Why Betzalel was Important

I was recently interviewed by Shmuel Rosner of the Jewish Journal about this week's Torah portion Teruma for his "Torah Talk" video series. The video interview, which is below, prompted me to think more about architectural design and the credit due to the architect for constructing the structure.

God says, V’asu Li Mikdash, V’shakhanti B’tokham -- "Make for me a sanctuary that I may dwell among you." The function of such a spiritual home for God is difficult to comprehend, and to envision how such a structure will look is confusing as well. Further, who will be the chief architect for such a holy task?  Who is skillful and pious enough to design a home for God? The master artisan chosen is Betzalel, who beautifully implements God’s instructions concerning the building of the Tabernacle.  He, like Moses, is a faithful servant of God. He is described as one who has been filled by God with ruach hakodesh, the divine spirit of God in practical wisdom, discernment, and knowledge in all kinds of workmanship.

True, the Torah recounts that Betzalel, the master builder of the Mishkan (Tabernacle) in the wilderness, received the blueprints for the project from God, but as I explained, the Torah wouldn't have paid so much attention to the character of Betzalel were he not an important figure in the building of the Tabernacle.

Several years ago I was at Israel’s Diaspora Museum (Beit Hatefutzot) in Tel Aviv and toured an exhibit displaying synagogues from around the world. Located in a huge room were about twenty architectural models, encased in glass, of the most famous synagogue buildings designed to scale. While I don’t consider myself a student of architecture and design (I leave that up to my wife's uncle Stephen Sussman), I nevertheless was mesmerized by the different layouts and structural designs, the detail inside the sanctuaries, and the unique shapes of the exterior. They were all different edifices from different places around the world – synagogues from India, China, Russia, Eastern Europe, the Colonial U.S., and from South America.  Each of these synagogues echoes its cultural and regional diversity. They are all so different, and yet, they all share something in common – they are all holy spaces. They were all built for the same purpose, to be a spiritual house of assembly – a beit kenesset.

Too often today, we take the focus off the actual buildings, the physical structures. We say that what is important is what happens inside of the structure. We believe we must put all our effort on the intangibles, on the actions that take place inside of the building, but we should not overlook the buildings themselves. To do so is to miss beautiful architecture and skillful craftsmanship.

Here in the Metro Detroit area we have two unique synagogue buildings that can be seen from the roadway. Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Township, Michigan was designed by the world renowned architect Minoru Yamasaki in 1973. Yamasaki, the Japanese and American architect, was of course best known for his design of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Temple Beth El, Bloomfield Township, Michigan

Taglit Birthright Israel Changes Policy

Part of my job as the associate director of University of Michigan Hillel Foundation in the mid-Aughts was to interview college students for Birthright Israel. On several occasions I had the unfortunate responsibility to explain to Jewish students eager to claim their free 10-day Israel trip that they did not qualify because they had already traveled to Israel with a peer educational trip. That meant that because their parents had spent upwards of $6,000 for them to spend a month in the Jewish Holy Land, they couldn't claim the Jewish community's gift that their peers were getting -- a completely free Israel experience. It was as if they were being punished for having experienced Israel in high school or on an eighth grade trip with their Jewish day school.

Today, however, Taglit-Birthright Israel significantly changed its policy regarding Jewish youth who had already visited Israel on a peer tour. On the Birthright Israel Facebook page, the world-wide organization posted, "Guess What? Those who participated on peer educational trips to Israel prior to turning 18 years of age are now welcome to apply! Taglit-Birthright Israel will have specific details on eligibility posted on the website the week prior to registration opening on February 19th, 2014."

Drake's Bar Mitzvah on Saturday Night Live (SNL)

Yesterday morning in synagogues throughout the world the Jewish people read the portion of the Torah called Yitro. Named for the Medianite priest who became father-in-law to Moses, Yitro (or Jethro) was also a trusted adviser to the Israelite leader. While it doesn't mention this in the Torah, it is possible that Yitro had black skin which likely meant that Moses was married to a Black woman thereby making them the first bi-racial marriage in the Torah. Today, the most famous rapper with bi-racial Jewish-Black heritage is Drake, who has a White Jewish mother and a Black father.

