Tag: Israel

You keep the Stream of Humanitarian Aid flowing into Gaza and We will Keep Launching Rockets at Israeli Civilians

I am far from being a supporter of war. And yet, what does one do when rockets are streaming down (80 in one day) upon Israeli farms and cities? As I wrote previously, the last time I was in Israel – January 2008 – our group could NOT visit Sderot because of the daily barrage of Qassams and other missiles.

Thus Jerusalem Post’s editorial notes:

On Friday, a Hamas spokesman made Israel the following proposal: You keep the stream of humanitarian aid and supplies flowing into Gaza and we will keep launching rockets and mortars at Israeli civilians.
Islamic Jihad terrorists…

It was an offer Israel had little choice but to refuse.

For weeks Israel has been imploring Hamas to stop shooting across the border, to stop tunneling in preparation for the next round of violence, and to allow our farmers to tend their fields. The Islamists responded that they were not afraid of the IDF and that they reserved the right to resist “the occupation” – meaning the existence of a Jewish state. They brazenly told Israel to get used to the idea that no amount of humanitarian gestures would stem their behavior.

At 11:30 a.m. Saturday, Israel finally told Hamas that it would not be bled, slowly, to death. Thanks to excellent intelligence and superb training, a haughty enemy was caught off-guard. Targets up and down the Strip were hit and large numbers of Hamas personnel including senior military figures were killed. Key facilities were turned into rubble; well-camouflaged equipment was destroyed.

The Worst Anti-Israel Charges You’ll Hear (and how to think about them)

Ha’aretz correspondent Bradley Burston (and twice-weekly award-winning Ha’aretz blogger), blogging about the beginning of the Israeli response to Hamas’ ending of the ceasefire (and, more precisely, its resumption of daily barrages of missiles into Israel’s cities and kibbutzim), refutes ahead of time the “the 10 most gratuitous, least productive, most resolutely ingenuous claims likely to be hurled in an effort to attack Israel.” In Wartime in Gaza: The worst anti-Israel charges you’ll hear, he writes:

It is, abruptly and again, wartime. Across the globe, the selective pacifists of the left and the recliner Rambos of the right are spoiling for their next battle, the war in Gaza.

They will fight one another in letters to Congress, in cable news sound bites, in raucous talk-radio phone-ins, in the virtual mega-heroics of the online battlefield of the talkback.

They will fight one another in the United Nations as well, unashamedly one-sided in their concern for human life.

Herewith the first in a two-part guide to the 10 most gratuitous, least productive, most resolutely ingenuous claims likely to be hurled in an effort to attack Israel.

The first five are arguments of the anti-Israel left, claims which are, curiously, as tired as they are unflagging.

Leftist 1: Israel’s true motive in bombing Gaza, is genocide against the Palestinian people and extermination of their right to statehood.

Israel’s genuine interest in this campaign is strikingly similar to Hamas’ interest in firing scores of rockets into Israeli population centers: Forcing a cease-fire on better terms than the one just ended.

For Hamas, this largely means easing Israeli economic sanctions against Gazans. For Israel, this centers on ending shelling by Qassam and Grad missiles and mortar shells. For both sides, this means a prisoner exchange, centering on Gilad Shalit and hundreds of jailed Hamas members.

Leftist 2: The Palestinians have no recourse but to defend themselves, and the makeshift rockets they fire are nothing compared to the world’s most advanced warplanes and munitions, which the IDF is using against them.

The Human Rights Watch organization has been unequivocal in condemning the use of Qassam rockets as a direct violation of international humanitarian law and the laws of war. The firing of Qassams and mortars against civilian populations also constitutes collective punishment against hundreds of thousands of innocent Israeli men, women and children.

Moreover, the firing of Qassams began not as a response to the siege against Gaza, but as a marathon celebration by armed Islamic fundamentalist groups following Israel’s withdrawal of its troops and settlers from the Strip. To purposely add insult to injury, Islamic Jihad and other organizations used the ruins of settlements as launch platforms.

Leftist 3: All that Hamas is asking, is recognition as the democratically elected government of Gaza, and an end to the Israeli economic embargo. Were they to attain these goals, there would be calm on both sides of the border.

It is both unrealistic and dangerous to believe that Hamas has abandoned its clearly stated and often reiterated goal of establishing an Islamic Palestinian state in all of the Holy Land, including all land claimed, annexed by, or in any way occupied by Israel.

Beyond that, Hamas has strong alliances with the Egyptian opposition Muslim brotherhood, as well as working partnerships with the Iran-dominated Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad.

