HAPPY HANUKAH!!! (to those who celebrate it)

Giving a lecture at The Willows in Westborough, MA, where we live, on the festival of Hanukah, which begins on Sunday night, Dec. 22, 2019. It is based on the military victory of the Jewish fighters, the Maccabees, against the Greek overlords in the year 165 BCE. It lasts 8 days.
Dec. 19, 2019

WHY WE SUFFER? A NATURALISTIC VIEW

When I was a teenager and occasionally had a headache or a stomach upset, the head of my Hebrew school (called Mahazike Hatorah), in Istanbul, Turkey, Mr. Nisim Behar, used to tell me, “Well, you must have done something wrong! That infuriated me, and I often responded, “No I did not do anything wrong. I simply don’t feel well today.”

The suffering of the righteous has been a challenge for many religions. In modern times, this subject has been discussed by Harold Kushner, in his popular book, When Bad Things Happen to Good People (1981) and many others. The issue, however, is very old, and has already been dealt with in some of the ancient Near Eastern literary texts (See, “The Babylonian Theodicy,” ANET, 601 ff) as well as the Hebrew Bible, through the Book of Job, the Psalms (e.g.,Ps.73), the Book of Proverbs (e.g.3:12), Book of Deuteronomy and others with no satisfactory solution. The Rabbis, too, tackled this thorny subject, and came up with a variety of answers, most of them putting the blame on the individual (See, e.g., Ber. 7a). On the other hand, Rabbi Yannai (3^rd cent. CE) gave up and stated, “It is not in our power to explain the wellbeing of the wicked or the suffering of the righteous” (PA: 4: 19).

In attempting to solve the problem of why we suffer within the context of theism, many thinkers define God as the one who is the most powerful, perfect, righteous, fair, and able to relate to his (!) creations directly by having a personal relationship with them and by responding (or, not) to their quests. God, we are told, rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. Therefore, if a person is in pain, it is because he/she must have done something wrong. Hence, the answer of my teacher given above.

However, there is another way to look at the problem. And that is, to define God in a naturalistic way, namely to assert that God is the impersonal energy of the universe, which encompasses all creation, and is the force that keeps it going. This position is called “religious naturalism,” which was defended by many in the past (see Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, 3^rd cent. BCE), and, in our time, by Rabbi Mordecai Kaplan (d.1983) and others, who saw God as the sum of all natural forces in the universe. It is also the one that I subscribe to.

In religious naturalism, God’s energy is impersonal, and when bad things occur to good people, it is not because God “willed” it and “wanted” to punish them, but simply because we still do not know how the universe fully operates. Every day, through our scientific research, we keep discovering more about God, and learn how the laws of nature work in our daily life. We need God, because we are part of the maintenance of all the planets and the laws that govern them. We cannot live without God, because that is all there is in life! At the end of time, when we finally learn all the secrets of existence, we will celebrate it as the long awaited Messianic days. 

What shall we do in the meantime? We obviously cannot blame the God of nature for all the bad things we do to ourselves or the world around us. In cases of suffering due to illness, aging or simply bad luck, we need to accept these as being part of life, and not divine punishment. We now live longer and have a clearer understanding of nature. But, we still have a long way to go. Hopefully, future generations, with more research, will have a better handle on our existential conditions.  

I believe most people would be more comfortable with this type explanation, instead of looking to blame either God or other individuals.

How about that ? I invite your comments.

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

   

Dec. 15, 2019 

For other blogs, please see SONSINO'S BLOG in rsonsino.blogspot.com

WHAT DO RETIRED RABBIS DO?

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D.

In the States, many Rabbis retire at the age of 65 in search of other adventures. However, they do not give up their title. They remain “Rabbis” for the rest of their life.

In July of 2001, after 35 years on the pulpit, I, too, at the age of 65, retired from Temple Beth Shalom, Needham, MA. , a medium size congregation of about 600+ families (now, we are close to 1000 families), and became its first Rabbi Emeritus. I simply needed a change of venue in my life. I have a wonderful relationship with the leadership of my temple and my successors, and they include me in major functions of the synagogue.

As I survey what my retired colleagues are doing with their lives now, I find that some have totally withdrawn from congregational work, whereas others have assumed part-time positions in smaller temples, or have taken jobs unrelated to their training. Some take it easy and spend their time traveling around the world. Many take classes at local universities, and others, like me, become part-time professors at a local college. I first taught at Boston College, and, for the last 5 years, I have been teaching Ethics at Framingham State University, closer to my new home, and I love it. I do it, not necessarily for the remuneration, which is small, but for the love of interacting with the faculty and my students. For fun, I go to the gym every morning at the Willows, in Westborough, where I live; I publish a blog (SONSINO’S BLOG, rsonsino.blogspot.com) with more than 475,000 viewers around the world; I work on my family tree, spend time with our grandchildren, and travel with my wife. Not bad for an 81 year old guy! I am blessed.

