xt7w6m335k24 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dips/xt7w6m335k24/data/mets.xml Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass Kentucky Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass 2013-05 Newspaper of the Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass, previously named the Central Kentucky Jewish Association and Central Kentucky Jewish Federation. Published ten times annually. The Federation seeks to bring Jewish community members together through holiday parties, lectures, Yiddish courses, meals, and other celebrations of Jewish heritage and culture. They also host fundraisers and provide financial assistance for Jews in need, both locally and around the world. This collection is part of the Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass records, 2016ms010. newsletters 2016ms010 English Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass Inc. Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass records Jews -- Kentucky -- Lexington Jews -- History Shalom, May 2013 text image Shalom, May 2013 2013 2013-05 2025 true xt7w6m335k24 section xt7w6m335k24 .s:

Mayﬂzm 3

An evening to honor Linda
and Leon Ravvin

Please join us on Sunday, June 2 at 6 pm
at the Hilton Suites at Lexington Green
to honor Linda and Leon Ravvin and to
celebrate their accomplishments. Linda,
a children’s librarian and professional

volunteer, has been president, campaign

chair and director of the Jewish Federa-

tion of the Bluegrass in addition to hold-

ing volunteer portfolios with Hadassah,
Temple Adath Israel and Camp Young
Judea Midwest. Leon is a neurosurgeon
with the Lexington Clinic and Linda’s
partner in service to the Jewish com-
munity. Linda and Leon are members

of both Ohavay Zion Congregation and ;

Temple Adath Israel. A tribute book is
being published for the event to help
raise funds for the programs and ser-
vices that Federation provides locally, in
Israel and in endangered Jewish com-
munities throughout the world.

The keynote speaker for the evening
will be Dr. Henry Abramson, the Rav-
vin’s nephew, who is Dean of Academic
Affairs and Student Services at Touro
College South in Miami Beach. Dr.
Abramson, who received his PhD from
the University of Toronto, has written
ﬁve books and numerous articles on
Jewish history and thought. He has held
appointments and post-doctoral fellow-
ships at Cornell, Oxford, Harvard and
Hebrew University.

The couvert for the dinner is $60 per
person. Guests will have the oppor-
tunity make commitments to the 2013
annual campaign. 33

For reservations and information, please call
Judy Wortman at 268-0672 or email ]fb@
jewishlexingtonorg.

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Volunteers to be honored at
Federation’s Annual Meeting

Please join the officers and board
members of the Jewish Federation of
the Bluegrass on Wednesday, May 22
at 7 pm at the Federation to honor our
award winners.

The President’s Award will go to
Kathy Feinberg, the wonderful direc-
tor of Camp Shalom who retired this
year after many years as leader of our
camp. Kathy has had an impact on

hundreds of children, families, and
our young staff, and has had a role in
shaping their development and Jewish
identities.

The Cookie Wenneneker Volunteer
of the Year Award will go to Hanna
Smith. Hanna is the secretary of the
Federation Board and chair of the

see Volunteers to be honored, page 8

Computer Science Professor
Goldsmith Wins Henry Mason
Lutes Award for Excellence in
Engineering Education

By Kel Hahn, Associate Director of Commu-
nications, UK College of Engineering

Computer science professor Judy
Goldsmith is the 2013 winner of the
Henry Mason Lutes Award for Excel-
lence in Engineering Education. The
award, which recognizes and rewards
outstanding teaching accomplishments,
is annuallv given to its recipient at the

lmlv linlllSlllllll:
2013 Hanna Mason
lures Award
winner

annual Tau Beta Pi Awards Banquet.

In over 20 years at the University of
Kentucky, Goldsmith has developed a
well-eamed reputation for excellence in
teaching. In 2013 alone, she has received
a Provost’s Award for Outstanding

see Goldsmith Wins Award, page 19

IN THIS ISSUE

Director’s Message

Editorial

JFS: At Your Service

Teenage Nature Conservancy volunteer oversees 1 15-acre preserve ..... 4
Ask A Rabbi ....... 5
Meet Camp Shalom’s new Assistant Director 8
Yes, you can hike in a wheelchair 9
Celebrating Yom Ha’Shoah 12
Mark Klein: He Talks, You Laugh 14
Hadassah Offers Win-Win Opportunity ...... 15
B’nai Mitzvah 16
B’tayavon 17
Ohavay Zion Synagogue 18
The Lexington Chapter of Hadassah 19
The Lexington Havurah 20
Temple Adath Israel 21
Around the Community 22

