Tuesday, September 8, 2009
against Dorff on Universal health care
sday, September 8, 2009
against Dorff's view on universal health care
David Klinghoffer
In the always lively Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Rabbi Elliot Dorff writes in a cover essay that "support for universal health care is an imperative in Jewish law." Is it now? On health care reform, Rabbi Dorff has his classical sources all lined up -- most having to do with obligations on the community to rescue its needy, the captive, and those otherwise endangered. The communal court system can compel a person to give charity in support of the poor. Proper medical services are a necessity in a Jewish community. And so on. Whether through socialized medicine or government health insurance, something must be done: the fact of there being 40 million uninsured Americans is "intolerable."
Do you notice how many times the words "community" or "communal" appear in the foregoing paragraph? Rabbi Dorff is chairman of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative (i.e., liberal) Judaism. He knows that Jewish laws of the kind he cites are specifically communal laws. They were never envisioned as applying en masse to a non-Jewish country of 300 million people. Liberal Jewish analysts often lose sight of this simple fact. So too in the abortion debate where, simply put, Jewish law for Jews is more liberal on abortion than Jewish law for Gentiles. We are more protective of the unborn non-Jewish life. In Torah, there are separate legal tracks -- the Mosaic and the Noachide, for Jewish and Gentile communities respectively. Yet liberal Jews invariably cite Jewish abortion law, not the Gentile one which makes abortion a death penalty offense. They forget that we live in a non-Jewish country.
Even apart from this, your local Jewish community and the United States of America are incommensurable in many ways. There are three key things about a religious community. It is small in size. It's homogeneous. And it's voluntary. The three together make the provision of welfare benefits to members of the community an affordable proposition. None of these are true in the far, far vaster and incomparably more diverse context of our country. I mean, is this not obvious? Practical considerations like this have led Connecticut's independent senator, Joseph Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, to call for putting off radical health care reform till we can afford it.
If you object that I myself have extrapolated from Jewish to American law many times here in this blog and in my book How Would God Vote?, my answer is that I always try to take care about making clear it's the philosophical principles behind the laws that can be extrapolated, not the laws themselves. That way lies the road to theocracy.
When it comes to caring for the needy, there are not one but two major Jewish philosophical principles at stake. One is the obligation to provide for the poor. You don't need any detailed presentation of rabbinic statutes to know that this would apply to the area of health care. It's right there in the book of Ezekiel. The prophet chastised Israel's rulers, her "shepherds" for "tending themselves" while ignoring the needs of the flock: "the frail you did not strengthen; the ill you did not cure; the broken you did not blind" (34:2,4).
Counterbalanced with his, however, is the Torah's overwhelming emphasis on personal responsibility. Apart from being beyond our country's current means, one problem with government-run universal health care, which is where ObamaCare would inevitably tend, is that it relieves not only the poor but everyone else of their responsibility to see to their own health needs. Rabbi Dorff mentions the "intolerable" plight of the uninsured. How many? The figures you hear from the Left are deceptive because, among other things, they include people who for whatever reason -- because they are young and healthy, or maybe older and foolish -- think they can get by without insurance.
Truly universal health care would mean mandating that everyone be insured. How else can we all share the burden of paying into the common insurance pool if the healthy or imprudent opt out? In the last election when Democratic candidates were vying with each other to spell out their visions for socialized medicine, John Edwards even wanted to mandate regular medical checkups! Compelling what seems to be common sense, precluding the individual's freedom to take his chances if he prefers, places "universal health care" on the list of those other liberal political notions that foreclose free choice and moral responsibility. I've argued before that the common denominator linking most of the standard liberal policy preferences is a discomfort with the responsibility of an adult to make free choices for himself. (Abortion, of course, is a choice a woman makes for herself but also for the other person in her womb, who if he could speak would likely opt for a pro-life stance.)
The most important word in the Jewish vocabulary is mitzvah, commandment. The idea of a commandment assumes choice -- taking responsibility for yourself. When good choices are compelled, they loose meaning. Supporting the poor is such a choice. When it's forced upon us, the moral significance of the mitzvah is lost.
I wrote earlier about the idea of ritual contamination -- tumah. As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains it, tumah comes from experiences that convey the powerful but erroneous impression that we are not free and therefore not responsible. The classic instance is contact with a corpse. Bound by materiality, its spark of divine spirit having fled to rejoin the Creator, a dead body has the power to hypnotize us with the impression that we ourselves are unfree. Nothing could be more morally perilous than taking such an idea to heart.
