Living up to your Name

When I was but a lad, my parents decided I should learn some languages other than the ones they spoke. But which ones? Spanish? Too fancy. Hebrew? Too Jewey. I dabbled with a few for a while, and by sixth grade, was attempting (poorly) the ancient tongue of Mandarin Chinese.

The teacher was a very nice guy. He had only one problem- in the Chinese culture, children are expected to "live up" to their names. His name meant, "he who is happy and bounces a lot". Whether conscious or coincidence, we never saw him NOT smile. Children being the cruel midgets they are, this quickly led to us trying to see if we could make him mad. No luck. Even when raging pissed, he would keep a damn smile glued to his face, though you could see by his eyes he would have liked nothing better than to choke the life out of us. Eventually the emotional strain of keeping up this unnatural charade grew too much and he left the school. Also he might have been gay.

Anyway, the point is that sometimes names don't fit with a person's personality. On the other hand, every once in a while, you DO find someone who matches their name. Case in point:

Rabbi Benjamin Blech.

What's so blecchy about Rabbi Benji? Well, there's this:

Vegetarianism is Un-Jewish

...Many vegetarians believe that it is a sin to take an animal’s life in order to lengthen our own. All of G-d’s creatures, they contend, have the same right to live out their years. A noble thought, ethically motivated, and yet—supremely un-Jewish!

Jews do eat meat. In fact, the Talmud teaches, that’s what transforms an ordinary meal into a Sabbath or holiday feast. Simchah, true joy, can be attained only with bassar v’yayin, meat and wine. Animals, says the Midrash, were created before Adam so that they would be available for his table, just as a king prepares food in advance for his most favored guest.

There's more. Jews should eat meat, but they have to earn it first:

Judaism doesn’t really give us carte blanche to kill animals for food. It allows us to eat meat only on one condition: that the animal whose life is taken serves to feed someone whose life has more meaning than simple bestial existence.

“Am ha’aretz assur le’echol bassar.” A boor, whose life is devoid of Torah, is forbidden to eat meat! That’s the Talmud’s conclusion based on a simple equation: For any life ended to support another, there must be a qualitative difference between the life that is taken and the life that will be sustained... Our years are supposed to be imbued with a spiritual quest for holiness. Life is not merely getting and begetting, but being and becoming. Created in the image of G-d, we have an obligation to imitate our Divine Maker. It is only our efforts in pursuit of this goal that permit us to turn animal flesh into the food that fuels us.

This adds a whole new dimension to the Atkins Diet. Piling on meat may keep you thin—but it might be a sin. It all depends on whether you deserve the meat.

Well, I'm sure that pissed off Jewish veggies will be consoled knowing that all Jews are SUPPOSED to eat meat, but that a bunch of Jewish meat-eaters are bad, too.

Some people are fuming about this, claiming Rabbi Blech said vegetarians aren't Jews, which, as he points out here, isn't what he said. It also confuses the issue- this isn't about one guy saying individual Jews aren't Jewish or aren't good Jews, this is about a larger trend of putting up walls around what "authentic Judaism" can be. Blech's essay illustrates a tendency among some movements to claim that Judaism is confined to a particular path, and any ideas off this path are not Jewish. This wouldn't be such an issue if it still left the option to incorporate non-Jewish thought into one's practice, but there's also an implicit message that these foreign ideas are therefore inferior or contradictory to "real Judaism", and that anyone who includes them in their lives is guilty of syncretism, essentially following foreign gods like the Hellenists of old.

Individual Jews aren't the issue. What Blech is arguing is an attempt to redefine Judaism as a single authoritative monolith. Instead of different perspectives on a Torah issue, or on ways to be Jewish, we are given black-and-white definitions- this is Jewish, this isn't- now choose.

I bet folks like Chief Rabbi Shlomo Goren (and his father-in-law, the Nazir of Jerusalem) might have an issue with this. Also Abraham Isaac Kook and Samson Raphael Hirsch, who wrote positive essays on vegetarianism. And Rashi doesn't seem to have heard of Blech's midrash:

God did not permit Adam and his wife to kill a creature and to eat it's flesh. Only every green herb shall they all eat together.

Hmm.

What more from the Blechy one?

Oh, there's this- an old book review- hey, and it's a two-fer! One challenges reigning theodicy king Harold Kushner, and one talks about how to invest halakhically (wait, isn't this sort of like asking what SUV Jesus or Jefferson would drive?)

In case you forgot the central issue of Harold Kushner's book, it was that bad things happen to good people because God isn't omnipotent. Rabbi Blech says this isn't true.

While Blech empathizes with the loss that prompted Kushner to write his book, he argues that Kushners's theory that "G-d is not powerful enough to do the right thing" contradicts traditional Judaism. According to Blech, "If you believe in G-d, you believe you can pray to Him and He will answer."

According to Blech, everything G-d does happens for a reason, even if it may be a reason we do not yet understand. And often, posits Blech, the reasons differ from person to person. Only by reflecting on the tragedies in our own lives can we perhaps discover a portion of G-d's reason for His decisions. While the death of a child may be the worst tragedy that can befall a person, such an event can lead parents to reevaluate their lives and priorities and gain a greater appreciation for their remaining good fortune.

However, Blech contends that many tragedies are not G-d's doing, but Man's. Evil, says Blech, exists because G-d gave us free will. As Blech writes, "If humankind did not have free will, we would still be in the Garden of Eden, because we could not have chosen to disobey G-d's one commandment not to eat of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. But without that freedom to choose, our lives would have been a puppet show." Free will may lead to unwise or even evil decisions, but it can also lead people to strive for holiness. Blech explains, "Everything G-d does happens for a reason, but things people do can happen because people make bad choices." It is not due to the will of G-d that a woman is abused but because the abuser is evil. However, while God allows people to choose unwisely, "there are exceptions, when G-d can't take it anymore." These exceptions, says Blech, are miracles: not Biblical miracles, as in the parting of the Red Sea, but smaller ones, like when a person steps out of the way just in time to avoid being hit by a car.

In addition to free will, Blech explores the idea of Jewish guilt through the story of Job. When the long-suffering man is at his lowest point, his friends blame him for his ills. "Instead of comforting him, they're making him feel he must be the worst person in the world... they are equating suffering with guilt and sin." Blech wants people to know that Job's friends were wrong and people should not blame themselves when something bad occurs - tragedy occurs because of free will or because G-d has a plan we don't yet understand.

Well that's super-comforting. And what's this "rare miracle" crap? To quote Arthur Hertzberg, "If the Messiah was going to come, he'd come at Auschwitz". How can people realistically believe in a God that interferes in the mundane but lets dictators do what they like?

Ok, some Blech wants an omnipotent God, free will, AND miracles. Fine. What about stocks, Rabbi?

The key lesson, says Blech, "is to learn from other people... studies found that [there's no relationship] between amount of money and amount of happiness." Happiness depends on things like family and self-esteem, "But our society keeps telling people... make money, be rich, and you'll be happy." As members of a consumer-oriented society, we tend to be envious of those who have more than we do. Other lessons in the book include understanding that one shouldn't give up after failing, because success comes from striving again and again, and recognizing that crises can lead to a better understanding of one's capability.

Ok, fair enough. Money isn't everything. But what about people who really WANT some? Can't you offer them some vapid business tip to ensure that they can get God "on their side"?

Blech suggests that investors donate 10 percent of their profits to charity: "That way, you're making G-d a co-investor with you. It's in G-d's interest to see that you make money."

But what if you pick the wrong charity, like PETA?

More Blech here.