High Holidays

Our family sukkah traditions

I look at all the fancy sukkah kits people use when I cruise Instagram. I wonder how fast the structures go up, and whether they stand up to strong winds, but we’ve never spent the money on one to find out. Our sukkah is different. It takes a lot of work to put up and take down, but it’s sturdy and has a history.

Our sukkah was created by my dad in the 1960s for my parents’ congregation at the time, in Ann Arbor, Mich. My dad, an engineer, drew up his blueprint, signing it the “Dexter Sukkah Company” because they lived in Dexter, Mich., at the time. While my parents helped build sukkot at our congregation in Virginia where I grew up, and I helped decorate them, we never had one at home. I only learned about the “Dexter Portable Sukkah” as an adult.

As newlyweds, we told my parents that we might build our own sukkah. We lived several hours away from them, in North Carolina. My dad brought us copies of his plan. I think he may even have brought down some scrap lumber for us to assemble our own. That first year, we did it. My brand-new spouse and I harvested bamboo from an overgrown lot across the street for the schach (greenery put on top) and got started building. My beloved then dropped a piece of lumber on my head. The next day, my grad school advisor suggested I visit the student healthcare centre. A doctor concluded that I probably got a concussion. Although I am handy with a drill, that was the first and last year I built the sukkah with my husband!

Over time, we’ve moved for our academic lives and careers. The lumber got left behind in North Carolina. The year we lived in Buffalo, NY, while my husband did a postdoc, I taught at a community college, and we didn’t build a sukkah.

At the next stop, in Kentucky, we put the sukkah up in a grassy side yard our first year. My husband was a new assistant professor. We invited all his work colleagues to a big party. It took time for us to “get wise” to the antisemitism issues of our college town. We kept putting up our sukkah each year, but moved it to the fenced and gated backyard, where it was private. The schach in Kentucky mostly smelled stinky, as we cut back endless tree-of-heaven saplings from our overgrown backyard.

Fall evenings in Kentucky were warm, so we would have dinner parties in the sukkah, complete with bug spray. Friends and colleagues would comment about the runner beans and flowers we’d planted in the yard, while our bird dogs wrestled and chased crickets. Sukkot became a favourite holiday to be outside, sharing harvest food and hanging out with friends. We stayed in Kentucky six years. By the end, my husband’s enthusiastic use of deck screws meant that our sukkah lumber was splintered. We abandoned it when we moved to Winnipeg.

Building a sukkah in Winnipeg, 15 years ago, we started from scratch, using the Dexter Sukkah Company’s blueprint, and bought new lumber, too. That piece of paper with the sukkah plans took up residence in our cordless drill case. No matter what we fix, we see my dad’s plans. A friend from synagogue biked over to help that first year, with his drill gun tucked into the small of his back the way some people carry firearms. This time, my husband used an IKEA-type interlocking fastener approach to frame the walls, where it takes longer to assemble and disassemble the pieces, but the wood remains in better shape. He used mostly oak, elm and crabapple branches as schach at our first Winnipeg house. That year, we continued with the dinner parties, including wine and cheese, with new professor friends. The small crabapple fruits added some additional colour overhead, and some additional excitement when one landed in a wineglass.

As time passed, our sukkah became decorated with preschool fruit stuffies and paper chains, filled with twins who squeaked with enthusiasm from high chairs. Eventually, they were grade-school kids who set the table and cleared afterwards, in hopes of getting dessert faster.

In our new home (still in Winnipeg), this is the second year we’ve managed to build a sukkah. The schach comes from Virginia creeper vines and Manitoba maple shoots. The kids are big enough to hold up the sides while my husband screws it together. I worry about whether somebody will get hit on the head again. For the holiday, I bake lots of food in advance to feed hungry teens – fresh air seems to make them eat even more! We sometimes invite over other families. Sometimes, we just celebrate on our own. We hope it won’t rain too hard or snow – because we’re not diehards. If it’s a cold rain, we’re celebrating indoors at the dining room table instead!

We reuse our decorations, including the stuffies and the plastic wine goblets, every year. This is a holiday that is not expensive for us. We’ve never upgraded to a fancier kit sukkah, fairy lights or pricey ushipizin (guest) artwork, and that’s OK. This year, in a holiday season when, to be honest, everything has felt pretty hard to get through, I was heartened to see the sukkah rise again in our backyard, from 2×4 lumber, cut long ago.

Some years, my holidays are enriched by study. Yes, I loved studying the talmudic tractate describing the rules around building a sukkah, which can seem ridiculous. You can use the side of an elephant as part of your sukkah! That’s legal, according to the rabbis, but also entirely unnecessary. It’s also fine to build your sukkah out of scrap lumber and paper chains.

This year, my husband spent a full day of a long weekend erecting our old-fashioned sukkah. Looking exhausted, his face red from wind, he smiled when he remarked that we’d been doing this now for 26 years. He continued with “every year’s sukkah is a little different, but every year’s design is the same, too.” There’s nothing wrong with that! In a time with so much upheaval, family traditions like these – even if they are clunky, heavy and time-consuming – are well-worth keeping.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

There is value in diluted wine

Recently, a stranger responded to a forum post I wrote on Ravelry, a knitting website. I’ve worked off and on for many years designing knitting patterns. In the last four years, I’ve been distracted by the pandemic, by moving house and renovation, and the war. I haven’t put out any new patterns for awhile. Then, hit by a variety of antisemitic interactions, I decided I didn’t want to market my past work either. Most of my patterns are like anyone else’s, but a few show my Jewish identity. This includes two kippah knitting patterns and a hamantashen grogger design.