Hirsch wrote, commenting on Leviticus (11:46-47): "All these [contamination laws] are truths which, in the face of human frailty and the powers of the forces of nature which the appearance of death preaches, are to be brought again and again to the minds of living people, so that they remain conscious of their unique position of freedom in the midst of the physical world, and remain forever armed in proud consciousness of their freedom, armed against the doctrine of materialism."
Any truly Jewish approach to caring for the sick and needy would keep in mind the imperative to avoid conveying tumah to the rest of us while we are at it. On the other hand, market solutions to problems like our health care "crisis" have the virtue of casting citizens not as helpless children but as responsible adults. That's the Torah's way.
Posted by Jewu.info at 11:18 AM 0 comments
against Dorff's view on universal health care
David Klinghoffer
In the always lively Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, Rabbi Elliot Dorff writes in a cover essay that "support for universal health care is an imperative in Jewish law." Is it now? On health care reform, Rabbi Dorff has his classical sources all lined up -- most having to do with obligations on the community to rescue its needy, the captive, and those otherwise endangered. The communal court system can compel a person to give charity in support of the poor. Proper medical services are a necessity in a Jewish community. And so on. Whether through socialized medicine or government health insurance, something must be done: the fact of there being 40 million uninsured Americans is "intolerable."
Do you notice how many times the words "community" or "communal" appear in the foregoing paragraph? Rabbi Dorff is chairman of the Committee on Jewish Law and Standards of Conservative (i.e., liberal) Judaism. He knows that Jewish laws of the kind he cites are specifically communal laws. They were never envisioned as applying en masse to a non-Jewish country of 300 million people. Liberal Jewish analysts often lose sight of this simple fact. So too in the abortion debate where, simply put, Jewish law for Jews is more liberal on abortion than Jewish law for Gentiles. We are more protective of the unborn non-Jewish life. In Torah, there are separate legal tracks -- the Mosaic and the Noachide, for Jewish and Gentile communities respectively. Yet liberal Jews invariably cite Jewish abortion law, not the Gentile one which makes abortion a death penalty offense. They forget that we live in a non-Jewish country.
Even apart from this, your local Jewish community and the United States of America are incommensurable in many ways. There are three key things about a religious community. It is small in size. It's homogeneous. And it's voluntary. The three together make the provision of welfare benefits to members of the community an affordable proposition. None of these are true in the far, far vaster and incomparably more diverse context of our country. I mean, is this not obvious? Practical considerations like this have led Connecticut's independent senator, Joseph Lieberman, an Orthodox Jew, to call for putting off radical health care reform till we can afford it.
If you object that I myself have extrapolated from Jewish to American law many times here in this blog and in my book How Would God Vote?, my answer is that I always try to take care about making clear it's the philosophical principles behind the laws that can be extrapolated, not the laws themselves. That way lies the road to theocracy.
When it comes to caring for the needy, there are not one but two major Jewish philosophical principles at stake. One is the obligation to provide for the poor. You don't need any detailed presentation of rabbinic statutes to know that this would apply to the area of health care. It's right there in the book of Ezekiel. The prophet chastised Israel's rulers, her "shepherds" for "tending themselves" while ignoring the needs of the flock: "the frail you did not strengthen; the ill you did not cure; the broken you did not blind" (34:2,4).
Counterbalanced with his, however, is the Torah's overwhelming emphasis on personal responsibility. Apart from being beyond our country's current means, one problem with government-run universal health care, which is where ObamaCare would inevitably tend, is that it relieves not only the poor but everyone else of their responsibility to see to their own health needs. Rabbi Dorff mentions the "intolerable" plight of the uninsured. How many? The figures you hear from the Left are deceptive because, among other things, they include people who for whatever reason -- because they are young and healthy, or maybe older and foolish -- think they can get by without insurance.
Truly universal health care would mean mandating that everyone be insured. How else can we all share the burden of paying into the common insurance pool if the healthy or imprudent opt out? In the last election when Democratic candidates were vying with each other to spell out their visions for socialized medicine, John Edwards even wanted to mandate regular medical checkups! Compelling what seems to be common sense, precluding the individual's freedom to take his chances if he prefers, places "universal health care" on the list of those other liberal political notions that foreclose free choice and moral responsibility. I've argued before that the common denominator linking most of the standard liberal policy preferences is a discomfort with the responsibility of an adult to make free choices for himself. (Abortion, of course, is a choice a woman makes for herself but also for the other person in her womb, who if he could speak would likely opt for a pro-life stance.)
