Dave Asks: 

 

The problem with rabbis like you is your narrow view of the world. You always talk about the Jewish future, Jewish continuity, Jews marrying Jews, having Jewish children. What about the rest of humanity? Why do we have to always divide between people? Can’t we speak of humans rather than Jews?

 

 

Rabbi Moss answers: 

 

You have a good point. Maybe I should broaden my perspective and be concerned about more global issues and not so pre-occupied with Jewish particularism. So if you don’t mind, I would like to hear your point of view on one such issue.
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I have been approached by an organisation that is dedicated to saving endangered species. They are campaigning to save the hairy-nosed wombat of northern Queensland, which is on the verge of extinction, and if we don’t do something soon they will be gone.
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Do you think this is a good cause? I could write about it in my weekly article but am not sure if it is worthy of promotion. This is not a Jewish issue. Should it really bother us if there are no more hairy-nosed wombats?
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Dave replies:

 

Now you’re talking. I would love to see a rabbi promote conservation and eco-awareness. And it is a Jewish issue! If the hairy-nosed wombat is lost, we all lose. Every species is an integral part of the whole ecosystem.Â
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Rabbi Moss responds:

 

I have no doubt that the hairy-nosed wombat makes an important contribution to the world – otherwise G-d would not have created it. But I happen to think that the Jewish people are at least as worthy of preservation as the hairy-nosed wombat.

 

While the contribution wombats make to the world may not be obvious, the Jewish contribution is. From Moses to Maimonides to Marx, from Philo to Freud to Forbes, Jews as individuals and as a community have given much to the world, and I don’t think we have run out of ideas. I think we have more to give.

 

This is not to put down any other nation and their achievements. Just as the attempt to save the hairy-nosed wombat is not insulting to any other animal, so too the desire to continue the Jewish legacy of four thousand years in no way belittles the gifts of other people.

 

My work is to try to keep Jewish souls Jewish, because I believe Judaism is an idea that is yet to have its time, and you can’t have Judaism without Jews. So I will continue to try to preserve Jews, whether or not they are hairy-nosed.

 

All the best,

Rabbi Moss

Question of the Week:

 Why do we eat Hamantaschen on Purim? I have heard that they are the same shape as Haman’s hat. But Haman was the man who wanted to wipe us out. Why would we immortalise him by eating cookies that bear his name?

 Answer:

 This may be a cake of mistaken identity. These Purim cakes were originally called mohntaschen, which means ‘poppy seed pockets’. Today most hamantaschen are filled with jam, but poppy seed used to be the more popular filling. It was a short linguistic jump from mohntaschen to Hamantaschen, as people assumed there was a connection between the food eaten on Purim and the villain of the Purim story.

 The real reason for eating Hamantaschen is that they symbolise the very nature of the Purim miracle. If you read the story of Purim you notice that it was a string of seeming coincidences that saved the Jewish people from annihilation. There were no open miracles, no seas split, no plagues, just some twists and turns of history that, when viewed as separate events, seemed quite natural. Only at the end of the story was it revealed that a miracle had occured.

 Jews can always find a food to tell a story. In this case, it is the Hamantasch. The outside of the Hamantasch is just plain dough. The true flavour is concealed inside. Beneath the very ordinary veneer, the heart of the Hamantasch is bursting with sweetness.

 Our lives are much the same. At times it seems that we are being pushed and pulled by accidental forces. Things happen to us that seem haphazard and random, there seems to by no system in place, no direction to this cold and harsh universe. This is not true. There is a system. But it is hidden. Below the surface there is a sweet hand and a warm heart that directs the universe.

Rarely do we get to see this hand. Purim is one day when it was revealed, when a crack opened in the outer shell of nature and we glimpsed what lies beyond. Purim reminds us that all those coincidences are no coincidences, and nothing is random. We are still in the middle of our story, so it is hard to see the full picture. But in the end we will see that it’s all one big Hamantasch.

All the best,

Rabbi Moss

Question of the Week:
  

My girlfriend is Jewish. I am not. I just want to know what crime I have committed by being a non-Jew. All her friends and family are trying to convince her out of this relationship. I think I am a nice guy. What do they have against me?

Answer: 

Let me tell you a story that happened just last week.

My children were waiting to catch the school bus in the morning. But the bus never arrived. Apparently the bus driver missed a turn and didn’t go past my kids’ stop to pick them up. They are usually the last ones to get on the bus, but today he was going straight to school without them.

All the other school kids on the bus realised what was happening and started screaming at the bus driver. “You missed the turn! The Moss kids! You have to turn around! Go back and pick up the Moss kids!”

