Yo voté

Before today, I had voted in three presidential elections.  Not only had I never voted for a primary candidate who won the nomination, I had an 0-for-3 record in voting for candidates in the primary who were still in the race at the time of my primary.

How is this possible?  In 2000 and 2008, I voted absentee, because I was in college and living outside the country (respectively).  When I mailed in my absentee ballots for Bill Bradley and John Edwards (I know, I know, but it was still the right choice based on the information we had at the time), they were still in the race.  Bradley dropped out on March 9, 2000, before the Illinois primary (in which I was voting) on March 21.  Edwards suspended his campaign on January 30, 2008, before the New York primary on February 5 (Super Tuesday).

In 2004, I actually voted in person (in New York) on primary day (Super Tuesday, March 2).  I had been supporting Howard Dean, who dropped out on February 18.  There was no question that I would support the eventual Democratic nominee in the general election, but I didn't feel like taking a stance just then on Kerry vs. Edwards, so I decided to vote for Dean anyway (who was still on the ballot), in the hope of sending more Dean delegates to the convention.  (Dean in fact won the Vermont primary that day.)

But my unbroken streak might be about to end.  (Not coincidentally, this year is the first time since I turned 18 that an incumbent Democratic president is running for reelection.)  Today I went to early voting and voted for Barack Obama in the Democratic primary.  If Obama doesn't drop out before the Maryland primary on April 3, the streak will be over!

Hazon sinks deeper into the hall of shame

Hazon has numerous accomplishments to its name:  perhaps more than any other organization, it is responsible for bringing an environmental consciousness to the American Jewish community, from promoting bicycling as a green mode of transportation to making us think about where the food we eat comes from.  I have participated in a number of Hazon events (including the 2003 New York Jewish Environmental Bike Ride, when we biked the length of Long Island), and have been proud to support it financially in the past.  So it has been disappointing to see Hazon fall so far so fast, and adopt positions that resemble the epistemological stances of the anti-environmental forces.

Like all Jewish environmental organizations, Hazon does programming around the New Year of the Trees.  As recently as 2010, they correctly referred to this holiday as Tu Bishvat.  Then, in 2011, they altered their written communication across the board so that it read “Tu B’Shvat”.  (This blog has  explained why that is wrong, and why it is indefensible.)

So last year, I replied to one of Hazon's emails, asking them why they had switched away from the grammatically correct spelling (and linking to the earlier post).  I received the following reply from a Hazon staff member:

Great question. We went with Tu B'Shvat because "bishvat" is too easily read as "beeshvat" among those who are used to reading foreign languages online. There was some internal debate on this matter and I imagine it will change again in the future.

I'm also personally (that is, I'm no long speaking on behalf of the organization) that when transliterating, there is no correct spelling as it's a different character set.

First of all, WHAT?  "Beeshvat" is the correct reading!  That's the whole point!  We're not being pedantic about how to transliterate a given vowel, we're being pedantic about which vowel it is!

So it's disturbing that Hazon is entrusting policy decisions (even about admittedly small issues) to people who lack even the most basic understanding of the issue.  I compared the Tu Bishvat moral relativists to climate-change "skeptics", but this doesn't even reach the pseudo-intellectual level of climate-change denial.  This is a more fundamental confusion, akin to confusing weather with climate, and using winter as evidence that global warming isn't happening.  (Yes, I know that congressional Republicans and Fox News actually do this.  Hazon, is that who you want to be?)

Do I expect everyone who works for a Jewish organization to be a Hebrew grammar expert?  No, and I don't expect every politician or journalist to be a climate scientist either, but I expect them to know the limits of their own knowledge, and to defer as appropriate to those who understand the issue better.

That's just last year.  This year, Hazon has gone from clueless to brazen.  After I posted "The War on Tu Bishvat" (and emailed the link to Hazon, noting that they used to get it right), they linked to it and tweeted:

Man, this guy is REALLY upset about how we spell Tu B'Shvat http://ow.ly/8Iwv3

In other words, they're making it about "this guy", and personal emotions.  (Did they even read the post?)  In their apparent worldview, there is no objective truth, just differences of opinion.  "Shape of Earth: Views Differ."

A few days later, I received the following reply to my email from the same Hazon staff member mentioned above:

Thanks for linking to the Hazon website! http://mahrabu.blogspot.com/2012/01/tu-bishvat-halls-of-fame-and-shame.html

Tu B'Shvat Sameach,

[Name redacted]

This was sent from a hazon.org email address, with an official Hazon sig at the bottom.  This is deeply unprofessional.  Rather than even attempting to explain their new policy, they are now openly giving Hebrew grammar (and those who defend it) the finger.

This attitude resembles nothing so much as the Republicans' decision to replace the biodegradable containers in the House of Representatives cafeteria (instituted under Speaker Pelosi in 2007) with styrofoam when they retook the majority.  It wasn't even about the styrofoam (which will last forever); it was about pissing off Democrats and environmentalists.  Again, Hazon, is that who you want to be?

Hazon needs to realize that it is not operating in a vacuum; it still commands a great deal of respect as a leader in the Jewish environmental movement, and its decisions have larger consequences.  Just today, a smaller Jewish environmental organization switched over from "Tu Bishvat" to "Tu B'Shvat", and explained this as follows:

The reason we chose to publicize it as "B'Shvat" is because we are basing our materials off of Hazon, and their organization spelled it as such.

Will Hazon start demonstrating leadership again?

Tu Bishvat Halls of Fame and Shame

(NOTE: This post will continue to update through the end of Tree Year 5771.)

Last week was D-Day in the War on Tu Bishvat.  This week, as the New Year of the Trees gets closer, it's time to publicize who is in the right and who is still committed to being wrong.

Here is Mah Rabu's 5772 Tu Bishvat...

Hall of Fame

They "shall be like a tree planted by waters, sending forth its roots by a stream:  it does not sense the coming of heat, its leaves are ever fresh; it has no care in a year of drought, it does not cease to yield fruit." (Jeremiah 17:8)

• Wikipedia remains the authority on every topic in the universe except chickens.  And it's not just the English Wikipedia:  a quick tour down the left margin reveals that every language using the Latin alphabet represents that vowel with "i" (or "ie"); in the Cyrillic alphabet it's "i" or "и". 
• MyJewishLearning is reliable even about chickens.
• The Union for Reform Judaism remains committed to environmental justice. 
• "At The Jewish Theological Seminary, the teachings of Torah and the issue of sustainability have intersected in our efforts to preserve and conserve Earth's precious resources."
• The Open Siddur Project has made a valuable historical document accessible to the public.
• Etz Chayim DC just started last year, and has a perfect record so far. Never mind.
  
• B'nai Jeshurun is one of the largest and most influential synagogues in the country.
• Neohasid provides many useful resources about the holiday.
• Yeshiva.org.il is "The Torah World Gateway".
• Kveller has something to kvell about.
• We wish the Knesset a happy 63rd birthday.
• The Conservative Yeshiva offers learning programs in Jerusalem and online.
• The Kotel is the last standing piece of the retaining wall around the Temple Mount.
• InterfaithFamily.com encourages Jewish choices and a welcoming Jewish community.

But then there's also the...

Hall of Shame

They "shall be like a bush in the desert, which does not sense the coming of good:  it is set in the scorched places of the wilderness, in a barren land without inhabitant." (Jeremiah 17:6)

• Hazon, as a (once-)prominent voice of Jewish environmentalism, truly has no excuse, especially since they used to be on the right side of this issue.
• Isabella Freedman ("in partnership with ... the many branches of the Jewish Environmental Movement") is also guilty of greenwashing.
• If the Shalom Center is a "prophetic voice", then the message got garbled.
• Aish probably actually denies climate change (they certainly deny evolution).
• The people in the rabbanut who banned Häagen-Dazs were right about one thing:  the Orthodox Union is not kosher.
• As for Canfei Nesharim, eagles aren't kosher either.
• The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism is shrinking.
• Chabad worships a false messiah.
• The Jewish Agency goes downhill fast after the URL and page title.
• Hey Hillel:  Go and learn it.
• Ritualwell is down the drain.
• The Big Jewish Tent is missing some stakes.
• The Rabbinical Assembly classifies holidays under "Jewish law"; what about the laws of grammar?
• Finally, Hebcal has earned its way into a special division of the hall of shame, for messing up not only the English but the Hebrew too.  (I suspect this was the result of an automatic algorithm of the sort that used to bring us "You have 1 new messages", and shouldn't be too hard to fix.  RET points out that Shevat is the only month that begins with a sheva.)

