Kevin Skinner's Stirring Moment: A Tribute to the Human Spirit

Two or so years ago, I sent everyone on my list a Youtube link to a remarkable performance on “Britain’s Got Talent.” It was a fellow named Paul Potts, a very unattractive cell phone salesperson with a very unimpressive appearance, who immediately drew laughs of contempt from a packed audience. He told them he had come to sing opera, and they laughed. And then he sang “Nessun Dorma” and blew everyone away. Last year it was Susan Doyle and a number from “Les Miz.” I have just seen this clip from “America’s Got Talent,” and it touched me very deeply, so I share it.

In our great society, we live amid many wonderful people. Yet, we also live amid too many others who are very materialistic, remarkably superficial, catty, cliquish and caustic -- too many who rush to judgment and too many who judge based on inadequate, superficial information. A look, a prejudgment – and that’s it. Suddenly, a person is pegged, pigeon-holed. Too many hear a malapropism, a mistake, and assume a person is an idiot. They see someone with a shirt a bit wrinkled and assume that the person is a bum -- never pausing to realize that the shirt is 100% linen, not a polyester mix, and every wrinkle will show. So many jump to conclusions, and then the mockery begins, and the character assassination.

This clip is six minutes. Listen during the first two minutes as people literally laugh-out-loud at this man, laugh at his accent, laugh at what he was doing for a living before he became unemployed, laugh at his appearance, laugh at his simple honest confession that he is not very good at math. There is no way fully to gauge how much that caustic response must have hurt him, hurt his soul. They all have him pegged as a bumpkin, a hillbilly from Kentucky. What must it be like to be the butt of humor, the target of attacks and behind-the-back finder-pointing? How much it must have hurt him, through a lifetime.

They all have him pegged for just what he is. Even one of the three judges starts laughing at him, as he speaks.

And then he opens his heart with the pluck of a guitar: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lzul5rxd-i8

A Mindset that Drinking Is Not Cool, Vodka Vomiting Is Not Cool, Crookery Is Not Cool

When I attended yeshiva high school, everyone kvetched about the school: kids kvetched about the teachers, the facility, the bathrooms, the color the walls were painted. It was in the culture to kvetch about the place -- even though we loved it so much. And then I went to college at Columbia University. Students at Columbia did not love that place as passionately as we loved our yeshiva high school. But no one kvetched at Columbia. (Yes, there were political riots -- but it was a different thing. You had to be there.) The thing is, those of us from yeshiva high school who attended Columbia at that time quickly saw that it is not cool to kvetch at Columbia. It was not cool to shoot spitballs at Columbia. You did not get popularity points for interrupting professors with wise cracks, as you did in high school. So there is great value in changing a milieu, changing the mindset of what is cool.

There are places where it is perceived by some that it is cool to be frummer than the next guy. Each guy in such a milieu wants to exhibit his chumrah. That is an environment -- maybe it is good, maybe not -- but in that environment, people proudly demonstrate their chumras.

The goal needs to be to create a nationwide mindset in the Torah-observant community that it is cool to be honest, and it is not cool to cheat. It is not cool to avoid paying state sales tax by paying in cash -- and, for the one who does so, he keeps it to himself out of a proper sense of shame, rather than telling people in shul how he does it and where he goes.

To create that mindset -- and it can be created, just as Columbia created a mindset that differed from yeshiva high school regarding what is cool to talk about -- there needs to be a nationwide concerted effort. It means shiurim and divrei Torah and sermons. It means hand-outs and circulars placed on shul seats. It means a concerted effort that denies honors to certain people and that starts to honor others.

These things are never easy. We all know that one reason that Dor HaMidbar did not enter Eretz Yisrael -- transcending the p'shat of the punishment for how almost all the men responded to the m'raglim -- is that they were not able to evolve the mindset of free people after a lifetime of slavery. Their children, experiencing freedom in their youth, could evolve that mindset. And so it goes.

In some places, people speak loshon horo, typically starting each sentence with: "I don’t think this is loshon horo, so I want you to know that . . ." It is like a culture. And then, in some places, people just do not speak loshon horo. Can you imagine going to a Yeshivat Chofetz Chaim and speaking loshon horo? Inconceivable -- because there is a mindset. It is not cool.

