Here’s to the Secular Jew

Between the summers before 3rd grade and 7th grade, I went to Camp Ramah in Nyack, NY. Ramah is Conservative. My family was modern orthodox. Even so, for the most part, there was very little about Ramah that really shook my faith. Other than them being more lax about using the Lord’s name in vain (saying “Adonai” when not praying or reading from the Torah), and a little thing called egalitarianism, it was basically like the Judaism I was raised with.

Years later, I learned that there was more to it. In 7th grade, a rabbi told my class that we should not go to Solomon Schechter (Conservative) because they do not believe in Torah MiSinai (that is, the Torah as we have it was completely given to Moses and has not been changed). As an adult, I learned that this is only a half-truth. They believe that Moses did go up Sinai and deliver a Torah, but what we have today isn’t it. For many years, my rabbis showed casual derision toward Conservative Judaism and something else called Reform (I had no idea what they were).

In my high school, I had a classmate who was a devout Conservative Jew. He would bite his tongue whenever teachers in our school denigrated Conservatives. In fact, I would say that this man was a lot more devout than me back then. His movement, however, emphasizes those things less. While they discourage driving on Shabbos other than for shul, they know they can’t stop people from driving to McDonald’s after shul, so they pick their battles.

My current outlook on secular judaism?  Not for me. Once in a while I will engage just for shits and giggles. My wedding was done by a movement called Lab/Shul. I like them a lot. Basically, any movement that considers my wife and daughter (neither one Jewish) a second class citizen or worse is out for me.

Better a conservative than orthodox, I say. But still not for me.

Techiyat HaMetim--A Heretic's Approach

            For those wondering why the morticious title, I haven’t blogged in a while.  Today, a fellow kofer (okay, a rather celebrated one who will be shouted out in a subsequent post) asked why my last few posts had nothing to do with the title of my blog.  I actually don’t remember what I was thinking when I posted that.  So instead, let me devote this to one of two topics that have been bled to death by every poet out there; there’s enough blogs out there talking about sex, so let me talk about death.

            The year was 2006, I think.  I was taking a philosophy class at CCNY—Metaphysics and Epistemology.  My professor, a curmudgeonly old bloke who was old enough to have taught my father when he was at CCNY, was notoriously a tough fellow with no patience for stupid shit.  This included Z (name omitted, you fools).  Z was one of those students who basically was like what if Jar Jar Binks was a 6 foot plus Asian man. 

            One day, my professor said he doesn’t believe in Karma.  Z blurted out “professor, I don’t think you know what Karma is.”  The professor ignored him.  Z continued “professor, don’t you want to hear what Karma is?”  The professor said no, and continued on.  Z continued to insist that if only the professor would listen to him, he could convince him that Karma is real.  Finally, the professor gave in.  So Z explained “it’s just a fancy way of saying ‘what goes around comes around’ and ‘you get what you deserve’.”  To which the professor curtly replied “that is the stupidest definition of Karma I’ve ever heard in my entire life!”  And then he want back to teaching without further ado.
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            The above story just about illustrates how I feel about most kiruv arguments I’m exposed to nowadays.  But that’s not why I bring it up. 

            Here’s a fact.  Karma might be one of the misused loan words in the English language.  Plenty of us westerners are not familiar with the concept of transmigration of the soul, Dharma, Samsara, et al.  No, Oilam Haba is not Jewish Karma. 

            The second worst explanation I’ve heard for Karma comes from none other than Ray Comfort.  In his intro to On the Origin of Species, Ray Comfort describes Karma as one who jumps out of a plane and says it’s okay that he doesn’t have a parachute because when he hits the ground, he will just be brought back into the plane inhabiting a new body (perhaps even an animal).  Comfort meant it to show how absurd Karma is; but a bag of shit labeled eau de toilette still smells like shit.  Is Karma really any more absurd than belief that only Jesus can save your soul? 

            I will say this.  I don’t want to end up in a Christian heaven anyway.  Sounds fucking boring. 
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            What is the Jewish view on resurrection anyway?  Like many other things, there seems to be no unified answer to that question.  There is a concept of gilgulim (resurrection), but at the same time there is an afterlife.  But even then, the Torah spoke of she’ol (abyss), and only in later sources do we see any mention of anything other than that. 

            I was in my late teens when I learned that Hell is a Christian concept, and that Gehenom is actually more of a purgatory.  But then, there’s also the concepts of dybbuks, demons, and other such concepts.

