As an “insider”, and someone who has a reasonable grasp of Chabad theology and textual sources, I sensed that many of their assumptions and interpretations are based on a misunderstanding or lack of appreciation of Chabad theology, and particularly of the nature of the organisation itself. This article is primarily intended to educate and contextualize Chabad for those not part of the community. As the work of a card-carrying Chabadnik, it may be dismissed as hagiography – my intent is not to be one-eyed and defensive; rather to break down barriers between Jewish groups through better understanding of each other.

Jews have been pining for Moshiach for nearly 2000 years, some more overtly than others. The belief in the coming of Moshiach is core to all of Orthodox Judaism – the daily prayers and liturgy are full of very explicit and strongly worded wishes for the messianic age. Orthodox Jewish leaders – both Chassidim and Mitnagdim – were for many hundreds of years clearly focussed on the desire to usher in the Messianic age. While the Mitnagdim are/were opposed to some Chabad activities and theology, this did not dampen their own desire for Moshiach; rather they rejected Chabad’s unique approach to the issue. Where Chabad differs from other Jewish groups is that the Rebbe prioritized and emphasized the belief in and desire for the Messianic age, and used it as a driver for the entire movement in ways that have never been done before. This is something worthy of further exploration when considering the impact of Chabad in the world.

To understand this better, one first has to understand the relationship between a Chassid and a Rebbe. As a leader, a Rebbe has a connection to God and spiritual dimensions not attainable for the majority of people. As such, he has the ability to perceive the needs of his Chassidim, and to offer advice, insights, blessings, and direction for their lives. This leads to a very strong bond between Chassid and Rebbe. My late grandfather, Reb Zalman Serebryanski OBM, would repeat the time-worn adage “a Chassid is a soldat (soldier)”. This military metaphor helps us understand the way a Chassidic group functions and the interactions between Rebbe and Chassid.

As an example of this, in 1978, the Gerer Rebbe known as “Lev Simcha” established an outpost in Ashdod. At the time, Ashdod was mostly secular, with a Sefardi and a small Ashkenazi charedi community there. The Gerer Rebbes had a history of establishing takanot (by-laws) to regulate the way their Chassidim lived, such as placing limits of the amount one could spend on weddings to avoid inflationary pressures and jealousy. The initial response was mixed – the believers were positive, those with financial issues liked the proposition, and those who could afford elsewhere tried to get permission to buy elsewhere.

However, the authority of the Rebbe was not something that was questioned, and since price limitations were imposed on flats for newlyweds, the Ashdod community grew very quickly. Today, the price controls are no longer needed as the Gerer community has spread across the Israel, so no- one has an issue with living outside of Jerusalem.

In hindsight, this was an outstanding visionary move. Property prices in Jerusalem only went up, and the Rebbe was acting in the best interests of his Chassidim and the continuity of their community and lifestyle in doing this. And as a Rebbe, he had the power to make it happen, rather than leave it to a market economy.

There are elements of autocracy, monarchy and military in the organisational structure and culture of Chassidic communities. The bottom line is simple: if the Rebbe issues a directive, the Chassidim do.

My late grandparents OBM were among a handful of families sent to Australia in 1949 by the previous Lubavitcher Rebbe (known as “the Rebbe Rayatz” – an acronym of his name) to help establish and grow the community here. This was during an age where communication across 10,000 miles (let alone travel) was far more difficult. And yet, these families took this upon themselves and were shluchim – emissaries – of the Rebbe, dedicating their lives in fulfilling the mission of Chabad. It was far more difficult to maintain a close connection to the Rebbe back then. They corresponded by (snail) mail, sending reports of their activities, asking questions, and receiving further instructions.

The mission of Chabad is unashamedly simple: to usher in the Messianic age through acts of goodness and kindness. This harks back to the Baal Shem Tov’s famous spiritual encounter with Moshiach, where he was advised that Moshiach will come when “your wellsprings will burst forth to the farthest extremes”; indeed this phrase forms part of a popular Chabad Chassidic song about the encounter.

The Rebbe Rayatz did this by sending his emissaries like my late grandparents to all parts of the world to build communities and do outreach work, and the Rebbe continued this work with even greater vigour, rapidly growing Chabad to a global network of tens of thousands of Chassidim, and thousands of Chabad Houses and Chabad communities.

While other Chassidic groups had a more insular and isolationist approach, in some cases trying to recreate the shtetl of pre-war Europe, Chabad was radical and revolutionary. They discarded the shtreimel and long coats of the other groups and took the conservative fedora and dark suit of mainstream Orthodoxy and Misnagdim. They went out into the world and engaged with it in a way that no Jewish group had ever before.