In some places, there are Kiddush Clubs. In other places, such things are inconceivable. Many Torah authorities have made an effort to send the word that Kiddush Clubs are not cool. That it is not cool to brag about what whiskey or malt scotch or whatever one drinks. One Young Israel rav here in Los Angeles took a powerful, powerful stand against Kiddush Clubs in his shul. Some people left his shul. His shul emerged better, stronger, and holier for his heroic leadership on that issue. His strength on this issue made him a role model for many other rabbonim.

In some places, it is cool to get so much vodka into one's body on Simchat Torah and on Purim that fellows actually expel that intake uncontrollably, publicly on streets. Even as they are being plied with more. And so the community arose with a campaign -- at least here in Los Angeles -- to teach people that is not cool. That it is not cool to vomit on the sidewalk in front of shul on Purim or Simchat Torah night. It is not cool to drink or to serve teens such alcohol or to let your teens get drunk. It had such an impact that the Los Angeles Times did a beautiful story on it, and it was a beautiful story that, in turn, gave impetus to other rabbis to lead on the subject.

These are hard things. Kiddush Clubs. Teen and Adult inebriation on Purim and Simchat Torah. Loshon Horo. Business dishonesty. In each case, it is about creating a new mindset -- putting circulars regularly on shul seats, having not just one or two strong rabbonim talking about the issue but having a national campaign that urges all rabbonim to speak about an issue. Creating an environment where it is not cool to cheat or to tell others.

And you know what? We still may fail because it takes only one Madoff -- only one -- to destroy a generation's efforts. So, if Ivan Boesky does not go to our shul, nor Madoff, nor the junk-bond guy, nor Marc Rich, nor the money-laundering crooks involved in that East Coast/West Coast scandal (including Chasidim, Israeli bankers, and the guy who was a West Coast Orthodox Union leader), nor the others -- we still lose. But at least we know we tried. And-- who knows? -- maybe in an environment with the right kind of mindset, maybe a Madoff would not get to be a Treasurer at Yeshiva University nor chairman of a school within YU. Who knows? But that takes a mindset-change, and maybe it takes a generation.

The Sea does not split until someone jumps in. We probably should try everything.

K'doshim: Separating the Holy from the Despicable

“Tell the entire assemblage of Israel: you shall be holy because I the L-rd your G-d am holy.” (Vayikra 19:2)

This week’s Torah portion lays out a comprehensive array of Divinely ordained commandments that define the range of Judaism’s unique values. Legislated to an assemblage of just-liberated slaves, these are the concepts and aspirations taught orally to Moshe at Sinai and thereafter transmitted in an appendix – the Written Torah. Through them, we were sculpted into an entity greater than mere physical emancipation could have offered. We were made holy.

In Judaism, “holiness” is epitomized by separation -- "separateness." “Behold [they comprise] a Nation that shall dwell alone.” (Bamidbar 23:9). We are holy because we are separate.

These laws separated us from the surrounding world. Don’t just fear your Dad but also your Mom; don’t just cuddle up to Mom with honor but also honor your Dad. And, yet, remember that both your parents, no less than you, answer to the Creator; their authority extends only within Torah’s parameters.

Yes, be really careful to observe all the detailed rituals governing animal sacrifice, and carefully observe all kinds of esoteric laws: Refrain from donning garments made from a combination of both linen and wool. Don’t shave with a razor blade or obliterate your sideburns or get caught up in a societal tattooing craze. Tatt too will pass. Don’t go to fortune-tellers, and don’t erect statues.

But also remember that, as part of being holy – of being different – your Creator will hold you accountable for cursing deaf people and for tripping up the blind, even if they are oblivious to your deeds. He will demand you account for conducting business dealings deceitfully, for failing to leave a corner of your field’s produce as open-pickings for the poor. Don’t you dare steal or deal falsely. If you invoke His name in a false oath, if you perjure yourself in a court filing, you will have to account. Don’t you dare cheat your neighbor, and don’t you rob, and don’t you withhold your employee’s wages past payday. Don’t you dare.

Maybe the late-night TV talk show hosts make fun of elderly people, but not you. When you see someone with white hair, you get up from your cozy chair and you stand out of respect, and you honor that time-worn face. She has endured it all, and she has earned your reverence.

