The clothes people wear tell us a lot about them: who they are, their culture, their nationality, and oftentimes, even more!

Clothes define us.  They are how we express ourselves, how we label ourselves, for better or for worse.  What you wear can communicate any number of things: your level of modesty, your religious observance, your culture, your job.  Sometimes your clothes communicate even more about you: you are wealthy, you are sloppy, or you are part of a certain social group.

In travel, clothes are fascinating.  They change from place to place.  Sometimes they change based on culture, sometimes based on location.  You cannot wear the same clothes in Cochin, India that you can up in Siberia.  Similarly, there are cultural changes.  South India’s tropical climate may be similar to that of the Caribbean, but it doesn’t mean you’ll see the same clothing being worn in both places.  Even within one country, different cities can present totally different cultures: in Meah Shearim in Jerusalem, Israel, you will definitely not see the same clothes you’ll find if you stroll down the Tel Aviv beach boardwalk!

So clearly clothes communicate a lot about us.  They’re important to us.  Many people will agonize over what to wear to an important business meeting – which suit, which tie, which cufflinks? – or to a hot date – which dress, which shoes, which belt?  Sometimes our image, conveyed in large part by our clothing, can become too important to us.  It can become an instrument of our egos, of our yetzer hara (evil inclination), can fuel our vanity.  But even if we are as humble as humble can be, our clothes are still an important part of our communication with others.

So it really shouldn’t come as any surprise to see that so much space in this week’s Torah portion is devoted to describing the priestly garments.  They are described down to the finest detail.  Every piece is listed and described – how it is to be designed, of what material, and what color thread to use.  This is one of the – if not the - most important outfits in the Torah.

In fact, the priestly garments were so important that they could lose their priestly status forever if they appeared as priests without the proper clothing.  ”As long as their clothing was upon them, their priesthood was upon them. Their clothing was not upon them − their priesthood was not upon them,” states the Talmud. (Zevarchim 17B).

In our everyday lives, our clothing can actually change our actions.  We act differently in a bikini than we would in a business suit.  So when it comes to the priests who are going to be offering our sacrifices for us, their outfits are of supreme importance.  In some ways, their outfits actual raise them to a new level of spirituality.  The priests help us communicate with G-d, they intervene to help us ask for a forgiveness we might not merit on our own… so they need to reach the highest level of spirituality possible.

As Jews, we must always strive to present ourselves as the princes and princesses that we really are: And this means dressing the part! We should always dress with dignity.

When it comes to choosing our clothing, it is important, but we often place its emphasis on a different aspect than it should be.  Like the priests described in the Torah, we should wear fine clothes. We should present ourselves as the Jewish princes and princesses we are.  That means we should always be ready to present ourselves to the King of kings, and we should be prepared to present ourselves as princes and princesses before all the nations.  We have to be dressed appropriately, which means being dressed beautifully.

But it also means being dressed respectfully and modestly.  Dressing beautifully does not mean we have to dress to be “sexy.”  We can be “attractive” without being “attracting.”  Instead of concentrating on how good we make ourselves look from a standpoint of vanity, we should try to make ourselves look good in a way that spiritually elevates us.

This week, as you select your clothes, try to select clothing that you feel spiritually elevates you.  What clothes would you choose if you knew the King could see you walking down the street at any time? You wouldn’t be focused on seducing Him – you would be focused on impressing him and gaining his respect.  Let your G-dly soul be your guide, rather than your animal soul that simply craves attention.  You will see that by changing the way you dress, you will begin to feel and act more like the prince or princess you really are – and that others will treat you accordingly.

Shabbat shalom!

Just found out about a pretty cool place when I was checking out an apartment to rent in Sydney. The guy showing me around the unit said he was leaving for Japan. I saw he had a bicycle and I’ve been wanting one, so I asked him what he was going to do with it when he left the next week. His explained how he had built the bike out of free parts at a place in Redfern/Newtown and he’d bring the bike back there for someone else to make use of.

So I’ve checked out the place online. It’s called the Bike Club and they call their project something like Cycle Re-Cycle Club. It is a place for people to drop off their old bicycles and where others can come if they perhaps cannot afford to buy a bike and would like to build their own from spare parts.

I think this is a very cool idea because it is in line with what I did for my Eagle Scout project. For those of you not familiar with an Eagle Scout Project, one of the requirements to earn Eagle Scout (the highest rank achievable in United States scouting) is to manage a service project totaling over 100 hours of work done by volunteers. This does not include the work you, as the Eagle Scout applicant, do.

