A Mobile App to Scapegoat Your Sins

As Temple Beth El’s Rabbi Mark Miller has settled into his new job at the Bloomfield Township, Michigan Reform congregation, he has been looking for innovative ways to cause both excitement and a renaissance in Jewish learning for his congregants. Back at Beth Israel, Miller’s previous congregation in Houston, Texas, the rabbi became a fan of G-dcast.com.

Temple Beth El member, Cindy Bolokofsky using eScapegoat

G-dcast is an online nonprofit new media studio and Internet organization based in San Francisco that provides Jewish children and adults with the chance to learn the basics of Jewish education with no barriers to entry. Over the years, G-dcast has produced more than a hundred animated shorts and mobile apps that make Jewish stories come to life. In its effort to build Jewish literacy, G-dcast works with educators and rabbis to create innovative curriculum, interactive workshops and inspiring leadership in new media

Last year, G-dcast launched a mobile app called eScapegoat, which encouraged users to engage in deeper Jewish learning and to prepare for Yom Kippur by offloading their sins to a virtual goat. The idea was to create a very modern (mobile app) way to copy the ancient repentance ritual (scapegoat). In anticipation of this year’s Yom Kippur holiday, G-dcast brought the app back along with Mini Goats. These are local mini-apps that let smaller communities virtually re-enact this ritual for a new, high-tech learning and community connection.

Paying for High Holiday Tickets

Who shall live and who shall die? Who shall pray for free and who needs to buy?

Okay, so maybe those aren't the exact words of the Unetaneh Tokef prayer on the High Holidays, but "pay to pray" is once again the big conversation as the High Holy Day season approaches with Rosh Hashanah beginning tomorrow evening.

Many synagogues require membership for attendance during the High Holidays or they charge a fee (or suggest a minimum donation). An increasing number of congregations, however, are offering free services and hope that attendees will generously contribute a donation after the holiday. Just about no synagogue will intentionally turn anyone away who wishes to pray during these Days of Awe. The famous Jewish joke comes to mind:

A Jewish man comes to the door of a synagogue on Rosh Hashanah without a ticket and explains to the usher that he doesn't want to stay, he just wants to give a message to someone inside. After a tense confrontation, the synagogue usher finally agrees to let the guy in, but he warns him sternly: "I better not catch you praying in there."

There is a certain misnomer about the tradition of synagogues requiring tickets on the High Holidays. It is not that synagogues are trying to make Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur services like a sporting event (although some synagogues do have assigned seating). Rather, synagogues are trying to stay in business and be able to collect membership dues. For many Jewish people, the High Holiday services are the only "service" they find themselves using at the synagogue. Therefore, if congregations didn't require membership to attend those services, they wouldn't collect enough membership dues to balance the annual budget. Thus, High Holiday tickets are really just a way for congregations to collect dues. For many synagogues, the fiscal year begins over the summer so getting congregants to pay dues payments during the first quarter of the fiscal year is highly advantageous as they set the annual budget.

Free High Holiday tickets is also a misnomer because just about any congregation offering complimentary attendance at their Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur prayer services is expecting donations in return for their generosity. In other words, in exchange for not charging a fee you will likely receive an empty self-addressed envelope with an expectation.

Birdhouse for Autism: Mobile App for Parents of Autistic Kids

Dani Gillman was a single mom with an autistic daughter, Brodie, who ran a popular blog detailing her daughter’s challenges and successes as a way to help other parents of autistic children. Using a pencil and paper, she vigilantly kept track of her daughter’s daily regimen, including diet, medications and vitamins, sleeping patterns, bathroom usage and doctor visits. These notes were then organized in a 3-ring binder, but the data Dani recorded was difficult to process in order to adapt Brodie’s daily routine – and it was easy to misplace the binder.

Screenshot of Birdhouse for Autism Mobile App

Enter Ben Chutz. In 2011, when Brodie was six-years-old, Ben and Dani began dating. The tech-savvy, entrepreneur with strong organizational skills took one look at the methods Dani employed to keep track and analyze Brodie’s complicated life and was immediately puzzled. “He said there must be a better way of doing this,” Dani recalled. “Ben wanted to know why I wasn’t using newer and better technology for this daily practice.” She explained to him that she had searched and there simply wasn’t any better option available.