’ Shalom

Published ten times per year by the Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass, Inc.
1050 Chinoe Rd., Suite 112, Lexington, KY 40502
Phone (859) 268—0672 . Fax (859) 268-0775
email: shalom@jewishiexington.org

MAY 2013, VOLUME X, ISSUE 4
Robert Grossman, President
Judy Wortman, Executive Director
Tamara Ohayon, Marketing and Outreach Director
Mimi Kaufman, JFS Director
Lori Bernard, Coordinator of informal Jewish Education

SHALOM EDITORIAL BOARD
David A. Wortman, Editor-in-Chief
Hanna Smith, Chairperson
Jane Chaput, Susan Cobin, Betty Nigoff

CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Mary Meehann, Abe Nelson

LOCAL DISTRIBUTION SERVICES
Lowell and Betty Nigoff

Production Services by Georgetown News-Graphic

The editorial staff has the right to edit all articles submitted for publication in Shalom. Articles should not ex-
ceed 500 words. The appearance of any advertising in this publication does not represent either a kashruth
or any other endorsement on the part of the Federation or any other agency or organizations.

Opinions expressed in Shalom are not necessarily those of the Shalom editorial staff or the JFB or its con-
stituent organizations.

Shalom is partially supported by the advertisements appearing in the paper.

Copyright 0 2013, Jewish Federation of the Bluegrass. All ri hts reserved. For reprint permission contact
David Wortman, Editorsin—Chief, Shalom, at shalomejewish exington.org

2 | April 2013 Shalom

The P] Library is a national program offered locally, which mails free,
high‘quality and age appropriate Iewish children’s literature and music to
families on a monthly basis.

All families raising Iewish children ages six months to eight years are welcome to
enroll. IFB is proud to offer your family, through our partnership with local donors and
the Harold Grinspoon Foundation, this opportunity to explore the timeless core values
of Judaism through books and music.

Enroll your children or grandchildren today! Call uS at 859.268.0672 or
visit www.pjlibrary.com and visit our Lexington community page.

Lunch and Learn with our
Lexington community rabbis

May 28 with Rabbi Marc Kline

in the IFB ofﬁce, rabbis, on a rotating basis,
will be discussing the holidays, the Torah
ortion of the week, and other topics of
interest. A dairy lunch is offered at a nominal
charge. If you are interested in attending,
please call Judy Wortman at 859—268-0672

so we can order lunch for you.

At 12 noon on the last Tuesday of each monthh ..

If you Mr rmi rm t-i'nriq }¢“IllZII ’th-vl'ly email and would like in, gilt-arm

:mivi yum name and brrmil midis-z: in lr/mlrnirwhjvwi:iilcviriqitm mu}

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Federation Board

Federation President Minna Katz-Brown Amy Faust Mayer
Robert Grossman Jane Chaput Betty Nigoff

. _ Susan Cobin Jenny Rice
Executlve Commlttee Gail Cohen Seth Salomon
Kae Schennberg, Vice-President David Feinberg Marty Solomon
Hanna Smith, Secretary Jenn Garlin Paul Tillier
Gary Yarus, Treasurer Michael Grossman Elissa Weinstein
Evalyn Block, Member-at—Large Joseph Hernandez David Wekstein
Linda Rawin, Member-at-Large Larry Kant Judy Woreil

Shalom Deadline

Deadline for articles for the June/July Shalom is May 10.
Email articles to shalom@jewishiexington.org

..A._L--_iA—.u—ns-—1HH-‘FH

Director’s Message

Judy B. Wortman, JFB Director

The recent events related to women
praying at the Kotel brought me
hope and then angst within a 36 hour
period. On a conference call with all
Federation executives on April 9, we
learned about Natan Sharansky’s plan
to expand the Western Wall Plaza to
create an egalitarian space near the
Robinson’s Arch equal in size to the
current men’s and women’s section
combined. This plan brought kudos
from the leaders of the liberal Move-
ments and was accepted by the group
known as Women of the Wall. Yet,
a day and a half later, ﬁve women
were arrested for wearing tallitot at
the monthly Rosh Chodesh service
sponsored by Women of the Wall. In a
statement from its president and CEO
Jerry Silverman, The Jewish Federa-
tions of North America, our parent
agency, said. ”It regrets the arrests of a
number of members of the Women of
the Wall at the Kotel today, just when it
seems as if an agreement on this issue
can be reached. JFNA urges all sides to
support the proposal under discussion
that can lead to an overall solution that
will foster freedom of Jewish religious
expression at the Kotel."

