Category: blog archive

Living Inspired: It is about Moving From Miraculous Moments to the Details

Ever been so inspired that you are ready to change the way you live your life, only to then get lost in the details? About this week’s parasha (Torah portion) Mishpatim, Exodus 21:1 – 24:18, my colleague Rabbi H. Rafael Goldstein writes: This week we see how we can go from the most significant event in our lives to living every day – by taking care of the details. We see that there’s a message here in moving from the BIG issues to the almost mundane ideas of how we are supposed to behave towards one another. We elevate the mundane into something sacred. Read on:

Last week we read the Ten Commandments. Everything in the Torah led to this incredible moment – our people standing at the foot of Mount Sinai, feeling the ground tremble beneath the Presence of the Holy One. Our people stood and freaked out as they heard the words of G!d not in the thunder, or in the blaring of the shofarot (rams horns) or in the pounding of their own heartbeats. They heard G!d’s voice telling them the Ten Commandments in a whisper, directly into each and every person’s own ears. G!d’s voice was the sound of almost hearing, as personal as a whisper. What an incredible moment!

That personal whisper into each person’s ears is the closest, most intimate, extreme, spiritual, and climactic moment of the Torah. How do you follow that most amazing of experiences? Although the words of the Ten Commandments are repeated, the experience was exclusive, once and only once. And it begs the question, “now what?” Where do we go from here? The rabbis didn’t want the Ten Commandments to be holier or more significant than all of our other mitzvot, to be the only rules people might observe. All of the Torah is holy, and all of the mitzvot are important.

We can find the rationale for this approach in this week’s Torah portion, Mishpatim, which seems to be a completely different experience. We have a compendium of about 50 laws. We have the judicial rules for how to handle and free our slaves and our enemies, manslaughter, kidnapping, insults, goring oxen, damage to livestock and to crops, arson, loans. We have rules for sorcery and for idolatry, and proper care for the needy, widowed and orphaned. This list is far from exhaustive. So, this week we go from our most holy moment at Sinai to what seems like a random list of rules.

But it’s more than just a list. It’s the details. This week we see how we can go from the most significant event in our lives to living every day – by taking care of the details. We see that there’s a message here in moving from the BIG issues to the almost mundane ideas of how we are supposed to behave towards one another. We elevate the mundane into something sacred. That’s not foreign to us at all as Jews. We’re used to taking the simplest acts – eating, drinking, seeing beautiful or ugly things, even going to the bathroom – as opportunities for praising, acknowledging or blessing G!d, ways to see the holy in our daily lives. We have blessings to help us see how holy the ordinary can be.

Sometimes we forget the importance and significance of the small stuff, the simple acts that might make real differences to others. Sometimes we miss the holiness in our own lives. We get so caught up in our routines that we forget that our time is holy, our acts can be holy, our lives can be filled with the spirit of G!d. The minutiae of this week’s Torah portion is a reminder that after the miracle of Sinai we have to pick up our stuff in the morning and go back to our daily lives, and what we do now is even more important, after Sinai, even if it doesn’t feel that way at first.

According to Rabbi Shraga Simmons, Maimonides explains this metaphorically as follows: “Imagine you’re lost at night, trudging knee-deep in mud through dark and vicious rainstorm. Suddenly a single flash of lightning appears, illuminating the road ahead. It is the only light you may see for miles. This single flash must guide you on through the night. So too, says Maimonides, one burst of inspiration may have to last for years.”

We fill our minds with Sinai, with the miraculous moment, as a light to guide us through the rest of our experiences. The peak moments are supposed to do that for us, to enable us to go on through the proverbial mud we find ourselves mired in. We can appreciate the light, the guidance, the flashes of insight we might get from the special moment, and we can turn our minds back to those moments to guide us and to bring us hope and courage when we need them most. All of us have those special moments that we cherish that have the power, in their recalling and retelling, to transform and guide us on our personal journeys.

May it be Your will, Holy One of Blessing, that we take the moments to find holiness in our day-to-day life, and to be aware of our blessings daily. May we find inspiration for today, and dreams for tomorrow, as we recall the most special moments in our lives. May the special moments help us get through our darkest hours. May the flash of Your light guide us on our journeys through life.

