This week, I sat down to dinner with some friends in Montreal.  The head of the household began to tell a story of the dedication of a new Torah in the community.  It was a small Torah, the sofer’s first, and so was very special.  At the celebration, the rabbi said something interesting to the man who was dedicating the Torah.

“I want to know what mitzvah [good deed] you’ve done,” the rabbi said.  “I know this is a great mitzvah to be dedicating this Torah, but I want to know in the merit of what mitzvah you were allowed to do this mitzvah.  What great mitzvot have you been doing in your home, out of the sight of others, with no accolades, that has given you the merit to be able to dedicate this Torah?”

In Judaism, we have a concept that the reward for doing a good deed is that you get to do another good deed. This is contrary to most religions, where the reward for doing a good deed is to get wonderful things here on earth, or “brownie points” up in Heaven.  Judaism isn’t a religion that’s about “what can I get?” or “what is going to happen in the next world?” – it’s about what’s happening in the here and now that’s important.  And what could be more important than doing the right things?  So naturally the reward for doing one mitzvah is that G-d lets you do another one!  Of course, you can get other material and spiritual rewards, but the true reward is getting to do that extra good deed.

I wrote already about the mitzvah of shooing the mother bird away from her nest before you take her eggs.  As I said, this particular mitzvah always struck me as really strange.  Even with an understanding of it, it’s still easy to say, “Okay, that’s a very interesting mitzvah, but it’s not really all that important, in the grand scheme of things.”  Still, we must avoid thoughts like this because every mitzvah is important to G-d.  Birds are G-d’s creatures, too, and who are we to say that showing them compassion is only a minor mitzvah?

If we want to take these ducklings, we must first drive away the mother. It seems such a small mitzvah, yet it brings such a big reward, including the reward of doing another mitzvah! We can never underestimate the power of even a small good deed, such as showing compassion for animals.

One of the ways we can see just how important this mitzvah is, is to look at the reward we get for it.  The passage in the Torah immediately following the one about the bird states that “If you build a new house, you shall make a fence for your roof…”  How is this a reward?  How is it even connected?

Rashi, one of the greatest commentators on the Torah to ever live, explains that “If you fulfilled the commandment of sending away [the mother bird from] the nest, your end [will be] to build a new house.” We can understand this because it says “If you build a new house,” which is something it really doesn’t need to say.  It could simply say “You shall make a fence for your roof,” since this commandment applies to all houses, even if you’re buying or inheriting it.  But as a reward for doing the mitzvah of sending away the mother bird, G-d will give you the gift of building a new house, as a vehicle for you to do the mitzvah of building a fence around the roof, which you may not be able to do on a purchased or inherited house, as the previous owner may have beaten you to it!  The real key, according to Rashi, is that “a commandment drags another commandment [after it]“… in other words, if you do one mitzvah, you get the benefit of doing another one.

As we each try to do more good deeds, we should remember this and look upon it with joy.  No good deed is too small or too insignificant! They are all precious to G-d… sometimes much more than we realize.

Shabbat Shalom!

A few years ago, before I married Rabbi Ben, I found this little lost duckling and adopted it. I've always had a soft spot for animals... maybe even a little bit TOO MUCH compassion!

I love animals.  I always have.  When I was a child we always had a cat in my house and I would chase after and attempt to hug pretty much any other animal I saw, from dogs to lizards to frogs.  For a while, I even wanted to be a veterinarian (until that frog we had to dissect in 9th grade biology class!).

At some point about 5 or 6 years ago, I took it into my head that I wanted chickens.  I honestly don’t remember what gave me that crazy idea, but I told all my friends about it and next thing I knew, my friend Farmer Ben was hatching chickens and raising them in his backyard! In the meantime, I was living in a small apartment in Miami and dreaming of the day when I could have my own chickens.

