Documentary “The Asian and Abrahamic Religion: A Divine Encounter In America” (WHUT at 8 p.m.), which filmed in many locations around the Washington area, looks at Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism and compares each to Christianity, Judaism and Islam. Local areas in the film include the Sri Siva Vishnu Temple in Lanham and the Wat Thai Buddhist temple in Silver Spring.

The rest is here:
TV Highlights: ‘No Ordinary Family’ and ‘Lights Out’ finales; ‘Pregnant in Heels’

The leaders of all three major branches of Judaism have signed a two-page newspaper ad calling for Rupert Murdoch to put an end to all the Nazi comparisons on Fox News. And they’re using one of Murdoch’s most prized publications-The Wall Street…

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Rabbis Reject Beck, Fox News

The migration of print media to the web and digital devices has stirred society to ponder many Big Questions: Is Google making us stupid ? Has technology short-circuited our children’s attention spans ? Are we frittering away our lives gaping at smartphone screens ? All this while the most obvious question goes unanswered: what will Jews read on the Sabbath? Many observant Jews do not operate lights, computers, mobile phones, or other electrical appliances from sundown on Friday until three stars appear in the night sky on Saturday. They abstain from these activities because, over the last century, rabbinic authorities have compared electricity use to various forms of work prohibited on the Sabbath by the Bible and post-biblical rabbinic literature, including lighting a fire and building. The difficulty of interpreting the Bible’s original intent and applying it to modern technology has rendered electricity use on the Sabbath one of the more contentious topics in Jewish law. E-readers are problematic not only because they are electronic but also because some rabbis consider turning pages on the device – which causes words to dissolve and then resurface – an act of writing, also forbidden on the Sabbath. When they’re not praying, studying, eating, socializing, or sleeping, observant Jews often devote a substantial portion of the Sabbath’s 25 hours to reading – in print. As former New York Times religion reporter Ari Goldman explains in his book Being Jewish, it’s thanks to the Sabbath that the “simple pleasure of reading is alive at least one night a week in our house.” He recounts how “children who find every excuse all week not to read happily pick up a book on Friday night” and how he and his wife clip newspaper articles during the week to share with their children at the Sabbath table. E-readers are problematic because some rabbis consider turning pages on the device – which causes words to dissolve and then resurface – an act of writing, also forbidden on the Sabbath. Yet industry trends suggest digital media will eclipse print in a matter of decades. U.S. News & World Report is printing its last issue for subscribers this month, adopting a “digital-first” strategy already embraced by news outlets like the Christian Science Monitor. A Forrester Research analyst argued last month that book publishers must prepare “for a day in which physical book publishing is an adjunct activity that supports the digital publishing business.” So how are Jews responding? Some are thinking of ways to accommodate emerging technology within the structure of traditional Sabbath observance while others wrestle with the implications of the shifting media landscape for Jewish law and observance. A number stress that, regardless of legal considerations, the Sabbath’s rules and spirit have never been more important they are today, when technology saturates our lives. The discussion arises at a moment when all religions are exploring what the digital revolution means for their communities, whether it’s the Amish deciding which devices to adopt, Muslims experimenting with online worship, or Roman Catholic clergy wondering whether social networks represent a new form of pastoral ministry. Perhaps the simplest way to engage with digital media on the Sabbath is to plan ahead and print reading materials out during the week. But others are floating more high-tech solutions. The blogger Morris Rosenthal, for example, imagines a special Kindle that can bypass Sabbath prohibitions by disabling its buttons, turning itself on at a preset time, and flipping through a book at a predetermined clip. Jeffrey Fox, a Modern Orthodox rabbi and the head of Yeshivat Maharat, an institution in Riverdale, NY that trains women to be religious leaders, doubts this type of device will catch on. Unlike popular Sabbath-compliant electronic appliances such as the Shabbat Elevator or the Shabbat Amigo scooter , he explains, there is no burning need to read a Kindle on the Sabbath, absent print materials vanishing entirely. Fox believes that e-readers – like other electrical appliances that don’t generate light and heat – are technically permissible on the Sabbath but should not be used because they are a step away from forbidden activity and because, in epitomizing our weekday existence, aren’t appropriate for the Sabbath. Rabbi Daniel Nevins, dean of the rabbinical school at the Conservative Movement’s Jewish Theological Seminary, says that even if an e-reader is invented that adheres to Jewish law, he worries such a device could undermine the Sabbath’s values. “The Torah says you shouldn’t leave your place on the seventh day,” Nevins explains. “You can say Judaism is creating a local ideal that you experience Shabbat in a place with people and don’t go out of those boundaries … The problem with virtual experiences is they distract our attention from our local environment and break all boundaries of space and time. Shabbat is about reinforcing boundaries of space and time so we can have a specific experience.”   