The most important word in the Jewish vocabulary is mitzvah, commandment. The idea of a commandment assumes choice -- taking responsibility for yourself. When good choices are compelled, they loose meaning. Supporting the poor is such a choice. When it's forced upon us, the moral significance of the mitzvah is lost.
I wrote earlier about the idea of ritual contamination -- tumah. As Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch explains it, tumah comes from experiences that convey the powerful but erroneous impression that we are not free and therefore not responsible. The classic instance is contact with a corpse. Bound by materiality, its spark of divine spirit having fled to rejoin the Creator, a dead body has the power to hypnotize us with the impression that we ourselves are unfree. Nothing could be more morally perilous than taking such an idea to heart.
Hirsch wrote, commenting on Leviticus (11:46-47): "All these [contamination laws] are truths which, in the face of human frailty and the powers of the forces of nature which the appearance of death preaches, are to be brought again and again to the minds of living people, so that they remain conscious of their unique position of freedom in the midst of the physical world, and remain forever armed in proud consciousness of their freedom, armed against the doctrine of materialism."
Any truly Jewish approach to caring for the sick and needy would keep in mind the imperative to avoid conveying tumah to the rest of us while we are at it. On the other hand, market solutions to problems like our health care "crisis" have the virtue of casting citizens not as helpless children but as responsible adults. That's the Torah's way.
Posted by Jewu.info at 11:18 AM 0 comments
Friday, September 4, 2009
Thursday, September 3, 2009
whatever happened to ethics?
Whatever Happened to Musar?
Whatever Happened to Musar?
=20
Rabbi Reuven Hammer
=20
A quick glance at newspaper headlines is enough to cause one to question =
the premise that Jews are a special people. Indeed it appears that we =
are like everyone else, only more so. Religious and non-religious, in =
Israel and abroad, we seem to have lost our moral compass. Rabbis are =
laundering money and trafficking in body parts. Ultra-Orthodox Jews =
indulge in violent protests injuring people and property. A gunman =
shoots and kills young people at a center for gays. A rabbinical student =
runs down a parking lot attendant in a dispute about a parking fee. =
Gangs kill each other and kill innocent people as well. Government =
officials - religious and non-religious - are accused, indicted and =
often convicted of misuse of office, of bribery, of sexual offences. =
Murder, child abuse, abuse of the elderly, all of these have become =
commonplace. The litany is endless. What does all this prove? I think it =
only indicates that we are indeed human, that we are a people like every =
other people. Jews indeed are like everyone else.=20
=20
Maybe that is what the prophet Amos had in mind when he said, "To Me, O =
Israelites, you are just like the Ethiopians - declares the Lord. Behold =
the Lord God has His eye upon the sinful kingdom.." (9:7-8). There is =
nothing inherently special about us unless we adopt a code of ethical =
living.
=20
As a matter of fact ethical behavior is at the very heart of what =
Judaism teaches and of our identity as Jews. Everyone knows that the =
prophets, Amos, Jeremiah and so many others, constantly emphasized =
morality and made the point that ritual observance without morality was =
not only hypocritical but renders the ritual hateful to God. "Seek good =
and not evil, that you may live.Hate evil and love good, and establish =
justice in the gate." (Amos 5:14-15). But one does not have to go to the =
prophets to learn this lesson. The Psalms as well are bursting with =
ethical teaching. For example Psalm 24 which we recite on Sundays =
describes what one has to do to be worthy of entering the gates of the =
Temple, "One who is clean of hands and pure of heart.."=20
=20
The Torah itself stresses ethics and morality from the very beginning. =
Note God's reasoning concerning the choosing of Abraham: "For I have =
singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to =
keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right."(Genesis =
18:19). The definition of 'the way of the Lord' is simple - 'doing what =
is just and right.' The laws of the Torah are filled with ethical =
demands: proper treatment of the stranger, kindness toward the widow and =
orphan, charity toward the poor, helping one's enemy and so much else, =
demands that the Sages taught were the very essence of the Torah. Thus =
Akiba said that the verse "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus =
19:18) was the basis of the entire Torah (Sifra Kedoshim 4) and Hillel =
taught that the Aramaic rendering of that verse, "Do not unto others =
what you would not want done unto you" was the basic teaching of the =
Torah, "the rest is commentary" (Shabbat 31b). My teacher, Louis =
Finkelstein, used to say that all of Judaism, all study, all observance =
of the mitzvot, was intended to produce a person that would live =
according to that one verse. Musar, living an ethical life, is the very =
essence of being a Jew.
