Talmud

Finding hope through science

The organizer of a conference panel I’m going to be on asked me some questions ahead of the event. He asked how to find hope from a Jewish perspective amid challenging times. I responded with both academic Jewish content and personal information about my sons’ recent big success at a science fair. This person, a male academic, quickly grasped the personal narrative I provided – he thought it was about being a mother. Let’s not be “essentialist,” I suggested. My ability to provide information about hope doesn’t stem from reproduction alone.

If one looks at what is going on in the United States, where there’s interest in limiting women’s reproductive rights, including motivating women to have more children and boost the birth rate, one might think that is what women are mostly for: reproduction. Yet, all sorts of data indicate that, for example, in a country like Israel, which has a high education rate and good possibilities for women, a high birth rate is also possible.

Perhaps choosing to have multiple children is easier with better health care, reliable social networks and support and maternity leave, and in a country that ranks high in terms of happiness on a global scale. Countries without birth control or proper education for women have high birth rates, but there are also high mortality rates. Focusing on women’s reproductive capabilities alone misses the boat. If women are educated and engaged in their country’s workforce, they contribute more than their biological value – the quick response of a male academic to traditional rhetoric about mothering left me disappointed.

This notion of maintaining hope during challenging political moments can be approached in many ways. I’m still sorting out what I’ll say in the five-minute slot on the conference panel. However, something I learned yesterday in the Babylonian Tractate of Makkot, on page 20b, made me think further about these issues.

Makkot 20b is about haircuts and ritual cutting as a mourning practice. First, Jews are not supposed to cut their hair in certain ways. Second, self-harming through incisions or ritual mutilation isn’t considered an acceptable mourning practice – self-harm isn’t OK.

While I studied this, I was also checking out the Canadian election results. My father, in the United States, was surprised that we hadn’t let our kids stay up late to watch what was happening. I explained that we’d voted early, and that our kids had voted in a school mock election. Also, we wouldn’t know the complete results until later anyway. More importantly, my kids needed sleep to cope with other activities later this week. Sleep felt like more important self-care.

It struck me that much of our tradition, and Jewish law, tries to maintain a complicated form of self-care. Even in dire circumstances, Jewish tradition encourages us to practise resiliency, intellectual curiosity and hope. Each day, the sun will rise, our souls will return and we will have what we need, like clothing and food, and feel grateful for it. As I write this, I hear Omer Adam’s popular musical version of the traditional prayer said on rising, “Modeh Ani.” (Google it, it’s good!)

While we also pray for our country and its leaders, sometimes we jokingly invoke the words that Tevye quotes his rabbi as saying in Fiddler on the Roof: “A blessing for the czar? Of course! May God bless and keep the czar … far away from us!”

My household felt strangely conflicted about voting. We knew for instance that the Conservatives, in the past, cut funding for research and science, which worries us. Choosing parties that maintain or grow science funding is important to us personally, since my husband is a science professor. His lab needs funding to do research. Good science research can protect us. However, the Liberals have a poor track record of protecting Jewish Canadian citizens. Our local NDP MP has expressed something akin to real hate in my dealings with her. So, again, we can think like Tevye’s rabbi: we bless the outcome of a democratic election – no matter how it goes – while hoping those in charge don’t get close enough, through their actions, to do us any harm.

Similarly, the rabbis acknowledged that mourning causes us great psychological pain. This might encourage some to self-harm. Ideally, we should control that impulse. Self-care is a balancing act. It’s not always clear how to make safe choices.

Locally, I watched politicians’ interactions with the Jewish community with interest. In one case, an incumbent Jewish Liberal MP of a riding known to historically have a “big” Jewish community mentioned that perhaps only 5% of his riding was Jewish. His efforts made to support the Jewish community and offer allyship to Israel were an expression of his conscience. That choice likely didn’t help his chances and maybe even was an impediment to his campaign, but that decision to act conscientiously offered me hope, too, even if I couldn’t vote for him because I don’t live in his riding.

Sometimes, our choices aren’t as clear as we’d like them to be. It can be hard some mornings to rise full of hope and gratitude amid the political chaos and death we hear about each day. Given that, we need the reminder of ancient, traditional Jewish prayer and thought, too. There are days when I feel praying is a rote practice. Other days, I remember that we’re doing this in a way that brings us connection with ancestors who maybe didn’t have enough food, who suffered with terrible plagues or physical danger. In many ways, things are so much better for us than they used to be. This alone is worth our gratitude.

When the rabbis warned long ago against cutting oneself, they lived in a world without antibiotics or effective medical care. My conversation about finding Jewish hope wasn’t simply about reproduction, my maternal pride, but rather my pride in the kids doing good science. I have hope because I don’t only believe in blind faith, I also believe in science. Whether it’s Israel’s Iron Dome, Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine, or other discoveries, doing science is another form of self-preservation.

The world can be a painful place. We must make compromises to continue as a small minority ethno-religion. Those choices require us to acknowledge what’s happening, to make nuanced decisions based on what’s best in the moment, and to build a better world each day.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m proud of my children, whatever they do, but I’m filled with hope because my Jewish kids won all sorts of accolades at a divisional science fair. To me, that’s Jewish self-care for the future. Yes, it’s also a political statement, too.