Israeli restraint, when practiced, has been met with contempt and additional Hamas and Hamas-tolerated strikes against civilian populations.

Leftist 4: The Israeli blockade against Hamas is state terrorism and any means to fight it are legitimate.

There is every reason to believe that Israel’s economic siege against Gaza is misguided, but not for an essential cruelty, rather because Hamas taxes collected on the influx of goods imported through tunnels from Egyptian territory have subsidized and cemented Hamas rule.

Leftist 5: The world overwhelmingly sympathizes with the Palestinians against Israel, and unreservedly backs their struggle for independence.

In an era of global revulsion against radical Islamic terror, Hamas’ protracted program of suicide bombings, drive-by murders and shelling of civilian populations, coupled with its refusal to renounce violence, recognize Israel, or accept past peace agreements, coupled with its ideology of militant jihad, have drained the Palestinians of international sympathy and have, in fact, legitimized Israeli arguments of military self-defense.

Nothing has been more instrumental in harming the cause of Palestinian independence than Hamas, with its brutal take-over of Gaza in a war with brother Palestinians, and its frank efforts to build a large-scale regular army force in the Strip.

In Part Two, in the coming week: The second five will be newer claims, the Alpha-male displays of the Israel-bashing right, the group which constantly berates the government and the IDF for not bombing Gaza into a parking lot, for not shooting and starving and freezing innocent civilians to death. Watch here for the next installment.

Where I Get My News about Israel

With the onset of the Israeli response to the unending Hamas rocket fire into Southern Israel, many of us have been starved for news about the Israel Defense Forces’ Gaza operation. [Picture at left is from Jerusalem Post, of a border police officer inspects damage, after a rocket fired by Palestinian terrorists from within the Gaza Strip hit a house in Tkuma, near the southern Israeli town of Netivot.] Here’s where I get my Israeli news:

  • Israeli Embassy in Washington DC
  • AIPAC, American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Lobby’s Congress and the Administration on Israel
  • Near East Report, publication of AIPAC
  • Israeli Insider, website of news, views and shmooze. Collects many Israeli news sources
  • Middle East Bulletin, a publication of Middle East Progress at the Center for American Progress (centrist)

Obama Gathers a Wide Spectrum of Jewish Groups

President-elect Obama is proving to be very interested in hearing from a spectrum of views on Israel and the Mideast. Though that will make right-wingers very nervous, it suggests that, based in Obama’s deep appreciation for and support of Israel, we might see some creative, wide support for negotiations and peace efforts in that troubled region. (Also in attendance was the Reform Movement’s Religious Action Center).

JTA, in its Election Central Blog, reports that:

President-elect Barack Obama’s transition team’s first official encounter with the Jewish community suggested a substantial change in how his administration will deal with Jewish groups: Present were the array of dovish pro-Israel groups, including the Israel Policy Forum, J-Street, Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom.

Of those groups, only IPF made the occasional appearance at meetings with Bush administration officials – and that was because the group has always been careful to cast a non-partisan tint to its pro-negotiations posture, effusively praising the Bush administration’s peace-brokering efforts, however infrequent those were until a year or so ago. Other more liberal groups at the table – including the Reform movemen’ts Religious Action Center – were also occasionally invited, but the emphasis is on “occasionally.”

What was remarkable about Thursday’s meeting is that the Obama team also reached out to the other side, including the Zionist Organization of America. Dan Shapiro, the transition official who handled foreign policy at the meeting, made it clear he wanted to hear all voices.

The Bush administration’s infamous tetchiness at criticism seemed to be a thing of the past: ZOA has slammed Obama’s transition team for including strident Israel critic Samantha Power in a post that barely registers above chief cook and bottle washer, but has failed to praise it for installing true-blue pro-Israel types like Jim Steinberg in more senior posts.

And that was fine with the dovish types, or at least with Diane Balser who directs Brit Tzedek, a group that has lobbied in recent years for increased aid to the Palestinians, even as ZOA has lobbied against it.

“The Obama team said they were open and understood everyone had a seat,” Balser told me. “To acknowledge there is more than one view on Israel, that we’re not monolithic – I consider that a step forward for us.”

Electric Cars: Israel’sLeading the Way Again

The Associated Press (December 8, 2008) writes:

Instead of filling up at the pump, soon Israeli motorists will be able to fill their cars up at the plug.