Those who have found themselves in the hall of shame should remember that it's not too late to change, and the gates of repentance are always open.  Except, perhaps, to this guy, who spells it "Tu B'Shvas".  There, he asks "did my parents get their money’s worth on my yeshiva day school tuition?"  This question is left to the reader as an exercise.

The War on Tu Bishvat

It's less than three weeks away, and you've started getting emails about Tu Bishvat events. You're probably also getting emails about Tu B'Shvat and Tu B'Shevat, whatever those are.  This blog has previously explained why "Tu Bishvat" is correct, while "Tu B'Shvat" and "Tu B'Shevat" are WRONG WRONG WRONG.  Yet many of those who are wrong continue to persist in their wrongness, even after being corrected.  Not only that, but they come up with a range of defenses (from the simple to the epicycle-like) to justify their stance.  This post responds to those defenses, to show that they are utterly without merit.

(Note:  It has been brought to my attention that the sheva under the shin is a sheva meracheif:  an intermediate form between a sheva na and a sheva nach.  If it were a true sheva nach, the second bet would take a dageish kal, so it would be "Tu Bishbat".  For this reason, this post will not take a stance on whether the last part of the word is "--shvat", "--sh'vat", or "--shevat", since all of these have some justification, however weak.  Instead, we'll focus on the truly important issue:  the vowel under the first bet is a chirik, not a sheva.  It's "Bi-", not "B'-".)

Here are, in no particular order, the top five rationalizations for "B'Shvat"/"B'Shevat", and why they're wrong.

1. It's just transliteration!  There are so many different ways to transliterate any Hebrew word.  Just last month we had Hanukkah... or was it Chanuka?  Which transliteration scheme you prefer is an aesthetic judgment, but none of them is wrong.

No, it's not just transliteration.

Yes, there are at least eight valid ways to spell (C)hanuk(k)a(h).  The letter ח can be represented by "h" or "ch", or even "j" (for the Spanish speakers) or "hh", and that's just in ASCII.  A dageish chazak can be represented in the transliteration by doubling the letter ("kk"), or not ("k").  A ה at the end of the word can be transliterated ("ah") or not ("a").  These are indeed aesthetic choices about different transliteration schemes.

But that's not at all what is going on with the New Year of the Trees.  The vowel under the first bet is a chirik.  Yes, there are several different ways of transliterating a chirik:  it could be "i" or "ee".  But no one would ever transliterate a chirik with an apostrophe.  The origin of "B'Shvat" is in not knowing that the vowel is a chirik.  This isn't about making a different aesthetic choice about how to transliterate that vowel; it's about putting in the wrong vowel.  It is no more correct than "Boshvat" or "Bushvat" or "Bqshvat".

2. "Tu B'Shevat" is in common usage.  It's been spelled that way in print in such-and-such authoritative source.

All this means is that lots of other people (including some people you trust) have been wrong.  Appeal to authority doesn't change the rules of Hebrew grammar.

And if you're going to try to make the descriptive lexicography argument (i.e. the fact that so many people have spelled it this way makes it a valid spelling), that's a rather tortured argument to make in this case, because it rests on the dubious proposition that English-transliterated Hebrew has a life of its own as a language evolving independently of actual Hebrew, a claim that few if any would make during the other 11 months of the year.  Most would instead say that transliterated Hebrew is merely a representation of Hebrew itself.  Therefore, the descriptive lexicography argument holds water only if there are documented cases in modern vocalized Hebrew sources in which בשבט is written with two shevas in a row.

3. "B'-" represents how people actually pronounce it.  I've never heard anyone say "Bee-".

So English speakers commonly mispronounce the word.  But should that mispronunciation be reflected in the written form?  We still write "would have" and "going to", even if people pronounce them "would of" and "gonna".  Ok, we might write "gonna" if we were trying to produce a faithful transcription of spoken language (rather than using proper language) or if we were being cutesy and casual, but that doesn't apply to otherwise serious and formal settings such as titles of books and articles (where you might expect to see "Tu B'Shevat").

And while the idea that transliteration should be a phonetic transcription of non-native speakers' mispronunciations might be an argument (however tenuous) for "Tu B'Shvat", it completely fails to justify "Tu B'Shevat", because no one has ever pronounced the "e" in "B'Shevat" (or any other vowel in that position).  Whatever you're doing when you write "B'Shevat", you're doing something other than spelling the word the way people pronounce it.

4. The actual prefix is "B'-", so "B'Shevat" illustrates the grammatical structure more clearly than "Bishvat".

If you want to indicate that the word is a prefix followed by the name of a month (a proper name), there are ways of doing this typographically without changing the vowels:  "BiShvat", "Bi-Shvat", or even "Bi'Shvat".

Yet some would claim that "B'Shevat" is superior to any of these, because it shows that the prefix "B'" is added to the word "Shevat".  This idea, that a transliteration should represent the raw morphemes that make up a word without any regard to transformations that those morphemes undergo when combined, is another one of those exotic ideas that no one would even think of (much less argue for) for 11 months of the year.  To use another holiday as an example, the word סוכות is formed by adding the suffix "-ot" to the word "sukkah".  Does anyone transliterate the name of this holiday as "Sukkahot" or "Sukkah-ot"?  Why not?

Once again, you didn't know it was a chirik, you got corrected, and rather than admitting the mistake and fixing it, you doubled down.

5. Seriously, are we really wasting our time arguing about this?  This is the modern Jewish environmental holiday, when we should be worrying about much bigger things such as the mass destruction that climate change is wreaking on the planet, not something as insignificant as a Hebrew vowel.

I certainly agree that preventing the destruction of the planet is paramount.  But this isn't an either/or:  both struggles are fundamentally the same.

In the United States, a major obstacle to taking meaningful action against climate change is that a politically influential faction denies that climate change is even happening.  To promote this view among the public and stymie needed environmental regulation, they are fighting a war on epistemology.  In this war, they are aided and abetted by the media, which seeks to appear neutral and therefore reports any issue as if it has two equally valid sides, regardless of whether one side is objectively true (since pointing that out would be "partisan").

Those who try to claim that "Tu Bishvat" and "Tu B'Shevat" are equally valid, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, are aligning themselves epistemologically with climate change "skeptics" and their media enablers.  Is this really the company you want to keep?  By reducing everything to a difference of opinion, you are contributing to this toxic intellectual atmosphere.

Safeguarding the Earth's future requires being prepared to accept inconvenient truths, whether that means the dangerous effects we are having on the climate, or whether that means that the first vowel in "Bishvat" isn't the vowel you thought it was.

Shall the rich pay more?

As noted previously on this blog, I always try to file my taxes by Rosh Chodesh Adar.  This year, that means sending in the return before the National Havurah Committee Chesapeake Retreat (February 17-19, 2012, Presidents' Day weekend), which will be exploring the vital issues of taxation, regulation, and other wise restraints that make us free, as well as having lots of fun and networking grassroots Jewish communities from across the region.

Here's this year's blurb:

Join the National Havurah Committee, havurahs and minyans from across the Mid-Atlantic Region for the NHC Chesapeake Retreat!

In parashat Mishpatim, Moses receives law concerning fines, lending, and restitution. On Shabbat Shekalim, the haftarah defines a system of census and taxation, including that “the rich shall not pay more and the poor shall not pay less” than a half-shekel. In the midst of a presidential primary, with Wall Street recently occupied, and in the weeks before Passover, how do we perceive these laws? Does equal taxation promote or hinder equality? Do regulations and taxes represent an infringement on, or an enabler of, human freedom?

Take a weekend to examine these questions while experiencing the holiness of a community that learns, prays, and rests together. Individuals, families, and havurot of all ages will gather to sing, eat, study, dance, pray, debate, relax, and bond.

