Much Ado About Nothing

 

 

   The title of this Shakespeare play actually sounds better in Hebrew than in English: Rov Mehuma Al Lo Me’uma (רוב מהומה על לא מאומה), and it summarizes the latest rabbinical “scandal” eagerly reported in a New York Times “expose” and just as eagerly picked up by The Jewish Week.  It was reported that Jonathan Rosenblatt, the rabbi of long standing at Riverdale Jewish Center, a prominent Orthodox synagogue in the Bronx, had played squash and racquetball with young male congregants, then showered with them naked (that’s how men usually shower) and sat with them in a sauna or steam room, naked or wrapped in a robe (as men usually are when they use saunas and steam rooms).  This had gone on for decades and reporters at both publications had known about it for decades, but did not report it until now because only now was one person man enough to speak for attribution.  Plenty of others were ready to bad-mouth the rabbi, but only behind a veil of anonymity.

 

   Among the words used to describe Rabbi Rosenblatt’s conduct are “disturbing,” “inappropriate,” “unusual,” and words of that ilk.  Never “illegal” or “criminal.”  By all accounts there was no sexual touching or other sexual misconduct, as occurred in other well-publicized sex scandals involving rabbis.  The New York Times article itself states that “parsing [the rabbi’s conduct] is an exercise in ambiguity.”  If so, and given Rabbi Rosenblatt’s stature, are we not required to be דן לכף זכות, to give the rabbi the benefit of the doubt?

 

  Up until the middle of the 19^th century it was unusual for any observant Jew to play organized sports.  Then Jewish consciousness began to be raised by the Zionist movement and men such as Max Nordau.  Young Jewish men, first secular and then observant, began seeing their bodies and minds as an integrated whole, each feeding off the other.  Orthodox rabbis, however, remained the black-suited, black-hatted purveyors of scholarship and dared not step out of that realm, except maybe to escort congregants to Soviet Jewry demonstrations or Salute to Israel (now Celebrate Israel) parades.  Rabbi Rosenblatt, it seems, was the first to think and act outside of that box, and more power to him.  Several years ago the chief rabbi of Warsaw was attacked and beaten by anti-Semitic Polish hoodlums.  Just imagine if he had been able to give those goons a proper rabbinical butt whooping.  It would have been a tremendous kiddush Hashem, a veritable earthquake, with aftershocks rippling with his muscles through the length and breadth of Poland.  No more would the few Jews left in Poland be seen as easy marks.

 

   One of the anonymous complaints concerned the rabbi lingering in a post-workout shower with the boys and young men with whom he was bonding; there was no rush.  Why should there have been a rush?  Were they expecting a trainload of Jews arriving and having to use the shower?  A shower after a hard fulfilling workout may be routine for others who take their physicality for granted, but for us it is a mystical experience of supernal joy.  That’s water coming out of those shower heads, not gas.  We draw water with joy from the wells of salvation (see Is. 12:3).  Take as long as you want.  Sing, whoop and holler if you feel like it.  Savor the experience as you would good wine.  I remember running races in the summer heat and makeshift showers would be set up along the course.  I’d pump my fist in the air, run through and shout “l’chaim” – to life.  Who needs drugs when you can get high on pure Jewish joy?  It is said that at the entrance to the gas chamber at Auschwitz hung a sign reading  זה השער לה' צדיקים יבאו בו  - This is the gate of the Lord; the righteous shall enter it (Ps. 118:20).  Perhaps the showers of gyms at yeshivot and Jewish community centers should have signs reading יבואו בו זה השער לגאולה חזקים – This is the gate of redemption; the strong shall enter it.  I remember taking showers in school after gym or swimming, naked with my classmates in full view of one another, and thinking nothing of it.  I don’t remember if the teachers showered with us, but if they had it would have been no big deal.

 

   The person who apparently was leading the charge against Rabbi Rosenblatt is female and, not surprisingly, knows nothing about male bonding and male fellowship.   She does not understand why the rabbi “didn’t get”  his alleged judgment error.  Actually, it is she that “doesn’t get it.”  We men need to be with one another where females are absent, to be “out with the boys.”   Time was when construction workers, longshoremen (those brawny fellows who unloaded ships before modern containerization) and such working in Lower Manhattan would, after a hard day’s work, repair to McSorley’s Ale House and enjoy some salty man talk in one another’s company over a pint or two.  No more.  Since 1970 McSorley’s must, per court order, be open to women.  In Russia, Eastern Europe and Turkey the steam bath (and in Scandinavia the sauna) filled the role of McSorley’s.  Jewish men coming here from that part of the world brought the “shvitz” culture with them, and passed it on to their progeny.  So here we have an Orthodox rabbi who worked out with boys and young men, then showered and spent time in the steam room or sauna with them, discussing matters of faith and philosophy in a relaxed atmosphere where they could let their guard down.  Why would any man or boy get uptight over it?  Mothers did, and that is understandable.  Among other functions, these male-only get-togethers removed boys, if only temporarily, from the influence of their overbearing Jewish mothers, taking them out of the world of women and into the world of men.  That can be traumatic for women who can’t let go of their little darlings, but for their sons it is liberating and healthy.

 

   To be sure, there were minor errors in judgment.  Most of them stem from not adhering to a fundamental part of the masculine mystique in America, dating from the Old West, that exhorts us to never say behind a man’s back what you would not say to his face.  Interestingly, this echoes a saying of one of the European ba’alei mussar of the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries: Don’t talk about people; talk to them.  In Israel men are expected to “talk dugri,” i.e. direct and to the point.  Some of the young men were uncomfortable with the rabbi’s style, or so they told reporters years or decades later.  With the passage of time, memory can play tricks, but it is perfectly reasonable that some people would be uncomfortable.  In modern societies (but it would seem not in the primitive ones that renowned anthropologist  Margaret Mead visited) puberty and adolescence is characterized by a great deal of Sturm und Drang.  Young people are prone to read into situations what is not necessarily there.  What one person experiences as a glance, or even thinks nothing of, can be experienced by someone else as gawking.  When I was in high school, a male biology teacher once remarked to a classmate, “those biceps [mine] are unreal.”  Having been lifting weights for several years,  I took it as a compliment, large biceps still being unusual in American yeshiva boys in the 1960s.  Given the anxieties teenage boys experience about their sexuality, anxieties not addressed by the limudei kodesh teachers (only one specific act is Biblically prohibited), some other boy might have experienced the same remark as “creepy.”  The boys and young men who were uncomfortable with nudity in the shower and/or steam room should have simply told the rabbi.  Alternatively, they could have asked him if this was appropriate behavior for a rabbi, perhaps citing sources if they could.  It could have opened the door to some interesting and healthy conversation.  One student recalled getting sick in yeshiva and being driven home by the rabbi, with pleasant conversation in the car.  When they arrived at the student’s home (the parents were not present), the rabbi suggested the boy might be more comfortable if he changed into a bathrobe.  This was not far-fetched; yeshiva clothes can be distinctly uncomfortable, especially when one is not feeling well to begin with.  The boy did not want to change, and told the rabbi.  According to the boy’s recollection, the rabbi stayed in the student’s house (is there any yihud issue between two males?) and persisted in trying to get the boy to change.  With 20/20 hindsight I understand and sympathize with the boy feeling put in an awkward spot.  Some of the people involved were so put off that they chose another synagogue to attend.  This too is nothing out of the ordinary; in any community where there is a choice of synagogues congregants come and congregants go.  Leaving is the best solution when a personality clash between congregant and rabbi is so deep that remaining together becomes untenable.  Others, however, benefited a good deal from those encounters and are appalled that the rabbi, to their way of thinking, became the object of a malicious smear campaign (lashon ha-ra) years later.  Students in Yeshiva University kept coming, of their own volition, to do rabbinic internships with him even when the university stopped sending students his way due to complaints, some of which were justified.  The power relationships between rabbi and intern could create the appearance that the scantily clad shvitz sessions were necessary for the intern’s career advancement.  Similar situations could occur between professors and undergraduate or graduate students at a secular university; today professors assiduously avoid any interaction that can give any such appearance.