For my project I organized the collection of used bicycles. Volunteers then fixed them up and we gave them to people in the community who could not afford to buy a bike.

Anyway, I hope to check out this place in Sydney and maybe build myself a bicycle… Maybe even a unicycle!

Speaking of unicycles, I’ve still been working on the project to unicycle 1000km in Israel. It’s been coming along and it looks like I will be joining with Save a Child’s Heart to fundraise for their organization.

For more about the Bike Club and Cycle Re-Cycle Click HERE.

In my previous post on an overview of Jewish vegetarianism, I noted that there were 5 main reasons given by most vegetarians for why they stop eating meat.  In Judaism, too, there are 5 main reasons for becoming vegetarian. Similarly, there are 5 main arguments Jewish religious critics of vegetarianism give.  I have encountered these common criticisms many times during my travels, in Jewish communities all over the world.  Even if you want to continue to eat meat, you should be aware of the issues posed by your actions.  The existentialist in me is fond of maintaining awareness when making decisions!

1.  There is no animal cruelty because kosher laws dictate animals must be treated well during their lifetimes. Also, animals die instantly when slaughtered kosher, before they can even feel pain, so it’s not animal cruelty to eat kosher meat. 

This is a great ideal to which to aspire, but in practice it is rarely observed with the amount of reverence it deserves.  Most animals in the US today are factory farmed.  I don’t want to go into the details of what that means, but basically the animals are restrained, kept in overcrowded conditions, and fed unnatural foods.  By no stretch of the imagination can this be considered “good treatment” so as to satisfy the Biblical mandate of tsa’ar ba’alei chayim and I have never heard anyone claim it does.  Yet, the meat that gets to your kosher table comes from factory farms just like all the burgers in McDonald’s do.  So how is it possibly considered kosher?  Producers of this meat purchase the animals as they enter the slaughterhouse.  Because the livestock were previously owned by non-Jews, the Jews aren’t responsible for their treatment.  Although this loophole does follow the letter of the law, it blatantly violates the spirit of the law.  Several rabbis, including Rabbi Natan Slifkin (the “Zoo Rabbi”) have declared that even if this loophole is used, this meat still isn’t really kosher.  Furthermore, it is not certain that animals slaughtered kosher feel no pain, as time from cutting to death depends on a variety of factors, including the exact sharpness of the knife, the skill of the shochet, the species, and the manner in which the animal is restrained.  Sometimes animals may retain consciousness for 30 seconds before they finally die.

2.  G-d gave us animals and told us we can eat them, so it’s ok.

G-d initially gave us the animals so we could care for them, not eat them.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam was charged with naming the animals, giving him responsibility for them even on a spiritual level.  He definitely wasn’t eating them – G-d told him to eat from “every herb yielding seed” and every “fruit of a tree yielding seed.”  This was the ideal G-d wanted for man.  Meat-eating was only permitted after the Flood.  According to Rabbi Samuel H. Dresner, this was an accession to human weakness – if G-d hadn’t let humans eat animals, they would have sunk again to pre-Flood levels of degradation and eventually ended up cannibalizing each other.  So, yes, it’s permitted, but it’s not permitted for the nicest reason and I don’t know if I’d be too proud about “needing” to eat meat…

3.  Kosher meat is healthier, so you don’t have to worry eating too much might make you sick.

In some respects, kosher meat is healthier, but in some respects it’s not.  Because certain parts of the animal aren’t used and all blood is removed, less disease is spread.  On the other hand, by salting the meat a lot more, the higher sodium content can be harmful to people with heart problems.  In all other respects, kosher meat is processed in the same way as non-kosher meat.  Most processing is even done in the same factories.  That means that any dangers to health regular, non-kosher meat has also apply to your kosher meat.  Finally, most health hazards come from eating too much meat, not from the meat itself.  In the long run, over-consumption of meat has been linked to arteriosclerosis, atherosclerosis, several kinds of cancer, osteoporosis, and arthritis, to name a few.  Eating kosher won’t prevent these diseases or even reduce their risk – only reducing your meat intake will do that.

4.  We have to eat meat to raise the “sparks” of the animals’ souls up to a higher level by using their energy to do mitzvot. 