=20
In the 19th century, when he feared that Jewish ethical living was no =
longer being taken seriously, Rabbi Israel Salanter developed the Musar =
Movement , devoted to the promotion of the study and practice of ethics =
as a fundamental part of Jewish life. A part of this system was the use =
of a 'musar room' where people could quietly deliberate ethical =
problems. This was intended to make business people aware of the need to =
decide what was right and what was wrong in their dealings.=20
=20
Perhaps we need something of that sort today to provide moral guidance =
to people in all walks of life, business people, doctors, lawyers, =
scientists, politicians, teachers, clerks, builders, plumbers and =
electricians. Whether one is a religious Jew or a cultural Jew, Judaism =
without ethical concern is an oxymoron. Judaism is not simply a matter =
of kashrut and holiday customs but is built around a strong core of =
ethical values which have an impact on everything that one does in life. =
The reduction of religion in Israel to a part of political gamesmanship =
has served to emphasize all the wrong aspects of Judaism and to cast =
religious leaders into the role of self-serving organization men. The =
ethical demands of the Torah are seldom heard from their lips or from =
the lips of any public figures.=20
=20
A renewed emphasis on morals should begin at an early age and should be =
integrated into our educational systems, religious and general. The =
religious systems should see to it that Jewish ethical literature is =
studied and made as important as Talmud. As a matter of fact the Talmud =
itself is rife with ethical and moral material and dilemmas, as is the =
Midrash. By proper picking and choosing, study of Talmud could be =
devoted to matters of moral import rather than to those that are merely =
legalistic. General schools should also make Jewish ethics - musar - a =
part of their curriculum.=20
The development of such a curriculum for various ages is an urgent need =
if we want our society to turn away from it current trend toward =
unbridled materialism, self-centeredness, disdain of the other and =
violence, both verbal and physical. Of course it is too much to expect =
that the educational system will be able to do the work by itself. It =
begins with each of us.=20
=20
As we enter this season of self-searching, we should realize that the =
"new Jew" that Zionism wanted to create must incorporate the values that =
were important to Jews through the ages: concern for justice, mercy, =
honesty, willingness to give to and for others, modesty, restraint and =
the ability to judge between right and wrong. It is time to give musar =
its due.
Whatever Happened to Musar?
=20
Rabbi Reuven Hammer
=20
A quick glance at newspaper headlines is enough to cause one to question =
the premise that Jews are a special people. Indeed it appears that we =
are like everyone else, only more so. Religious and non-religious, in =
Israel and abroad, we seem to have lost our moral compass. Rabbis are =
laundering money and trafficking in body parts. Ultra-Orthodox Jews =
indulge in violent protests injuring people and property. A gunman =
shoots and kills young people at a center for gays. A rabbinical student =
runs down a parking lot attendant in a dispute about a parking fee. =
Gangs kill each other and kill innocent people as well. Government =
officials - religious and non-religious - are accused, indicted and =
often convicted of misuse of office, of bribery, of sexual offences. =
Murder, child abuse, abuse of the elderly, all of these have become =
commonplace. The litany is endless. What does all this prove? I think it =
only indicates that we are indeed human, that we are a people like every =
other people. Jews indeed are like everyone else.=20
=20
Maybe that is what the prophet Amos had in mind when he said, "To Me, O =
Israelites, you are just like the Ethiopians - declares the Lord. Behold =
the Lord God has His eye upon the sinful kingdom.." (9:7-8). There is =
nothing inherently special about us unless we adopt a code of ethical =
living.