If you've thought about going to the NHC Summer Institute, but stayed home because it was too long, too far, or too expensive, the regional retreat is a great way to get a taste of the experience that is shorter, cheaper, and (if you're in the Mid-Atlantic region) closer.  There are activities for all ages, and courses on both the Mishpatim/Shekalim theme and other topics from Sephardi Passover songs to farming.  Registration is entirely online this year, and work-study and scholarship assistance is available.  Register by January 16 before the price goes up (speaking of taxes and regulations).  See you there!

Winter is coming

In honor of Rosh Chodesh Tevet.  (You'll see why!)

Every Hebrew calendar geek knows the "ATBaSh" parlor trick, where if you know the day of the week of (almost) any Jewish holiday, you can quickly figure out the day of the week of (almost) any other holiday that year.  As we have blogged before, this works only for the period from Adar through Cheshvan.  Fortunately, that period includes all of the major holidays, and a few minor ones too.  But it doesn't cover the minor holidays that fall during the winter, and that's what this post will seek to do.

***

The trick dates back at least to the Tur (14th century) and it works like this:  Take the first six days of Pesach in a given year (note that the period from Adar to Cheshvan spans two Hebrew years, so we're looking at a given Gregorian year), and write the Hebrew alphabet backwards, starting from the end.  You'll find that the corresponding holidays fall on the same day of the week as that day of Pesach.

1) תשעה באב = ת  Tish'ah B'Av is always exactly 16 weeks after the first day of Pesach.  (Also, 17 Tammuz is 3 weeks before 9 Av, and therefore the same day of the week.  When they fall on Shabbat, as they will in 2012, the actual observance is delayed to Sunday.)
2) שבועות = ש  Shavuot, by definition, is 7 weeks after the second day of Pesach.
3) ראש השנה = ר  Rosh Hashanah.  (Sukkot and Shemini Atzeret are also on the same day of the week.)
4) קריאת התורה = ק  In communities that observe two days of Shemini Atzeret, this is "Simchat Torah" (on the second day of Shemini Atzeret).
5) צום כפור = צ  Yom Kippur (9 days after Rosh Hashanah, and therefore 2 days of the week later).  (Also, Tzom Gedaliah is 1 week before Yom Kippur and thus the same day of the week, except when it is delayed due to Shabbat.)
6) פורים = פ  Purim (in unwalled cities).

The original version just covered the first six days of Pesach, but the 7th day was added in the 20th century:

7) עצמאות = ע  Israeli Independence Day (at least before the Knesset starts mucking with the date).

It works so perfectly that one wonders whether this was the real reason that Ben-Gurion decided to declare independence a day before the British Mandate expired.

Other Israeli civil observances tied to the Hebrew calendar can also be located with this framework.  Yom Hashoah is always the same day of the week as Purim (again, before the Knesset reschedules it); to remember this, note that some have suggested that Yom Hashoah is the Purim story without Esther.  Yom Yerushalayim is exactly one week before Shavuot.

Finally, Lag Ba'Omer is also the same day of the week as Purim:  not hard to remember.

Rosh Hashanah can fall on only four days of the week (Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Shabbat), and therefore all of these other days are also restricted to four days.  To figure out which four days, just use the relationships above.  For example, Shavuot is on the day (of the week) before Rosh Hashanah, so it can only fall on Sunday, Monday, Wednesday, or Friday.

***

During the winter months, it's not so simple.  This is because there are three variables that can cause the calendar to be different from one year to the next:
1) Cheshvan can have 29 or 30 days.
2) Kislev can have 29 or 30 days.
3) There can be one or two months of Adar.  (In leap years, Adar I is the "extra" month, and always has 30 days.)

In order to connect winter holidays to non-winter holidays, you need to know at least one of those three pieces of information.  To keep it as simple as possible, the mnemonics below will be for a year that goes from Tevet to Kislev.  (As a convenient and coincidental memory aid, this corresponds roughly to the Gregorian year, but not precisely:  10 Tevet can fall in either December or January.  Thus some Gregorian years have two Fasts of Tevet, and some have none.)  This way, you only have to know one additional variable: the number of days in Cheshvan (to expand forward into Kislev), or whether it's a leap year (to expand backward into Tevet and Sh'vat).

Let's start with days that depend only on whether it's a leap year, since that's something you're more likely to know off the top of your head.

Tu BiShvat:  In a leap year, it's on the same day of the week as Rosh Hashanah.  (Remember, this is the following Rosh Hashanah.)  In a non-leap year, it's on the same day as Yom Kippur.  Mnemonic:  New Year of the Trees.

Since Tu BiShvat is the same day as Rosh Hashanah or Yom Kippur, there are five possible days of the week when it can fall: Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Shabbat.  (Neither Rosh Hashanah nor Yom Kippur can fall on Friday or Sunday.)

10 Tevet:  It's always one day (of the week) after Tu BiShvat. Mnemonic: Deuteronomy 20:19 says that when you besiege a city, you shouldn't cut down the trees.  Trees before siege.

Thus, 10 Tevet can also fall on five days of the week:  Sunday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday.  As a guest post here discussed, this makes it the only fast day that can fall on a Friday.  As discussed there also, it can never fall on Shabbat, which makes the question of whether we would still fast purely hypothetical.

***

Finally, Chanukah.  It's complicated because whether Cheshvan has 29 or 30 days in a given year isn't something we're likely to know without looking up.  So here's a quick way to find that from information you're more likely to have handy (which just happens to also be the way it's determined in the calendar algorithm itself).

You need to know the day of the week of Rosh Hashanah this year and next year, and whether it's a leap year.  From the number of days in between, you can figure out how many days are in the year.  Non-leap years have 353, 354, or 355 days, and leap years have 383, 384, or 385 days, and it helps to remember that 350 and 385 are both divisible by 7.  If the year has 353, 354, 383, or 384 days, then Cheshvan has 29 days; if the year has 355 or 385 days, then Cheshvan has 30 days.

Once you know that, then you can find which day of the week Chanukah begins on.  If Cheshvan has 30 days, then Chanukah begins on the same day of the week as Rosh Hashanah (exactly 12 weeks later).  If Cheshvan has 29 days, then Chanukah begins one day earlier, on the same day of the week as Shavuot.  Mnemonic:  Applesauce or sour cream?

Since Chanukah can begin on the same day as Rosh Hashanah or a day earlier, there are six days of the week when it can begin:  all of them except Tuesday, because years beginning on Tuesday can only have 354 or 384 days, so in those years, Cheshvan always has 29 days (so Chanukah begins on Monday).

***

To see this in action, let's use this year (5772) as an example.

Starting with Chanukah:  it's in 2011, so it goes with that set of holidays (Pesach on Tuesday, Rosh Hashanah on Thursday, etc.).  Did Cheshvan have 29 or 30 days?  Well, I know that Rosh Hashanah this year was on Thursday, and next year it's on a Monday, and this isn't a leap year.  From Thursday to Monday is a 4-day gap, so this year must have 350+4 = 354 days.  That means Cheshvan had 29 days.  So Chanukah began on the same day of the week as Shavuot (one day before Rosh Hashanah):  Wednesday.

For the minor holidays in Tevet and Sh'vat, we look instead at the upcoming holidays in 2012 (when Rosh Hashanah is on a Monday).  It's not a leap year, so Tu BiShvat is on the same day as Yom Kippur: Wednesday.  10 Tevet is one day later, on Thursday.

Chodesh tov!

The other question everyone is asking

Q: Is Parshat Mikeitz ever not read during Chanukah?

A: Yes, in 353- or 383-day years beginning on Shabbat.  The Shabbat start means that Bereishit isn't read until a full week after Shemini Atzeret (so the whole Torah reading cycle gets off to a relatively late start), and the deficient year (Cheshvan has 29 days) means that Chanukah comes sooner than otherwise.  In those years, the Shabbat during Chanukah (on day 2) is Vayeishev, and Mikeitz is the day after Chanukah ends.  (In 355- or 385-day years beginning on Shabbat, Cheshvan has 30 days, so Chanukah starts one day later, and contains two Shabbatot: Vayeishev and Mikeitz.)