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.

Flying camels still don’t exist

We’ve been getting a lot of weird phone calls lately. The caller ID says it is from our credit card company or the bank. Yet, the person on the phone seems a little off. What we realize, before giving away any important information, is that it’s likely some new kind of scam. The person calling knows our names, or knows where we shop or bank. Maybe that person has seen our mail. Maybe they work at the store and noticed our info when we ordered online. Maybe the information has been sold to them. No matter, it becomes clear it’s a scam. We hang up. Later, we might log on and check our accounts. Is everything fine? Is someone stealing money or information?

This is well worth asking because, sometimes, there is theft happening. If you read the news, there are often articles saying “Caution! Look out! There’s a new scam out there, beware!” Like everything we read, it’s helpful to think critically about this. Criminals are always upping their game to catch new victims. This isn’t a new phenomenon.

I’ve just started studying a new tractate of the Babylonian Talmud, Makkot. So far, it’s mostly about how a court of law rules and doles out punishment. I’ve learned about “conspiring witnesses.” That is, witnesses who arrange in advance to lie about something to the court. For instance, imagine there was a crime in Saskatoon and there were witnesses to it. The conspiring witnesses might swear that, in fact, the criminal was in Winnipeg that day, and not in Saskatoon. It’s clear to the court that the conspiring witnesses were lying, due to the testimony of others. How should the court punish those conspiring witnesses? How are they held accountable for lying?

This topic continues for awhile, but my absolute favourite moment happens on Makkot 5a. The situation is as follows, in summary:

Rava says: If two witnesses came and said, So-and-so killed a person in Sura on Sunday morning and two other witnesses came to court and said to the first witnesses, on Sunday evening, you were with us in Nehardea – if one can travel from Sura to Nehardea from the morning and arrive by the evening, fine, nobody is misleading us. If not? They are “conspiring witnesses.”

The Gemara (later commentators) say: This is obvious. Don’t be concerned that these witnesses traveled via “flying camel” – that is, using a magical or impossible way to travel with great speed. You don’t have to take that kind of thinking into account.

In practical terms, Sura and Nehardea were both places in Babylon with Jewish academies of learning, but they were far apart. Nehardea was destroyed in 259 CE. More than 1,766 years ago, the Mishnah described this. Later rabbis advised students not to be taken in by somebody lying outright in court. After all, these lying witnesses didn’t travel by “flying camels.”

It often feels like that we’re struggling with ever new and complicated scams. The pace and amount of information via the internet and social media is astounding. Yet, I sometimes hear the most interesting things close to home, in the old-fashioned way people have always communicated. When is that? Well, when I’m visiting with friends, having a cup of coffee after lunch on Shabbat, or at synagogue.

Both world news and “true accounts” are only as good as the people who tell them and how much trust we have in those sources. If those sources rely on witnesses who like to offer bald-faced lies, well, that’s not a good source. If we have trouble with the veracity of someone’s account, we must ask: What flying camel did you ride in on?! How were you in two places at once, that you witnessed both these things?

Jewish tradition is amazing. We have these ancient sources to remind us that “there’s nothing new under the sun.” The bigger point is a modern one: we must get out of our usual news bubbles or coffee klatches. We are so easily lulled into believing some versions of the “truth” when we trust our sources without question. For example, some Canadian news outlets suggest that Israel is targeting specific Gazan locations with a vengeance. Yet these same outlets fail to mention the Hamas rocket fire that came from that location just before the Israeli response. So, if the story conveniently fails to mention why the Israeli army is firing at a specific location, the news article may not be an objective source of war coverage.

In the Winnipeg Free Press newspaper, I read about a new lecture series created by professors supposedly concerned about freedom of expression. Their invited speaker, a professor from York University, brought up the suspension of her colleague, who had been charged with “vandalism of a bookstore.” Notably, the article did not mention which bookstore. My household strongly suspected it had been the incidents targeting Indigo, when Jews and Israelis were targeted by protesters. Further, the article didn’t mention that freedom of expression doesn’t mean freedom to commit crimes against businesses.

The article’s tone was matter of fact. A person could read such an article and feel that the professors were rightfully concerned about the loss of freedom of expression. To me, it seemed like the example given before, of the distance between Sura and Nehardea. If you don’t know the particulars, such as the distance between these two locations, you can miss the absurdity of the situation. In the guise of defending free speech, the professors wanted readers to bemoan the suspension of a professor who was charged with vandalism – a crime.

Sometimes, when someone presents a news story or a court defence that seems so smooth and practised as to be suspicious, well, perhaps that’s because it is. Likewise, the tidbits we gain at Kiddush lunch after services may also vary in their reliability. We may have faster transportation and cellphone connections today, but, sometimes, things still aren’t as they seem. As much as things change, much is still the same. Yes, a juicy bit of news is an interesting truth to ponder, but a lie is still a lie. We still have conspiring witnesses to contend with and, even now, we still don’t have flying camels.