The thousands of foot-soldiers, each dedicated to the Rebbe and his mission, spread very rapidly across the world. The movement took some but not all elements from the military. In an army, the chain of command is everything. A soldier is trained to follow the orders of their superior officer, and in order for an army to operate smoothly, it needs a deep hierarchy of management: Lieutenants, Corporals, Majors, Generals, and a Commander in Chief. Orders flow down from the Commander in Chief to the Privates, and activity and reporting flows up. Chabad was different: it had the military culture of soldiers working together toward a common cause, but not the structure and management levels of an army (or indeed of any organisation of similar size). I believe this was for two reasons:  Firstly, this sort of hierarchy is not how delegation traditionally works in Chassidic groups – everyone can and does have a direct connection to the Rebbe, which is embodied in the principle of hitkashrut (connectedness). A Chassid is connected to a Rebbe by (a) doing the things the Rebbe directs and considers important, and (b) studying the Rebbe’s teachings. The Rebbe had a tremendous work rate, and with the assistance of a small secretariat group, was indeed able to respond to a huge volume of correspondence from many thousands of Chassidim and maintain a direct connection with them. Secondly, having minimal management and controls meant global expansion could be far more rapid. How long would it take a regular business to establish a global presence of tens of thousands all pushing the message of the CEO?

Over time, and with growth, the position of Head Shliach for a geographic region emerged. However, this was not a management position, rather a way to ensure the region was divided appropriately. Any given Shliach would not report to, nor be required to seek guidance from their Head Shliach on a regular basis – rather they would still be connected directly to the Rebbe. In recent time, and with greater saturation of shluchim in some areas, this structure has led to turf wars and nepotism, and the conflict resolution mechanisms are not well developed.

In some areas, parallel and partially overlapping structures formed, where in one city or area there might be several Chabad Shuls, several Chabad Houses, and a Chabad community. Melbourne is a good example of this, where there are Rabbis, Shluchim, and Head Shluchim, and somehow, they mostly find a way to coexist. However, the alliances are loose at best, and there are weak if nonexistent lines of accountability within the city. There is no group that purports to speak or make decisions for the Chabad Rabbis in any city. Again, conflict can and has arisen, and has not been dealt with well. Here is not the place to go into a deep examination of the political and organisational dynamics of one particular city that has a strong Chabad presence. Suffice to say that the loose hierarchy has both strengths: rapid growth and a feeling of direct connectedness to the Rebbe and the mission; and weaknesses: difficulty in dealing with conflict and maintaining a very consistent message.

People who speak of “the Chabad PR machine”, or who suggest that “Chabad has power and influence” have the mistaken impression that Chabad Rabbis and Shluchim work far more closely together than they do. Each has their individual shlichus and mission, and each one seeks to fulfil it on a micro level. As disappointing as this may sound, they don’t get together in secret meetings to plot global domination, or even local domination of (non-Chabad) shuls or pan-communal organisations like the Beth Dins or Kashrut authorities.

So how about Messianism? As stated, the mission of Chabad is to bring about the coming of Moshiach, and the Rebbe was (and remains) as the leader, driver and face of that mission. There is a tradition (mentioned in Zohar) that in every generation, there is someone who is the designated Moshiach (if the time is right for Moshiach to come). Most, if not all Chassidim (and plenty of non-Chabadniks) considered the Rebbe to be the mostly likely person to be the Moshiach of our generation.

There was plenty of opposition by broader Orthodoxy to this focus on who Moshiach may or may not be. While there is precedent in the Talmud for declarations of who the “designated Moshiach” is at any time, it was felt by some that this emphasis was unnecessary, unhelpful to the cause, and cult-like. From the perspective of Chabadniks, it may be that identifying a likely Moshiach made the concept more tangible and acceptable, which in turn would drive greater activity directed toward bringing Moshiach (when I was in Yeshivah many years ago, my roommate once commented to me: “Galus isn’t as bad as people make out”. This inertia, complacency, and fear of change were something the Rebbe was trying to break with the Moshiach campaign. Only a genuinely feeling that there was something deeply missing in the world could being to sufficient desire to create change).

Did the “who” surpass the “how”? For some, it certainly did. Did the Rebbe himself feed the frenzy? This is a difficult question to answer. There are letters, extracts of discourses and incidents that can be interpreted either way (and here is not the place to go into a detailed chapter and verse), so it’s impossible to come to a clear answer to this. How important is it to know whether or not the Rebbe himself fed the frenzy? This question is probably only important to those who feel strongly either way (rather than the muddled middle that are comfortable with ambiguity on this issue).

There was and remains a divergence of views as the relative importance of the “who”. Some within Chabad believe that the declaration and acceptance of the Rebbe as Moshiach in and of itself helps bring Moshiach closer. The majority focus on what they consider “core” activities: general outreach work and the mitzvah campaigns.

The Rebbe’s passing from this world, on Gimmel Tammuz (all Chabad special days are known by their Hebrew date rather than what happened on them), was a huge challenge for all Chassidim. For some, it was a clear indication that the Rebbe’s mission to bring Moshiach (and to be the Moshiach) had failed. Nevertheless, the mission had to continue. For others, a spectrum of secondary beliefs emerged and developed as to the status of a Rebbe who no longer had a physical presence in this world, and this spawned what is now characterised as Chabad Messianism. Yet for these Chassidim too, the mission had to continue. This created a significant rift within the movement which continues until this day. And yet, no matter where on the Messianic belief spectrum Chassidim sat, they all agreed that the mission had to continue. And continue it did, with even greater growth and expansion than before Gimmel Tammuz.

