polity not piety™

Yes, that’s a “trademark” symbol there. Why not? I continue to tell people that I came to the rabbinate out of “polity” not “piety”. My involvement was as a community organizer. A quick check on Google indicates that I’m nearly the only person to have used it… and, at that, significantly more frequently.

nathan hurvitz

Our father died 25 years ago today (29 Iyyar 5746). He was only 71. He had a weak heart from rheumatic fever. And he lead a stressed life as a “Type A” Personality (though while he could be hostile, at times, he did not express “free-floating hostility”). And then at 41 he had a massive heart attack… followed by a couple more in the next few years. Were it not for the fact that this happened in the late ‘50s and that he had a weakened heart to begin with, he would likely have been a candidate for coronary artery bypass surgery. But life did not work that way. Instead, he lived the next 30 years, a full, but careful life.

Nate Hurvitz grew up in Cleveland, OH, in the “first area of settlement” (oddly enough, I thought this was a commonly used sociological phrase, but I can find nothing that explains the phrase on the Web). His parents had come to the States from Chernigov, Ukraine, Pale/Settlement via Hamburg, Germany on the Printz Adalbert which arrived at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on April 14, 1914. (How Hillel Gurewitz and Fayge Brinn traveled from Cernigov to Hamburg, I never learned.) In Cleveland, his parents were blue-collar workers who identified as Jews and extreme leftists, and internationalists. Hillel, now Harry, sang in the choral group of his Jewish workers’ association. Fayge was a seamstress and took in piecework. Nate’s first language was Yiddish. In fact, he did not speak much English until he began public school, and, even when he was in his early thirties, he thought the German word for “old woman” was “alte yiddeneh”. Nate was 14 years old when the Great Depression began. During the 1930s, as the family lore has it, Nate, a good speaker, was able to draw a crowd while orating from a soapbox. He would do this in front of a house in foreclosure where the owner’s goods were being removed. As the crowd gathered listening, others would be busy moving the objects back into the house. But, Nate wanted to be a writer, not an agitator.

nate hurvitz the writer

on creativity

Dad would have agreed with Einstein:

Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.

Dad wrote poems, plays, songs, short stories.

the word (words & music by nathan hurvitz)

I have many slips of paper on which he wrote; slowly I have begun digitizing them so that our broader family can have access. He also wrote numerous articles, both in his professional field and in areas of inquiry that engaged him.

Though he died 5 years before it launched in 1991, he would have loved the Web. He often used web imagery when talking with us about learning, a simile I now use with our children:

Learning is like creating a fishing net or a spider’s web. The more you weave into it the more it is capable of catching.

He would also say:

Don’t let college interfere with your education.

His creativity led him to work in various media.

faye hurvitz with one of nate hurvitz’s creations at barnsdall art exhibit, los angeles 1973; photo by nate

nate the sculptor/astronomer

I’m ahead of my story

Even though he continued to write all his life, and had projects on which he was working when he died, Dad was never able to make a living from his writing. On his return from his “all expenses paid tour of Europe dressed in green” he developed an intense interest in Jewish history and life… especially the life of the destroyed communities of Eastern Europe from which his parents had come. He worked, not as a writer, but as a social worker in the Jewish community and then in private practice as a marriage and family counselor. He and our mother collected artifacts that depicted the life of the working-class Jews of Eastern Europe. (He used to joke that this was our yerushe ירושׁה (inheritance).)

part of our (physical) inheritance

After Dad died, Mom arranged to give their collection of graphics (woodcuts, lithographs, and etchings)to the Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California which exhibited the collection

shtetl life brochure

and produced a catalog of it.

shtetl life catalog (front)

nothing alien

Dad was a life-long atheist, and though he never read Rosenzweig (preferring historians to philosophers), he would likely have agreed with the paraphrase of Terence attributed to him (Franz): “nothing Jewish may be excluded as alien”. Dad was committed to the survival of the Jewish people. Even during his years as an Internationalist (as contrasted with being a Zionist), he and Mom sent me to Habonim summer camp and encouraged my participation in Zionist youth activities. As an atheist Jewish family, we observed Shabbat in our home with candle lighting and its blessings, kiddush, and motzie. When Dad’s colleagues would join us for Shabbat dinner they would wonder why “Natie Hurvitz the atheist” was saying the blessings. He responded by saying that:

These are the folkways of our people. As the world turns toward darkness, it has been the role of the Jewish people to light candles in the dark. By doing so we identify ourselves with Jews everywhere and throughout history who have lit their candles.

His intense commitment to the Jewish people’s survival, possibly blinded him in ways that caused him pain, and likely shortened his life even more than the physical problems that he refused to allow to limit him.

but tweeting #torah?