That’s the idea behind Monday’s demonstration of the parking lot of the future, equipped with stations to charge the battery-powered cars scheduled to ply Israel’s streets in 2011. Israel’s government has endorsed the project, which aims to blanket the country with electric cars and plugs.

The California-based company, Project Better Place, is building the infrastructure to switch Israeli drivers over to battery power. The group has built 400 wired parking spots, mainly in and around Tel Aviv, since it launched the initiative in June.

Demonstrating the first 10 stations in a Tel Aviv mall parking lot, organizers explained that drivers can charge their cars while shopping.

Charging stations are 3-foot-high pedestals with curly-cued cords attached. A triangular plug fits into a socket where a car’s gas tank usually is.

Pini Leiberman, manager of infrastructure for Project Better Place, says the group hopes to wire 100,000 parking spots in Israel by 2010. The plugs will energize a fleet of electric cars being developed by the Renault-Nissan Alliance scheduled to hit the streets of Israel in 2011.

The car prototype was first demonstrated in May. Israel’s government believes it’s a way to reduce Israel’s dependence on oil and reduce pollution.

However, there are concerns that the cars can drive only short distances before they need to be charged. Leiberman said wired parking lots like the one displayed Monday can help solve the problem. He added that in 2010 there should be charging stations every 25 miles (40 kilometers).

Also, Leiberman said the company is developing battery changing stations, so drivers with no time to charge can trade drained batteries for charged ones.

Drivers who recharge at parking lots will pay by the mile. Computers will look at how much electricity the car needs and calculate the cost.

Leiberman said he did not know what the cost per mile would be, nor what the cars will cost, but pledged it would be lower than gasoline-operated cars.

That could be critical. Persuading Israeli car owners to trade their gas guzzlers for short-range vehicles could depend on whether the overall outlay is significantly lower, including the cost and effort of installing special plugs at their homes. There are also concerns about pollution from spent batteries and added drain on Israel’s already sagging electricity grid.

Israel Corp., a local partner of Better Place, has invested $200 million in the project, the company said, to pay for the entire electric car infrastructure in Israel.

If Project Better Place’s plan works, Israel would become the first country to have large numbers of electric cars on its streets. Test runs are set for next year.

The Danish energy company DONG Energy AS adopted a Better Place model in march, hoping to have electric cars running on power generated from wind turbines by 2011.

Hawaii and California were among the first states to sign onto the plan, the company said.

University of California Reinstates its Israel Study Program

My buddy Rick Winer, with whom I will spend a week in Israel next year, writes on his blog that the University of California system has voted to again allow students to study abroad in Israel. He notes:

The University of California determined in 2002 that travel to Israel was not sufficiently safe enough for its students. Several other American universities followed the U.S. State Department warning and suspended their programs in Israel. While tourism to Israel has been down in recent years, these actions certainly did not prevent students from spending time in Israeli universities. However, the return of U.C.’s EAP is welcome, not only for the confidence it shows in Israel but also for the wonderful educational opportunities it will return to students.

As fascinating is a picture of Rick and his wife Laura during their college days, when they were both in Israel. But you have to click over to his blog to see it.

Condemning Israeli Settler Violence

American and Israeli newspapers are filled with stories about the ongoing settler violence in Hebron, following the Israeli government’s evacuation of the settlers from the Hebron house.

Ha’aretz reported that the IDF declares Hebron area closed military zone after settler rampage. Ha’aretz journalist Avi Issacharoff went so far as to write that the Hebron settler riots were out and out pogroms. The more conservative Jerusalem Post reports that The young men from Kiryat Arba exact their ‘price’ in the valley.

So let’s be clear. We condemn the this violence by these settlers. One cannot justify these actions against innocent Palestinians. And this is not the first time we have read about such settler violence.

So we must applaud the words of Rabbi David Saperstein, Direcctor of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism (Dec. 5, 2008):

In light of the High Court ruling, we laud the Israeli government’s support of the evacuation of the contested site. The government, army and police must continue to take decisive, tough action to ensure that the saddening violence and destruction of recent days is met with the firm rule of law, bringing to justice the perpetrators of these crimes. The violent actions against Palestinian persons and property by Jewish extremists must be halted just as the violent response of Palestinians must be halted. We call upon the Israeli government to do everything within its power to ensure that all innocent civilians, regardless of nationality or religion, are protected from vigilantism. Violent attacks threaten the viability of a future based on a peaceful two-state solution to the conflict. As Shabbat falls, with the Unites States government advising citizens to avoid Jerusalem for fear of further violence, we pray for the peace of Jerusalem, denounce the hatred driving these heinous acts, and reiterate our message that to honor God, one must honor every human being as being created in the image of the Divine.

