tends to be very emotional. Often angry. I want things that I post here to be well thought out. I want things to be logical, to make sense. I need to be prepared for arguments that may ensue as a result. I’m terrified of saying something wrong because if Judaism teaches anything it is that words are something that you cannot take back.

I apologize to those of you who have commented in recent weeks. I have not been paying attention lately, and I’m so accustomed to the spam bot comments that flood my mailbox that I just tuned them out. Your comments are now visible and will be responded to shortly.

And I’ll try to do better here. Again.