 

   The entire matter seems to have been resolved to most everybody’s satisfaction.  The rabbi will be staying out the few years remaining on his contract.  This resolution was reached after a frank exchange between rabbi and congregants, accompanied according to press reports by self-flagellation on the part of the rabbi that I think was unnecessary given that few if any people came to any serious harm.  I fail to see any hillul Hashem here, nor any reason for the rabbi to feel broken. We all recall positive and negative interactions with authority figures in our lives, interactions as inevitable as they are universal.  If there is anybody among us who never committed errors in judgment, he or she may cast a stone.  The rest of us mortals live in glass houses.

 

 

 



Don't be fools - vaccinate your children

 

משוט בארץ ומהתהלך בה. . . .    

From flitting about the earth and traversing it (Job 1:7). . .

 

http://acsh.org/2015/04/rfk-jr-equates-vaccinations-to-a-holocaust-yes-he-went-there


The American Council on Science and Health, a watchdog group that ferrets out junk science and overhyped claims in the media and in the utterances and writings of public figures, released a report recently about a speech by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a public screening of an antivaccine film.  The ACSH report states as follows: 

 

Well-known vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attended the Sacramento screening of anti-vaccine “documentary” Trace Amounts on Tuesday and gave a speech to the audience, and as expected, it was filled with dangerous and unscientific misinformation. In light of the upcoming hearing for California Senate Bill 277, which eliminates the personal belief exemption for vaccines, RFK Jr. told the audience that public health officials and policy-makers can’t be trusted.

“They can put anything they want in that vaccine and they have no accountability for it,” he reportedly told the crowd. “[Children] get the shot, that night they have a fever of a hundred and three, they go to sleep, and three months later their brain is gone. This is a holocaust, what this is doing to our country.” Kennedy left the stage to a standing ovation.

“Trace Amounts” tells the story of filmmaker Eric Gladen, who believes he suffered mercury poisoning from thimerosal after receiving a tetanus vaccine in 2004. RFK Jr. has long been spewing out misinformation regarding thimerosal, a mercury-containing preservative that was used in vaccines up until 2001. Although the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American Academy of Pediatrics, and the Institute of Medicine have all determined that thimerosal is safe, it was removed from vaccines (with the exception of some flu shots) as a precautionary measure due to backlash by misguided parents and the anti-vaccine hysteria fomented by advocacy groups and dangerous demagogues like RFK Jr.

Yet he and his followers are still vehemently against vaccines, even though this preservative that was determined safe was removed from childhood vaccines almost 15 years ago. In response, Sen. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, a pediatrician, and author of SB 277, called Kennedy’s continued activism deceitful. “I think it is dangerous that he is spreading misinformation about something that’s very important for public health,” he said. “Autism rates have continued to rise even though we are not using thimerosal in vaccines for children. We still haven’t figured out exactly what causes autism. We do know it’s not vaccines.”

Despite the facts, “Trace Amounts” and RFK Jr. are unfortunately still making an impact on the vaccine “debate.” Kennedy has credited the documentary with helping to stall Oregon’s mandatory vaccine bill. And although RFK Jr. has no scientific credentials, people continue to listen to him because of his name. 


This is astounding and infuriating, in part because the son of our martyred Senator stated that the alleged damage done to children by vaccines amounted to a holocaust (in fairness to him, the "h" was not capitalized).  The real Holocaust snuffed out the lives of one and a half million Jewish children and their future progeny to the end of time.  Today the Orthodox community seems to be experiencing more than its share of outbreaks of totally preventable childhood diseases like measles and mumps. Rumors fly thick and fast through Jewish media whose editorial staffs are, to put it mildly, not well versed in science, that vaccines are dangerous and cause autism.  Many haredim seldom if ever avail themselves of secular media that might disabuse them of that notion.  Most of the hysteria originates with a report in a medical journal supposedly documenting a link between vaccines and autism.  That report has since been thoroughly discredited and retracted from the journal.  Such retractions rarely happen, but here it turns out that the authors of the discredited report were in cahoots with lawyers who were ready to sue vaccine manufacturers  for millions; the authors presumably were to share in the proceeds (yes, scientists, physicians and lawyers can have a taavah [unwholesome craving] for money).  Of course, many children are vaccinated, some children contract autism (we don’t know why) and the two sets have a small intersection, but that is to be expected.  It does not prove that the two are in any way related.

  We do know that our present situation of most children living to have their own is unprecedented in human history.  The normal human condition was for childhood mortality to be horrendously high.  Some of our siddurim contain selihot l’tahaluei yeladim, penitential prayers to be recited during an epidemic of a children’s disease.  I cannot recall those prayers ever being recited in our community or in any American Jewish community.  But I have visited old Jewish cemeteries in New York and have seen large sections containing little tiny gravestones for little tiny children.  Most of these children doubtless died of childhood diseases that have since, praise God, been conquered by vaccines.  I might add that those vaccines were developed by people, many of them Jewish, who attended college and studied science.  Some of those gravestones are in the process of sinking into the ground; the parents of the deceased were too poor to pay for perpetual care and are long since gone.

Babies’ graves at Union Field Cemetery on the Brooklyn-Queens border

 

  

  Before my granddaughter was born, my daughter told me to get a “T-Dap” shot; pertussis (aka whooping cough) was making a comeback and the vaccine we received as children loses its effectiveness as we grow older.  This was not optional; either I got the shot or I would not be allowed anywhere near the baby.  I got the shot – a very minor inconvenience for my granddaughter’s and other babies’ well being.  Since then, I had my blood tested for antibodies for measles, mumps and rubella.  I still have adequate antibodies against all three and will not need boosters.  I do not want to see tragic sights like the one in this picture in newer Jewish cemeteries and there is an easy way to avoid it: EVERY CHILD MUST BE VACCINATED AGAINST CHILDHOOD DISEASES AS PER PROTOCOLS OF PUBLIC HEALTH AUTHORITIES.