Birthday musings on mitzvot

It’s almost Israel’s 77th birthday! And a birthday is a good opportunity to reflect on things.

When my kids attended Chabad preschool, they celebrated their birthdays at school. The teachers encouraged them to think about a mitzvah (commandment) to take on to mark the occasion. Listening to preschoolers discuss what they’ve chosen and why is such a celebration of Jewish life! I’d invite you to try this out at the next available opportunity. You can ask any Jewish person what mitzvah they’d take on, it’s amazing to hear. Israel isn’t a person and can’t take on a mitzvah, but maybe we can help with that to celebrate its birthday.

One thread in our tradition follows certain steps: we improve the world and our behaviour, and that brings about the Messiah, or the Messianic Age, the next world and a better place. Ideas differ on how we do that and why, and even on what the Messianic Age will be like. We don’t agree on the specifics – and that’s fine. However, a recent page of Talmud that I studied in the tractate Sanhedrin, on page 98, really highlighted this concept. It’s a story, of course.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi asks Elijah the Prophet when the Messiah will come. Elijah says, “Go and ask him.” Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi says, “Well, where is he?”

Elijah describes him as sitting at the entrance of Rome, far away from where they are in the Galilee, at Mount Meron. The rabbi asks how he’ll recognize the Messiah. Elijah explains that the Messiah is sitting with all the other poor, sick people, but that the Messiah doesn’t untie all his bandages at once to replace them. Instead, he unties and reties them one at a time, so he’ll always be ready to bring about the redemption.

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi goes all the way to Rome, identifies the Messiah, and asks him “When will the Master come?” The Messiah says, “Today.”

Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi travels all the way back to the Galilee to see Elijah. Elijah asks him what the Messiah said and the rabbi tells him, “Well, he lied. He said the Messiah was coming today, and it didn’t happen.” Elijah says no, this is what he really said: he said he will come “today, if you listen to his voice.” (Psalms 95:7)

Sue Parker Gerson, who wrote the introductory essay for this page of Talmud on My Jewish Learning, points out several things. First, that the traditional commentators inferred that we must do more mitzvot to bring about the Messiah. Additionally, she steps in with something that is a bit deeper: Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi visits all these sick people with bandages, talks to one person, and then leaves. He didn’t stay to help any of the people. Perhaps, Gerson suggests, we need to put the “do the mitzvah” message into practice, to help people in need and fix wrongs we see in the world. Elijah saw that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi failed the test, so to speak, not helping when he should have.

Then, I read a Jewish advice column online. A parent is organizing a bat mitzvah and asks, “Should I invite relatives with whom I disagree politically? They also won’t like the liberal way we practise Judaism, but, if I invite them, they’ll likely come.”

The columnist suggests that, since COVID, it has been OK to make smaller guest lists and exclude people. Also, if the kid doesn’t want to invite these relatives, you don’t have to invite them. The columnist says briefly at the end, well, families usually invite everyone, and that’s what families do, but if you don’t want your happy occasion to include these people, that’s OK, too.

My gut reaction was that this answer failed the test. The columnist fails to behave Jewishly and recommend including everyone in a lifecycle celebration. The choice to exclude could cause bad feelings for years.

But, instead of a “failure” lesson, I have been considering what I might embrace about taking on mitzvot instead. I think a lot about turning negatives into positives lately. I’m the mom-chauffeur of junior high-age twins. I hear lots of negativity from the backseat!

To begin: be the energy you want to see. If Rabbi Yehoshua ben Levi wanted the Messiah to come today, he had to do more to fix the world, including caring for the sick. Visiting the sick is a positive commandment. We should take care of one another, and it’s often not enough to just visit.

Also, don’t leave people out. If we want our lives, including our Jewish lives, to be inclusive, we can’t just ditch people. Even if a Jewish person, aka a family member, has different viewpoints, votes or behaves differently, within reason, we should invite them in, rather than leave them out. Offering unity and a “big tent” approach is the kind thing to do.

I just read Amir Tibon’s The Gates of Gaza, and its anecdotes echoed this. When Tibon’s family was trapped in their safe room in Kibbutz Nahal Oz on Oct. 7, 2023, his parents raced south with only a pistol to save them. His father, a retired, secular Israeli general, spent a harrowing day attempting to save Israelis, both soldiers and civilians, on the way to Nahal Oz. After exchanging deadly fire with the enemy, he ends up with a soldier’s weapon and his helmet, but he still wore civilian clothing, which confused soldiers under pressure. A religious soldier nearby helped. The soldier took off his army issue tallit katan (an undershirt with tzitzit, ritual fringes, on it) and handed it to him. Tibon, clothed in borrowed tzitzit and a helmet, weapon in hand, was ready for battle. The soldier’s inclusivity and flexibility saved lives. Saving a life, a huge mitzvah in Jewish tradition, outweighs everything else.

Helping each other and skipping negativity contribute to our people’s unity. We may disagree with one another and vote differently. Just this week, I’ve signed two petitions and written several letters to voice disagreement; in Israel, protests are part of life. Also, this week, a cousin of ours was inducted into the Israel Defence Forces. When it counts, we’re there for one another. Regarding issues of life and death, we protect one another.