Sex Education: An Open Letter to Religious Leaders

Education of our young is a partnership between parents, community and teachers. We struggle to figure out how to teach our children values without inculcating them with dogma. Certain areas are off limits in our public schools – prayer, for example.

But certain subjects need to be taught: health and sexuality, for instance. We teach that the guiding principle of sexuality in the Jewish tradition is K’doshim tih’yu—“You shall be holy,” which means that sexuality is linked to blessing, commandment, and God. K’doshim tih’yu, you remember, comes from Leviticus; Or Ami’s Sheryl Braunstein wrote a beautiful song about it here.

Not long ago, our Or Ami Center for Jewish Parenting brought Rabbi Laura Novak Winer, author of the Reform Jewish Movement’s Sacred Choices curriculum, to help us begin a conversation about talking to our children about sexuality. Since then, we have begun preparations to teach elements of the curriculum in our Temple Teen Night program. Why?

We live in a world where our children are exposed each year to thousands of messages – on tv shows, reality shows, movies, commercials, video games and more – about sexuality, most of them reducing it to something physical that people can do when they want with few consequences.

It is time that our children received a more complete understanding of the sexuality, that covers both the physical and dangers, as well as its ethical, social, psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions. It is time that our public schools, who are already teaching about sexuality in their health courses, provide a fuller, more valued approach to sexuality. More open, more healthy, more honest.

That’s why a group of Religious Leaders, including myself, have signed onto an Open Letter to Religious Leaders about Sex Education. You can read a more beautifully formatted version here.

OPEN LETTER TO RELIGIOUS LEADERS ABOUT SEX EDUCATION

As religious leaders, we have a continuing commitment to the spiritual, emotional, and physical health of the nation’s young people. Now we are called to join in the public discussion about the nature of sexuality education for the country’s youth. Strong public health arguments support comprehensive sexuality education. Here we invite you to consider the religious foundations for supporting sexuality education—education that respects the whole person, honors the truth and diverse values, and promotes the highest ethical values in human relationships.

A DIVINE BLESSING

Religious traditions affirm that sexuality is a divinely bestowed blessing for expressing love and generating life, for mutual companionship and pleasure. It is also capable of misuse, leading to exploitation, abuse, and suffering. Sexuality, from a religious point of view, needs to be celebrated with joy, holiness, and integrity, but it also demands understanding, respect, and self-discipline. Our traditions affirm the goodness of creation, our bodies, and our sexuality; we are called to stewardship of these gifts.

A TIME FOR DISCERNMENT

Our religious ancestors created rites of passage to recognize the transition to sexual maturity and adulthood. God created us as sexual beings from birth to death; but it is in childhood and adolescence, that we begin to develop the sexual wisdom, values, and morality that will determine whether we will become sexually healthy adults. As religious leaders, we want young people to learn about their sexuality, not primarily from the entertainment media or their peers, but from their parents, faith communities, and school-based programs that address the biological, psychological, cultural, ethical, and spiritual dimensions of sexuality.

AN INCLUSIVE COMMITMENT

Religions have a venerable tradition supporting healing, health care, disease prevention, and health promotion. They also express commitment to the most marginalized, the most vulnerable, those most likely to be excluded. Sexuality education programs must benefit all young people regardless of income, class, ethnicity, and gender. Programs must also be inclusive of those who are heterosexual and those who are sexual minorities, those who are abstinent and those who have had sexual relationships, and those who have experienced brokenness and oppression about their sexuality.

EDUCATION WITH INTEGRITY

Religions value education, including education about our sexuality. We have learned from our commitment to religious education that programs must be age-appropriate, accurate, and truthful, and have both immediate relevance and applicability for later life. Young people need help in order to develop their capacity for moral discernment and a freely informed conscience. Education that respects and empowers young people has more integrity than education based on incomplete information, fear, and shame. Programs that teach abstinence exclusively and withhold information about pregnancy and sexually transmitted disease prevention fail our young people.