This comes from the kabbalistic concept that during the creation of the universe, “sparks” of holiness fell down to the lower levels and, as Jews, it’s our job to go out and find them and raise them up.  This is considered to be one of our main jobs while we’re in exile.  Alternately, it is related to the kabbalistic concept that a human soul may have been reincarnated into an animal to atone for a specific sin – if the meat is then eaten and a certain mitzvah performed, the human soul is freed from its sin to be reincarnated as a human again.  Rabbi Yonassan Gershom points out that this collection of “sparks” is cumulative and as we near the days of moshiach, there are fewer sparks to collect.  Each person has their allotted sparks and it does happen that sometimes a person has just managed to elevate all the “meat sparks” they’re supposed to.  Rabbi Gershom also notes that, unlike in the past when people had individual relationships with their animals and the shochet (slaughterer) made a new blessing over each animal, in today’s factory farms and slaughterhouses, the proper kavanah (religious intention) is no longer present and this results in there being no sparks in the meat. “The Breslover Rebbe stated that only a person who has reached a high spiritual level can be elevated by eating animal foods, and the opposite is also true: a person who lacks this high spiritual level may be further debased by eating animal foods.”  Similarly, the Gemara states that only a true Torah scholar may eat meat. In spite of the sparks that need to be elevated, Rabbi Moshe Cordovero, a major 16th century Kabbalist, encouraged people to eat as little meat as possible

5.  It is a “mitzvah” to eat meat and drink wine on Shabbat and Yom Tov.

Rabbi Moshe Goldman notes that the source for this “mitzvah” comes from the prophet Isaiah, who tells us to “call the Shabbat a day of delight,” just as a yom tov, which is a “good day,” a holiday.  This means different things to different people.  At one point in Jewish history, having a big fish on Shabbat and Yom Tov was considered a “delight.”  Today, meat is considered to be more of a “delight” than fish, so it’s viewed as part of the mitzvah to enjoy and be joyous on Shabbat and Yom Tov. Even the Lubavitcher Rebbe has said that if eating meat doesn’t give you any pleasure, you shouldn’t eat it, even on Shabbat or Yom Tov. 

Bearing all that in mind, I’m a pretty “live-and-let-live” kind of person, particularly when it comes to vegetarianism.  It doesn’t bother me when other people eat meat around me (although I’m not fond of handling it, since I can’t help thinking of it as the internal organ of a dead animal).  I don’t run around trying to convince other people to become vegetarian.  In fact, Rabbi Ben isn’t vegetarian, although he isn’t a big fan of meat and is often vegetarian because he travels so much.  So I don’t recommend you take these arguments and run off to convince all your friends to give up eating meat, but rather, I hope you will use this information to make informed decisions and to raise interesting discussions with your friends and family.

Why would a Jewish and kosher world traveler become vegetarian?

Why do Jews become vegetarians?

What does the Bible say about vegetarianism?

Being a Jewish vegetarian doesn’t have to be boring! (Part 1)

Being a Jewish vegetarian doesn’t have to be boring! (Part 2)

Recently I was excited to find out that a book I wrote three years ago is finally getting published. My inspiration to write “Freiing Out” came three and a half years ago when I was on a visit to Sydney, Australia. At a Friday night Shabbat dinner I was discussing the issue of why so many children were going off the derech and dropping their Judaism. A woman at the table remarked, “Binyamin, it sounds like you’ve got some good ideas on how to prevent children from going off the derech. You should write a book.”

And so I did. I wrote most of the book in two weeks, spending around twelve hours a day of solid writing. It then took a couple of months to finish it and then a while to get it published.

But thank G-d it looks like it should be available in the next few weeks, and I pray that some of the ideas I share in “Freiing Out” helps Jewish people stay strong in their Judaism.

I have a bad habit of doing things the hard way.  Rabbi Ben is constantly pointing this out to me, but this week I noticed it for myself.  While walking with a friend, she had to stop and drop some letters in a mailbox.  She had quite a large stack of letters and, after taking off the rubber band, she began cramming them a few at a time into the slot.

“My friend,” I said, after confusedly watching her struggle for a moment, “why don’t you just pull down the handle and open the shelf so you can put them all in at once?”  I realized that she was doing things the hard way, indeed, the hardest way possible.  And, as we learn from the Ba’al Shem Tov, the faults we see in others are those we see in ourselves.  I laughed because I recognized that I only noticed so strongly that she was doing things the hard way because she is just like me! Maybe that’s why we’re such good friends.