What proportion of Chabad fall within the spectrum of these Messianic beliefs? How many are “Meshichisten”? Until someone does some quality research on the matter, it’s impossible to say. But again, this question is probably only important to people at either spectrum of belief (both within and outside Chabad).

Actions speak louder than words and give us a greater insight into the underlying beliefs that drive those actions.

In many other Chassidic dynasties, the passing of the Rebbe led to quarrels as to succession, and in many cases to splits, and the formation of new groups (how do you think we ended up with hundreds of Chassidic groups, when it all started from the Baal Shem Tov?). In the case of Chabad, there was no nominated successor, which makes it even more amazing that the movement didn’t fracture into many distinct subgroups. Why didn’t this happen? If the movement was that focussed on its leader, why didn’t it collapse when he was no longer around?

To understand this, let’s take a quick digression into the concept of bitul – most commonly translated as “self-nullification” (some translations of complex Chassidic and Kabbalistic terms are infuriatingly awkward and inadequate) or “selflessness” (a bit better). Very briefly, the pathway to a deep relationship with God is humility, thus recognizing that God is one and is everything, and that the purpose of man is to bring Godliness into the physical world. A person then becomes batul to the mission of his soul and the purpose of creation. This bitul is not unlike the relationship between a Chassid and a Rebbe – the Rebbe directs the mission, and the Chassid is a loyal and unquestioning foot-soldier. The notion of bitul is being part of something bigger than oneself.

As a tzadik (righteous person), a Rebbe certainly has attained this level of bitul toward God, and as a leader, his role is to direct the mission. But the Rebbe is not greater than the mission – indeed the Rebbe is batul to the mission in exactly the same way that the Chassidim are. The mission is greater than everyone – Rebbe and Chassid alike.

In this context, and using the terminology of James Collins, it makes sense to describe the Rebbe as a “level 5 leader”, who embodies a “paradoxical mix of personal humility and professional will.” As a mission-driven organization, Chabad was built to last, and this is the key to understanding how the mission could continue to thrive after the physical passing of the Rebbe.

The prolific writings of the Rebbe continue to act as a guide to all Chassidim in the fulfilment of their mission, and as a way to continue to remain connected to the Rebbe, in various different ways.

How long can Chabad survive without a physical leader? It’s a good question. Eighteen years after Gimmel Tammuz, it is humming along like a well-oiled machine. The rift associated with Messianism has not destroyed the movement, nor has it split the movement far enough apart that there are two versions of Chabad. Eighteen years is nearly a generation: the young shluchim that are going out to open new Chabad Houses barely have a memory of the Rebbe being around, of directly hearing discourses, or any personal interaction. Will they have enough mission in them to impart to their children? Only time will tell.

So what is Chabad? Chabad is a global, distributed, mission-driven organisation. ‘Global’ is quite obvious; ‘distributed’ because of the lack of hierarchy and central controls; and ‘mission-driven’ because the mission was and is everything, and is bigger than and survives any one leader or individual.

In conclusion, Chabad is perceived as far more structured and controlled than it is. When taking into account its organisational structure and culture, Chabad in my view is actually more mission-centric than Rebbe-centric. Academics and others who ruminate about what the Rebbe might have thought of himself may be missing the real story of Chabad, which continues to power on long after many people thought the light switched off.

A Mehadrin bus information poster in Israel

By David Werdiger
Many posts and comments on these pages have had a go at some of the Orthodox Jewish institutions in Melbourne, such as those associated with kashrut certification and the Beth Din, for a variety of reasons. There is a recurring theme of people complaining that these organisations are maintaining standards that are unnecessarily stringent, and not consistent with those the people want (well, at least those people who choose to engage in the discussion).

Whether it’s Kosher Australia following particular standards and therefore ruling products not kosher, while others point to rulings that would permit their use, or the Beth Din being overly strict in dealing with prospective converts (governance issues are not in the scope of this discussion).

So how kosher is kosher enough? How frum is frum enough? In a diverse city like Melbourne, these are difficult questions to answer. We have a plethora of shuls and communities, each with their own leadership, each with their own acceptable standards of Jewish practice, and this leads to a large variety of standards within a single city.

We live in a pluralist society, so we acknowledge the right of each individual to express their Jewish practice to the standard of their own choice. And herein lays the problem: to what extent should one person have to raise or lower their own standard to accommodate others?

This question can be asked on two levels: in the case of dealing with others (“peer to peer”), and in the establishment of standards used by communal bodies.

In the case of “peer to peer”, the polite thing to do is cede to the more stringent/restrictive standard. This is common in the workplace, where non-Jews will eat kosher to accommodate the dietary requirements of one, or adjust schedules to avoid Jewish holidays. But as is often the case, non-Jews have more respect for religious practices than fellow Jews. I recall situations of frum tenants wanting to establish an “eruv chatzerot” in a block of flats so they could carry in the common areas on Shabbat (this is not needed any more), and while the non-Jewish neighbours were obliging, the Jewish ones questioned the need to be “so frum”. There are countless more examples of this, and the intolerance displayed is quite disgusting. Surely we could be at least as polite and accommodating to other Jews as non-Jews are?

