Imabima’s blog with its numerous ads encouraged me to write this post.

As Jews we are mandated to “heal a fractured world” - to quote Rabbi Jonathan Sacks - by performing ethical mitzvot. We believe that mitzvot have practical this-wordly social and educational effects on those who perform them, and thus, the mizvot will improve the Jews and the world. The fact is that it is easy and quick to contribute to good causes just by clicking on the right picture

For instance if you go to The Hunger Site, you will be invited to click so as to help feed hungry people. This is how it works:
- You click daily and are lead to another page where sponsors appear.
- The sponsors pay for cups of food.

The same site hosts other organizations which you can help in the same way:
- The Breast Cancer Site offers free mammograms.
- The Child Health Site provides free healthcare.
- The Literacy Site funds programs to provide books to children in need.
- The Rainforest Site backs programs to protect and preserve rainforest habitat.
- The Animal Rescue Site provides food and care for rescued animals.

Free Rice is slightly different in that you are invited to play a word game. For each word you get right, they donate 20 grains of rice to the United Nations World Food Program. It is good fun; you increase your word power and do a good deed at the same time.

This recipe used to be up at Elisheva Blogs, along with two others. This blog disappeared a few months ago but fortunately I had kept the recipes. It is always a favorite at Ilana-Davita and can be made within seconds. I usually defrost the salmon overnight, prepare the marinade after breakfast and eat it for lunch.

Asian Marinade for Salmon

2 lbs. salmon

Marinade:
3 tbsp. soy sauce
3 tbsp. ketchup
3 tbsp. honey (or brown sugar)
1 tbsp. crushed ginger
Juice of 1 lime

Combine all ingredients and add salmon. Marinade several hours then remove. Cook under broiler for 5 minutes or fry on stove in small amount of peanut oil.

I much prefer the first option.

Hirhurim started a discussion about the new Chief Rabbi of France Gilles Bernheim last Thursday. This post has attracted a number of comments since its beginning. One of the things which seemed to worry the commentators is Bernheim’s latest book: “Le rabbin et le cardinal” (The Rabbi and The Cardinal), a long conversation with Lyon Cardinal Philippe Barbarin.

I visited my parents today and we talked about recent Bernheim’s election. In fact, they had taped “La Source de Vie” a Jewish Sunday TV program hosted by a French rabbi Josy Eisenberg. Eisenberg had invited both Bernheim and Barbarin to talk about the book they published together.

For this post I have chosen to focus on what the rabbi said rather than on the cardinal’s contribution.

Some commentators bemoaned the rabbi’s enterprise just before the rabbinical election. In fact during the conversation the two men explained that a journalist, Jean-François Mondot, had contacted them asking if they would agree to hold a dialogue on what they each believed. It seems neither of them had initiated it.

The Chief Rabbi explained why it was important for a man in his position, in this country, to know what other faiths held true even though you might disagree with them. He added that when he was younger he had very little interest in Christianity and that his own father never mentioned “you know who” at home. However when he studied to become a rabbi he was encouraged by three of his teachers to examine Christianity so as to understand the context in which he’d be working. These men were Charles Touati and two former Chief Rabbis: Jacob Kaplan and René-Samuel Sirat.

It seems that one of Bernheim’s aspirations as France’s Chief Rabbi is in fact very similar to that of Jacob Kaplan - express a Jewish voice in a non-Jewish environment.

I’d like to apologize for the fact that the links I have provided are in French. I tried to find some in English but in vain.

One of the nursing homes in my hometown is currently holding an exhibition. It is an exhibition with a difference as the artists are some of the residents themselves.

Mrs B. (a former art teacher) volunteers once a week at the old people’s home. She has two groups: the people who suffer from Alzheimer’s disease and more able people. All of them are women.

It’s the first year the Alzheimer’s patients have attended the art workshop. They can only work for about 20 minutes as they have difficulties concentrating on what they are doing. When she works with them, Mrs B. is helped by one of the caretakers. This year she chose to start with crumpled papers.

The old ladies crumple a sheet of white paper. They dip it in water. Then they unfold it and crumple it again before dipping it into diluted ink. Finally the sheet is unfolded and dried. Some of the works can be seen on the stand. Others have been used as covers for the booklets which explain what has been done during the year.

The more able residents usually work for an hour each week. They started this workshop three years ago. As they age, Mrs B. has had to find new ideas and new techniques. One of the easiest for people who have difficulties holding objects is stenciling. They made stencils using foam and the first theme was lines and dots. So they each engraved their own pieces of foam, then used a rolling brush to put paint onto the foam before printing the paper with the stencils. At the top of the stand, there are red cards with black prints made with this technique. One of the ladies then made more pictures using the replica of a bird she had painted the previous year.

Finally, some of the residents took part in a local art competition between different nursing homes. The theme this year was “the four seasons.

This week’s Haveil Havalim (the #171 edition) is up at Imabima while this month’s edition of Kosher Cooking Carnival is hosted by West Bank Mama.

Everyone Needs Therapy gives sound advice to parents on how to bring about a healthy discussion about high-risk behavior with your teenagers.