Nevins is writing a legal opinion on using electronic devices on the Sabbath in which he supports the use of appliances like electrical wheelchairs that help disabled individuals participate in communal life but not devices like e-readers that could disturb the Sabbath’s tranquility. He plans to submit the opinion for discussion and eventually a vote to the Conservative movement’s law-making body in May. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism in New York, explains that since the Reform movement doesn’t consider Jewish law binding, “The key for us [on the Sabbath] is abstaining from work that we do to earn a living and using the time to reflect and enjoy and sanctify, which is ultimately what the day is about. To the extent to which technology can contribute to that, then by all means make use of it.” Fox thinks that if the Orthodox community comes to reevaluate its stance on electricity use on the Sabbath, it won’t be a reaction to e-readers alone but rather a result of our homes, in the next 50 to 75 years, becoming so thoroughly wired that Jews will be left with no choice but to use electronic devices. Nevins sees parallels between contemporary discussions about electronic devices and the Conservative movement’s decision in the 1950s (when the automobile and television were the new technologies) to permit driving to synagogue on the Sabbath. “As Jews were moving to the suburbs … we said we’re going to lose everyone if we don’t let them drive to synagogue,” he says. “To some extent it was true because people would drive one way or the other but, on the other hand, making peace with [driving to synagogue] formally undermined an ideal we have, which was the neighborhood community. There is a similar danger here. If we become too relaxed about this we could lose the distinctive flavor of Shabbat.” Nevins’ message about shielding the Sabbath’s spirit against the gale of digital transformation echoes among Jews of different levels of observance. In a trend that probably hasn’t dealt too severe a blow to the e-reader market, some observant Jews are refraining from buying e-readers altogether, reasoning that they do the majority of their reading on the Sabbath (see here , here , and here ). One such e-reader holdout, an Orthodox Jew named Renee Beyda, explained in the Forward that she wouldn’t want it any other way: There is a saying in Judaism that one should be flexible like a reed, but that doesn’t mean that my family will be buying e-readers anytime soon. After dinner [on the Sabbath], all five of us crawl under the fluffy down comforter of my king-size bed, each holding a book, vying for a spot close enough to the sole lit lamp in the room. These are the times I marvel at how only something as bizarre as keeping Shabbat could create this scene, which holding a screen could never replicate. This past March, Reboot, a New York-based nonprofit led by Jewish artistic types, launched its first annual National Day of Unplugging to underscore the group’s ” Sabbath Manifesto ,” an attempt to recast the ancient Jewish day of rest for the modern age. Jews of various backgrounds joined non-Jews in experimenting with the Manifesto’s principles, the first of which declared, “Avoid Technology.” The blogger Menachem Wecker framed the digital dilemma confronting Jews succinctly in an article in the Forward back in 2007: “Will Shabbat observance ultimately dwindle as people choose electronic entertainment over media-free rest, or will technology-addicted folks flock to Shabbat to escape their electronics-obsession of the rest of the week?” Wecker could, of course, be presenting a false choice, since observant Jews may eventually be able to Kindle on the Sabbath without violating injunctions against kindling a fire or engaging in other types of work. Yet the possibility, as of now, appears remote. Outside the realm of the Sabbath, meanwhile, the Jewish community is, in many instances, making the most of emerging technology, be it through Jewish prayer book apps, Chabad-Lubavitch rabbis adopting Twitter and Facebook for communal outreach, or Rabbi Yoffie, at a Union for Reform Judaism convention in 2009, urging the Reform Movement to launch congregational blogs as one way to engage young Jews and “create an online, Oral Torah of ongoing Jewish discourse.” Expressing a sentiment many religious communities and, more generally, many of us can identify with, Rabbi Fox explained, “There’s real value in embracing technology. It’s just about knowing when to turn it off.”