I am a non-Orthodox, Jewishly com-
mitted woman, and I have celebrated
the monumental developments affect-
ing Jewish women that I have wit-
nessed in my lifetime. As a young girl,
I couldn’t understand why only boys
became Bar Mitzvah, while the girls

in my Hebrew school class were much
better students and more committed to
learning and prayer. Several years af-

ter I became
13, my syna-
gogue began
to institute
Bat Mitzvah,
be it only on
Friday night.
When I talk—
ed longingly about wanting to become
a rabbi, I was told, ”Isn’t that cute?
Maybe you will become a rebbetzin."
(How proud I became 40 years later
when my daughter was ordained.) In
1971, I began wearing a tallit on Shab-
bat. Several years later, I was given my
first aliyah by Reb Zalman Schachter
on a beautiful sunny day in the Suk-
kah at Germantown Jewish Center in
Philadelphia. In 1973, I attended the
first Jewish Women’s Conference at the
McAlpin Hotel in New York surround-
ed by like-minded sisters reclaiming
their rights to Jewish celebration and
scholarship.

My question today is: when will our
sisters in Israel be afforded the same
rights as those embraced by our North
American Jewish community-“over
the past several decades? When will
the liberal Movements in Israel be
given the same status as the Ortho-
dox? When will an Israeli woman say
Kaddish for her parents at the Kotel
without fearing arrest? I long for the
day when I can proudly wrap myself
in my tallit and pray with joyful voice
surrounded by hundreds of men and
women standing proudly together at
the Kotel in Jerusalem. t

Editorial

David Wortman

Bombs exploding. Fires bursting. Mail
threats actualizing. Bullets streaming.
Rockets ﬁring. Congress avoiding. We
live in a mad, mad, mad world.

I freely confess that I do not under—
stand human nature. When asked
about global warming destroying the
planet, Carl Sagan once replied some-
thing like this: We cannot destroy the
planet. It has survived ice ages, meteor
strikes, solar ﬂares, etc. The Earth will
survive us. It is we whom we may
destroy. Life as we know it.

The events of the past months give
credence to Sagan’s prediction. We are
well on the way toward self-destruc-
tion. When I first moved to Kentucky I
was told, ”If you don’t like the weath-
er, wait ten minutes.” This is also true
with our anger. If you want to avoid
today’s issue, wait until tomorrow.

This was certainly true after Sandy
Hook. The most recent mass shoot-
ing, of little kids even, evoked a public
outcry for stricter controls that would
ﬁlter out the criminals and the mental-
ly ill from buying guns. Now, several
months later, the country has moved
on to other issues and Congress cannot
even pass a watered down, supposedly
bi-partisan law that would achieve

this goal. Shame on them. Even the
majority of NRA members favor some
additional background checks. Other
pro-gun groups supported the compro-
mise. But Senators are afraid of the el-
ephant in the room. And, rather doing

what they know is the right and moral
thing to do, they are more interested
in being re-elected. What we need are
leaders — not followers.

Bombs explode at the Boston marathon
and ricin coated letters are found ad-
dressed to a Senator and the President
(also a judge). 24-hour news channels
of all stripes are quick to make as-
sumptions about the perpetrator(s). It
is al-Qaeda. It is domestic terrorists. It
is tax protesters. To quote the King of
Siam, ”Et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.”

In the midst of all of this, rockets were
fired into the southern resort city of
Eilat. Suspicious are that they came
from Egypt. No one was killed. Yet this
exhibits a new chutzpa. A miscalcula—
tion by a mile would have the rockets
land in Jordan or in Saudi Arabia.

When will it all stop? When will we
stop just reading newspapers and rise
from our chairs and, with a resounding
voice, say, ”No! We will not be silent
any morel”? Edmund Burke wrote that
all it takes for evil to triumph is for
good people to be silent.

We can no longer afford to be the silent
generation. x)

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JFS: At Your Service

Mimi Kaufman, JFS Director

There have
been stud-
ies that try
to look at
the varying
beneﬁts and
healing pow-
ers of gratitude. It is a hard science to
measure, but it is thought that it does
have an effect on people’s lives. How
does this help us as parents? We can
look at gratitude as a place to start,
because it makes us better leaders.

