Meyer, director of the Misaskim emergency crisis organization, went to Sea Gate, a gated community that borders on Gravesend Bay, to help shepherd some holdouts to safety.

Standing at the doors of a pair of school buses donated for the day by Brooklyn yeshivot, he coordinated the volunteers from his organization and from the Hatzalah volunteer ambulance corps who were leading several dozen members of the Jewish community, who had remained in their Sea Gate homes despite pleas from city officials to evacuate as Sandy approached, from the synagogue where they had gathered that morning.

“It was a war zone. There was debris everywhere,” Meyer told The Jewish Week later that day. The people, of “all ages,” including many aging Holocaust survivors, came almost empty-handed, some gripping paper shopping bags filled with “emergency” items.

The buses took the displaced Sea Gate residences to relatives and synagogues in Borough Park that had offered shelter until it’s safe to return to their homes.

Misaskim and Hatzalah were major participants in the city-wide initiative in the last week to educate the Jewish community about the impending storm, and to assist area Jews who needed aid after Sandy struck.

Though the buildings of Jewish institutions and homes of members of the Jewish community suffered extensive damage when the hurricane blew into New York City Monday afternoon – including the Shorefront Y, which may be out of commission for an indefinite period, and a Kings Bay Y site for senior and kids programs that was to open Monday night, destroyed at a cost of $40,000-$50,000 – no casualties or deaths in the community were reported as of Jewish Week press time. “That’s the most important thing,” said David Pollock, associate executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York.

It is too early to estimate the financial cost of the damage suffered this week by the Jewish community, Pollock said.

Unlike the stubborn Sea Gate residents helped by Misaskim, many had earlier left there for safer, dryer locations, and hundreds of elderly Jews elsewhere in the region were part of a coordinated evacuation effort.

“I think we’re better prepared” this time, Pollock said. “People take it seriously

Hundreds of members of the Jewish community in areas at risk of flooding took part in evacuations on Sunday, some by themselves, some with the help of community organizations, Pollock said. That included five sheltered residences for senior citizens under the auspices of JASA – two in Far Rockaway, Queens, and three in southern Brooklyn – and a growing community of émigrés from the former Soviet Union who live in southern and eastern Staten Island.

“We were prepared” for the hurricane, said Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president of the New York Board of Rabbis. He said the growing prominence of emails, texting and social media enabled participants in the community’s rescue effort to easily communicate with each other, especially when land lines and cell phones were not working.

Before Hurricane Sandy struck the New York City area,, the Jewish community took steps to protect its members and property. As the winds and rain approached the tri-state area, moving up the Easter Seaboard, several lectures, dinner and other programs were cancelled.

Before the effects of the storm began to subside by late Tuesday and Wednesday, the day-to-day functions of most Jewish organizations shut down, while the concentration shifted to keeping employees, residents of Jewish-run residence buildings, and property safe. Among the closed institutions in Manhattan on the early days of Sandy were the major rabbinical schools, yeshivas and day schools, Jewish community centers, synagogues and headquarters of national Jewish organizations.

Evacuations were ordered in Brooklyn’s heavily Jewish Brighton Beach and Coney Island neighborhoods, and in lower Manhattan’s Battery Park City, all located near bodies of water.

Masbia, the kosher food pantry and network of free soup kitchens in Brooklyn and Queens, was closed on Monday but distributed extra food to its indigent recipients on Sunday, as did food programs under the auspices of the Metropolitan Council on Jewish Poverty.

Misaskim, the Orthodox, Borough Park-based organization whose volunteers offer a variety of assistance to people during their mourning period, activated its Emergency Operations Center to help coordinate the Jewish community’s dealings with emergency and law enforcement agencies, and distributed a limited number of generators to people with medical conditions, and a wedding hall in Monsey where a wedding took place Monday night.

While El Al passengers will be able to change the dates of their cancelled flights without a financial penalty, thousands of Israeli airline passengers whose flights to the US were cancelled because of the hurricane will not be entitled to monetary compensation, because the storm is considered an act of God, Haaretz reported. Those passengers, however, will receive their money back or be eligible to an alternate flight on the cancelled route.

The ynetnews.com website reported that, in addition to “several Israelis … stuck in New York,” a “young Jerusalem resident” who was to get married on Thursday in the US to his New York fiancée faced the prospect that the widespread cancellation of flights was likely to keep his family members in Israel from attending. “The situation is made even more taxing,” ynet reported, “by the fact that the ultra-Orthodox couple cannot communicate [during the week] before the wedding, so all the arrangements must be mediated by the parents.”

Few members of the Jewish community on the Lower East Side, located on the East River, apparently moved out this week on the eve of the storm, said William Rapfogel, executive director of Met Council and a lifelong resident of the neighborhood. Younger neighbors made an orchestrated effort to help older residents, he said, and local rabbis organized daily prayer minyans in many of the major apartment buildings that have sizable Jewish populations, to prevent residents from missing a worship service.

“I see people on the street,” he said on Monday. The morning minyan at the Bialystoker Synagogue was “pretty busy.”

As the threat of the cutoff of electricity and cell phone service loomed, a website that serves the Orthodox community, theyeshivaworld.com, posted a notice on “How To Stay Connected During Hurricane Sandy.” Send text messages instead of using phones for making calls, the website advised, “because text messages use much less network capacity. They also don’t use much battery power.”

Staffers of Jewish Home Lifecare, which provides health care services and assistance for the elderly and their caregivers on campuses in the Bronx, Manhattan and Westchester, and also serves clients in their homes, reached out this week to clients in their homes “to check on their safety and make sure they have necessary support,” an update issued by the agency stated. “Community Services staff have worked to get support to the clients” in their homes, “including delivery of food and other necessities.

“Community Services Nurses are visiting clients with critical medical needs in their homes to administer necessary treatments,” according to the update.

Seniors from JASA residences were taken, sometimes accompanied by JASA staff members, to local senior facilities not in danger of flooding, or emergency shelters.

The areas from which residents were ordered to evacuate were those designated as Zone A by New York City, mostly low-lying areas along the bodies of water that surround or border most of the Greater New York area. Among these areas are Far Rockaway, Sea Gate, Coney Island, Manhattan Beach, the perimeter of Staten Island, and southern Manhattan.

The Shorefront Y in Brighton Beach boarded up its windows on Sunday, using pieces of plywood it keeps in storage on the roof, Pollock said, The Y was among several local Jewish institutions that had bought the supplies using funds that UJA-Federation had earmarked since 9-11 for “emergency planning.”

During the last week, he said, JCRC has served as a clearinghouse for storm-related information, working with city agencies and the Red Cross. Its security blog (securityblog.jcrcny.org). posted regular updates, including weather reports, advising for dealing with the hurricane, and other useful information.

Rabbi Potasnik said many long-planned events like weddings and bar-bat mitzvah parties has to be called off or postponed on Sunday and Monday, and Jewish families who suffered a loss then were unable to arrange an immediate burial. “We can’t find any cemeteries that are open,” Rabbi Potasnik said.

Among the cancelled events this week was a screening of the movie “Defiance,” about World War II Jewish partisans, at Symphony Space in Manhattan. The event, sponsored by the School News Nationwide organization, was to feature speeches by a Holocaust survivor, and a son of one of the Bielski brothers who had led the resistance group.

For some Jewish organizations, a priority was protecting its valuables.

“Our Torah has been lovingly sealed in plastic” and stored in a safe location,” Rabbi Darren Levine of Tamid NYC – The Downtown Synagogue, a congregation in lower Manhattan, informed congregants in an email message. “We’re mobilizing a volunteer team to work with other agencies to be ready for the clean up effort in Lower Manhattan alter this week.”

At the Kings Bay Y in Brooklyn, which remained closed on Monday and Tuesday, two non-Jewish members of the maintenance staff volunteered to stay overnight at the building, to monitor if any damage happened during the height of the storm, said Leonard Petlakh, executive director. They told him, in jest, that “any hurricane is better than staying with our wives at home,” Petlakh said.

Ken Soloway, assistant executive director of the Kings Bay Y, said he was inundated this week with messages of support from Y members and members of the wider Jewish community, many offering assistance.

“This is bringing us together,” Soloway said of the hurricane. He said he is considering some sort of follow-up program to sustain that camaraderie. “Something good has to come out of this.”

“There has been a nice amount of reaching out within the community to make sure people are safe and comfortable,” said Rabbi Ora Horn Prouser, executive vice president of the Jewish Academy for Religion in Yonkers. “I also know that many alumni and students have taken steps in their own communities to make sure that especially those who are alone or in need of assistance are cared for.

“Whenever you are in a community of clergy and spiritual thinkers many have taken this opportunity to think and share what this all means in terms of community, our relationship with nature, the human divine relationship and much more,” Rabbi Prouser said.

The Riverdale Y, which was closed on Monday and Tuesday, opened its bathrooms and showers on Tuesday to members of the community, who had lost electric power, to use the Y facilities and recharge their sell phones.

“I know that last night [Monday] during the height of the storm three were 40 people praying in a minyan in Borough Park, enabling mourners to say Kaddish,” Rabbi Potasnik says.

The homepage of the Union for Reform Judaism this week included a link to “Prayers and readings in response to natural disasters.”

Rabbi Anchelle Perl, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Mineola, said he spent much of his time this week offering spiritual encouragement via emails and phone calls.

“Reaching out spiritually, especially in times of worry and fear like this, is very important,” he told chabad.org. “People need to keep their spirits up.” On Monday he delivered kosher food to a teenager at a nearby detention center whose arraignment was postponed by the storm.

In the Bronx, the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale issued an email notice on Monday that a member of the congregation, who was sitting shiva this week, needed a quorum of worshippers for that day’s afternoon mincha prayer service. The synagogue probably feared that a minyan would not turn out for the member’s 1:30 p.m. mincha, which would be in addition to HIR’s regular mincha later that day, said a member of the congregation who drove to the member’s home.

About 40 other Jews from Riverdale showed up too, said the HIR member, who asked not to be identified. Members from several Riverdale congregations came. “Everyone figured that no one else would show up. I think most people drove.”

The weather that afternoon was not pleasant. “It wasn’t pouring,” the HIR member said. “It was blowing like crazy. There were limbs falling down.”

While nearly all Jewish organizations and educational institutions were closed on Monday, and many on Tuesday, in Manhattan – which was cut off from the outer boroughs for several days when subway service was suspended and most bridges and tunnels were closed – where the bulk of the organized Jewish community is based, many offices in the outer boroughs, especially in heavily Orthodox neighborhoods remained open.

A 12-member crew spent most of Sunday afternoon moving and protecting several vulnerable artifacts at the Museum of Jewish Heritage – A living Memorial to the Holocaust, said Betsy Aldredge, public relations manager. After the hurricane’s height on Monday, maintenance workers reported water in the basement and in the switch room, Aldredge said.