TRUTH TELLING

Scriptural and theological commitment to telling the truth calls for full and honest education about sexual and reproductive health. Young people need to know “there is a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing” but they also require the skills to make moral and healthy decisions about relationships for themselves now and in their future adult lives. They need help to develop the capacity for personal relationships that express love, justice, mutuality, commitment, consent, and pleasure. Our culture too often models sexuality without responsibility, and many adolescents are left on their own to struggle through conflicting sexual messages. It is with adult guidance and comprehensive information and education about sexuality—education that includes abstinence, contraception, and STD prevention—that young people will be able to make responsible decisions.

A HIGHER STANDARD

As religious leaders, we call on policy makers, school officials, and educators to provide comprehensive sexuality education that honors truth telling and the diversity of religious and moral values represented in the community. Such education:

* Emphasizes responsibility, rights, ethics, and justice.
* Affirms the dignity and worth of all persons.
* Teaches that sexuality includes physical, ethical, social, psychological, emotional, and spiritual dimensions.
* Complements the education provided by parents and faith communities.
* Publicly identifies the values that underline the program.
* Teaches that decisions about sexual behaviors should be based on moral and ethical values, as well as considerations of physical and emotional health.
* Affirms the goodness of sexuality while acknowledging its risks and dangers.
* Introduces with respect the differing sides of controversial sexual issues.

IN CLOSING

People of faith must speak out for comprehensive sexuality education. We know that there are people of good faith who differ with us on what young people need. We seek to reach out to those from whom we may be divided to seek what is best for our nation’s youth. We all must be truth seeking, courageous, and just in our efforts to provide all young people with the sexuality education they so urgently need.

* * *

The Open Letter was developed at a colloquium of theologians in 2002, sponsored by the Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing and funded by Planned Parenthood of New York. Participants included Rev. Mark Bigelow, Congregational Church of Huntington, Long Island; Rev. Dr. John Buehrens, Unitarian Universalist Association; Rev. Dr. Ignacio Castuera, Pacific Palisades United Methodist Church; Rev. Steve Clapp, Christian Community; Rev. Dr. Marvin Ellison, Bangor Theological Seminary; Rabbi Sue Levi Elwell, Union of American Hebrew Congregations; Rev. Dr. Larry Greenfield, Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing; Debra W. Haffner, M.Div., Religious Institute on Sexual Morality, Justice, and Healing; Ann Hanson, Justice and Witness Ministries, United Church of Christ; Rev. Dr. Sheron Patterson, St. Paul United Methodist Church, Dallas; and Rev. Carlton Veazey, Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice.

Get Over It, suggests Kula, to Pope’s Critics

So the Pope revoked the excommunication of a Holocaust-denying bishop. So the Jewish defense world was up in arms. Wall to wall criticism, as JTA’s Telegraph blog puts it. It is easy to get worked up about this. Holocaust denial is one of those hot buttons that necessarily must evoke a response. But does the Pope’s action require such a stern response?

As the Telegraph reports, in On Holocaust-denying bishop, a voice of dissent,

Rabbi Irwin Kula has produced a dissenting opinion that, in a nutshell, amounts to this: Get over it.

The Jews overreacted, Kula writes in the Huffington Post. They haven’t labored to understand this through Catholic eyes. They don’t understand what it must be like to run a spiritual community of more than a billion people. The bishop is irrelevant and lacking power anyway, a crotchety old uncle. And given that the Catholic Church has condemned Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism and showed great respect for Jews in recent decades, the rantings of an unknown bishop really shouldn’t matter that much.
Kula writes:

Something is off kilter here. Is it possible that the leadership of Jewish defense agencies, people with the best of motivation who have historically done critical work in fighting anti-Semitism, have become so possessed by their roles as monitors of anti-Semitism, so haunted by unresolved fears, guilt, and even shame regarding the Holocaust, and perhaps so unconsciously driven by how these issues literally keep their institutions afloat, that they have become incapable of distinguishing between a bishop’s ridiculous, loopy, discredited views about the Holocaust and a Church from the Pope down which has clearly and repeatedly recognized the evil done to Jews in the Holocaust and called for that evil to never be forgotten.