A Love Affair with the Holy Tongue

Today my kids join me as we choose a Hebrew script for the new Torah Congregation Or Ami will scribe next year. Picking a script is akin to picking a computer font: each scribe has a unique way of writing letters, designing the crowns atop them. Some more ancient, some more modern. Decorative or simple. Which is easier to read, which one is more pleasing to look at? Many people will offer input into the choice of the scrip, but there is a unique pleasure in sitting with my kinder (kids) – each of whom can read and speak modern Hebrew on various levels – as we harken back to ancient times to bring to life Holy Letters to life. It led me to recall my many encounters to with the Holy Tongue of our people:

I remember reading Hebrew from Torah when I became a Bar Mitzvah. Like all BM kids, I found it very, very cool to read without vowels, from our most sacred ritual object.

I remember sitting in my rabbi’s office – Gary Glickstein, then of Temple Sinai in Worcester, MA – secretly learning conversational Hebrew to prepare for an upcoming trip to Israel. I wanted to be able to speak the holy tongue like they did in the Israeli street.

I remember sitting in Ulpan – an intensive immersion Hebrew program – in Israel during my post-High School, pre-College summer on the Reform Leadership Machon. Daily, for three hours, we spoke only Hebrew, learning grammar and vocab. We read songs and poetry, stories and Eton l’Matcheeleem (a newspaper for beginners). It was frsutratingly slow, yet – in those in-between moments when I reflected upon it – so meaningful to learn to speak in the ancient language now reborn. I felt like I was walking (or talking) in the ways of Ben Yehuda (the early Israeli pioneer who, in his quest to revive the language, spoke only Hebrew to his family).

I remember making Rabbinical School in Jerusalem, learning Hebrew in its multiple forms – modern language, Biblical and Mishnaic varieties, Aramaic even (a Hebrew/Arabic mix, which was the street language and study language of Mishnah and Talmudic times). Whole swaths of the Jewish past came alive as I continued to crack open the basics of each Hebrew varietal.

These past years I have watched my children begin to call the Holy Tongue their own. The older two learned their Torah portion like you and I would practice reading an article in the newspaper. When my eldest and I together read (and translated) her parasha for the first time while I was running on the treadmill (since she already knew Hebrew, it wasn’t so difficult to guide her through this study). They work on their Jewish Day School Hebrew homework alongside Math, Science and English. Its just what we do. Hebrew is part of their/our lives.

Last January, during a sabbatical from the synagogue, I hired a Hebrew tutor- Belle Michael – to help me improve my conversational Hebrew. Paired with another course studying a Medieval Midrash in ancient Hebrew, I was immersing myself again. We meet regularly at local coffee shops – catch me Wednesday or Friday mornings at Corner Bakery or Barnes and Noble’s coffeeshop. Speaking about religion, life, children, politics – all in Hebrew. Sometimes I work through sermon ideas. Sometimes we read from an adult-level collection of modern Israeli anecdotes. I am so energized to spend one full hour rak b’ivrit – only in Hebrew.

How far have I come? I started reading my first modern Israeli novel in only Hebrew last night. I even smiled when my daughter – impressed as she was with my progress – noted that she read this book in ninth grade. Overnight, in my dreams, I recall thinking about the characters and ideas presented in the book. NOT sounding out the words. I didn’t struggle with the meaning. No, I was reading a modern novel in the language of our people. Truth be told, this version of the book was simplified somewhat for learners, nonetheless, I was reading a book in Hebrew. It felt like another momentous step on a long love affair with our Hebrew Holy Tongue.

I’m reading an Israeli novel. In The Holy Tongue, come alive again! How cool is that!

Scrubs Star Falls in Love with Tel Aviv

My kid loves the TV show Scrubs. One of Or Ami’s former interns so loved Scrubs that he proposed to his wife on the same bench in Los Angeles where Turk asked Carla to marry him.

I enjoy Scrubs too. And I love Israel. So how cool is it when to favorite things come together. Yes, Dr. J.D. Dorian, aka (in real life) Zach Braff visits Israel!?!

Haaretz reports that ‘Scrubs’ star Zach Braff falls in love with Tel Aviv:

Braff says that when you come here, “you just feel this amazing sense of community. We hear so much about Israel and politics with the Palestinians and you feel so separate from it. So I really wanted to see for myself.” He says he was “lucky” to be able to come and see things firsthand and to talk to Israelis. “As a Jew I think it’s really important to come to this place. There is such a tremendous sense of community, tremendous bond for obvious reasons. I don’t know if Israelis have a sense of it because they live here, but I love it.”