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mayhem in Midwood

Last Friday, residents of Ocean Parkway between Avenues I and J in the Midwood section of Brooklyn were awakened before dawn by sirens and the sound of burning cars. Vandals had set three automobiles afire, apparently by placing gasoline-soaked rags under them and igniting the rags. Swastikas, "KKK" and anti-Semitic slogans were scrawled on the sidewalk as well. This occurred the day after the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the infamous pogrom in Germany that presaged the Holocaust; authorities believe it was not a coincidence. This afternoon, it was discovered that vandals defaced a sign at the Avenue J subway station, renaming it "Avenue Jew."






















Torched cars along Ocean Parkway



























Sign at subway station, defaced to read "Avenue Jew"






















Two days ago was the Yahrzeit of Rabbi Meir Kahane hy"d. When attacks like these happened 40 years ago, he knew what to do and didn't hesitate to do it. Young, strong, tough members of the Jewish Defense League would fan out over the neighborhood beat up anybody they caught attacking Jews and Jewish property. The language of Eisav is the only language these goons understand. We will never be comfortable with it, I hope, but sometimes we have to "speak" it. The police promised to do what they can, but they cannot be everywhere at once, and their numbers are sharply curtailed because of the bad economy. Thank God, nobody was hurt in these incidents, except Holocaust survivors who probably suffered severe emotional trauma at the sight of swastikas on the sidewalk. These were crimes against property, which the police usually assign low priority. Murders, rapes, armed robberies and such get first dibs on the limited resources of law enforcement.



Here is what we can do:

1. If you're strong, take care of yourself and stay strong. If you're not strong, get strong. We know how; we're just lazy or we have our priorities screwed up thanks to two millenia of that crime against nature known as galut.

2. No Jew has any business smoking. It is a one way ticket to sickness, weakness, a miserable life and an early death.

3. Be alert, but follow your normal routine. Show no weakness and no fear. Walk with your head held high, and your hat (black or otherwise), kippa sruga or whatever securely on it. The people who do these dirty deeds want to instill fear in us. Let's instill a little fear in them. Don't be the rasha, the wicked son who lives in the generation of redemption but refuses to be redeemed.

May we all live to see the redemption come to its glorious conclusion.

The Big Weiner

Help! I have to pay taxes but I'm without representation in Congress. So are all the other poor heavily taxed voters in Congressional District 9. Our Congressman, Anthony Weiner, resigned over a sex scandal, or perhaps a non-sex, or just plain nonsense, scandal. It will be several months before we can have a special election for someone to warm Weiner's seat until the regular election in November 2012, by which time the district may well be gerrymandered out of existence in the mandated redistricting. New York is slated to lose two seats in the House of Representatives based on the results of the latest census.

Remember former Governor Eliot Spitzer? He too resigned over a sex scandal, when his patronizing of prostitutes (okay, high-class "call girls") came to light. He was known in the little black books as "Client Nine." Maybe there's some kind of jinx in the number nine. But Mr. Weiner never, as far as is known, had sex with a prostitute or with anybody other than his new wife. The whole donnybrook is over pictures sent to women (and a 17-year-old girl) over the internet. The pictures are all over the Web now, and we can judge them for ourselves. Just Google "Weiner crotch" and "Weiner shirtless." Somehow, conservative columnist Andrew Breitbart got hold of some of them and made them public. I nominate Andrew Breitbart for tzara'at. He is guilty of gossipmongering for transparent political reasons. Anthony Weiner has been a most effective Congressman, delivering the goods to his district (e.g. "Weiner's Cleaners" powerwashing graffiti off walls) and advocating for a strong foreign policy, and bucking his own Democratic Party in the process. He is also a skilled debater and a forceful advocate for President Obama's health care reforms. I have my reservations there, especially as regards his single-payer proposals. I also want to keep the generous health-care package that the United Federation of Teachers negotiated for me. But these issues deserve to be debated on their merits, not scuttled by dirty gossip from the opposition.

As far as I am aware, the Congressman did not send pictures of himself naked, as so much of the media implied. He sent pictures of himself in his underwear, with a discreet outline of his genitals visible. People of a certain age will remember "Underwear That's Funtawear." The men's briefs featured a strategically placed "Big Mac" or "Home of the Whopper" (I'm sure McDonald's and Burger King raked in handsome profits). The women's panties declared their owners "Slippery When Wet." None of us got particularly uptight; if we didn't like the message we didn't wear the underwear. And today pictures much more risque than the ones Mr. Weiner sent out are all over the web.

Are the Weiner photos any worse than this wrestler, available on a public site?

As far as the shirtless photos go, the man was in a gym for heaven's sake. What is inappropriate about being bare-chested in a gym? Those poor women saw nothing that all of us do not see every day this time of year. Add to that guilt-by-innuendo, when columnists opined that "some of the women might have been under age." The people making the charges have the burden of proof, and none was forthcoming. The age of consent in New York is seventeen. Authorities in the jurisdiction where the 17-year-old in question resided did not have a problem, and neither did the girl's parents, so why do the media have a problem? Conservative pundit Dennis Prager declared that what the Congressman did was worse than an extramarital affair (in which more than one Congressman is known to have indulged), and asked if a teenage boy would rather have his father look at raunchy pictures or have an affair. Well, I'd rather he looked at pictures. Nobody ever contracted a venereal disease from pictures. So Mr. Weiner gave in to a yetzer hara. We all do that on occasion.

What bothers me more than sending the pictures is lying about them once they came to light. If Mr. Weiner was running for the first time, that probably would have caused me to vote against him or sit out the election. But he was our Congressman for a long time, and a very good one. As long as he did not break the law or Congress' code of ethics, the media feeding frenzy was far more unseemly than anything Weiner did. And the feeding frenzy is going to have a chilling effect on the body politic for years to come. If sainthood is now a requirement for public office, who would want to seek public office? Everyone of us is a package. You take us with our good qualities and our faults. And ordinary people will also suffer. I am a biology teacher. It is not beyond the realm of possibility that a 13-year-old student could contact me on the Web with questions about human reproduction. I have no way of verifying her age; neither, probably, did Mr. Weiner. If I keep the conversation on a high level (anatomical names for body parts) but give the student the straight answers she was probably not getting at home or in school, have I done anything wrong? Might I get in trouble for it years down the pike? Such a climate of fear is not healthy for teachers, students or other living things.

We live in a society where sex is used to sell everything from automobiles to zirconia. It is hypocritical, to put it mildly, to jump on a Congressman who sent pictures of himself that were mildly inappropritate (I would not have sent them if I were in his place). So now we lost an effective public official over a tempest in a teapot. Stay tuned.