Overall, this occurs in about 10% of years, but during the current decade, there's a drought.  The last time the actual haftarah for Mikeitz (the famous story of Solomon offering to cut the baby in half) was read was December 2000, and the next time will be December 2020.

Darkness falls across the land

Happy solstice festivals!  This year (as every year, but more so for some reason), a number of people have been asking this question: Why isn’t the earliest sunset on the date of the solstice? Indeed, the solstice this year is at 05:30 UT (12:30 am EST) on December 22, while the earliest sundown in many places (as many noticed, particularly Sabbath observers) was around two weeks earlier. (This depends on location, but here in the DC area, the earliest sundown was at 4:45 pm on December 7, while sundown on December 22 will be 4:49 pm.)

The answer to this question depends on what you mean by “why”, and I’ll try to answer both interpretations of the question.

(I apologize to readers in the southern hemisphere that this post is written from a borealocentric perspective.  To apply it to the southern half of the globe, either change "December" to "June" (and switch around some of the specifics), or change "shortest" to "longest" and swap "earliest" with "latest".)

1) Phenomenological:  I thought the solstice was the shortest day! If the earliest sundown was on December 7, why don’t we call that the solstice?

The winter solstice is indeed the day with the shortest amount of daylight (i.e. the shortest time from sunrise to sunset).  But sunrise and sunset times don't move symmetrically.  During the fall, sunset times are getting earlier and sunrise times are getting later.  But after we hit the earliest sunset (sometime last fortnight), sunset starts getting later again (albeit slowly*), while sunrise continues getting later (somewhat faster).  Thus, the day is still getting shorter.  This continues until the solstice.  After the solstice, sunrise is still getting later but has slowed down, while sundown is also getting later and has sped up, so the day is getting longer.  Finally, sometime in early January, we get to the latest sunrise, after which sunrise starts getting earlier.

This is all easy to overlook since many of us, for a variety of reasons, are more attuned to sundown times than to sunrise times.

[* For those familiar with calculus, this makes sense if sunset time is a smooth function:  on the date of the earliest sunset time, its derivative is zero; therefore, near that date, its derivative must be small.]

For a concrete example:  Here in DC, sunrise on December 7 was 7:12 am (so the time from sunrise to sunset was 9 hours 33 minutes), and on December 22 it will be 7:23 am (so sunrise to sunset will be 9 hours 26 minutes, which is shorter!).  The latest sunrise in DC won't be until January 6, when it is 7:26 am.  (On that day, sunset will be as late as 5:00 pm, so sunrise to sunset will be 9 hours 34 minutes, longer than on the solstice.)

(Ok, technically the latest sunrise was actually 7:39 am the first weekend in November just before we "fell back", because this country is addicted to Daylight Saving Time and stays on it much longer than it should, but that's just a clock trick that's neither here nor there.)

2) Mechanistic: Ok, but why don’t sunrise and sunset move symmetrically?

Yeah, why?  It doesn't seem like they should be independent, because the same mechanism is responsible for the changes in both sunrise and sunset times, right?  The earth's tilt means that you get different amounts of light and darkness each day depending on where you're located in the annual orbit (the standard explanation for the cause of seasons).  And there's no reason this should affect sunrise and sunset differently (after all, we would expect the earth-sun system to look basically the same if we ran time backwards).

The answer is that, separate from the seasonal variation in day length, there is also variation in the time of solar noon (the time halfway between sunrise and sunset, when the sun is at its highest point in the sky).  This variation is known as the equation of time, and is the same everywhere on the planet (unlike day length, which depends on latitude).  That Wikipedia link explains it in more detail than you ever wanted, but here are the basics:

The equation of time is the result of two factors: a) the eccentricity of the earth's orbit, b) the earth's tilt.  So if the earth's axis were not tilted and the earth's orbit were perfectly circular, then there would be no variation in solar noon, and the earliest sunset (and latest sunrise) would indeed be on the date of the solstice.

a) Eccentricity: The earth's orbit is an ellipse, not a circle.  It's close to a circle (the eccentricity is only 0.0167), so the earth-sun distance doesn't vary substantially over the course of the year; contrary to a popular belief, this is not the cause of seasons.  However, the eccentricity has another effect:  As described by Kepler's second law (and explained by conservation of angular momentum), Earth's speed as it moves around the sun is not uniform:  it moves faster when it is closer to the sun, and it is closest to the sun in January.
Not every solar day is 24 hours: that's just the average over the entire year.  The solar day (time from one noon to the next) is equal to the sidereal day (the time it takes for Earth to rotate once on its axis, relative to faraway points such as other stars:  about 23 hours 56 minutes), plus the extra amount of time it has to rotate so that the sun is at its highest point again, to account for the fact that the earth moved a little bit during that day.  The earth moves through about 1/365 of its orbit every day, so this extra rotation should be about 1/365 of a circle, and should take about 1/365 of a day:  about 4 minutes.

But at times of the year when the earth is moving faster (e.g. close to January), it moves through more than 1/365 of its orbit each day, so this extra rotation is more than 4 minutes, and the time from one solar noon to the next is more than 24 hours.  Solar noon gets later each day, which is exactly what we see above, with the sunrise and sunset data.  At times of the year when the earth is farther from the sun and moving slower (e.g. close to July), it's the opposite.

b) Tilt:  Around the two solstices, part a is basically the whole story.  But around the equinoxes, Earth's rotation is at an angle (up to 23.5°) relative to its motion around the sun.  This means that the Earth's motion around the sun in a single day corresponds to less rotation around the axis, so it has the same effect as the earth moving slower: solar noon gets earlier each day.

Putting the two parts together, the combined effect is greater around the December solstice, since the two parts act in the same direction: both the solstice and the nearby perihelion cause noon to drift later.  Around the June solstice, the effect still exists, but is less pronounced, because the solstice and the nearby aphelion act in opposite directions.  (In DC in 2012, the summer solstice is on June 20, the latest sundown is on June 27, and the earliest sunrise is on June 13 or 14.  So there's still a difference, but it's not as big.)

***

Advanced section:

In thinking about this question, it occurs to me that sunrise time and sunset time, as time-dependent variables, can (like any other pair of functions) be decomposed into a symmetric and an antisymmetric part (or, if you like, a differential and a common-mode signal). The antisymmetric (differential) component is the length of the day (call it L), and the symmetric (common-mode) component is the time of local noon (call it N), relative to the average solar noon in that location. (There’s also a “DC offset” (call it D) representing the time of average solar noon, which is by definition constant throughout the year and depends only on longitude – essentially where you are within your time zone – but that doesn't tell us anything interesting.) I think this is a more natural choice of basis to understand what’s going on.

Sunrise time can be expressed as D + N – L/2, and sunset time can be expressed as D + N + L/2. (This analysis requires the approximation that these variables change slowly enough that fluctuations on the scale of less than a day are negligible, so that on a given day, N and L have the same value at sunrise as they do at sunset.)

Then we can look at each variable separately to see what affects it.

L has two components:  L₀ is constant, equal to 12 hours plus a few extra minutes to account for the refraction of light in the atmosphere (so in a vacuum, it would be exactly 12 hours).  L₁ is a periodic function with a period of one year.  The amplitude of this function depends on latitude, while the period and phase are the same everywhere.  At the equator, the amplitude is zero (so the day length is 12 hours and change for the entire year), and the amplitude increases as you go up in latitude.  In the southern hemisphere, the amplitude is negative (or you could call it positive and call the northern hemisphere negative; you'd just have to shift the phase by 180°).  Inside the polar circles, it starts to break down, since there are parts of the year when the sun never sets/rises, so L isn't well-defined.  The minimum and maximum of L are on the solstices.

N is the equation of time (but with the reverse sign because of the convention of how the equation of time is defined).  As shown in the Wikipedia article (and its graphs), it has two Fourier components: N₁ (for eccentricity) with a period of a year, and N₂ (for tilt) with a period of half a year.  This function is the same everywhere on earth.  The two zeroes of N₁ are at perihelion and aphelion, so the maximum and minimum are about halfway in between.  The four zeros of N₂ are at the solstices and equinoxes, so the maxima and minima are about halfway in between those.