Last night Drake hosted the year's first Saturday Night Live show and Jewish and Black stereotypes were getting tossed a mile a minute during his opening monologue. The famous rapper opened the show by explaining that he's from Canada, was in the TV show Degrassi Junior High, and that his mother is Jewish and his father is Black.

Sam Berns, Progeria and the Dave Matthews Band

2013 ended with the tragic passing of a Jewish boy named Sam who inspired millions and 2014 has begun with the tragic passing of a Jewish boy named Sam who inspired millions.

On the same cold, grey December day on which my own family buried my 11-day-old nephew, the Sommer family buried their 8-year-old boy Samuel Sommer who succumbed to the refractory acute myeloid leukemia he had been diagnosed with a year-and-a-half prior. By some bizarre coincidence not only did Rabbi Phyllis Sommer and Rabbi Michael Sommer bury their son on that same day, but also at the same Jewish cemetery that my family had said goodbye to my nephew Rylan Foster Gelb only hours earlier. Superman Sam's fight to survive and beat the leukemia was journaled beautifully on the blog Rabbi Phyllis maintained during their challenging journey. And now, 30 days have passed since Superman Sam was laid to rest and the blog continues to inspire so many.

This past Friday, another Sam succumbed to a disease. Sam Berns, the Jewish teen who lived with Progeria passed away after so many learned his story from the HBO documentary "Life According to Sam." I watched this documentary last night, and knowing that Sam had just died, I was overcome with tears. Sam's parents Dr. Leslie Gordon and Dr. Scott Berns worked tirelessly throughout Sam's much too short life committed to curing this disease. Progeria is the same disease that my teacher Rabbi Harold Kushner's son died from and was the impetus for his book "When Bad Things Happen to Good People". As is evidenced by the film, Sam's parents weren't only passionate about finding a cure for Progeria for their own son's sake, but for all of the children throughout the world who age too quickly and end up dying as they reach their teenage years.

Shaq Speaks Hebrew Pretty Well

A few years ago I saw one of those quick "catch a celebrity getting into his car" video clips on TMZ.com in which NBA legend Shaquille O'Neal walked out of a restaurant and wished all his Jewish friends a L'shanah Tovah. It was right before Rosh Hashanah and it was circulated pretty quickly around the Web.

I had forgotten about that video when I asked Shaq to say "Shabbat Shalom" into my cellphone yesterday. My friend and fellow native Detroiter Lisa Lis got me hooked on video recording celebs saying those two Hebrew words a couple years ago and I've already collected several which I uploaded to my YouTube.com channel.

Yesterday at CES in Las Vegas I heard a wonderful interview with Russell Simmons, the Hip Hop pioneer and entrepreneur. After the interview he graciously offered a "Shabbat Shalom". After meeting Russell, who is the president of the Foundation for Ethnic Understanding along with Rabbi Marc Schneier who serves as chairman, I had the opportunity to meet Curtis Jackson, better known as 50 Cent. Something told me that he wouldn't be so into saying Shabbat Shalom, but Shaq was more than willing. In fact, he took the time to ask me what "Shabbat Shalom" means and when it's appropriate to say it. He even surprised me with some other Hebrew phrases ("Baruch Hashem" and "L'shanah Tovah"). Shaq and I shmoozed for a while inside the Monster booth at CES. When he saw the large American Express bag I was carrying with me, he asked where I got it because he needed a large bag to carry his gifts from Monster. I gave him the bag and in return he presented with me a nice pair of Monster DNA Pro headphones. A great deal!