So, I mentioned my hesitancy about marketing during wartime to a Jewish knitters’ group. Out of the blue, I got a screed from an outsider that shows just why I’m wary. According to this response, I’m one of those “people without a soul.” Among many other comments, it was insinuated that

Israelis appropriated everything – we even stole hummus. Of course, the “we” showed exactly how jumbled up this person was. She assumed all Jews were Israelis or that all Israelis were Jews. The person didn’t understand the word “antisemitism” at all. It was quite a daunting paragraph. I knew many things about this hateful post were off base, as did others who were on this forum. Despite multiple reports about this screed, however, the website’s owners didn’t respond to us or promptly remove the hateful post.

Meanwhile, my household encountered hateful graffiti about the war in our neighbourhood again, which we reported to the police. This is at least our fifth report; there’s an investigation complete with incident numbers, as most of the graffiti isn’t about the war but simply Jew-hatred.

I then read a biased media report online. Recognizing the name of a journalist associated with it, I contacted her – and here’s where the narrative changes.

The journalist was open to my concerns, thoughtful, and the article was immediately edited. The police contacts I have dealt with have been unfailingly responsive and empathetic. I was comforted by professionals who saw our concerns, indicated they too saw the hate or bias, and acted on it. These were smart people who used their roles to stand up for what is right. Were they allies in every way? I wouldn’t go so far as to say that, but, in these instances, I felt less alone.

As part of my Daf Yomi (page of Talmud a day), I’ve been learning the Babylonian tractate of Bava Batra. In Bava Batra, on page 96, a question arises. At what point is a food so significantly transformed that we need to change the blessing we say when eating it? Rabbi Elliot Goldberg introduces this in an essay on My Jewish Learning, and it gets at the weird gradations we encounter and how to categorize them. On this page, there’s a question that relates to beverages. At what point is a drink derived from grapes so watered down that it’s no longer wine, and now just some sort of flavoured water? I immediately understood this because, centuries later, I’ve also had those bubbly waters flavoured with “real fruit.” Is there any actual nutrition from the fruit in what we are drinking? No, there isn’t. It’s usually just a little grape taste in the carbonated water. It tastes good, but it’s not juice.

My household traveled in September to a family bat mitzvah in New York City. There were many great moments during the weekend, including the bat mitzvah, which was held at the famous congregation, the Society for the Advancement of Judaism. This is where Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan served on the pulpit and the cantor was famous for composing “Hava Nagila.” Reconstructionist Judaism started in this building. There was good food, some great sightseeing. I especially enjoyed the perfect fall weather in Central Park during Shabbat, watching cousins play and chat in the playground.

Even so, I don’t love travel. A 12-hour journey, two airplanes, an international border and huge crowds can be a drag. Like the diluted wine conversation, it reminds me that not everything is obvious. Some dilution (or travel) is fine. Too much can result in a less pleasurable experience that we must bless and define differently.

On the airplanes, I read a novel, Suzanne Joinson’s A Lady Cyclist’s Guide to Kashgar. At first, it appeared to be a story about women missionaries and their proselytizing efforts in Western China. By the end of the novel, it was about sexual assault, lack of medical care, gender identity, riots and war, colonization, British identity, exoticism, refugees and more. Just like diluted wine, sometimes things are not what they initially appear to be about. A book I sought out as entertainment was something more.

So, too, what we see as entertaining or as a diverting hobby – a knitting project, for instance – can be more. The design is a piece of technical writing, the finished garment keeps us warm and, somehow, discussion about it can turn into an opportunity for those who hate. Even the chore of reporting something can turn positive, via an opportunity for dialogue with a journalist or police officer, or negative, when a site’s moderators and owners fail to respond appropriately or quickly.

During the High Holy Days, we reflect on our behaviour, with clear markers of right and wrong, good and evil. Usually, that is more than enough to think about, but, this year, everything I ponder is tinged with this last year of tragedy, war and its aftermath. As I escape into the outdoors, a good conversation or a novel, I go back to the talmudic conversation about diluting wine. The past year has felt “diluted” to me by the sadness and the war and antisemitism. Yet, I hope, as always, that Sukkot will bring good weather for sitting outdoors, and interesting conversations. Simchat Torah might give me a chance to dance with the Torah with joy and without reservation.

As I sat in Central Park, a cousin asked me, with only a little smirk, if I was still into “the knitting thing.” I paused. It’s OK to acknowledge that our intellectual energies and what we find entertaining have changed or diluted during this time. Many have changed irrevocably since Oct. 7, 2023. The High Holy Days offer us an opportunity to get back in touch with ourselves and consider who we are. The changes may be hard ones. We may be “diluted” differently, but the change itself isn’t bad. Rather, it’s part of life’s journey. Here’s hoping for sunny moments in the sukkah this fall, but, if it snows instead here in Winnipeg or it rains in Vancouver, we can’t control that. We can just control how we understand and bless it. Gam zu le’tovah, this too is for the best.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for the Winnipeg Free Press and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Renewing a commitment to hope

If you were to write a personal “book of life” to express your aspirations for growth in the year ahead, what would its title be? (photo from thisenchantedpixie.org)

In the face of the immense sadness and devastation of the past 11 months, and the suffering that seems to know no bounds, I find it difficult to even register that Elul, the last month on the Jewish calendar, has arrived. But, as the Jewish year inevitably advances, I seek solace and meaning in two practices that have helped me prepare for new years past.