With regards to communal bodies, the issue is more complex. An organisation that is responsible for an aspect of religious observance of a community is “accountable” both to the community that is serves, and to God (or rather their interpretation and understanding of what God wants from us). These interests can often conflict. By-laws established by Rabbis must also be sustainable (i.e. the community must be able to abide by them). The Rabbis who establish these standards must balance all of these, and still be able to sleep at night hoping they have acted true to their beliefs and their constituency. Where an Orthodox Rabbi heads an Orthodox shul where most of the congregants are not practicing Orthodox (I like the term “Orthodox affiliated”), similar issues can arise. If such a Rabbi did not allow his congregants to drive to shul on Shabbat, either the shul would be empty, or he would be quickly out of a job.

People are quick to criticize the Rabbis for their decisions (which will invariably trouble someone) – no wonder there isn’t a queue a mile long for Rabbinic positions when they become open. It is a credit to Chabad for producing Rabbis who are prepared to step up to these roles and devote their lives to community service. That is surely one of the reasons there is a disproportionate number of practicing Chabad Rabbis in Melbourne, particularly in non-Chabad shuls.

Is a diverse community better served by having a greater or fewer distinct standards of religious practice in its organisations? No matter how many Beth Dins or Kashrut certifiers there are, there will always be a group of disaffected people. More of them will likely not increase or decrease that – if anything more will increase the fractures that already exist in a community like ours.

I doubt if anyone is “frum enough”.

The so-called “separation between church and state” is enshrined in section 116 of our constitution, which states: The Commonwealth shall not make any law for establishing any religion, or for imposing any religious observance, or for prohibiting the free exercise of any religion, and no religious test shall be required as a qualification for any office or public trust under the Commonwealth. While this seems to be loosely based on the first amendment to the US constitution, the highest courts in the US have tested the separation to a far greater extent than have we.

In any case, this section makes it very clear that we are a democracy, and not a theocracy. Marriage is an institution enshrined in (secular) legislation. Anything the Church or the Rabbinate say about an issue like gay marriage carries no weight. So why do religious groups comment, and what do they seek to achieve by getting involved in such a debate?

Let’s take a step back and consider the extent of the separation between religion and state in Australia. As indicated earlier, it’s far less so than in the US. We continue to debate the issue of religious instruction in public schools, and there is plenty of government support for religious schools and institutions. The Secular Party of Australia would like a far greater separation than we already have, including teaching of “secular values” in schools, the removal of any religious references. They feel that while separation is enshrined in the constitution, Australia is practically more of a pluralistic theocracy, where the state supports many religions.

To understand this, we have to look beyond religion (in the way that it relates to the state) and instead to the values that underpin our western democratic society. These are commonly referred to as Judeo-Christian values, because their source is biblical, and because while the founders of modern western societies like Australia and the US were themselves Christian, they sought to create states that embodied their values, and balanced them with the principles such as equality for all, and freedom of religion for their citizens.

The slogan of the Secular Party is “Freedom of religion and freedom from religion”. What they seek to do is break with the religious values that underpin our society so that it no longer “weighs down” secularism with its absolutism and old-fashioned dependence on that archaic Bible. It seems to me that in fact they are actually mandating the pseudo-religion of “secularism” to replace the support for any other religions that we have now.

Much of the objection to gay marriage takes the form of a slippery slope argument. That is, we are against X not on the grounds that X itself is bad, but rather because if we allow X, then it will lead to Y and Z, which are things we definitely don’t want. Interestingly, this is similar to the principle in Pirkei Avot 1:1 of making a ‘fence’ around the Torah (beware of anything that could lead to dancing).

While the defence against this argument is usually that the chain of logical implication is not established, with the likelihood of gay marriage being legalized here, the polyamory community has jumped on the bandwagon, and sees this as an important step in allowing their relationships to be legally recognized. This style of argument is also used by the right against euthanasia and genetic engineering. However, those on the left rely on similar arguments against such technologies as genetically modified crops.

Uriya Shavit writes a great piece in Azure about the Muslim Brotherhood’s idea of democracy. Strange as it may seem, their ideal society borrows much from democratic values, yet maintains Islamic law above all. It’s not quite the theocracy that operates in Iran or Saudi Arabia.

The common factor in all these examples is the growing chasm between the historical values of a society, often absolute and based on religion, and their contemporary ones, which are relative and fluid.

What sort of society do we have? What sort of society do we want in the future? What are the values of a truly Godless, secular society? Is it one where PETA and Peter Singer elevate the rights of animals at the expense of humans and we euthanize those people who are too great a burden for us to maintain? These shifts happen over decades, not months, which is why the slippery slope argument often raises its head in debates like this.

I venture that the argument of religious groups against gay marriage are a reflection of their discomfort with the moral relativism in society today. The family unit is one of the building blocks of society, and an essential element in intergenerational cultural transmission. Seeing it being tampered with is a signal that the divergence between traditional religious values and contemporary values has clicked another notch. They see the values of our society as a house, with Judeo-Christian values as the foundation. Chip away too much at the foundation, and the whole house comes crumbling down.