The removed items included a Czech Torah that survived the Holocaust, a wedding display that included a full-sized chupah, an early 20^th-Century sukkah from Hungary, and a Sephardic oud musical instrument, all of which were displayed on the first floor; all were moved to a third-floor office.

The museum is located in Battery Park City on the shore of the New York harbor, overlooking Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty. The entrances to the building were sandbagged on Sunday, Aldredge said; the museum was closed on Monday.

A Fazioli piano in the museum’s theater was wrapped in plastic, to protect it against possible water damage, artifacts from the current Hava Nagila exhibit, in a gallery underneath a skylight, were moved to a less vulnerable place in the building, and boxes in the gift shop were moved “out of harm’s way,” Aldredge said. “We did everything we could do.”

The museum took similar steps on the eve of Hurricane Irene’s arrival a year ago, she said. “That was our test run.

“We were lucky,” Aldredge said. The 2011 storm “was not as bad as expected.”

The museum closed a few hours early on Sunday. “A lot of tourists came in” to see its core and special exhibits, she said. About a dozen showed up for an Israeli dance class. “We wish more would have come … but the people who came were glad to be dancing here.”

The Jewish Center, a Modern Orthodox congregation on the Upper West Side, sent an email notice to members informing them that “all activities … other than daily Minyanim” would be postponed on Monday, and urging congregants to

“1. Ask elderly or homebound neighbors if you can assist them in any way.

“2. Check with your neighbors if you can assist them in any way.

“3. Check in on neighbors throughout the next several days.”

Representatives of several local congregations said their synagogues sent similar reminders to their members.

“A crisis brings out best in people who think about welfare of others even when they are hurting,” Rabbi Potasnik said. “I just received call from former Gov. [David] Paterson asking if I am OK.”

Rapfogel said some home attendants hired by Met Council stayed during the height of the storm at the homes of people who required medical attention, and others walked from their homes to clients’ homes.

The Jewish Community Project, a Jewish community organization that offers a variety of programs in Manhattan’s Tribeca area, sent the “general community” links to “key government and weather services,” and an email “hotline” for people needing assistance.

Rabbi Shimon Kramer of the Chabad Center for Jewish Life in Merrick, L.I., sent out a notice to supporters. “If there is something we can help you with, such as flashlights, food, water, or the like, please contact us,” the rabbi stated.

The Chabad-Lubavitch Chasidic movement’s network of shluchim (emissaries) offered relief to members of their surrounding Jewish communities, and offered housing to fellow shluchim who were forced to vacate their homes.

I’ve gotten calls from the four closest shluchim and they offered to take in my family and anyone else that needs a place to go,” said Rabbi Avrohom Rappoport, director of the Chabad House that serves New Jersey’s Atlantic and Cape May counties. “There’s really been a sense of community and concern from our extended family.”

Volunteers moved the Chabad House’s Torah scrolls to higher ground and put plast

Rabbi Eli and Beila Goodman, who live in Long Beach, L.I., and run the Chabad of the Beaches, spent Sunday sandbagging the ground floor of their apartment and synagogue, and helping other people do the same, before joining the evacuation of the water-side area.

Rabbi Yaakov Saacks of the Lubavitch Chai Center in Dix Hills, L.I., said he fielded many calls from people asking for D batteries. “Any ones I have,” I’ve give out,” he told the callers.

In Livingston, N.J., Rabbi Zalman Grossbaum held a walkathon Sunday morning on behalf of the local Friendship Circle, a Chabad program that pairs teenage volunteers with special needs children. Some 2,000 people showed up for the event.

Last year’s walkathon was postponed because of an imminent snowstorm.

Sunday’s event took place just in time. “It was a beautiful event, and everyone was happy to come out and catch some happiness before the craziness we might go through,” Rabbi Grossbaum said.

Rabbi Menachem Kaminker, director of the Israel Chabad Center in Cherry Hill, N.J., offered his Monday evening Torah study class on the phone this week, instead of in person, when it became evident that few, if any, students would venture outside. This week, instead of discussing the Torah portion of the week, he concentrated on “the hurricane, the blessing for it, etc.,” he told The Jewish Week.

“Baruch Hashem, it went great, although because power went out in some portions of our area,” Rabbi Kaminker said. A half-dozen people participated. “The power kept flickering, but we made it.”

At J. Levine Books & Judaica, which stayed open Sunday and Monday at its midtown location but closed early, owner Danny Levine says customers came in, in smaller numbers than usual, and asked for one particular item. Yahrzeit candles. “The 24-hour ones.”

The customers didn’t say whether they wanted the candles for memorial or lighting purposes, but suspects it was a little of each. For the former, members of the Jewish community don’t want to find themselves without the candles that are lit on the anniversary of a loved one’s death, Levine says. For the latter, a yahrzeit candle in a small glass a safe source of light. “Maybe [customers] are thinking it’s as good as a flashlight,” he says.

The customers’ demand for yahrzeit candles didn’t threaten to exhaust the store’s supply, Levine says. “We have plenty.”

The inconvenience of cancelled classes in the middle of the academic year did not seem to bother students at Yeshiva University’s Stern College for Women. “So far, most of what I’ve seen is study, study, study,” one Stern student told the Jewish Week. “The hurricane conveniently hit right before midterms.”

The hurricane is likely to be the stuff of sermons in the coming days, says Rabbi Potasnik of the Board of Rabbis. “Whenever major event happens,” he says, “we as rabbis immediately ask ‘Is there a sermon here?’

While developing an idea for a lecture program, I conducted a series of surveys over a period of two years, asking people to list the fundamental values and principles which they felt we needed to uphold in order to make our world as perfect as is humanly possible. In total, some 1,500 individuals were questioned. Overwhelmingly, my respondents – predominantly Westerners, from the United States, Canada, South America, England, France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Italy, etc – came up with remarkably similar answers, which could be grouped into these six categories:

1. Respect for Human Life. In a perfect world, all people would be guaranteed certain basic human rights, paramount among which must be the right to life. They should be able to live that life without constant fear of its loss and with certain basic dignity.
2. Peace and Harmony. On all levels – whether communal or global – people and nations should co-exist in peace and harmony with respect for each other.
3. Justice and Equality. All people, regardless of race, sex, or social status should be treated equally and fairly in the eyes of the law.
4. Education. Everyone should receive a basic education that would guarantee functional literacy within society.
5. Family. A strong, stable family structure needs to exist to serve as the moral foundation for society and as the most important institution for socializing/educating children.
6. Social Responsibility. On an individual, community, national and global level, people must take responsibility for the world. This should include an organized social network to address basic concerns such as disease, poverty, famine, crime, drug-related problems, as well as environmental and animal protection issues.

The respondents to my survey came from all walks of life, yet regardless of their backgrounds, they were in agreement. Indeed, they, and I venture to say most human beings the world over, deeply believe that a perfect world must include these universal values.

The question is: Why?

Are these six basic ideas intrinsic to human nature? Have people always felt this way? And if not, where did we get these values? What is the source of this utopian world vision?

My search for answers to these questions has produced this book. Where did the values and principles of the modern world come from? The answer I found will surprise, perhaps even shock, the reader.

As the respondents to my survey were predominantly residents of democratic countries, they naturally assumed that the values they hold dear have originated – as did democracy – with the Greeks and, to a lesser extent, with disseminators of Hellenistic, i.e. Greek ideas, the Romans.

Indeed, this issue is subject to much debate in academic circles these days. Traditionalists continue to insist that the values of ancient Greece and Rome underlie all our learning, philosophy, art, and ethics, while their opponents accuse them that their idealization of Greco-Roman standards of virtue, wisdom, and beauty is sentimental if not downright unreal.

Reporting on this bitter controversy, the New York Times (March 7, 1998) asked in a headline:

“THE ANCIENTS WERE: A) BELLICOSE ELITISTS OR B) THE SOURCE OF WESTERN VALUES?”

It would be pointless to negate that Greece and Rome, besides being the most advanced civilizations of antiquity, have also been the most influential of civilizations on Western Europe and by extension, the Americas. Without a doubt, much of our ideas about art, beauty, philosophy, government, and modern empirical science do come from classical Greek thought. Western law, government, administration, and engineering were also powerfully shaped by Rome. Indeed, we do overwhelmingly get the lion’s share of our culture from these civilizations.

But can the same be said about our values, ethics, and principles?

Let me hasten to say that this is not a trick question; I am not hinting here at some far-fetched notion that we really got our values from the Far East. Although, with the recent interest in Eastern philosophies a few voices have been raised advocating this view, the undisputed historical fact is that only within the last few hundred years did the West have any significant interaction with the East.

So the question remains: How did we come to order our moral values in this particular way?

To answer this question we shall begin our examination by taking a look just how those civilizations – which, without a doubt, shaped our political and social systems – related to the values we hold dear today.

A SOCIETY WITHOUT MERCY

As we begin to trace the history of the values of our world, we shall, first of all, take a look at how the ancients – who bequeathed to us so many of our ideas – regarded the values we cherish today. Did they consider them essential to the making of an ideal world? Or was their worldview considerably different than ours?

Of all the principles we might list, the basic right to life seems certainly the most fundamental. We all want to live without fear of being arbitrarily deprived of life. We all want to live with a certain minimal amount of human dignity. We all want certain protection in the law against oppression by tyrants who might consider certain segments of society expendable simply because they are too weak or too poor to protect themselves.

As obvious and important as this concept seems to us today, it was not so obvious or important in the world of antiquity.

To begin with, Greeks and Romans – as well as virtually every ancient culture we know of – practiced infanticide.

By infanticide, I mean the killing of newborn children as a way of population control, sex selection (generally, boys were desirable, girls undesirable), and as a way of ridding society of potentially burdensome or deformed members.

A baby that appeared weak or sickly at birth, or had even a minor birth defect such a cleft pallet, hair lip, or cleft foot, or was in some other way imperfect was killed. This was not done by some Nazi-like baby removal squad. This was done by an immediate member of the family, usually the mother or father, and usually within three days after birth.

The method of “disposal” varied, but generally we know that, in antiquity, babies were taken out to the forest and left to die of exposure, dropped down wells to drown, or thrown into sewers or onto manure piles.

The horror of a parent being capable of killing his or her child is shocking enough. But that this parent should have so little regard for the child, as to unmercifully dump it where it might die slowly and painfully, or be picked up by someone to be reared into slavery or prostitution (as sometimes happened), suggests a level of cruelty beyond our modern imagination. Lloyd DeMause in his essay “The Evolution of Childhood” (pp. 25-26) reports:

“Infanticide during antiquity has usually been played down despite literally hundreds of clear references by ancient writers that it was an accepted, everyday occurrence. Children were thrown into rivers, flung into dung-heaps and cess trenches, ‘potted’ in jars to starve to death, and exposed in every hill and roadside, ‘a prey for birds, food for wild beasts to rend.’ (Euripides, Ion, 504)”

Gruesome evidence of this practice has been found in various archeological excavations. Most notably, in the Athenian Agora, a well was uncovered containing the remains of 175 babies thrown there to drown.