Putting this together, it becomes clear why the date of the earliest/latest sunrise/sunset depends on latitude:  you're combining functions with two different periods, and the extrema of the combined function will depend on the amplitudes of the components (set the derivative to zero and solve!), and the amplitude of L₁ varies with latitude.

#OccupytheMinyanConference

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

This past weekend, the great city of Washington DC played host to Mechon Hadar’s fourth (approximately sesquiannual) Minyan Conference. Unlike the previous conferences, this one wasn’t called the Independent Minyan Conference (at least not exclusively). This wasn’t because the 10-1/2-year-old Kehilat Hadar is no longer an “independent minyan” by some definitions; it’s because the conference broadened its reach to other lay-led minyanim that are affiliated with larger institutions, such as synagogues and Hillels.

I was there representing Minyan Segulah (on the DC/Maryland border), and it was a great opportunity to network with organizers of other minyanim from San Francisco to London, discuss issues facing our communities, and yadda yadda yadda.

But I wanted to share one highlight. The prayer options on Friday night and Saturday morning included 5 local minyanim (including Segulah). For Shabbat mincha, there were two options at the conference location: a traditional egalitarian minyan downstairs, and a partnership minyan upstairs. Then during se’udah shelishit, they announced the same two options for ma’ariv. Some participants stood up and made another announcement: “We were also thinking about doing something alternative. If you’re interested, come to [location].” Multiple people shouted out “What is it?” They responded “Come to [location] and help figure it out.”

On the basis of no information beyond “something alternative”, 43 people showed up (out of around 120 participants).

As one might have expected from the announcement, there wasn’t a specific plan. A substantial fraction of the ~15 minutes allotted for ma’ariv was spent discussing what we should do. We also sang several niggunim (one of which had been taught at a session earlier that day, another of which was taught right then), and someone talked about transitioning from Shabbat into the week, and someone else connected Parshat Lech Lecha to her own recent experiences. And then it was time to join the rest of the group for havdalah.

A few of us were debriefing afterwards, and we agreed that this had been “Occupy the Minyan Conference”: get the people on board first, and the specific policy proposals come later. The significance of this event wasn’t the content, but the fact that so many people were attracted to it. There was a visible feeling of “We are the 36%”, and the excitement that we all knew from going to the first meeting of a new minyan, and a sense of empowered Judaism (two people spoke this gathering into being, and it was so). I don’t know what the larger message is (beyond the obvious – that anyone trying to generalize about the independent minyan organizer population (and, kal vachomer, the independent minyan participant population), by ascribing to them a particular religious outlook and style of practice, is being lazy and missing the mark). But it was a reminder not to let anything get stale.

Reform surrender

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)


Happy 5772! Another year, another blog post I don’t really want to write. But I’m writing it anyway, because who else will? Criticizing the Reform movement on its own terms (as opposed to either not criticizing it, or judging it by external standards) is a lonely beat.

An article that everyone has been commenting on lately is “Campus Life 201: Trying Out Frum“, from the Fall 2011 issue of Reform Judaism magazine. The author, a Yale undergrad “raised in a committed Reform household”, tells the story of a week in which she adopted various practices including kashrut, praying three times a day (apparently with a non-egalitarian minyan), praying before and after eating, and wearing long skirts.

Some of the other blogs that have picked up this article have understood it a certain way: one blog gives it the headline “Reform Girl Tries Out Orthodox Judaism For a Week”, and another describes the experiment as “practicing Orthodox Judaism for a week”.

Had this been the actual stated objective of the experiment, I would have no objections. There are many streams in modern Judaism, and each one could stand to gain a better understanding of the others. One way to gain this understanding is by experience. (I’ve visited many types of Jewish communities myself, and occasionally I’ll pray out of a Yemenite siddur just to shake things up.)

But those who characterized the experiment this way didn’t read closely enough. Just as the word list in the famous psych experiment doesn’t include the word “sleep”, this article doesn’t use the word “Orthodox” even once.

In the author’s own words, the aim was different: “For seven days, I would do every Jewish ritual I could think of—big or small, no exceptions—to see whether rituals I had never tried or been mindful of would be meaningful to me.” This was done in order to “g[i]ve the informed choices I make as a Reform Jew renewed depth and meaning”.

Starting with this goal, there are a lot of different ways that this week could have gone. For example, it could have looked something like The Year of Living Biblically by A.J. Jacobs, an amusing read in which Jacobs chronicles his attempt to observe all the biblical commandments, including the more obscure ones such as shiluach hakein. Of course, modern Judaism (in all its forms) is more than just biblical, so one could envision a version of this that also includes practices originating in rabbinic literature and later. This experiment could have included a broad assortment of rituals (some still observed today, and others revived for this purpose) taken from all periods of Jewish history, and practiced in all parts of the Jewish world. Imagine shacharit from Kol Haneshamah, mincha from Nusach Ari, and ma’ariv from Seder Rav Amram, or the non-prayer equivalent of all that.

But that’s not how it ended up. (At least that’s not how it was described in the Reform Judaism article; the experiment may have included a wider variety of Jewish rituals, but we don’t have any written evidence for that.) Instead, the actual implementation looks a whole lot like a week in the life of a 21st-century American Modern Orthodox college student (albeit with more self-reflection). And not just any Orthodox college student, but specifically, a female one. Thus, “every Jewish ritual [she] could think of” didn’t include things like tefillin or tzitzit, which seem to be standard stops for people (of all genders) who are experimenting with Jewish rituals. Perhaps she didn’t think of those. But then in the discussion of “modest” clothing, the author mentions “male friends who wear kippot”. So if kippot count as a ritual (and I’m not sure I would classify them as such, but they certainly count at least as much as skirts do), then they are an example of a ritual that the author thought of (which we know because she wrote about it) but didn’t try (as far as we are told).

Thus the implementation involved Orthodox gender roles, contemporary Orthodox modes of dress, contemporary Orthodox views of kashrut (the author checks cookies for a hechsher – a practice that certainly originated after the Reform/Orthodox split), and apparently an Orthodox daily minyan (the author writes that “as a woman I simply did not count”). So the bloggers who characterized this experiment as “Orthodox Judaism for a week” can be forgiven for making that leap. Though it was framed as an exploration in informed autonomy, “Orthodox Judaism for a week” is basically how it turned out.

My point here isn’t to pick on some college student. As I wrote in Hilchot Pluralism Part VI, this result is typical when you bring together students from Reform and Orthodox backgrounds. When one group of students is brought up to self-identify as “not doing everything” and another group is brought up to self-identify as “doing everything”, the first group can hardly be faulted for believing the second group, when they haven’t been given any alternative paradigm. (Besides, as a Harvard alum married to a Princeton alum, I have low expectations for anything coming out of Yale, alma mater of George W. Bush and C. Montgomery Burns.)

Rather, my reaction is summed up (mutatis mutandis) by David Hammer, in his response to an article by an engineering undergrad who had volunteered to teach physics in a first-grade classroom:

I do not fault the author: He was new to thinking about science teaching, in a context that inspired presumption, and his intentions and enthusiasm were sincere. I would welcome Physics for First-Graders as an early paper in a science education seminar, hoping to see more sophistication later in the semester. But I cannot fathom the decision at Kappan to publish the ingenuous impressions of a novice, as if they represented an important contribution to the community. The Professional Journal for Education should have more respect for the profession.

Reform Judaism is an official publication of the Union for Reform Judaism, mailed out to every member of a URJ congregation. As such, I think it was irresponsible for them to print this article. The URJ is supposed to be “for Reform Judaism”, but by running this article, it is promoting the frame that being “more observant” is synonymous with Orthodox Judaism. In this frame, Reform Jews can make choices about their observance, but the menu from which they make these choices is contemporary Orthodox Judaism (rather than the full scope of Jewish practice from the past, present, and future).

At the end of “frum week”, this author decided that this lifestyle wasn’t for her, mostly because it was too difficult (plus one sentence on why it was ideologically problematic). But someone else might be inspired by this article to try out the same experiment, and might not come to the same conclusion of “Davening is hard. Let’s go shopping!“. Thus Reform Judaism finds itself in the position of doing recruiting for Orthodox Judaism, by promoting the frame that Reform is a sampler but Orthodox is the real deal. Even if many Reform Jews do indeed think of their Judaism this way, the movement’s official institutions and publications should be showing more leadership and presenting alternative options. Even if many Reform Jews have already surrendered their sense of authenticity, the movement shouldn’t be joining them in retreat.