Gratitude allows us to celebrate the
present, to live in the moment so to
speak. We all have heard the phrases,
”they grow so fast” or ”in the blink
of an eye.” There is no denying that
parenting has its frustrating and tiring
moments, but most parents will tell
you that the joys outweigh the strug—
gles. The key is making a conscious
effort to tip the balance by applying
the powers of gratitude.

Gratitude blocks negative emotions.
We all have them. As you know,
when our children are not listening

to us, it is easy to succumb to feelings
of anger and resentment. We forget,
our children are going through so
many changes and challenges of their
own that it is only natural for them

to get frustrated and defeated. If we
match their frustration and stress with
equally negative energy, we end up

in power struggles and heated argu—
ments no one can win. Even Ghandi
wouldn’t be able to maintain gratitude
in the midst of a two-year—old's tan-

Begin with Gratitude

trum, but the point is to begin there. If
you start from a thankful perspective,
it will be so much easier to meet their
”misbehavior” with an understanding
that they just don’t know better yet.
You will find moments less frustrating.

Grateful people are more stress resis-
tant. If you are grateful, you’ll be more
positive and more conﬁdent and thus,
a better leader to your children. Who
wants to follow a stressed -out, panick-
ing leader?

Grateful people have a higher sense of
self—worth. As parents, we want the
same for our children. Start recogniz-
ing and acknowledging all you have
and those who have helped you along
the way. It will change your mojo from
”woe-is-me” to “happy-go-lucky.” By
simply inviting the power of gratitude
you can improve your whole family’s
sense of purpose and quality.

It is never too late to start. Take a mo-
ment today and consider how fortu—
nate you are to have your children in
your life. As challenging as parenting
can be, reﬂect upon how much mean—
ing and joy they bring to your world.
If it comes from your heart, don’t be
shy about telling your children how
thankful you are for them. When

you begin with gratitude, you will be
delighted to find that you will ﬁnish
there as well. ¢

Source: Parentsplace Where parents ﬁnd
answers and children blossom, Tom Lim-
bert, MA

Our advertisers
support this paper.
WM

4 | April 2013 Shalom

Teenage Nature Conservancy vol-
unteer oversees 115-acre preserve

Published: April 2, 2013
Reprinted with the permission of the Lexington
Herald-Leader

By Mary Meehan
mmeehan1@herald-leader. com

Henry Clay High School junior Ben
Swanson, the son of two college pro-
fessors, loves research and debate, and
he hopes to one day go into interna-
tional development in sub-Saharan
Africa.

But he also has discovered a love of
chopping logs and hauling gravel —-
getting out into the world and working
hard.

”It’s a nice kind of balance to my regu—
lar schoolwork,” said Ben, 16.

After discovering a love of the nitty—
gritty work of conservation during

a stint volunteering in Alaska, Ben

has continued to work locally, and

he recently was named a steward of
Jessamine and Garrard counties’ Jim
Beam Nature Preserve by the Kentucky
chapter of the Nature Conservancy.

“I wish we had 50 of him," said Laura
Cook, a conservancy volunteer who
oversees the stewards, who keep

track and remedy trail conditions and
generally look out for the land they are
assigned.

Cook was reluctant at first to entrust
such a young man with the task of
overseeing 115 acres, she said. Most of
the conservancy’s stewards are retire-
ment age. But Ben impressed her with
his work ethic, his communications
skills and his willingness to follow
through, she said.

”He just seems to be very self-moti-
vated, and that is just hands-down
impressive right there,” Cook said.
Plus, she said, he asks lots of questions
and keeps people informed about what
he is doing.

Ben said his parents, Mark Swanson
and Nancy Schoenberg, who are both
professors at the University of Ken-
tucky, have always involved him and

his sister, Rachel, in hiking and enjoy-
ing the outdoors. He said his love of
conservation kicked in when he vol-
unteered last summer for the National
Park Service in Denali National Park in
Alaska as part of the Student Conser-
vation Association. That work was far
from glamorous. The rainy drizzle was
constant, and getting up at 5:30 am. to
haul gravel for six hours was a typical
work day.

But he enjoyed working closely with
ﬁve other high school students and
having his brain and body do some-
thing outside the norm, he said.