Lest we assume that was the practice of the poor and ignorant, one of the most influential thinkers in Western intellectual history – none other than Aristotle – argued in his Politics that killing children was essential to the functioning of society. He wrote:

“There must be a law that no imperfect or maimed child shall be brought up. And to avoid an excess in population, some children must be exposed. For a limit must be fixed to the population of the state.” (Politics VII.16)

Note the tone of his statement. Aristotle isn’t saying “I like killing babies,” but he is making a cold, rational calculation: over-population is dangerous, and this is the most expedient way to keep it in check.

Four hundred years after Aristotle, the practice of killing babies was a firmly entrenched practice in the Roman Empire. This is an excerpt from a famous and much-quoted letter from a Roman citizen named Hilarion to his pregnant wife, Alis, dated June 17th, circa 1 CE:

“Know that I am still in Alexandria. And do not worry if they all come back and I remain in Alexandria. I ask and beg of you to take good care of our baby son, and as soon as I receive payment I will send it up to you. If you deliver a child [before I get home], if it is a boy, keep it, if a girl discard it…”

Hilarion, as we see, is very much concerned about his baby son, his heir. Indeed a typical Roman family might be made up of two or three sons – to insure succession should one son die – but seldom more than one daughter, who was considered a burdensome responsibility and was all too expendable.

Of course, it could be argued that on other fronts the Greeks and the Romans were capable of refined thinking and an elevated approach to behavior. Seneca, the famed Roman philosopher and writer, developed a lengthy treatise on the control and consequences of anger. In it, he draws the distinction between anger and wisdom, using the following example: “Children also, if weak and deformed, we drown, not through anger, but through the wisdom of preferring the sound to the useless.” (Concerning Anger, I.XV)

EXPLOITATION OF THE INNOCENTS

The whole attitude toward the weak and helpless was totally skewed in ancient societies. Apart from thinking nothing of killing infants when they saw fit, the Romans engaged in the practice of mutilating unwanted children to make them at least “useful” for begging. (Incidentally, this horrifying practice is still seen today in India.)

Our morally-minded friend Seneca, who was so concerned with the issue of useful vs. useless, also came up with a tortured justification for this abomination:

“Look on the blind wandering about the streets leaning on their sticks, and those with crushed feet, and still again look on those with broken limbs. This one is without arms, that one has had his shoulder pulled down out of shape in order that his grotesqueries may excite laughter … Let us go to the origin of those ills – a laboratory for the manufacture of human wrecks – a cavern filled with the limbs torn from living children … What wrong has been done to the Republic? On the contrary, have not these children been done a service inasmuch as their parents had cast them out?”

Today, we would view the killing of newborn babies because they were unwanted or mutilating of tiny infants for profit as probably the most heinous acts a person could commit. What is the weakest, most defenseless, most innocent member of society? A little child. Therefore, we believe that a child, a baby, deserves the protection of society even more than an adult. But in Greek and Roman thinking, rather than being accorded the most protection, children were given the least; this happened simply because, as totally powerless, they were the easiest people to trample on or get rid of.

Points out Harvard Professor and former President of the American Historical Association, William L. Langer (in his foreword to The History of Childhood):

“Children, being physically unable to resist aggression, were the victims of forces over which they had no control, and they were abused in many imaginable and some almost unimaginable ways…”

So we see how very different the attitude of antiquity was to ours. The most basic right – to life (never mind, to life with dignity) – was by no means guaranteed.

HORROR SHOW

Surely, there can’t be a better example of a total disregard for the value of human life than killing people for entertainment. And here the Romans take first prize. No civilization before or since was so bloodthirsty in this regard. Throughout the empire, more than 200 stadiums were specifically erected for the exhibition of this particular “sport,” which required that people and animals be housed and displayed in such a way that they couldn’t escape before being murdered in front of a cheering and jeering audience.

The practice was extremely popular, and Emperor Augustus in his Acts brags that during his reign (29 BC to 14 CE) he staged games where 10,000 men fought and 3,500 wild beasts were slain. While savage fights to the death between gladiators – who were usually slaves trained for the purpose – were the highlight, to keep up the novelty of death, Nero and Domitian sent in even women, children, blind people and dwarfs to fight each other. Anything went just so the crowds were happy.

This form of entertainment reached its pinnacle with the inauguration, in the year 80 CE of the Coliseum, the ruins of which are today a big tourist attraction in Rome.

The Romans were justly proud of the engineering feat that the construction of the Coliseum represented. The giant 600-by-500-foot arena, built by Vespasian and completed by Titus, seated 50,000 people. It had a removable roof and a floor that could be raised or lowered, depending on what the day’s atmosphere demanded. Sometimes the Coliseum was transformed into a desert or into a jungle, and it could also be filled with water and turned into a lake so boats could sail in it.

Why was this incredible place built? To feature death as an elaborate form of amusement for the masses.

On a typical day when the Coliseum was playing to a full house, the place was crowded with men, women and children – yes, the Romans thought nothing wrong with exposing children to this kind of grotesquerie. Admission was free, and a pillow for your seat, meat and wine were provided, also for free. The opening act to start off the morning was an exhibition of wild animals. The Romans went all over the empire to find wild, exotic beasts to astonish the crowds. Next, the arena was lowered to feature combat between them – Romans cheered as lions tore apart tigers, tigers went up against bears, leopards against wolves. It goes without saying that the Romans had never heard of animal rights.

Then came the bullfights, except that the toreadors, being slaves or convicts, had been given no chance to practice, so the bull usually gored them to death. The crowd roared. This is what they came to see.

You’d think that would be enough carnage for anyone. That was only the warm-up act. Next came feeding people to the animals. Keep in mind that Rome was a very law-and-order-minded society and everything had to be done legally – you couldn’t just throw anyone to the lions, only people convicted of a capitol offense. But if they didn’t have enough victims for a good day’s fun, the Romans would conveniently condemn even minor criminals to death and replenish the supply. (Christianity, being a capital offense in Rome ever since the great fire of 64 CE, for which its adherents were blamed, provided a steady supply of victims.)

During intermissions, giant fountains sprayed perfume in the air to reduce the stench of death. Entertainment did not stop, however. In between the spectacular killings were held run-of-the-mill executions by burning, beheading, and flaying (that is, skinning people alive).

The main event was saved for the afternoon, and this was what the crowd was really waiting for – gladiatorial combat. The gladiators fought to the death, although the lives of particularly brave fighters could be spared by the emperor or the vote of the crowd.

In the year 107 CE, during a four-month celebration of his conquest of Dacia, Trajan – who was perhaps trying to match Augustus’ record – held a major tournament in which 10,000 gladiators and 3,000 animals fought. This meant that whoever sat through that spectacle watched at least 5,000 people die. Trajan was so fond of this kind of massacre – and he had a large supply of Dacian prisoners of war for the purpose – that he apparently sent 23,000 people to their slaughter between 106 and 118 CE.

It was all horrible and perverse, and if you thought it couldn’t get worse, consider that Commodus (emperor from 180 to 192 CE) organized fights between crippled people and finished them off himself.

Of the Roman philosophers and great thinkers, only Seneca saw anything wrong with death as entertainment … Other Roman greats were not as soft as Seneca. Cicero, for example, thought that gladiatorial contests promoted courage and endurance, although he was of the opinion that they were not all that entertaining. Juvenal, who criticized everything, loved the games. And Pliny found that watching people be massacred toughened the audience and therefore had educational value.

That about sums up the ancient world attitude toward the value of life. The key thing to keep in mind, however, is that the Greeks or Romans did think that law and order were essential to the efficient functioning of society, and laws under both empires were many and strictly enforced. But the idea that along with your status as a human being came the right to life (forget about life with dignity) was not a given by any means.

AGAINST THE GRAIN: THE JEWISH VIEW

“I will insist that the Hebrews have done more to civilize men than any other nation … fate had ordained the Jews to be the most essential instrument for civilizing the nations.” (John Adams, 2nd president of the United States)

“Certainly, the world without the Jews would have been a radically different place. Humanity might have eventually stumbled upon all the Jewish insights. But we cannot be sure. All the great conceptual discoveries of the human intellect seem obvious and inescapable once they had been revealed, but it requires a special genius to formulate them for the first time. The Jews had this gift. To them we owe the idea of equality before the law, both divine and human; of the sanctity of life and the dignity of human person; of the individual conscience and so a personal redemption; of collective conscience and so of social responsibility; of peace as an abstract ideal and love as the foundation of justice, and many other items which constitute the basic moral furniture of the human mind. Without Jews it might have been a much emptier place.” (Paul Johnson, Christian historian, author of A History of the Jewsand A History of Christianity)

Could that be true?

Is it really possible that our moral values do not originate in one of the great civilizations but have been bequeathed to us by a small, otherwise insignificant nation inhabiting a tiny piece of real estate in the Middle East?

I venture to say that the ancient Hebrews (who later came to be known as the Israelites and still later as the Jews) would have disagreed with the statements of Adams and of Johnson above. They would have insisted that they had nothing personally to do with inventing the values which ran against the grain of the world around them, and indeed were totally unknown to other peoples. They would have insisted that these values came from God, and they were merely the people chosen to disseminate them worldwide.

This was the story they told from the time they appeared on the world scene around 1300 BCE, hundreds of years before the ascent of the Greek civilization. Back then, they were still a newly emerging nation that functioned more like a large extended family, all family members tracing their ancestry to a man named Abraham who had lived somewhere around 1,800 BCE. They were a strange people with an even stranger religion:

• They believed in only one God – all-powerful, infinite, and invisible – who had created everything known to man, a notion totally foreign to every ancient people that preceded them.
• They claimed that all of them – some 600,000 men and untold number of women and children – had miraculously escaped from slavery in Egypt, then the mightiest empire on earth, through the miraculous intervention of their God.
• They claimed that after their great escape, they reached a mountain in the wilderness, Mt. Sinai, where they all had an encounter with God; during that encounter, and through the person of their leader Moses, they supposedly received a code of behavior – compiled in a holy book known as the “Torah” – which they scrupulously followed.

A STRANGE PEOPLE

It was a story bound to raise more than a few eyebrows in the ancient world. Of course, the ancient people believed all sorts of wild things about divine relationships with human beings, so the Jews’ story was not in itself all that outlandish. Nor was a society governed by laws so strange, after all, previous law codes, the Code of Hammurabi being the most famous, set forth rules governing property rights and the like. What the ancient world couldn’t fathom was this particular code. Indeed, it was a code that to the ancient mind seemed irrational.

“The Jews are distinguished from the rest of mankind in practically every detail of life,” wrote Roman philosopher Deo Cassius, expressing his disapproval. “In particular … they do not honor any of the usual gods, but show extreme reverence to only one God.”

Part of that “extreme” reverence translated into following that God’s law, a law which could not be altered as was convenient. It was an absolute, God-given standard, and by that fact alone it stood apart from any law of any other society.