The Treasury at Petra, one of Jordan's most popular tourist sites, perhaps in part due to these three gentlemen

By David Werdiger
Q. Why do the Irish have the potatoes and the Arabs have the oil?
A. Because the Irish had first choice.

Natural resources are both a blessing and a curse. While they can be a source of wealth and prosperity for a country, they are something that is obtained with relatively little effort. As such, they can invariably lead to laziness and complacency. Just have a look at rates of literacy and innovation in so-called “rich” Arab nations – they are among the worst in the world. While there are many reasons for this, their economic dependence on oil was certainly a contributing factor.

In Australia, we are running a two-speed economy in the current mining boom. Demand from China and India for the stuff we have in the ground is one of the reasons our economy has stayed out of the deep recession affecting other countries. But what of the non-mining industry? Retail is weak, business confidence and investment is down, and people don’t see any light at the end of the tunnel.

I was thinking about all of this as I pondered this week’s Torah portion, Lech Lecha, in which God promises the land of Israel to Abraham. There are two angles to this:

Israel is variously described in the Torah as a land flowing with milk and honey; a land of brooks, waters, and fountains; a land whose stones are iron and from whose mountains you will hew brass; and so on. This doesn’t seem to correlate with the Israel we know today. Agriculture has not come easy, water is scarce, and there is little in the way of natural resources. So what’s the big blessing? I’m not about to launch into an exposition and explanation of how we might understand these attributes and what they mean (because I don’t know). However, I think the lack of natural resources in Israel is itself a form of blessing, because it has led modern Israel to be one of the leading knowledge economies in the world. Israeli companies are world leaders in technology and innovation. Israel’s economic success has been built not on the stuff in the ground, but on its people, and that is a resource that won’t run dry in 2050 like an oil well might.

The other thing that came to me today was about another natural resource found in abundance in the Middle East, but one whose economic potential has not yet been fully realised. What is the world’s biggest industry? Tourism. Imagine the huge untapped market for biblical tourism that could be unlocked if countries like Iraq were more open to the western world. Christians and Jews would flock to visit ancient cities and to follow the historical trail of the Patriarchs.

Historical sites are a far better natural resource than oil. They don’t deplete, and a strong tourism industry leads to cultural exchange and tolerance for others. And a bit of tolerance for others wouldn’t go astray in the Arab world.

Yes, I know it’s a bit of a pipe dream for a group of Jews to celebrate the weekly Torah portion of Lech Lecha by visiting Ur (the birthplace of Abraham), but as they say, “if you will it, it is no dream!”

This article was originally published here at David Knows.

Collingwood football star Harry O'Brien, seen here presenting a football to the Dalai Lama, mixes his spirituality with his football career. Is that a scarf-tallis Harry's wearing?

By David Werdiger

A few weeks ago, a friend of mine posted on Facebook: “The sounds of the Shofar can only mean one thing – the countdown is on to the impending footy finals. Go [nickname of AFL team that I can’t bear to put in writing]!” The relationship between AFL finals and the holiest days of the Jewish calendar – Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur – is paradoxical, incongruous, and uniquely Melbourne.

Maybe people have mixed feelings about that “one day in September” (and I’m not even referring to the film of the same name)  – they both invoke powerful, emotional wishes for success, a build-up over many weeks, a loud siren sound that pierces the air and electrifies the atmosphere, and a religious fervour.

AFL has so much in common with religion that many fans describe it as one. It has all the cultural elements of religion – uniting family and community, inter-generational transmission of values, passionate loyalty and one-eyed defence against “non-believers”, a host of rituals, and regular attendances – how many people would say they go to the footy “religiously”? Indeed, what Rabbi wouldn’t want people to be as “religious” about attendance to shul as they are to the footy? (To which the shul member replies, “If you provided as passionate and uplifting experience as 70,000 screaming fans at the MCG every week, I’d be there religiously too.”)

Fortunately or otherwise, my High Holyday prayers have not been distracted by thoughts of my football team for many years. But what happens when the two religions clash? There are many stories to draw upon, most famously in the US when Sandy Koufax didn’t play in the 1965 World Series because of Yom Kippur, or when NFL games were rescheduled two years ago because they affected New York fans. Closer to home, the famous pre-Neilah words of Rabbi Lubofsky OBM on Yom Kippur 1966 (“I would like to announce that St Kilda has won the Grand Final – now get back to your praying”) is embedded in St Kilda shul folklore, and David Smorgon’s decision not to attend an AFL final on Rosh Hashanah in 2009 was met with praise from all circles. Situations like these are a Kiddush Hashem, when public figures step up and declare unequivocally that their Judaism comes first.

But while it looks like Judaism trumps AFL, it is only by the slimmest of margins. The Jewish “finals” come before AFL finals, but on a regular Shabbat, football seems to get priority among most fans. Indeed, one shul I know of has an unwritten rule that the Shabbat service doesn’t go much past midday during season.

The 2011 AFL Grand Final will take place on Shabbat Teshuvah (the Shabbat between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur), which this year falls immediately after a Thursday and Friday Rosh Hashanah. If there is another replay, that would fall on Yom Kippur itself.