            Can one believe in resurrection, an afterlife, and neither of the above at the same time?

            It seems that to be a frum Jew, one has to resign themselves to believing all three at the same time.  Doesn’t make sense?  “Hamayvin Yavin”, “Eilu V’Eilu”, “Teiku”, and all those other things the maggid shiur rebbe would tell you to cover up the fact that he didn’t know the answer either.

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  This is just another one of those subjects that normative Judaism does not have a good answer to.  In fact, I will go out and say that other than some of those Dybbuk stories I read up on when I was in yeshiva, the Jewish concept is actually kind of boring.  Christians have an entire faith based on it, enough that some of their greatest artwork centers around that theme (if you haven’t seen Raphael’s famous painting on the Ressurection, what the fuck are you waiting for?  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resurrection_of_Christ_(Raphael)  ).

            There were many questions I had in yeshiva that Rabbinic Judaism just didn’t have a satisfactory answer for.  During my moratorium years, I wanted to have faith and assume that eventually I would find that magical rabbi who could explain that shit away and make me believe forever.  Good thing I didn’t hold my breath.  Because similar to my namesake seeing the child fall off the rickety ladder, I realized that the simplest explanation is the best one.  No, they don’t have the answers.  But rest assured, neither do I.

Cobra Kai; Random Musings (heavy spoilers)

“Daniel LaRusso’s gonna coach?  Daniel LaRusso’s gonna coach!”

That one line about sums up what I was expecting Cobra Kai to be.  I was thinking it would be a needless throwback to a series that should have ended when it did—with Mr. Miyagi twisting John Kreese’s nose in the parking lot.  Karate Kid II and III might as well have stayed on the cutting room floor.  The Next Karate Kid?  Never saw it, and I’m sure Pat Morita also didn’t.  And the remake with Jackie Chan and Jayden Smith?  Never saw it, don’t plan on it either; but based on the preview, that is probably the biggest insult to the franchise altogether.  I mean come on, it takes place in China, is about Kung Fu—how stupid do they think we are?  But I digress.

In 1998, Jonathan Silverstein and I did a project for our high school statistics class.  Which decade was cooler, the 80s or the 90s?  Silverstein, it was well known, was obsessed with the 80s, but he still had friends (as it said in our yearbook).  The consensus of the survey was that the 80s definitely had cooler TV and movies.  And one of the most timeless bildungsromans of the 80s was the first Karate Kid.

You all know the story.  Daniel is a nerdy kid from Newark, NJ whose mother moves to Reseda, CA.  Right away he earns the ire of a biker/karate gang by hitting on the leader’s ex-girlfriend.  After getting his ass kicked several times, he gets bailed out by his building’s handyman—a simple fisherman from Okinawa who likes to trim bonsai trees and catch flies with chopsticks.  Mr. Miyagi prefers to use diplomacy than his fists.  But when he realizes that John Kreese was a man who teaches kids that the best defense is a good offense, and that karate is about hitting first and hitting hard, Miyagi maneuvers Kreese into getting his Cobra Kai to leave Daniel alone until Miyagi can train him to face them in a tournament. 

Right away, we contrast the Miyagi-do way and the Cobra Kai way.  Kreese said the best defense is a good offense.  He taught them how to punch, and to never turn their back on their opponent.  Indeed, Kreese has won accolades for his fighting, especially from his days in the military. And we see that Kreese does run his dojo like a drill sergeant.  His fighters are highly disciplined.  One could say there is no code of honor among the Cobra Kai.  But theirs was a code of being badass.  

The Miyagi way was the complete opposite.  Okinawa is a small island where there is nothing to do except fish and karate.  While Kreese is about yelling and drilling, Miyagi is about balance and breathing.  In fact, the Miyagi way is so counterintuitive, it’s hard to believe it’s even karate!  But my understanding is that this is how traditionally karate was taught in Okinawa.  They didn’t start with punching and kicking; they started with balancing and breathing exercises.  Once you found your center and learned how to properly breathe, the punching and kicking would come to you. 