The first is writing my “book title,” for a family ritual we created years ago to facilitate the work of reflection, forgiveness and imagination that are core to themes of the High Holidays. The Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur liturgies tie our teshuvah, our annual returning to our best selves, to our desire to be inscribed in a celestial “Book of Life.” Using this image, my family gathers around the Rosh Hashanah lunch table each year to share the titles of our personal “books of life” and to express our aspirations for growth and desires to be held accountable by one another in the year ahead.

The second is to dust off my shofar and sound the first blast, as I will continue to do, in keeping with tradition, each morning of the month of Elul, until the holidays arrive. Each day, I will I close my eyes and coax out the sounds that the shofar has been compared to: Sarah weeping for Isaac, a call to battle, the blasts that signal God’s presence on Mount Sinai, the call of justice that cracks open the hardness of the universe, the hardness in our hearts and in the hearts of our political leaders and awakens in us a renewed sense of purpose and possibility. By doing this, I hope I will be prepared, both physically and spiritually, for the full complement of 100 blasts, short and long, that will sound over the holidays themselves.

In the past, each of these rituals has given me hope, hope that change is possible, that I can do better, that collectively we can do better and that a better future is possible.

This Elul, I am finding it more difficult, as I imagine many of us are, to muster a feeling of hope. Last Elul, we could not have imagined the challenges of the past year: the slaughter of Oct. 7; the long and devastating war in Gaza; the plight of the hostages; the loss of friends and allies; the fractious polarization within the Jewish community; the rise in antisemitism. All of this on top of the many issues we continue to work on globally, from hunger to homelessness to climate change. Hope feels at best elusive; in our most cynical moments, it feels naïve.

Hope requires of us that we allow for the possibility of a variety of better futures, futures that are as yet unexperienced and perhaps even unimaginable. Hope requires that we acknowledge that a catastrophe that may feel imminent is not a forgone conclusion. Hope demands the humility to recognize that we just don’t know what will be, and the audacity to own our role in shaping it. Human imagination, intention and action forge a line between this present and the better future for which we long.

“People often confuse optimism and hope,” said Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, z”l. “They sound similar. But, in fact, they’re very different. Optimism is the belief that things are going to get better. Hope is the belief that, if we work hard enough together, we can make things better. It needs no courage, just a certain naïvety to be an optimist. It needs a great deal of courage to have hope.… And hope is what transforms the human situation.”

In Hope in the Dark, Rebecca Solnit describes a commitment to hope as essential to the work of activism toward social change. She shares example after example of times when the future (now history) unfolded because of the powerful imagination, agency and organizing of people who held on to hope. “Hope locates itself in the premises that we don’t know what will happen,” she writes, “and that in the spaciousness of uncertainty is room to act.”

Elul reminds us that we don’t know what will happen but that we have the tools individually and collectively to shape the future. The practices of reflecting on the year past and imagining the year ahead that are built into the Jewish holiday cycle offer us the “spaciousness of uncertainty” we need that can spark hope and move us to action. I rely on my two Elul rituals to facilitate this process of reflection and imagination. Whether it’s journaling, reading, speaking to a colleague or friend, or listening to music, I’m sure that each of us has tools for creating space for the kind of reflection and imagination that makes hope, and the attendant action it demands, possible. And our hopefulness has the potential to inspire others. We can hold possibility for them when they feel discouraged and they can do the same for us.

Elul reflection pushes us to awaken ourselves to new possibilities even in the face of despair, fatigue, anger and overwhelm. And this awakening of hope makes it possible to act.

I consider my book title as I blow the shofar each morning in Elul. I’m leaning toward making it “Hope.”

Questions for reflection

• What practices or rituals will help awaken you to new possibilities this month and coming year?

• What is your book title for the coming year, and who do you want to share it with?

Rachel Jacoby Rosenfield is chief executive officer of the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America (hartman.org.il). Earlier this month, the Hebrew month of Elul, Olam (“a network of Jewish individuals and organizations committed to global service, international development and humanitarian aid” – olamtogether.org) asked her to share her thoughts as a profoundly challenging year for the Jewish people ended.

Ways to commemorate Oct. 7

Erev Rosh Hashanah, from Shalom Hartman Institute’s Memory and Hope. For each holiday and Shabbat evening in Tishrei, the institute suggests we light a memorial candle before kindling the holiday and Shabbat lights, and offers an intention to recite before lighting this candle and a text to read afterward (both in English and in Hebrew).

Each year during Elul, the month leading up to the High Holidays, the women of medieval Ashkenaz would measure each of the graves in their community cemeteries with string. They would then dip these lengths of string in melted wax that had been collected from candles lit throughout the year in the synagogue when the community gathered to pray, to study, to cook and to connect. They would light these new candles, each made from string representing the dead and wax representing the living, on Yom Kippur as yahrzeit candles, a way of honouring and remembering deceased relatives.

