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.

When rabbis become criminals

Every day it seems we hear of prominent rabbis and others in our community arrested for serious crimes - tax fraud, money laundering, drug trafficking and so on. It happens so often that we've become inured to the massive Hillul Hashem involved. Even so, last week's news was over the top. Solomon "Shtick Dreck" Dwek, a bigwig in the Syrian community, was caught in an alleged 50 million dollar bad check scheme, and was "flipped" by the FBI to become a cooperating witness. Posing as a criminal with tainted money to be laundered, he exposed massive criminality reaching to the top of our communal structure, up to and including trafficking in human organs. The timing of the story - two days before Shabbat Hazon, is excruciatingly apropos. I don't want to repeat what was already said ad nauseam on other blogs, and I hope that what I say here actually adds something.

We've been told to look into ourselves, that all of us have failings that have to be corrected. True enough. But what transpired last week is not a simple matter of individuals giving in to their yetzer hara, which we all do on occasion. For one thing, these were not mere individuals. They are among the most highly placed in the community; one of them was the Chief Rabbi of the Syrian community in Brooklyn. Nor can such conduct be excused because the money went to communal institutions. Institutions that can only exist on criminal money do not deserve to exist. And why was the fabulously wealthy Syrian community most deeply involved - do they have to turn to crime to support their mosdot? Nor was this a spur-of-the-moment surrender to a yetzer hara, like eating a candy bar that didn't have a proper hekhsher, something these rabbis would not have dreamed of doing. We're talking about a massive criminal enterprise, worthy of the Mafia, that has apparently been going on for years. Anybody can go to Atlantic City on occasion and shoot craps, but a professional dice player, i.e. someone who makes a living playing dice (mesahek b'kubiya) is disqualified from testifying in a Jewish court (pasul l'edut). We've been told to go to minyan more often. That completely misses the point of the haftara we read. God does not want our minyanim. He has no use for our ritual observance when we pervert justice and make cheating and stealing a way of life. How in blazes have we sunk so low? Look into ourselves, sure, but it has nothing to do with going to minyan. We have to look into our dealings with others, and with the government. If we are employees, do we chat on the phone on company time? If we are employers, are we late with our workers' wages (hint, hint, yeshiva administrators)? If we are tenants, are we late with the rent? If we are landlords, do we skimp on essential services? Complying with the law is the bare minimum here; we are expected to go lifnim meshurat ha-din. If our buildings are not warm enough in winter for our grandmothers, then they aren't warm enough for anybody else's. Do we give up our seats on the train for older people, of any race, color or creed, even when we're tired? Ever notice how trains and buses in New York have signs saying "Won't you please give this seat to the elderly and disabled?," while those evil Zionist Egged buses in Israel, where women are beaten for refusing to move to the back of the bus, post the pasuk "Mipne seiva takum?" And I'm using the first person plural because I'm guilty too. Are our yeshivot teaching our children in no uncertain terms that it is absolutely assur to cheat and steal from anybody, Jew or Gentile, or from the government? Do we tolerate rabbis who tell us that it's okay to defraud the government as long as you're clever enough not to get caught? Guess what - the goyim aren't as stupid as you think they are. Not American goyim. And certainly not American goyim (and Jews, who are thoroughly disgusted with what they see "religious" Jews doing) who work for the FBI and the IRS. You confirm all the tired old stereotypes about the greedy money-grubbing Jews. Mr. Dwek is not the only "shtick dreck" in this whole sorry mess.


In the absence of prophecy, God communicates to us through Torah and nature. He hasn't had much success with Torah, and it looks like he might be trying nature instead. God sometimes "gives mussar" in the form of unusual natural phenomena, e.g. the plague of hail in Egypt and rain out of season in Israel (see the haftara for Korah). We in New York have been experiencing unheard-of weather these last few days. The sun shines brightly, and in a matter of minutes a dark cloud appears and lets loose with a heavy downpour - with the sun still shining! I don't mean sunshowers - light rain from a cumulus cloud in the midst of bright sunshine. Those are common, and running through them is among the simple pleasures that make summer my favorite time of year. What we've been having are torrentrial downpours, complete with lightning that nearly killed a man a stone's throw from where I live in Brooklyn, all while the sun is shining! This might be normal in Florida, but it's unheard-of in Brooklyn. Is there a message here? The world exists, in some unprovable and metaphysical sense, so that God's people can observe His Torah. When supposed "men of religion" make a mockery of Torah on a grand scale, the world loses its reason for being, and God returns it to tohu va-vohu, primeval chaos and confusion.

Glimmers of recognition are starting to appear. Haredi yeshivot have made a virtue of neglecting secular studies, to the point where young haredi men (men more than women, who are expected to support their husbands in learning) cannot get jobs because they lack basic communication and computational skills. And when people cannot get honest jobs they sometimes turn to crime. That is nothing new. Hazal told us long ago that a man who does not teach his son a useful occupation teaches him to steal. The question is will the community wake up in time, and will they be able and willing to correct the problem once they do? I am not optimistic.

Groundhog Day

It occurs each year on February 2. Its origins seem to be in a relatively minor Christian observance, but as far as I know only in America is any big deal made over it. Supposedly, the groundhog (a small burrowing mammal) emerges from its burrow, looks around and goes back in. If it sees its shadow there will be an early spring, and if it does not there will be six more weeks of winter weather. Or maybe the other way around. The whole story is probably apocryphal, and the Torah takes a dim view of trying to tell the future by such means (see Dvarim 18:10,11). But that's beside the point. The legend, if that's what it is, expresses another idea much better than ordinary prose can (ha-meivin yavin). I AM SICK OF WINTER. SICK SICK SICK. I am sick of bundling up like an Eskimo whenever I go outside. I am sick of slip-sliding on the sidewalks and streets; I am a runner, not an ice skater. I am sick of the thought of becoming an invalid if I fall and break something, however unlikely since my male bones are not made out of peanut brittle (barukh shelo asani isha). I am sick of not knowing each day if my wife will make it home from work with her ankle in one piece (I know, the spouses of police officers, firefighters and soldiers don't know if their loved ones will make it home alive). I am sick of looking at ugly sooty snow on the ground. I am sick of either being cold in my own house or paying through my nose (and burning precious fossil fuel) to keep warm. I am sick of the teaser snowfalls we've been getting, not enough to cancel work or school but enough to send me out to shovel when I'd rather be doing other things. I am strong and healthy barukh Hashem and I wouldn't mind shoveling snow if I didn't have to do it in the freezing cold. It all must be a Communist plot; for Russians this weather is positively balmy. I know I'm not the only one thoroughly disgusted with winter, though there are people that actually enjoy it, and not only Russians.

Groundhog or no, I don't know what kind of weather we will have beyond four or five days from now. But I hope and pray for an early spring.