Finally, sometimes restraint is the better part of valour. Occasionally, the first word out of our mouths is no, or a defensive or harsh response. Holding back, listening and considering the situation may help us make thoughtful choices that better reflect the people we wish to be. Israel’s birthday is a chance for all of us to celebrate, listen and include. Like everyone and every nation, Israel has flaws, but embracing positive steps may change lives, or even save them, in the years to come.

Racing from Purim to Pesach

My kids were volunteering at the Purim carnival, helping younger kids do games and offering other support. My husband was there to help. I went home early “for a break.” Meanwhile, I receive “helpful” warnings from Jewish websites and other moms on social media. “Passover is coming!” they mention with cheerful purpose. Perhaps this fills some people with glee. Mostly, I feel doom in the pit of my stomach.

Following influencers who run their large observant Jewish households like a well-oiled machine actually has been useful, to some extent. Oh, if she started making chicken broth or cleaned her pantry, maybe it’s time for me to do it, too? By following these tips, sometimes I feel I can manage better.

Then, however, the system fails me. Many of these capable influencers live in large Jewish centres, surrounded by kosher grocery stores, take-out and supportive extended families. They also have the finances to travel with their families to Passover resort vacations. If they travel, they don’t have to clean their houses or cook for the holiday. If they stay home, some use catering or even disposable plates for the whole holiday, which produces mountains of trash. My environmentally conscious household would never go for that.

For those who lack a large Jewish community infrastructure, or financial and family supports, making holidays happen can feel overwhelming. We hover in between, operating in a weird middle ground that is both freeing and isolating. Our families live far away. Since public school and work don’t stop for Pesach, we don’t travel for this holiday. We care about keeping Pesach. I cook and clean for weeks in advance, but I can’t do it all. I gave up on changing the dishes the year I gave birth to twins. While I may feel some guilt, I haven’t looked back.

Facing the next holiday’s prep feels exhausting. Maybe that’s because I just finished baking dozens of cookies (hamantashen and palmiers) for our Purim mishloach manot treat bags.

I’m thinking about how successful businesses and governments work. A business that runs smoothly depends on internal systems, competent managers to keep things working and other staff at various levels. A functional government also relies on an efficient bureaucracy. Right now, we’re hearing of how President Trump’s government is “cutting bureaucracy” and creating “efficiency.” However, what has followed is chaos.

Yes, there are always cases of bloated bureaucracy or waste, but, in many contexts, efficiency can mean that only one person knows how to do something essential. If that person has an accident or falls ill or is fired? Bad things happen.

I think of this while trying to keep my Jewish household on track through our holidays and the secular calendar. It takes mental energy and organizing skill to get kids through homework, afterschool extracurriculars, volunteering, and planning for summer activities in advance. Meanwhile, the dog needs grooming and her teeth brushed. Our house could use a good vacuuming.

Running a home is historically a Jewish woman’s domain. It’s a lot of work. There are Jewish literary references to a balabusta (Jewish housewife) and even Eishet Chayil, a Woman of Valour, from the book of Proverbs, which is traditionally recited to some women on Shabbat.

Many liberal households long ago ditched the tradition of reciting Eishet Chayil on Friday nights. Neither my childhood household nor my married one has ever included this. Instead, like many other Jewish households where women are professionals, in my family, women work alongside household management. So, the historic celebration of a “women’s place” at home got scrapped, but the expectations increased.

Last night, I stayed up late after the whole household watched the movie Barbie together. Although I’m no Barbie fan, I enjoyed the subversive, witty tricks of this movie’s plot. Yet, I still had to place a grocery order afterwards. My husband was folding laundry. My twins changed their bedding before their bedtime, too. The exhaustion reminded me of one of the elements of a functional bureaucracy.

When things run smoothly, it’s because everyone has jobs – and no one’s job requires them to do everything. There is necessary duplication at work. More than one person knows how to do something, so that if a person goes away or gets sick, the system doesn’t collapse. Overlapping work roles and slack in a system are necessary. When an emergency happens, there’s extra capacity when systems overload.

Running a household smoothly, so that everyone’s well fed, valued and has their needs met, is a complicated endeavour. In the Babylonian Talmud, Tractate Sanhedrin, pages 86-88, there’s a lengthy conversation about what it means to be a “rebellious elder” and whether there are ever times when one must be executed for teaching inappropriate information. The rabbis suggest there are three different courts of appeal for these cases. Yet, there is also an understanding that some rebellious elders teach rulings based on tradition, from their teachers, and, other times, they offer a reasoned argument, based on what is “the correct understanding in my eyes.” That is, using logic, texts and real-life examples to draw conclusions.

Historically, women oversaw their households, that’s what our texts say, but times change. Now, we also expect women to be, at least theoretically, equals in the workplace. But the research indicates that women still bear the brunt of household chores, and the mental gymnastics and emotional work related to keeping everything afloat.