The driver, feeling somewhat helpless, called back to the busload of screaming Jewish kids, “I can’t turn back in this traffic. It will be an hour before we get to school. There’s nothing I can do.”

The school children were not satisfied. “But the Moss kids!” they shrieked. “You left them behind!”

One quick thinking girl pulled out her phone and frantically called her mother. “Mum, the bus made a wrong turn and missed the Moss kids. Call their parents to tell them!” And so she did, which is how I heard the story.

My wife and I later reflected on what a special little episode this was. That’s what it means to belong to a community. People know who you are, people care if you miss the bus. Within minutes of the wrong turn, we heard about it and were able to look after the situation. We felt very much cared for.

That bus represents the Jewish people. We are an extended family on a big bus of history that has been travelling along for four thousand years. And if a Jewish child might miss the bus, the whole nation starts screaming. We can’t allow even one Jewish soul to be lost to the Jewish family.

My friend, you have done nothing wrong, and no one has anything personal against you. But there are a lot of people out there who sincerely care for the future of the Jewish people. And for that future every soul counts. Your girlfriend is a part of a community that spreads over the globe, she is the next link in a chain that spans generations. We can’t just stand by and let her miss the bus.

Ever since that incident, the bus driver has been extra careful to make the right turn and never leave behind a Jewish child. He had better. He is driving bus number 613.

All the best,
Rabbi Moss

Note: 613 is the exact number of commandments in the Torah, the portable Jewish homeland, our national bus

Question of the Week:

 My child always blames everyone else for his own misbehaviour. It’s always “he started it,” “she made me do it,” and nothing is ever his fault. How can I teach him to take responsibility for his actions and not shift blame to others?

Answer: 

Yesterday my two year old son snatched a toy from his older sister. She was about to throttle him, so I intervened. I saw this as a chance to impart some Jewish wisdom, so I explained to my daughter the idea of our two inner voices – the Yetzer Tov and the Yetzer Hora.

There’s a voice inside that tells me to be upright, moral and well-behaved. This is my drive to be good, called the Yetzer Tov. But I also have a deviant and rebellious side, an inner voice that tries to convince me to do whatever is wrong and hurtful and selfish, known as the Yetzer Hora.

These two voices constantly battle to win me over. I have to choose which side gets the upper hand. And I am responsible for my choice. If I listen to my darker side, then I only have myself to blame.

So before my daughter had the chance to attack her brother I asked her, “Are you going to listen to your Yetzer Hora and hit your brother, or are you going to listen to your Yetzer Tov and just find something else to play with?”

This turned things around. Instead of being in a fight with her brother, she was now facing an inner struggle of evil versus good. She can no longer excuse her behaviour by saying, “He started it.” No matter who started it, if she hits him, she has made a bad choice. It was her own Yetzer Hora that she succumbed to.

 On the other hand, if she chooses not to hurt her brother and walks away she is not a loser, but a winner. She didn’t lose a fight with her brother, but rather won a battle with her own evil inclination. Either way, the choice is hers, and she is responsible for that choice.

She thought about it for a second, and then made her choice. She gave her brother a whack in the face.

Well, at least I tried.

But it was not a failure. Even though she didn’t do what I wanted her to do, she heard what I had to say. This episode reinforced in her little mind the idea that there is an inner battle of good and evil. In the long run, with repetition and patience, that message will sink in.

Kids fight. They won’t change so quickly. But by moving the battleground from the outside to a battle within, we can help our children channel their aggression toward fighting their own evil, and in the end, their own good side will win.

 All the best,

Rabbi Moss

Question of the Week:

I have an issue with religious Jews. They have this thing about not showing affection in public. You would never see a very religious couple holding hands walking down the street and certainly not kissing in public, as it is considered immodest. But I think this teaches children that affection is bad and romance is taboo. How will they ever get married if they don’t see affectionate parents?

Answer:

 Here is a true story that happened to a family I know. They are observant and G-d fearing people, and indeed the parents never showed physical affection, even in front of their own children.

It once happened that this family was out driving in their van, parents sitting in the front, and their large brood in the back. While stopped at a red light, one of the children pointed out a scene that caught his eye. Right beside the car, on the side of the road, was a young couple engaged in a very public display of affection.

The kids expressed their strong disapproval, with “ooooo” noises and calls of “yuck!” The oldest, a girl of twelve, loudly declared, “Disgusting!”

Now the parents had a few options as to how to react to this situation. They could have encouraged their children’s innocent aversion to street corner romance by telling them not to look at such a yucky thing. Or perhaps they should correct their children’s hard-line view and tell them that there is actually nothing yucky about love between two people. Or they could just smile to themselves and let it pass.