”What I was doing was just hard,
physical labor,” he said. But, "it is very
directly gratifying. A month later, I can
see that I have constructed a section of
trail.”

When he returned to Lexington, he
researched which local organizations
did conservation work. He started by
volunteering on work days with The
Nature Conservancy, as part of a group
of volunteers who go out together to
clear a trail, attack invasive plants or
pick up litter.

”I was the youngest one there by about
20 years,” he said of the ﬁrst day he
volunteered.

Cook said it quickly became apparent
that he was a right fit for the steward
position when it became available.

As a high school junior, Ben could
leave in another year or so for college.

”I’d like to go out of state, and I’d like
to go north,” he said of his college
search status.

Cook said she's grateful for whatever
volunteer time the conservancy gets
from Ben.

”Whoever gets him (next) in whatever
capacity, they are going to be very
lucky.” ¢

Read more here: http://wwwkentucky.
com/2013/04/02/2583480/teenage-nature—
conservancy-polar:teer.html#storylink=cpy

"‘5‘

Ask A Rabbi

Rabbi H.D. Uriel Smith

MOTs, ”members of the tribe.” Is
Ju aism tribal? What is the diﬂerence
between a tribal and a universal religion?
Can a tribal religion support a democratic
society? (Or more plainly: Can the State
of Israel be both Jewish and democratic?)
Should a tribal religion support multicul-
turalism? (Or more plainly: Should we
support blasphemy laws, as proposed in
Europe? Should we support ”freedom of
religion” laws, such as those proposed by
evangelical groups in the USA?)?

9: We sometimes call our fellow Jews

: A tribal religion belongs just to

one tribe, ethnic group, or nation.
It recognizes that there are many reli—
gions in the world, each religion being
true for its community. Among such
religions are Hinduism, true for India,
Shinto, true for Japan, the tribal reli-
gions of the American Indians, and the
ancient Mesopotamian religions, with
Enki the patron god of Eridu, Marduk
the patron god of Babylon, and Ashur
the patron god of Assyria. Based on
this deﬁnition judaism is tribal.

A universal religion claims that it ap-
plies to all nations. It aims to spread
among all nations, becoming eventu—
ally the sole valid religion. According
to the ﬁrst half of this deﬁnition Juda-
ism is also universal. However, there
is a major argument among Jews over
whether the second half applies.

We always have recognized that our
religion was a minority religion in the
world. Yet we not only declare that
our God is the “ruler of the universe,”
(we state this every time we make

a blessing), but from biblical times,
some of us claimed that members of
other religions, at least subconsciously,
recognize this sovereignty, despite hav-
ing a conscious disagreement with this
claim. Thus, though all other religions
were then polytheistic, the prophet
Malachi declared (mal 1:11):

For from the rising of the sun to its
setting my name is great among the
nations, and in every place incense
is offered to my name, and a pure

offering; for my name is great among
the nations, says the Lord of Hosts.

Malachi’s statement in some ways con-
tradicts another biblical claim (in both
Ps 96:5; and 1 Chr 16:26):

For all the gods of the peoples are
godlings; but the Lord made the
heavens.

Despite their contradictions, both state-
ments imply that judaism is universal.
The aleinu prayer, ending every jewish
communal service, goes further, con-
cluding with the hope that all nations
will accept the true god, so that (quot-
ing Zechariah 14:9):

And the Lord will become king over
all the earth;

On that day the Lord will be one and
His name one.

This proclamation shows that indeed
Judaism is universal in both parts of
the deﬁnition.

So, ﬁrst, how are these quotes recon-
ciled? After all, when Jews are con-
fronted with two choices, they gener-
ally choose both and harmonize them.

The original editors of the bible saw no
need to reconcile these views. Talcott
Parsons, a major cultural anthropolo-
gist, called the original cultural stage
of the bible Archaic. James Fowler, in
his Stages of Faith, identiﬁed it as stage
2, Mythic-Literal. In this stage, there is
no conscious awareness of how state-
ments and beliefs become uniﬁed in
one system. In archaic languages there
are no terms differentiating words
from sentences. Each of the command-
ments in the decalogue (”ten words”)
contains more than one logos (”wor ”).
When a prophet declared, Zeh D'var
YHWH (”this is the word of God”),

he produced an outﬂow of words. He
never limited himself to just one word
such as, ”Shalom. ” When even word-
sentence relations are only subcon-
sciously noticed, contradictory stories
with a similar perspective can be fully

acceptable.