How did the son of Nathan Hurvitz, the Yiddishist Secularist Internationalist Atheist, become a rabbi encouraging people to do this:

”Twitter Torah to the top” in the “cloud” as it appears above #Sinai for #Shavuot.

first: polity

With the world’s awareness of the “Facebook Revolution” & “Twitter Revolution” in Moldova as well as in Iran, Tunisia, Egypt and other parts of the Arab World, I wonder: can the Jewish Community use Twitter as a community organizing tool. Can we “Tweet #Torah to the Top”? Can we use this it as an “organizing project”, a test to see if something more consequential than Justin Bieber, can draw people’s attention.

As MyJewishLearning.com expressed it recently in its daily e-newsletter called “Jewniverse”:

The project’s immediate goal is to make “Torah” one of Twitter’s most-talked-about topics.

I would call that a worthwhile goal in and of itself.

This effort “democratizes” Torah. Everyone can share a thought about Torah:

• Bar and Bat Mitzvah students could be encouraged to tweet a thought or two about their Torah Portion.
• Confirmation students could be encouraged to tweet a thought or two about the Ten Commandments (as well as the Torah portion from their Bar or Bat Mitzvah).
• Any adult education class could tweet their favorite Psalm, Prophetic thought, Rabbinic maxim.
• Anyone can tweet a thought about: what it means to be commanded; what “revelation” means in a world of information overload.
• In 5770 Rabbi David Levy of Succasunna prepared a tweet for each of the Parshiot. I know that some people write haiku, others write limericks. These short forms often fit quite well as tweets.
• If you have sermons that are online, shorten the URL using a service such as is.gd and add that short URL to a phrase that describes the sermon’s theme.

I’m interested in this as a once-a-year activity, a sort of “pilgrimage” or “gathering of the tribes”. After all, Shavuot is one of the three pilgrimage festivals. When you’re at the “be-in” unusual mixes occur. I want to see what happens. On previous occasions (this is the third year) I’ve “met” people who have been interesting to follow (which means “learn from/with”).

As part of this project, I wondered: “How does an idea go viral?” Social scientists have studied the phenomenon. Some Twitter users have been able to fool the world about certain actual events such as
Thinking bin Laden Watched The IT Crowd and Big Bang Theory. And so, I’ve mentioned:

In fact, on @TheDailyShow @billycrystal told Jon Stewart “Jews should tweet.” Do you think he means “#Torah to the Top”? http://is.gd/nuryZj

Please join us if you have a Twitter account. If you have a Facebook account, you can “join” the event.

then: piety:

However, MyJewishLearning.com takes the idea further, and in a very positive manner. (Beyond: “I mean, like, who cares if you can make #Torah “trendy” for a day… doesn’t that seem to cheapen Torah?”)

But the larger goal is to remind us how inspirational the Torah can be—even if you’re reading it 140 characters at a time.

From all of these perspectives, I’m sure that Dad would have thought this a valuable activity.

and beside that…

both in relation to Dad and Torah:

All his life, Dad worked for a nicer and better world. He shared those values with his children who carry on his (and Mom’s) efforts. Though Dad rarely wore a lapel button (Mom did, she had a few favorites), he would definitely agree with the sentiment expressed in this one. (The English is: “a nicer/prettier and better world”.) He would also concur that this thought is at the core of Torah.

א שענערע און בעשׂערע וועלט

your lapel buttons

Many people have lapel buttons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jacket you no longer wear, or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any laying around that you do not feel emotionally attached to, please let me know. I preserve these for the Jewish people. At some point they will all go to an appropriate museum. You can see all the buttons shared to date.

queen city of the west

When Debbie and I decided to continue our rabbinic studies at the Cincinnati, Ohio campus of HUC-JIR rather than at the New York campus, a number of our friends made fun of us. They joked that we’d spend all our time in rocking chairs on the porch of our apartment. We actually had a number of positive reasons for wanting to study in Cincinnati (as well as a variety of negative reasons for not studying in NYC).

• Debbie could work in the museum on the campus in Cincinnati as she had in Los Angeles.
• Mark could work in the Klau Library (one of the premier Judaic libraries) and even, perhaps the rare book room.
• Mark could study American Jewish history with Jacob Rader Marcus and use the resources of the American Jewish Archives.
• Being coastal, big-city kids, this would be a chance to experience the middle of the country, it was more likely that the two of us would find jobs in a big city on one of the coasts after ordination, than in “flyover” country.
• The slower pace of Cincinnati would enable us to focus on our studies… the actual purpose of our being in school.
• …and this was the mirror image of why NYC was not such a great idea for us, in New York, we would be busy trying to earn enough money to afford to live in NYC and then not have either the time or the money to take advantage of all the distractions from our studies that NYC has to offer.