=20
As a matter of fact ethical behavior is at the very heart of what =
Judaism teaches and of our identity as Jews. Everyone knows that the =
prophets, Amos, Jeremiah and so many others, constantly emphasized =
morality and made the point that ritual observance without morality was =
not only hypocritical but renders the ritual hateful to God. "Seek good =
and not evil, that you may live.Hate evil and love good, and establish =
justice in the gate." (Amos 5:14-15). But one does not have to go to the =
prophets to learn this lesson. The Psalms as well are bursting with =
ethical teaching. For example Psalm 24 which we recite on Sundays =
describes what one has to do to be worthy of entering the gates of the =
Temple, "One who is clean of hands and pure of heart.."=20
=20
The Torah itself stresses ethics and morality from the very beginning. =
Note God's reasoning concerning the choosing of Abraham: "For I have =
singled him out, that he may instruct his children and his posterity to =
keep the way of the Lord by doing what is just and right."(Genesis =
18:19). The definition of 'the way of the Lord' is simple - 'doing what =
is just and right.' The laws of the Torah are filled with ethical =
demands: proper treatment of the stranger, kindness toward the widow and =
orphan, charity toward the poor, helping one's enemy and so much else, =
demands that the Sages taught were the very essence of the Torah. Thus =
Akiba said that the verse "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Leviticus =
19:18) was the basis of the entire Torah (Sifra Kedoshim 4) and Hillel =
taught that the Aramaic rendering of that verse, "Do not unto others =
what you would not want done unto you" was the basic teaching of the =
Torah, "the rest is commentary" (Shabbat 31b). My teacher, Louis =
Finkelstein, used to say that all of Judaism, all study, all observance =
of the mitzvot, was intended to produce a person that would live =
according to that one verse. Musar, living an ethical life, is the very =
essence of being a Jew.
=20
In the 19th century, when he feared that Jewish ethical living was no =
longer being taken seriously, Rabbi Israel Salanter developed the Musar =
Movement , devoted to the promotion of the study and practice of ethics =
as a fundamental part of Jewish life. A part of this system was the use =
of a 'musar room' where people could quietly deliberate ethical =
problems. This was intended to make business people aware of the need to =
decide what was right and what was wrong in their dealings.=20
=20
Perhaps we need something of that sort today to provide moral guidance =
to people in all walks of life, business people, doctors, lawyers, =
scientists, politicians, teachers, clerks, builders, plumbers and =
electricians. Whether one is a religious Jew or a cultural Jew, Judaism =
without ethical concern is an oxymoron. Judaism is not simply a matter =
of kashrut and holiday customs but is built around a strong core of =
ethical values which have an impact on everything that one does in life. =
The reduction of religion in Israel to a part of political gamesmanship =
has served to emphasize all the wrong aspects of Judaism and to cast =
religious leaders into the role of self-serving organization men. The =
ethical demands of the Torah are seldom heard from their lips or from =
the lips of any public figures.=20
=20
A renewed emphasis on morals should begin at an early age and should be =
integrated into our educational systems, religious and general. The =
religious systems should see to it that Jewish ethical literature is =
studied and made as important as Talmud. As a matter of fact the Talmud =
itself is rife with ethical and moral material and dilemmas, as is the =
Midrash. By proper picking and choosing, study of Talmud could be =
devoted to matters of moral import rather than to those that are merely =
legalistic. General schools should also make Jewish ethics - musar - a =
part of their curriculum.=20
The development of such a curriculum for various ages is an urgent need =
if we want our society to turn away from it current trend toward =
unbridled materialism, self-centeredness, disdain of the other and =
violence, both verbal and physical. Of course it is too much to expect =
that the educational system will be able to do the work by itself. It =
begins with each of us.=20
=20
As we enter this season of self-searching, we should realize that the =
"new Jew" that Zionism wanted to create must incorporate the values that =
were important to Jews through the ages: concern for justice, mercy, =
honesty, willingness to give to and for others, modesty, restraint and =
the ability to judge between right and wrong. It is time to give musar =
its due.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
why I love Israel
Why do I love Israel? Let me count the whys. Here, in no particular order, is an updated list, with new additions and highlights of recent years.
****
*****
*****
excerpted from Barbara Sofer's "The Human Spirit: Top 60 Plus One Reasons I love Israel," May 7, 2008 jpost.com
Why do I love Israel? Let me count the whys. Here, in no particular order, is an updated list, with new additions and highlights of recent years.
1. Jerusalem is so quiet on Shabbat that you can hear birds singing even on the main streets.
2. We change our calendars on Rosh Hashana, not January 1, because that's the real new year
3. Just hours after leading his Chelsea team to its first Champions League final, Petah Tikva-born coach Avram Grant joined the March of the Living in Auschwitz, and told all of Europe that his pride at Israel's emergence from the horrors of the Holocaust surpassed any football achievement.
4. We serve kosher food in the trendiest malls.
5. Streets bear the names of prophets and medieval poets. Our communications satellite is called "Amos."
6. Land of milk and honey: Big news when Israeli archeologists recently discovered evidence of the beekeeping industry - even beeswax - that goes back 3,000 years.
7. Land of milk and honey: We're so successful at making milk products that we have hundreds of choices of cheese and advise New Zealand about making sheep cheese.