Moreover, writes Kula:

Finally, when the Pope as well as key Vatican officials said within a day that Williamson’s views are “absolutely indefensible” and that in the Pope’s own words, the Church feels “full and indispensable solidarity with Jews against any Holocaust denial” where was a little humility in response? Wouldn’t it have been interesting, yet alone ethically compelling, for those who initially lashed out to have acknowledged that perhaps they did overreact and that they do know that the Church and specifically this Pope are very sensitive to these issues.

Gives you pause for thought…

Did You Love Leah? Haveil Havalim #203

Haveil Havalim #203: Did You Love Leah?

haveil havalim

Welcome to the Loving (or Not Loving) Leah Edition of Haveil Havalim….

What’s going on here today? Pop over to Ima on (and off) the Bima for the original post. (I’m copying the first paragraphs here for those of you who are still new to reading blogs.) But then jump over to Ima on (and off) the Bima to read what else is being written about in the blogsphere.

Founded by Soccer Dad, Haveil Havalim is a carnival of Jewish blogs — a weekly collection of Jewish & Israeli blog highlights, tidbits and points of interest collected from blogs all around the world. It’s hosted by different bloggers each week and coordinated by Jack. The term ‘Haveil Havalim,’ which means “Vanity of Vanities,” is from Qoheleth, (Ecclesiastes) which was written by King Solomon. King Solomon built the Holy Temple in Jerusalem and later on got all bogged down in materialism and other ‘excesses’ and realized that it was nothing but ‘hevel,’ or in English, ‘vanity.’

What was really important in the J-blogosphere this week?
Loving…or not Loving….Leah, of course!

Yes, Sunday night’s Hallmark movie was definitely a topic in the Jewish blogosphere this week.
Some of the posts I found:
Midianite Manna’s Take
Frum Satire’s Thoughts
Idol Chatter
#lovingleah on Twitter
Boston.com “Loving Leah is hard to do”
JewWishes has this to say
MyJewishLearning’s blog thoughts
DovBear weighs in
BangItOut’s thoughts
Mottel is Loving Lubavitchers in Hollywood.

(It’s not available on DVD yet but I’m sure it will be…in case you missed it. Or, like me, only saw the last hour. Which, by the way, was enough to get the whole story!)

A very nice edition of Haveil Havalim, the Jewish Blog Carnival,
is now up over at Ima on and off the Bima. Check it out!

2 Must-Read Articles on the Cynical Misuse of the Holocaust as a New Weapon in the Arsenal of Anti-Semites

Israeli Avram Burg recently raised difficult questions as to whether the Holocaust has become ingrained as a dangerous lens through which Israeli leaders view the world. He suggests that the Holocaust skews their view of reality and leads to a “they are all out to get us” mentality. One may agree with or take issue with Burg’s argument, even as one praises the fact that a democratic society allows such critique from within.

Sadly, the Holocaust is being used increasingly in another way, as a “weapon against Jews and the Jewish state.” This is even more dangerous. Two articles, which came to my attention through the Daily Alert prepared by Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, illuminate this darkness:

Using the Holocaust to Attack the Jews – Walter Reich (Washington Post)

  • The Holocaust is being increasingly used as a weapon against the Jews and the Jewish state. As some people who don’t like Jews have found, it’s worth acknowledging the Holocaust if you can then turn it into a cudgel against the Jews. According to this crowd, the Jews today have become Nazis. The Jewish state is now supposedly carrying out a Holocaust against the Palestinians.
  • People of good will around the world are naturally shocked by the tragic and appalling deaths of Palestinian civilians, including those killed in the recent war in Gaza. But the massive and unceasing eruptions of outrage against the Jewish state – in a world in which other countries and groups have engaged in immensely more destructive and immoral behavior while provoking barely any outrage – can only be explained in a few ways.
  • One is that attacking Israel has become a means of attacking Israel’s ally, the U.S. Another is that over-the-top attacks on Israel, particularly those invoking Holocaust language, have become a means of once again attacking the Jews.