Cincinnati was an excellent choice. We did explore The Midwest, as well as The South. We met lovely people and we even went to a baseball game.

on to the big apple

On ordination, R. Sheldon Zimmerman and his laypeople offered Debbie a position as assistant rabbi at Central Synagogue in New York City. We moved to NYC and found an apartment within walking distance of the synagogue (on 64th near 1st). I pursued a number of my old Federation contacts and was able to get a job in the Leadership Development Division of the UJA-Federation Campaign.

mark’s business card

One of the volunteers was a lovely young woman who met and married a bright and engaging young rabbi who had been a participant/speaker for one of our programs. Having grown up in an Orthodox environment he was accustomed to saying Mazal Tov to everyone at a simcha. They produced a button that they distributed at their wedding which served as a way to extend that greeting.

מזל טוב button from a wedding

The couple (though now divorced) has two grown children.

The rabbi continues to distribute the buttons occasionally (now in its third edition) at Brit Milah ceremonies, Bar Mitzvah celebrations and other joyous occasions.

and back

Many years have passed since then. That wedding was in 1981. I have not learned about any other couples who have produced buttons to share at their weddings. But, this weekend Noam and Rachel are getting married. The two of them have been living in New York (Brooklyn) with Avigail. Rachel’s parents live in Cincinnati where Rachel grew up. The joyous wedding will occur at a lovely spot along the Little Miami River. In joyous anticipation, I have been wearing a button I purchased on eBay in April of 2009 from someone living in Lakeland, Florida. I do not know why it was made or for whom.

מזל טוב

Date:	?
Size:	3.8
Pin Form:	clasp
Print Method:	celluloid
Text	מזל טוב

your lapel buttons

Many people have lapel buttons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jacket you no longer wear, or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any laying around that you do not feel emotionally attached to, please let me know. I preserve these for the Jewish people. At some point they will all go to an appropriate museum. You can see all the buttons shared to date.

the boy with his hands raised

As I mentioned here on April 10, when I was in my early 20s, I tried to imagine the life of the boy with his hands raised being led from the Warsaw Ghetto. I spent months with him, I kept his image before me daily. I looked into his eyes, and I tried to look through his eyes.

the boy with his hands raised being led out of the Warsaw Ghetto

I have known this photograph nearly all my life. It is a photograph known to many others as well. I mentioned in my earlier post that it was possible that the boy may not have died in the Sho’a.

Since then, I have studied the photograph more and some of the controversies surrounding it. Of particular help was the book by Richard Raskin: A Child at Gunpoint. A Case Study in the Life of a Photo. Aarhus University Press, 2004. ISBN 87–7934-099–7. While it is possible the boy may not have died in the Sho’a, Raskin’s book pretty thoroughly proves that those who either claim to be the boy, or claim that he did survive have little evidence to confirm their stories.

The photo is so powerful that people seem to want to be that boy. Others have written poems (rather poor, in my estimation) to him.

let’s get real

Why does Fischl call him “Polish”… because he (Fischl) is Hungarian by birth? Why not call him “Jewish”? If he was simply a “little Polish boy” there would be no photograph. Take a good look at the original photo above. Is there a star on the boy’s coat? How many machine guns are pointed at him? (Of course, one is more than enough, but if Peter Fischl wants to write a poem about it he should perceive its details accurately first.) Along with the photo, this poem has taken on a life of its own; so much so that in order to make the photo match the poem, a “star” was “photoshopped” onto the boy’s coat. I’ve brought the two images together here (the star on the boy’s coat appears at minute 1:57 — 2:09 in the video):

compare photos of boy with “star” (circled)

There is no question that the photograph is powerful. It is powerful enough without being edited. Raskin examines the photograph from a visual perspective. Unlike many photos from the Sho’a this one does not make us avert our eyes because it is too harrowing. Nonetheless, the scene it depicts is outrageous: a young, unarmed, boy (among many others) is forced to surrender. A high number of polar opposites are depicted (in Raskin’s words):

• SS vs. Jews
• perpetrators vs. victims
• military vs. civilians
• power vs. helplessness
• threatening hands on weapons vs. empty hands raised in surrender
• steel helmets vs. bare-headedness or soft caps
• smugness vs. fear
• security vs. doom
• men vs. women and children

Regarding the boy himself, he stands alone in his own space. Additionally, the boy’s face appears near the “Golden Section” or “Golden Ratio” of the photograph. It is an outstandingly gripping photograph.

the boy with hands raised and the Golden Ratio

The photo is one of many, taken as the Nazis destroyed the Warsaw Ghetto during the Uprising. It was part of illustrative material for what became known as “The Stroop Report”, named for Jürgen Stroop, the commander of the German forces responsible for liquidating the Ghetto. (Stroop is the man in the hat, not helmet, who is not obscured in the photo below.) While we do not know for certain who the photographers for the report were, two names are closely associated with it: Albert Cusian and Franz Konrad. Either one of them might have been the one to take the photo of the little boy. The identity of only one person in the photo of the little boy is known for certain: the soldier standing in the sunlight on the right side of the photo: Josef Blösche. Blösche appears in at least one other photograph from the liquidation of the Ghetto (in the photo below, once again, standing on the far right).