It's a trap!

This morning on the bus, I picked up a copy of the Washington Examiner (a free conservative local paper) that had been left on my seat.

On page 2, there is an editorial saying that the "debt-ceiling debate" "misses the larger point", because it doesn't address the long-term debt.  The editorial praises the Cut, Cap and Balance Act, "a concrete plan for avoiding default, getting federal spending under control and putting the federal government on the road to a permanent spending, taxes and debt settlement," [serial commas missing in original!] and attacks President Obama and the Democrats for "keeping the federal spending spigot wide open."

On page 4, there is an article with the lede "A new study shows Maryland's unemployment rate would nearly double ... if federal spending is cut by 22 percent as recommended by President Obama's deficit commission."

This is a preview of what the 2012 election will look like.

Triage

In a democracy, the people are sovereign.  Our elected representatives work for us.  This org chart for the New York City government has it right:  the various city departments are underneath the deputy mayors, who are under the mayor, and at the very top of the chart, above the mayor, are "the voters of the City of New York".

Voting in an election is different from voting in a legislature, because elections are by secret ballot.  This is necessary and unavoidable.  As corrupt as our elections have become, the billions of dollars spent on political campaigns ultimately have no power over voters beyond the power of persuasion (often combined with deception and fearmongering).  The same is not true for the money spent on buying legislators.  And if we were to eliminate the secret ballot, electoral voting would become as corrupt as legislative voting, and possibly much worse.  Many opportunities would arise to coerce voters with carrots and sticks.  (Do you want to keep your job at Wal-Mart?)

So I'm not suggesting that we eliminate the secret ballot.  However, we should recognize that it has real tradeoffs.

Legislative votes are public, so legislators can be held accountable for their votes.  This can happen in the next election.  And even legislators who aren't running for reelection might be concerned about their legacies.  But voters have all the power (albeit diffuse over a large population) with none of the individual accountability that would ordinarily come with being at the top of the org chart.  The costs of bad decisions at the polls are completely externalized.

This is part of why systems like California's (with more direct democracy) are flawed.  Direct democracy sounds good on paper, but the secret ballot means that it lacks the safeguards that representative democracy has.  California voters can pass irresponsible initiatives like Prop 13, and then leave it to someone else to clean up the mess.

We can see the negative consequences of the secret ballot in the present debt-limit crisis.  If the unthinkable happens and we hit the debt limit next week, then (in the absence of 14th-Amendment remedies or other emergency solutions) President Obama and the executive branch will have to start making decisions about which bills the government will stop paying.  The most just way to proceed (if the secret ballot didn't make it impossible) would be to cut off Social Security checks to people who voted Republican in 2010.  Why should the innocent suffer along with the guilty?

In the absence of the data needed to implement such a solution, we'll have to settle for blunter instruments such as cutting off all Social Security checks to House districts represented by Republicans until the debt ceiling is raised.  Anyone who has a problem with this could contact their congressman.

The Wedding...: omnibus edition

If you got here via the "Kiddushin Meets 21st-Century Egalitarianism" course, welcome!  Here are the links to Mah Rabu's wedding series, all in one place:

• Part 1
• Part 2
• Part 3
• Part 4
• Part 5

For everyone else:  This series of blog posts has been assigned for Talya Weisbard Shalem's course on "Kiddushin Meets 21st-Century Egalitarianism", at this year's National Havurah Committee Summer Institute, to take place August 1-7, 2011, at Franklin Pierce College in Rindge, New Hampshire (though it would be indisputably in Massachusetts if it weren't for George II).

If you're interested in taking this class, or one (or two!) of the 20+ other fantastic courses, it's not too late to register for Institute!  You shan't regret it.

One person one vote?

Like many jurisdictions across the country, the District of Columbia is redistricting this year, to make sure its 8 wards continue to have roughly equal populations following the 2010 Census.  This means Ward 2 (downtown) has to get smaller, Wards 7 and 8 (east of the river) have to get larger, and Ward 6 (located between Wards 2 and 7&8) has to shift over.

DC Councilmembers are elected to 4-year terms, with half of the Council elected every 2 years.  Thus, Council terms are staggered, much like the U.S. Senate (but with only 2 classes, not 3).

This combination of redistricting and staggering is unusual.  For example, the U.S. Senate is staggered, but is (unfortunately) not subject to redistricting.  Conversely, the U.S. House is redistricted every 10 years, but all representatives are elected at the same time.  (Any special House elections between now and November 2012 will be based on the old 2000 Census districts, even in states that have completed redistricting.)  Many state legislatures operate the same way.

This unusual combination leads to some strange consequences, which I haven't heard anyone else discuss.  Take, as an example, Wards 2 and 6, since they are mutually exchanging territory.  Ward 2 is currently represented by Jack Evans, who was last elected in 2008.  Ward 6 is represented by Tommy Wells, last elected in 2010.  This means that the people who live in the part of Ward 6 that is being transferred to Ward 2 got to vote for (or against) Wells in 2010, and then will vote again in the Ward 2 election in 2012.  Thus, for the 2013-14 term, they will be represented by two different ward-based councilmembers:  Wells (from Ward 6) and the councilmember from Ward 2.  The people who live in the part of Ward 2 that is being transferred to Ward 6 have the opposite situation:  they didn't vote in 2010, and they won't be able to vote in 2012 either.  Thus, from 2013-14, they will not have had the opportunity to vote for any current members of the Council (except the at-large councilmembers).

Does this violate the principle of "one person, one vote"?  Would the voters in these neighborhoods (Mt. Vernon Square and Shaw) have standing to bring a lawsuit?  Are there other jurisdictions outside DC with the same issue?

NEW YORK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you miss me in Connecticut, and you can't find me nowhere...

Judgment Day November 14?

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

So the world didn’t end yesterday. To be fair, they weren’t actually predicting the end of the world until October 21, at the conclusion of five months of torment for those of us left behind. Yesterday was supposed to be only Judgment Day. But that didn’t happen either.

Of course this is all nonsense, but we can check their math and see whether it is at least internally consistent nonsense.

Let’s start with the year:

According to the tract explaining the calculations, the world was created in 11,013 “BC”, so we are now in the year 13,023 from creation. (It’s one less than you think because there was no year zero; 1 BCE was followed immediately by 1 CE.) The biblical flood occurred in the year 4990 “BC”, 6023 years after creation. God says in Genesis 7:4 that the flood will come in 7 days, and since one day to God is like 1000 years to us (they cite a New Testament verse for this, but we have the same idea in Psalm 90:4), this means the world will be destroyed 7000 years later, which comes out to 2011 CE.

I was baffled at how they arrived at this year count in the first place. According to the Jewish calendar, we are now in the year 5771 from creation, and the flood took place in the year 1656 from creation (4115 years ago, or 2105 BCE). While the exact count of the number of years from “creation” is somewhat controversial (particularly at the interface between biblical chronology and real history), counting the years in Genesis from creation to the flood is very easy, since we have a detailed list of how long each ancestor lived before the next generation was born. Assuming they’re reading the same Bible (and I just checked the King James and the numbers are the same), it’s hard to see how the totals could be off by so much. At first glance I thought they were just applying the same principle that 1 day to God is 1000 years to us, so the six days of creation would add an extra 5999 years (subtract one because, according to the rabbis, humans were created on Rosh Hashanah of the year 2, so creation began on 25 Elul of the year 1). But that can’t be it, because the time from the end of creation to the flood has to be much more than 24 years.

So I did some googling and it turns out that they get this chronology based on a general principle that a generation is a lifespan, so in these biblical genealogies, we can assume that the son was born in the year that the father died. For example, since Genesis 5:11 says that Enosh lived 905 years, they ascertain that the time from Enosh’s birth to his son Kenan’s birth was 905 years. Thus they completely disregard the explicit statements in Genesis 5:9-10 that Enosh lived for 90 years and then fathered Kenan, and then lived 815 years after that. By this method, they arrive at a stretched-out chronology. If they hadn’t done this, then the 7000-year anniversary of the flood wouldn’t take place until 4896 CE, so the end would be far from nigh.