I suppose had I gotten 50 Cent to say "Shabbat Shalom" on video it would have been the triple trifecta of Shabbat Shalom greetings in one day from three uber-successful entrepreneurs in the African American community. All three gentlemen struck me as very impressive, nice guys who are each doing great things to promote technology and entertainment in the 21st century.

The Shabbat Shalom videos of Shaq and Russell Simmons are below:

Edgar M. Bronfman Sr. - Jewish Philanthropy At Its Best

I awoke in the middle of the night last night unable to sleep. It was a little before 4:00 AM. I know what time it was because I looked on my phone since the power was out from the winter storm. Shockingly, I noticed from a few email messages, tweets and Facebook postings that the world lost a giant in the field of Jewish philanthropy.

I only had the opportunity to meet Edgar Bronfman, Sr. twice and both were for only fleeting moments. At a Hillel staff conference in New Jersey he seemed to enjoy walking the hotel shmoozing with Hillel staffers and thanking us for our work on campus. It was he who should have been thanked. In the middle of the night I read his very lengthy obituary in the New York Times. As long as this tribute was it still failed to mention so many of the causes he championed and the philanthropic efforts he backed with his family's fortune.

In October at The Conversation, Gary Rosenblatt's annual convening of Jewish leaders at the Pearlstone Retreat Center in Maryland, I ate lunch with Dana Raucher, the executive director of The Samuel Bronfman Foundation. I listened to Dana share her fondness for Edgar Bronfman, Sr. and articulate how genuine and authentic is his love for the Jewish people and the many causes he supports through his foundation. Upon his passing at his home yesterday on Shabbat, Dana publicly shared the following about her boss:

"Edgar was deeply committed to making Judaism relevant to all those who were seeking it. He sought to build a big tent, open for vigorous debate, impassioned questioning, and full of joy. He loved the energy and exuberance of young people, and took them quite seriously because he recognized that they would be the ones shaping their own Jewish future."

Speechless: Mourning For My Nephew

“When Bad Things Happen to Good People” – Those words, the title of a book by my teacher Rabbi Harold Kushner, keep echoing in my head. Tragedy has struck my family. We planned to go to Chicago last week where I would have the honor of being both the uncle and the rabbi at my newborn nephew’s bris. Instead we're headed to Chicago today – a week later than planned – where I will have the unfortunate responsibility to be both the uncle and the rabbi at my nephew’s funeral. We're grieving.

A little more than a week ago I searched the Web for an appropriate blessing to say on becoming an uncle. Not finding anything, I wrote my own blessing. Last night I searched the Web desperately seeking what one says at the funeral of an 11-day-old baby. The answer is nothing. We're speechless.

When my nephew was born I wrote about Abraham of the Torah and his role as uncle to Lot. He took his nephew under his wing, cared for him and protected him. Today I unfortunately look to another uncle in the Torah. Moses mourned the death of his two nephews Nadav and Avihu. The Torah relates that the boys’ father -- Moses’ brother Aaron -- was speechless. So too must Uncle Moses have been in his mourning of this sudden death. We're in shock.

On the Shabbat when the Torah portion was Parashat Vayechi (And he lived), my nephew died. On the Shabbat in which we learn of the blessings Jacob bestowed upon his sons, my sister-in-law and brother-in-law began to come to terms with the harsh reality that they will never bless their son as Jacob did. On the Shabbat when the Congregation of Israel stands upon finishing the first book of the Torah and, preparing to open the next chapter, proclaims “Chazak chazak v'nitchazek” (Be strong, be strong and let us be strengthened), my family feels weak. From creation there will be no next chapter for my nephew. We're weakened.

Baruch Dayan Ha-Emet. May the soul of my innocent nephew Rylan Foster Gelb (Yitzchak Chaim) be bound up in the bond of eternal life and may he rest in peace. There is no more to say.