The writer, a professor of international affairs at George Washington University, is a former director of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Diminishing the Holocaust – Irwin Cotler (Montreal Gazette)

  • The lessons of the Holocaust risk losing their value if the tragedy of the Holocaust is invoked to fit every case of moral outrage. No recent event makes this more clear than the inflammatory misuse of Holocaust comparisons to describe the conflict in Gaza, in a dual demonizing indictment.
  • On the one hand, Jews are blamed for perpetrating a Holocaust on the Palestinians, as in the appalling statement of Norwegian diplomat Trine Lilleng that “The grandchildren of Holocaust survivors from World War II are doing to the Palestinians exactly what was done to them by Nazi Germany;” and on the other hand, crowds are incited to another Holocaust against the Jews, as in the chants of protesters who scream “Hamas! Hamas! Jews to the gas!”
  • Consider the simultaneous humanitarian crises in the world that were largely ignored during the war in Gaza. Darfur continued to be beset by genocide. Mass rape was being used as a weapon of war in the Congo. In Zimbabwe, a disastrous cholera epidemic was afflicting tens of thousands. Anarchy reigned in Somalia; systemic repression endured in North Korea, and political prisoners were being executed in Iran.
  • Meanwhile, Israel unilaterally halted its fighting in the middle of the day to allow humanitarian supplies to flow to Palestinians, and it warned civilians – by dropping leaflets and by phone – when attacks in their vicinity were coming.
  • The comparison between Israel’s action against Hamas – a terrorist group sworn to destroy Israel – and the Nazi Holocaust is as false as it is obscene. I say this not as a proponent of Israel, but as a voice for Holocaust remembrance.

The writer is a member of the Canadian Parliament and a former justice minister.

The Greatest Gift: Sisters

What do we parents seek as we try to stimulate healthy relationships between our children? Sometimes détente. Sometimes tolerance. But hopefully, a depth of friendship that endures. It IS possible. As Christine Many writes:

I’m five years old, and my mother is on her hands and knees, washing the kitchen floor. I’m telling her about a new girl in school, and she suddenly looks up at me and says, “Who are your two best friends?”

I’m not sure what to say. I’ve been friends with Jill since I was three or so, and I really like Jaime, a friend in kindergarten.

“Jill and Jaime.”

My mother stops scrubbing the floor and starts to take off her yellow rubber gloves. “Well, what about Karen and Cindy?”

My sisters? “I don’t know who their best friends are,” I say.

“No,” she says. “I’m saying, why aren’t they your best friends?”

She seems upset, like I hurt her feelings. “But they’re my sisters.”

“Yes, but they can still be your best friends. Friends may come and go, but your sisters will always be there for you.”

At the time, the idea of my two sisters being my closest friends seemed strange to me. We fought all the time over toys, food, attention, what to watch on television – you name it, we bickered about it at some point. How could my sisters be my best friends? They weren’t the same age as I. We all had our own friends in school.

But my mother never let the three of us forget it: Sisters are lifelong friends. Her wish–like most parents’–was to give us something that she never had. Growing up an only child, she longed for siblings. When she gave birth to three daughters –separated by only four years–the fufillment of her dream had only just begun. She had given us each a gift–our sisters–and she wanted to make sure we did not take that gift for granted. She would frequently tell us how lucky we were. But there were other, more subtle ways that she encouraged us to grow closer. She never showed favoritism to one daughter over the other, as not to cause jealousy or bitterness between sisters. She constantly took us places together–skating, shopping, swimming–so we developed common interests. And when we were teenagers, Mom always punished us equally, giving us yet another bonding experience.

We didn’t always get along beautifully and fought just like any other siblings. But somewhere in between Mom’s lectures, the family vacations and the shared memories, we realized that our mother was right. Today I share things with my sisters that I do with no one else. My sister Cindy and I ran the New York City Marathon together, side-by-side, even holding hands when we crossed the finish line. When my sister Karen got married, I was her maid of honor. Cindy and I traveled through Europe together and even shared an apartment for two years. The three of us trust each other with our greatest secrets.

It was twenty-three years ago that my mother first asked me who my two best friends were. Today she doesn’t have to. She already knows.