Ben, 29, came up with the idea for “Birdhouse for Autism” not only so the two could raise Brodie using the data of her daily patterns, but also to help other parents of autistic children find the answers they need. Just as Dani, 36, has been a salvation for tens of thousands of parents with her mommy blog, “I’m Just That Way,” now the West Bloomfield couple, who belong to Temple Shir Shalom and also have an infant son Julian, are helping thousands of parents across North America with the Birdhouse website and mobile application. The name “Birdhouse” is derived from the anonymous nickname Dani uses for Brodie on the blog and because, as Dani explains, “It sounds like a warm, safe place for a bird.”

As participants in the Bizdom Startup Accelerator (part of the Rock Ventures' Family of Companies), Birdhouse has free office space in downtown Detroit next to Grand Circus Park and receives consulting from startup mentors. The couple has made great strides since Ben first questioned Dani’s pencil and notebook system in 2011. Today, Birdhouse has a robust website as well as Android and Apple iOS mobile apps – both free – that have been downloaded thousands of times.

This Is Where I Leave You: Sitting Shiva in the 21st Century

Jonathan Tropper's "This Is Where I Leave You" was one of my favorite books. I found it hard to put down and several parts were laugh-out-loud funny. As I read Tropper's book, I remember hoping that it would one day be made into a movie. Well, the movie version of Tropper's book opens today and I cannot wait to go see it.

The story focuses on the Altman family who are sitting shiva after the family patriarch dies. It was his final wish that the entire family sit shiva for him for an entire week (the traditional observance period). The film has some of my favorite actors in it, including Jason Bateman ("Arrested Development"), Tina Fey ("30 Rock"), Adam Driver ("Girls"), Dax Shepard ("Parenthood") and Corey Stoll ("House of Cards"). I'm hopeful that it will be an accurate portrayal of the modern shiva experience for the mass audience, but also hopeful that it will prompt learning opportunities for rabbis and other Jewish educators to inform about the ingredients of a traditional shiva observance.

This Is Where I Leave You focuses on a Jewish family sitting shiva

Part of the reason I enjoyed the book so much (aside from Tropper's writing) was that I could relate to the shiva experience -- both as a Jewish person who has sat shiva for deceased relatives as well as a rabbi who has visited hundreds of shiva homes in a professional role. Shiva is an interesting ritual and one that non-Jews often point to as something that really impresses them about the Jewish faith. In fact, last October I had the opportunity to meet Tina Fey in New York City not long after she finished filming "This Is Where I Leave You" and she remarked to me how touching and meaningful it was to sit shiva (even if it was in a fictional movie).

Shiva has many long-standing traditions, but it is also interesting to see how it has evolved over the generations. Sitting shiva in the 21st century is different from previous centuries. Many non-observant families opt to satisfy the more traditional requirements of shiva, while some observant families find themselves settling for a less traditional shiva experience. This is often due to the wishes of the deceased or to keep the peace with other mourners. While "shiva" literally means seven, reflecting the seven days the immediate mourners are required to officially mourn at home following the burial of their loved one, many Jewish families are opting for shorter shiva periods. I've also noticed more emphasis being placed on specific rules for visiting the shiva house -- what one might call "articulated etiquette." That is to say, families are including instructions in the death notice or in announcements at the funeral home that those who wish to pay their condolences to the shiva home may do so only between certain hours of the day in order to give the family their privacy.

This Detroit Highway Sign Lists Holocaust Museum With Video Arcade Centers

I am not usually one to complain about how my local tax dollars are allocated. However, as I was driving along the I-696 West highway this morning in Farmington Hills, Michigan (outside of Detroit), I saw a new sign that almost made me drive off the road. I'm guessing that there was not a lot of consultation before this new sign was produced. It is a highway exit sign that lists local lodging and attractions in the area.

The top half of the sign has three logos of hotels just off the highway, while the lower half of the sign bears the heading "ATTRACTION EXIT 5" and then displays the logos of a well-known local video arcade, Marvin's Marvelous Mechanical Museum, and Zap Zone, which has mini-golf, go-karts, video games and Laser Tag. In between those two logos is the logo for the Holocaust Memorial Center, which is the nation's first Holocaust museum. What?! I couldn't believe my eyes. This immediately struck me as tacky and distasteful. A museum that stands in memory of the six million who perished in the Shoah shouldn't be in the same "attraction" category as places where little kids have their birthday parties.

In Metro Detroit, a new highway sign puts the Holocaust Museum between two video arcade centers

Sitting in traffic waiting to exit, I grabbed my phone and quickly shot a photo out of the passenger side window of my car. And then I drove on and saw a second sign. This one -- a vertical sign -- again listed the three "attractions" with the Holocaust Museum in between Marvin's and Zap Zone. I pulled to the side of the road to take another photo. 