But there was more about the Jews that was strange, besides their God and their law. The Torah – or the Biblos as the Greeks would call it – was like no holy book of any people before or since, in yet another way. It made the Jews look bad. In it, they are shown as shirkers and complainers, often sinning against their own God and His law. And yet they insisted that they needed to carry around with them the history of their failures as well as their successes in order never to lose sight of their mission to elevate humanity.

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We shall now take a look at how the ancient Jews related to the basic human right to life and see how close they came to our standard…

[A note to the reader: This is the just the beginning of one of the most fascinating dramas in human history. Despite all odds, the tiny Jewish people not only outlasted the great Empires of Greece and Rome – the unique ideology of Judaism ultimately triumphed over the paganism of the West.

Directly and indirectly – through the Bible, Christianity, Islam and modern democracy – the vast majority of humanity has been profoundly impacted by Judaism and the monumental quest of the Jewish people to perfect the world.]

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In the field of medicine alone, Jewish contributions are staggering and continue to be so. It was a Jew who created the first polio vaccine, who discovered insulin, who discovered that aspirin dealt with pain, who discovered chloral hydrate for convulsions, who discovered streptomycin, who discovered the origin and spread of infectious diseases, who invented the test for diagnosis of syphilis, who identified the first cancer virus, who discovered the cure for pellagra and added to the knowledge about yellow fever, typhoid, typhus, measles, diphtheria and influenza. Today, Israel, a nation only sixty years old, has emerged at the forefront of stem-cell research, which will, in the near future, give humanity unprecedented medical treatment for degenerative diseases.

There is a passage in the Talmud that says: “We find in the case of Cain, who killed his brother, that it is written: The bloods of thy brother cry unto me: not the blood of thy brother, but the bloods of thy brother is said, that is, his blood and the blood of his potential descendants.” (Sanhedrin 37a, 37-38.)

Over the past 2000 years in particular, millions of Jews have been killed in Inquisitions, Pogroms, and more recently, the horror of the Holocaust. One wonders how much more humanity could have gained from the descendants of those murdered and their potential contributions to mankind.

Below is a short list of some of the most important contributions Jewish individuals have made to society.

Why I donated my kidney to someone I didn’t know.

This story was taken from Aish.com.

If you really want a conversation stopper, tell someone you are planning to donate a kidney and you don’t even know who you’re giving it to.

That’s what’s been going on in my life.

It all started three years ago in Denver when my husband’s good friend needed a kidney. None of his family matched or was able to donate for various reasons. If you have any history of kidney disease, have had certain illnesses like cancer, or possess the wrong blood type, you’re out.

One night I was up late and asked “Rabbi Google” some questions about kidney donations. I just wanted to see what he was going through. There was a lot of information out there, and I began to see that based on the requirements and restrictions, I was actually a very good candidate to donate a kidney.

My blood type is O Positive, which in the world of kidney donations makes me a universal donor. I can only receive from an O, but I can give to anyone. Many blood types can only give to their own type. Some, like AB, are universal receivers. They can only give to their own type, but can receive from anyone. I was a universal donor, and I liked the sound of it. Now I had to see if I could live up to the title.

The idea of donations on the medical front always appealed to me. There are many restrictions in Torah law regarding this, and one needs to consult a competent authority in Jewish law to find out what exactly is permitted and what is forbidden.

A couple of years later, I was called in as a possible match for someone. I was disappointed to be disqualified after further testing.

So the idea of donating my kidney crossed my mind. After speaking to my husband and our rabbi, I decided to offer our friend my kidney. He was extremely grateful and touched, and we began the process of medical testing. Immediately into the process his medical team felt that since he was so much bigger than I was, my kidney would never be able to sustain his body. I was rejected and so disappointed.

A few months later we relocated to the Washington D.C. area to work for Aish. I saw an email that had gone out through the internal Aish system about a very sick five-year-old boy who needed a kidney. I replied, explaining to them that I had already done the research and felt I was a good candidate to give a kidney.

How could I say no to someone else just because I didn’t know them?

A few days later I received a reply that said it turned out that the boy was too sick for the transplant, but would I be willing to be tested for some other people?

The person who wrote me back was Chaya Lipschutz, an observant Jewish woman from New York. She gave her kidney to someone years ago, and her brother, Yosef, did the same. Now she was devoting her life to help others.

That was my first moral dilemma. For our friend, yes. For a little boy, yes. How could I say no to someone else just because I didn’t know them?

I filled out the forms and began the process of testing again. There were three women from New York that I was being tested for, in their 30s and 40s, and each with several children. All three were very sick and in desperate need of a kidney.

I passed the first stage, and they accepted me as a candidate to be an “altruistic donor” (someone who has no connection to the recipient). Now I had to discuss it with my husband.

I told him that I did not really know why I wanted to do it, but I did. I explained that the tests could rule me out at any time. He was not enthusiastic and wanted to speak to our rabbi about it, but we agreed to go forward.

Very few people at this stage knew what I was thinking of doing. Their reactions were, by and large, uniformly negative. How could I put my life at risk? I had children and a husband and responsibilities. What was I thinking? What if I needed a kidney one day? What if one of my kids needed one and I couldn’t give it?

I tried to explain to them that for the donor the risks are very low, about the same as any surgery where there is general anesthetic. The recovery time is about the same as a c-section (without a newborn baby to take care of 24/7). Yes, I was thinking, and had done extensive research. And if you donate a kidney, and for some reason down the road you need one yourself, instead of waiting on a first come, first served list (which in New York State is an average of eight years), you are bumped to the very top of the list. Now that’s insurance. (The Kidney Donor Clinic at the Montefiore Medical Center had only one such case in the 20 years they had been doing transplants.)

I did ask Pat, the wonderful woman who runs the clinic, what if one of my kids or one of my parents needs one down the road? She told me that six months after taking the job running the transplant clinic, her own brother got sick and needed a kidney. She was able to give him hers and save his life. Years later she developed cancer which she beat. She explained to me that if she had hesitated and waited to give him her kidney now, she would have been disqualified as a donor because of the cancer. In other words, God runs the world, and when presented with a mitzvah, an opportunity to save someone’s life, grab it. It may not come again. To hold back and live in a world of “What if…?” could cost lives.

I also explained to people that I felt so much more comfortable giving my kidney to someone I didn’t know, as opposed to someone I knew. Imagine if I gave a friend a kidney and months later I ask my friend to do me a favor and cover my carpool. She says she is too busy to do it. And what will I be thinking? I gave you my kidney, you can’t cover my carpool??

Testing, 1-2-3

Through emails and phone calls, the kidney clinic gave me a long list of medical tests I had to pass in order to make this all happen — mammogram, CAT scans, renal scans… They told me I could be eliminated at any time. I still had not told my extended family. I did not want them to worry, and what if it didn’t pan out?

Some of the tests I had done locally, but some had to be performed at Montefiore, which was located in the Bronx. On a trip home from Israel I had a connection there, so I arranged to stay on for two days and get as many tests done as possible.

My friend, Rebecca, who had travelled with me to Israel on my annual women’s mission, stayed with me in New York. She had been very apprehensive about this whole “kidney thing” as she called it, but is such a good friend that she agreed to tag along for moral support.

In the end it was more than just moral. One of the procedures was a 24-hour test that restricted me to the couch, lest any movement impact the test results. So Rebecca had to go out searching for kosher food and wait on me for 24 hours.

But the most intense part of the two days was when we arrived. We had just traveled across the world from Israel after finishing a whirlwind tour and we needed a good shower. We landed at JFK early in the morning on a day a freak tornado had touched down in Brooklyn.

The city was in chaos and traffic was a nightmare. It took us five hours to get from JFK to the Bronx in stop and go traffic. On the trip we tried to encourage our driver who seemed more exhausted and nauseous than us. He clearly did not want to be on the road that day, and I was afraid he was just going to pull over and say forget it, so I played the “kidney card” in hopes of gaining his sympathy.

“Why would God give us two kidneys if we only needed one?” I replied, “He gave us one to keep and one to give away.”

He was quite fascinated and asked me, “Why would God give us two kidneys if we only needed one?” I replied, quoting Dr. Greenstein, an observant doctor from the clinic, “He gave us one to keep and one to give away.”

When we finally arrived, disheveled, exhausted and weak with our mass of luggage, the transplant coordinators came to the hospital lobby to greet us. They took one look at Rebecca and asked her, “Are you the recipient?”

I spent the afternoon giving blood and taking tests, while Rebecca settled us into our apartment-hotel room they provided for us around the corner from the hospital. Later that night we laughed about how they mistook her for the recipient of my kidney.

“You know, Rebecca,” I said, suddenly serious, “if you did need a kidney, I would give you mine.”

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

“Then how can I not give away my kidney, just because it’s for someone I don’t know? Somebody knows them. They are someone’s wife, sister, friend and daughter.”

“Okay,” she said. “I get it.”

From Tests to Transplant

I continued to pass through the myriad of tests and thankful to get to the next stage. It was also comforting to know that I was, thank God, healthy from head to toe. They told me that there had been many times that a potential donor’s life was saved, as they had discovered things wrong that had gone undetected.

My husband was still not fully on board. He was doing his own research, had spoken to a nephrologist and our rabbi. The doctor told him that people can live a perfectly normal and healthy life with one kidney. Our rabbi told him that saving a life was a very big mitzvah and he should support me in every way. My husband travelled to the clinic, met the transplant team, and gave me 100% support.

The transplant clinic called to let me know that the recipient had been told that she indeed had a kidney donor and the transplant was to be in two weeks. They wait until the last minute to tell the recipient — it can be devastating to think you have a donor and, for whatever reason, it falls through.

What are the reasons? Number one is that people back out, due to their own doubts and fears and the negative pressure they sometimes feel from family and friends. On two separate occasions I had well meaning people sit down with me and try to convince me not to do this “kidney thing”. If I hadn’t done so much research to refute their fears, and if I didn’t feel completely committed to what I was doing, I would have caved as well.

The clinic wanted to know if I wanted to speak to the woman who would be my recipient. “Yes….no… yes!”

Clearly I had mixed feelings. What if I didn’t like her? What if she was judgmental? Or, as one friend cautioned, what if she was taking drags on cigarettes in between sentences? I was more concerned about it being just incredibly awkward.

In the end I decided that I did want to speak to her, but only if she felt comfortable to speak to me. I told them to give her my number, but she shouldn’t feel obliged to call.

For the next two days I kept my cell phone on, even when I was teaching. My heart literally leapt each time it rang. But it was never her. Finally, on the third night, as I was walking into a class, my phone rang and it was her.

We made up to speak in an hour after my class. Completely distracted, I taught, and then went into my office and received her call. We talked for four hours.

“There are no words.” she began.

At one point she asked me, “Who are you?”

“Are you at your computer?” I asked. “Go on to Aish.com.”