Too Hot To Handle

As I wrote in my last post, I ran a race in Lower Manhattan last week, put on by the American Heart Association to raise money and awareness about the nation's Number One killer. I wore a top, custom designed by me, with the REBUILD flag in front and Osama's bullet-riddled ugly mug in back. The Heart Association posted a photo album with pictures of the race and the people running it to its Facebook page, and sent an email to all participants asking us to upload photos of our own. I sent two photos that I asked a fellow runner to take of me in my top celebrating after the race - celebrating the first fulfilling warm-weather run of the year and, in my case at least, the demise of our archfoe who killed thousands of us on the very ground we ran past; I gave a fist pump when I ran past it. The pictures are here, along with the captions I sent them with:











Here's the front of my shirt - Build 'em BOTH and build 'em TALL. Show the murdering bastards who's boss in New York.

I ran this year; I try to run it every year even though I don't work in the area. While crossing the bridge from the staging area to the start, I said a prayer for the 3000 good Americans killed for the greater glory of Allah, and pumped my fist and shouted "Build 'em tall" when we passed where they died. My custom-made shirt said "Ding Dong the witch is dead." So shall all your enemies perish, Lord.




The next day I discovered that the photos were no longer in the album. I emailed the Heart Association, and its communications director confirmed that he deleted them, since "[w]e don’t feel your photos are appropriate for our audience or the intention of our page." Well, who does "our audience" consist of? Mostly patriotic Americans, I hope. Maybe some tourists, maybe an evildoer or two casing the joint. Why not let them know that we are defiant and we will do whatever it takes to maintain our way of life? And what was our intention? To celebrate, and this pregnant year gave us a little bit more to celebrate.
Have we really reached the point where Old Glory, a plea to see two skyscrapers destroyed by a foreign enemy not even ten years ago rebuilt [Don't we pray three times a day for the rebuilding of the Beit Mikdash, destroyed nearly two millenia ago?] and happiness over a significant triumph of American arms are too hot for a charity that raises funds from good Americans to handle? What is this country coming to?

Schnorring for Jailbirds

A while ago I received a letter in the mail asking for money. Nothing new there; I always get missives soliciting funds for this or that poor family whose breadwinner fell on hard times due to the recession, chronic illness or perhaps he can't get a decent job because he never got a decent education. You see, sitting all day learning Torah does not prepare you for the job market. And sitting all day doing whatever is not conducive to good health. And having many children bli ayin hara with no visible means of support predisposes you to all sorts of stress-related diseases. But this particular letter hit a new low: they are asking for donations to aid the families of Jewish prison inmates, as well as the inmates themselves. Now, these ehrliche yidden are not in jail because they plunked themselves down in front of the Soviet mission. Nor are they there for running a red light. They are there because they committed serious crimes - in some cases felonies. My reaction was not pity but anger: How dare you do what you did, disgrace our people and then ask for charity? How dare you? Here is the text of the letter:

The letter's "poster child" is a teary-eyed little girl whose father is serving a five-year prison sentence for tax evasion. It is stated right up front, without a trace of shame, as if it was normal for Jews to go to prison for cheating on their taxes. As if it was mutar (religiously permissible) to steal from the government, especially our benevolent government. The accompanying material speaks of children suffering for their parents' mistakes. Mistakes? Those parents did not know what they were doing? You don't go to jail for honest mistakes on your tax return. You pay what you owe plus penalties and interest and - finished. The organization's website speaks of providing legal services so that "poverty never dooms one to prison." Guess what? For centuries we lived in grinding poverty under tyrannical Jew-hating regimes where there was no opportunity for economic advancement, and few if any of us went to prison for stealing from the government. Imagine the pogroms that would ensue if they had! And now, in this enlightened country? It's almost routine for Jews to be caught in all manner of white-collar crimes. We are treated on a regular basis to "religious" Jews in full "uniform" - black coat, black hat, the works - led away in handcuffs with the TV cameras rolling. Oh, these families don't have TVs in the house, or computers. Well, guess what? The rest of the world does and the hillul Hashem is incalculable. There is a kosher food program in prison, daily minyanim, Daf Yomi classes, ad infinitum ad nauseam. Prison officials have been fired for giving Jewish inmates special privileges not available to other inmates; one inmate was allowed to host his son's Bar Mitzvah celebration in jail. We are asked to take pity on the criminals' wives, "living as widows with no end to their grief." I find it hard to believe that those wives had no inkling of their husbands' chicanery. For these people it's okay to cheat "the dumb goyim," as long as you don't get caught. Well, guess what? Those "dumb goyim" are not as dumb as you think. And some of the IRS and FBI detectives are Jews, and some are even observant Jews. Why not? It's a living, and an honest one. And when someone cheats on his taxes he's picking the pockets of all honest taxpayers who have to pay more to make up for his thievery. Chances are excellent that you will be caught, you will be sent to prison, you will disgrace your family. And when that happens, don't you dare to add insult to injury by schnorring for charity. There is a word for that: chutzpah. We have urgent needs of our own, like providing honestly for our own families in this economy. We Americans have a saying: If you can't do the time, don't do the crime.

Twiblings

In last Sunday's New York Times magazine there is an article about two babies who were produced in a most unusual way, even in today's age of assisted reproduction. A woman married late in life, wanted children, and could not become pregnant naturally or after several rounds of in vitro fertilization (IVF). She then developed a medical condition that compromised her ability to carry a child safely, so carrying a child conceived with a donor egg was not an option. She and her husband decided to hire two surrogates to carry two embryos with eggs from the same donor (not one of the surrogates) fertilized in vitro with the husband's sperm.

IVF itself is old hat, having been available since the 1970s. It is not unheard-of for a woman with good eggs but unable to sustain a pregnancy to hire a surrogate to carry a child conceived from the woman's egg and her husband's sperm. It is quite common, as such things go, for a woman without good eggs but capable of carrying a child to carry one conceived from a donor egg and her husband's sperm. That is how women in their 50s and even 60s carry to term and give birth. But combining the two is quite unheard-of, at least according to the article's author. Genetically the two children, a boy and a girl born five days apart, are full siblings, but siblings are supposed to be born at least nine months apart unless they are twins. Twins are supposed to share a womb, but these babies did not. Hence - twiblings.

The article did not indicate if the couple was Jewish, so I assume it was not. But if it was, and sooner or later a Jewish women is going to have a child that way, I could imagine some halakhic problems arising. The birth certificate listed the man's wife as the legal mother, as is usual in such assisted reproduction cases. But halakhically, who is the child's mother? The gestational carrier (0ne for each baby)? The egg donor ("genetic mother")? Or the man's wife, who is actually raising the children? If the gestational carrier and/or the egg donor is not Jewish, does the child need to convert, as is the case for an adopted child? If there were two different biological fathers, would the children be allowed to marry each other? If the baby is the first carried by its gestational carrier, does it need pidyon haben? What if it's the first child of the father's wife, or of the egg donor? I could probably think of a few others, but these seem daunting enough. Resolving these quandaries will require poskim well-versed in human reproductive biology and not so put off by the newfangled technology that emotion will interfere with their thinking. Given the current anti-intellectual climate in our community, and the anti-secular trends in Jewish education, such people will be increasingly hard to come by.