It’s time to rethink business models that preach that any duplication is redundant. If we want our homes to run smoothly, we must expect that more than one person be responsible for making Passover, or even afterschool carpools, happen. We moms cannot keep this schedule up any longer.

As I wrote this, one of my children rang the doorbell. He has a key but expects me to open the door for him anyway. That same child went out this afternoon to shop for Passover foods with his dad, who also picked up the weekly grocery order and did a lot of laundry today. Like Barbie’s weird movie world, or the topsy turvy Purim story, we must keep turning things around or even upside down. We cannot expect even “women of valour” to do everything. It’s time for everybody to learn more of the jobs to make our households function. Over here in Winnipeg, this mom is tired. It’s time for everybody to pitch in.

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.

Growth and change is Torah

In middle school, we studied the 1920s in English and social studies. It was a period ripe with new slang. I remember the long list of phrases we had to learn and interpret. The surprise was that I knew some of the expressions because my family still used them! Phrases like, “Aren’t you just the bee’s knees?” or “He thinks he’s the cat’s pajamas!” This weird phenomenon came to mind when I happened upon an ancient rabbinic discussion in the Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 62a.

Rabbi Zakkai taught a Baraita (an early teaching that was left out of the Mishnah, codified around 200 CE) in Rabbi Yohanan’s presence. It said that, when one did, in a lapse of awareness, a whole series of inappropriate things deemed idol worship, one was only obligated to bring one sin-offering sacrifice to wipe the slate clean.

Rabbi Yohanan responded with “Go out and teach outside.” It was the ancient equivalent of “Get out of town!” or “Get out!” This is the laughing or indignant response somebody makes when you say something unbelievable or surprising.

One can read this text in many ways. It’s possible that Yohanan earnestly thought Zakkai was teaching nonsense and that he shouldn’t teach that inside the house of study, because every action deserved its own separate offering to repent for these mistakes.

However, as the page continues, the importance of context reveals itself. Imagine a time when idol worship was everywhere. A person could inadvertently look like they were worshipping an idol or a person when they were just bowing respectfully as a custom or doing what they had to do to get along. If surrounded by idol worship, a person may do things that everyone else does, automatically and without reflection.

We still do this. Think about the phrases “knock on wood” or “crossing one’s fingers and toes.” These aren’t Jewish concepts, but many say them anyhow, just as we might use phrases from other religions in conversation. They’re part of the culture around us.

I was thinking about these cultural shifts recently because we had our own big moment a few weeks ago. We were driving home after middle school. I remarked that I’d taken the dog on the river trail for an amazing walk at lunch time. (In Winnipeg, our rivers freeze, allowing several kilometres of walking, skiing and skating trails, along with art installations and events on the ice. It’s like a pop-up provincial park in winter.) One of my kids complained that he hadn’t gotten enough skating in yet. The weather that day was perfect but a cold snap was coming. I suggested that they head out right away onto the ice on their own.

My kids seemed astounded by the offer, but they took me up on it. We live a block from the river and there’s a convenient ramp down the riverbank. Before we could reconsider, they were off with skates, helmets, snowpants and the loan of my cellphone so they could reach me. I told them to be back in an hour. This bought me more time to make Shabbat dinner, too.

Just before 5:30 p.m., the phone rang. My responsible kids called from the ice, saying, “We got a little too far away, we’re getting tired, but we’re coming back now. We’ll be a little late.” When they got inside, both kids were wobbly, legs rubbery from exhaustion. I had to help them get off their parkas and snowpants, but they were full of triumph. They had taken off on their own and had an adventure. At dinner, they described bumping into a classmate who was out with his mom and younger siblings. While the classmate was a better skater than them, my 13-year-olds seemed puffed up with pride that they were allowed out by themselves.

Times change. As a Gen Xer, when I was 13, I babysat for two siblings on my own. I took the Washington, DC, metro by myself. I was a latchkey kid of longstanding. As the oldest child in my family and “mature,” I had a lot of leeway, as well as responsibility. Was it always good for me? I don’t think so, but it’s just the way things were.

My kids have had a longer stretch of childhood, with more supervision. While they have always had household chores and other responsibilities, these maiden voyages of independence now happen one after the next. Since the skating experience, they’ve been on their own for a Saturday night while we went out to a neighbour’s house. They take the dog walk on their own. This week, they’re headed off to a winter camp sleepaway experience with their school.

Generational shifts often lead us to believe that things are altogether different than they used to be. Yet, when I realized that I used 1920s slang as a kid, it reminded me that, while things change, some things stay the same. We no longer do sin offerings when we’ve made a mistake as part of Jewish practice. We don’t live in a culture surrounded by physical idols and their worship. However, we still make mistakes and seek absolution. Our kids still learn and grow through graduated steps towards independence, complete with worry and insecurity. One rabbi’s “Go and teach outside” becomes “Get out of town!” – after 2,000 years, the inference isn’t that different.

For each generation, something old becomes new again, or seems new, at least. For every parent, those amazing first moments of change in their kids are important. I burst with pride, telling others about the skating adventure. I revel in being able to go out socially (down the street), while my kids put themselves to bed. These ages and stages happen for everyone, but, each time, we’re still ecstatic with the individual circumstance.