The Israeli experience made such an impression on him, he says, he is thinking of his next film touching on a story about an American Jew who visits Israel. Braff, who wrote and directed the successful “Garden State,” which also starred Natalie Portman, says a story like what he has in mind is something he’s never seen in a movie and thinks it will be really interesting.

Is Obama’s Mideast Peace Platform Coming into Focus?

Haaretz is reporting that

Eight weeks before Barack Obama is sworn into office, signs have emerged over the weekend that point to what is turning out to be the new administration’s plan to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

We read that:

Despite the attention being paid to Clinton, no less important is the move made two days ago by Scowcroft and the man who succeeded him in office as national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski. In an op-ed piece penned for the Washington Post, Scowcroft (whom John McCain considered naming as a special envoy to the Middle East) and Brzezinski (who was close to Obama during the initial stages of his candidacy for president) offered a kind of first draft of “The Obama Plan.”

The former NSA chiefs – who represent a wide, bipartisan consensus by dint of their service to Democratic and Republican presidents – praise President Bush’s peace efforts over the last year and call upon Obama to lend “priority attention” to the Israeli-Arab peace process. Even though they do not name names, one can clearly notice an effort to influence on the election results in Israel so as to favor moderate candidates – Tzipi Livni and Ehud Barak – over Benjamin Netanyahu.

  • The crux of their plan to solve the conflict centers on four principles which they believe Obama ought to adopt and publicly declare as policy:
  • An Israeli withdrawal to the 1967 lines, with slight alterations that are to be mutually agreed upon.
  • Compensation for Palestinian refugees in lieu of exercising the right of return to pre-1948 Israel.
  • Jerusalem as a “real home” to two capitals.
  • A demilitarized Palestinian state.

Very interesting conversations going on!

An Ethical Will for My Children

Some years ago, I wrote this ethical will for my children. With a few adjustments, I shared it with the congregation as a High Holy Day sermon. I still stand by these values.

As Congregation Or Ami’s New Dimensions (activities for adults only) prepares for a seminar on Writing an Ethical Will (Monday, November 17, 2008 at , I went back to my Ethical Will to see what I wrote. I still like it:

On Aaron’s Advice: An Ethical Will for My Children
Rabbi Paul J. Kipnes, Congregation Or Ami, Calabasas, CA
Rosh Hashana 5763 / September 2002

When Becky asked me to officiate at a minyan after her father Aaron’s funeral, I stepped forward without question. Friends help friends. It was only as I stood there, for two nights, before our extended group of friends, before Becky, that I realized the daunting task of trying to find words of wisdom to comfort someone whom I considered more a family member than a friend. Doctors do not operate on their loved ones; rabbis probably should not officiate for family members either. It is just too close.

But there we were. We prayed the prayers, moving forward without comment. Becky seemed to take strength from the regularity of the ritual and comfort from the companionship of the community surrounding her. I worried about what to say to bring uplift to her heart, solace to her soul. I was saved, however, by none other than Aaron himself – yes, the deceased. Before heart surgery ten years earlier, being well aware that “you can never be sure when the end will come,” Aaron, wrote an ethical will to make sure that his ideals would survive. A short, two-page letter to his loved ones, the ethical will bequeaths to them the values he holds most dear. As the letter was read aloud, Aaron himself comforted his daughter and his grandchildren, and led us all with wisdom and humility to a meaningful moment of kedusha, of holiness.

A few weeks later, emboldened by Aaron’s example, I sat down to write. You don’t need 10 years as a rabbi officiating at funerals to know that all it takes is some freak accident, unexpected disease or, however unlikely, some terrorist action to end your life prematurely. So I accepted for myself Aaron’s implicit invitation to impart words of comfort and wisdom to those who would survive me. I will share now but a few of the words I have written down in an ethical will to my family. Should I live to watch my three children mature, make their way in the world, and create their own lives and family, I hope to have passed on these values both in name and by example. But if not, God-forbid, I want them, and you, to know what is in my heart as you all continue to live your lives. With the High Holy Days upon us, this just might be the most important sermon I write this year.