The conscious recognition that sen-
tences are formed as a combination

of several words occurred first with
written sentences. The Talmud uses the
term tévah (”box”) for a separate word,
and pasﬁk (”verse”) for a full sentence.
Once the community became con-
scious of the uniﬁcation of words into
a sentence, the conscious interrelation
of sentences also appeared. Logical
procedures of argumentation were
named and listed, as explained in the
Baraita D’rabbi Ishmael. This list of argu-
ment forms is given in orthodox and
conservative prayer books at the start
the Birkot Ha-Shahar morning prayers.
Because of this list, i call this semiotic
level of thought and culture the Ishma-
elian level. At this level ﬁctional stories
were deliberately written, and ﬁctional
plays produced, each giving the audi«
ence a novel way to see things. The
verses in poems were interrelated by
rhyming, such as in the poetry (piyut)
of Yosé ben Yosé, Yannai, and El’azar
ben Kalir (successively ﬂourished ca.
570 - 640 CE). (At the Ishmaelian stage
only one dimension could be treated
at a time. Multiple dimensions in
poetry, combining meter and rhyme,
and sometimes meter, anagrams, and
rhyme, did not occur till the next stage,
the aristotelian stage, in the poetry of
the golden age of Spanish Jewry such
as that of Judah Halevy [ca. 1075—1141].
The Aristotelian stage roughly corre-
sponds to fowler’s stage 4, Individua—
tine—Reﬂective.)

Then it became consciously necessary
to check how Malachi 1:11 could still
apply. Most biblical commentators

of the middle ages came up with the
excuse that people recognize that the
universe is a uniﬁed system, and so
recognize the sovereignty of the one

God. Unfortunately, this excuse is false.

Most people are not philosophers, and
never declare, ”the universe forms a
unity." In fact, polytheists regularly
have myths of the sky god quarreling
with the sea god, or the children gods
quarreling with their mother; chaos, or

their father,
time. Rab-
beinu Tam
(1100-1171),
a grandson
of Rashi,
produced
more useful argument. He declared
(Tosafot to b. B'khorot 2b, and to b.
Sanhedrin 63b) that, as long as non-
Jews worshipped the one God, they
were permitted to associate created
beings with God. Jews had to stick to
pure monotheism, but non-Jews were
allowed shittuf (”association”). This
ruling was added to the major legal
code, the Shulhan Arukh (Orah Hayyim,
# 156) by Rabbi Moses Isserlis, author
of the Mappah commentary.

This ruling would establish that most
of the major religions fulﬁlled all seven
of the Mitzvoth B’ney Noah (”Noahide
commandments” required from Noah
and his descendents when they left the
Ark [Genesis 9:1—171). Each Noahide
law applies both to Israelites and non-
Israelites. But each law has extensions
applicable only to Judaism.

One Noahide law demands mono—
theism. This is a stringent demand
within Judaism. Associating God with
a created being (shittuf) is idolatry

for Israelites. Deuteronomy 4:15—24
prohibits Israelite worship of anything
with a material form. But it adds that
such created beings are ”things allot-
ted to all the peoples under the whole
heaven" (Deut 4:19). So non—Jews are
permitted shittuf. Accordingly, Christi-
anity, which associates Jesus with God,
is not idolatry for non-Jews. For the
same reason, while the ten tribes were
exiled from the Holy Land because

of their idolatry (2 Kings 17:7-18),

the Babylonians and Cutheans who
replaced them were allowed to remain
in the land even though they combined
the worship of the one God with the
worship of their earlier gods (2 Kings
17:24-41; cf. Malbim’s commentary to 2
Kings 17:28).

see Ask A Rabbi, page 6
April 2013 Shalom | 5

First and Third Sundays of The month

Yiddish Drop-in!

l0130 am. at the JFB ofﬁce. An hour of Yiddish
with Retoyl linkel (Raﬁ Finkel). Beginners
welcome, fluent weakers welcome, and Those
who remember ”a cor verter fun der heym”
also welcome. We’ll adjust what we do to

The levels of Those who come.

No long-Term commitment necessary.