Now let’s look at the day of the year.

According to Genesis 7:11, the flood began on the 17th day of the 2nd month. In the Hebrew calendar, even though the year begins in Tishrei (in the fall), the 1st month is Nisan (in the spring), and so we observe all the biblical holidays accordingly: Pesach (in “the first month”) in Nisan, and all the holidays of the “seventh month” in Tishrei. Based on this, the 2nd month would be Iyar, and yesterday (May 21, 2011) was indeed the 17th of Iyar, which would make it the anniversary of the flood by this count.

But it’s not that simple. First of all, yes, yesterday was 17 Iyar for the Jews, and that’s based on Rosh Chodesh Iyar having been on Thursday, May 5. But the actual astronomical new moon was on Tuesday, May 3. In our calendar algorithm, Rosh Chodesh is frequently observed later than the actual new moon due to various considerations: for example, Rosh Hashanah in the coming year will be on Thursday rather than Wednesday, so that Yom Kippur will not fall on Friday, immediately before Shabbat. By stating that yesterday was the 17th of the month, are these Christians endorsing rabbinic rules that were instituted centuries after the Jewish-Christian split?

Second of all, it’s not so clear that “the second month” in this context would be Iyar. In Exodus 12:2, God commands very clearly that “this month” (the month in which Pesach takes place, in the spring, understood to be Nisan) shall be the first of months. But the rabbis are split on which month was the first month before this command was given. In a baraita at Rosh Hashanah 10b-11a, Rabbi Eliezer says the world was created in Tishrei, and Rabbi Yehoshua says the world was created in Nisan. In another baraita at Rosh Hashanah 11b, it is made clear that in dating the flood, both of them count the months from creation. Since the flood began on the 17th day of the 2nd month, Rabbi Eliezer places it on 17 Cheshvan (the 2nd month starting from Tishrei), and Rabbi Yehoshua places it on 17 Iyar (the 2nd month starting from Nisan).

The May 21 doomsayers seem to be following R. Yehoshua, so they have some support for their position, but it is R. Eliezer’s view that has survived in Jewish tradition. Rosh Hashanah (1 Tishrei), not Nisan, is when we mark the anniversary of the world’s birth. The date 17 Cheshvan also comes up in Mishnah Ta’anit 1:4. The rainy season in Israel begins in Cheshvan, and the Mishnah says that if it hasn’t rained by 17 Cheshvan, individuals begin fasting for rain. The Yerushalmi (Ta’anit 64a) connects this date directly to the beginning of the flood. This is not a stretch, since both the biblical flood story and the theology of Masechet Ta’anit see rain as something sent by God in response to human actions. You can’t make the same connection for 17 Iyar, which is nowhere near the rainy season.

If the anniversary of the flood is on 17 Cheshvan in 2011 CE, then it won’t occur until Monday, November 14. Still, it’s not surprising that the Judgment Day folks went with May 21 instead. In yet another baraita at Rosh Hashanah 12a, it says that the sages of Israel date the flood according to R. Eliezer, and the sages of the nations of the world date the flood according to R. Yehoshua.

Finally, what’s up with October 21, 2011, as the end of the world?

They cite a verse from Revelation saying that people (excluding those who are raptured) will be tormented for 5 months after Judgment Day. Add 5 months to May 21 and you get October 21. Of course, this would be 5 Gregorian months, even though they got to May 21 in the first place by using the Hebrew calendar (and 5 lunar months after 17 Iyar would be 17 Tishrei, or October 15, 2011). But the Gregorian calendar is the Christian calendar, so we’ll give them that one.

But then they note that “October 21st of 2011 is also the last day of the Biblical Feast of Tabernacles”, and see eschatological significance in this (which, to be fair, we do too — check out Zechariah 14, the haftarah for the first day of Sukkot). Except that they’re wrong. Depending on how you look at it, “the last day of the Biblical Feast of Tabernacles” could refer to the 7th day of Sukkot (21 Tishrei) or to Shemini Atzeret (22 Tishrei). But October 21, 2011, is 23 Tishrei, the day that some Diaspora Jews observe as the 2nd day of Shemini Atzeret, or “Simchat Torah”. Even though this is still a holiday for some, no one would consider it to be a day of Sukkot: e.g., even though some have the practice of still eating in the sukkah on 22 Tishrei, no one does on 23 Tishrei. And even if some did, they’re talking about the biblical festival. There’s no way that Christian eschatology incorporates yom tov sheini, and in any case, the apocalypse should be centered on the land of Israel, where all agree that 23 Tishrei is not a holiday. So instead, they should expect the end of the world anywhere between October 15 (the 3rd day of Sukkot, 5 lunar months after 17 Iyar) and October 20 (Shemini Atzeret, the latest day that could reasonably be considered “the last day of the Feast of Tabernacles”).

Tax me!

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

In the District of Columbia, the highest income tax bracket begins at $40,000. You read that right: a person making $40,000/year and a person making $40,000,000/year are taxed at the same marginal rate.

Like many states across the country, DC is in a budget crunch this year because the recession leads to both lower tax revenues and higher demand for safety-net services. As a result, DC’s social safety net is at risk. Mayor Vincent Gray’s proposed budget makes the tax brackets ever so slightly more progressive, with an additional 0.4% tax on income above $200,000. This is a trivial increase for high-income earners (millionaires would owe another $3200 per year), and still would not prevent cuts to the safety set, but it is a step in the right direction. Yet some Councilmembers are opposing even this minor tax increase.

Enter the Jewish community. As the Washington Jewish Week reports this week, DC’s Jewish community, led by Jews United For Justice, has been at the forefront of efforts to tell the Council that the people of DC really wouldn’t mind paying higher taxes in exchange for a better city to live in. (91% of people in the affluent Wards 2 and 3 support a tax increase.)

The article also includes an obligatory quote from a (probably Jewish) libertarian representing midat Sedom (”What’s mine is mine”), riddled with factual errors (in addition to what ZT points out in the comments, I don’t think the DC Treasury actually accepts donations — this would run afoul of corruption laws).

Still, most of the Jewish community understands that we all have obligations to our society and to our neighbors. If you live in DC and want to make sure that this perspective wins out, get involved with JUFJ’s efforts.

In defense of autonomy

(Crossposted to Jewschool.)

The article making the rounds this week is Rabbi Leon Morris’s oped in the JTA, “Reform Judaism must move beyond ‘personal choice’”. In past blog posts, I have both agreed and respectfully disagreed with Rabbi Morris; here I’m going to do the latter (from my usual perch as a Reform Jewish expat).

Rabbi Morris’s thesis is “A 21st century Reform Judaism can no longer afford to have ‘personal choice’ as its core principle because it eclipses other more central Jewish values that are needed now more than ever.” And I certainly don’t take issue with those other Jewish values, including “an increased commitment to Jewish study” and “committed core of learned and deeply engaged liberal Jews whose lives revolve around the Hebrew calendar and who are immersed in the study and application of Jewish texts”. Yes, these are needed now more than ever. But I think he’s beating up on a straw man, and basing his argument on two unfounded claims:

1) “Personal choice” is the core principle of Reform Judaism.
2) “Personal choice” is to blame for the Reform movement’s ills.

I’ll address these points one at a time.

1) No, “personal choice” is not the core principle of Reform Judaism.

The core principles of Reform Judaism are the same as the core principles of any other stream of Judaism. “Personal choice” takes center stage only when Reform is contrasted with other denominations. Calling it the core principle of Reform Judaism is like saying that the 24-second clock is the core principle of NBA basketball. Yes, the 24-second clock is one rule that distinguishes NBA basketball from other forms of basketball, but the core principle of NBA basketball (like any form of basketball) is still getting the ball into the hoop.

