Even in those neighborhoods made up predominantly of religious Jews, one can no longer talk of the “sanctity of Shabbat.” True, there are Jews in America who observe Shabbat… But it is not for Shabbat that my heart aches; it is for the forgotten “erev Shabbat” (eve of the Sabbath). There are Shabbat-observing Jews in America, but there are no “erev Shabbat” Jews who go out to greet Shabbat with beating hearts and pulsating souls. There are many who observe the precepts with their hands, with their feet, and/or with their mouths - but there are few indeed who truly know the meaning of the service of the heart!

- Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, On Repentance, pp. 97-98

 

On May 12 of this year, there was a raid by federal authorities on Agriprocessors, the largest kosher slaughterhouse in the US. The affidavit (parts 1, 2, and 3), contains a host of allegations, many of which are serious if true. Since I don’t know which ones will ultimately turn out to be factual, I will not delve into it in any depth, but rather focus on the response. There has been a varying level of outcry in different parts of the Jewish community, and a host of different responses from individuals and organizations. The one to gain the most attention was Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld when he published his Op-Ed Dark meat in the New York Times, and later appeared on NPR with Menachem Genack.

Herzfeld called for an independent commission to be set up to investigate Agriprocessors and make recommendations to “make sure the plant upholds basic standards of kashrut and worker and animal treatment — and that it is in full compliance with the laws of the United States.” While this sounds great (it would be nice if everyone in the world would uphold these sorts of standards), I don’t think his target is correct. I can’t see a bunch of rabbis launching a criminal investigation into whether or not employees were in fact illegal immigrants, getting testimony, evaluating ID cards for fakes, and figuring out what good processes are to put in place to ensure future compliance. There are entities which can do those things (for example, law enforcement can investigate, consulting firms can offer advice on proper business practices), but the RCA and the OU simply don’t have the expertise. (This is essentially what Genack said on NPR). After all, if the OU is supposed to be looking for immigration law violations, why not also look at OSHA regulations? Should they also audit the financial records to guard against Enron style bookkeeping? How about ensuring Sarbanes-Oxley compliance? In this case, the OU is doing the right thing by letting the experts do what they do best.

Now of course comes the flip side. As I indicated with my Soloveitchik quote at the top, we as Orthodox Jews are frequently mechanical in our performance of the commandments. Part of the reason can be attributed to the fact that we believe the Torah is the unaltered word of god and contains laws which cannot be ignored. I fulfill the religiously required laws with about the same spiritual enlightenment that I do when I follow American law by paying my taxes, registering for the draft, or obeying traffic lights. However, this can also be attributed to us focusing too much on the minute details of the law and forgetting our larger spiritual purpose. (Missing the forest for the trees if you will). We forget sometimes that while we’re measuring our walk-in closets to see if they’re larger than 36.9333 square feet (chazon ish’s shita) which would indicate we need to hang a piece of parchment with specific biblical passages on the doorways, is that we’re also supposed to uphold a higher moral and ethical imperative. When talking to people about  this issue, I’ve found both myself and others resorting back to the old line “regardless of the allegations, the food is kosher, that’s what’s important”. While it may be true that technically worker mistreatment does not make the food treif, that does not make worker abuse acceptable. (Rb. Herzfeld has actually done his own argument a disservice by confusing these two issues with his story about Yisroel Salanter). When we buy Agriprocessors food we may not be eating something trief, and we may not be violating the letter of any religious law, we are supporting a Jewish-owned and operated enterprise which has not shown itself to uphold high ethical standards.

Am I calling for a boycott of Agriprocessors? I don’t think so, if only because I know that if I did I’d probably also have to boycott 99% of the fresh produce in this country which is harvested by illegal immigrants. (Especially given what a lack of vegetables and fruit would do to my health). However, I know that we can’t ignore the ethical imperative by saying “well, the meat is kosher….”, and Rb Herzeld is, ironically, doing us all a favor by reminding us of our duty not just as exclusively-kosher-consumers, but as human beings and as Jews.

I just watched Constantina Tomescu win the women’s olympic marathon with a time of 2:26.44. For the record, that’s a time of 5 minutes and 36 seconds per mile, for 26 miles. I don’t think I can even do one mile that fast, let alone 26. Tomescu is also 38, making her one of the older Olympians to medal along with Dara Torres, the 41 year old American swimmer who just took a silver in the 50 freestyle to go with her silver from the relay last night. Torres has gained a lot of attention for her abs after posing for the SI swimsuit issue, but Tomescu is perhaps even more bizarre. Endurance athletes are notorious for not having any extra fat on their bodies, but Tomescu’s stomach is simply bizarre. The picture at the right is clearly not from this Olympics, but is the only one I could find online. On TV she looked almost grotesque. Right below her rib cage her stomach simply drops in to the point of being practically non-existent. If she had a lump on her kidney, her doctor could probably diagnose it from the outside. She claims to weight 105 pounds. I can’t help but wonder what she has to do to maintain that weight.