At Hirhurim you will find the beginning of an ongoing series of guest posts by leaders from across the Jewish spectrum about why people become Orthodox. So far two Conservative rabbis, Rabbi David Wolpe and Rabbi Charles L. Arian, have shared insights.

Cooking with Yiddishe mama points to a CNN report about 5 foods that are good for you. A most welcome article as it includes 3 of my favorite foods.

I’ve just discovered a blog run by a young French woman who is studying to become a journalist. Apparently all the students in her school have been assigned to keep a blog. Yasmina has chosen to devote hers to Israeli films.

A great and quick recipe for leftover challah, originally found in Healthy Helpings by Norene Gilletz.

The patties are tasty and moist. Apparently, they freeze well and can also be reheated if made in advance. I much prefer salmon but you can also use tuna.

Salmon Patties
(serves 2 people)

Ingredients:
leftover challah
1 can salmon (or tuna)
1 small onion
1/2 celery stick (optional)
2 eggs
1 tbsp lemon
dill (fresh, dry or frozen)
worcester sauce
tabasco
salt and pepper

Slice two thick slices of challah and soak them in water.
Slice the onion and mix it with some dill and the finely sliced celery stick.
Add the two beaten eggs, some worcester sauce, 1 tbsp of lemon, a little tabasco, salt and pepper to taste to the mixture.
Add one tin of salmon (or tuna). Mix well.
Add the squeezed challah, mix again. Shape into patties and fry on medium-high heat.

This is my second contribution to a summer exploration of Pirkei Avot along with Leora and Frumhouse. After a short discussion on its name, I decided to deal with two of its particularities.

Pirkei Avot is a tractate of the Mishnah. The Mishnah itself falls into six orders. Each order consists of 7-12 tractates; there are 63 tractates altogether.
Pirkei Avot is the penultimate tractate in Nezikin (damages); an order which deals with with civil and criminal law, the functioning of the courts and oaths.

The Mishnah is the first part of the Talmud. It is a collection of legal opinions and debates and was compiled by Rabbi Judah haNasi, who feared the oral tradition might be forgotten, around 200 CE.

Since the statements in the Mishnah are particularly concise, they were analyzed, debated and discussed by later rabbis in Babylonia between 200 and 500 CE and in Israel between 200 and 400 CE. These discussions and exchanges make up the Gemara; there are therefore two Gemarot, a Babylonian Gemara and a Palestinian Gemara.

Hence it seems logical to assume that all Mishnah tractates have a commentary in the Gemara. However this is not the case; thus there are only 36 Talmudic developments in the Babylonian Talmud for 63 tractates. Some of these commentaries have been lost. Other tractates have had no analysis or developments because they have no, or little, Halakhic content. This is how the lack of a development for Pirkei Avot is explained.

It seems however that this tractate has inspired more later commentaries than any other single tractate. The oldest being one of the minor tractates of the Talmud, Avot deRabbi Nathan (”The Fathers according to Rabbi Nathan”), which constitutes an expansion of the Mishnaic tractate containing numerous additional ethical teachings and legends. Other famous classic commentators include Rashi, Simcha Ben Samuel of Vitry, a French Talmudist of the 11th and 12th centuries, and also Maimonides who, in 1168, published a comprehensive commentary on the Mishnah written in Arabic and which contains a famous introduction to Pirkei Avot.

More recently great Chassidic masters as well as Mussar teachers have added their commentaries so as to explain how the teachings in Pirkei Avot are relevant if we are to lead ethical lives.

For more recent references, you can read Leora’s post on books on Pirkei Avot which follows her introduction to the topic.

Gilles Bernheim has just been elected chief rabbi of France. He succeeds Joseph Sitruk who held this post for 21 years.

Bernheim was born in Aix-les-Bains in 1952 where he grew up. His parents would have liked their son to be a doctor but instead he studied philosophy and became a rabbi in 1978. After his marriage, he spent two years in a kollel in Jerusalem. He has been the rabbi of France’s largest synagogue in Paris for over ten years, la grande synagogue de Paris, and has written several books on Jewish ethics and modern issues. He has four children, two of which have settled in Israel.

The two men embody two different streams of French Judaism. Sitruk is closer to the yeshivah world and has backed the development of Chabad in France while Bernheim wishes to promote modern and open Orthodox values and commitments while tightening the bond between all Jews.

Just when we thought that anti-Semitic attacks in France were on the wane, a seventeen year-old was severely beaten up yesterday by a group of six or seven teenagers in the 19th district of Paris.

The boy was identified by his attackers as Jewish as he was wearing a kippah. He was walking in broad daylight through a neighborhood where many Jewish families live when this happened. The youths attacked him with metal bars, smashed his skull and broke several of his ribs. The young Lubavitch boy was taken to hospital where he is still in intensive care. His state is described as critical.

Police said they detained five people for questioning in connection with the beating. Numerous French politicians were quick to condemn the attack and reaffirm their determination “to fight all forms of racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.” While they are right to condemn this cowardly obnoxious attack, I wish they would stop treating racism and anti-Semitism as if they were one and the same thing. It is both inaccurate and completely counterproductive.

Update: Apparently this boy, Rudy, is no longer in a coma.