Great Quotes: Ben Franklin on Mistakes

Perhaps the history of the errors of mankind, all things considered, is more valuable and interesting than that of their discoveries. Truth is uniform and narrow; it constantly exists, and does not seem to require so much an active energy, as a passive aptitude of the soul in order to encounter it. But error is endlessly diversified; it has no reality, but is the pure and simple creation of the mind that invents it. In this field the soul has room enough to expand herself, to display all her boundless faculties, and all her beautiful and interesting extravagancies and absurdities.
– Benjamin Franklin

Wonder rather than doubt is the root of all knowledge.
– Abraham Joshua Heschel

Sibling Rivalry: Can’t Kill ’em so Try to Love ’em

I have three siblings: an older sister, and two younger brothers. Our relationships with each other have, like the sides of an accordion, sometimes drawn closer and sometimes moved farther apart. At times distance (east-west coast, California-Israel) has made my heart grow fonder; occasionally the distance provides an easy excuse to ignore them. While we may argue over who is our parents’ favorite (“my son, the rabbi”…, kind of hard to beat that), we so often turn to each other when the going gets really tough.

A seven-year-old girl, discussing her younger sister and herself, once said: “I think that God is having one big experiment. God put two people who are very different in one house to live and wants to see what happens.” Truth be told: my brothers and I had some knock-down, drag-outs in our day, and we all did a lot of kvetching – complaining – about each other too. But in various ways, my siblings are the people who consume much of the space in my heart. Our relationships are intense, complex and deeply cherished.

Torah Truth 1: Sibling Relationships are Challenging
In truth, many sibling relationships are challenging, for the children and for the parents too. These problems reach as far back as our Biblical past. Torah, in its brutally honest way, bares the truth about siblings for all to see. Rather than whitewashing our founding families, Genesis details the fratricide of Cain and Abel, the supplanting of Ishmael by Isaac, the outright disdain and deceit between Jacob and Esau, jealousies between Leah and Rachel, and the parental favoritism, egotism (and attempted fratricide) between Joseph and his brothers.

No doubt Biblical parents helped fuel these sibling rivalries: Abraham’s willingness to send Hagar and Ishmael into the desert, Laban’s deceiving of Jacob with Leah, and Jacob’s fawning over Joseph. How much do our actions (or inactions) as parents influence the relationships our children develop?

Torah Truth 2: Not All Sibling Relationships are Toxic

While the fratricidal Cain and Abel are perhaps the Torah’s best-known brothers, there is also the example of Joseph’s sons, Ephraim and Menashe, who learn to live in harmony to benefit the Jewish people and have become models to emulate through the generations. In fact, each Friday evening, Jewish parents worldwide bless their sons, “May you be like Ephraim and Menasha.” These two young men have become a model for boys on how they should get on with each other.

By the end of the Torah, we see a very different picture of sibling relationships. Sandy Littman, of the London School of Jewish Studies, argues that “you have situations where each sibling’s role is complementary and their characters mesh with each other to function in a harmonious way. The Torah gives us the negative picture first.” Jacob and Esau, for example, could have had a partnership. Two brothers who were so different had something to make the world complete, bring some good to the world. But instead of forming a partnership, they went off in different ways.

Yet brothers Moses and Aaron combine their talents to free the Israelites. Aaron, the high priest, and Moses, the leader, complement each other’s talents. They completed each other. One wonders, suggest scholar Littman, whether Aaron and Moses worked so well together “because they had a big sister to look after them.”