Point - Counterpoint

In a post written on the occasion of R. Meir Kahane's yahrzeit, I referred to an essay written by an American student in an Israeli yeshiva describing his physical breakdown while supposedly growing in Torah scholarship. I just became aware of another student, a recent graduate of my alma mater Yeshivah of Flatbush, who is studying in an Israeli yeshiva and at the same time training for the first full 42-kilometer marathon to be held in Jerusalem this coming spring. Not only is he training, he is spreading the gospel (deep breath, all it means is "good news") of fitness to his buddies and getting them to train. And they are not sacrificing their learning either.



Click here.



Kol Hakavod to all of them. They are real authentic Jews learning - and living - the real Torah. R. Kahane would be proud. And for a shot of fluid and carbs when they are drenched with holy Jewish sweat, they should try this:





It's the real thing!

Snowbound - Don't mess with Mother Nature

On Sunday night, December 26, a monster snowstorm barreled into New York City. By the time the snow stopped falling about noon Monday, better than two feet of snow was on the ground in some places. High winds continued to cause blowing and drifting until this morning (Tuesday). Shoveling was a Sisyphean task; as soon as one shoveled, fresh or blowing snow obliterated the work. Many homeowners just didn't bother shoveling until late yesterday or today. I was not one of them; I had cleared a path on my stretch of sidewalk Monday morning, and spread calcium chloride on the pavement. My wife could not go to work yesterday because the streets were treacherous when not downright impassable; two broken ankles are enough, thank you very much.



But the point of this post is to show how people made the effects of the storm far worse than they had to be. In Yiddish there is a word "knacker," (both k's pronounced) which has been translated as "big shot," but more often is used sarcastically to describe a person who thinks he's a big shot but he's really a stupid fool. We all knew a day in advance that the storm was coming. The Mayor advised people to keep their cars off the roads. In a storm of this magnitude, most private cars without four wheel drive, and even some with, are likely to get stuck in the snow and block snowplows from removing the snow and making the road minimally navigable. They also block ambulances and fire trucks, with sometimes fatal consequences. Did New Yorkers heed the advice? Too many did not. For instance, my side street had two private cars stuck in the snow, one traveling the wrong way up the one-way street. Knackers. Snowplows couldn't get through; luckily, to the best of my knowledge, nobody needed an ambulance and fire engines did not need to pass. We have a terrific Hatzalah here in Midwood, but even the best Hatzalah people cannot make their ambulances fly over a car that's blocking the street. And even a mild snowstorm presents the danger of unfit people having heart attacks shoveling snow. The drivers of those cars abandoned their vehicles; anyone stranded in a car in this weather is in danger of hypothermia. The cars remained on my street for hours until they could be towed away.

Scenes like this were common; knackers who thought they
were bigger than nature made life miserable for many others.

As if individual wiseguys with total disregard for the common good weren't bad enough, the city was inexcusably caught off guard. Again, we all had advance warning that this storm was on the way. That should have given all concerned ample time to prepare. For individuals this means assuming the worst. Roads will be impassable, stores will not be getting deliveries even if they can open, so stock up on food for several days. Bring everything that can blow around and cause damage indoors (cf. Ex. 9:19 in this week's parsha). Make sure you have sufficient supplies of salt (calcium chloride is more expensive than sodium chloride but it won't harm concrete) and snow shovels. If you are too ill or out of shape to shovel snow, arrange for someone else to do it; here's in opportunity for yeshiva students to earn hesed credit. Then hunker down. Don't be a knacker. Unless you are performing an essential service (police, fire, Hatzalah, etc) do not try to get to work. You will only make a bad situation worse - much worse - for yourself and others. Health care facilities that must be staffed need to make arrangements for skeleton crews to sleep in the facility the night before, so they will be at work when needed. For the City, it means be prepared. The Mayor should have declared a state of emergency and banned private vehicles from the road rather than relying on individuals to be civic-minded and stay home. The threat of hefty fines should deter most of the knackers. Snowplows, salt spreaders and their crews needed to be ready to clear the roads and the subway tracks. Elevated trains cannot run if the snow is deep enough to cover the third rail, and this time it was more than deep enough. One train was stranded for several hours in sight of a station. Without power the heat failed and riders shivered in the cold; luckily nobody became seriously hypothermic. The Brighton line (B and Q) that serves my neighborhood is completely out of service - Astoria to Coney Island - as of this writing! That means that people who might be able to get to work by train were unable to do so and were tempted to drive.

This storm was unusual but hardly unprecedented. People of a certain age remember snowfalls of two feet or more that crippled the city - for a day at most. Preparedness is the key. So is recognizing that nobody is bigger than Mother Nature. Don't be a knacker. If nature says don't drive, don't drive. We just have to live with the fact that we can't always get around in December as if it was May (those who plan weddings in wintertime - hint, hint). And the authorities must rein in the knackers and take the political fallout; that's what we elected them for. And don't hide behind "no money" either. Recession or not, we depend on government to provide essential services. Private cars blocked buses and ambulances, but they did not block trains. Failure to clear the elevated tracks is entirely the fault of the city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, and our elected officials must be held to account. And oh yes, get yourselves in shape so you can shovel your own snow next year.

Scientists are telling us that heavy snowfalls (we had several last year too, but not as bad) will be more frequent, ironically, due to the planet warming up. Warm air holds more moisture than cold, so when a moisture-laden air mass travels north and cools below the freezing point, it dumps its water as snow. What we had yesterday may well be the shape of things to come. As the Boy Scouts say, be prepared.

Hesed Shel Emet - A Modest Proposal

This term figures in Parshat Vayehi, to be read two weeks from this Shabbat, where Yaakov extracts from his sons a promise to carry his body out of Egypt and bury him in Israel. It refers to "true kindness," that shown to the dead who cannot reciprocate in this world. We Jews place a high value on respectful handling and prompt burial of the dead. Ideally, all handling and preparation, as well as the burial itself, should be performed by observant Jews.

I explained in a previous post how it saddens me to see a casket wheeled out the back door of the funeral chapel on a cart like a bale of dry goods being wheeled to a loading dock. It should be carried instead by strong Jewish men. That is usually the case at the cemetery itself, where relatives and friends of the deceased carry the casket to the open grave, lower it and fill the grave with earth. However, I recently had occasion to attend the funeral of a family friend's mother where this was not the case. Death occurred on a Thursday, and the funeral was held the next day. Friday at this time of year is a bad day for a funeral, as if there was any such thing as a good day for one, what with people having to work and prepare for Shabbat. The chapel was practically empty, and there was no minyan at the cemetery for Kaddish to be recited. Of the men that were there, most were elderly and unable to handle a shovel. The Gentile cemetery workers had to carry the casket from the hearse to the grave and lower it in. I and one or two others shoveled as much earth as we could and covered the casket, and then the cemetery workers completed the filling-in.