8. The Nahariya-based Strauss company, started by dairy farmer immigrants from Germany in 1936, together with the Elite company started by a candy-maker immigrant from Riga in 1934, are the largest coffee manufacturers in Central and Eastern Europe, and second biggest in Brazil. Aviv Matza exports its unleavened bread to Egypt.
9. We have laboratories to check for the biblically prohibited mix of linen and wool, shatnes, and we're the first country to make men's suits from recycled plastic bottles, for sale soon at Sears.
10. At Jerusalem's Biblical Zoo, the loudspeaker announces "afternoon prayers (minha) are now being held near the elephants."
11. The Biblical Zoo is kosher for Pessah. The primates eat matza; the parrots get rice.
12. Every kindergartner knows that frogs are the second plague in the Haggada, but our "save the frogs" campaign was launched at the Biblical Zoo on Passover.
13. Mega investor Warren Buffet's first investment outside the US ($4 billion) was in Israel's Iscar company. He got so much positive publicity that he told Iscar's CEO: "I was nobody before I bought your company."
14. Sixty years after statehood, even young people refer to something old-fashioned as "from the days of the (British) Mandate."
15. Theodor Herzl's bearded image welcomes visitors to hi-tech Herzliya, and we celebrate Herzl Day.
16. My five-year-old grandson can tell you all about Theodor Herzl. Also about Spiderman.
17. Combat soldiers aren't embarrassed to phone their moms and grandmothers.
18. While Intel Haifa workers were working in an underground shelter because of the missile attacks in the Second Lebanon War, Intel announced the new multi-core processor developed there.
19. Entire families show up for military graduations, and bring enough food to feed an army.
20. Name droppers. The poet Chaim Nachman Bialik named the Egged bus company and also the Tishbi winery
21. Youngsters travel far to visit the Kibbutz Kinneret cemetery where poet Rahel and national song laureate Naomi Shemer are buried.
22. First graders read the Bible in the original Hebrew, and celebrate with a party.
23. We follow the level of the Kinneret more faithfully than we do our stock portfolios.
24. We have only one Pessah Seder but Purim, our dress-up holiday, lasts three days. In Jerusalem on Purim, it's hard to tell who's in costume and who isn't.
25. We have the highest concentration of hi-tech companies outside Silicon Valley, and also the most yeshivot anywhere.
26. After a calamity, police have trouble keeping away bystanders who want to help.
27. Thousands of free-loan societies flourish. You can borrow wedding dresses and pacifiers.
28. Despite the tensions and political dissension, Israel has the highest Jewish birthrate in the world.
29. Despite the tensions and political dissension, Israel is the fastest growing Western country in the world.
30. "Jerusalem of Gold" is still voted the favorite national song.
31. We have timeless cuisine: You can order Israeli breakfast, business lunch and dinner simultaneously at Israeli cafes.
32. Our pilots fought over the honor of taking part in a fly-by over Auschwitz 60 years after liberation.
33. Israeli fighter jets accompanied tourists safely home from Mombasa after they were threatened.
34. We have 120 members of the Knesset because that's how many were in the ancient Great Assembly.
35. We first developed candy-sweet cherry tomatoes as a TV-watching nosh.
36. On Remembrance Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day, the act of remembering halts traffic. Even kindergartners stand silently, and understand why.
37. While dining rooms are shrinking in Western homes, Israeli dining room tables are getting longer.
38. We invite strangers for a home-cooked Shabbat meal.
39. An Israeli artichoke farmer with a sore back developed the sophisticated Hollandia beds and exports them from Sderot to many countries, including Holland.
40. Strangers feel free to tell a parent to put a hat on the baby in a country where we wear scarves, snoods, spodiks, streimels, wimples, fedoras, berets, tarbushes, homburgs, kippot and keffiyot.
41. While other Western nations debate immigration, we absorb more immigrants per capita than any other country in the world. Almost immediately all learn the Hebrew word for patience, savlanut.
42. Our street musicians can play in symphony orchestras; our supermarket clerks know calculus.
43. Our biggest shopping seasons precede Rosh Hashana and Pessah.
44. Municipalities' decorating contests feature succot, not trees. The Succot holiday is high season in Israel; book hotel rooms a year in advance.
45. Even politicians from anti-religious parties say "Baruch Hashem."
46. "Where were your grandparents from?" is a common question. Where else would anyone care about my grandparents?
47. We celebrate Mother's Day, now Family Day, on the yahrzeit of Henrietta Szold who, with Recha Freier, organized Youth Aliya but who had no children of her own.