Jürgen Stroop directs the burning of the Ghetto (in center, in hat, not helmet, not obscured) while Josef Blösche (on the far right) watches

other photos of the liquidation

A few other photographs of the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto have been used elsewhere. One with which I have had direct personal involvement is captioned in the Stroop Report “Hehalutz women captured with weapons”. Interestingly enough, we do not see any weapons in the photograph.

Hehalutz women captured with weapons; used on the cover of Davka, Vol. 1, No. 4, Summer 1971

The photograph was used on the cover of Volume 1, No. 4 of Davka (Summer 1971) devoted to “The Jewish Woman”, the original locus of Rachel Adler’s article “The Jew Who Wasn’t There”. These women were definitely there. The caption in the lower right corner of the cover reads (inventively) “The women fighters of the Ghetto Rising, after capture, await their fate with resolution and dignity. In a moment shots will be fired.” The cover was also made into a poster that was distributed around Los Angeles. Copies of it still hang in some homes.

but I digress… Jürgen Stroops words

While reading about the liquidation I came upon this tidbit:

After a careful review of the situation, I decided to end the Grand Operation on the evening of May sixteenth, 1943, at eight-fifteen in a suitably artistic manner — by blowing up the Great Synagogue near Tlomacka Street. Krüger had suggested this finale during his Warsaw visit, giving Jesuiter plans prepared by his top engineers in Krakow, showing how and where to bore holes and place explosives. This operation took ten days to prepare.

the great synagogue of Warsaw at Tłomackie street

[Jürgen Stroop in Kazimierz Moczarski, Conversations with an Executioner. Edited by Mariana Fizpatrick (Englewood Clifs: Prentice-Hall, 1981; orgi. published in Polish 1977), page 164.]

There are 53 photographs in the Stroop Report. We don’t know whether the sequence in which they appear in the Report is chronological or was set for “artistic” purposes. For similar artistic purposes, I imagine that the photograph of the little boy was taken that very last day… May sixteenth, 1943.

May sixteenth, 1943

this is posted on May sixteenth, 2010

My parents were born and grew up in Cleveland, Ohio. Their parents were immigrants from Ukraine (actually, paternal: Chernigov [Chernihiv] Pale of Settlement and maternal, some 450KM north, from “Snofsk” on the Dnieper), not far from Vitebsk. At the time they left for the U.S. more than one third of the local population of Chernihiv and half of Vitebsk was Jewish.

In Cleveland, their families lived near Euclid Ave. and “the Kinsman Streetcar”. My grandparents were either atheists or (perhaps the maternal ones) agnostics. Both sets of grandparents were involved in Jewish life. Hillel Hurvitz was active in the Yiddish Workers’ Chorus. They certainly would not have joined the Reform congregation.

The Temple, Cleveland, Ohio

Nonetheless, we have always known that my parents were married in “the rabbi’s study at the Temple” during sefirat haOmer. A “special dispensation” was made because my father was in the army stationed at Sheppard Air Force Base in Wichita Falls, Texas. Neither of my siblings are aware of any photos from the wedding itself. In fact, I don’t even remember seeing their ketubah.

Nathan Hurvitz & Faye Hurvitz as newlyweds

So, on May 16, 1943, at approximately the same time that Jürgen Stroop declared the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto as having been complete with the destruction of the Reform Great Synagogue near Tlomacka Street, at a Reform temple approximately 4500 miles or 7000 kilometers away in the west, though I was not yet a glimmer in my parents’ eyes (my sister was born 10 months later, 3 years before me) my life was beginning.