On Rosh Hashanah, we will welcome a new year. And then, in the midst of the 10 days of repentance that lead up to Yom Kippur, we will reach the one-year anniversary of Oct. 7 and, with it, the anniversary of the day on which at least 1,139 people were killed by Hamas terrorists and more than 240 people were taken hostage. We will pray for the return of the remaining captives, and we will mark the start of the war that has since killed so many in Israel and Gaza.

We have struggled to fully mourn these losses as this war continues to unfold and expand; as not all the hostages have yet returned home; as, in North America, many of us navigate antisemitism in our communities and shifting relationships with local allies. And yet, we feel the need to grieve. The chaggim (holidays) offer us a pause in which we can reflect, cry and pray.

The Shalom Hartman Institute has developed two rituals for the anniversary of Oct. 7, one that spans most of the month of Tishrei, for individuals to use at home, and one for communal gatherings on Oct. 7 or on Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah.

Commemorating Oct. 7 at home

Every week, we begin Shabbat by lighting candles. Every Tishrei, we usher in Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur, Sukkot, Shemini Atzeret and Simchat Torah by lighting candles. Our ritual for commemorating Oct. 7 at home is woven into these traditions.

More specifically, for each holiday and Shabbat evening in Tishrei, we suggest that you light a memorial candle before kindling the holiday and Shabbat lights. We offer an intention to recite before lighting this candle each night and a short text to read afterward. These materials – inspired by the work of Hagit Bartuv and Rivka Rosner of the Shalom Hartman Institute’s Ritual Centre in Israel and in collaboration with Maital Friedman, Masua Sagiv and me from the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America – connect us with some of the central themes of the last year. Our hope is that the light of the memorial candle, the ner neshamah, literally a soul candle, and light of the festive candles flickering together will connect the strands of our grief and celebration.

Like the candles dipped by the women of Eastern Europe, this ritual honours both the dead and the living. It brings us back to the devastation of Oct. 7, and it also celebrates the artists, soldiers, teachers and ordinary people who helped us through a difficult year. Similarly, while memorial candles are traditionally lit to remember the dead, the ritual invites us to use these candles to light the way for the living – for peace, healing and hope.

While many Israeli Jews light candles on seven evenings from Rosh Hashanah through Simchat Torah, many diaspora Jews light candles on nine, the two additional candles marking the second night of Sukkot and for the start of Simchat Torah. As a statement of Jewish peoplehood, this home-based ritual is for seven nights of candlelighting, so that it will be used in Jewish homes around the world on the same days. If you want to use this ritual to accompany your candlelighting on the second night of Sukkot or on erev Simchat Torah, you might repeat an intention and text or offer an intention and reflection of your own.

Developing this ritual led us to ask about the meaning of memorializing Oct. 7. Is this ritual only about Oct. 7 or is it about everything that occurred that day and since? What do we mean by “heroism” at this time? Are we referring to military bravery or to the ways civilians stepped up to support and protect one another this year as well? Can the entire Jewish world share this one ritual, or have our experiences of this year been too different? What is the right balance between particularistic and universalistic yearnings?

For many of these questions, we looked to our Israeli colleagues to set the tone in creating a ritual that met their needs for their grief and vulnerability this year, as well as their sources of hope and comfort. For other elements, we offer suggestions to adapt the framing or created a slightly different version in the English that we thought might be better suited for those outside of Israel. You may want to use this resource exactly as is, but you may also find yourself adding different texts or focusing on different themes. We encourage creativity and would love to hear from you about how you adapt it to meet your needs for this moment.

Commemorating Oct. 7 in community

Many communities in North America will gather to mark the anniversary of Oct. 7, whether in synagogues, JCCs, Jewish federations, Hillels, schools or other Jewish centres. Our second resource is a collection of texts and prayers to be used in a communal ritual context, including suggestions of three different ways to use these rituals in your community.

The supplement also gave us the opportunity to add more texts, prayers, songs and perspectives, including texts with expressions of grief for the suffering of Palestinian civilians, which did not fit in the more particularistic framework of the home ritual above.

This Elul, as we reflect on the past year and gather up the wicks that measure our lives and our communities, may we continue to find ways to bind our wicks together, to find strength in community and ritual, and may all who mourn this tragic anniversary find comfort among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem. Shanah tovah.

Rabbi Jessica Fisher is the director of rabbinic enrichment at the Shalom Hartman Institute of North America. To read and download various Hartman Institute resources, including Memory and Hope: Rituals for Tishrei 5785 and accompanying resources for commemorating Oct.7 in community, visit hartman.org.il.

Setting intentions, priorities

This year, the High Holidays fall later than usual, with Rosh Hashanah just a few days before the anniversary of Oct. 7, 2023 – the most tragic date in the history of modern-day Israel.

The High Holidays offer special opportunities for reflection and renewal, reaffirming what matters most, pursuing positive change and strengthening our connections with others.

As we look back on 5784, we should examine our own actions, reflecting honestly on our challenges and successes, and seeking lessons we can take from our experiences to carry into the year ahead. It’s a time to consider which elements of our lives and our relationships with others need improvement.

This leads naturally to an opportunity to contemplate our intentions and priorities and plan for the future. It is a means of charting a course that aligns with our values and contributes to the strength of our families and our communities.