While some of us look back on a long season (year) of ups and downs, and think about what we would have done differently, and how we’d like to change for the future (and some of us are thinking about our own lives, not our footy teams), perhaps it’s an appropriate time to reflect on the roles of football and religion in our lives. There is certainly scope for comparing our relative commitment to each, and our attitudes and behaviours. Do you talk about religion at the footy? If not, then why do you talk about footy at shul? Would you ever arrive to the game after the opening bounce? If not, then why do you come late to shul? Conversely, perhaps our Rabbis can learn a thing or two from football culture to help people be more religious, about their religion?!

Wishing everyone a Shana Tova – a year of health, happiness and blessing.

The natural reaction of parents is to become extra protective. Between this and the regular breaking news about the alleged cases of sex abuse within our local community have come renewed efforts to educate our children about ‘stranger danger’, and how to pick up the signs of potential abuse. The police team investigating the reports has been recently expanded to meet the huge surge of complaints as victims come forward, the blogosphere and online media are buzzing, and with that, we need renewed efforts to educate ourselves about ‘gossip danger’.

There have been several examples of anonymous accusers naming names in online media and directly accusing individuals of awful crimes. It almost goes without saying that hiding behind a veil of anonymity to accuse others by name is a most cowardly and disingenuous thing to do. Most recently, fake comments have been posted in the name of a known community member in these pages, and it took several hours (during which several people responded to the fake comment) for the moderators to deal with it. It is a constant challenge for the editors of GA and other online media to strike a balance between facilitating free and open debate and ensuring commenters do not impersonate other and laws are not broken. Many accusations and suspicions floating around in some unmoderated blogs are still there!

As important as it is to report suspected crimes to the police, it is equally important to understand how dangerous and damaging public accusations of any kind can be. For us as a community to act collectively to root out the scourge of sexual abuse that has been lurking in the shadows for way too long, we must work with the relevant authorities exclusively, and let them do their jobs. Only by following due process and allowing these things to take their course can we bring about just outcomes. All it takes is one false accusation that blows up into a nasty law suit, or an innocent person’s reputation or family tainted for life, and we will be find ourselves jumping back to the dark culture of secrecy that we are seeking to escape from.

Our natural desire to talk about these things (whether motivated by a desire to protect, or simply nosiness) causes gossip and rumour to spread quickly, and here, people need to apply a simple test. Do they want to help the victims? (after all, it is primarily about the victims, isn’t it?) If they do, then they should consider any discussion about the topic in that light. Talk of “X is about to be arrested”, or “Y was abused as a child”, or “Z is under investigation” not only add nothing (and are probably lashon hara or motzi shem ra), but also may cause victims to feel less willing to come forward, and can destroy the reputation of innocent people. After all, our system of justice presumes innocence until proven otherwise. If we don’t uphold these same standards ourselves, then our community risks becoming a hotbed of fear and suspicion.

A Pandora’s Box has been opened. It cannot (and should not) be closed. If we don’t find the right balance in the way we deal with these matters, we will only do our community more harm.

Gold Coast coach Guy McKenna, doing his best to relate to his Suns

By David Werdiger

והגדת לבנך - שמות  יג”ח

And you shall relate to your son – Exodus 13:8 

As Pesach approaches, preparations go into full swing, and my mind jumps around between where we will be eating the various meals, where my children will be spending Pesach, the various tasks I’m going to do, and all the other “baseline” stuff that sits in my head: work and study.

Study has kept me busy this year, and as I move ever closer to completing, I enjoy the way learning has energized and stimulated my mind. There is a lot to absorb, and a few key things stick for various reasons, and form associations in my mind.

Organizational culture is something that has always interested me: how companies (or more widely organizations) learn and transmit knowledge. Look at the Gold Coast Suns, for example. Football clubs all have a culture, and as new players come, they seem to adopt the culture that is already there. For the Suns, they are starting with a blank slate. A dozen players from all over the place, plus the pick of young talent from all over the land, and suddenly, they are expected to play and perform as a club. The biggest challenge for their coaching staff is not football skills, but building a culture, and it will take them several years to do this. Only once that process has taken place will they see material gains in the way they work together as a team.

So how is culture transmitted? It’s not big glossy mission statements or expensive internal communication strategies. The research tells us that storytelling is one of the most powerful transmitters of culture. In the political world, the term “narrative” is used, which sort of means “our version of how things happened”.

The other study topic that has been high on my mind is marketing. Every day, people are bombarded by over 3000 advertising messages. Companies spend millions trying to convince us that their soft drink is better, or that we should buy their washing powder. They do this using every trick in the book, and are always seeking out new ways to understand why people do what they do. From market research to neuro-marketing, which studies how the brain responds to different marketing messages, it’s a never ending game of cat and mouse.

Marketers need to understand how the human brain processes information and makes decisions, and an important part of this is the human memory. My apologies go out in advance to all the experts out there for this very simplistic interpretation. Unlike a hard disk in a computer, our brains store information by complex chains of associations. Broadly, we have three levels of storage: semantic – like where we store the meaning of words; eidetic – where we store images, and episodic/narrative – the time relationship of events. It is the latter – stories – that is the easiest to store in our long term memories. This is consistent with the organizational culture view of storytelling.