I guided her to “Lori Almost Live,” a weekly video blog I do for Aish.com. “That’s me.”

We wanted to know everything about each other’s lives — our kids, our work, everything. It was one of the most significant conversations of my life.

She was an extremely brave woman with seven kids. She was one year older than me, and a year and a half ago during routine blood tests to correct a hernia she found out she had a deadly kidney disease, KPD.

Approximately 70,000 people in the United States are currently waiting for a kidney. Only 6,700 kidneys become available each year.

A kidney transplant is the only cure. Dialysis, which can only sustain a person for five to seven years, destroys a person’s immune system and chains them to a grueling life. Approximately 70,000 people in the United States are currently waiting for a kidney. And the list grows each year. Only 6,700 kidneys become available each year through cadaver (after death) and live donations. Live donation kidneys give a person twice the chance of recovery, since it is healthy and fresh. And if a person receives a kidney before going on dialysis, their chance at recovery also doubles. Thousands each year die waiting.

I traveled to New York for the transplant with Rebecca who volunteered to come with me so my husband could take care of our kids on the home front. Our community of students and friends rallied and organized meals and carpools so I would not have to worry. So many people were now on board and being so supportive.

The surgery was scheduled for a Thursday. They needed me there three days before for more tests. On the Monday that we arrived the recipient of the kidney called and invited us to her home for dinner that night. I was excited and nervous at the same time. I felt like I was about to meet a twin sister separated from me at birth. We had the most incredible evening with her and her husband.

We were so alike in so many ways, and her husband even reminded me of my husband! Clearly this was a match made in heaven. She made us the most incredible, healthy gourmet dinner, and of course she could not eat a morsel. The only way she was able to stay off dialysis was to be vigilant in her diet. Since the day she was diagnosed, she had not had a gram of protein, dairy, citrus, potassium, and so many other foods. She told me lunch for her was a rice cake with lettuce. For a treat, she would put a bit of mayonnaise on it.

The meeting was awkward in some ways, but it was also very inspiring. In the year and a half she had been sick, she married off three children. She showed me the wedding albums, and later I asked her what she was thinking at the weddings, knowing that time was running out. “With each wedding I knew that this child would be alright. They had married a good person. If I was to die, it would be difficult for them, but they could go on. I just wanted to live long enough to marry off my last two children. Then I could go.”

I couldn’t even imagine being so strong. In the face of her dire situation, she always had a smile on her face. Her faith in God never wavered; in fact, it only strengthened. She continued to work full time, and was clearly the energy force of her family.

The night before the surgery she called me to tell me that I didn’t have to do this. “Lori, you are taking a risk and I want you to know that you can absolutely change your mind. I will completely understand.”

I was so moved, but reassured her that I will be there the next morning at 6am at the hospital as planned.

I called my parents and siblings that night to tell them for the first time what I was doing. They were surprised but incredibly supportive. I apologized for springing this on them at the last moment, but I did not want them to worry.

My Kidney Sister also told her children at the last moment. Months before they thought they had a donor, but two days before the surgery it was called off. They had found protein in the urine of the donor which eliminated the possibility of the transplant. The family was devastated.

The Big Day

Many people have asked me if I ever had any doubts. There was only one moment where I hesitated. It was when I was walking with the nurse to the operating room. There was a semi-sterile vestibule that we entered before entering the actual O.R. “Here we go,” she said.

“Hold on,” I said. “I need to say a prayer.”

So I stood there and said the Shema, and asked God to let me live and that the operation should be a great success, and she should live.

“Okay,” I said, “I’m ready.”

I saw the lights, the long operating table with straps, and I froze. “What am I doing?“

And then she opened the doors to the O.R. and I was shocked to see so many people there, everyone running around doing all kinds of things with equipment and machines. I saw the lights, the long operating table with straps, and I froze. “What am I doing?” And then I closed my eyes and said to myself, “Just do it. Just do it.”

I laid down on the table, and the next thing I knew I was in recovery and they were telling me it was a success and everything was alright.

It was over. But really it had just begun.

The Life It Gave Me

The surgery was laparoscopic and I was in the hospital for just a few days recovering. During that time, the grown children of my Kidney Sister and her extended family streamed into my room, crying and thanking me for saving her life. When I was feeling better, I would walk down the hall to visit her. She was doing great, and she told me again, that there are no words. The only way she could describe her feelings was that she felt that a truck was hurtling towards her full force, and I stepped in front of her from out of no where and put my arms out, stopping the truck.

God gave me the opportunity to give her life, and the gratitude she and her family feel towards me is immense. I realized that I should have that same gratitude to my parents, who gave me life. It was humbling to realize how casually we accept that we are here, and how little regard we have for the people who made it possible.

I am still processing the whole experience and feel very small in the face of the enormity and fragility of life and death.

Giving away your kidney is not for everyone. Some people literally cannot do it because of personal or family medical history. But as one person told me just before I left for New York, “Lori, I may not give away my kidney, but because of what you are doing, I will now be more of a giver.”

Thank God I am back on my feet and planning to drive carpool tomorrow, easing back into my life. I speak to my Kidney Sister almost every day, and she is doing great. The marker for kidney patients is their creatinine level. If you are a 10, you must be on dialysis. Going into the surgery she was a nine. 24 hours after the transplant, she was a two. The day she left the hospital she was a 1.6. God made our bodies wondrous. It is difficult for me, and for her, to see people eating garbage or smoking. How could we possibly abuse a body that is so miraculous and precious?

Human beings made a huge dialysis machine to filter out the impurities that our kidneys cannot. Yet it can only do 15% of what a four-ounce kidney that God made can do.

Take pleasure in your life. But take care of the life that you have. And please do what you can to help others do the same.

If you’re interested in becoming a kidney donor, you can contact Chaya Lipschutz who matched me at kidneymitzvah@aol.com. Or contact Rabbi Chaim Steinmetz, who runs ”Renewal.” He matches people all over the world, and helps facilitate the transplant in every way — providing funds to fly people, housing, support in the home of the donor and the recipient. He currently has 40 Jewish people on his list, both children and adults, desperately waiting for a match.

Please go to www.life-renewal.org and help support this lifesaving work. Even if you cannot donate a kidney, your generosity can help save lives.

“We are here to do mitzvot, giving without expecting anything in return. We must run, not walk, to do a mitzvah,” Rothstein said.

The part-time instructor at Kellman Brown Academy in Voorhees and member of Cong. Sons of Israel in Cherry Hill carried out one of the greatest mitzvot of all earlier this month when she gave the precious gift of life to a Brooklyn, NY, teenager badly in need of a new kidney.

On Nov. 1, the 39-year-old mother of two reported to New York-Presbyterian Hospital to donate her left kidney to Sofia Manfredi. Sofia, 13, suffered kidney damage during a traumatic birth. With her undersized kidneys no longer supporting her growing body, the seventh grader at Brooklyn Studio Secondary School began evaluation for transplant in June.

“When I heard there was a girl who needed a kidney from someone with Type O-negative blood, I just knew it was the right thing to do, especially because of the environment I work in,” said Rothstein, who returned home three days after the life-giving surgery to recuperate more fully at home. Manfredi went home a day later and will take up to two months to recover while being home-schooled.

“The kidney responded much quicker than expected. Sofia’s creatinine levels dropped immediately,” said Rothstein, referring to a waste product that is filtered out of the blood when kidney function is normal and, in high amounts, is an indicator of renal failure.

Rothstein, who is married to an assistant commander in the New Jersey Air National Guard, has lived in Cherry Hill for 13 years and is in her fifth year of teaching at Kellman Brown, where she instructs kindergarten students on how to use computers, teaches first grade, and helps students in grades one through four with reading. Her calling to teach at a Jewish day school, where the curriculum incorporates life lessons on respect for life and giving back to society and individuals, provided a natural pathway to her mitzvah.

She decided to become a kidney donor after reading about Manfredi’s plight in August. A Jewish website had put out the call from Chaya Lipschutz, a Brooklyn woman who donated a kidney six years ago and then founded an organization, SaveALife- DonateAKidney, to match donors with recipients.

Lipschutz said it makes no difference if the donor and/or recipient is Jewish, although she uses Jewish social networking to facilitate many of her “shiddochs,”—a numerous amount to date, although she declined to say exactly how many.

“Chaya means life or life-giving, so I’m living up to my name,” said

Lipschutz, who is currently seeking a donor for a non-Jewish Cherry Hill resident with Type B blood, meaning he can accept a kidney from a donor who is Type B or

Type O.

Rothstein also did not care whether her recipient was Jewish, although it happens that Sofia’s mother, Tami, is Jewish and her father, Michael, is Italian.

“Type O recipients cannot receive organs from other blood types, and there were no other matches,” Tami Manfredi said. “Jennifer is a wonderful person, and this is a wonderful thing she’s doing.”

Rabbi Moshe Schwartz, head of school at Kellman Brown Academy, said there was never a question of whether to give Rothstein the time off to prepare for the surgery and then to recover.” Jewish tradition teaches us that saving one life is like saving the world. It’s like creating life anew,” Schwartz said.

She had no trouble explaining her decision to even her youngest students at Kellman Brown, allaying their worries when they learned she’d be away from school for at least two weeks.

“I told them that Hashem listens to the prayers of children very closely, and that they would help Sofia feel better by praying,” she said.

“We pray to have faith. It’s not our world—it’s Hashem’s world. We just do what He directs us to do, and He will take care of everything,” she said. .

Now we’re going to focus on the positives.

When we first started this project, several years ago – we asked our friends and associates,
“What would you say is so
great about being Jewish?”

And we received answers like these:

Bagels with cream cheese and lox,
Bar Mitzvah parties,
You can get it ‘for wholesale,’
Woody Allen
Matzoh ball soup.

These are lovely, delightful, delicious “customs” if you will – (plus one super-talented, neurotic personality) – BUT – they are not what our ancestors were willing to lay down their lives for over the course of thousands of years in order to preserve Judaism for future generations.  They actually have little to do with what being Jewish isreally about.

So we started compiling a list of more substantial reasons – and that has become:

18 FUNDAMENTAL AND PROFOUND REASONS WHY IT’S GREAT TO BE JEWISH.

1. YOU ARE PART OF AN EXTRAORDINARY PEOPLE - a great people with a great history going back more than 3,500 years.

Judaism has given the world some of its finest, most basic concepts and institutions for civilization:

• The concept of One God for all the Universe;
• The Ten Commandments – the building blocks of civilization;
• A religion that integrates ETHICAL BEHAVIOR with everyday life AND religious practice;
• The judicial way of thinking with high regard for justice and laws that apply toeveryone, based on Torah and developed by our sages through the creation of the Talmud;
• The concept of a seven day week with the seventh day – the Sabbath – for rest.

Wherever Jews have gone in the world, they have brought with them lively religious, cultural and commercial life.  The love that the Jewish people have for their religion, culture and beliefs has kept Judaism alive and vibrant for thousands of years despite persecution and oppression throughout our history.