While Canada remains one of the safest places for Jewish communities, the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs’ advocacy – especially since Oct. 7 – has been fueled by a profound dedication to tackling the disturbing rise in antisemitism.

The alarming surge in antisemitism, both online and on the streets, has been deeply shocking. Yet, it has also driven us to forge essential connections with all levels of government, law enforcement, educational institutions and community organizations representing the majority of Canada’s Jewish population and other vulnerable minorities.

Just as the High Holidays are arriving late this year, so too are long-awaited protections from the government. We have seen some progress, but there is much to be done to ensure “bubble legislation” (safe-access laws to protect defined areas from protests, harassment and hate) becomes common, if not ubiquitous, across Canada. Vaughan, Ont., has adopted an encouraging example, and many other municipalities have expressed serious interest in following suit, but there is still much work ahead.

Federal online hate legislation has been in development under various ministries for years, and we are not backing down on contributing to and securing this fundamental legislation that will enhance security measures.

The accusations against Israel of war crimes from the International Court of Justice (ICJ) are both absurd and detrimental to Canada and the West’s long-standing policies aimed at achieving peace in the Middle East. If the Canadian government wants to rescue the reputation of the ICJ, it must denounce this evidence of its politicization.

Antisemitism is not a “Jewish” problem. Jew-hatred poses a grave danger to all who cherish our core Canadian values. We know from history that, wherever antisemitism is allowed to thrive unchecked, social malaise and political oppression follow. Its defeat requires a concentrated, multi-pronged approach involving many cultural, political, ethnic and faith organizations, as well as individuals from across the country. Together, we are working to combat antisemitism while building relationships with many partner groups, promoting the Canadian values of dialogue and understanding, tolerance and respect.

As Canada’s special envoy on preserving Holocaust remembrance and combatting antisemitism, Deborah Lyons, wrote in a July op-ed in the National Post: “Jews did not create antisemitism and … it is not on them to fight it alone.”

As we approach the sad and sombre anniversary of the Oct. 7 massacre, many will join us in honouring the memories of those murdered by Hamas and in praying for the safe return of the hostages and for the restoration of peace to the region. And, if we are so blessed to have welcomed home the hostages by the time you are reading this, we’ll have more to celebrate as we begin the new year.

In the meantime, I wish you a sweet, healthy, peaceful and happy 5785.

Judy Zelikovitz is vice-president, university and local partner services, at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

Think first, then share news

When I write articles lately, they’re usually columns with an Opinion header near the editorial section. Most writers try to back their opinions up with research and information. I’m no different. However, some readers can be easily swayed regardless of the facts involved. This was clear to me when I ate dinner at a neighbour’s home recently. I chatted with my host about a syndicated columnist who gives succinct opinions about all sorts of world politics.

The writer’s accessible approach makes it seem like his opinions are solid. His tone is breezy and confident. But he covers so many different world events and conflicts that I wondered how he knew so much about it all. My host suggested he had a large staff to help him. I doubted this. Writing’s just not that profitable these days.

Here’s why I grew to doubt this columnist’s work. When it came to how he analyzes Israel and the Middle East, I have some academic background in the subject and I read widely. I saw where I disagreed with his assumptions. In several cases, I had more information about the issues than he presented. I saw his bias. I questioned what I read. Yes, his work is always on the newspaper’s editorial page. It’s always an analysis piece but that doesn’t mean his facts and conclusions are always correct. Now when I read his work, I see the “mansplaining” tone. He’s overconfident and oversimplifies big conflicts. Sadly, I suspect few people call him on it.

My host and I had this exchange while talking about mainstream media. In North America, we like to think our journalism is objective, fair and impartial. When I was a kid, my family visited relatives in France. I noticed the sheer quantity of publications on the French newsstands. More than one relative explained that they subscribed to certain newspapers that represented their political view and bought others with differing views. This way, they could get a full picture of world events. They acknowledged that everyone had biases and that media wasn’t objective. The way to get a fair representation of events was by doing more: more reading, more information gathering, critical comparison and analysis.

My recent Talmud study, from the tractate Bava Batra, has taken me through some fun “tall tale” narratives from Rabbah bar bar Hanna. He was prone to exaggeration. In Bava Batra 73, he sees enormous antelopes and a frog as big as 60 houses. He claims that a dragon swallows the frog, which is then eaten by a raven. The raven then sat in a tree. Can you believe, he says, how sturdy that tree was?

When Dr. Sara Ronis introduces these stories in the My Jewish Learning essay for this page, she calls them what they are: a real fish tale. (You should have seen the fish that got away!) These myths also perhaps have parallels to a Zoroastrian text called the Bundahishn, according to Drs. Reuven Kipperwasser and Dan Shapira. The stories might be crazy, but they were floating around in the ether of multicultural Babylonian marketplaces. Rabbah bar bar Hanna returns to the study hall with his crazy stories. The other rabbis call him on his nonsense. They insult him and call him names, criticizing his choices. There are lots of modern scholarly opinions about why the other talmudic rabbis do this, and what it means. It’s a topic for academic debate.

However, what if this is an ancient reminder for us? What if, during this period of Elul, when we’re supposed to start doing serious introspection, we’re also supposed to be examining exactly what crazy stories we’re swallowing? Imagine social media and news outlets as our marketplace. Maybe we’re bringing home Zoroastrian tall tales and repackaging them for our own consumption. The rabbis teach us in Bava Batra that swallowing these fish tales whole is not the smartest move. The rabbis ask why Rabbah bar bar Hanna didn’t just stop and think more before bringing this “stuff” home with him.