Today, very little is as it was then. The area of the Warsaw Ghetto was completely razed by the Nazis.

from the Wikipedia: Ruins of Warsaw Ghetto, smashed into the ground by German forces, according to Adolf Hitler‘s order, after suppressing of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. North-west view, left — the Krasiński‘s Garden and Swiętojerska street, photo taken in 1945

Almost nothing of the wartime rubble remains. Debbie and I had the opportunity to visit Warsaw during Pesach of 2006. We made a point of finding a bit of The Wall.

a remainder of the wall enclosing the Warsaw Ghetto

The residents of Warsaw have built a new city and the area of the Great Synagogue near Tlomacka Street is now known as Bank Square (the Blue Tower) Błękitny Wieżowiec.

yet, the boy lives on

As I mentioned in my April 10th posting, I have used the image of the boy with his arms raised for my own purposes.

leaflet detail

I am hardly alone in this. Aside from the “poem” by Peter Fischl, Raskin reviews a number of instances in which the image of the boy with raised hands appears in artistic and political works. Though I have been unable to find the film on YouTube, Raksin gives a very detailed (with stills) reconstruction of the movie With Raised Hands (Polish title: Z podniesionymi rekami) by Mitko Panov. The film won the Golden Palm Award for Best Short Film at the Cannes Film Festival in 1991. In Raskin’s words:

The film is pure fiction in the sense that the writer/director imagined what might have happened when the photograph was taken.

From the stills and shot-by-shot reconstruction available in Raskin’s book, it is both very inventive and moving.

Other creative works include the British television show The Glittering Prizes (the final episode) and the works of Samuel Bak. I can imagine that many Christians would feel that these two images by Bak are an affront to their religious sensibilities. And, on many levels I agree. Neither the boy, nor any of the millions of Jews and others murdered by the Nazis died for anyone’s sins.

Samuel Bak paints the boy with hands raised

I understand and appreciate how Christians might feel when a sacred image is used by others to express something that they might not identify with. And so I categorically reject this attempt at “equivalence” when Israeli artist Alan Schechner uses the image and connects it with a young boy captured during the Intifada in a video that has one boy, recursively, holding the photograph of the other.

Alan Schechner’s transformations

a confusion of categories

I am not alone in opposing Alan Schechner’s use of the image. But, I also disapprove of this use of the image because of what I sense is a creeping identification of other events as “equivalent” to the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. This week, as I write this post, a button is available for auction on eBay which identifies the massacre of Sabra and Shatila in 1982 with the destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto.

lapel button comparing Warsaw Ghetto in 1942 with Beirut in 1982

These two events are of different categories, and cannot be compared. At the same time, while we need to beware of our strength and be ever vigilant of abuses, we also need to guard against such comparisons. And so…

The following button also uses the image of the boy with his hands raised. I have never worn it, nor would I. It was produced, probably, sometime in the early 1970s by the Jewish Defense League in New York.

the boy with his hands raised (lapel button)

Date:	1970s
Size:	5.1
Pin Form:	straight
Print Method:	celluloid
Text	DO NOT FORGIVE DO NOT FORGET

your lapel buttons

Many people have lapel buttons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jacket you no longer wear, or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any laying around that you do not feel emotionally attached to, please let me know. I preserve these for the Jewish people. At some point they will all go to an appropriate museum. You can see all the buttons shared to date.

a growing haggadah

A new edition of A Growing Haggadah (which is still available in its 2005 HTML version) has been printed. If you are interested in having a PDF version of the text to print and use (in whole or in part) at your Seder you can download it here.

• A Growing Haggadah (for family use)
• A Growing Haggadah (for a multifaith “model” seder)
• Experience A Growing Haggadah (in hypertext form)

Longer fallow periods seem to occur between editions of this Haggadah now. The previous edition is five years old, the preceding edition appeared three years before that. While I remain fairly satisfied, I am not complacent. I made many changes following Seder 5761 when Avigail and I visited Reed to see if she wanted to study there. The 2005 changes (though small) are significant, and were at her instigation. And now, Avigail mentioned at the end of Seder in 2009 that the time for a new edition had arrived and she wanted to help edit it. In recognition of her full participation in the task (both in writing, editing and making other, often structural, suggestions), her name appears on the cover.

Hurvitz’s Humanist Haggadah

This Haggadah is now a three-generation project. Its origin reaches back another generation. I brought from 3909 Burnside Ave., Los Angeles, the boxes Jay had labeled “Passover” and “Haggadah” home to Poway in 1989, a year after our return to California. In those boxes were Haggadot and other materials Dad had collected beginning in the early ’50s. Some of those tidbits found their way into this Haggadah, other materials are buds of ideas that may bloom in a different Haggadah. This text has moved on. Dad’s garden was extremely fertile; his presence still hovers over this Haggadah. Actually, it might never have existed were it not for the HHH (Hurvitz’s Humanist Haggadah). When I last skimmed that work (now many years back) I noticed little of it still apparent in this one (at this point, hardly even the Neertza, though I have restored some of the “bitterness” he experienced). Mom’s last typescript of Dad’s final edition is dated 1968.