Jews have consistently held that our religious beliefs and practices are so great – so special – so precious and unique – that they are worth dying for.  And so we have – unfortunately – had to die over the millenia – simply because we were Jews.

But as a result Judaism LIVES ON! – because our ancestors so valued it that they were willing to give their lives - so that we can know it – practice it – and value it, too!

No other culture has survived for so long without a homeland as Jews have for almost two thousand years, until the homeland of eretz Y’Israel was regained in 1948.

The Jewish People has produced some of the greatest thinkers, scientists, doctors, philosophers, theologians, psychiatrists, merchants, entrepeneurs, inventors, jurists, therapists, writers, artists, actors, singers and song writers, filmmakers - and comedians – the world has known.  We’re an extraordinary people that has consistently made an extraordinary contribution to the world – far out of proportion to our numbers – and we’re still doing it! – and we can be proud of that.

2. THE JEWISH VALUE SYSTEM.  Intrinsic to Judaism is a value system that emphasizes honesty, justice and compassion above all else. When the great sage Hillel was asked over two thousand years ago to recite, while standing on one foot, what the essence of Judaism is, he replied, “Do not do unto others that which is hateful to you.” And he added, “All the rest is commentary. Now go and study…”  Christianity took this concept, changed the wording and called it The Golden Rule.  But in essence, it’s Jewish in origin and practice.  And it’s a magnificent cornerstone of civilization and compassionate behavior.

3. FREEDOM AND DIGNITY.  Belief in individual freedom is woven into the fabric of Judaism. The story of Moses leading the Israelites out of slavery in Egypt, the central drama of our Torah that is retold each year at Passover, is the oldest continuous celebration of freedom in recorded history. Given this core value and an annual celebration held dear by most Jews, it’s no accident that Jews have been in the forefront of the struggle for freedom for others, wherever they are oppressed. It is part and parcel of who we are and what we believe.

4. MAKING LIFE MEANINGFUL.  Being part of this great people, and practicing Judaism, can make life more meaningful for you and for those you love – on a very personal level. Through its beliefs, practices and traditions, Judaism addresses what it means to be a human being - the anguish of suffering, the mystery of love, the power of human connection, the importance of family, the meaning and purpose of our lives are all addressed through Jewish thought, prayer and rituals and the vast literature that has come down to us through the ages.

And Jewish answers to tough questions about life and death, good and evil and other major issues, are rarely simplistic and ready-made, but rather more shaded and complex, attempting to give us the tools to grapple with these profound questions within our own hearts and minds.

5. JEWISH FAMILY LIFE.  Jewish rituals, festivals and observance help support and sustain a healthy, happy, balanced and stable family life within a strong and supportive community. Observing holidays, going to synagogue, practicing the rituals, studying Jewish ideas and texts, all help to connect family members to each other as well as to the community.

When family and friends come together at the end of the week – on Friday evening – to share a festive meal in celebration of Shabbat and peace and solid values, they are taking part in a beautiful ancient ritual that is one of the great delights of Judaism.

Home and family are central to Jewish rituals and festival observance – but single people are included, too.  Every Jew counts!

6. GOOD DEEDS.  Judaism connects belief with action.  Maimonides – the great 12th century sage – suggested that we consider the world evenly balanced between good and evil.  When we perform good deeds, we tip the balance of the world towards good – and if we do evil, it goes the other way.  Thus our acts can tip the balance of the world – in favor of good or evil!  It’s a great way to envision how powerful each of us is to affect the world and those around us.

We are taught as Jews that not only is it good to help the poor, but we’re actuallyrequired to help the poor on a regular basis. Traditional Jewish law says that we must give a portion of our income to charity, whether we feel like it or not. We’re not to wait ‘til we’re “in the mood” to be charitable. First we give, then, hopefully, we will come to feel empathy, if we didn’t already. But whether we feel empathy or not, we have performed the good deed.

There is no act in Judaism considered higher than giving “tzedaka” – charity.  It’s one of many brilliant Jewish laws and values that help make the world a better place for all to live in.

7. LIFE ON EARTH.  Because Judaism emphasizes life as it is lived on earth, rather than the afterlife, importance is placed on working to repair – even perfect – the world; to struggle against injustice, to make life better for all, especially the poor and oppressed. This concept is called Tikkun Olam.  It means to repair the world.

It’s one reason why so many Jews are active in causes that support freedom, justice and well-being for all peoples. It is part of the fabric of being Jewish.

Also, because of the emphasis on deeds rather than belief, you can, technically speaking, be a practicing Jew and an atheist or agnostic at the same time – though as you learn more and more about Judaism, and increase your practice, you might be inclined, less and less, to maintain such a belief.

8. A GREAT THEOLOGY.  Judaism is based on a great theological idea – that there is one God – infinite, all-knowing and eternal, unseeable and unknowable – there is none else. There are not different gods for every people, region or tribe – but only one God for all on earth – or anywhere else in the universe…

And, unlike many other religions, Judaism teaches that everyone who leads a good life – whether Jewish or not – is rewarded with a share in the world to come.

In addition, Jewish theology is complex and nuanced – not simplistic. Judaism is rare among world religions for its many-faceted theology. Though all Jewish theology is based on the immutable belief that there is only one God who is infinite, eternal and undefinable, there is a wide range of ways to envision God, perhaps especially because Judaism acknowledges that God is unseeable and unknowable. The sages of the Talmud, the Kabbalists and the 18^th century Hassidic Rebbes were all extraordinarily creative and insightful in articulating ways of understanding God.  And their thinking – as well as that of more modern thinkers – is available to all of us through the study of their words and thoughts.

9. CONNECTION TO THE ETERNAL FORCE.  Judaism offers a way to connect with God through prayer – to pray for strength and guidance when dealing with difficulties, to be grateful for all that has been given to you, to recognize what is important and holy in life.

Did you know there’s a blessing to say when you hear thunder? – and another for when you see a rainbow? And yet another for when you get together with old friends?  Isn’t that lovely?  Such prayers help us to appreciate the beauty and miracle of life and in that way they elevate us – they help us to value – to savor - the goodness in life; they help us to feel good about being alive.

10. JEWISH COMMUNITY.  Judaism is a COMMUNITY RELIGION.  We pray as a community – the words to our prayers are in the PLURAL – we observe as a community, we’re set up to always FORM a COMMUNITY.  Jewish customs and laws actually REQUIRE a COMMUNITY.

Even the very basic concept of prayer that requires a Minyan (a minimum of ten) to take place, requires COMMUNITY.  It’s a wonderful concept – EVERYONE COUNTS!  Of course everyone can pray individually any time – Everyone who seeks God has direct access to God.  But we pray as a group in a specified way; the Prayer Service requires a Minyan of Ten – that is COMMUNITY.  Perhaps it’s one of the reasons why Judaism has survived for so long.

Not only the Minyan of ten required for prayer, but the laws of kashrut (kosher food), the celebrations of holidays, the keeping of Shabbat – it all works beautifully as a SYSTEM that requires a COMMUNITY to support it.  Celebrating Shabbat at home alone is very pale compared to celebrating with other Jews, in the context of a Jewish community.

11. JEWISH HOLIDAYS are deeply meaningful.  If you actually listen to the liturgy on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – well, there’s nothing DEEPER than this stuff!  It reminds you that your days are numbered!  What are you doing with the precious “numbered” days of your life?!  Are you engaged in MEANINGFUL activities?!  Meaningful thoughts? Are your acts the acts of a GOOD, MORAL PERSON?  Are you making a CONTRIBUTION to the world?

In addition, the traditions that go with these holidays – and all the others – are warm and memorable and almost always delicious!

Jewish Holidays – all of them – not just the Big Ones – deepen our connection to Judaism and Jewish values, to each other, to the Jewish community at large – and from generation to generation.

Most Jews know about Pesach - when we have the Passover Seder, read the Haggadah, eat matzoh and drink four cups of wine, etc.  But what do you know of Succot?  Succot is ALMOST as great as Pesach!  In the beautiful days of autumn, when the air is crisp and the leaves are turning glorious colors, Jews  scrunchtogether in a little shelter – a tent or hut, with an open roof, no less – (You must be able to see the stars through the roof – How’s that for a law?) – called a Succah – where you say prayers and drink wine and eat a delicious meal  This is key! – you can’t just go for a quick prayer and a sip of wine – you must SIT AND ENJOY A MEAL – and tell stories and talk about philosophy and Torah and history and inevitably someone tells Jewish jokes and a few get tipsy and almost always you laugh a lot.  As one young man (a baal tschuvah – a returnee to traditional Judaism) said:  It’s like the best dinner party you ever went to.  So true!  Don’t miss the next Succot – it comes in the fall, four days after Yom Kippur.

12. SHABBAT.  This is one of the great institutions in all the world.  Of course Judaism gave the world this special Day of Rest that is observed – one way or another – throughout the civilized world.  But that doesn’t begin to explain and describe what is so special – so unique – so wonderful about Shabbat.

Many people have the perception that observing Shabbat is a difficult, painful, MISERABLE exercise because of all the prohibitions.  But Shabbat is not about those prohibitions at all – it’s about creating a very special time – a time for not only rest but Spiritual Elevation – Holiness – Connection with G-d and your fellow man (and woman, of course) and spiritual ideals – to come into your life.  And it is, in fact, theprohibitions, as well as the customs and requirements, that set the stage for that special Aura to envelope the space around you.

We personally had nothing but a negative view of all of this “ridiculous business” UNTIL WE ACTUALLY EXPERIENCED SHABBAT WITH THE RELIGIOUS COMMUNITY.  And then – over time – (it took a while) – we began to “get it.”  We began to see that this day was truly special and the specialness was created by several factors.

Among them was that the community goes through  major preparations – because of the prohibitions of things you cannot do on the Sabbath.  So even the Preparation Time – with everyone rushing about to get ready before sundown on Friday – adds to creating something special about this day.  There is something about a whole community preparing to BATTEN DOWN – close up – shut off the noise of the world and move into a special time when gathering with families and friends becomes paramount – when going to Synagogue and studying spiritual ideas is central – when meals are especially warm and joyous – when there are beautiful rituals to be performed and lovely songs to be sung and ancient melodies to be chanted - when rest is practically mandated.  It’s totally unique – totally special.  You FEEL DIFFERENT when you are observing Shabbat – you feel different AFTER you’ve observed Shabbat.

Shabbat is a very big subject – complex and hard to explain.  Perhaps the best way to understand it is to EXPERIENCE a Shabbat – or part of a Shabbat – with those who are observant.  If you approach it delicately and with respect you will get a taste of why and how it’s so special.

We say:  Don’t turn your nose up at it – take a peek into that world and see why it is said that the Jewish people didn’t so much keep Shabbat over the centuries as SHABBAT KEPT THE JEWISH PEOPLE.  We came to see how that is truly true.