We’re often plied with misinformation – about the war in Israel, but also about other news. What do we know about Russia and Ukraine, repression in Iran, the Uyghurs or the Sudanese crisis? How much propaganda has been sent our way and who paid for it? It’s hard to tell. Too often, a seemingly objective, sincere journalist’s narrative might mislead us simply because their unconscious bias and opinion is submerged in the text. The editor’s headline guides us, too.

Worse, sometimes it’s not subconscious bias. Sometimes, it’s bots or outright propaganda, paid for by a country that wants to mess up North American elections or culture. I’m not a conspiracy theorist. I believe that, like the rabbis suggest to Rabbah bar bar Hanna, one should reflect on things you read or hear, really look at them, and think critically.

This season’s the time when we’re supposed to be examining our deeds since last year. Most of us were guilty of complacency in this past year. Last Sukkot, we couldn’t have imagined what was ahead. If someone had described what was to come, we would have accused them of telling an abhorrent tall tale. For many, Oct. 7 and its aftermath have been one scary, real and gruesome nightmare.

It’s easy to understand complacency. We want to feel safe. We don’t want there to be metaphorical enormous frogs or dragons around the corner. That said, we owe it to ourselves to be like the rabbis in the study hall who called out Rabbah bar bar Hanna. Those rabbis asked bar bar Hanna to pause and think more about what he saw, read or told them.

In the spirit of the High Holidays, let’s be true to ourselves. There is plenty of horrific real news for us to share. Let’s read widely first. Let’s keep our eyes open so we recognize bias and what is really happening before we pass something along. Let’s avoid the rumours and speculation, too.

Wishing you a sweet, happy, healthy and peaceful 5785, free of misinformation.

Finding awe & wonder again

As a kid, I remember sitting through High Holidays with my family at our Reform congregation. We’d hit a section in the services where the English responsive reading, inspired by the Hebrew, used words like “awe,” “awesome” and “supreme.” There were smirks and stifled giggles as we passed this yearly reading. Why? Our family had discussed it at a holiday meal, and we agreed this sounded like a really big pizza special. It was hard to concentrate after that, thinking about pizza.

This moment hit me again when I heard Rabbi Jeffrey Saxe, one of the rabbis at Temple Rodef Shalom in Virginia, give a Kol Nidre sermon about awe, gratitude and wonder. It was powerful. Before I get into the details, we chose to stream services again this year from home in Winnipeg. In part, it’s so we can be a part of two worlds – my parents’ congregation in Virginia, where I grew up, and our Winnipeg synagogue, too. After the holiday, I can discuss sermons with my mom as if I had been sitting beside her during services and this is meaningful. For many people who are apart from their families during holidays, using shared moments to bond is important.

Even though I knew our choice to stay home made sense, I felt pressured to “get back to normal” and “be together again,” especially when a synagogue publication suggested that those who chose to stream did so for “mobility reasons.” (Not all those who choose to stay home have the same challenges. There are multiple reasons to stay home.)

Back to Rabbi Saxe’s sermon, which touched on the ways that the rabbis created liturgy that helps us remain grateful, and even encourages experiences of awe and wonder. If you see a rainbow, there’s a prayer for that. There are specific prayer formulas for eating fruits, snacks, and there’s even, Rabbi Saxe mentioned, a prayer for after you’ve gone to the bathroom. At this, some in the congregation laughed.

I felt shame. Not only is the bathroom prayer something I’ve written about and, yes, recited, but it’s also something I might have laughed at as a kid. Without going into details, thanking G-d for the intricacies of how our bodies work, opening and closing appropriately at the right times, can be absolutely meaningful. If you doubt this, maybe you have been very lucky and never had food poisoning or a stomach virus. Yes, we smirk and laugh when we feel uncomfortable, sure. Also, it’s when we take things like being healthy for granted.

I also felt weird guilt about not being in a congregational community over the holidays, even though we had a holiday meal with another family, dressed up, streamed services and took time off together. I felt strange checking messages over Yom Kippur. Then something happened.

Within a short period of time, two of our close family friends ended up in the hospital. One is in his 80s, in ICU, with COVID. The other friend is 5 years old, and she has a sister who is a newborn.

During Yom Kippur, the 5-year-old was admitted to Children’s Hospital after being up all night in the emergency room.

In the middle of Yom Kippur services, I got up, went to the kitchen and gathered together food for the parents for this unexpected stay. This is why we make the second round challah, I thought, as I threw it in the bag. I left my family, hopped in the car while fasting, and navigated the hospital until I found the room with one dear-to-us child with her oxygen mask, her exhausted-looking parents and their infant. I handed them the food, it wasn’t time for a visit, and rushed out again.

Somewhere on the drive home, I processed what had happened. I felt a profound sense of awe. I had been in exactly the right place. If I’d gone to services in person, I wouldn’t have been online or known that our friends’ child had been admitted to the hospital. I wouldn’t have been able to rush out and offer food, a quick bikkur holim (visiting the sick), and support her family. Leaving the twilight of their windowless hospital room, I was blinded by sunlight as I left the garage. I parked in front of our house and took a moment to cry.