All this happened because of the timing and the fact that the deceased had few friends or relatives who could attend. It no doubt happens too often for comfort. The resulting indignity could be mitigated if the cemetery workers were observant Jews. Part of the sickness of galut is an aversion to manual labor, as if it was shameful to make a living with one's hands. But not everybody is capable of mastering the Talmud or memorizing the Krebs Cycle. There are people who cannot sit in one place and focus on a text for any length of time, but who like to make things, fix things and otherwise work with their hands. Our society marginalizes such people instead of making use of their talents. If they are blessed with physical strength, they could support themselves honorably by handling Jewish burials when no other Jews are available. Such work might also appeal to recent graduates temporarily unable to find jobs in their fields. As a side benefit, the work itself would keep the workers fit and strong. And they will be getting paid for it in both worlds.

In Memoriam: Rabbi Meir Kahane

Real Torah vs Fake Toyrah

We recently commemmorated the twentieth yahrzeit of Rabbi Meir Kahane hy"d, murdered by an Arab terrorist in New York in the fall of 1990. I came under his influence as a high school student in the 1960s, through his columns in the Jewish Press and his numerous public appearances in Brooklyn. I had enrolled in one of the karate programs that his Jewish Defense League had set up in Brooklyn. One day after class Rabbi Kahane came in and spoke to us. He told us it was high time young Jewish men were doing this, that if we were to survive in our changing neighborhoods rife with anti-Jewish assaults we would have to break the stereotype of the Jewish "patsy" (his word), gentle, scholarly, unaccustomed to (and repelled by) fighting, unable or unwilling to defend himself. This was not news to me. A while before, in 1967, I had begun lifting weights and transforming myself from a sickly little boy into a robust young athlete. I had begun living "muscular Judaism" before becoming aware of the phrase.

Rabbi Kahane taught us that the Torah as studied and lived by generations of Jews in galut (exile) was not the genuine article. I might add that even the typical European pronunciation of the word, Toyrah (as if a yod followed the holam), has an unmanly, kvetchy ring to it. Rabbi Kahane taught us that there is nothing Jewish about being physically weak, unable to stand up for ourselves in the street, and ultimately being herded naked into gas chambers. In fact, it was the essense of hillul Hashem (desecration of God's Name). I am reminded of visiting the Holocaust memorial at Mount Zion in Jerusalem on my first trip to Israel with my family for my Bar Mitzvah. The guide pointed to several bars of soap in the front and told us that they were made from the bodies of Jewish victims and were inscribed with the German initials for "Pure Jewish Fat." It would be laughable if it were not so disgusting and tragic. Since then, all soap, ashes and other derivatives of Jewish bodies at that memorial were properly buried. The Germans discontinued soap manufacture because it was uneconomical, not due to any shortage of Jewish fat. Neither is there any shortage of Jewish fat today; look around in shul and you'll see more pregnant men than pregnant women. Well, nobody is going to get much soap from this (58-yr-old) Jew. The real Torah, according to Rabbi Kahane, presumed normal Jews and a normal Jewish nation. Jews who do not sit all day and half the night hunched over books. Jews who work Jewish soil in the hot Israeli sun. Tough, strong Jews who crush any enemy that dares attack us. The kind of Jews that we meet in Tanakh, the study of which, he taught, is sadly neglected in most yeshivot [but not in my alma mater, Yeshivah of Flatbush].

Cut to 2010. I'm in the bakery shopping for Shabbat and pick up a free copy of the Five Towns Jewish Times. I turn to an article titled "Olympians We're Not" by one "Talmid X," who is spending the now-customary post-high-school year at an Israeli yeshiva. The author describes his physical breakdown caused by sitting for most of the day in a "beis medrash" (Would someone please tell me how a hirik got transformed into a segol?). He tells of how a fifteen-minute stint in the Israeli sun heaving around "enormous sacks of potatoes" had him spending the rest of the afternoon in a bathroom stall suffering from dehydration (and presumably diarrhea). He describes the Israeli summer sun as "boiling", and an "oven. . .set at approximately two million degrees." Well, guess what? I was in that Israeli sun in 1974, when I was roughly his age. I spent the major part of the day not hunched over books but picking grapes in Kibbutz Sde Eliyahu in Emek Bet She'an. I ate like a farm hand because that's what I was, and I did not gain a pound. When I and my friends were not working in the fields we were traipsing all over the country, climbing hills and exploring caves. We traveled in a pickup truck, not an air conditioned bus. We hiked up Masada, the cable car being for weaklings only (when it passed overhead, we called out "too-reest, too-reest"). Talmid X, at best, engages in over-the-top hyperbole that discredits the rest of what he has to say: Just how heavy were those "enormous sacks of potatoes" that broke him in fifteen minutes? At worst, he commits the sin of the meraglim, the spies sent by Moshe Rabbeinu who returned with a report full of lashon hara about Israel. Ovens were the fate of weak Jews before there was an Israel. The Israeli sun is wonderful. It's beautiful. It challenges boys and, if they rise to it, turns them into men. The human organism is designed to function in the heat. Our ancestors made their living running gazelles down to exhaustion in the hot African sun. If 15 minutes in the sun dehydrated Talmid X, then the problem is Talmid X, not the sun. Diarrhea is most likely the result of eating food that was not properly refrigerated, though dehydration can make it worse. At any rate, Imodium works like a charm. Here are a few pointers for managing summer heat.

A Jew is commanded to take care of his/her health and avoid behavior that will make him sick, e.g. smoking and sedentary living. Just as we cannot say that we're too busy learning and have no time to put on tefilin, we can't say that we're too busy learning to keep ourselves healthy. If the yeshiva does not give you time to exercise, then make the time. Even if it means you arrive late for a shi'ur or skip one. Sick Jews learn sick "Toyrah," and dead Jews don't learn any. Get up a bunch of friends and work out together. Your yeshiva probably has a mashgiah ruhani; make yourself the unofficial mashgiah gufani. You might find yourself gaining fresh insights into your learning while you're running around in your underwear; strange and beautiful things happen when your heart's pumping rhythm to your brain. You might even want to carry around one of those voice-activated recorders to record those insights, flesh them out when you get back and surprise whoever is riding you for missing shi'ur. The worst thing that can happen is you'll be kicked out of that yeshiva. So? Find another one, one that teaches the real Torah and not the distorted and corrupt Toyrah.