Last year at this time I shared a button related to “Let My People Go” and the movement to free Soviet Jewry. This year, picking up from the struggle to free Soviet Jewry, I offer, first, a song from that movement that we sing at our Seder each year after Yachatz before the Maggid.

Фараону

Фараону, Фараону говорю
Отпусти народ мой
Фараону, Фараону говорю
Отпусти народ мой
Отпусти народ Еврейский
На Родину свою
Отпусти народ Еврейский
На Родину свою
Отпусти народ, отпусти народ
Отпусти народ домой.

Faraonu, Faraonu gavaryu; Ahtpusti narod moy. (2)
Ahtpusti narod Yevrayskee; Narodyenu svayu. (2)
Ahtpusti narod, ahtpusti narod, Ahtpusti narod damoy.

To the Pharaoh I say: Let my people go! Let the Jewish people go to our homeland! Let the people, let the people, let the people go home.

In December of 2008 Debbie and I were in Mexico City. There we visited the Jewish community’s museum where I was surprised to see a button I have in my collection:

СБОВДА button at Museo Tuvie Maisel in Mexico City

There was no explanation of why this button from the American movement to free Soviet Jewry (with Russian text “СБОВДА” meaning “Freedom”) would be in the museum in Mexico City.

Freedom for Soviet Jewry СБОВДА

Date:	ca. 1970s
Size:	4.44
Pin Form:	straight clasp
Print Method:	celluloid
Text	Freedom For Soviet Jewry СБОВДА

water is scarce

I have increased the focus on water issues, especially at the end when we drink from Miriam’s Well. I know that other Haggadot suggest putting a “Miriam’s Cup” filled with water on the Seder Table. I prefer to…

drink from miriam’s well

A large pitcher of fresh, tasty drinking water from which all will drink at the end of the Seder stands on the table throughout the Seder. Also a bowl(s) to empty the remainder of wine in the cups before drinking from Miriam’s Well should be available.
I usually put slices of orange and sprigs of fresh mint at the bottom, fill the pitcher with ice, then fill the remainder of the space with cold water.

Empty whatever wine remains in the wine glasses into the empty bowls then pour some water from the pitcher that has stood on the table into everyone’s wine glass.

We have escaped bondage and crossed the sea. We enter the arid land before us, made hesitant by generations of servitude—mixed with our recent struggle, and yet heady in our new freedom.
We have thirsted for freedom, but now we thirst for water. As with so many people in the world who do not have water, we face bitterness [Exodus 15:23] and quarreling.[Exodus 17:6–7, Numbers 20:11] Our ancient texts tell us that Moses was able to turn the bitter into sweetness and bring forth water. But many disputes over water remain.
Further, we are told that Miriam, the midwife of our liberation has stood ready, waiting to sustain us in the time ahead as we come to grips with our tasks and responsibilities.
Our Sages spoke of Miriam’s Well, created in the twilight of creation’s week. It now lies hidden in the sea of Galilee for Elijah to restore to us. Ishmael received water from it as “the well of living and seeing”; Rebecca drew from it when she greeted Eliezer; the well first appeared to our people when Moses struck the rock on Miriam’s account at the place of bitterness in Sinai—and it traveled with us throughout the desert years. Its waters, we are told, taste of old wine and new wine, of milk and of honey.

This is the well of the Ancestors of the world:
Abraham & Sarah, Isaac & Rebecca, Jacob & Leah and Rachel dug it;
the leaders of olden times have searched for it;
the heads of the people, the lawgivers of Israel, Moses, Aaron and Miriam, have caused it to flow with their staves.
In the desert we received it as a gift and thereafter it followed us on all our wanderings:
to lofty mountains and deep valleys.
Not until we came to the boundary of Moab did it disappear because we squandered our freedom by not fulfilling our responsibilities.
Now, as we begin a new season of renewal, may these cleansing, refreshing waters, reminiscent of Miriam’s well, recall for us a time of purity of purpose and help us focus on the tasks ahead.

All drink the water from Miriam’s well.

who is pharaoh?

I am not shy about mentioning human action in my Haggadah. In fact, I hope that the process of pursuing the Pesach adventure goads us to action. I write:

The classic Haggadah does not mention any human actors other than the nay-saying Pharaoh. The earliest texts that form the Haggadah were composed at the time of the beginnings of Christianity. Most scholars suggest that not mentioning human actors in the redemption stressed the power of God and diminished the possibility of imagining that Moses could be elevated to deity-like status. In our day, we are not so concerned and about deifying humans. In fact, the reverse is true, we need to enhance our understanding of ourselves as capable of transforming the world around us, and not wait for some force to appear to save us at the last moment.

