thinking jewish

When a Commercial Can Make You Cry

Surfing the blogosphere, one of my regulars directed me to the following video, an El Al commercial running in Israel, in honor of Independence Day.

Now, to be fair, I don't generally think of myself as a very sappy guy. But watching this ad over and over and over, I can't help but find myself on the verge of tears.

The colors, the words, the people, they all come together in this 50 second advertisement to create a bit that makes me want to jump up and hug an El Al employee. I find myself ready to leave Brooklyn and make aliyah immediately.

But it's just a commercial! It's just some people, payed to sing an anthem!

No. These aren't just words. These aren't just people.

They're ideas, yearnings. Hope. Fifty seconds of a smorgasbord of Jews expressing their spiritual and nationalistic aspirations. Different colored skins. Different backgrounds. All Jews, a free people, in their own land, wearing nice shirts and celebrating independence.

And then, at the end, the voice over says, "Our hope, to continue to bring the Jewish people home for the sixty years to come."

When an airline is the vehicle for Jewish theology, the expression of where a Jew is home, and what our people yearn for, ZIonism has succeeded. Who needs the Talmud when we've got airplanes?

This is all to say that, despite its problems and quagmires and deep fissures, it is undeniable that Israel has succeeded in something profound: seeding in so many of us an expression of hope and admiration, an allegiance of aspirations, that has not existed before in the history of the Jewish people, for many thousands of years, if not since the Exodus itself.

The beauty of this phenomenon is apparent when a TV commercial is able to lift you spiritually; when a commercial reminds you of who you are in the world and what you hope for; when a commercial can make you cry.

Spring Cleaning

Just in time for Spring, Method will be setting up shop next week in SoHo, from May 13 - June 7 (550 Broadway between Prince and Spring).

If you do not already know about and love Method, it is a cleaning supply company using only natural products, never tested on animals, and packaged in minimal, recyclable, and often renewable and compost-able packaging.

Their products are sold at Target, smell great, and actually clean, rather than toxify your house and the planet.

In short, we need many more companies like Method - companies which are not afraid to think radically for the sake of health and the environment. And, just as importantly, we need consumers - you and me - willing to support these companies and buy their products.

See you there!

The Greatest Experiment of Them All

Socialist enclaves. The revival of an ancient language. Oases in the desert. A Hebrew metropolis. A Jewish Democracy. Bamba, nargilla, El Al.

This day, Israel, the Jewish State, the Third Jewish Commonwealth, turns sixty. I'm sure the country is replete right now with flags and parties and many a drunk Jew.

But here in Brooklyn, on a rainy spring Thursday, I have the luxury of sitting back and reading about Israel's celebration from afar. What is the world saying? What do we make of this day?

It was just an idea, after all. Bring Jews from the four corners of the Earth back to their ancient land, one flowing with milk and honey, and build a modern nation there, a nation like any other. Could it work? Should it work?

And, these days, we take for granted just how controversial an idea it was. Zionism divided the Jewish people less than a century ago. Today the world hates us for it, but that Zionism is an authentic Jewish expression is, mostly, taken for granted.

Sixty years later, it seems that the dream worked. There are Jewish policemen arresting Jewish robbers. A state like any other indeed.

Bureaucracy. War. Impatience. Discrepancies. Discrimination.

There are more than enough reasons to hate the place, to be embarrassed every time I pick up a newspaper.

We made a state. Great. For what? So we could be blown up in pizza parlors and have a government paralyzed by the ultra-Orthodox?

And so I cry.

But I cry because I love.

I love the place my family never moved to, though they considered it, long before I was born. I love the place on the other side of the world where I will always be an other; I will never understand fully, never fully be a part.

I love it because it is family. It is not just their story, it is mine.

Two thousand years from now, our children's children will look back on the history of the Third Commonwealth, and perhaps they'll be studying a contemporary reality, or perhaps they'll search the pages of a book to understand what was a momentary aberration in Jewish existence.

Maybe it will succeed, and maybe it will not.

But that will be then. And this is now.

And now, my brothers, on the other side of the world, have built a thriving Jewish democracy. It has its problems. But it exists against all odds.

The return of Hebrew? Yeah right!

Farms in the desert? Impossible!

Jews, working together, and with Arabs (sometimes), to build a modern, successful, wealthy and healthy country? You're dreaming.

Hertzl was. And we know what he said about dreams.

Speaking to the Financial Times of London this week, Israeli Historian Tom Segev noted “Israel is an experiment that has not succeeded and has not failed.”

And in that limbo between success and failure, it has done some pretty amazing things. It is one experiment that I celebrate, that I love in all its goodness and wrongdoings.

Happy Birthday.

No-Trash Monday

I failed. It wasn't the coffee cup, or the soda, or the mail or anything close that got me. It was the tape dispenser.