My kids told me later that they had read until 8:40 or 9 o’clock when we were out, but, when we got back, their room was silent, lights were off, with the dog on guard. It was a moment of success. I nodded, feeling impressed. Inside, I was thinking, “Get out of town! Look what we accomplished here!” “Rabbi,” I wanted to say, “check these big bar mitzvah boys out! Look at this growth! That, too, is Torah.”

Leadership keeps us afloat

There are so many huge transitions lately when it comes to world leaders in the news. From impeaching the South Korean president to the fleeing of Syria’s Bashar Al-Assad, or the issues around Netanyahu, Trump or Trudeau, there’s political change afoot.

It’s natural to feel worried about uncertainty. A friend from university days tells her teen daughters in Jerusalem that we should “think globally but act locally.” This was our popular slogan as undergrads in the 1990s. I repeat this in my household as well. While we can get absorbed in political drama, there’s also a lot to do close to home.

A story I read recently reminded me of what solid leadership can mean. This story (aggadah) was in Tractate Sanhedrin, page 14, in the Babylonian Talmud. Jan. 5 marked five years since I’ve been studying Daf Yomi, a page a day of Talmud. This commitment has been both deep and superficial. Deep, because finding time to commit to this for any mom of school-aged twins is a big ask. It’s superficial because I’m only doing it for 20 minutes a day and I’m mostly reading in translation. My goal to improve my talmudic Aramaic/Hebrew reading skills fell by the wayside long ago. What has remained is a habit. I learn the page every day whether I find it interesting or not.

Sanhedrin hasn’t been the most interesting bedtime reading so far: understanding the law and administering it, and how many judges it takes to rule on different cases. Then, I read this story. The summary, with background information from Rabbi Lexie Botzum, an author at My Jewish Learning, helped me learn more. Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava was an elder during the early second century, facing a period of Roman repression. It recalls the rabbi with great respect, because there was concern that Jewish law and the enforcement of those laws would be lost due to persecution.

The rabbis recount: “… because at one time the wicked kingdom [of Rome] issued decrees of religious persecution against the Jewish people. The sages therefore said that anyone who ordains [judges] will be killed, and anyone who is ordained will be killed, and the city in which they ordain will be destroyed, and the boundaries in which they ordain judges will be uprooted.”

Rav recounts that Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava enabled the judging and enforcing of laws around fines to continue, by doing the following: “What did Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava do? He went and sat between two large mountains, between two large cities, and between two Shabbat boundaries, between Usha and Shefaram, and there he ordained five elders. And they were: Rabbi Meir and Rabbi Yehuda and Rabbi Shimon and Rabbi Yosei and Rabbi Eleazar ben Shammua. Rav Avya adds Rabbi Nehemya also.”

When the Romans discovered them, the Gemara explains that Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava told his young students (now his colleagues) to run. He was old and couldn’t run, but used his body to distract the soldiers, and was killed. The Roman soldiers “pierced his body like a sieve” with 300 iron spears. We remember Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava’s heroism during the story of the Ten Martyrs, which we recite on Yom Kippur.

Sanhedrin concerned itself with how many people it takes to ordain a judge or rabbi. The rabbis conclude that there were other rabbis with Rabbi Yehuda ben Bava, but this story keeps Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava’s name alive and recognizes his bravery.

There’s a lot to unpack here. After all, does it matter if the Jewish laws concerning fines were taught or enforced today? Maybe not, but this is how law-making and, by extension, politics, work even now. Legislators spend lots of time on minutiae, but it’s those details that make societies function. Today, we still need laws to enforce payments of fines, otherwise governments might not have enough income to pay for infrastructure like roads or police or courts.

Beyond administrative details, without Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava’s foresight and leadership, Jewish people might not have gathered the courage to ordain (appoint) more judges. Without those rabbi/judges, Jewish tradition might have foundered and, perhaps, died out. The Romans’ goal was to force assimilation. This approach to eradicating Jewish culture and learning has occurred multiple times throughout history. For examples, consider the Soviet Union’s repression of Jewish observance and learning, the Nazis during the Second World War, or the Inquisition in Spain and Portugal. When Jews are forced to hide, some brave souls go underground and continue to teach, learn and lead, despite great challenges. Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava’s story helps us remember this is important for survival.

I’m not worried that we’ll have to go underground to keep Jewish identity alive. At least, I hope not. In an upside-down world, this is what Jews in Israel have done – using shelters (underground bomb shelters, for instance) to stay safe. What I concluded from the Talmud story is different. It’s so important to have leaders who keep us afloat, via brave and innovative plans, during difficult times. We can’t stake our future on just one person, either. The tractate indicates that Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava was not the only one there, but he stands for all the brave leadership that followed.