Our liturgy traditionally links daily gratitude with prayer. This is an automatic check-in with nature, our bodies and the world to see and wonder at what’s around us. However, we’re all too likely to get sarcastic, cynical and, frankly, depressed. Mental health experts recommend expressing gratitude and getting into nature to improve our health, but the rabbis, like other faith traditions, prescribed it a long time ago.

It’s easy to ignore the natural world or our bodily functions. I’ve become increasingly aware of the sensory overload in our society. Some people easily manage very stimulating environments, like a dance club or even a household with the TV and radio on, a dog barking and a phone ringing, all at once. Others cannot manage this much. Sometimes, it’s diagnosed as a sensory processing disorder, but this can mean different things. There’s a person who cannot manage too much input, and the person who needs fidget toys and constant stimulation to maintain equilibrium. Nature or the trendier “forest bathing” can sometimes help us find balance.

As I head into autumn, I’m seeking fewer big events or gatherings. Here’s to quiet moments of awe. One of my kids is a new band student. His enthusiasm about his instrument is contagious. I cannot wait to play sax duets and “honk” together. The other kid has been spotting woodpeckers on our dog walks and pointing out migrating birds as the weather turns.

Rabbi Saxe closed his sermon with Genesis 28:16, when Jacob wakes up and says, “Surely, G-d is in this place and I did not know it!” Perhaps, like Jacob, we can all wake up and discover the joys of small wonders, too. We just have to slow down, open up and look for them.

Joanne Seiff has written regularly for CBC Manitoba and various Jewish publications. She is the author of three books, including From the Outside In: Jewish Post Columns 2015-2016, a collection of essays available for digital download or as a paperback from Amazon. Check her out on Instagram @yrnspinner or at joanneseiff.blogspot.com.

Obligated to warn of danger

I often chat with a retired doctor neighbour as I walk by his house with my dog. When he mentioned hiking solo on the famously difficult Mantario Trail in southeastern Manitoba, it sounded risky to me. I asked him what safety precautions he was taking. Afterwards, he chided me for being overly motherly and a worrywart. While his response made me feel uncomfortable, maybe it was because he was defensive about a potentially unsafe hike. The defensiveness might be a sign that part of his brain thought I might be right.

I just studied Kiddushin 29, a page of the Babylonian Talmud, while doing Daf Yomi (a page a day of Talmud). It turns out, this scene has played out before. At the time, rabbis had their own yeshivas/schools where others came to learn and a seven-headed demon was in Rav Abaye’s “study hall.” The best advice to avoid a demon, according to the rabbis, was to travel during the day and in pairs. Demons were known to come out at night, but this situation was so dangerous that students were unsafe even during the day.

Now, it happened that Rav Aha bar Yaakov wanted to come study with Abaye, but had nowhere to stay. Instead of helping Rav Aha find a place to sleep, Abaye tells others not to accommodate him. This forces Rav Aha to stay overnight at the study hall. It’s a set up. There, Rav Aha must battle the demon and vanquish it. Abaye hopes for a miracle to take place.

When Rav Aha is faced with the demon, the text indicates that he prayed. As he prayed, he bowed to shuckle (the movement many Jews make when davening/praying), and each vigorous bow resulted in knocking off one of the demon’s heads. Rav Aha battles the demon with prayer and survives.

This storyline, according to Dr. Sara Ronis’s introduction to the page on My Jewish Learning, fits into a greater literary and historic context. There are many tales of a divine hero combating a demon in Ugarit and ancient Mesopotamia. There are Zoroastrian, Christian and Jewish holy heroes who triumph over demons through prayer.

Rav Aha was a pious and great man who came eagerly to study with Abaye. However, he wasn’t without fault. Just before this story takes place, Kiddushin 29b says that Rav Aha sent his son to study. Alas, his son’s studies weren’t sufficiently “sharp,” so Aha left his son at home to manage the household while Rav Aha went to study instead.

After his confrontation with the demon, Rav Aha says to the others, “If a miracle hadn’t occurred, you would have placed me in danger.” Rav Aha was given no warning about the demon. He had no opportunity to stay elsewhere. Abaye relied on Rav Aha pulling off a miracle to save his study hall and his students.

This is one of the talmudic stories you can “sink your teeth into.” The rabbis appear as flawed people and a product of their time. There were stories about demons floating around the wider community, and people in general worried about demons and how to fight them. In the Jewish community, you see a “pious and learned” person, Rav Aha, who chooses his own study over further opportunity for his son’s education. And Abaye is a famous scholar, but asks others to deny hospitality to a student, and chooses to endanger others.

After my concern over the Mantario Trail hike, I got to wondering. If your friend is about to be in a potentially unsafe situation, do you have an obligation to warn them, to show concern? I believe we do. I still think I have this obligation, even if I’m belittled for it. I think we have the obligation even if some see it as hovering, annoying or overly solicitous.

I think about this a lot. We live in a peaceful urban residential enclave, but it’s not unusual to hear news reports of violent crime just a few blocks away. We have a neighbourhood watch, too. It pays to be cautious to avoid “demons” that might endanger us. It isn’t just a motherly inclination to be street smart. It’s not wrong to let others know if we foresee danger ahead.