I usually don’t care much about the summer olympics, but this year Rebecca has been watching so I’ve been unable to escape the clutches of NBC’s non-stop coverage of Michael Phelps. Although I can’t help but find myself rooting for Phelps and looking up his schedule online to make sure I don’t miss any of his races, watching this olympics has reminded me of why I don’t like the summer games. Since I don’t have anything other than the basic chanells, I’m stuck with NBC’s coverage, which as far as I can tell consist of:

• Stupid human interest stories
• Hype, speculation, innuendo, guess-work, more hype, predictions, analysis, interviews with everyone who has ever been within 10 feet of Michael Phelps, and more hype.
• Swimming
• Pre-adolescent girls writhing around on various device. (Seriously - am I the only one who feels like a pedophile if I even think about girls gymnastics?)
• volleyball

There are way too many swimming events, and they’re all televised. There are hundreds of sports in the summer games, why is 80% of the actual sport coverage done from the water cube? Besides, let’s be honest, all the swimming races are really same same. Yes, I know, in some races they lie on their backs instead of their stomachs, or they move their arms outwards instead of around, and sometimes they go an extra lap, but it’s really all the same. Michael Phelps is not the “greatest olympian of all time”, he’s just lucky enough to be in a sport where they award 8 medals for winning instead of 1. If they gave out as many medals in tennis as they do in swimming Phelps wouldn’t even be in the top 10.

The Colbert bump is measurable. As any good engineer will tell you, that also means it’s real. (If it can’t be quantified, how do we know it really exists?)

His analysis finds that Democrats who appear on The Colbert Report enjoy a significant increase in the number and total amount of donations they receive over the next 30–40 days when compared to similar candidates who do not appear on the show. Specifically, Democrats who come on the program raise $8,247 more than colleagues who don’t do so on the 32^nd day following their appearance—“a bump of roughly two-fifths over the normal rate of receipts.”

I wonder what Pelosi and Emanuel think now? (Probably the same thing they always did - admitting you were wrong is a sign of weakness in sports politics).

I don’t watch a lot of cop shows on TV, but if I did I would be rooting for them to one day arrest a mime. It would bring new meaning to the phrase “you have the right to remain silent”.

I have the distinct and sinking feeling that in the next 10-15 years the current Russian-Georgian war is going to be viewed as a watershed event which began a serious historic shift in the world balance of power.

There has been some noise about all the swimming records that have been falling lately. I’m surprised no one has suggested performance enhancing drugs as a possible culprit. If not that, then perhaps the Chinese made a mistake and built the pool in yards instead of meters.

…If no one is running.

SNEEDVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — All it takes is one vote to win. Just ask a Tennessee woman who was elected constable by voting for herself.

Angela Tuttle, 32, said her father encouraged her to run as a write-in candidate because no one else was vying for one of the positions in Hancock County, which is in northeastern Tennessee.

Tuttle said her husband initially didn’t even realize she was running.

”I finally told him about a month before the election,” she told The Associated Press on Friday. Her husband didn’t think she would win, but now he ”just grins at her,” she said.

Hancock County election officials said 131 voters of the 674 registered in the 3rd District voted Thursday. Tuttle’s vote was the only one cast in the constable race. She will be sworn in Dec. 1.

The certified nursing assistant and mother of a 10-year-old son will help serve warrants and patrol neighborhoods in her district. She said her father, a longtime constable who won his own re-election in another district, will ‘’show her the ropes.”

This is the stupidest idea EVAR!

Fed up with his students’ complete inability to spell common English correctly, a British academic has suggested it may be time to accept “variant spellings” as legitimate.

Rather than grammarians getting in a huff about “argument” being spelled “arguement” or “opportunity” as “opertunity,” why not accept anything that’s phonetically (fonetickly anyone?) correct as long as it can be understood?

My only solace is that it came from the British so I can be spared the “stupid American” jokes.

‘; z,qV 2    v x..< Jj

;\xT8 66IZ   N 4 X DTZHD=;==QX.

Ari and I actually did something very similar to this while we were courting: we took a train all the way from Washington DC to New Haven, CT to see Avery Brooks play King Lear (of the Olmec.  Good to see we’re not the only ones.

Following up on my previous post on the issue of high oil prices, I keep hearing the Democrats and Republicans attack each other on the radio every morning on the way to work. The common thread theme they both echo is that the other side “doesn’t have a plan to lower prices in the short term” and “will only work in the long term”. Holy cow! Is this what we’ve come to? A society so obsessed with short term reward that calling someone’s plan a long term idea is a negative? Let me emphasize: We need a long term plan for energy in this country. Our current course of action is headed for long term disaster and all congress can think about is pandering long enough to get reelected in November. Ugh.