In Canada, local Jewish leaders are stepping up on behalf of our communities. This leadership isn’t limited to those in paid positions but extends to courageous volunteers speaking out, too. There are social media warriors, fighting against hate online, and heads of various Jewish organizations on the radio and in the news media. Right now, we need all these advocates plus Jewish lawmakers and their allies, too, working to combat hate. Sometimes, the solutions are in the details – not in how we enforce fines, but in how we legislate bubble zones around places of worship and schools, or how to decide what’s free speech and what’s hate speech.

We shouldn’t have to risk death. Nobody wants to be skewered to death, as the Romans killed Rabbi Yehudah ben Bava, but the other rabbis are also part of the story. We must thank these unnamed people, and their named students. The defence of our identity, learning and tradition is all of our responsibility, and not just for brave leaders. Some run to safety and fight another day; others are allies; and some keep Jewish tradition alive amid changing times. We can all make an effort, and be thankful, for the chance to protect our Jewish identities in Canada, and worldwide.

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.

Thinking the best of others

Imagine teenagers, hanging out and sharing the usual in-group slang, but they’re saying “Lashon hara? Lamed hay! Tell it to me anyway!” This sarcastic chant was new to me, when Miriam Anzovin, the famous Jewish Talmud influencer, mentioned it on Instagram, along with her thoughts on a page of Talmud about lashon hara. Lashon hara, literally “bad speech or language,” refers to gossip, speech that is hurtful. We’ve all experienced it: at summer camp, synagogue, school, work or online. It’s real. It’s painful.

I’m not any kind of expert on this, or even especially good at avoiding harmful speech. The rabbis suggest that there are three bad things that most people can’t avoid daily: sinful thoughts, lack of intention while praying, and lashon hara. In the last week, I’ve thought of this too often.

First, I had the honour of being consulted by two different elders in my Jewish community. In one case, I had to gently lead the conversation away from this kind of talk, by suggesting that it wasn’t my place to comment on something. When it continued, I paused and said that, since Oct. 7, 2023, I had decided to work on achdut (unity) and avoided these kinds of conversations. I try to focus on good things instead. Later, the person I had chatted with apologized. For many of us, we don’t even see how often we’re veering down that road towards negative comments about others.

The second time, I had to tell a person who was “talking trash” that it was lashon hara and I wouldn’t do that. I couldn’t believe it when this came out of my mouth. The person was probably 30 years my senior. I wondered, a second later, when had I become this brash or disrespectful? Well, I guess it happens when the elder in question is also treading on thin ice.

This all came up again when I studied Bava Batra 164b. This page of Talmud looks at what makes a document or contract legal, and how we behave to one another when dealing with these documents. Judah HaNasi picks up a document, finds it doesn’t have a date on it, and announces it isn’t valid, it can be discarded. His son, Rabbi Shimon, stops him, saying, “Wait! Perhaps it’s a tied document!” In some regions, people folded a document, then signed and dated it on the outside. It’s a legal document, but with dates or signatures in different places. Why create a “tied” document? It was just a different custom.

When Judah HaNasi disapproves of the tied document custom, his son says, “I didn’t write it! Rabbi Yehuda Chayatta wrote it!” Judah HaNasi then chastises his son for his “malicious speech,” or lashon hara. He tells his son not to blame someone else for making this document or, as Miriam Anzovin says it, Rabbi Shimon rushes to throw Rabbi Yehuda Chayatta “under a bus.”

Then, a scene change: Rabbi Shimon is reading psalms to his father. The book he is using (handwritten, of course, since this was before the printing press existed) is remarkable; the writing straight and neat. Judah HaNasi comments on it. Again, Rabbi Shimon rushes to say, “I didn’t write it, Rabbi Yehuda Chayatta did!” His father responds again by asking him not to do lashon hara.

In this second instance, you’d think, what just happened? Why would the dad say this? Rabbi Shimon is complimenting this amazing scribe. However, Rav Dimi teaches that one shouldn’t go out of their way to praise someone, as that too can attract negative attention.

This point seems strange until it happens in real life. Imagine a teacher points out that a student has done a marvelous job on an assignment, and this results in other kids making fun of the student later, at recess. Drawing too much positive or negative attention to another person can cause problems, according to the rabbis.

I thought about these issues when I encountered another relevant educational incident. A professor creates an assignment for their students and suspects them of using ChatGPT (Open AI) to do the work. The professor thinks they are all cheating and, straight away, files paperwork to have the issue adjudicated by department heads and deans. All these students are now in big trouble.

Since the professor suspects cheating, his colleagues evaluate the work. They run all the students’ work through another AI program to “check” it. This app accuses students of cheating – but it’s sometimes wrong. The AI checking program reportedly has at least a 4% failure rate.

This seems like another complicated case of lashon hara. Is it possible that some students cheated? Yes, it is. At the same time, why did this professor immediately think the worst? Slander against students and student mistakes are both real, but neither is helpful in a learning environment. Most students don’t want to waste their time or tuition money, so they don’t cheat. We can’t always identify malicious intention correctly.

We all complain about others. It’s common to point fingers when something isn’t going our way. There’s always enough blame to go around. Yet, perhaps by drawing attention to others, malicious or complimentary, we also draw attention away from ourselves. The lesson about lashon hara is that getting along with others, being a part of a community, is fraught with pitfalls. We fail ourselves, and others, by saying unkind, unnecessary things. At the same time, we fail others by complimenting them in ways that draw “the evil eye,” or negative attention.