Detroit Jewish News Archives - So Much Nostalgia

Nostalgia is in. One of the most common memes on Facebook these days is the Throwback Thursday, in which individuals and organizations post old photos from yesteryear and allow viewers to tag people they recognize and be amused at how things have changed over the years including hairstyles and fashion. One local company making good use of this is Joe Cornell Entertainment, which has been posting photos from their archives of Joe Cornell’s pre-bar mitzvah dance classes from the past few decades.

Metro Detroiters, as well as former Metro Detroiters, have found themselves getting lost in time on the Web since the Detroit Jewish News Foundation launched its digital archives in mid-November. Residing on the DJN Foundation’s website at www.djnfoundation.org, the archives have allowed local members of the Jewish community to scratch their nostalgia itch by searching for friends and family in the archives’ search function. Every weekly issue of the Detroit Jewish News over the past seven decades is included in the digital archives and even advertisements can be searched.

Arthur Horwitz, publisher of the Detroit Jewish News, recognized the importance of digitizing the thousands of old issues of the paper after a devastating fire occurred in the Detroit Jewish News offices back in 2002 and destroyed nearly all of the paper’s print archives. Horwitz and the new nonprofit foundation turned to Media Genesis, an internet services provider, to create the searchable index on the new website which lets users perform quick and accurate searches on the more than 260,000 dating back to 1942. The archives are available to the public at no cost and they have already proven useful to local historians, educators, students and community leaders.

Like internet search engines such as Google, Yahoo or Bing, the DJN Foundation’s digital archives are fully searchable by date, name, and other keyword searches including advanced Boolean searches, which are a type of search allowing users to combine keywords with operators such as “and,” “not” and “nor” to produce more relevant results.

Bar Mitzvah T-Shirts in Africa

It's no secret that many of those cotton t-shirts we wear here in the First World ultimately get donated and wind up in the Third World. Thousands of t-shirts that get printed each year celebrating the losing team in the Super Bowl, NBA Finals and World Series usually get shipped to Africa. And for decades the customary bar mitzvah and bat mitzvah t-shirts that accumulate in teens' closets have been donated to the Salvation Army or Goodwill to be sent to Africa or into impoverished neighborhoods throughout North America. When I lived in New York City, it was not unusual for me to see a homeless man wearing a donated bar mitzvah t-shirt or a Jewish youth group shirt that had been donated before the owner went off to college.

National Public Radio (NPR) did a story the other day on the fate of these donated t-shirts that wind up in Africa. It wasn't the first time such a story had been done. Almost three years ago Mother Jones ran a story titled "When Hooters T-Shirts Go to Africa: Donate an old t-shirt in the US? Someday it might travel to a country like Liberia." And over ten years ago the New York Times published a story that also tracked donated clothes to the Third World in George Packer's article "How Susie Bayer's T-Shirt Ended Up on Yusuf Mama's Back." The basic premise of these stories is that once you donate an old sweatshirt or t-shirt to the Salvation Army or Goodwill, your old, used clothing takes on a new life somewhere else. We often don't think of who's wearing our old winter coat that we donated, but it does make for an interesting story.

A Blessing On Becoming An Uncle For the First Time

"Uncle Jason" -- I really like the sound of that! Yesterday evening as my children and I kindled seven Hanukkah candles on the hanukkiyah, I received the anticipated phone call from my wife who was at a hospital in Chicago with her sister. "It's a boy," she said, and with those words I became an uncle. I told my children and watched them jump for joy with the news that they now had a first cousin.

The Hebrew word for uncle is dod (דוד), which sounds a lot like the word "dad." It is also the same word the Torah uses for beloved. A quick etymology search on the website Balashon.com informed me that the Hebrew dod is related to Syriac דדא for uncle or beloved, Mandaic, Nabatean and Palmyrene "dada" meaning father's brother and the Arabic "dad" for foster-father. Balashon.com explains that the Hebrew dod is the most ancient Hebrew word for love and was probably a primitive caressing syllable taken from the sound "da-da" that babies make.