But any good parent knows that there are certain teaching moments that don’t come along too often, and if they are not grabbed they will be missed. Some lessons are better taught spontaneously. Rather than the parent sitting down the child to talk about an issue, it is sometimes better to wait until the child sees or hears something, makes a comment or asks a question, and use that as an opening to address the topic. An alert parent will have a store house of lessons at the ready, and patiently wait for the right opportunity to share them.

This was one such moment. And the wise father of these children, who had labelled an act of love as disgusting, jumped at the opportunity to teach them a lesson for life.

“It is not disgusting,” he told his children. “It’s just in the wrong place.”

I heard this story as it was told by the twelve year old daughter, now a mother of children of her own. She said that all these years later she still remembers what her father said, and what an impact his simple words had on her. At first she was shocked. Her father, a rabbi, didn’t think this was disgusting? Do my parents do this too? But then it dawned on her. Of course they do. They love each other, and when people love each other, this is what they do. Just some things are supposed to be private. Not because it’s disgusting, because it is precious, it doesn’t belong on the street.

There are couples that no one will ever see touching each other, but anyone can see the deep love they share. It is reflected in the way they speak to each other, the way they look at each other, the way they talk about each other. And then there are couples who are all lovey-dovey-kissy-huggy, but it is no more than a show for the onlookers. How intimate can affection be if every passer-by is privy to it? Does romance have any real meaning if it is shared with strangers?

When a couple is secure in their love for each other, they don’t feel the need to demonstrate their affection to others outside the relationship. And yet, everyone, including their children, will know that love is there. Physical affection is more powerful when kept private. It is not disgusting, as long as it is in the right place.

All the best

Rabbi Ritchie Moss

 

Question:

I don’t understand. Why do the good die young? I have lost a friend who was the best person I know. And I can think of plenty of not-so-good people who are living it up. Where is the justice? Can you make any sense of this upside down world?

Answer:

Let me tell you a story.

A great debate once raged in heaven. It was over a most beautiful and precious new soul that G-d had created. The angels debated what should be done with this soul. One group of angels demanded that this soul remain in heaven. “She is too pure, too holy to face the ugliness of the lowly world,” they said. “Who knows what will happen to her in a world of temptation and evil. This soul must stay with us here.”

But the other group of angels said the exact opposite: “Indeed this soul glows with a unique divine glow. But for that very reason she must go down to earth. For imagine the beauty and goodness this soul can bring to a dark world. What good is there in keeping such a soul in heaven? Let her descend to earth and shine her light there.”

And so they argued back and forth, each side unshakable in their view. Until it became clear that they could not resolve the issue themselves, they needed a Higher Authority. The case was brought before G-d Almighty. The angels stated their arguments before the heavenly court. G-d listened to the two opinions -the first group of angels arguing that this unspoiled soul is too holy to be plunged into the lowly world, the second countering that the world needs such souls more than anything.

And this was G-d’s response:

“Indeed, it is sad to send such an immaculate soul into such a dark world. But this is My will. I only created darkness so souls like this one can transform darkness into light. The whole purpose of creation was that the lowly world be refined by the good deeds of mortal human beings. This cannot be achieved by souls in heaven. It can only be achieved through souls in bodies. And so even this most perfect and pure soul must descend to earth.”

The first group of angels, who requested for the soul to remain in heaven, were disappointed. They couldn’t fathom how such a spiritual being could be expected to survive such a physical world. G-d turned to them and said, “As for your request to keep this soul up here, I will grant it partially. Though she must leave us and go down to earth, it will not be long before she will return to us. Her sojourn on earth will be brief. Such a brilliant soul will not need long to fulfil her mission. Soon she will be free to come back to heaven.”

G-d then turned to the second group and asked, “Are you satisfied with that? Do you accept that this soul can only be on earth for a limited time?”

The angels replied, “Yes we do. Every day that she is on earth is a blessing.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When a loved one passes away, we feel we have lost something precious. We are left with a gaping hole in our heart, and we often wonder why they were taken away from us. But at the same time we can be grateful for the very fact that they were given to us in the first place. We are blessed to have such beautiful souls in our lives. The world is lucky to have a piece of heaven come down on earth. And even if it can only be for a short while, we will take whatever we can get.

In time all souls will be reunited. In the meantime, let us be thankful for the gift of every day.

All the best,

Rabbi Moss

Question:

My grandmother always told me not to walk around the house in just socks and no shoes. Is there anything to this or is it a bubbemaise superstition?