48. For all the talk about the greening of the planet, we're the only country in the world that started the 21st century with a net gain of trees. (Thank you, Jewish National Fund)
49. During the Second Lebanon War, JNF rangers stayed in the forests during Katyusha attacks to save the trees
50. We're among the most Internet-connected people on the planet. We invented the cellphone, instant messaging, the chat room and the silent prayer, but still talk best with our hands.
51. Before Purim, the TV weather forecast relates specially to the day the kids go to school in their costumes. For a week before Yom Kippur, the weather report focuses on the upcoming fast.
52. We love children, and have more IVF per capita than any other country. It's free up to the first two children.
53. We celebrate Independence Day with a Bible Contest.
54. Israelis developed both the system to see photos from Mars and cameras to monitor crime on buses in Brazil.
55. Despite our soul connection to chicken soup, per capita we're the world's biggest eaters of healthier turkey, bigger even than America. Go figure!
56. We're among the first to help countries that experience disasters, and the first to have our field hospitals up. When Israel helped Turkey after an earthquake, an Israeli doctor made an incubator from a matza box.
57. Jewish soccer players for Bnei Sakhnin compete against Arab players for Maccabi Tel Aviv.
58. Childbirth and burial are free. Even the homeless have health insurance.
59. On Saturday night, the radio summarizes the news for all those who don't listen on Shabbat.
60. We're agricultural high achievers, producing seven times the output with the same water we used 25 years ago. Our date trees average 182 kilos - 10 times more than the average in the Middle East. One date tree is growing from 2,000-year-old seeds found in Masada.
And, as on a birthday cake, one for next year:
61. We come from more than 100 countries and dream in Hebrew.
****
*****
*****
excerpted from Barbara Sofer's "The Human Spirit: Top 60 Plus One Reasons I love Israel," May 7, 2008 jpost.com
Why do I love Israel? Let me count the whys. Here, in no particular order, is an updated list, with new additions and highlights of recent years.
1. Jerusalem is so quiet on Shabbat that you can hear birds singing even on the main streets.
2. We change our calendars on Rosh Hashana, not January 1, because that's the real new year
3. Just hours after leading his Chelsea team to its first Champions League final, Petah Tikva-born coach Avram Grant joined the March of the Living in Auschwitz, and told all of Europe that his pride at Israel's emergence from the horrors of the Holocaust surpassed any football achievement.
4. We serve kosher food in the trendiest malls.
5. Streets bear the names of prophets and medieval poets. Our communications satellite is called "Amos."
6. Land of milk and honey: Big news when Israeli archeologists recently discovered evidence of the beekeeping industry - even beeswax - that goes back 3,000 years.
7. Land of milk and honey: We're so successful at making milk products that we have hundreds of choices of cheese and advise New Zealand about making sheep cheese.
8. The Nahariya-based Strauss company, started by dairy farmer immigrants from Germany in 1936, together with the Elite company started by a candy-maker immigrant from Riga in 1934, are the largest coffee manufacturers in Central and Eastern Europe, and second biggest in Brazil. Aviv Matza exports its unleavened bread to Egypt.
9. We have laboratories to check for the biblically prohibited mix of linen and wool, shatnes, and we're the first country to make men's suits from recycled plastic bottles, for sale soon at Sears.
10. At Jerusalem's Biblical Zoo, the loudspeaker announces "afternoon prayers (minha) are now being held near the elephants."
11. The Biblical Zoo is kosher for Pessah. The primates eat matza; the parrots get rice.
12. Every kindergartner knows that frogs are the second plague in the Haggada, but our "save the frogs" campaign was launched at the Biblical Zoo on Passover.
13. Mega investor Warren Buffet's first investment outside the US ($4 billion) was in Israel's Iscar company. He got so much positive publicity that he told Iscar's CEO: "I was nobody before I bought your company."
14. Sixty years after statehood, even young people refer to something old-fashioned as "from the days of the (British) Mandate."
15. Theodor Herzl's bearded image welcomes visitors to hi-tech Herzliya, and we celebrate Herzl Day.
16. My five-year-old grandson can tell you all about Theodor Herzl. Also about Spiderman.
17. Combat soldiers aren't embarrassed to phone their moms and grandmothers.
18. While Intel Haifa workers were working in an underground shelter because of the missile attacks in the Second Lebanon War, Intel announced the new multi-core processor developed there.
19. Entire families show up for military graduations, and bring enough food to feed an army.
20. Name droppers. The poet Chaim Nachman Bialik named the Egged bus company and also the Tishbi winery
21. Youngsters travel far to visit the Kibbutz Kinneret cemetery where poet Rahel and national song laureate Naomi Shemer are buried.