Tips for Family Flow Rather than Friction

  • Encourage your kids to work as a team. Suggest they make pizza together every Sunday night, or put them in charge of recycling bottles and deciding how the return money is spent.
  • Step back and allow your children to create their own relationships apart from you. Catch yourself if you tend to micromanage their interaction.
  • Come to the Or Ami Center for Jewish Parenting’s presentation by Bette Alkazian (Thursday, February 5, 7:00-8:30 pm) on Brothers And Sisters: The Joys And Challenges Of Sibling Relationships. More information here.
  • When kids begin to squabble, don’t become the referee. Come up with ways they can work out their own spats. One mother does more than just send fighting kids to their rooms. She asks them to stand in their bedroom doorways and talk out the problem. They aren’t to return downstairs until they have worked it out. Standing in the doorway staring at each other leads to lots of interesting solutions — all without parental input.
  • Disagreements and irritation are part of any relationship. Accept that negative feelings will surface and try to develop a built-in structure for dealing with them.
  • Don’t expect automatic “brotherly love.” It lessens the guilt associated with “Well, he’s your brother: You should love him.”
  • Spend one-on-one time with each child. This communicates, “Yes, we are a team, but you are special!” We all want to be loved for our unique selves.
  • Take the time to truly observe each of your children to discover their temperament and approach to the world. What makes their spirit sing?
  • Strive to meet a child’s individual need when it arises. When one child is sick, he may need chicken soup and a back massage. That doesn’t mean it’s unfair that his brother doesn’t get the special treatment. His turn will come.
  • It’s our job to care for our children, not an older sister’s or brother’s. (Cain resented having to be his brother’s keeper, and we know how that turned out.)

Remember that no family is perfect. Even the Bible illustrates some pretty messy family dramas! (Adapted from Beliefnet)

Talkback


Are you (or did you) struggle to stimulate healthy relationships amongst your children or grandchildren? Become part of our Or Ami Center for Jewish Parenting exploration of these central relationships.

Attend Lecture: Come to the Or Ami Center for Jewish Parenting’s presentation by Bette Alkazian (Thursday, February 5, 7:00-8:30 pm) on Brothers And Sisters: The Joys And Challenges Of Sibling Relationships. More information here. Please RSVP to Kathy Haggerty.

Share Your Parenting Tips: Let us know what has worked for you to mellow the monsters (er, to stimulate healthy relationships). Share your answers on the blog. Click below (remember to type your name at the bottom of your comment and then change the “Comment As” drop down box to “anonymous”).

Teen Promiscuity: It Might Not be As Rampant as We Thought!

We have heard a lot about rampant teen sexuality. But evidence suggests otherwise. The NYTimes brings this:

While some young people are clearly engaging in risky sexual behavior, a vast majority are not. The reality is that in many ways, today’s teenagers are more conservative about sex than previous generations.

Today, fewer than half of all high school students have had sex: 47.8 percent as of 2007, according to the National Youth Risk Behavior Survey, down from 54.1 percent in 1991.A less recent report suggests that teenagers are also waiting longer to have sex than they did in the past. A 2002 report from the Department of Health and Human Services found that 30 percent of 15- to 17-year-old girls had experienced sex, down from 38 percent in 1995. During the same period, the percentage of sexually experienced boys in that age group dropped to 31 percent from 43 percent. The rates also went down among younger teenagers. In 1995, about 20 percent said they had had sex before age 15, but by 2002 those numbers had dropped to 13 percent of girls and 15 percent of boys.“There’s no doubt that the public perception is that things are getting worse, and that kids are having sex younger and are much wilder than they ever were,” said Kathleen A. Bogle, an assistant professor of sociology and criminal justice at La Salle University. “But when you look at the data, that’s not the case.”

Why do we perceive that teen promiscuity is rampant? The article continues:

One reason people misconstrue teenage sexual behavior is that the system of dating and relationships has changed significantly. In the first half of the 20th century, dating was planned and structured — and a date might or might not lead to a physical relationship. In recent decades, that pattern has largely been replaced by casual gatherings of teenagers. In that setting, teenagers often say they “fool around,” and in a reversal of the old pattern, such an encounter may or may not lead to regular dating.

Read the rest. Very interesting for us parents of teens!

The Gift of Caregiving

Or Ami Congregant Linda Fingleson received an award for this essay entitled, “The Gift of Caregiving” from Caring Today website. Linda writes:

“Mom ‘n Dad, I’m here.” How many times a week doyou say that? If you are a caregiver of loved ones, you would be saying it almost every day of the week, for months at a time, possibly continuing for years.