The first few years that I read this week’s parsha I would become very upset when reading about the mother bird.  “If a bird’s nest happens to be before you on the road, on any tree or on the ground – young birds or eggs – and the mother is roosting on the young birds or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother on the young.  You shall surely send away the mother and take the young for yourself, so that it will be good for you and it will prolong [your] days.”

My initial reaction to this was always one of compassion.  That poor mother bird! She has given life to these baby birds, or these eggs she’s waiting to hatch, and you’re taking them from her! Imagine how she must feel!  When I would share this sentiment with other people, they would tell me I have too much compassion.  Judaism is a religion that teaches a middle-of-the-road approach to all middot (character traits).  No one middah should be taken too far – compassion included.  If we feel compassion even for things or people that are undeserving of our compassion, they could end up causing increasing harm.  Showing too much compassion for a murderer could result in him being back out on the streets and doing it again, for example.

The laws about chasing away a mother bird before taking her eggs becomes suddenly relevant when you think about how we get our eggs - especially if you want to raise the hens yourself!

As the years have gone by, my perspective on the mother bird situation has changed.  Having spent time on farms and some day wanting to have chickens of my own, I understand how I will want to take their eggs when they lay them.  Farmer Ben once told us a story of when he was working in an organic egg “factory.”  The chickens would sit on their perches and lay eggs, which would land in a basket below them.  Every day, Farmer Ben would have to put his hands in and retrieve the eggs, with the chickens pecking at him the entire time.  The birds didn’t want their eggs taken! But in the afternoons, he said, the chickens would go outside to eat or get some sun and would forget their eggs.  At those times, he could stick his hand in without being pecked at.  By the time they came back, the birds had forgotten about their eggs entirely.  Although the birds experience distress when their eggs are taken from before their eyes, they don’t experience any after being shooed away.  By giving us this commandment in the Torah, Hashem has struck a perfect balance: just enough compassion, but not too much.

It’s a lesson we should carry through our lives.  Any character trait we have can be good or bad, depending on how it’s used and how much of it we apply.  And even if it’s not a bad character trait we have too much of, having excess of a good character trait really can be “too much of a good thing.”

As we work on ourselves during this holy month of Elul, as we approach the days of Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur when we are judged and the book of our next year is written and sealed, let us work on finding balance… in every aspect and every part of our lives.

Shabbat shalom.

Last week we went for a walk to Mont Royal. We ran into some international folk dancing festival. There must have been 150 people there. Some were dressed up.

It seemed that the music and dancing style was %95 Bulgarian and the people who were dressed up were wearing traditional Bulgarian clothes.  To make it an ‘international event,’ they played a song or two in some other languages.

But here’s what blew my mind. The song ‘Hine Ma Tov,’ which I think is by the Miami Boys Choir, suddenly came on, and there were around 150 people dancing in step to the song. It was obviously not their first time hearing this Jewish tune. The steps most have been practiced dozens of times over the course of weeks or months to have them so fluid.

We as Jewish people have long been taking music from the non-Jews but this is the first time I’ve heard non-Jews take Jewish music and make it theirs.

Maybe there were a couple Jews there. It is possible. But certainly  not a trace of religious enough Jews to know about Miami Boys Choir.

The video was shot on an iPhone, the lighting wasn’t too great, but it gives an idea.

WARNING – There are a few seconds of some blurred females dancing in this clip. They are fully dressed in traditional clothing, though I can’t guarantee it will meet all standards of modesty. Please to not watch if you may be offended by this.

A wishing tree in the Smithsonian Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden prompts the question: Is this avodah zara?

Recently, Rabbi Ben and I went to Washington, D.C., where we did the usual Smithsonian Museum circuit.  One of our stops was at the famous Hirschhorn Museum for modern art, my personal favorite Smithsonian.  In the sculpture garden outside, I spotted a “wishing tree,” but Rabbi Ben cautioned me that this could be considered avodah zara, idol worship.