To My Beloved Children:

We live in a world in which celebrity seems more important than what good you have accomplished. Where America’s leading businesses and business watchdogs lied to thousands of investors who counted on their honesty to plan for their future. … Where anti-Semitism – unadulterated hate – has raised its head in Europe, endangering our people yet again. … Where the bravado, self-interest and violence of the Palestinian leadership destroyed our realistic heartfelt offers to end the Mideast conflict. These are frightening times for our people, for all people.

With so many spurious values abound, I find myself contemplating the awesome responsibility we have to guide you in life. As you navigate the uncharted waters of life, I wonder, have we filled your life raft with a strong enough set of ethics and ideals to keep your heads above the raging waters?

The key, it seems, is to remember that you have all you need to bring goodness to yourself and into the world. Do not allow yourself to be limited by others, whether because of your gender… or your religion, race, orientation or age. These provide you with unique tools with which to navigate our world. You can do anything you put your mind to, anything you truly wish to accomplish. By the way, that is the central lesson of the modern Bar and Bat Mitzvah. Having completed an arduous, complex task, you will have learned that nothing is too difficult or beyond your reach.

When each of you was born, we celebrated with a Jewish ceremony. Surrounded by family and friends, and delicious desserts baked by PaPa and LaLa, we shepped nachas, shared the joy. At its most basic level, these ceremonies proclaimed that you were Jews and that we intended to bring you up as Jews. More significantly, it taught, even before you could understand it, that you are inheritors of a sacred tradition. As you grow, immerse yourself in our Jewish values and become our ideal, an Or LaGoyim, a light unto the nations.

My children, you are part of Am bachor, a chosen people. Not necessarily better than others. Merely chosen for a special responsibility. You are chosen to receive Torah values and effectuate them in our world. To help you understand this, we have prioritized our lives around enabling you to gain a strong Jewish education, learning the teachings of Torah. Torah encompasses all that is good and worthy. Hafach ba v’hafach ba d’chula ba – turn it and turn it, everything is in Torah: our stories and traditions, rituals and ceremonies, ethics and values. Taken together, Torah goads us into making our special contribution to this world.

Of course, the pursuit of wisdom begins with Torah, but should not conclude with Jewish learning alone (although your ability to evaluate the world will be severely limited without it). As Am hasefer, the People of the Book, we value secular scholarship too, for its own sake and as the key to our survival. Complete your studies with vigor; pursue college and advance degrees thereafter. Jewish knowledge and secular studies, combine these and you will be able to more easily pursue your dreams. It is a marriage made in heaven.

Speaking of marriage, back in ancient days, I would have had the privilege of picking out your spouse. Today, thankfully, you choose your own. Allow me to share with you what I have learned about love and marriage. Look not to movies or Madison Avenue advertisements for guidance in your search for a soul mate. Look, rather, for a partner who loves you, who helps you realize your fullest potential, with whom you feel enabled to expand your horizons. And find someone who has a commitment to Jewish life. With them you will share a heritage, and an ethical and spiritual encoding that was programmed into you at the moment of conception, nourished within you from the time you nursed at your mother’s breast. With such a partner, your life will be easier and, I believe, fuller. Yet whomever you choose, Jew or non-Jew, a male or a female, know that we will love you and your partner, and will try to support the life you build together.

I have learned that marriage takes as much if not more work than whatever you get paid to do, but the rewards of these efforts far exceed the paycheck you bring home. Continue to date your partner throughout your life. Make your time with him or her a priority, even when you have children, and share the responsibilities equally. That sage Dear Abby wrote, infatuation is to marriage like fireworks are to fireflies. Though infatuation (even lust) will light up your skies with an overwhelming display of light and noise, a mature, strong marriage – like a firefly – will provide you with a beacon of light to guide you home after a long lonely day in the world. And that, the beacon of light shining forth from my wife’s love, is what keeps me sane in our crazy world.

Mishpacha, your family needs to be a high priority. Mom and I made decisions about where we wanted to live based on our desire to raise you in proximity to your grandparents. Yes, family has the ability to push your buttons like no other, but they also have the ability to accept you and love you unconditionally. Find a way to love your family and they will sustain you through the most challenging of times. Let yourself be separated from them when you are adults, and the tragedy of separation will be passed on as a model for your children as they develop their familial relationships. So call your adult siblings regularly and your parents even more. Throughout your life, make Shalom Bayit, peace in the home, one of your goals, and you will find unparalleled strength as you to venture out into the world.

About work, I have learned this: Find a career path that will allow you to bring goodness into our world. Making money for money’s sake, or even just to support your family, will slowly consume your soul. At the end of the day, you will not sustain yourself without seeking a greater good because the sole pursuit of money and material things is unending. And by the way, don’t try to keep up with the Jones’, because you can never keep up with the Jones’, because there will always be more Jones’ who always will have more.