Indeed, that’s how Daniel first learned.  We all remember the Miyagi way, immortalized as “this hand wax-on, this hand wax-off; don’t forget to breathe.”  After a week of that, and Daniel losing his temper, Miyagi famously demonstrated how “wax-on; wax-off” was all along karate.  Was it more effective than the Cobra Kai method?  Based on the movie, one would think so.  Daniel was a total n00b, but by the time he got to the tournament, he was able to handle himself in a fair fight.  Of course, the Cobra Kai play dirty.  “Sweep the leg” would not work against a more experienced karateka; but since Daniel was still relatively new, it worked.  But then, Daniel pulls off a crane kick (which, to quote an old teacher of mine, is a second-degree black belt kata, and you’d get your ass kicked if you tried it in a real fight), winning the tournament. 

That was then.  Fast forward 30-something years later.

When I was in yeshiva, one of my rabbis used to talk about the time he was in synagogue and the guy sitting in front of him was talking about that Yeshiva of Flatbush vs MTA basketball game from 20 years ago and how he was still living in that moment.  “What a loser!” the rabbi said.  Never getting over a high school basketball game as an adult?  It appears, as the deux ex machina would have it, both Daniel LaRusso and Johnny Lawrence are still living in that moment. 

The tables have turned.  Johnny was the rich spoiled asshole, while Daniel was the working class nerdy kid.  Now, Daniel is a successful owner of a car dealership chain with a nice house with a pool in Encino.  Johnny is an alcoholic who can’t keep a job, is estranged from his kid, and living in squalor.  Daniel, years later, has changed his life for the better.  And Johnny’s life has spiraled. 

For those of you who like How I Met Your Mother, you know there are those who say that Johnny might have been the real good guy in Karate Kid.  The way events are portrayed in the movie, it’s hard to sympathize with Johnny.  But now, Johnny is given dimension.  No, he is not a good guy.  From the get-go, we see that he is still an asshole.  Johnny is an anachronism of the 80s, when casual racism, sexism, classism, and just being a dick in general, was a lot more acceptable.  Johnny has not, and will not, get with the times.  And it’s not just him telling his acolyte to listen to Guns N’ Roses.  It’s like Johnny is stuck in that time warp, where he doesn’t know about social media, or about what kids are into these days.

Sorry to get political, but I bet Johnny voted for Trump.  What our generation needs, he said, is to stop being a bunch of pussies.  Indeed, karate was considered a very manly thing back then.  Elvis Presley was notoriously a huge fan of karate.  I know, Sterling Archer has called karate “the Dane Cook of martial arts”, preferring Krav Maga (where there literally are no rules—perhaps more akin to the Cobra Kai way). 

But this show is not just about Johnny and Daniel rekindling their rivalry.  It’s not just about Johnny trying to not be the next John Kreese (but inevitably holding his mantle), while Daniel becomes a new Miyagi.  It’s the next generation too.

And here’s where the show got it right.  In some of these next generation shows (I’m looking at you, Fuller House), the kids are not that interesting.  The plot lines between them are too contrived, the callbacks are overdone, and no one really cares about the drama between them.  It’s like they are living vicariously through their parents, reliving their lives.  But the writers don’t bother to make them compelling.  Not in Cobra Kai.

First, we have Daniel’s kids.  Anthony is kind of that side character who isn’t that interesting.  But his daughter, Sam, she is in her own right an interesting character.  The rich girl who is embarrassed by her father.  She starts off as that mean girl, but pretty quickly we see there’s more to her than that.  And then, she begins to fraternize with the enemy.  And that becomes the impetus for a lot of the drama.

Miguel Diaz is the breakout character.  An Ecuadorian-American who just moved from Irvine, falls in with the nerds, and gets his ass kicked by the rich assholes.  Starts off like Daniel.  But his savior was not Mr. Miyagi; it was Johnny Lawrence.  Similar to Miyagi, Johnny is at first reluctant to take on Miguel; and Miguel’s mom doesn’t want him learning karate either.  However, as inevitable as it is, Johnny becomes Miguel’s sensei, and Miguel becomes his top student.

Finally, we see from the inside, how Cobra Kai really worked.  Johnny is much more nuanced than Kreese, who was pretty much just an angry douchebag.  We don’t have all that much of a backstory for him (yet:  season 2, perhaps?)  Johnny is not a bad guy.  He just has a lot of demons.  And he loses many students because he tries running his dojo the same way Kreese did.  But those who stick with Sensei Lawrence begin to become pretty badass.  Some for the negative (“Hawk”, who gets a full back tattoo and a Mohawk, becomes a bully himself). 