Returning to this talmudic story, I’m angry that Abaye doesn’t warn or protect his student, Rav Aha. Abaye had an opportunity to do the right thing and failed in his responsibilities as a teacher. I’m also amazed at Rav Aha’s tact and self-control. After being endangered in this way, I might have made a much bigger fuss.

This time of year, we’ve got a lot to think about in the Jewish world. On Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, we spend time thinking about our behaviours and failings as individuals and in community, the concept of forgiveness and our fate for the coming year. Yet we also look forward to Sukkot, grateful for the harvest, and to celebrating the Torah with joy on Simchat Torah.

Our calendar is complicated. Like the story of Abaye and Aha, we can’t find just a single obvious answer. Maybe this keeps us from getting bored as we repeat the rituals of each Jewish year. Perhaps it helps us sharpen our skills so we can perform miracles, protect and look out for one another, and slay unexpected (proverbial) demons, too.

CIJA takes campaign public

I love the High Holidays and the opportunity they present to get together with extended family, to visit with friends and to reach out to colleagues. In addition to the special foods of the season, it’s a time to remember what is important, and what we need to acknowledge and reject from the past year. It’s also a chance to pause to consider how to find the path we really want to follow, to figure out what we need to make our lives safer, calmer, more balanced. To make our lives – and our families’ lives – better.

photo - Judy Zelikovitz says CIJA’s Oct. 16-17 conference will be its “biggest effort ever to respond to antisemitism” — Judy Zelikovitz says CIJA’s Oct. 16-17 conference will be its “biggest effort ever to respond to antisemitism.” *(photo from CIJA)*

Whether we are part of large Jewish communities in Israel, the United States, Canada or Europe, or part of small pockets of Jews anywhere around the world, our connections one to another have never been more important. Our support for our community’s values, for their protection, is strengthened by our connections to one another, and it is together that we will be effective in the vital fight against Jew-hatred, a scourge that’s grown significantly in Canada and around the world over the past few years.

In Israel, we’ve seen a shocking spike in 5783 in lone-wolf assaults against Israeli Jews, along with vile rhetoric and attacks by terrorist groups against the Jewish people. In Canada, still among the safest places anywhere, we are nevertheless living through a growth in online hate, threats to Jews and their neighbourhoods, and an alarming statistical rise in hate crime of all kinds against Jewish Canadians.

This growth in Jew-hatred has been the focus of much of the advocacy CIJA has undertaken in recent years and, this year, we are taking our national campaign public. On Oct. 16-17 in Ottawa, CIJA and the federations across Canada will host Antisemitism: Face It, Fight It, a two-day conference where we will confront the issue head-on.

We will “Face It.” We will learn from international and local experts about how they have addressed Jew-hatred and how we can advocate for legislation and other changes that will make our community safer. The second day, we will “Fight It,” speaking directly to our elected officials, ensuring they know the impact of antisemitism on our community, the effects of hate on all minorities, and its toxic effect on all Canadians. We will unite – with one another and with our partners – to fight antisemitism, and we will leave the conference better educated and better prepared to get this done.

Speakers will include Jews and non-Jews whose careers have been dedicated to combating antisemitism. We will hear what has worked, what has not, how to advocate for effective legislation, and how to equip our students and young leaders to take on this fight on campuses across Canada.

We will leave the conference secure in the knowledge that we are embarking on our biggest effort ever to respond to antisemitism. We will ensure Ottawa and other governments hear our call. We will amplify our voices, speaking as a united community and as one supported by allies across Canada.

Now is the time for us to show up, to speak up and to step up. Register now at fightit.ca.

I hope to see you in Ottawa and, in the meantime, over these High Holidays, I wish you a sweet, healthy and happy 5784. L’shana tova!

Judy Zelikovitz is vice-president, university and local partner services, at the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs.

Value of community

When we hear about addiction and recovery, most of us might think of the incredibly difficult journey to achieve and then sustain sobriety. For certain, this is one reality.

That said, it’s one thing to refrain from using, and quite another to rebuild one’s life. One of Jewish Addiction Community Services’ clients told us that, although they have been in recovery for three years, they felt that their life had little meaning. Working together, we uncovered the “missing link”: their prior lifestyle had damaged, and in some cases severed, many of their connections to family and community. More importantly, that insight led to building some practical plans for reconnecting. They now report that they feel like they have turned the corner – rediscovering motivation for work, life, and being an active member of our community.

Another client, who had been using drugs for over 25 years, is now seven months sober. They recognize that Judaism’s role in their early life was important, and reconnecting to some aspect of that former life is comforting and familiar. This client attended a seder for the first time in many years and looks forward to the High Holidays.

It is no secret that community plays a crucial role in sustained recovery. The harder part is to operationalize the insight. Our role at JACS is to meet people where they are, help them find treatment, if needed, work with them to rebuild their lives, and be a link to the greater Jewish community. At the very practical level, we have helped clients connect with Tikva Housing, access the Jewish Food Bank and get financial help from Hebrew Free Loan Association. As well, working with rabbis and other agencies, we are helping individuals find ways to reconnect with a Jewish social network, support systems and the community at large.

JACS is proud that we are here to help our community. It is gratifying to know that, through education, counseling and connection, we are making a difference for those who need to know they have value and do indeed belong.

For more information about what we do, visit jacsvancouver.com.

Shelley Karrel is manager of counseling and community education at JACS Vancouver. She can be reached at [email protected].