The truth is, doing things the hard way isn’t always a bad thing.  In fact, in Mesillat Yesharim (“The Path of the Just,” one of the most famous ethical writings we have, by Rabbi Moshe Chaim Luzzatto) we are warned to always be wary of choosing the easier option because it may just be our laziness rearing its ugly head.

In this week’s Torah portion, the Jewish people are told to bring everything needed to build the mishkan, the holy tabernacle in the desert.  The Jewish people rush to donate everything they can – with the notable exception of 12 of them. The 12 princes of the tribes of Israel waited until the very end to bring anything.  The Midrash teaches us that they said they would hold back and wait to see what the people brought – what the people did not donate, they would bring.

This seems laudable because they could have ended up having to donate positively silly amounts of goods if their tribes didn’t do it.  And in the end, they donated the precious stones for the ephod and the breastplate of the high priest.  These were the most expensive and most valuable, the most treasured donation that was made.  Yet in the list of donations it is listed last and we learn from the Midrash that G-d was unhappy with the princes.  Yet, as Rabbi Yehonasan Gefen points out in one of his drashas, we are left with a crucial question: Why?

The famous commentator the Ohr HaChaim points out that this indicates there was an error with the donation of the stones.  The princes did something very, very wrong in bringing them. But what on earth could it be?  Rav Chaim Shmuelevitz points to a Rashi that sheds some light.  The princes, Rashi says, lost a yud (a Hebrew letter) in their name because they were lazy.

I heard an interesting shiur by Rabbi Manis Friedman this week that explains there is a major difference between the sin Adam and Chava (Eve) committed in eating an apple and sins that we commit le shaym shemayim (“for the sake of heaven”).  Adam and Chava, according to one explanation of the sin in Gan Eden (the Garden of Eden) actually ate from the tree deliberately in order that their children would have the opportunity to do teshuva (repentance, return to the mitzvot) and thereby raise this world to a higher spiritual level.  But when we do something G-d has told us not to and we claim we are doing it because it is ultimately for G-d’s sake, we aren’t really. Why? Because we have a yetzer hara, an evil inclination, that is sitting there telling us to do something wrong.  Adam and Chava did not have a yetzer hara to tempt them. Unlike Adam and Chava, we aren’t truly doing a sin for the sake of a mitzvah.

So this is what happened with the princes.  They said they were bringing donations to the mishkan last so that they could bring along whatever the Jewish people didn’t bring.  But really they were just being lazy.  They were procrastinating.  We are told that we should have legs that run to do a mitzvah and by putting off this mitzvah, the princes were being lazy and nothing more – no matter what their excuses.

And this is an important lesson for us as well.  Sometimes we choose the easier path just because we are lazy, just as the Mesillat Yesharim states.  We drive to the store instead of walking even though it is not so far.  We prefer to swim with the current rather than against it, both literally and figuratively.  Even though we may claim we are doing it for the sake of efficiency, we are no better than the princes who made excuses for why they brought their donations to the mishkan last.  We are choosing the easy way out, we are procrastinating. We are being lazy.

But this is not to say that we must always choose the hardest way to do something, for this can also be a way of being lazy.  Perhaps taking the long way is our way of delaying avoiding at our destination.  If the princes had set out for the mishkan with their gems, it would not matter that they left first if they walked all the way around the encampment so that they arrived last.  Then taking the hardest, longest route would only have been another delay tactic: another way of being lazy.

I’m definitely guilty of this.  I will spend so long doing the “more fun” tasks that it might take me days or even weeks to reach the more difficult or challenging tasks – if I ever get around to them – even though they are what I should really be doing first.  We all do this at some point or other, I think.  We don’t even realize we’re doing it. Like the princes, we make up excuses.  And whether we’re being more obviously “lazy” by saying, “I need to take a rest so I can do my next mitzvah even better” or we’re cloaking it in excuses by saying, “I’ll go make that phone call as soon as I’m done making dinner/reading this book for work/putting these letters in the mail” it all amounts to the same thing.  Our yetzer hara is playing games with us and as a result, our laziness is what is winning.

This week, join me in resolving to do those more unpleasant or difficult – but so much more important and necessary – tasks that we’ve been putting off.  In fact, I’m off to make one of those phone calls right now!

Shabbat shalom!