I have also chosen to remain with my study group, the Hevrah, which has been meeting on a regular basis for more than 30 years. Even when I was a congregational Rabbi, I used to join others at the house of one of our colleagues every Monday morning to study rabbinic texts for a couple of hours. Then, we moved the location to my synagogue in Needham, MA, and have been meeting there ever since. 

A rabbinic text (Avot d’Rabbi Natan, ch.4) tells us that, just before the destruction of the temple of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE by the Romans, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai obtained permission from the Romans to set up a new religious and cultural center in the city of Yavneh, in the central district of Israel. There the sages assembled in order to set the foundations of rabbinic Judaism that still guide us today. They believed that, with no temple, biblical Judaism had run its course, and they needed a community of scholars, for their own growth as well as for the sake of preserving biblical teachings for the future, this time in a new setting. Together, they adapted traditional Jewish teachings to the new conditions of their time. Thus, they edited the Mishnah, the Talmud and other texts. Later on, in Spain, they developed medieval Jewish philosophy; in many parts of Europe, they forged new religious and literary paths within Judaism. In the modern world, the effort continues in various centers of Jewish studies, where scholars debate the issues of today. 

As a retired Rabbi, I, too, need a community of my peers to keep my mind active, to exchange ideas, to study new texts, and to learn from one another. In one rabbinic text, we are told that Rabbi Eleazar ben Arakh (1 cent. CE) withdrew from the community of his fellow sages, and, consequently “he forgot his knowledge of the Torah” (Eccl. Rabba, 7:7, No.2). I don’t want to do that. 

Right now, in our Hevrah meetings, about 8-10 of us, all retired Rabbis from the greater Boston area, are going through a difficult text called Shir Hashirim Rabba, an aggadic Midrash of the 10^th cent. CE (Palestinian), which attempts to reinterpret the Song of Songs. In our discussions, we try to find its relevance for today. For me attending these sessions is a top priority. I am glad I can continue to be part of this energizing and stimulating group.

Dec. 2019

NOSTALGIA; MEMORIES OF ISTANBUL

Rabbi Rifat Sonsino, Ph.D

As I get older, I yearn for my childhood experiences. I say to myself, if I could only revisit the places, listen to the music, taste the foods, and hear the sounds of my early adolescent years!!! I am now 81 years old, and, these days, in relative good health. Though retired from congregational life, I teach Ethics, part-time, at Framingham State University, and also regularly contribute to my blog (see, rsonsino.blogspot.com ), give public lectures  and keep in touch with my children and grandchildren. However, the memory of my early days keep me often awake at night. 

I vividly remember the street on which our 3^rd-floor apartment stood in Kuzguncuk, a small village by the Bosphorus in Istanbul, Turkey. It was right across from the old synagogue, which was located next to a bakery where we used to get our cakes and ice cream. (By the way, the old house is now a bank building).  Our neighbors and good friends, the Cohens, lived just behind us, in an old big house. In my teens, after we moved to the city proper, we lived in Kule Dibi, by the big tower. It was in close proximity to two large synagogues, Knesset Israel, just next to us, and, a few houses down, Neve Shalom, the largest temple in Istanbul, which was attacked by terrorists in 1986, resulting in the death of 22 congregants at prayer.  In those days, I attended the Mahazike Hatorah (a religious school for young adults), and, being a teen-age cantor in my temple, I was often sent to Neve Shalom, to sing the Song of Songs on Friday nights. Finally, I have good memories of the 5th floor apartment that my father, the engineer, built in Sisli (Siracevizler Cad.), a fancy neighborhood of Istanbul. It was from there that I used to go to the University of Istanbul, to study law, taking the bus all the way down to the entrance of the campus in the old city. Who could also forget, my classmates, the trips to the Heybeli island during the summers, our visits to the grand bazaar in the city proper, the boat trips down the Bosphorus as well as the kebabs we used to eat at our favorite restaurants! O tempora!

Those were good days, but I have also erased some of the negative memories of living in Turkey as a Jew, where we were at times discriminated against, and had to keep a low profile. 

All these reminiscences are called nostalgia, a sentimental longing for the past. The word comes from the Greek, nostos meaning “return,” and algos, meaning “pain.” It is indeed painful to go through nostalgia. Until the 1600s, it was even considered a disease of the mind. In reality, it is nothing but a sanitized version of the past, an idealized image of the years gone by, some happy and some sad.  

At times, I fancy about going back to Istanbul to visit my favorite places, but I am afraid that I will experience a disappointment. I realize, sadly, that you cannot recreate the past; you can only remember it, mostly in an idealized way. I will continue to do just that. I will be sustained by the wonderful images of my childhood, and review them in my mind, while listening to the music of my earlier years and perhaps eating a piece of baklava!!!

11/3/2019