Throughout the Haggadah I have marked questions for discussion related to this subject:

• Who can we name who dedicated their lives to the struggle for freedom?
• How did this happen? How did Moses move from oppressor to ally to liberator?
  How do we move ourselves from passive to active?
• What have I done to resist improper restraints?
• What new minor restrictions do I experience or see placed on others?

I am willing to ask how even we can become like Pharaoh:

We ask ourselves how we use our power to place other people in the narrow, limiting straits of “Mitzra’yim.”

After all, we are told: In each and every generation an individual should look upon him or herself; as if he or she had left Egypt. And, so, it is not strange that different generations of our people have identified real rulers as Pharaoh (even if, within a generation his name might be all but forgotten!)

Nasser Is A Pharaoh

Date:	ca. 1960s
Size:	3.175
Pin Form:	straight
Print Method:	celluloid
Text	NASSER IS A PHARAOH

May all our pharaohs come to naught and be remembered as little as he. And, may we experience a liberating Pesach as we progress towards Shavuot.

your lapel buttons

Many people have lapel buttons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jacket you no longer wear, or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any laying around that you do not feel emotionally attached to, please let me know. I preserve these for the Jewish people. At some point they will all go to an appropriate museum. You can see all the buttons shared to date.

confirmation and verification

Sometimes we think that we are the only person who has done such terrible things to others. It can be liberating and forgiving for us, and those others like us, to learn that we are not alone. It also often feels good to have others “sign off” on recognizing that we may have done something wrong as Yankel half-jokingly suggested in his comment on the Elul Homework 1 page:

…perhaps the checklist should have a place for the wronged person to sign, i.e. “forgiven on (date), by (wronged person)”.

So, I offer this possibility.
How many of us have been to a party with strangers and been asked to fill out a “get acquainted grid”? We might be a bit more forgiving of others and ourselves if we could learn that those with whom we work and/or live have in our histories and perhaps even recent experiences similar struggles.

the “I’ve done that too” grid

Judah and Pinchas learned while sitting among the colleagues and students of R. Ila’i that we all share the same boundaries of birth and death as well as many of the same shortcomings.

• We have let friendships deteriorate because we haven’t tried to bridge the gap of hurt.
• We have not helped when we could.
• We have expressed sorrow for our actions, but only when we felt it might prevent worse consequences.
• We have done things to others that we would not want done to ourselves.

a portion of the (downloadable) selichot “bingo” card

While there are frequently more than twelve steps to solving problems and the idea that we have the capability of solving our problems without “professional” help can be and has been ridiculed, there is a truth in the idea that we have within us the ability (perhaps with some intervention from others who know and understand us) to collect those mis-aimed arrows and correct our aim.

full disclosure

I admit to having a personal connection to this idea. My father, who worked as a professional marriage and family counselor spent much of the last years of his career studying what he called “Peer Self Help Psychotherapy Groups” (PSHPGs we called them). He did his research (in the early and mid 1970s) long before the groups became common in popular culture and later renamed “Self-Help Mutual Aid Groups”. He believed that by de-commercializing the therapeutic relationships these groups had as much, if not more efficacy than professional psychotherapy. In addition, Dad, though an atheist, thought he found some of the origins of these groups in religious movements. His work formed part of the kernal of the story of Bethami and R. Ila’i.

origins of the rabbinic yom kippur observance

How did it happen that what was once exclusively a sacrificial event in the Holy Temple in Jerusalem become transformed into a gathering for the public confession of wrong-doing? The sources only tell us that the transformation occurred, as though the curtain went down on the Temple and rose a moment later displaying the synagogue and the liturgy we now know.

Over the centuries we have added many “exercises” to the tasks of Yom Kippur. I believe, if we were to focus at least as much on their meaning as we do on the formal liturgy, we might gain greater fulfillment from the day. And so…

You can download a copy of the Selichot Homework Sheet 2, make copies and distribute them for your own use. This one exists only in PDF format. In the next couple of weeks, as we come nearer to Rosh haShannah and Yom Kippur I will present additional (online) tools to help explore the meaning of the Al Ḥet.

kvetcher

Date:	1980s
Size:	3.6
Pin Form:	clasp
Print Method:	celluloid
Text	kvetcher

your lapel buttons

Many people have lapel buttons. They may be attached to a favorite hat or jacket you no longer wear, or poked into a cork-board on your wall. If you have any laying around that you do not feel emotionally attached to, please let me know. I preserve these for the Jewish people. At some point they will all go to an appropriate museum. You can see all the buttons shared to date.

…from the archives (with minor updating), reposted on what would be her 4th Yahrtzeit

Faye Hurvitz celebrates her 90th birthday a bit early with her family gathered, August 2003

21st of Tevet 5674 — 8th of Tammuz 5765
December 20 1913 (the winter solstice) — July 14, 2005

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Our mother, Faye Hurvitz, died July 14, 2005 (8th of Tammuz 5765).