Be ethical in all that you do – especially at work. Not because otherwise you will get caught – which ultimately you will. Rather, be ethical because it is the right thing to do. Always remember that Hebrew National hotdog commercial. It says it all. You are “responsible to a Higher Authority.”

As you prioritize your time, seek out a synagogue that speaks to your heart. Help it fulfill its mission to educate Jews and to respond Henaynu, that we are here to support each other. Attend services frequently. They will heal and uplift your soul in ways that you will recognize only after you have expended the energy to show up. Al tifros min hatzibur, do not separate yourself from the community, since within community, can we best feel God’s loving Presence.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. Sha’alu Shalom Lirushalayim. Nowhere is the need for shalom more clear and yet often more difficult than in relationship with the State of Israel. But Kol yisrael areivim zeh bazeh – all Jews are responsible for each other. As you know, I am drawn to Israel even now, when most people are staying away. I have traveled there in both good and in difficult times. And I will again. Ahavat Yisrael, the love of Israel that courses through my veins, calls me to stand on her soil and to speak with her people, even at times that others deem dangerous. Just as I cannot imagine a world without you, neither can I imagine a world without Israel. As such, we all must wrap our arms around this tired little nation, comfort and support her, and tell her that Od yavo shalom, peace one day will come.

We can discern in our hearts a special love for Israel as we learn about her past and her present and as we visit her unique, precious places. As this love and connection grows – even before it fully matures – we need to support Israel with our time, energy and money; and dedicate ourselves to her wellbeing b’chol l’vavcha uv’chol nafshecha uv’chol m’odecha – with all our heart, soul and might. That too is part of the purpose for which God placed us on this earth.

You know that I have been studying Talmud with my colleagues. I recently studied the Talmud’s short list of six responsibilities of a parent to his or her children. Curiously, number six was “teach your children to swim.” Why swimming of all things? Did the rabbis witness their own set of tragedies and understand the simplicity of prevention? I wonder if they recognized the poignant symbolism inherent in swimming: that on occasion we all will be thrown into waters over our heads and we need the skills to keep ourselves afloat. In teaching you to swim, we endeavor to provide instruction in more than just the physical act of treading water and self-propulsion. We confirm that within each of us are many diverse tools – physical, emotional, spiritual – to help us navigate the currents of life. We have taught you the power of seeking out others for help and the wisdom of listening closely to their advice and counsel. I hope we have taught you that turning to others for support – friends and school counselors, rabbis and therapists – is the mark of courage and strength, not of weakness or shame. So seek out help when you need it.

Life, you may be learning, is filled with mysteries. The greatest perhaps is why God placed us upon this earth. Recently, I have discovered a hint of that ultimate purpose. Embedded in Torah, in a portion we read every Yom Kippur, are the words: Kedoshim tihiyu ki kadosh Ani Adonai Eloheichem – you are holy because I, the Eternal your God am holy. Life, I believe, is supposed to be about Kedusha, holiness, about those significant yet indescribable moments of inspirational uplift that result from right-minded actions and intentions. Holiness, like spirituality, is not just a state of being; it is a manner of acting within the world by being compassionate, pursuing justice and seeking truth. When we do this right, our actions reflect shutaf Adonai, a partnership with God.

Well, these are the values I cherish. Values which carried me through the dark days of years gone by. I hope they carry you through too. I wrote these down, on Aaron’s advice, as a way to guide and comfort you in the years ahead. Perhaps one day soon you too will follow Aaron’s example and write down your ethical will. It truly is a holy task.

For now, mine kinderlach – my children and the children of my Torah teaching – honor my memory, and your family’s memory, and the tradition passed down midor lador, from generation to generation since the time of Moses, by being holy, by being kadosh. I know you are… May you know you are…

I love you. Love, Daddy.

Standing Tall: Israelis Help Paralyzed People Walk Again

A new Israeli invention is helping paralyzed people walk again.

Something of a mix between the exoskeleton of a crustacean and the suit worn by comic hero Iron Man, the device, called ReWalk, helps paraplegics—people paralyzed below the waist—to stand, walk and climb stairs.

One of these new ReWalk users is former Israeli paratrooper Radi Kaiof, who was injured in 1988 while serving in the Israel Defense Forces. “I never dreamed I would walk again,” Kaiof told Reuters. “After I was wounded, I forgot what it’s like. Only when standing up can I feel how tall I really am and speak to people eye to eye, not from below.”