Now before you go thinking that worshiping a tree is ridiculous, stop for a moment.  The ancient Canaanites worshiped trees (there’s even a name for a specific type of tree they worshiped, which is brought up several times in the book of Judges in the Tanach).  Other pagans also worship trees.  In fact, Rabbi Ben and I have even seen these “holy” trees in India – where people still worship them.  They even build special walls around some of them, and paint the base of the trees with red and white stripes.  This is going on today, at this very moment.

Now, we learn from this week’s parsha that we are not only not allowed to worship trees, but if a tree is going to be worshiped, then we cannot even plant it, not even if we are not going to worship it ourselves.  “You shall not plant for yourself a tree for idol worship, any tree, near the Altar of Hashem, your G-d, that you shall make for yourself.”  Rashi explains that the word any indicates that this means you should not plant any tree for idol worship, anywhere.  It also indicates that you should not plant any tree near the Altar of Hashem, even if it is not for idol worship.  Interestingly enough, Muslims have planted trees on the Temple Mount for exactly this reason – that Judaism forbids it.

So what about that wishing tree? Is it idol worship or not?

This tree is an idol worshiped by locals in Aihole, India

The answer seems to be that it depends. We can look at the example of a wishing well to try to answer this.  If one throws a coin into a fountain, which will eventually be collected for charity, it is permitted to make a wish so long as that wish is directed to G-d.  The Talmud (Tractate Rosh Hashana 4a) indicates that if one gives to charity, one can make a request of G-d because even if G-d does not grant the request, one will not regret having given to charity.  On the other hand, throwing a coin down a well, even if one directs one’s wishes to Hashem, is forbidden because, according to Rav Chaim Pinchas Scheinberg, shlita, a renowned Halachic authority, this violates the prohibition again bal tashchit, wasting.  But this doesn’t totally answer our question because, as we can see from the Torah, there was a serious problem with worshiping trees, but apparently pagans don’t generally go around worshiping wells.

As far as planting goes, the tree was just an ordinary tree in the Hirschhorn Sculpture Garden – I’ve been there many times before and it has never previously been a “wishing tree.”  Furthermore, the point of the tree, a plaque nearby explained, was that it is part of an art project by famous artist Yoko Ono to collect “wishes” from people all over the world.  The “wishes” written on pieces of paper and tied to the tree were to be collected and mailed to the artist.  The tree itself seemed to be just a cute or artistic vehicle for her to collect these wishes.  The tree was temporarily turned into part of her art project.  In this case, placing a “wish” on the tree would probably not be considered idol worship so long as the person specifically had in mind to direct his “wish” to Hashem. Also, although it is not charity in a monetary sense, the act of participating in someone else’s art project is a form of giving that one would not regret later.

However, in most cases, a “wishing tree” probably would be forbidden.  Even if one directs one’s wishes to G-d and not to the tree, it still includes a couple of problems.  The first is that, as Rav Scheinberg points out, it could be considered wasting.  Also, it could be considered to be “putting a stumbling block before the blind” – if another Jew sees you, a religious Jew, tying wishes onto a tree, he might think you are doing so in hopes that the tree will grant you the wish, and may think this is a permissible action.  In the case of the wishing tree in the Hirschhorn gardens, I would think this is less of an issue, as a placard explaining its purpose was very prominently displayed in front of the tree and one would not be able to avoid it in picking up the papers that were there to write on.

I guess when it comes to trees we have to be more careful than I first realized.  I am now beginning to wonder how this applies to wishing on other things, like on shooting stars, for instance.  In the meantime, let’s start by all avoiding planting any trees for idol worship!

SHABBAT SHALOM!

The trees on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem were planted there purposefully to flaunt this exact prohibtion.

A friend asked me to see some more photos from my climb up Kilimanjaro with the Everest Peace Project in 2005.

It was an awesome experience and an interesting challenge of keeping Kosher and Shabbat. I’m writing about it in a travel book that, please G-d, will soon be published.

For now here are some photos I’d like to share.