Giving compliments is still important. Just like giving corrections, it must be done with care. In retrospect, I’m embarrassed that I mentioned this to my elders, but I’m also embarrassed by their words. We want to accuse someone else of being “the problem.” In the end, sometimes we are the problem, and that’s hard. A common outcome is when there’s a problem and it’s nobody’s – or everybody’s – fault. Then, we all must bring solutions, show we care about one another, and make amends. We Jews live in community. Achdut, unity, is about more than politics. It’s about caring for one another.

Gifts, property and curses

We recently had some work done on our garage. In 2021, when we purchased our new home, which was built in 1913, the inspector marveled at the garage, which was an early, purpose-built building meant for cars as compared to the converted carriage houses nearby.

There are still outbuildings in the neighbourhood, now used for cars or workshops, which contain horse stalls, but our garage, the inspector said, was special. That said, it’s narrow and the floor’s broken. It had the remains of both an old knob and tube electric panel and a chimney. Once, we imagined, a chauffeur warmed the space with the woodstove every winter to keep the car running.

When the contractors who fixed our house so we could live in it came back to work on the garage, things became complicated quickly. It turned out it was not just a couple rotten boards. Long ago, someone had cut important structural supports to put on larger heavier garage doors, likely when cars themselves became larger. A little stabilization project became a multi-week event, complete with new concrete footings all the way around the building and new structural supports. The garage no longer sits at a dangerous tilt. Our kids can go inside without danger.

This expensive project doesn’t mean that we’re suddenly using the garage in Winnipeg this winter. The concrete floor is still broken, the doors are narrow and the whole thing needs a coat of paint. All of those renovations will have to wait, because winter’s here. I’ve just cleaned snow off the car, parking on the street again this morning. This experience was one of those reminders that, in life, unexpected things happen, and that we make the best decisions we can in the moment, and roll with it.

This brought me to what I’ve been studying in Bava Batra, the talmudic tractate I’ve been studying as part of Daf Yomi (a page of Talmud a day). Lately, what I’ve been learning has to do with death-bed gifts and inheritance. There’s an understanding that, if someone is on their death bed, they can give their property as a gift without the legal formalities that would normally be required. Also, the rabbis rule that, if a person miraculously does not die, their promises and gifts can be retracted. In other words, if you gift everything to your brother on your death bed, but then you don’t die, you can keep your home and fields.

On page 153, there’s a woman who gives away her property as a gift as she’s dying, but, by some miracle, she recovers. She goes to Rava, a wealthy rabbi who headed a school in Babylonia, and asks for her property to be returned. After all, she is still alive and needs her belongings back. But Rava says that the “gift” cannot be returned. His ruling doesn’t align with the rest of the rabbis or the law.

Obviously, this unnamed woman is upset and protests. Rava then has his scribe, Rav Pappa, create a ruling that, on the surface, looks like it’s in this woman’s favour, but references a text that indicates that this woman should just leave, without her property. Rava assumes this woman won’t notice his trickery, but this (unnamed) woman is smart, and angrier than ever.

Left with no other options, the woman in question resorts to a curse. Given the time, roughly 1,670 years ago, curses, amulets and magic were all used, and, in this case, the curse works. The woman curses Rava, says his ship will sink. Rava, somehow trying to trick the curse, soaks all his clothes in water to avoid it. Readers: the curse works, and not the tricks. Rava’s ship goes down. Rava drowns.

Later, medieval commentators wonder why the curse worked. The woman felt angry for good reasons. Rava had robbed her of her property. Rava’s ruling also had shamed her, and it was meant to trick her into leaving. This woman was clearly wronged. Sometimes, when a curse punishes the correct target – the later rabbis conclude a curse has strong power.

Long ago, someone really wronged our property, this garage, when they cut the structural supports. Given how unstable it was, it could have killed someone. Thankfully, no one was on their death bed here and apparently there were no curses. I did wonder whether we were expecting a miracle to fix this historical structure, or whether an expensive demolition was in order. It’s sometimes hard to undo a bad decision, but we were able to afford to repair a bad situation, which was created by someone else’s bad judgment.

People often seek the easiest way out – through tricks or pulling a fast one. Finding the best way forward sometimes means enduring jackhammering, structural work and funding a costly repair. Maybe if we hadn’t asked “our guys” to check out the garage, we wouldn’t have known the danger. Once we did, though, we couldn’t ignore it. Once the garage project started, even though this huge expense wasn’t in the budget, we had to deal with it.

Hanukkah is coming up. Although our kids will still get treats and gifts, my husband and I will celebrate getting our garage back. Unlike this powerful, smart, unnamed woman who was wronged in Bava Batra, we didn’t lose all our property. We rolled with the unexpected, and now have a safe space, instead of a precarious risk. All this worked out better for us than for that unnamed woman long ago – and we didn’t even have to curse anybody.

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.

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.