ReWalk was invented by engineer Amit Goffer, founder of Argo Medical Technologies, a small Israeli high-tech company. “It raises people out of their wheelchair and lets them stand up straight,” Goffer said of his contraption. “It’s not just about health, it’s also about dignity.”

When Goffer speaks about dignity, he understands all too well. He was paralyzed in an accident in 1997 but he cannot use his own invention because he does not have full function of his arms.

ReWalk, which requires crutches to help with balance, consists of motorized leg supports, body sensors and a backpack containing a computerized control box and rechargeable batteries. The user picks a setting with a remote control wrist band—stand, sit, walk, descend or climb—and then leans forward, activating the body sensors and setting the robotic legs in motion.

The ReWalk is now in clinical trials in Tel Aviv’s Sheba Medical Centre, and Goffer said it will soon be used in trials at the Moss Rehabilitation Research Institute in Pennsylvania. Slated for commercial sale in 2010, ReWalk will cost as much as the more sophisticated wheelchairs on the market, which sell for about $20,000, the company said.

Click here to learn more about the ReWalk system.

The Legacy of the Gaza Truce: An Analysis

Understanding the cease-fire/tahadiyeh in Gaza between Israel and Hamas is challenging. Is it a success? A failure? Effective strategy or dangerous lull?

Aluf Benn, in Israel’s Ha’aretz newspaper, offers this analysis. It came to me by way of the Daily Alert (eNewsletter) from the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations prepared by the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs:

The Legacy of the Gaza Truce – by Aluf Benn (Ha’aretz)

  • The tahadiyeh (cease-fire), much more than the Annapolis process, is generating deep-seated change in Palestinian-Israeli relations.
  • Three years after the disengagement, 15 years after Oslo, Israel faces an independent Palestinian entity with full security and civilian responsibilities for a contiguous area in which there are no Israeli soldiers or settlers. Finally there is a Palestinian leadership that demonstrates discipline and enforcement abilities.
  • For better or worse, “Hamastan” is the pilot program of the Palestinian state. The organization controlling it is hostile and hateful and refuses to recognize Israel, and has carried out the worst acts of terror. But under military pressure and the siege at the crossings, its leaders have been persuaded to give a chance to quiet if nervous coexistence.
  • Ya’akov Amidror defined “sufficient victory” over terror as follows: “There are no expectations that ‘terror organizations’ will concede their defeat, sign surrender accords and agree to the holding of ceremonies that will give public expression to their defeat. A victory of this type leads to a drastic decline in the scope of the actions of the ‘terror organizations’ to the minimum possible.”
  • And what has the cease-fire in the South achieved if not such a “drastic decline” in terror? Israel can justifiably claim that it won in the conflict with Hamas, with few losses and without “the major ground action.”

See also Winning Counterinsurgency War: The Israeli Experience – Maj.-Gen. (res.) Ya’akov Amidror (Institute for Contemporary Affairs-Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs)

Texas to Tel Aviv: Inspiring Electric Cars from the Holy Land

Genesis teaches us to be Shomrei Adamah, stewards and protectors of the land, to care and cultivate it. Protecting America requires us to find alternative sources of fuel. Protecting Israel demands both.

In the New York Times, Thomas Friedman writes:

What would happen if you cross-bred J. R. Ewing of “Dallas” and Carl Pope, the head of the Sierra Club? You’d get T. Boone Pickens. What would happen if you cross-bred Henry Ford and Yitzhak Rabin? You’d get Shai Agassi. And what would happen if you put together T. Boone Pickens, the green billionaire Texas oilman now obsessed with wind power, and Shai Agassi, the Jewish Henry Ford now obsessed with making Israel the world’s leader in electric cars?

About Shai Agassi: age 40, is an Israeli software whiz kid who rose to the senior ranks of the German software giant SAP. He gave it all up in 2007 to help make Israel a model of how an entire country can get off gasoline and onto electric cars. He figured no country has a bigger interest in diminishing the value of Middle Eastern oil than Israel.

His idea: Agassi’s plan, backed by Israel’s government, is to create a complete electric car “system” that will work much like a mobile-phone service “system,” only customers sign up for so many monthly miles, instead of minutes. Every subscriber will get a car, a battery and access to a national network of recharging outlets all across Israel — as well as garages that will swap your dead battery for a fresh one whenever needed.

Read on and be amazed when Israeli and American know-how and commitment get hooked up together.