In the movie, it was pretty black and white:  Miyagi good, Kreese bad.  Daniel the flawed hero, Johnny the dick who was pretty much what Kreese made him.  In the end, good triumphs, Daniel wins for Miyagi-do, and Cobra Kai is shamed.  Miyagi, good teacher, following old code of honor from Okinawa, cutting bonsai trees, and focusing on balance and breathing.  We all got to know the Miyagi way quite intimately.

In this show, we see further glimpses of the Miyagi way.  Daniel ends up training Johnny’s estranged son.  No rowboat this time, but a tree.  Either way, Daniel shows him how balancing and breathing are the most solid foundation to karate.  And the “wax-on wax-off” is done very silently and subtly.  They didn’t overkill it.  But we, the fanboys, knew what was going on, and we smiled as Daniel showed him how all this time he was teaching him how to block. 

But then, at the climax, in the tournament, we revisit the question of whether the Miyagi-do way really is superior?  While the movie made it look like it was, in this show, we see some of the shortcomings.  We see that Sam is willing to sit back and critique both methods (“you shouldn’t have swept the leg, it was too obvious” and “you telegraphed that kick”).  So we see that Johnny’s method makes the Cobra Kai into tough fighters, and they go far.  But some, like Hawk, take it too far and end up fighting dirty (to Johnny’s chagrin). 

In the final faceoff, Miguel ends up winning.  But it was a tough fight.  Indeed, Daniel’s student pulls off the one-handed double kick that Daniel could never pull off—his secret was the half-pipe on a skateboard. 

But the twist, oh the twist.  Turns out that all this time, John Kreese was looming in the background.  Or was he?  Johnny said that Kreese is dead.  Was he?  And is Johnny really all along trying to please his old sensei?  And Daniel wants to reopen Miyagi-do.  But Miyagi only ever had one student (I’m only counting Daniel LaRusso).  A whole dojo for Daniel?  Definitely not the Miyagi way.  But I am interested to see where he goes with this. 

I don’t know how this show holds up without the nostalgia factor.  But if you were a fan of the original movie, you must see this show.  It’s not even a question. 

SOLD!!!

SOLD

          He presented an idyllic world in which everything made sense.  I was too young to know about Heinenberg’s Uncertainty Principle, Godel’s Incompleteness Theorem’s, or Lewis Carrol’s Jaberwocky.  If I followed his way, everything would make sense.

          The saying in Aramaic goes “Hafach bei V’hafach bei d’Kulah bei.”  Turn it over, and turn it over again, as everything is in it.  If one were to study the Torah in its complete depth, one could even learn advanced calculus. 

          But it wasn’t God who built bridges.  “Lo BaShamayim Hi.”  It is not in heaven.  Men and women built bridges.  They used engineering.  They used ingenuity.  And the people who discovered these principles did not have deities directing them.  They were heathens who worshipped hundreds of competing spirits—or perhaps none at all, who cares?

          If I believed everything the rabbi told me, I would think that the Torah is the most sublime book in the world.  What about the Bhagavid Gita, Tao Te Ching, Qur’an, Gospels, and other spiritual texts I haven’t yet read?  Oh, don’t worry about them.  The rabbi dabbled in Hare Krishna in the 60s….no wait, he heard George Harrison sing about it, same thing, right?  I promise you, they are empty.  Like the drugs that give an ephemeral high and make you crash, like the sex that causes long-term drama in the long run, and like the rock and roll that pollutes your soul, their ways are “Hevel V’rik”, vanity and empty.

          But what if my beliefs are wrong?  Oy, so my mind is so open, that my brains might fall out.  Once in a while, I need to close my mind and just stifle my curiosity.  You know what curiosity did to Catwoman?  Do you have to experience a burning stove to know it hurts, or would you rather take a burn victim’s word for it? 

          Then why are our people such a small minority?  I mean you said it.  They know the emes (truth).  They know we are the bearers of the true tradition of what god really wants.  So why does 70%-or-so of America identify as Christian if they know it’s bullshit?  Because humans crave what’s fast and what’s easy.  Es is shver tsu zein a Yid; it’s hard to be a Jew.  Most people can’t handle being chosen.  So that makes you, eh, special!  Appreciate the gift you’ve been given, born into the minority elite. 

          All you have to do is follow his straight derecho, and you will find that life becomes more facil…

          Easier

          More manageable

          Just look at that group of Hassidim sitting at the tish singing in unison while the Rebbe tears about his Challah with his bare hands.  Listen to them mumble their prayers.  Life is so simple when you all dress the same, are not allowed to watch TV, and are forbidden from engaging with American pop culture.