With all of this floating around in my mind, and thinking about the upcoming Pesach seder, it all clicked into place. The purpose of the seder is to transmit a cornerstone part of Jewish culture – the Exodus from Egypt and our formation as a nation – to the next generation. And this is done through the most powerful and effective transmitter of culture – storytelling. That is why it has assumed its place as the preeminent cultural event in the Jewish calendar.

The biblical injunction to celebrate Pesach and have a seder is drawn from the verse “v’higadtah l’bincha” – “and you shall relate to your son”. This succinct phrase encapsulates the two key elements of the seder: (a) “l’bincha” – “to your son”, stressing the important a trans-generational communication, and (b) “v’higadtah” – “and you shall relate” – the medium for the communication: telling the story of the Exodus.

Like other ancient and enduring cultures, and long before modern researchers understood the why and how, the Torah spelled out the formula for its own perpetuity. While specific customs relating to Pesach have diverged over time, the essence of the seder has been celebrated for thousands of years.

Chag Sameach.

Even after 900 years of experience, some still don't trust Rav Yoda's rebel hechsher

By David Werdiger

The “kosher wars” have been reignited recently with the release by Rabbi Moshe Gutnick of The Kashrut Authority (I will refer to them as KA(Syd) to avoid ambiguity) of a statement regarding the standard of kashrut of Rabbi Rabi’s Kosher veYosher (KVY) at an establishment in Sydney. It should be noted that KVY is Melbourne-based, and KA(syd) has the closest thing to a monopoly on kashrut in Sydney. Indeed, the statement states that “[t]he appearance of Kosher V’Yosher in NSW has prompted us to make an announcement at this time”.

Rabbi Gutnick claims “first hand knowledge of the kashrut practices of [KVY]”, and refers to KVY’s controversial “soft matzah” as a representative example of the inadequacies of KVY’s kashrut supervision. KA(Syd)’s statement was posted on these pages and resulted in further debate on the issue.

In the course of this discussion, Anthony Frosh, one of the editors of this publication, has suggested that it is inappropriate for people to make allegations against rabbis without declaring their identity. This issue of commenter anonymity has comes up several times recently in these pages, and frankly, I think it’s a non-starter. An online magazine that wants to stimulate public debate on an issue needs to accept that in the internet world (and certainly in the WikiLeaks world), many people choose, for a host of reasons, to stay anonymous. Pressing them for identity or questioning their agenda simply because they are anonymous directs discussion away from the core issues, and will only stifle further debate. On several occasions, those anonymous commenters have backed away citing battering they have received as the reason. GA should put up or shut up: if this site wants to introduce a stricter comment policy, then it should do so officially, and start moderating all comments. Personally, I feel this would be a huge step backward.

More importantly, there are angles to this debate that go well beyond the kashrut standard or credentials of KVY (about which I will not comment).

There is the matter of laypeople making judgments about kashrut matters. With the launch of soft matzah, suddenly everyone became a kashrut expert, knowing about whether locally produced flour is washed, what the definition of chametz is, and what level of supervision is required for food establishments.

What if we were talking about doctors, and not rabbis? Would laypeople (perhaps not even their patients) constantly second guess them and suggest they know better? Would they say “I have read all about this, and I disagree with your diagnosis”? And if they did, is it reasonable for them to have the same credibility as a doctor?

In an age of modern food science and manufacturing, kashrut supervision has become a very complex matter indeed. There are many issues that can crop up in the end-to-end production of almost any food, and rabbis who work in the industry need a combination of halachic knowledge and manufacturing subject matter expertise.

So what is the layperson to make of a debate between rabbis over who of their supervision is or isn’t kosher? This is the core issue for most of us (who care about eating kosher).

The fact is that in a complex industry like kashrut, there are many valid opinions, and many shades of grey. KA (the Melbourne one) maintains both a regular and mehadrin (“extra kosher”) standard. What does this mean? Is “regular” kosher or isn’t it? Of course it’s kosher, KA would say, but some people prefer to observe extra hiddurim – “beautifying” mitzvot by doing them the best way possible. Why do some mezuzahs cost $50, and some $150? The same applies for a pair of tefillin, an etrog, or any number of other mitzvot.

So in kashrut, as in most of Judaism, there is a spectrum of observance. The spectrum is very wide, and there are no shortages of opinions. One person’s hiddur is another person’s extravagance, and what is a basic level of observance for one, may be quite unacceptable for another.

A while ago, there was a debate between KA and Adass kashrut about that fine product, Nutri Grain, which contrary to its healthy sounding name, happens to have the most sugar of any breakfast food. Adass said it was 100% kosher, and KA said it was 100% not. How could this be? Aren’t both of these Orthodox supervising agencies run to a very high standard (at least on my spectrum of observance)? It came down to a difference of psak (halachic ruling) about a particular ingredient. Eventually, the two organizations sat down, managed to work out their differences, and now Jewish children are all the less healthy for it.