So it’s not just about meticulously observing 39 rules that define Jewish Sabbath observance – although that, too, is central to the very concept of a Jewish People. Nor is it only about eating kosher and avoiding forbidden mixtures. Rather, it also is about being honest, ethical, trustworthy, and thus noble. Your scales must be honest when you weigh a pound of meat or a hill of beans. Your every transaction must be honest; even your resumés must be truthful: where you went to school, the degrees you truly earned. A holy nation is not led by crooks, nor does it honor them.

That is what makes a great people. Such separateness makes “holy.”

Greatness is not measured by the size of your bat mitzvah smorgasbord or the layout of your backyard pool, but by how you acquired them. Your fancy car and your home landscaping and the jewelry in your safe do not define you. Your deeds define you. As Rabbi Emanuel Rackman taught: It is not enough to do well; you must do good.

Whom do we honor? At our every organizational banquet, our every special event, do we make room on the dais to honor at least one person of modest means whose presence is grounded exclusively in her kindness, her goodness, her nobility of character?

Money is great. And many profoundly wealthy people also justly populate the platform of the noble, those blessed with dignity and grace of character. But is wealth the standard we employ in selecting our nobles, our honorees? Can a Holy Nation count among its leaders those whose wealth is bound with mendacity? Those who became rich by ruining others or those who climbed ladders by destroying the reputations of others?

Not a holy nation. Not a nation separated and set apart by the command of their Creator to deal honestly, to judge honestly, and never to do unto others what they would not want done to them.

That is the striking message of this week’s Torah portion. It should be mandatory reading for every banquet committee and every nominating committee in organized American Jewish life. Its message is that extraordinary. And we all should study it, too.

Agriprocessors Now Doing What They Need to Do

A prominent public-relations personality in the national marketing of kosher foods recently published an article lambasting students, mostly in the New York area, who urged a boycott of the Postville company at the center of the recent Postville scandal. He called them a bunch of "leftists" reflecting a "lynch mob mentality."

Although that initiative a few weeks ago by those students at a rabbinical seminary in New York to boycott Agriprocessors was misplaced and premature at its time, those students who circulated the boycott call were motivated by their ethical sense of right and wrong. Theirs was not a call motivated by their being “leftists.” Rather, students act more quickly and intensely than do people who are older and who need to balance various personal and institutional considerations and interests. A centrist also could have joined their boycott call. I am a Centrist, a RIETS musmakh – and I came pretty close to going their route. Nor is the students’ institutional affiliation central to their boycott call, and I was deeply offended that the author of the article chose to level ad hominem attacks against the boycotters – instead of pointing a shining light to help the Postville slaughterhouse see how better to rebuild public trust.

The “road back” for Agriprocessors to win public support and to persuade consumers not to boycott them is by assuring the public that the company has taken and continues taking important steps to prevent recurrences of the things that have happened. Don't attack the boycotters. Rather, bolster public trust in corporate compliance. Indeed, since the scandal, Agriprocessors has been doing lots of right stuff, even if long overdue. For example, it was compelling that the company terminated its in-family CEO and has launched a significant search for a new CEO outside the family. It is particularly compelling that the company recently has retained a significant former federal prosecutor, Jim Martin, former U.S. Attorney for the Eastern District of Missouri, to deal with compliance issues. Martin was a federal prosecutor for 21 years, apparently was top of his class at University of Michigan Law School, and was a tough-as-nails USA investigating and prosecuting corporate white-collar crime in the Midwest. He went after Chrysler, prosecuted a CEO at Blue Cross Blue Shield, and basically is as solid a person as you could find to be chief compliance officer for a corporation. Now that is impressive. That builds public trust.

The Postville issues are complex, and I summarize many of them in my blog on the matter. http://ravfischer.blogspot.com/2008/05/post-about-postville.html But don’t sneer at the boycotters as “leftists” and a “lynch mob.” Such ad hominem name-calling in that context is shameful.

Clergy Abuse: The Other Kind

The Other Kind of Clergy Abuse:
When Congregants with Social Pathologies Abuse Their Clergy


During my fifteen years in the practicing rabbinate and ten years as a practicing attorney, I have encountered – both first-hand and, as a result of my open discussion of those experiences, through the parallel and often horrifying experiences that many colleagues and even clients have shared with me – a whispered subject that shames American Jewish life: Clergy Abuse. In its Jewish dimension, I use the term “Clergy Abuse” to describe the shameful, disgraceful, and painful efforts by certain laity to destroy their clergy: their rabbis, their cantors, and others among their klei kodesh.