I have calculated that between my twin sister and me we have said it at least 2500 times in the last three years. When our parents could not drive anymore, they became totally dependent on us. When my father fell and broke his wrist and hip, we knew they could not be alone anymore. We hired a full-time caregiver to be with them during the nights and the few hours we could not be with them because of our own families. We are responsible for all their basic needs, food, clothing, medicine, doctor appointments and entertainment. That first year it felt like a chore, and both my sister and I were somewhat resentful because how did we end up with this job? If we went grocery shopping and the next day my mother called and said she forgot something, we became angry. Doctor appointments became a nightmare: By the time we got them in and out of the car, waited for the doctor, had the blood work done, it was a three-hour ordeal.

But the most amazing thing happened about a year into our caregiving duties. Instead of being angry or resentful, we started to fell like we had been given a gift. Yes, a gift! Those long lines at the market or the even longer waits in the doctor’s office became an opportunity to have conversations and find out things we would never have had the chance to do-the stories and long talks about the different lives they both lead and how it made them the people they are today—memories and snapshotpictures in our minds that can never be taken away from us. I think the biggest gift that my sister and I have received from our parents is the appreciation—the appreciation they feel for what we have given them of our time and energy, and most of all, for our unconditional love. We feel blessed to have been given these last three years to give care to our parents and hope and pray that there will be many more memories and stories to come.

There is a bond so strong between us that it is unlike anything we thought possible. We have become an inspiration to our friends and family who in the beginning thought we were crazy for taking on this task, but now see the opportunity we have made of it. Yes, it is hard; yes, some days are more difficult than others. But anyone who is giving care to loved ones has made a commitment to make the lives of those people the best it can possibly be. Both my sister and I feel that this, initself, is a gift from God!

Professional Baseball in Israel: Take 2

Though I’d rather see my Red Sox behind this venture, I am excited to report that Israel might see a new Baseball in the next few years. Alan Schwartz, in the NYTimes baseball blog Bats, reports:

Yankees Partner Looks to Play Ball in Israel

By Alan Schwarz

Professional baseball in Israel could be alive, if not well. The nation’s first foray into pro ball – with most players from the Dominican Republic playing on poor fields before empty seats — ended in financial disaster after one season in 2007. But from that experience could rise another attempt, and a considerably more thoughtful one. Marv Goldklang, a limited partner of the Yankees and the owner of several prominent minor league teams, said Tuesday that he and a group of other North American baseball insiders hope to start an entirely new league in either 2010 or 2011. Goldklang was on an advisory committee of the first circuit, the Israel Baseball League, and was so dismayed with its operation that he and other members resigned before the league folded. “I could spend an hour telling you everything that went wrong,” he said of the first I.B.L. “Essentially what we’re doing now is forming a group of people to do some fairly serious due diligence – the type of
due diligence that, candidly, was not done the first time around.” The Israel Association of Baseball, which oversees amateur programs in the country, has given its blessing to the group – which also includes U.S. businessman Jeff Rosen, owner of the Maccabi Haifa Heat professional basketball team in the Israeli Premier League. Goldklang said that the other partners wished to remain anonymous at this early stage, perhaps because of the debacle two years ago. Goldklang expects to look into the feasibility of franchises in Tel Aviv, Jerusalem, Raanana (a city with a large Western population), Haifa and a few others with the hope of having six teams. “There are no ballparks there that you would consider a ballpark in an American sense,” Goldklang said. “There are fields suitable for youth baseball programs, but you wouldn’t put a college team on that field. “We need to develop a strategy to build ballparks that would be suitable for professional play, with couple of thousand people in park.” Goldklang said he would prefer to market baseball to Israelis much as it is in the U.S. minor leagues, as a communal place for fun rather than a serious sporting event. (Although nuns giving massages in the stands, a hit with Goldklang’s St. Paul Saints, might be a tough sell.) “We want to create an atmosphere that makes it enjoyable whether or not they’re quote-unquote baseball fans, and build from there,” Goldklang said. “A quarter or third of people who attend games are not necessarily fans. But they enjoy the experience, and they come to appreciate the game itself. What will appeal to Israelis once they come to the ballpark and what will get them to relate to the game on the field?” He added: “Israel is a place where dreams come true – notwithstanding the twists and turns you read about in the front part of the paper. Israel is that type of place. Hopefully what we’re doing is not too much of a dream.”