          They had a point there.  I spent a year-and-a-half being out of the loop, completely missing the years that Britney Spears, Christina Aguilera, Justin Timberlake, and Jessica Simpson began to take over the pop charts.  I entered college at age 20 not knowing who Eminem was.  Sure, I knew about every pop artist from 1994-98.  I could recite the lyrics to most Green Day and Nirvana songs.  But when I landed the plane from Israel, I didn’t know what happened to the pop charts I had forsaken for classic rock circa 1997.

          He presented a belief system that made sense.  Trust me.  That the rabbis themselves argue a lot?  Eilu V’Eilu Divrei Elohim Chayyim.  These and these are the words of the living god.  Even Schrodinger’s Cat would scratch its head at that one.  Hillel and Shammai are simultaneously both correct, but Hillel is somehow more correct than Shammai.  Unlike, say, the followers of Korach, who were only in it for their own personal glory, Hillel and Shammai were seekers of truth, and thus they both spoke the truth.

          But who was Korach, and what was his problem?  Oh yeah, you mean the man who was not impressed with the nepotism in Moses’ leadership?  The man who wanted a democratically elected leader?  Or was he just jealous of Moses?  Well, the Torah says he was bad, so fuck it, he was bad.  Don’t mourn for Korach.  His sons became prolific psalmists.  But Korach is bad, mmm-kay? 

          I wanted to be one of the happy people.  I wasn’t.  I couldn’t pray 3 times a day. I couldn’t give up my classic rock.  I couldn’t give up wearing colored shirts.  I couldn’t give up science. 

          The subtext—I was defective.  Anyone who opens for Hashem the eye of a needle will have His kingdom opened up for them.  I couldn’t give Hashem that eye of a needle.  I must have been defective.

          For many years, this was the subconscious narrative I told myself.  My lack of emunah (faith) came from being defective.

          The first step to recovery was realizing that in fact, asking questions is healthy.

          Only then, did the healing process begin.

Me Too: When I Was an Enabler

Me Too:  On Being an Enabler

            #MeToo has been pervasive on my news feed.  I’m sure that many of my readers have also seen it trending.  For those unaware, #MeToo is a call for anyone who has been raped or otherwise sexually assaulted to speak up.  I assume the purpose is to raise awareness as to how ubiquitous sexual assault is. 

            The results are not shocking to me.  I already have many friends who have been outspoken on the subject.  I can only assume that I have exponentially more who haven’t.  Even now, there are those who do not want to participate.  And there are those who don’t have access to social media, but are still victims

            As such, #MeToo is a very unscientific way to gauge how rampant the problem really is.  However, I do not need a statistically sound method to tell me that it’s bad.  I didn’t need Harvey Weinstein to know that it’s rampant in Hollywood.  I’ve known for years how easy it is for a man (or person of any gender) to get away with even the most heinous acts.

            #MeToo.  In my past, I was an enabler.  I sat on the sidelines as people spoke of rape, sexual harassment, and all the other shit around me.  I was told I am living in a patriarchal society; out of the other side of my mouth, I was told not to buy into whatever wave of feminism was en vogue when I was young and more ignorant of such matter.

            #MeToo.  I have tried being a white knight.  I’ve been told “don’t patronize me.”  I’ve been told, in the words of Bob Dylan, not to criticize what I don’t understand.  I’ve been told I’m not above it either.

            #MeToo.

Me Too:  First Awakening.

            My first actual exposure to a man in power who was a perv was in high school.  He kind of resembled Chris Farley, only a bit shorter.  I would say he was about 5’6”, very rotund, loud, robust, and unbridled.  Many people looked up to him.  He was a smart man, master of the double entendre, expert at histrionics, brilliant speaker, one of those people who knew how to speak the language of the cool teenager.  And to those of us who were not in the cool crowd, well, he would treat us the same way other cool teens did—completely ignoring us, or perhaps the occasional derision. 

            Baruch Lanner was a highly decorated rabbi from New Jersey.  He had been involved in Jewish outreach since the ‘70s.  He once taught at the high school I went to.  He then became the principal of a school in Central NJ.  He worked with an organization called NCSY.  I was a regular at their events when I was in high school. 

            I didn’t really have much to do with Lanner.  I remember him once making fun of my last name.  I remember once, he was giving a lecture, I asked what he deemed a dumb question, and he responded “you belong in the lady’s section.”  Yeah, a misogynist to boot. 