But don’t take my word for it; take a look at the CCAR’s official platforms. The 1998 Pittsburgh Principles have God, Torah, and Israel as the three major section headings — what you would expect from any Jewish religious movement. Under these headings, there are 30 separate principles, and I count at least 22 (a solid majority) that people from all major Jewish religious streams would agree with. (And among the other principles, some of them are non-universal for self-referential reasons, e.g. “We are committed to promoting and strengthening Progressive Judaism in Israel…” and “We are committed to furthering Progressive Judaism throughout the world…”, which non-progressive Jews would disagree with because they already disagree with progressive Judaism.) “Personal choice”, “autonomy”, etc., do not appear explicitly at all. The closest approach is “We are committed to the ongoing study of the whole array of mitzvot and to the fulfillment of those that address us as individuals and as a community”, and even there you can only find it if you know what to look for. So in the CCAR’s most recent platform, personal choice/autonomy constitutes less than 1 of the top 30 principles.

The previous platform, the 1976 Centenary Perspective, had a greater focus on autonomy. This is manifested in such statements as “Jewish obligation begins with the informed will of every individual”, “Reform Jews respond to change in various ways according to the Reform principle of the autonomy of the individual”, and “We stand open to any position thoughtfully and conscientiously advocated in the spirit of Reform Jewish belief.” Still, this platform lays out principles under the subheadings of “God”, “The People Israel”, “Torah”, “Our Religious Obligations: Religious Practice”, “Our Obligations: The State of Israel and the Diaspora”, and “Our Obligations: Survival and Service”, and only one of those sections (”Our Religious Obligations: Religious Practice”) includes any mention of choice/autonomy. There, autonomy is a means, not an end.

The earlier platforms, before 1976, don’t have anything remotely close to personal choice; the tone was that the authors of the platforms knew what was best for everyone.

Ok, so even if “personal choice” isn’t the core principle of theoretical Reform Judaism as expressed in official platforms, is it the core principle of folk Reform Judaism as popularly understood by self-identified Reform Jews? I don’t have any scientific data on this, but I suspect that most Reform Jews, if asked to explain their religion on one foot to someone from New Guinea who had never met a Jew, wouldn’t start with personal choice, but would start with elements that are common to all Jewish denominations. Personal choice would only start to come up if they were asked to explain Reform Judaism to an Orthodox or secular Jew from Israel who had never met a Reform Jew. (And even then, I’m not sure that this is the tack that the typical low-information Reform Jew would take in distinguishing Reform from other denominations; I think many would instead say some version of “We’re Reform(ed), so we don’t do that.”)

And I do think Rabbi Morris is indeed talking about the core principles of Reform Judaism in the absolute, and not just the core differences between Reform Judaism and other types of Judaism, since the other principles that he proposes replacing “personal choice” with are not unique to Reform Judaism — they are embraced (at least on paper) by the other movements as well. On this absolute scale, it is not accurate to say that personal choice is the core principle of Reform Judaism, either in theory or in practice.

2) No, autonomy is not the problem.

I’m going to run the risk of spawning a completely off-topic comment thread and say this anyway: Rabbi Morris’s response to autonomy in Reform Judaism reminds me of the Right’s response to the Obama stimulus.

President Obama proposed a stimulus that many economists warned was insufficiently large (even before it was cut down further by Congress) to pull the economy out of recession. When, as predicted, unemployment remained high after the stimulus (albeit not as high as it would have gone without the stimulus), the Republicans drew the conclusion that the stimulus had failed, that the very principles of Keynesian fiscal policy were at fault, and that the solution was fiscal austerity.

I don’t dispute that much of the Reform movement is characterized by ignorance and lack of commitment. But it is inappropriate to blame this on an ideology that has never been fully put into practice in the Reform movement, particularly in the more ignorant and uncommitted segments. I haven’t found Reform communities where informed autonomy truly exists as a way of life; I have only been able to find this in non-denominational communities.

The Centenary Perspective (the platform with the greatest embrace of autonomy) says “Within each area of Jewish observance Reform Jews are called upon to confront the claims of Jewish tradition, however differently perceived, and to exercise their individual autonomy, choosing and creating on the basis of commitment and knowledge.” This frames informed autonomy not as a privilege but as a responsibility. A Reform Jew who truly believes in informed autonomy has the obligation to study Jewish texts to the point where s/he can make educated choices about all areas of Jewish practice. In principle Reform Jews have the responsibility to become far more knowledgeable than Orthodox or Conservative Jews (who can defer to their rabbi’s p’sak) or Reconstructionist Jews (who can defer to their community’s consensus). Needless to say, this is not how it works out in practice.

Rabbi Morris would have us believe that this failure of informed autonomy qua responsibility to take root among the masses is an inevitable consequence of an ideology that lacks the power to motivate. I would respond that the experiment hasn’t been attempted. Reform institutions have not provided the tools necessary for individuals to carry out the demands of informed autonomy. It’s not like Reform synagogues across the country are offering advanced Talmud shiurim (or even introductory Talmud shiurim, in the original language) that no one is showing up to. And even if there are opportunities outside the movement for high-level Jewish learning, the Reform movement’s culture is not one that values this among laypeople. Individuals who express interest in learning more are told “You should become a rabbi”, not “You should become an educated Reform Jew”.

But it’s not just that the Reform movement hasn’t embraced the “informed” part of informed autonomy (which is part of Rabbi Morris’s point); it has never truly embraced the “autonomy” part either. The average rank-and-file Reform Jew may exercise autonomy in selectively opting in and out of Jewish life, but when he is in a Jewish context, he does what he is told. To take prayer as just one example, Reform synagogues are the Jewish worship contexts in which it is least socially acceptable for individual participants to have their own practices about when to sit and stand, or which siddur to use, or what to be doing at any point during the service. Instructions are given throughout, and everyone is expected to conform. Rabbis may have less power on paper in Reform Judaism than in other movements (in which they render binding p’sak), but in practice, they are granted more elevated clerical status by Reform Jews than anywhere else in the non-haredi Jewish world. Rabbis are considered indispensable to “officiate” at any sort of Jewish ritual; most laypeople do not feel empowered to do it themselves.

What we see is not informed autonomy gone too far, but rather a population that is neither Jewishly informed nor Jewishly autonomous.

While we don’t have empirical data on what the Reform movement would look like if informed autonomy were a large-scale reality, we do have data from another controlled experiment: Let’s say you start with a population that looks a lot like the American Reform Jewish population, and an institutional structure (synagogues, rabbis, etc.) that looks a lot like the structure of the Reform movement. But you take Rabbi Morris’s advice and remove personal choice from the stated principles of the movement, and replace it with something about communal religious standards. Then what you get, according to the data, isn’t the engaged and passionate liberal Judaism that Rabbi Morris and I would like to see — what you get is the Conservative movement! And outside of a few isolated pockets, the Conservative movement is also characterized by ignorance and lack of commitment. Most Conservative-affiliated Jews aren’t familiar with their movement’s official principles, and much of what Rabbi Morris writes about the Reform movement applies there as well: “Volumes of thoughtful responsa and guides to Jewish practice, mostly unknown to [Conservative] laypeople … , gather dust in libraries.” The experiment yields the same result, but this time, it can’t be blamed on “personal choice”.

The answer is not to remove informed autonomy as a Reform Jewish principle and replace it with other values, but rather, to implement informed autonomy in truth so that these other values will come along with it. Create a culture in which informed autonomy is seen as a responsibility, so that individuals have to become knowledgeable in Jewish text and tradition and apply this knowledge creatively to meet the needs of the present age. Armed with this knowledge, individuals will be better equipped to form true communities.

I realize that this is a tall order. Many members of Reform congregations don’t have a strong ideological commitment to progressive religious Judaism, and won’t be interested in this project. But it’s possible to start smaller. Even if it won’t work to implement informed autonomy for an entire congregation at once, it can start with a committed core who can at least make informed autonomy a socially acceptable option. And if even that committed core isn’t attainable (yet) in every community, it can start in some communities that can be held up as role models and successful proofs of concept. And if those role models of informed autonomy are not to be found in the Reform movement, then the Reform movement can look to successful models elsewhere.

I hope that turning informed autonomy into a reality, and not just a slogan, will (as Rabbi Morris concludes) “allow us to experience a richer, fuller liberal religious life — one that is passionate, inspiring and moving, one that matters ultimately and allows ‘Reform Judaism’ to mean so much more.”