{"id":25492,"date":"2017-08-25T03:59:37","date_gmt":"2017-08-25T10:59:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=25492"},"modified":"2017-08-22T14:21:10","modified_gmt":"2017-08-22T21:21:10","slug":"tzedakah-not-charity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2017\/08\/25\/tzedakah-not-charity\/","title":{"rendered":"Tzedakah not charity"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin will be in Vancouver for FEDtalks on Sept. 13. (photo from HarperCollins)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

A group of elderly retired men routinely gather in a Tel Aviv coffee shop and talk about current events. Given the world situation, their chats tend to be very downbeat. One day, one of the men in the group declares, \u201cI am an optimist.\u201d<\/p>\n

His friends look at him in puzzlement and one of them asks, \u201cYou\u2019re an optimist? So why do you look so worried?\u201d And the man replies, \u201cYou think it\u2019s easy to be an optimist?\u201d<\/p>\n

This is a joke Rabbi Joseph Telushkin tells when he speaks about Jewish humour \u2013 a topic on which he literally wrote the book. It also sums up his response to a question posed by the Jewish Independent<\/em> in a recent telephone interview.<\/p>\n

Telushkin is the author of more than a dozen books, including the two-volume A Code of Jewish Ethics, Jewish Literacy: The Most Important Things to Know About the Jewish Religion, Its People and Its History<\/em> and The Book of Jewish Values: A Day-by-Day Guide to Ethical Living<\/em>. He is routinely cited as one of North America\u2019s most engaging thinkers and writers on Jewish topics and he has devoted his life to Jewish education.<\/p>\n

\u201cI am by nature an optimist,\u201d he said, explaining that his study of Jewish history inspires pessimism, but Judaism\u2019s promise of messianic redemption makes him an optimist. \u201cHence, I end up as an optimist with a worried look on my face,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Telushkin is one of five leading thinkers \u2013 originally there were four scheduled \u2013 who will speak at FEDtalks, the kickoff of the Jewish Federation of Greater Vancouver\u2019s annual campaign next month.<\/p>\n

Telushkin\u2019s lifetime devoted to Jewish education was motivated in part by his concern that Jewish religious devotion tended to emphasize ritual observances \u201cas if ethics were necessary, but sort of an extracurricular activity.\u201d<\/p>\n

Judaism, he said, has important and uplifting rituals, such as Shabbat and the observance of the holidays. \u201cBut there are these incredible insights in Judaism that apply to us in every day of our lives.\u201d That is why he wrote The Book of Jewish Values<\/em>, which is an exploration of ideas and lessons that can be applied day after day.<\/p>\n

Exploring these ideas, he said, can ameliorate some of the challenges facing the Jewish people, such as assimilation and intermarriage.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf two percent of Jews were intermarrying, you could make a big fight and just do everything in your power to stop intermarriage,\u201d said the rabbi. \u201cOnce you\u2019re dealing with intermarriage rates approaching 50%, you can either write off the future of the Jewish people \u2026 or you can say, guess what, Judaism has things to teach Jews and non-Jews. If Judaism has something to offer people, it can offer it to non-Jews as well. That\u2019s the role that Jewish education can play. We can model values that people can look at and feel enriched by.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Jewishness plays a central role in one\u2019s life, Telushkin said, a person should want to share that with a spouse and model Judaism \u201cin a way that would also make them want to share in Judaism.\u201d<\/p>\n

With Dennis Prager, Telushkin wrote the book Why the Jews?: The Reason for Antisemitism<\/em>. The provocative thesis suggests that something particular about Jews inspires Jew-hatred; that Jews bring it upon themselves.<\/p>\n

\u201cAntisemitism, we argue, is ultimately a reaction to Judaism and its values,\u201d Telushkin said, \u201cto the Jewish concept of God, which denied the gods of the others, to the Jewish concept of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

The centrality of education in the Jewish tradition has led to personal and collective successes that, in turn, have inspired jealousy, he continued. This jealousy leads to antisemitism and it is indeed, Telushkin said, something inherent in Judaism that provokes this response.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason Jews have succeeded, often much more than their neighbours, is because Judaism entered the world with a demand that no other religion had made: that everyone has to be educated \u2013 and you shall teach it to your children \u2013 and that focus on education led to greater success.\u201d<\/p>\n