NFL: You Have a Problem

I love watching and playing sports. However, there's one sport that I just never got into as either a spectator or as a player and that is football. I'm glued to the screen for baseball, basketball and hockey games, tennis matches and even golf tournaments, but I couldn't name more than five players on my hometown team, the Detroit Lions, right now. So, when the Ray Rice scandal broke, I only looked at it from the perspective of a human being rather than as a football fan with any allegiance to the NFL.

(If you do love football and are looking for a positive football story involving a young woman this week, check out this article about North Farmington High School in Metro Detroit, Michigan, which has a 14-year-old girl as their kicker and she won their last game for them.)

I hadn't heard of Ray Rice before he physically assaulted his wife (then fiance) in the elevator and I still couldn't tell you what position he plays or for which team. That being the case, I know enough about football to say that the NFL has a very serious problem. A "zero tolerance" policy when it comes to domestic violence means just that. From the initial two-game suspension to allegedly covering up that the full elevator surveillance footage hadn't been seen by the league (as if that mattered), this entire ordeal has been mishandled. The incidents of illegal acts by NFL football players are overwhelming and there is enough of a violence problem that league commissioner Roger Goodell should immediately launch a league-wide program to eradicate it.

I plan to use some of my time in front of the congregation on Rosh Hashanah to speak about domestic violence in one of my sermons. It is a very important topic to bring to light since so many people in abusive relationships remain silent rather than telling their personal stories. One such woman who has decided to end her silence is Tamara Warren. I got to know Tamara during our undergraduate years in James Madison College at Michigan State University. We took several of the same courses and the class size at Madison College was small enough to really get to know each other.

Tamara Warren

I only learned of Tamara's ordeal as the victim in an abusive relationship when she revealed her story in the Detroit Free Press on Sunday and shared the article in her Facebook feed. In her captivating article, Tamara explains how she got into the relationship with her ex-husband and how she got out. Surviving the horrific years in between those two periods in her life make her the hero that she is. Tamara writes:

My Cousin, the Life Saver

In the Talmud it says, "Whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world" (Tractate Sanhedrin 37a). That text immediately came to mind after I heard the news that my cousin, Dr. Jeffrey Gudes, brought a man back to life a couple weeks ago.

Jeff, 27, was playing hockey in the Troy Sports Complex when a player on the opposing team collapsed and had a heart attack. Jeff's a surgery resident at St. John Macomb Hospital in Michigan. His teammate immediately called him to the other team's bench where Jeff performed chest compressions and used the automated external defibrillator (AED) to revive the man before he was taken to the hospital.

The man was unconscious while Jeff was working on him, but Fox 2 News Detroit brought the two men together to meet now that he's out of the hospital and feeling better (he won't be playing hockey for a while).

As we approach the Days of Awe in the Jewish faith, we consider the haunting words from our liturgy's famous prayer, the Unetaneh Tokef: "Who will live and who will die?" I know our grandfather, Dr. David Gudes, would be extremely proud that the young Dr. Gudes saved a man's life, granting him more years on this earth. I too am very proud of my cousin Jeff, he acted quickly and responsibly, performing the greatest mitzvah possible.

Watch the news segment below:

Fox 2 News Headlines

Hank Greenberg, Sandy Koufax and Jewish Baseball Players' Yom Kippur Dilemma

The Detroit Tigers are currently in a pennant race for the American League Central Division, where they currently have a razor thin half game lead on the Kansas City Royals. 80 years ago the Detroit Tigers were similarly in a pennant race for their division. That was the September that the team's star, Hank Greenberg, famously sat out the game on Yom Kippur. It was September 20, 1934 and the Detroit Tigers faced the New York Yankees in a key game late in the pennant race. While his participation was sorely needed, Hank Greenberg stayed true to his Jewish religion and attended synagogue instead at Congregation Shaarey Zedek in Detroit. The Tigers lost the game, but went on to win the 1934 American League pennant (the Tigers lost to the St. Louis Cardinals in the '34 World Series).

With Hall of Famer Lou Brock, Willie Horton's son Al and Hank Greenberg's son Steve Greenberg

It is interesting to note that Hank Greenberg had in fact played in a game ten days earlier on Rosh Hashanah, in which he led the Detroit Tigers to victory with two home runs. A local Detroit rabbi gave him permission to play on Rosh Hashanah and the Detroit News ran the headline on the front page, "Talmud Clears Greenberg for Holiday Play." The day following the Rosh Hashanah victory, the Detroit Free Press ran a banner headline that read simply, "Happy New Year, Hank."