The rest is here:
People of the E-Book? Observant Jews Struggle With Sabbath in a Digital Age

I’m finding it mind-boggling (as is Jim Fallows) that Richard Holbrooke has died, because he was not the sort of person who dies, or at least dies before he’s finished with what he needed to finish. There was too much will inside him to achieve, and he had not yet achieved what he needed to achieve. The last time I spoke to him, a couple of months ago, I asked him if he would replace George Mitchell as the Middle East envoy when Mitchell inevitably stepped down. It always struck me that Holbrooke, with his titanic ego, his magnetism and his brute intelligence — and also his conniving, man-of-the-bazaar qualities so unusual in an American — would be the only American who could birth a Palestinian state and bring peace to the Middle East (Could you just imagine Bill Clinton as good cop and Holbrooke as bad? I could).  Holbrooke laughed off the question, but not really. There were challenges he needed to master before he mastered that one. He was not having great luck in Afghanistan, and he might very well have ultimately failed, but you have to ask yourself — who else? Who else could do what he did? Who else is there? Richard Holbrooke will be missed, even — especially — by the people he drove mad. Later on, I’ll recount for you our conversations about his strange relationship with his Judaism, but for now, I will just express my sadness and condolences.  

Link:
Richard Holbrooke, a Singular Man

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This article titled “This line on gay Jews is quite orthodox” was written by Geoffrey Alderman, for guardian.co.uk on Tuesday 10th August 2010 12.45 UTC

On Cif belief yesterday Mordechai Beck drew attention to a statement recently issued by a group of American and Israeli Orthodox rabbis and professionals on the subject of the place within Jewish communities of Jews who have (to repeat the phrase used in the statement) “a homosexual orientation”. As an Orthodox Jew I welcome this statement without reservation. At the same time I am concerned that Beck’s gloss on the statement might give the impression that its contents represent some new departure, some significant “shift” of policy towards homosexuality on the part of those who articulate orthodox Jewish beliefs. The statement does no such thing.

Within Orthodox Judaism there is no “ban against homosexuality” – as Beck puts it – and never has been. Nor has homosexuality been “taboo”. Orthodoxy recognises homosexual orientation as a human condition, a fact of life, and the Hebrew Bible itself is far from reticent on the subject. Whenever the eve of a new month of the Jewish calendar coincides with the sabbath, the extract from the Prophets that would normally be read in every Orthodox synagogue is replaced with that extract from the first book of Samuel (1 Samuel 20: 30) that deals explicitly with the future King David’s gay relationship with Saul’s son, Jonathan. But – and it is a big but – the context is one of disapprobation. Some rabbinical authorities have argued that David’s relationship with Jonathan was purely platonic. But the manner in which Saul berates his son for having slept with David is unambiguous. “You son of a perverse, rebellious woman [goes the English Standard Version translation], do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse [ie David] to your own shame, and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness?”

We should also note that during Yom Kippur, the 25-hour fast observed by all practising Orthodox and a great many non-practising Orthodox Jews, one of the passages read aloud in the synagogue is that from Leviticus (chapter 18) dealing with various sexual practices, including homosexual acts: “You shall not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is an abomination.”

To explain why Leviticus regards it as “an abomination” would take much more space than I have in this post. However one reason clearly stems from the related prohibition against a man “spilling his seed”. Beck is correct in his assertion that for “traditional Judaism marriage is the highest state of social bonding”. I go further. It is a commandment that all Orthodox Jews should try to obey to “be fruitful and multiply”. Homosexual practices clearly militate against the observance of this precept. (Lesbianism, incidentally, is prohibited nowhere in the Hebrew Bible, but is generally frowned upon and was explicitly condemned by Maimonides as “the practice of Egypt which we were warned against”.)

The statement of principles issued on 22 July does not depart one iota from the prohibitions I have summarised above. Quite the reverse. “Halakhic Judaism”, it reminds its readers, “views all male and female same-sex sexual interactions as prohibited”. And it goes on to condemn any and all “Jewish religious same-sex commitment ceremonies and weddings”. But I welcome the statement because it does not stop at that point, but reminds us of the framework within which those with a homosexual orientation can – and must – play their full part in the life of the synagogue and the community. I particularly welcome its very sensible warning against encouraging (pressurising would have been a better word) those with a homosexual inclination to marry someone of the opposite sex. I once had to advise a student who had been thus pressurised, and I came to know something of the utter misery it can cause.

Orthodox Judaism neither requires nor expects those of a homosexual orientation to cease being so. In enjoining abstinence it lays down a rule, knowing full well that some will not meet this exacting standard. Beyond that it offers only the certainty (as with all transgressions) of a divine judgment that is in any case beyond human understanding.

guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010

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