Antisemitism, he added, is also inspired by the unique theological relationship between God and the Jewish people.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no other religion that fuses religion and peoplehood the same way,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen Ruth converts to Judaism in the Bible, she says, amech ami<\/em>, your people shall be my people, Elohayich Elohai<\/em>, your God shall be my God.\u201d<\/p>\n

This connection between religion and peoplehood also defined antisemitism and the way it morphed during the Age of Nationalism. Until around 1800, when the world in which Jews lived was primarily a religious one, antisemitism focused on the God of the Jews and the rejections of the prophets of Christianity and Islam.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen nationalism emerged, antisemitism was increasingly focused on the people who were Jews,\u201d Telushkin said. Conversion to another religion would no longer erase Jewish national identity, and membership in a peoplehood, a nation, became the focus of antisemitism. \u201cHence, the greatest antisemitism in the world today is anti-Zionism.\u201d<\/p>\n

The most catastrophic forms of tyranny in recent history, Telushkin added, were direct refutations of Jewish values.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat was Nazism if not a rejection of all the values that Judaism was trying to bring into the world? What was Soviet communism if not a rejection of all the values the Jews bring into the world?\u201d he said. \u201cNazism and communism were both radical repudiations of the Jewish notion of God. They held that the state had the highest value. That\u2019s why Soviet dissidents used to chant the song \u2018I Fear No One Except God,\u2019 because, in a totalitarian society, people who fear God think that there is something higher than the government, higher than the party. Today, of course, there is the danger of Islamists, people who claim to believe in God but who certainly don\u2019t believe in a God whose primary demand of humans is ethical behaviour.\u201d<\/p>\n

At FEDtalks, Telushkin will speak on the topic, Tzedakah is Not Charity. The word charity, he said, suggests something done voluntarily, out of love. \u201cWhile the word tzedakah derives from the word justice, which suggests that it\u2019s not only a voluntary thing to give tzedakah, it\u2019s an act of justice, which means not doing so becomes an act of injustice,\u201d he explained. \u201cWhat I want to emphasize is that Judaism is rooted in the notion of not just volunteerism but also obligation.\u201d<\/p>\n

By example, he suggested comparing two types of diets. People go on diets, he said, usually for one of two reasons \u2013 to be physically more attractive or healthier \u2013 but few are able to maintain a strict diet for a month or longer without breaking it.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause, in the final analysis, it\u2019s voluntary,\u201d he said. \u201cEveryone knows people who keep kosher, who can go for years without eating foods that are forbidden because they feel commanded \u2026 when we do something out of a sense of commandment, we do so with a greater sense of consistency.\u201d<\/p>\n

Charities often suffer during tough economic times, he added, because people see charity as voluntary. But, even during tough economic times, people pay their taxes because they are afraid of the consequences of not doing so.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo the notion of mitzvah in<\/p>\n

Judaism is a notion of commandment, something is obligatory,\u201d he said. \u201cI emphasize that point because people consider mitzvah a good deed, but it\u2019s really a commandment.\u201d<\/p>\n

FEDtalks takes place at the Chan Centre on Sept. 13. For tickets and more information, visit jewishvancouver.com\/fedtalks2017<\/a>. The Independent<\/em> has invited all of the speakers to be featured in advance of the event. Last week: Ruth Wasserman Lande.<\/a> Next week: Rabbi Jay Henry Moses.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rabbi Joseph Telushkin will be in Vancouver for FEDtalks on Sept. 13. (photo from HarperCollins) A group of elderly retired men routinely gather in a Tel Aviv coffee shop and talk about current events. Given the world situation, their chats tend to be very downbeat. One day, one of the men in the group declares, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25493,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5432,4295,3649,7322,218,1959],"class_list":["post-25492","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-annual-campaign","tag-fedtalks","tag-jewish-federation","tag-joseph-telushkin","tag-judaism","tag-tikkun-olam"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25492","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25492"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25492\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25493"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25492"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25492"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25492"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}