22. First graders read the Bible in the original Hebrew, and celebrate with a party.
23. We follow the level of the Kinneret more faithfully than we do our stock portfolios.
24. We have only one Pessah Seder but Purim, our dress-up holiday, lasts three days. In Jerusalem on Purim, it's hard to tell who's in costume and who isn't.
25. We have the highest concentration of hi-tech companies outside Silicon Valley, and also the most yeshivot anywhere.
26. After a calamity, police have trouble keeping away bystanders who want to help.
27. Thousands of free-loan societies flourish. You can borrow wedding dresses and pacifiers.
28. Despite the tensions and political dissension, Israel has the highest Jewish birthrate in the world.
29. Despite the tensions and political dissension, Israel is the fastest growing Western country in the world.
30. "Jerusalem of Gold" is still voted the favorite national song.
31. We have timeless cuisine: You can order Israeli breakfast, business lunch and dinner simultaneously at Israeli cafes.
32. Our pilots fought over the honor of taking part in a fly-by over Auschwitz 60 years after liberation.
33. Israeli fighter jets accompanied tourists safely home from Mombasa after they were threatened.
34. We have 120 members of the Knesset because that's how many were in the ancient Great Assembly.
35. We first developed candy-sweet cherry tomatoes as a TV-watching nosh.
36. On Remembrance Day and Holocaust Remembrance Day, the act of remembering halts traffic. Even kindergartners stand silently, and understand why.
37. While dining rooms are shrinking in Western homes, Israeli dining room tables are getting longer.
38. We invite strangers for a home-cooked Shabbat meal.
39. An Israeli artichoke farmer with a sore back developed the sophisticated Hollandia beds and exports them from Sderot to many countries, including Holland.
40. Strangers feel free to tell a parent to put a hat on the baby in a country where we wear scarves, snoods, spodiks, streimels, wimples, fedoras, berets, tarbushes, homburgs, kippot and keffiyot.
41. While other Western nations debate immigration, we absorb more immigrants per capita than any other country in the world. Almost immediately all learn the Hebrew word for patience, savlanut.
42. Our street musicians can play in symphony orchestras; our supermarket clerks know calculus.
43. Our biggest shopping seasons precede Rosh Hashana and Pessah.
44. Municipalities' decorating contests feature succot, not trees. The Succot holiday is high season in Israel; book hotel rooms a year in advance.
45. Even politicians from anti-religious parties say "Baruch Hashem."
46. "Where were your grandparents from?" is a common question. Where else would anyone care about my grandparents?
47. We celebrate Mother's Day, now Family Day, on the yahrzeit of Henrietta Szold who, with Recha Freier, organized Youth Aliya but who had no children of her own.
48. For all the talk about the greening of the planet, we're the only country in the world that started the 21st century with a net gain of trees. (Thank you, Jewish National Fund)
49. During the Second Lebanon War, JNF rangers stayed in the forests during Katyusha attacks to save the trees
50. We're among the most Internet-connected people on the planet. We invented the cellphone, instant messaging, the chat room and the silent prayer, but still talk best with our hands.
51. Before Purim, the TV weather forecast relates specially to the day the kids go to school in their costumes. For a week before Yom Kippur, the weather report focuses on the upcoming fast.
52. We love children, and have more IVF per capita than any other country. It's free up to the first two children.
53. We celebrate Independence Day with a Bible Contest.
54. Israelis developed both the system to see photos from Mars and cameras to monitor crime on buses in Brazil.
55. Despite our soul connection to chicken soup, per capita we're the world's biggest eaters of healthier turkey, bigger even than America. Go figure!
56. We're among the first to help countries that experience disasters, and the first to have our field hospitals up. When Israel helped Turkey after an earthquake, an Israeli doctor made an incubator from a matza box.
57. Jewish soccer players for Bnei Sakhnin compete against Arab players for Maccabi Tel Aviv.
58. Childbirth and burial are free. Even the homeless have health insurance.
59. On Saturday night, the radio summarizes the news for all those who don't listen on Shabbat.
60. We're agricultural high achievers, producing seven times the output with the same water we used 25 years ago. Our date trees average 182 kilos - 10 times more than the average in the Middle East. One date tree is growing from 2,000-year-old seeds found in Masada.
And, as on a birthday cake, one for next year:
61. We come from more than 100 countries and dream in Hebrew.
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