No charge. Worth every cent, at leasTl

ATTENTION proud grandparents,
parents, and students

We want to publish any original writing produced by our community’s
elementary- and high-school-age children. If you’re proud of something
written by one of our kids, either fiction or non-fiction, please email it to

shalom @jewishlexington.org

H I “ 'l‘lu‘uli‘uisli l'l‘t‘l'l‘l'liillvliri)

Lixmerori HILHAmomc . i E
“maintaining.

Operating Support

LEXARTS

IIITUCKY

859.233.4226

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DUPREE
NITIATIVE

6 | April 2013 Shalom

Ask A Rabbi (from page 5)

Another Noahide prohibition is against
incest and adultery. Sexual orgies

as part of the divine services are an
abomination (Exodus 34:15—16; Num—
bers 25:1-16; Deuteronomy 31:16). The
priestesses serving the community in
these rites are considered harlots (Gen
38:15,21; Leviticus 19:29; 20:6; 21:9).
However, the Canaanites were not
”vomited out” until they far exceeded
these practices (Genesis 15:16; Leviti-
cus 18:24-30).

Murder is another Noahide prohibi-
tion. Biblical law goes further: one
source of bloodshed defilement is capi-
tal punishment. If a person is hanged
for a capital crime, his body should be
taken down and buried the same day,
"for a hanging is a curse of God” (Deut
21:22-23). Gibeonite law differed. And
King David once followed Gibeonite
law, allowing the bodies of seven sons
of Saul to hang for six months for mas—
sacring many Gibeonites (2 Samuel
21:1-24).

The seventh Noahide law demanded
each nation to set up an ethical legisla-
tion. Rabbinic law thus indicated that
the range of culpability for each nation
was set, not by Jewish laws, but the
legislation set up by that nation.

Once we understand biblical leg-
islation, we should recognize that
Jewish law is not only compatible
with democracy: it demands liberal
democracy. The Bible states in vari-
ous ways, ”There shall be one law for
the native and for the stranger who
sojourns among you” (Exod 12:49; cf.
Lev 22:24; Num 15:15). The biblical
term ger (”stranger”) covers both ger
tzedek (”righteous convert") and ger
toshav (”resident alien”). Jewish law
recognizes that the religious stringent
demands upon Jews do not apply to
non-Jews. However, the non-religious
ethical laws do apply. We need a suf-
ﬁcient sophistication to differentiate
consciously between religious and
secular laws. Thus, the demand that
Israel be recognized as a Jewish state
implies that the cultural stage in the
state should be sophisticated enough

to be compatible with democracy.

In most cultures, the pluralistic de—
mocracy demands involve the ability
to display goals and procedures in the
marketplace of ideas, and argue for
and against them. This occurs when
the culture moves beyond the Aristo-
telian stage of setting defined norms,
and enters the Galileian stage of es-
tablishing systems of ideas. When this
changeover percolates through educa-
tion to the whole society, it brings a
change from the feudal to the plural-
istic democratic society. As long as the
decision powers remain confined to
the government, whether aristocratic
(as in the rural areas of feudal society),
or elected (as in communist countries),
or CEOs of large corporations (as in
“robber baron” capitalism), the cul-
tural thought sustaining the society
can move only partially to the Gali-
leian level. The partial movement is
displayed by a dialectical Aristotelean
stage, a stage I call Hegelian. Both Lib—
ertarianism and Marxism are basically
Hegelian.

In the modern society, as long as we
are limited in our communications to
short tweets and summaries we are
limited to Aristotelian level norms.
However, if these communications
allow us to set out systems and proce-
dures that back up these norms, espe-
cially if we are able to test practically
these underlying systems, then we can
enter the Galileian level of pluralistic
democracy. The American constitu-
tion with its checks and balances was
set forth, as argued in the Federalist
Papers, to enable the American people
to unite and proceed on the Galileian
level.

For many generations in any discus-
sion any three Jews could argue for

at least four different opinions. The
Jewish community introduced this
pluralistic democracy perspective long
before it entered the Galileian level.
We did so because our culture, sup-
ported by our religious perspective,
uniquely bypassed a stage, which I call
Conformative. Most cultures advance

see Ask A Rabbi, page 7

ASk A Rabbl (from page 6)

ﬁrst in the semiotic dimension from the
one-to—one, word—to-idea Archaic stage
to the system—to-system Conformative
stage, and only then advance in the
psychological dimension from the sub-
conscious to the conscious recognition
that people perceive events and situa-
tions differently. King Janaka a