Hank Greenberg Hall of Fame plaques will be given out before today's game at Comerica Park

In commemoration of the day Hank Greenberg chose to sit out the game on Yom Kippur, the Detroit Tigers and local Jewish community organizations like the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Detroit and the Michigan Jewish Sports Foundation will celebrate Jewish Heritage Day at the Detroit Tigers game today. It will also be a chance to honor Hank Greenberg, who was the first Jewish player elected to the National Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown.

Gwyneth Paltrow Plans Conversion to Judaism and What That Means for Other Patrilineal Jews

News has just come out that actress Gwyneth Paltrow will be converting to Judaism. To many, this is a confusing bit of news because we have always thought of Gwyneth Paltrow as Jewish and listed her among today's most famous Jewish celebrities. However, it is her father who was Jewish and not her mother, the actress Blythe Danner. This means that Gwyneth Paltrow is what is known as a "patrilineal Jew" -- only Jewish through the lineage of her father. In Reform Judaism, she's considered a full member of the Jewish people, but this isn't the case in a more traditional Jewish interpretation of Jewish identity.

Paltrow's high profile conversion to Judaism will raise the profile of this controversy in modern Jewish life. A 2007 JTA.org article discussed the various solutions to the problem of how to recognize patrilineal Jews in a traditional congregation. Rabbi Sharon Brous of Ikar LA (and other rabbis) have begun a custom of having all teens in the synagogue immerse in a mikvah with the appropriate blessings before the year of their bar or bat mitzvah thereby converting those Patrilineal Jewish children who were raised Jewish, but wouldn't be considered Jewish according to Halacha (Jewish law). I recently published a blog post about Gwyneth Paltrow's upcoming conversion and what it will mean for the thousands of Patrilineal Jews who might not have considered the need to formally convert.

We rabbis often lament about how many issues divide our people. We pray differently, we keep kosher differently, we talk about Israel differently, etc. The truth is that while these topics make us debate with each other and cause us to affiliate with our own congregations and communities and organizations, they don’t change the fact that we’re all part of the Jewish people. The only issue that truly does divide us in the sense that it keeps us from uniting as one people is the issue of Jewish identity — what’s commonly called “Who’s a Jew.”

Israel Can't Be the Third Rail

Rabbi Brant Rosen, a Reconstructionist rabbi in Evanston, Illinois, took me to task in January 2013 for writing a blog post supporting SodaStream, the Israeli company that produces home water carbonation machines. This was a week before the 2013 Super Bowl in which SodaStream created a lot of buzz with their expensive "Set the Bubbles Free" commercial during the game (this was a year before SodaStream's big hype Scarlett Johansson Super Bowl commercial). Rosen closed his blog post stating that "those concerned with human rights should know that freedom for real, living breathing human beings is what is truly at stake here."

Well, if Rabbi Rosen understood my argument correctly he would have understood that SodaStream employs over 500 West Bank Palestinians in addition to about the same number of Arabs from eastern Jerusalem and paying them a fair wage. Rosen's call to boycott SodaStream would actually end up hurting the very goal of Palestinian rights that he's trying to achieve.

Why am I bringing up Rabbi Brant Rosen and his misinformed blog post almost two years later? It is because Rosen recently resigned his position at his pulpit after his anti-Israel views caused too much dissent within his congregation. His very public resignation (he says he was not forced out by the board) has led to much discussion among rabbis (of all denominations) as to whether voicing opinions on Israel has become the third rail of the North American rabbinate.

Ohio University's Anti-Israel Student President Does Blood Bucket Challenge Calling for BDS

The president of the student body at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio was challenged in the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge by Dr. Roderick J. McDavis, the president of the university. However, rather than dumping a bucket of ice water on her head (like millions of others have already done this summer), Megan Marzec dumped a bucket of fake blood over her head in protest of Israel and then encourages an academic boycott of Israel on behalf of Ohio University. Marzec has since deactivated her Facebook account and made the video password protected on her Vimeo account.

Before dumping a bucket of fake blood over her head, Marzec (wearing a pink shirt stating "Ohio U Divest From Israel") says in the video, "I'm sending a message of student concern of the genocide in Gaza and the occupation of Palestine by the Israeli state. I'm urging you, and OU, to divest and cut all ties with academic and other Israeli businesses and institutions," she said during in video. "This bucket of blood symbolizes the thousands of displaced and murdered Palestinians atrocities which OU is directly complacent in your cultural and economic support of the Israeli state." The video closes with red text stating "FREE PALESTINE" and "For more information on bringing BDS to Ohio University contact Megan Marzec," with her email address provided (mm590410@ohio.edu), follows that, and then the video ends.