13.  JEWISH COMFORT.  Life can be very hard – very harsh – very sad and tragic.  There can be illness, terrible upheavals, the death of a loved one.  Judaism offers comfort on a very profound level.  There are prayers and rituals and systems for mourning, remembering and honoring - there are comforting customs – there’s the community to share your grief – to visit you in the hospital – there’s Rabbinic counselling – much of it on an extremely high AND deep level.  When you are in need of comfort, its a wonderful thing to be able to turn to your Judaism and get that comfort.

14. THE POWER OF POSITIVE THINKING. Judaism is the original Positive Thinking religion. Every thought – every lesson – every ideal is positive – from love of God to insisting on standards of justice, from saying a blessing before we eat to refusing to rejoice at the death of our enemies – and including thanking God for the rainbow when we see it.

The Torah says: Choose Life! – so that you may LIVE LIFE! – that is, THRIVE and prosper! – under the laws given at Mount Sinai – in other words, in a CIVILIZED and SPIRITUAL CONTEXT.  It’s all TOTALLY POSITIVE.

15.  JEWISH STUDY – JEWISH BOOKS.  Oi!  Do we have a lot!  You could study 24 hours a day and still barely make a dent in the material available.  And that’s WONDERFUL! - because there really IS a great deal to study and discuss in this world – in subjects that Judaism touches upon – from, Why are we here? – What’s the point of it all? – to What does the Talmud actually SAY? - and including, Have you heard the one about the Jewish Grandmother who….?

We say:  Take a class – Join a Book Discussion Group - get a degree! – meet people – make new friends – there’s just so much DOING in Jewish learning!  It’s all over the place and it’s really interesting stuff.  And it’s fun to study with Jews.  Many of us are smart and very well educated – and funny!  Join up today!

(Or – simply order a book from our Shop Kehillah! Boutique - there’s a million – at least – well, almost.  You’ll be helping to support KEHILLAH…) 

16.  THE TORAH – This is the basic text of Judaism – How we came to be a people – the stories of our Matriarchs and Patriarchs – (You’ve heard of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob?…) – their stories are amazing – and touching – they’re not simplistic goodie-goodie tales – but filled with complex elements and contradictions – and dark sides as well as the more upbeat side.  There is the epic tale of Moses leading the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt into freedom – and receiving God’s law at Mount Sinai – and through it all are the laws.  It is endlessly fascinating – and it’s meaty enough to be discussed each week in synagogues all around the world.

In additon, there’s the Talmud – this great, magnificent creation – over 2000 years old - that actually forms the basis for much modern-day legal thinking – including our American system of justice – not only in Judaism.  It’s a brilliant document – and very colorful.  When you study it, you get to know the great sages who hammered out Jewish law and practices that have shaped Judaism for 2000 years.

You can’t simply sit down and READ the Talmud – it’s too complex and different.  You can only STUDY it – with a partner – or a group – under the guidance of someone who KNOWS how to study Talmud.  It’s a very special document, written in a special way.  And now it’s been translated into English in a very distinguished edition published by Art Scroll.  See if there’s a Talmud class near you.  It’s an unbelievable experience to study this master work – only 68 volumes long!….

In Judaism, you don’t “just read” anything – you STUDY it – you DISCUSS it – you DEBATE it – you ARGUE it – you MULL it over and RE-THINK it… And that is one of the beauties of Judaism – you’re always THINKING, MULLING, STUDYING, READING – it’s very deep and challenging and SMART!  And that is something that many of us just ADORE.

17.  HOLINESS.  Judaism attempts to bring holiness down to everyday life – and to bring every day life up toward holiness.  When you say a prayer before you eat, you are bringing holiness to the very mundane act of eating.  When you make your home Kosher, you are bringing holiness into your home.  When you say a prayer as you set out on a journey – you’re bringing holiness to something that still today has elements of fear and anxiety in it – more than ever, today!  Traditional Judaism infuses everyday life with holiness.  That’s not such a bad idea!

18.  JEWS ARE WONDERFUL PEOPLE.  We are very varied, of course – but there are so many kind, caring, compassionate, understanding, creative, smart, sharp-as-a-tack, funny, delightful, brilliant and generous Jews.  It’s nice to be with Jews!

These are only a few of the myriad reasons why it’s great to be Jewish. There’s so much more waiting for you to discover. We urge you to attend Jewish activities, classes and synagogue and to read books and articles that further your education.  The world of Jewish learning is absolutely huge and fascinating.  You’ve made a start by reading this far.  We hope you’ll take the next step – whatever step is right for you…

Read more at www.ikehillah.org

What’s A Jew, Anyway?

by: Rabbi Moshe Zeldman

I’ve been a teacher on the world-famous Discovery seminar for many years. And it’s exciting to have the honor of being able to introduce audiences to the power and veracity of our Torah. Each class in the seminar has its own flavor and appeals to different personalities in the audience in wonderful ways.

As much as I always loved teaching the class on the seven wonders of Jewish history, I also dreaded it. And here’s why. Every time I taught the class, I hit the same impasse. And it always went something like this:

Me: Not only have we miraculously survived thousands of years of anti-Semitism and exile, but it’s even predicted in our Torah that we’re going to be an eternal people! And what makes it even more remarkable is that we have a very hard time even having a clear definition of who we are! Let me ask you a question. If a total stranger, that’s never met a Jew, stopped you on the street and said “I overheard you say that you’re “Jewish”. What’s Jewish? Some sort of club?” What would you respond?

Member of the audience: We’re a religion. You know- there’s Christians, there’s Hindus, there’s Muslims and there are Jews.

Me: So being Jewish means you’re religious? Clearly not. In every other religion in the world, your “membership” in the religion is established by adhering to the beliefs and practices of the religion. You can’t reject belief in the divinity of Jesus and still call yourself a Christian! And so too with Buddhism, Hinduism, and all the others. Yet, a Jew can call themselves an atheist, can totally reject all Jewish values, beliefs and practices, and they’re still 100% Jewish. So it’s not a religion. Instead, maybe we should say it’s a…?

Audience: Race! It’s like being Latino, or Asian, or black. If you’re born into it, you’re part of it!

Me: ALSO no good! Why? First of all, because there are Jews of all races. There are Oriental Jews, Ethiopian Jews, Caucasian Jews… just look at the Kotel any day of the week. It looks like a United Nations. And more so, we know that being Jewish isn’t racial because anyone can join in. One can convert and become 100% a Jew. You can’t become Chinese. You can move to China, pick up the language, become a citizen, eat only Chinese food…..but it doesn’t change your race! So being Jewish has nothing to do with race. So instead, maybe we’re a…..?

Audience: Nation. There are French, Germans, Italians and there are Jews. You don’t have to be born into it, it doesn’t require any beliefs or practices,… THAT’s what we are!

Me: Sorry, but three strikes and you’re out. What’s a nation? Look at every example we have of nationhood. Being French, Italian, etc means that you have a common land, language, and culture. French people live in France. They speak French. And there’s a French history and culture that French people all have in common. Same with Italians, Americans, Germans, etc. But let me ask you: Do Jews have a common land?

Audience: Israel!

Me: How many of you live there? (3 hands go up in a room of 50 people). Not a very common land huh? What about language?

Audience: Hebrew!

Me: B’emet? Kama mikem medabrim Ivrit?

Audience: Huh?

Me: Never mind, Just proving a point. Do we have a common culture and history? Kind of. We could say that all Jews- Sephardic, Ashkenazi, Yemenite, Ethipian, HAD a common history two thousand years ago when we were all living here. But now? I think most of us have a lot more in common culturally with our fellow non-Jewish American neighbor than we do with a Jew from Yemen or Ethiopia. So in summary, that’s it. Here we are, a group of people that’s lasted thousands of years, and yet we don’t even quite know what we are! So let’s move on to the rest of the class.

—-HERE’S WHERE THE TROUBLE BEGINS—-

Audience: But wait a second Rabbi. SO WHAT ARE WE?

Me: Um, we’re not a nation, not a race and not a religion.

Audience (sensing that I’m getting a little uncomfortable): Well then WHAT ARE WE?

Me: I’ll tell you what we are. We’re confused.

This question plagued me for years. And I’m a Rabbi for crying out loud! I can define kosher, I can explain Shabbat, and I can show you the deeper moral lessons layered in the stories of our Torah, but I don’t know what a Jew is!
One day, I was walking down the stairs leading to the Kotel to go pray, and my phone rings.

It’s Rabbi Shalom Schwartz, a close friend and mentor. He says “Moshe, I just found the answer”. (Living in Israel, you get a little used to these kind of mini-miracles). He says “I’m here in the bookstore in the Old City, and I see a book on Jewish identity that caught my eye, written by a Rabbi Adin Steinsaltz. He asks exactly your question! And not only that, he gives a stunningly simple answer! It’s TWO WORDS!”

Rabbi Steinsaltz points out, that the most common reference to the Jewish people in Torah is the term “bnei Yisrael”, literally the children of Israel. Why? Because all of us are the kids of our forefather Jacob, whose name was changed to Israel.

All Jews that you ever meet are all Jake’s kids. So what does that make us? A FAMILY.

So as I stood there on the steps, 3 feelings overcame me:

1) Stupidity- How could I have been learning Torah all these years and not thought about this simple phrase that’s so pervasive in Torah?

2) I felt an immediate bond to everyone around me, all Jews in Israel, and all Jews from around the world—Jews facing anti-Semitism in France, “unaffiliated” Jews in the US, Hassidim, Ethiopians, soldiers, Jews in bomb shelters in Sderot, proud Jews and self-hating Jews, converts (they’re the ones that the family adopted), left wingers and right winger… we’re all one family! And we have a home! Many of us know that feeling when the plane lands in Israel. We don’t have the world’s nicest beaches, or fanciest museums and cafes, or exciting entertainment, but hey, there’s just no place like home.

3) Boy, is this dysfunctional family! It’s not just that we have different opinions, customs and practices. In a healthy family, you love and accept people even if they don’t think the way you do (Believe me I know…I’ve got teenagers). You love them even if you think they’re crazy (Believe me I know…I’ve got teenagers). How can we allow our family in Sderot to be bombed and allow ourselves to think of it as “their problem”? How can Jews in the West look at the Iranian nuclear threat and think of it as Israel’s problem? How can anybody look at Jews that intermarry, leaving the family, and think “as long as they’re happy”?

The truth is, there is more to the story. The Torah also calls us Am Yisrael, the Nation of Israel. That means that ideally there is another dimension: we’re a nation that’s meant to impact nations; to exemplify kindness, justice and responsibility. But the starting point is to know who we are.

The Satmar chasidim are the Boo Radleys of our town. Like that character in “To Kill A Mockingbird,” they scare the neighbors and frighten the horses. They hide but don’t seek. They’re quaint but not cute. In a narcissistic city, they refuse to flatter. Jewish families visit Williamsburg, Va., but not Williamsburg, Brooklyn. They don’t want visitors and don’t have gift shops.