Hot Fun in the Summertime

Okay fellaz, it's my favorite time of year. SUMMER! And it's a hot one. I'm a hot weather nut; sue me. I'm not walking around in a haze of depression. My body, mind and spirit are open to the sensual pleasures of the season. The simple pleasures that you don't experience in your air conditioned room. The feel of the wind against your chest. The sound of leaves rustling in the breeze. The sight of people in parks and playgrounds, all sizes and colors, having fun. The feel of my chest heaving and muscles pumping on a run, of sunshine on my shoulders, of my body glistening with sweat. The ethereal spiritual experience of davening minha in Prospect Park, dressed in running clothes, surrounded by natural beauty and children at play. Rav Nachman of Bratslav [Bratislava, Slovakia] used to leave town to daven in natural settings; maybe he knew something that today's uptight gedolim don't.



You can't run in Brooklyn without straying out of your immediate neighborhood, in my case Midwood. Go to the north and east (Crown Heights, Prospect Park, Brownsville, East New York) or south (Coney Island) and you see a commodity that is increasingly rare in Midwood - real men. Men who respect themselves enough to take care of themselves. Men who are strong and vital. Men like the one you see here are not at all unusual outside the frum community. They refresh my soul, and provide a needed antidote to the ever-increasing number of poor excuses of men I see in shul, men with fat bellies that resemble those of pregnant women. Call me a Hellenist, but these people offend my esthetic sensibilities and, along with the building being overcooled, sabotage the experience of tefilla. In my peregrinations outside the frum community I see men after my own heart; they enjoy the season and are not above having a little fun. And guess how many times I was physically attacked or threatened by any of them? Zero. Zilch. Zip. Nada. We pass each other and no words need be spoken. A wink, a nod, a gesture communicates the message. We belong to the fraternity of the fit, the brotherhood of real men. We're better than all those weaklings cooped up in their air conditioned rooms letting life pass them by.







And yet I'm surrounded, as I never am in the bleak winter, by people whining and kvetching. Oh, it's soooooo hot. It's boiling. It's gross. And the government chimes in with its "heat advisories." Let the temperature break 90 F and the public health authorities are telling people to stay inside with the air conditioner, don't go out, don't God forbid do anything strenuous. This in a society where more than half of all people, children included, are overweight or obese; I suppose the fat pigs outside the frum community heed these warnings and stay indoors when the weather gets hot. When you're writing heat advisories for the majority in New York, you're writing them for the fat, the weak and the self-pampered. So let me take a stab at writing a heat advisory for strong, fit men - and any females who actually use their bodies instead of merely inhabiting them (I think of them as "honorary men").





1. Stay away from air conditioning as much as possible, except on fast days when you can't drink. In about two weeks you will acclimatize to the heat and actually feel cold in temperatures you consider warm in the winter. Our ancestors made their living chasing down big game on foot in a tropical climate; our genes have not changed much since then. Going in and out of air conditioned surroundings confuses the brain; it doesn't know what temperature regime to adjust to.


2. Hydration, hydration and hydration. You need water, and also salts (sodium and potassium) to replace what you lose in sweat. Carry money on your runs so you can stop in a convenience store and get something to drink. Powerade and now Gatorade are certified by the Orthodox Union.


3. Sweat is not ucky, yucky and gross. It's the precious gift that nature and nature's God gave us to cool our bodies in hot weather. If you're a kohen in the Beit Hamikdash sweat is a bad thing (Ezekiel 44:18); otherwise it's just fine, thank you. Expose as much skin as you dare; the more surface area for sweat to evaporate from, the better. If you should stop sweating during a run, that is cause for concern.


4. Take it easy in high humidity since humid air impedes evaporation of sweat, but don't retire to your room unless you're feeling really bad. Just go slower and shorter.


5. Monitor your body. Pay attention to the color and volume of your urine. Copious amounts of clear or pale yellow urine means you're okay, just keep drinking. Scant and deep yellow urine means you're dehydrated; drink plenty and slow down. Every so often, taste your sweat; just lick a fresh drop from your shoulder or above your lip. If it tastes salty, slow down, have a sports drink and/or eat a salty snack. You might find yourself craving potato chips. If you're on a low salt diet consult your physician, preferably an athletic one. If your sweat does not taste salty- good news! You're acclimatized! A hormone called aldosterone kicked in, and it's keeping the sodium in your blood where it belongs. It's also washing away potassium, so drink some orange juice (o.j. on ice is one of the simple pleasures of the season) and/or eat a banana when you get home. If you're sweating profusely and feeling okay, it's all right to push yourself a little.


6. Use sunscreen but don't obsess over it. When I was a kid suntan lotion had SPF numbers of 4 to 8; anything over 15 was considered overkill. Unless your skin is extremely fair, melanocytes (cells containing dark pigment) will rise to the surface and protect you, but blocking out the sun completely blocks the signal for this response to kick in.


7. If you feel dizzy, lightheaded or cold (!), or you notice that you stopped sweating, do not push yourself. Stop running (or other vigorous activity), seek shade (or air conditioning) and drink lots of fluid. If you don't feel better in a few minutes, seek medical attention. If you do feel better, call it a day and take it easy the next day.


8. When you get home, drink l'chaim on a sports drink and enjoy a cool shower. Let yourself go. Whoop and holler if you feel like it. Revel in the irony. Savor it was you would good wine. You've earned it.


All Jews to the showers!

YEEEEE-HAW!




9. Seek the company of other athletes and avoid that of whiners and kvetches. They just make others as miserable as they are. You deserve to get every last bit of enjoyment out of the summer. It does not last nearly long enough in these parts.

10. Repeat after me: SOFT LIVING NEVER DID ANY MAN OR ANY NATION ANY GOOD!

In Defense of Summer Vacation

We often hear from education "reformers" and tabloid editorial writers that the summer vacation should be abolished. This proposal is usually accompanied by attacks on "lazy teachers" who get summers off when nobody else does. We are told that summer vacation was originally instituted when America was an agrarian society and children were needed on the farm, summer being the busy season for farmers. Now that few children are needed for farm chores, summer vacation outlived its usefulness. I am not sure how true this is; wasn't harvest season in autumn, when kids return to school? But in any event, summer vacation for students and teachers is a venerable American tradition, and that alone argues for keeping it. We Diaspora Jews keep an extra day of Yom Tov, originally because word of the correct date, based on the sighting of the new moon in Jerusalem, might not have reached outlying areas in time. However, we have had a fixed calendar since the fourth century C.E. There is absolutely no doubt of the correct dates of our holidays. We keep the tradition of the extra day simply because it's a tradition; minhag avoteinu b'yadeinu.