            But then, in 1997, when I was a senior in high school, Lanner quit his job as a principal.  The official story given was that he did some soul searching and discovered that being a school administrator was no longer his calling in life.  He wanted to do outreach work full time.  In other words, he quit his job as a principal because he loves us!

            Or did he?

            One day, I was in an AOL Chat Room for Jewish teens.  This was the popular waste of time/space, or way to avoid doing homework, back in the late ‘90s. 

            A rando came in the room and asked “hey, does anyone here know Baruch Lanner?”  I said yes.

            “Well fuck him.  He’s a pervert.”  I was one of several people who chided the rando to show some respect for the rabbi.

            “No, fuck him.  Do you know why he quit his job as principal?”  I responded that he wanted to do outreach work full-time.

            “That’s a lie.  The real truth was covered up.”

            And so, the rando explained to us that actually, Lanner had for years been using his position as principal to garner sexual favors from students.  Eventually, shit began to catch up to him.  So he was told to either quit, or they would have to investigate.

            The chat room began to explode with others joining the rando in saying “Fuck that asshole.”  People who didn’t know Lanner.  But they became judge, jury, and executioner.

            #MeToo.  I chided them.  Do they know who Lanner was?  How could an organization as established as NCSY allow a man who has committed such indiscretions work for them?

            I was just cursed out for being a sheeple.  I wasn’t given answers. 

            Not until June of 2000.

MeToo:  Awakening

            It was my first semester in college.  I was done with most of my finals.  I was getting ready for the summer to begin.  I went home to my parents’ house for the Sabbath.

            That Sabbath, during his sermon, the rabbi slipped in something about an article that was written about Lanner.  He said the article should never have been written.  They should have settled it quietly, behind closed doors.  But the article is “Loshon Hara” (evil speech), and should not be uttered.

            My father approached the rabbi after the services and told him he should think before he says such things.  He informed the rabbi that there was going to be a witch hunt in the community, and he doesn’t want his name tarred with the same brush as Lanner.

            What my father didn’t realize is that Lanner was living with my rabbi at the time.  And oh yeah, my rabbi never did change his tune about Lanner.

            What article, you ask?

            The next week, a friend sent me a link to the article.  “Stolen Innocence” by Gary Rosenblatt of the Jewish Week.  It was a long article that made some very serious allegations against Lanner.

·         A large cross-section of women over a period spanning 30 year claiming to have been groped, fondled, proposed to, sexually harassed (in person, over the phone, etc), assaulted, and other indiscretions.

·         A history of violence against both men and women, including kicks to the groin, pulling out a knife and chasing someone, slapping on the back really hard (just to prove he’s one of the guys)

·         Many different organizations turning a blind eye, even rebuffing those who reported him

·         A Bait Din (Jewish Tribunal) being called to investigate Lanner, behaving like a kangaroo court, and no alleged victim actually being referred to them

·         A battery of excuses being made by those who were close to him and very likely aware of his behaviors

·         The true stories about why he left his job as a principal, and then was asked to leave several other teaching jobs.

#MeToo.  I felt like someone had stuck a knife in my belly and twisted it with enough force to send my kishkas in bunches.

`           And so it goes.  Lanner was fired.  The organizations he worked for “cleaned house.”  Investigations were made.  As my father predicted, the Jewish communities around me suddenly became witch hunts.  Plenty of people were in panic.

            Lanner was eventually put on trial  Two girls were able to sue him.  One had her testimony dismissed.  The other, it was enough to give him 7 years. 

            It did not vindicate him of everything he was accused of doing.

            #MeToo.  It was thanks to this that I changed my tune.  I woke up and realized that most of the people I once trusted were all more interested in their own agendas than actually protecting their youth.

            #MeToo.  This is not the thing that made me less religious.  But this was one of the precursors to me asking questions.  I would say this event stirred me so much, that I opened myself to even the rabbinical world being bullshit.

Me Too:  I Believe You Now

            #MeToo.  The other person whose life affected me was Shlomo Carlebach.

            Shlomo Carlebach was one of the greatest Jewish songwriters of the second half of the 20^th Century.  Born in Austria, he moved to New York City as the Holocaust was beginning to rage in Europe.  He began his life studying in various yeshivot, hoping to become a scholar.  But over the years, he realized his energies were being wasted in the study hall, and he dropped out.  Toward the mid-50s, he picked up a guitar and began to sing. 