This morning, I decided to try to live today without creating any trash. Everything, and I mean everything, I used today would find its way, eventually, to the recycling bin, save tissues and toilet paper, for which there are no acceptable alternatives. The goal was to reduce my negative environmental impact as much as possible, accepting as a given that I would need to allow for recycling - in New York City in 2007 2008, it is impossible to live a day without some plastic and paper. (Or, perhaps, not.)

I carried my iced-coffee cup seven blocks home from Starbucks to ensure it ended up in a recycling plant and not a dump. I carried a hodgepodge of items back from Target sans plastic bag. I recycled receipts, and printouts and letters.

But I'm moving. And moving means packing. And packing means tape. And tape comes in a dispenser. And the dispenser is connected to a sticky paper packaging. The glue on the packaging renders it non-recyclable.

Damn you Scotch.

It's not like the rest of the day's successes was without problems. I tried so hard to separate papers and plastics and food scraps. But, at the end of the day I'm left with a halogen lightbulb that needs disposing, as well as four AA batteries. They sit on my shelf, staring at me. Throw me away, they beg.

I can see this junk accumulating after a few weeks without a trash can. My closets will overflow with things I have used and cannot reuse, things which no longer have purpose in this world but which I cannot bring myself to let sit away eternity elsewhere.

What's an Earth-loving person to do?

I guess, I keep trying. I spread the gospel and get others to think about the waste that they're sending to a landfill to sit around for thousands upon thousands of years.

I may not have been waste-free today, but I was less wasteful than yesterday. And hopefully tomorrow I'll be able to say the same again.

Can you?

I hope so.

Final Notice

On Monday, this blog will be making the official move to it's new address: http://thinkingjewish.net.

You'll notice that, for now, the old site works normally and the new address, though it displays all posts, is lacking in sidebar material. Come Monday, both sites will contain all blogging materials, but only the new address, http://thinkingjewish.net, will be formatted correctly.

So, again. Change your browsers. I warned you.

Shabbat shalom!

thinkingjewish.net

Passing Gas

Excuse me.

Living in New York, it's sometimes easy to forget that the rest of the country gets around from place to place by car - walking is nearly unheard of in this country. These cars, lest we forget, are powered by burning gasoline, as are airplanes, and even many of the buses we take to work.

We drill and we burn. Drill. Burn. Drill. Burn. And drill some more. All the while, we continue to pollute the environment and send money to such places as Venezuela and Iran.

Torah is pretty clear about our obligations to this planet. Adam and Eve are given dominion over the Earth, but must be its stewards. With great power comes great responsibility. The shmeta year - a sabbatical for the Earth - forces us to farm land only six of every seven years - for that one year it is as if we no longer own the land, it is no longer ours with which to do what we wish.

And yet, we still relate to gasoline as if it is there to be used as fuel. What other purpose does it serve? It just sits there waiting for us to use it. It calls out: drill me, burn me.

Despite all the talk these days about conservation and being "Green" it seems like we're going nowhere fast. At least, we're being led by politicians who don't even realize what a problem the use of petroleum poses - to our air, to our water, to our economy and our national security.

Just this week, Clinton and McCain are both calling for a temporary repeal of the national gasoline tax. Are they joking!? The New York Times, rightfully, criticized that move today. Repealing the tax would do little to help out the economy, would encourage further misuse of oil, and would further our already outrageously high deficit.

Obama stands alone on the side of common sense here.

And then, the New York Times also has an article today looking at the cars that various House Representatives drive on taxpayer dollars. Sure, the $1,000 per month lease-fees are outrageously high for a publicly financed vehicle, but, what should be more offensive is the fact that Michael McNulty, of New York's 6th District, drives the most fuel-efficient car in all of the House.

His SUV, a Mercury Mariner, gets measly 28 miles to the gallon.

Pathetic.

Is it any surprise then that there has been so little progress in Washington on the issue of changing our 19th-century based energy system? For the time being, short of drastic changes, we'll go on wasting more and more, heating the atmosphere, destroying our lungs, and sending money to unhappy people.

Looks like we'll be passing on any sabbatical from gasoline for a long, long time.

Making the Move Real

Less than a month left in New York, I ordered moving boxes the other day. They're set to arrive today.

Makes it all seem so permanent.

Are you making a move any time soon? Check out the company that I'm using for my boxes: UsedCardboardBoxes.com.

All their boxes a reclaimed from businesses that use the cardboard once or twice, leaving it reusable. And it's cheap! So, to sum matters up, for my move I will be using cheap reused boxes made of recycled cardboard. If only I can also reduce the amount of total boxes I need, I'll close the loop.

If I didn't know better, I'd call myself the Green Rabbinical Student. Alas, that title is already taken.