The Jewish View on the Celebrity Nude Photo Hacking Scandal

The recent naked celebrity photo hacking scandal underscores the primary concern that we all should understandably have regarding the Internet. Privacy breaches due to intentional hacking in my opinion keep the Web from being the greatest invention of our modern times. You see, just about every day of my life I feel a sense of gratitude that I am living during the Digital Age. The vast amount of information at our fingertips thanks to the Internet is amazing. However, the ability for hackers to steal our data -- whether personal financial information or sensitive photographs that we'd like to keep private -- casts a negative light on the entire endeavor.

The idea that someone evil has hacked into the personal iCloud accounts of a few select celebrities like Jennifer Lawrence, Kate Upton, Avril Lavigne, Hayden Panettiere, Hillary Duff, Jenny McCarthy, Kate Bosworth, Kim Kardashian, Kirsten Dunst, Mary Kate Olsen and Selena Gomez tells us that none of our password protected data is really safe from theft. These celebrities took photos with their cellphones -- like most of us do -- and believed that those photos would remain secure and out of the public eye. The truth, however, is that as soon as a better encryption method is created there will be a hacker who knows how to break that encryption to steal the data.

Every day there are people who have their personal data stolen. The reason this recent hacking scandal has been so widely reported around the world is because it has the two ingredients for mass appeal -- celebrities and nudity. While the public's interest is certainly piqued thanks to the release of these unauthorized, intimate photos of celebrities (some of which include famous athlete Justin Verlander of the Detroit Tigers who is dating model Kate Upton), there are some very clear cut ethical issues that are raised by the scandal.

Clearly, the hacker who managed to get into the iCloud accounts of these celebs and then leak the images has violated the law in addition to violating a universal code of ethics. He is a thief -- plain and simple. By extension, legal and ethical questions arise about anyone who profits from these hacked photos. That might be a sticky situation of course because some of the celebrities themselves will likely benefit from the release of these hacked photos.

The more difficult ethical questions arise when discussing the culpability of those who view these leaked photos. Could simply viewing them be considered deriving benefit and thus a form of theft? To answer this very modern question through a Jewish perspective, it's best to consult a Jewish legal scholar from the 11th century. Rabbeinu Gershom was both a legal expert and an ethical sage who ruled on matters involving privacy of information and the public trust.

Your Facebook News Feed and Your Emotions

Thirty years ago in 1984 Bananarama had the hit song "Cruel Summer" in which they sang "Trying to smile, But the air is so heavy and dry, Strange voices are saying, What did they say, Things I can't understand, It's too close for comfort, This heat has got right out of hand, It's a cruel, cruel summer, 
Leaving me here on my own, It's a cruel, cruel summer, Now you're gone." Ironically, the summer of 2014 really seemed to be a cruel summer. While fun summer activities continued as planned, the news around the world, as well as locally, may have led many of us to exclaim as Bananarama did three decades prior, "What did they say? Things I can't understand."

Now that the summer has come to a close and the kids are back to school, we can only hope that the news improves. What follows is an article I wrote for the Detroit Jewish News in which I took a look at how our Facebook News Feed affects us emotionally. My prayer is that all of our News Feeds stay positive for the remainder of the year. Thanks for reading!

Let’s be honest here. You spend a lot of time scrolling through your Facebook News Feed. Whether you’re on a desktop computer, your iPad or a mobile phone, it feels like a mindless activity to swipe through your friends’ posts. Well, you might not realize it but your mood will be changed by what you see on the screen.

According to a research paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science earlier this year, Facebook altered the news feeds for some users as part of a psychology experiment devised by the company's on-staff data scientist. Sheryl Sandberg, the Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, later apologized for altering the News Feeds of some 700,000 different English-language Facebook users during a short period during 2012. Whether Facebook acted ethically or not, the results are quite revealing. The experiment sought to learn about the way positive and negative effect travels through social networks. The study concluded that "in-person interaction and nonverbal cues are not strictly necessary for emotional contagion."

To test the hypothesis, the researchers identified and began removing emotionally negative posts for one group and positive posts for another. According to the paper, "when a person loaded their Facebook News Feed, posts that contained emotional content of the relevant emotional valence, each emotional post had between a 10 percent and 90 percent chance (based on their User ID) of being omitted from their News Feed for that specific viewing." It should be mentioned that nothing Facebook did to manipulate users’ feeds was in violation of the Terms of Use each account holder agrees to when registering for the social network.