            His songs were different than what was out there.  Back then, there were two major genres of Jewish music:  Klezmer and Cantorial.  Both were very formal, and they resonated of the old country.  Klezmer was that old European conservatory style music, and Cantorial reminded people of long and boring prayer services.  This was the 1950s.  Kids wanted their Elvis Presley.  They wanted rock and roll, perhaps some folk, or some jazz, or whatever had you. 

            Shlomo was the first to write Jewish music that could have passed for ordinary folk music.  Most of his melodies were simple and easy to sing along with.  His voice was nothing special.  His guitar playing was pedestrian at best.  I’m told he never even learned to tune his guitar!  But there was something warm and inviting about his music.  He became a star.  His tunes became ubiquitous among all denominations of Judaism, from the liberal to the ultra-right.

            He began to develop a cult following.  During the 1960s, he moved out the San Francisco.  He got a mansion and called it “The House of Love and Prayer.”  He began to galvanize “Holy Hippelach.”  He would try to bring them back to Judaism.  He became the hippie rabbi.  He traveled all over, and people followed.  He was that pied piper figure who would hug and kiss everyone he met, greet them with a smile, and make them feel special.  And when he sang, people would listen.  He would ask them to join him.  And they would sing along.

            He died of a heart attack in 1994.  I didn’t get into him until at least 1997.  I began to read his stories too.  He became a hero of mine.  He sounded like a rabbi who said “to hell with the rules.”  He sounded like that rabbi who accepted everyone for what they were.  He was smart, he was charming, but he also loved everyone.  People hated him because he played fast-and-easy with halacha (Jewish Law).  But his cult became bigger than him as people continued to sing his songs. 

            #MeToo.  There were stories about him being a womanizer.  I heard whispers of them.  I said they were just jealous because he was so successful where they weren’t.

            #MeToo.  I was studying abroad in Israel.  At that point, I was totally immersed in his cult.  Except for the copious drugs that his followers were known for accepting, I made it a point to learn as much of his music as I could.  I wanted to be a drug-free Carlebachian.

            #MeToo.  Aaron, a fellow student, heard some of us talking about Carlebach.  He said that if it wasn’t for “kavod haMet” (respect for the dead), he would piss on Carlebach’s grave.  We asked him why.  He said “because he was a horrid man.”  I pressed on and asked why.  “He sexually assaulted my mother.”

            #MeToo.  There I was, confronted point blank with an allegation.  I responded the same way any good yeshiva boy would.  Three simple words.  “I’m not mekabel.”  (I don’t believe you).  When confronted with Loshon Hara (Gossip) about someone, you are supposed to say “I’m not mekabel” or else you are guilty of the sin of listening to gossip.

            #MeToo.  The sensitive thing to do when someone tells you they (or someone they know) has been sexually assaulted is to say “I believe you.”  I was too obtuse to do so.

            #MeToo.  Years later, after I became less religious, I opened my mind to the fact that I was wrong about everything, including Shlomo.  I read some damning allegations.  I read the article in Lilith Magazine.  Yes, many women claimed to have been sexually assaulted by him.  None came forward while he was alive.  It was too late to vindicate them.  Shlomo would never be brought to justice.  Can’t beat a dead rabbi. 

Me Too:  I Want to Change the World

            What can I do?

            #MeToo.  I can shut the fuck up and listen.

            #MeToo.  I can know that no means no.  Not maybe.  Not “keep begging and maybe I’ll change my mind.”  It means no.

            #MeToo.  I can educate myself and others on how to not be part of the problem.

            #MeToo.  We can do this.

            #MeToo.  We do not need another high profile case to awaken us. 

            #MeToo.  For those who think that a girl sharing a drink with you is a guaranteed booty call.  It is not.  Get over yourself.

            #MeToo.  For those who think it’s cool to nonconsensually slip off a condom mid-coitus. That is never okay. 

            #MeToo.  And for those who think that wolf whistling and catcalling at random people on the street is appropriate behavior.  Has that EVER yielded positive results?  Serious question.

            #MeToo.   For the rest of you all too.  You don’t have to live your life thinking that the only way you’re going to get any action is by thinking with your penis and not with your brain.  The biggest erogenous zone is the brain.  Try it sometime. 

            #MeToo.  I wish I didn’t need to post this.

Cheers,

    Acher.