Any kashrut authority establishes a standard for itself, often based on its target market, and/or its mission. One may choose to offer the highest standard possible without compromise. Another may choose to offer a lower standard so as to cater to a larger market. Whatever the case, they all must balance standards against available resources and other market forces.

If you are ill, you can search out the best specialist available in the world, or you can go to the nearest public hospital and wait for hours to see a second-year resident. What you do depends on how seriously you take your ailment, and what resources are available to you. Because the laws of kashrut are religious in origin, one could think of kashrut rabbis as spiritual doctors. The ultimate failure for a doctor results in the death of the patient. When a rabbi certifies food to be kosher when it isn’t, the result is spiritual damage to the consumer – something that most people are unable to perceive. At the end of the day, in both medicine and kashrut, people choose a standard that works for them.

In the interests of disclosure: the writer is a relative by marriage to the owner of Kosher veYosher, and was not solicited in any way to write this piece, nor consulted the agency.

I’m visiting Israel very briefly, and again find myself enamoured with the “minyan factory” known as Shtiblach Katamon. It happens to be about five minutes walk from where I’m staying, which is very convenient indeed. Let me describe how it works: it’s a big house with about six rooms and a foyer/lobby. During busy times, a man stands in the foyer – I like to call him the traffic cop. He directs people to which room a minyan is either about to start or has just started. For example, the minyanim for shacharit (morning service) run every 15 minutes like clockwork, from about 6am until 10am on weekdays. It’s the same sort of thing for mincha and maariv. On Shabbat, things start a little later, and finish a lot later, and slightly different rules for Shabbat mincha (a new minyan is allowed to start as soon as a minyan in progress has completed hagbah (the lifting and display of the Torah that occurs after the reading)). The full schedule can be found here (search for the word “Shtiblach”).

Of course this isn’t the only minyan factory around. One of the largest and best known is Zichron Moshe in Jerusalem, where a maariv can be had at all hours of the night (which is very handy for people arriving from abroad who need to say kaddish), and of course there are similar Shtiblach in the frum neighbourhoods of Bnei Brak and Boro Park.

Besides the obvious convenience (especially when suffering from jetlag), what I really love about the place is the way it unites people. At any given minyan, you will find a diverse mix of all types of Jews: Sefardi and Ashkenazi, Chassidim & Mitnagdim, kippot of every size, shape and fabric, and all different styles of peyot. The shul has no standard nusach (form of prayer) – whoever leads the service prays in his own nusach. The sorts of things that sometimes cause friction in some shuls simply don’t happen there. Everyone respects the cultural diversity of the place and each other, abides by the rules, and it just works.

Could such a thing work in Australia? Probably not. The Yeshivah shul in Melbourne already has a handful of daily shacharit minyanim (6:10, 6:15, 6:45, 7:30, 8:30), Adass has a few more than that, and we are blessed with plenty of shuls already (some might say too many, but that’s a whole other topic of discussion). David Havin publishes a minyan finder twice a year that tells you the when and where.

What is required to make a good minyan factory? The most important thing is the infrastructure: a foyer with several adjoining mini-shuls, a couple of Sefer Torahs in each, and someone to direct the people. The matter of nusach could certainly be a barrier in a city like Melbourne, where people go to a shul because they are a part of that particular community. That said, many of us who live in the ‘ghetto’ are so lazy that we wouldn’t go to a place ten minutes away when there’s one five minutes away – something that could be called ‘elasticity of demand’. So we probably don’t have the Jewish population density for such a venture to succeed. Nevertheless, these shtiblach, wherever they are, stand as an outstanding model of Jewish unity.

A promo from Charleston, South Carolina, that displays its humid sub-tropical climate that apparently allows for Chanukah parties on the beach

By David Werdiger

The chagim are spread widely across the calendar year, with the “major” ones like Pesach and the High Holydays falling usually around April and September. These correspond to the seasons of autumn and spring in Australia, and the reverse in the northern hemisphere. Since the weather is usually ambivalent during those times, and they are close to the equinox, the difference between the experiences in each hemisphere is not great.

Chanukah, on the other hand, falls during summer down under, and in winter in the northern hemisphere. This makes for a radically different experience. While other countries may dream of a white Chanukah, we generally associate them with hot weather, late summer nights, and barbeques.

The uniquely antipodean cultural associations with Chanukah make a huge contrast for people who come here from other countries. For those who light candles at dusk, there is no need to rush home like crazy Friday afternoons during winter. Indeed, summer afternoons with the added bonus of daylight savings mean there is ample opportunity for post-work Chanukah functions (as well as the mandatory end-of-year drinking sessions that seem to fill our calendars at these times). Imagine staging the events like the outdoor Chanukah in the Park with everyone rugged up in warm coats and snow everywhere.

And then there is the great Aussie Chanukah barbie. This is one of the times our large family all get together for a huge meat-fest, with latkes as the principle side-dish, and hot fresh doughnuts for dessert. I couldn’t imagine it any other way.

How do you celebrate Chanukah “Australian-style”?

David is chairman of JBD – Jews of the CBD, which has this year organized a series of after-work doughnut and latke gatherings, in all corners of the Melbourne CBD. For more information, contact jbd.melbourne AT gmail.com.