Some traditions (and features of a language) originate for one reason and acquire new meanings with the passage of time. For instance, Shavu'ot originated as an agricultural observance, evolved into a commemmoration of the giving of the Torah (zman mattan Torateinu) and is now, praise God, returning to its agricultural roots. Similarly, summer vacation might have originated to free children for farm work, but it took on new utility that more than justifies holding on to it. It is said that two months without learning causes children to forget everything they learned in the previous year. If so, wouldn't kids working on farms have also forgotten their lessons? Does urbanization ruin kids' brains? The sad fact is that children, regardless of where they live or how they spend their free time, tend to forget what they learned as soon as they take the test, unless it is relevant to their lives or of particular interest. I remembered most of what I learned in science, biology in particular, because that is my passion. I fell in love with biology before I fell in love with my wife - or met her. I forgot most of my Shakespeare, except for some quotable quotes (the fault, dear Brutus. . . .). The summer does not cause children to forget what they learned, but it provides an opportunity for learning of a sort that one cannot get in a classroom. Warm temperatures and long hours of daylight enable children (and adults) to recharge their batteries, and acquire habits of physical activity that are absolutely essential for their good health. Playing with friends builds social skills that are not acquired sitting behind a desk but that are necessary for society to function. And children are free to read what they wish, and experience the ethereal joy of learning not because some adult is forcing them to, not because they have to pass a test, but for the pure joy of learning something new. Looking back to my own childhood, most of our parents were struggling and travel was out of the question. But the public library was our home away from home, and we explored the world in books, some of which were borrowed in June, taken to summer camp and returned in September. Summer camp itself was our first experience away from home, and we learned to solve our own problems instead of running to Mommy. You don't get that kind of learning cooped up in a classroom. Most of the summer's seasonal jobs, such as lifeguarding and manning concession stands in parks and beaches, would go begging if not for students off from school. These students are learning that they have to work for the things they want.

Columnists and editorial writers in tabloids begrudge teachers our summers off - and would have children develop sedentary habits that will condemn them to a lifetime of misery. Face it - how productive are you cooped up indoors when the sun and surf beckon? Are you able to concentrate on work when you have to dress in a manner inappropriate for the summer's heat? Instead of abolishing summer vacation for teachers and students, we ought to experiment with prolonged time off for workers in general during nature's time for fun in the sun.

The Man in the Arena - The Strenuous Life

It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.

Some might recognize this quote as coming from President Roosevelt. No, not FDR. The "other" President Roosevelt, Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt, 26th President. The quote, which I use to decorate my classroom, is from a speech delivered at the Sorbonne in Paris a year after he left office in 1909. I am not ashamed to say that among my heroes are several Gentiles, and Teddy Roosevelt is one of them. I mentioned him at least once before in this blog. The President's life was an inspiration for my own. In particular, he had been a sickly boy like me, with a keen intellect and wide-ranging interests. His father told him in substance that he had the mind to be whatever he wanted to be, but to make the most of it he would have to make the body. He set up a gym in the back of his house (this was the late 19th century, before health clubs became ubiquitous) and the young Teddy Roosevelt made the body. He transformed himself into a robust young man, and at the age of 39, during the Spanish American War, resigned as Secretary of the Navy to personally lead the Rough Riders in the charge up San Juan Hill.

The Rough Riders

I did not learn until recently that Teddy Roosevelt lived most of his adult life not far from here, on a large estate that he named Sagamore Hill near Oyster Bay in Nassau County, that his estate is now administered by the National Park Service as a National Historic Site and that he is buried not far from his estate. As a child I visited FDR's estate in Hyde Park with my parents, and last week I visited Sagamore Hill by myself. Thanks to Google Maps I was able to ascertain that the trip was possible without a car, and to plan out my route in advance. I took the Long Island Railroad to Oyster Bay and ran about a mile and a half to the gravesite. I could have taken a taxi from the train station, but that would have been cheating, like riding the cable car to the top of Masada. To truly experience the meaning of Sagamore Hill or Masada, you have to challenge yourself physically with a demanding run, bike ride, hike or climb.

Citizens of Oyster Bay are justly proud of Teddy Roosevelt having called their town home. A bust of the President stands beside a war memorial at the town hall.

On the way to the cemetery, you pass Oyster Bay High School, beautifully landscaped like a college campus. Oyster Bay is a wealthy community, and students there cannot help but see that the community takes their education seriously. It is all a matter of values.

The grave is located at the top of a hill, and you reach it by climbing 26 steps, Roosevelt having been the 26th President. The grave itself is enclosed by a fence to prevent the stone from being damaged by repeated touching; you might have noticed that the massive Herodian stones of the kotel are worn smooth up to the height of a tall man by centuries of rubbing and kissing.

I found a couple of people visiting; it is gratifying to know that 90 years after his death people still revere his memory enough to visit the simple grave. After they left I recited a couple of Psalms and wrote a small kvittel (note), which I inserted through the fence into the grass on the other side. Then I left the cemetery and ran another mile and a half, mostly uphill, to Sagamore Hill itself.

The day was hot and muggy. I had prepared for the run by drinking a 20-ounce bottle of Powerade, which I purchased at the beachfront park near the train station. The concession stand was staffed by high school or college aged kids. Could it be that they have responsible parents, who teach them the difference between "I need" and "I want?" What they need, their parents provide. What they merely want, they have to work for. When I reached the entrance to the estate, I was drenched with sweat. I didn't mind. The hard effort was part of my communion with Teddy Roosevelt, who extolled The Strenuous Life and did not seek ease and comfort.

At the visitors' center I was amused by a sign warning that Teddy Roosevelt's house was not air conditioned and the indoor temperature was in the 80s. The house had fans whirring and providing all the cooling I needed; I would have felt cold if it had been air conditioned. Alas, the furnishings dating from the President's lifetime disagree. They are deteriorating due to summer heat and humidity, and next year the house will be air conditioned, with a new technology that will not detract from the architecture. Teddy Roosevelt was an avid hunter and conservationist; the two often go together. The house is decorated throughout with rugs made out of skins of animals he hunted, with the heads still attached in the style of the time (warning to the squeamish). Indoor plumbing was a rarity when the house was built, and you can see the pull-chain toilet.

I visited the museum, housed in another building that was air conditioned. Here are some photos of the exhibits:

The Man in the Arena

Political considerations delayed Teddy
Roosevelt's Medal of Honor for nearly a
century after the action for which he
earned it.

Teddy Roosevelt assumed the Presidency in 1901, following the assassination of President William McKinley. Sixty-two years later, Lyndon B. Johnson would become President in the same way. May we be spared such tragedies in the future.

"We love all the seasons. . . ."

I am decidedly partial to summer.

A sign posted on the grounds by the National Park Service warns visitors of the dangers of heat exhaustion. I made sure to drink plenty of water before the three-mile run back to the railroad station. Then I filled up again with a bottle of Powerade. If you're in shape, acclimatized and pace yourself appropriately, you can stay out of danger. San Juan Hill was not air conditioned.

Sagamore Hill is an inexpensive and enjoyable destination. I got a lot out of the trip, and I recommend it to any athlete who admires Teddy Roosevelt as I do, and who is not afraid to challenge himself and to embrace the strenuous life.

Simple Rules for Happiness

I found this on the bulletin board of a Roman Catholic Church that I passed on a run:

Click on the picture for a high-resolution version that will make the bulletin board legible.

חכמה בגויים - תאמין

There is wisdom among the nations - though I suspect this bit of wisdom was gleaned from our sources.