Answer:

There is no law that forbids you to walk around in socks. But our sages teach us to never ignore the sayings of our grandmothers, for there is always some wisdom in them. Indeed, your grandmother’s aversion to shoelessness does have some basis.

Jewish law states that one who is mourning the loss of a loved one removes their shoes. Thus walking around in socks makes you look like a mourner, and we don’t even want to look like a mourner. This is part of a general Jewish attitude to death. We don’t like it. We do whatever we can to stay away from it.

There are many Jewish customs that stem from the desire to avoid anything associated with death. Some people don’t sleep with their feet facing the door, because that is how a corpse lies before burial. We don’t speak about what will happen when someone dies, but rather what will happen “after 120 years.” We wash our hands after attending a funeral, to rid ourselves of the impurity of the cemetery.

This dislike of death is not so much a superstition as an allergy. Our tradition trains us to love life and be allergic to death. Unlike some traditions that venerate death as an ideal and view life as a wretched curse, the Jewish tradition cherishes life as a blessing. Through customs that distance us from death and its trappings, the Jewish people has inculcated a worldview that is life-affirming and this-world focused.

Your grandmother had a point. Death is a part of life. But it need not be given any more space than necessary. Keep your shoes on.

All the best,

Rabbi Moss.

Question:

Question

Why do we celebrate Sukkos immediately after the High Holydays? Is there a connection between Yom Kippur and eating in an outdoor hut for a week?

Answer:

The first thing we do in the new year is make resolutions. The second thing we do is break them. At a moment of inspiration we promise to curb our temper, become more generous, speak to G-d more or quit a bad habit, but soon after we go back to our old ways as if nothing happened. Often a sincere resolution is forgotten as quickly as it was made.

The reason: compartmentalisation. Our personalities are divided. One part of us truly wants to improve and grow, while other parts of us are lazy and complacent. My mind tells me one thing but my heart feels otherwise. My soul has good intentions but my body comes in the way. The resolution is being made by my higher self; it is being broken by my lower self.

The solution: enter a Sukkah. We sit in the Sukkah with our entire being – our body and our soul, our heart and our mind, our lowly side as well as our lofty side. It is one of the only mitzvas that we do with our whole person. On Yom Kippur we neglect our body to allow the soul’s tru enature to shine forth; on Sukkos we invite our body to join in on the inspiration. Then the resolutions of the soul are implemented by the body.

The Sukkah experience is one of wholesomeness. By bringing our whole self into a holy space, our resolve from Yom Kippur can be translated into reality. Don’t miss out on this festival, the one that brings the High Holydays down to earth.

Question

I was in your shule on Friday night and couldn’t believe my eyes. I saw a guy I knew from years back who is the last person I would ever expect to find praying. Let’s just say that he certainly wasn’t the spiritual type when I knew him. If anything he was anti-religion. But now he has become a regular at your services. How did you get him there? (By the way I love your emails and always enjoy reading them.)

Answer:

Thanks for the feedback. I am glad you enjoy the emails, and I appreciate you telling me. That is the only way I can know how my writing is being received.

I receive three types of feedback. Some write something like, “Great email”. That’s nice. Even better is, “I forwarded that to my whole list”. But the best compliment is disagreement. Negative feedback is the most positive feedback I can get.

Indifference is a writers nightmare. If I deliver a dramatic email and get no response, no questions or objections, then it probably wasn’t read at all. My words didn’t penetrate. But when I receive vehement protests and strong counter-arguments, then I know that I have touched someone. They protest because they have taken me seriously, their outlook has been challenged and so they feel the need to defend their position. That’s the type of reader I am looking for – one who doesn’t agree, and says so. Then we can have a conversation.

So too in our discourse with G-d. Every one of us has a soul, whether we consider ourselves spiritual or not, and every soul is involved in a constant dialogue with G-d. We each react differently to what G-d has to say, we may or may not respond, but we all are involved in the conversation.

Some are indifferent to G-d. His call to their soul doesn’t touch them, either because they are not ready to hear it or because they don’t want to. That is a tough audience. Others agree with whatever G-d says. They are the rare souls who seem to naturally follow the divine will. Then there are the those who struggle with G-d and resist what He says. They are the ones to watch.

A person who is resistant to religion is very likely the one who is most touched by it. It resonates so deeply, if they don’t resist, they will have to pursue it. If they are honest with themselves, they will recognise that they are disagreeing because they know it’s so true. They hear the irresistible call of G-d to come closer, and in time they will realise that there is nothing to fear. That’s when they drop their resistance and let their soul go free.

If you are arguing against G-d, you are not far away. As long as you are thinking and responding, you are a part of the divine conversation. Disagree?