These abusive and destructive efforts are advanced through many forms and vehicles, primarily including disseminating libel and slander, character assassination, and building of alliances through social groupings, carpools, and even the weekly coffee klatch, bowling match, or poker game. Thus, if one is a strong enough personality and imposes enough intensity on his or her social grouping, a dominating environment can influence others in the social subgroup to join along, if only for the social equanimity of the group and its dynamics. Soon, people with children the same age and attending the same school, or simply carpooling together, join the dynamic.

The phenomenon of Clergy Abuse, as directed against rabbis, is discussed with refreshing honesty and pinpoint accuracy in Chapter 22 of Rabbi Berel Wein’s latest volume, Tending the Vineyard (N.Y.: Shaar Press, 2007). Nor is this tragic and disgusting phenomenon unique to Jews. See, e.g., G. Lloyd Rediger, Clergy Killers: Guidance for Pastors and Congregations Under Attack (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1997); Kenneth C. Haugk, Antagonists in the Church: How to Identify and Deal with Destructive Conflict (Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Publishing House, 1988).

In classic literature, the stage, and screen, one is reminded of the tragic figures of Sir Thomas More (“A Man for All Seasons”) and St. Thomas Beckett, notwithstanding certain historical inaccuracies in the respective representations. Even outside theology, the phenomenon parallels social tragedies reflected by the dynamics so well captured in Henrik Ibsen’s “An Enemy of the People,” in which Dr. Thomas Stockmann finds himself targeted for destruction.

Through the many stories I have heard from colleagues – ranging from Reform, Reconstructionist, and Conservative rabbis to Orthodox rabbonim – and transcending Judaism to include Catholic priests, Christian pastors, and Protestant ministers -- I have come to wonder whether our American Jewish secular organizations were similarly plagued by destructive internal politics of this nature during the Holocaust years. People on boards of directors -- driven by their own personal needs for recognition by the Group, their inadequacies or their needs to manipulate others like marionettes, their needs to draw attention to themselves or to demonstrate, for their spouses or their children, their supposed importance -- with personal social pathologies so engrossing that they would have distracted their organizations from focusing full 100% attention on saving Jews on the bring of Holocaust in Europe.

And, a bit to my shock (and a bit not), my research reflects that, indeed, the internal politics of destruction existed in the 1940s and deterred American Jewish organizations from effecting rescue at maximum force and full throttle – at a time when 12,000 Jews went to the ovens in East Europe every day.

To this day, every time I meet a rav who now is a full-time stock broker, a full-time realtor, an entrepreneur with a storefront business or an export-import firm (not to mention a lawyer, an accountant, or even a therapist) -- and I then ask why the rav left the rabbinate --the answer always is the same. He did not leave to make more money, although he has found he makes more money. He did not lose interest in his desire to serve G-d.

Rather, in case after case, I have learned that he is but one more Jew recovering from Clergy Abuse.

Courage Under Fire: How a Jew Handles Gossipers

COURAGE UNDER FIRE: SO HOW DOES A JEW RESPOND WHEN CAUGHT UNEXPECTEDLY IN A LOSHON HORO ENVIRONMENT?

One of the most difficult aspects of Jewish life is dealing with the grave sin of loshon horo (gossiping even when true, tale-bearing). The Chofetz Chaim, author of the Mishneh B’rurah compendium on the Shulkhan Arukh that serves as the defining halakhic work for Ashkenazic Jewry in the modern era, nevertheless attached his name to his other great life’s work – on the laws of loshon horo. He felt that tackling the complexity of loshon horo law was the greater contribution he made in his lifetime. So he took his great sobriquet from a verse couplet in Tehillim (Psalms 34:13-14): “Who is the man who desires life, (mi ha-ish he-chofetz chaim) who loves days to see good? Restrain your tongue from evil and your lips from manipulation.” And HaRav Yisroel Meir Kagan HaKohen, zt”l, took for himself the name “Chofetz Chaim” as the name by which he would be remembered.