Three months earlier, Mom suffered a debilitating stroke. Until that time she lived a full and gratifying life, and throughout her 91 years enjoyed very good health.

Mom was a loving mother who in return was much loved by her children and grandchildren, and by the many friends she made throughout her life.

She was a great communicator, yet felt that she didn’t do enough to let other people know what they can do to bring about peace — especially peace in the Middle East. She was always quick to ply friends and acquaintances with information about the Givat Haviva Educational Foundation in Israel, an example she believed showed how small steps can make a big difference.

Mom’s funeral took place on July 18, at Hillside Memorial Park and Mortuary in Los Angeles. She was buried next to her husband of 43 years, Nathan Hurvitz.

Contributions in her name may be made to the
Givat Haviva Education Foundation:
114 West 26th Street Suite 1001
New York, NY 10001

Her family:

• Libbe and Loren Madsen (Laytonville, CA)
  • Anne, Nora

• Mark Hurvitz and Debbie Prinz (Poway, CA and NYC)
  • Avigail, Noam

• Jay Hurvitz and Tzippi Pellat (Kibbutz Hatzor, Israel)
  • Eitan, Nadav, Hila

Debbie’s Eulogy

Jay’s Eulogy

• English

• עברית

A few photos from before Mom was born till when she was still a baby.

Meyer (Max) Avrunin (Faye’s father) 1908

Chaneh Avrunin (Faye’s mother) 1908

To celebrate her 88th birthday we posted a bit about Mom’s High School Graduation.

Faye Avrunin’s High School Graduation Photo

Graphics depicting Jewish life of Eastern Europe

Throughout their married life our parents collected graphics that depict Jewish life of Eastern Europe before the Sho’a. Shortly after Dad died, Mom arranged to have the collection of graphics they had assembled contributed to the Judah L. Magnes Museum in Berkeley, California. The museum mounted an impressive show called Shtetl Life and published a wonderful catalog by Florence Helzel that included small reproductions of each of the items in the Hurvitz Collection.

front cover of the Shtetl Life exhibit brochure at the Magnes Museum

Among these graphics is one by Chaim Goldberg. She’d be pleased to know that the Wikipedia article about him mentions her and Dad in its list of the exhibitions of his work. While the book is out of print, it is (as of this posting) available.

Faye Hurvitz and Push Technology

A couple of years ago earlier, as part of a class assignment, Avigail prepared some family history materials. This page [has been removed from the Reed Web site], From Margin to Mainstream in Difficult Times, 1924–1945 is fairly self explanatory. I have the code. With Avigail’s permission, I will make it available once again on this site.

For Mothers’ Day 2009 the Jewish Women’s Archive sent out a call to share photos of Jewish mothers on Flicker. I selected a few to share among the many other photos of Jewish mothers.

Mom often wore a lapel button. Usually it was a blue one with white text, about 2.5″ in diameter that read: “Every Mother Is a Working Mother.” Once in a while she would switch that with another that read: “I’m a scientist… let’s experiment.” (I don’t know where those buttons are now.)

Bobe’s Lullaby CD

When we were children Friday nights after our Shabbat celebration, we’d change into our bed clothes and climb into bed. Dad would sing us lullabies. When Avigail was born I asked Mom and Dad to prepare a tape of the songs they sang so I could have their voices singing for her. They prepared a list and procrastinated. After Noam’s birth and Dad’s death I put more pressure on Mom. She prepared a list, collected the songs, wrote her script in shorthand, then typed that up and finally recorded a tape. Our kids listened to it for a number of years then it joined the many cassette tapes in the drawer. I found it a couple of years ago sometime around 2003. Noam digitized it, separated it into tracks and we made a CD of it with a label using the photo on this page.

Bobe’s Lullaby CD… not available at the iTunes Music Store

Faye Hurvitz sings Yugnt Hymn

Yugnt Hymn was written by Shmerke Kaczerginski as an anthem for the youth of the Vilna Ghetto. The refrain: “Anyone is young who wants to be. Years have no meaning. Old people can also be children, in a new day of freedom.” Tears of joy would probably come to her eyes if she could watch this group singing the same (and other) song(s). There is a 1:15 minute introduction before the singing begins.

Each of the grandchildren now has a copy of the CD. Mom enjoyed listening to it herself when she went to sleep… singing lullabies her husband sang her children which she then sang for her grandchildren. This was one of the CDs she enjoyed listening to most in her final months.

She would be thrilled with what her progeny are doing and to know that they enjoy being with each other.

Thank you for all your expressions of condolence.