Yet once when I was in the hospital, a Satmar woman came every morning with hot soup, freshly cooked chicken, homemade applesauce and marble cake. She was shy and of indeterminate age. She didn’t know who I was, just that there was a Jew on the eighth floor.

I didn’t need her food but didn’t say so because I liked seeing her in the mornings. She was from the Ladies Bikur Cholim D’Satmar, a group of women who cook and deliver food to some 70 patients daily in more than two dozen hospitals from Staten Island to Washington Heights. Almost none of the patients served are Satmar.

About 15 “ladies” leave Williamsburg every morning in a van that takes them and their bags full of meals to the hospitals. More often than not they return to Williamsburg by subway, and a long ride it is from most hospitals. The Ladies Bikur Cholim visits six days a week in rain, heat or sleet. The day after 9-11, they crossed the closed bridges by hitching rides in Jewish ambulances.

“This started with the Satmar rebbetzin [the late Feige Teitelbaum],” said one Satmar lady who wouldn’t tell me her name. “She started this after the war, from her own little kitchen. She herself took the soup on the subway. Then she took on a helper, and more helpers.

“It was after the war. Almost everybody [in Williamsburg] was a Holocaust survivor. No one had families. She was like a mother. She heard someone was sick, she made soup. Do you know Satmar?”

I didn’t want to say that I knew Satmar all too well from their battles with other Jewish groups. After all, she was coming to me in gentleness, and I wanted to be gentle in return.

I told her my grandparents had a bungalow on the banks of a Catskills lake. The lake was surrounded by tall pines that reflected in the water. On the far side of the lake was a Satmar colony. At dusk we could see the lights in the windows and hear voices muffled across the water. That summer I often though that as different as the Satmars were, we enjoyed the same godly beauty. They must have loved the lake as I did.

“We shared a lake,” I said.

“In the summer we go to the country,” she said.

That was as personal as the conversations got.. The Satmar women avoided personal questions. “We just try to make the patients feel happy,” she said.

In emergency rooms, everything earthly – your keys, shoes, wallet, the computer disk in your shirt pocket – is put into a bag called “Patient’s Belongings.” In the John Lennon exhibit in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, the final item was Lennon’s “Patient’s Belongings” bag from Roosevelt Hospital, for in the end, no matter who you are, that’s what it comes down to.

To the Satmar ladies, all the feuds and misunderstandings of this world go into that bag, that bag that no patient needs. So why talk of earthly things, of old fights or affiliations?

She said, “a Yiddishe neshoma is a Yiddishe neshoma,” a Jewish soul is a Jewish soul. If a patient was happy to get Satmar’s kosher home-cooked food, then they could be Reform, gay, Republican, Democrat, Zionist, intermarried. It didn’t matter, these ladies would deliver.

After getting out of the hospital, like a Hansel or a Gretel, I followed the crumbs back to 132 Ross St. in Williamsburg, a cellar several steps down from street level where the Ladies Bikur Cholim D’Satmar have their office and kitchen.

Throughout the day, Satmar women from the neighborhood would bring in a big sheet of sponge cake, or a large tub of homemade applesauce made in their private kitchens.

In the Ross Street kitchen, Mrs. W. answered the phones and penciled in the information from individuals who alerted her to a Jewish patient somewhere in a hospital. She had no computer to help her keep track of the many patients. She kept the names of her many volunteers in raggedy cloth-covered loose-leaf.

“We’re here from 8 in the morning to 6 at night,” she said. “Not me, maybe” – she has 12 children, after all – “but someone is here. Other than Shabbos [Sabbath] and yontif [the holy festivals] there’s no such thing as a day off. On a short Friday, do you know what it means to deliver to hospitals and be back to make Shabbos? And these are women with large families.”

Mrs. W. explained, matter of factly, “this is what we do. The whole Satmar community is based on chesed [mercy]. We help people and Hashem [G-d] should help us.”

I said, “I’m sorry I never brought soup to you, if you or someone in Satmar was sick.”

“No one should be sick,” said Mrs. W. “G-d forbid. We should always be able to help each another.”

None of the Satmar women would allow me to know their names or to take their picture, yet we were strangely intimate, these women and I. After all, we Jews are more sweetly intimate than we suppose. There are people in our community whom we barely know, but we can walk into each other’s shivas [houses of mourning] without explanation. If one of us dies, we volunteer to wash each other’s bodies. If sick, we bring soup to Jews we never met before.

We may never speak again, these Satmar women and I, but it was as if we shared the same lake, a piece of G-d’s beauty, the water rippling flowing from one side to the other.

courtesy of http://www.JewishWorldReview.com 

Now what’s a blog for, if not honesty? I don’t want candy coated writing. It’s nauseous. And I don’t want superficial, I want fresh and I want real.

Not only that but people love that kind of writing. The comments are not just ten or twenty. There are hundreds of readers who want to chime and in and say “yeah, me too…..”

I have friends too, who have suffered and they feel a measure of comfort seeing their pain be validated.

But even with all that; Even with the ever pressing need to talk about issues; to not stuff them in the closet and to demand that true spiritual values be lived, I think we can do better.

Here’s how I see it. A person needs to decide for themselves how they identify.

Are you American or are you Jewish?

America values freedom. It places your rights above everything.

Judaism values responsibility. Your responsibility comes before everything.

Rav Dessler in his famous work “Strive for Truth” looks at the difference between the two. A system based on rights is a system based on taking; How much do I deserve to get.

The secret American dream is that one day I’ll be able to sue a big corporation for some injustice and I’ll get 10 million dollars. [after all, I have a right to!]

Although the idea of every human being having rights sounds beautiful, it misses the mark. It places responsibility on everyone but yourself. And the society it breeds may value equality and expression, but it also breeds a selfish, immature self-portrait.

Judaism also values equality and expression. And like Democracy, which is based on Jewish teachings, justice and fair treatment of every human being is paramount.

How we get there though is where we diverge. In a rights based system, each one is looking out for themselves. In a responsibility based system, each is looking out for others.

When a person is the victim of unkindness or injustice or some other sort of perversion in the Jewish community, its nothing less than horrible. Not only are we as a people mandated to live a life on a higher standard, but together we are a family! A family! When your family hurts you its devastating! And when you see corruption in the mission you’ve sacrificed for its a knife in the heart.

And that’s what you see in these blogs. People are bleeding. Much of what they write about is not even that awful but in the context of being let down by family, by a system you’ve trusted, it’s brutal.

The question is, are you more worried about your right to free expression or about your responsibility to stand up for values and spread light.

These blogs and maybe even the bloggers may feel like they’re righting injustice, but in fact they’re inciting hate against the very thing they hold dear. Their “free expression” has a very heavy price.

You have bloggers who write, “I keep Shabbos, I keep Kosher etc….” as if to say “I AM a Jew who cares about Torah” and then proceed to shame it by mocking and branding those who have let them down/they disagree with.

Is there room for expression in Judaism? Yes.

But things are beautiful when they’re in their place and they’re ugly when they’re not

EX. Two people working it out with Judge Judy. Not nice. They look petty and juvenile bringing their little issues to a public court in front of millions.

Working it out with a mediator, mutual friend, parent etc… Beautiful. That becomes an example of the greatness of people to find peace and compromise.

EX. The President in a bathing suit. I just don’t want to see it. My 5-year-old at the beach in her bathing suit. Beautiful.

EX A daughter who has a care taking role with her parents and can’t live her own life because she’s so wrapped up in making them happy. Not pretty. Parents who devote their lives to their kids. Beautiful.

Blasting your feelings against your family and bringing down the value of Torah on the internet is not the place. Its not beautiful.

It has its place. But where is it?

The answer is two fold, but the principle is the same. We need to aim to build, not to destroy.

If you have an issue, work it out where it counts,. vent, work out solutions, speak to people who care.Bring it to the attention of people who can do something about it. Finda support group of people who understand you. Be constructive.

On the other side is the public forum. The power of the pen is great and needs to be utilized. Each of us is a leader and we have a chance to make a difference.

So blog. Blog the night away, but be a builder. Bring solutions. The world is hungry for meaning. It really doesn’t need another voice saying, “here’s where I didn’t find meaning.”

One little flame can bring light to a whole room. Be that light. Share your thoughts. Let’s make improvements, don’t add to the darkness.

And be honest.

The worst part about these things is the dishonest journalism. And both sides are guilty of that. Both the white washing and the deprecating.

Think of your family. Think of anyone’s family. I can easily paint a dysfunctional picture for you simply by focusing my lens on what isn’t working.

With one eye closed I see divorce, co-dependance, lack of self-esteem, role reversal, debt, shame, jealousy, and favoritism. And that’s in a functional family! Imagine if your parent is a gambler or your brother’s in jail or you have depression or mental disorders.

If I want to, I can make you look so bad, no one would come near you with a ten foot pole. But that’s not the whole story.

If I look with the other eye I’ll see kindness and selflessness, I ll see caring, I ‘ll see honest struggle. I’ll see triumph, I’ll see laughter. I’ll see traditions and I’ll see friends.

I’ll see all the things that keep you going beyond the hardship and all the things that make me want to be with you.

If I look with both eyes, you know what I’ll see? I’ll see you. with all your strengths and weaknesses. And with all that makes you uniquely human and uniquely you.

And we’ll work out the rough patches and we’ll stick together, because there’s that much love between us.

If you really care about a better world, start with honesty. Don’t report with one eye closed.

Write about the problems and write about the beauty. Be respectful of your readers and don’t just give them a sensationalistic piece. Give them something to live for.

Don’t leave out the millions of dollars given to charity,

the kindness done for a person in a new community,

the endless hours that Rabbi’s give to their congregants,

the education that focuses on character development,

the values of not gossiping, not lying, not taking honor that belongs to another person,

the reaching out to teens on the street,

the referrals and accommodations for community members who are sick,

the blood drives, the bone marrow drives,

the volunteer work on behalf of families with disabilities,

the Shabbos tables that are filled with guests

the open homes for virtual strangers

the programs for battered women

the modesty of young girls

and the self control that’s taught to young men that makes them into true men.

Don’t leave out the free loan funds,

the private packages left at the doors of people who can’t afford food

the sacrifice of Jewish teachers to make learning Torah warm and fun, going above and beyond

the sacrifice of families who live in far away places simply to reach out to Jews who may be looking for a little more

The integrity of businessmen who close on Shabbos, no matter what

and the integrity of businesswomen who conduct themselves modestly even whenjoining in would gain them more acceptance

And that’s just a tiny little drop in the bucket of what goes on. Come to any Orthodox Jewish community and your eyeballs will pop out of your head at the level of kindness. I challenge you.

To writers everywhere, I tell you what I tell my children, we have to identify by who we are, not by who we’re not. That’s a cool person.

And for all of us; if we want to take a stand, lets let it be for our people, not against it. We are family. At the end of the day all we have is each other.

For more practical loving wisdom, go to www.RivkaMalka.com