The laws of loshon horo are numerous. For example, with Ehud Barak recently having announced that he is seeking to return to political leadership in Israel, it is not at all
loshon horo to remind people of how Israel fared the last time he led the Jewish State. It is not loshon horo to speak of Neturei Karta – the clowns in Hasidic garb who attend Fatah events and Holocaust Denial conferences to ally with our enemies – with the utmost contempt. It is not loshon horo to refer to Jimmy Karta, the 39th American President and a bigot against the State of Israel, with the utmost contempt. When someone inquires whether a fellow or lady is suitable as a pending wedding match or as a business partner, the halakhah permits -- indeed, requires -- utmost candor. There are many more examples of these principles.

On the other hand, in a different context, even a “roll of the eyes” can be a grave sin. Or a smirk. Or a snicker. When the intention is to reduce a person a notch by conveying a negative meaning that is forbidden under halakhah, the conveyor of the loshon horo can lose his place in the World to Come for all eternity. And, for good measure, Rav Avigdor Miller zt”l teaches that the conveyor and transmitter of the loshon horo is saddled with all the sins and punishment of the person he intends to degrade.

The challenge that is most difficult for most of us is how to respond when, unexpectedly, we find ourselves caught in a loshon horo environment. One time, Ellen and I were invited to a Shabbat dinner at someone’s home. Other guests were invited, too. As often happens at a Shabbat table, conversation ensued, shifting from one Jewish subject to another. Suddenly, the discussion moved into laws of kashrut and, from there, into one person’s ridiculing a Rav who grants kashrut certifications. The discussion reached beyond nuanced philosophical differences of rabbinical schools of thought – for example, some halakhic authorities are stricter about Cholov Yisroel than are others – and transcended into loshon horo and, worse, hotza’at shem ra’ (outright slander).

Loshon horo is an infection, very contagious, so much so that it needs to be quarantined. It sneaks into a conversation, often introduced cleverly and surreptitiously by someone whose agenda – whose personal axe-to-grind – manipulates the discussion into that direction. And, as happened that night at that Shabbat table, Ellen and I suddenly and unexpectedly found ourselves embedded in a loshon horo environment. This prominent Rav was being derided and smeared by a person who absolutely did not know what he was talking about. We were caught off-guard.

But what to do? What indeed to do? To make a scene? To break the ambiance? To ruin dessert? What to do? Because, alas, silence is often tantamount to agreement.

In the “Harry Potter” series of children’s books, author J.K. Rowling puts a profound thought into the mouth of one of her characters: “It takes courage to stand up to your enemies. It takes even greater courage to stand up to your friends.” And that is indeed the only prescriptive that exists in the face of finding oneself in that bind.

To speak up – because silence is not an option. To risk losing a friend – because losing Paradise is not an option. To realize that someone willing to jeopardize your place in the World to Come may just not be the best friend in your rolodex.

In the movie “Gentleman’s Agreement,” a 1950s-era Oscar winner as Best Picture for its depiction of a non-Jewish journalist who poses as a Jew in snooty Connecticut and Manhattan to learn from an insider’s perspective that Jew-hatred exists even among the upper crust, there is a memorable scene. A non-Jewish woman, late in the movie, recounts that she was enjoying dinner as an invited guest at a dinner table, breaking bread with such upper crust, when someone started telling anti-Jewish jokes. She angrily recounts the incident later, among a group of people who oppose anti-Semitism, telling them approximately these words: “I was so mad. You have no idea. I was furious.”

And, then, one of those listening to her recount her outrage asks: "Did you speak out? Did you object to that humor? Did you convey your sentiments in any way?” And she responds, her face looking down into her napkin, “No. I sat there silently. I allowed it to continue. I did not have the courage to speak out.”

Loshon horo is the ultimate anti-Semitism, a violation of the essence of Torah values, emanating from within the Jewish community, derogating one or more Jewish souls, assassinating an innocent Jew’s character, causing pain and suffering to its victims and targets, to family and friends. Even as it threatens the eternal souls of those drawn within its ambit, often innocent bystanders caught unexpectedly in the oral terrorist’s cross-fire.

The only way to respond, when unexpectedly finding oneself caught in a loshon horo environment, is to speak out with courage. To say “My spouse and I did not come here to listen to this. Nor do we want our children exposed to this poisonous environment. We reject what is being said. And if it happens again, we will leave this environment and not return.”

That is courage under fire, Jewish-style.