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Bedford bike lanes controversy
By Shmuel Herzfeld
Rabbi of Ohev Sholom -- The National Synagogue
There is a major brouhaha currently going on in New York City concerning a bike path from Brooklyn to Manhattan that goes along Bedford Avenue. Bedford Avenue goes through Williamsburg, which has a very large and politically powerful Satmar Chassidic community. The Satmar Chassidim successfully lobbied Mayor Bloomberg to remove the bike lanes from Bedford Avenue for different reasons. One major reason is the fact that they do not like the way the female bikers dress when they ride through their neighborhood.
So Mayor Bloomberg ordered the city to paint over the bike lanes. The bikers were unhappy with this and so one night they repainted the bike lanes on Bedford Avenue. This controversy has so far generated more than 500 articles and a YouTube video of the bikers repainting the bike lanes has so far been seen by more than 100,00 people.
Full disclosure. My brother, Baruch, owns a building in Williamsburg, which gives free space to the bikers. He also gives free bikes to Chasidim who sneak away in the middle of the night to get a free ride under the cover of night. After the city repainted the bike lanes my brother was quoted in the New York Post as saying that the bikers are "stocking up on cans of white paint." My brother has been quoted in the New York Times as "the unofficial spokesperson" for the bikers. Some have even suggested that he was "born as a Satmar chasid".... Not true at all!
Although this might appear to be just a pedestrian issue, the controversy really cuts to an important theological difference between the Modern Orthodox Jewish community and the Hassidic Jewish community; i.e. what should characterize our relationship with the world around us.
There are many great aspects of the Hassidic community to admire; e.g. their commitment to caring for the social needs of the Jewish community and their devotion to Torah and, prayer, in particular.
But there is an area where there is a clear bright line between the Modern Orthodox community and the Hassidim. The Hassidim view the ghetto as an ideal place to live. In their minds it was great when Jews were isolated in the Middle Ages and forced to live apart from the rest of the world. This was a beautiful and pristine era which we should long for and recreate. That is why the Hassidim still dress like the Jews of Eastern Europe and that is why they long to freeze out the spiritual dangers of the rest of the world by living in their own enclaves.
On the other hand, the Modern Orthodox community views the ghetto as a sad time in Jewish history; a time where our isolation prevented us from carrying out God's work in the rest of the world; a time where our isolation stifled us and limited our impact. The Modern Orthodox world flees the ghetto in order to embrace the world around us.
As an Orthodox rabbi, I deeply believe we must not assimilate and abandon our Judaism; but that does not mean we should live in a ghetto. It means that while living in the world at large we must not forget who we are and where we come from.
My brother, being my holy brother, is planning a series of positive dialogues with a close friend of his who is a spokesperson of the Satmar community where their different approaches will be discussed and debated.
If I can ever make it to one of those forums, and if I am given the chance to speak, I will say to the Satmar community: "Instead of using all of your political power to take away bike lanes so you don't heaven forbid see a woman's legs as she rides her bike through a public area, together we should join forces and follow in the evangelical path of Abraham, who was given the name Abraham so that he could be a 'father amongst the nations.' You should view the fact that so many bikers are riding through you neighborhood as an opportunity to embrace them and proudly show them what it means to live in accordance with the Torah. As they ride past your house, avert your eyes from the woman's legs and greet her and her friends with some water and a smile. And if you embrace these riders then you will truly be offering them blessings in the spirit of Abraham."
Shmuel Herzfeld is Rabbi of Ohev Sholom -- The National Synagogue in Washington, D.C.
By Shmuel Herzfeld |
December 30, 2009; 11:09 AM ET
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Posted by: ccnl1 | January 4, 2010 12:17 AM
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Is Bedford Avenue public property? If so, then people have the right to dress any way they please as long as they aren't violating the city's standards regarding public nudity.
There are lots of folks who walk down my street dressed in attire that, in the words of Bill Engvall, "I wouldn't wear to pick dog mess out of the yard." But the really cool thing about other people dressing badly is that, if I don't like what they're wearing, there are 359 other directions that I can aim my gaze.
Posted by: lepidopteryx | January 2, 2010 2:29 PM
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CCNL:
Would you just quit already? Your posts attacking the foundational figures of the different religions do nothing to advance any discussion. Do you honestly think that most who are believers are ignorant of your "facts"?
We who are of faith have a shared lived experience which leads us to evaluate the promises of G_d in different ways than you apparently do. What we chose to believe as an explanation for our way of life is not going to be changed by your prattling posts. Come on; I've encountered your stupid posts more than 100+ times in the last 6 months or so. You don't convince everyone; just annoy people.
IF YOU CHOOSE NOT TO BE A PERSON OF FAITH, that is YOUR CHOICE. That choice is not mine. Your posts contribute NOTHING of meaning to my life or experiences. In polite words, just go jump!
Why don't you get a life?
Posted by: CalSailor | January 1, 2010 10:54 PM
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Dear Satmar Chassidic Community,
It is time to join your Conservative brothers and sisters with respect to Jewish history and theology.
To wit:(for those eyes that have not seen)
Abraham founder/father of three major religions was either the embellishment of the lives of three different men or a
mythical character as was mythical Moses, the "Tablet-Man" who talked to burning bushes and made much magic in Egypt.
Many of the 1.5 million Conservative Jews and many of their rabbis have relegated Abraham to the myth pile along with most if not all the OT.
Current crisis:
Realization that the Jews are not god's chosen people.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F20E1EFE35540C7A8CDDAA0894DA404482
An excerpt:
The notion that the Bible is not literally true ''is more or less settled and understood among most Conservative rabbis,'' observed David Wolpe,(an On Faith panelist), a rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and a contributor to ''Etz Hayim''. But some congregants, he said, ''may not like the stark airing of it.'' Last Passover, in a sermon to 2,200 congregants at his synagogue, Rabbi Wolpe frankly said that ''virtually every modern archaeologist'' agrees ''that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way that it happened, if it happened at all.''
The rabbi offered what he called a ''litany of disillusion'' about the narrative, including contradictions, improbabilities, chronological lapses and the absence of corroborating evidence. In fact, he said, archaeologists digging in the Sinai have ''found no trace of the tribes of Israel -- not one shard of pottery.''
Posted by: ccnl1 | December 30, 2009 1:43 PM
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Some thump a book written by a failed fortune teller and four ghost writers. Others thump reality for those eyes that have not seen: (note, reiteration is still the number one education tool)
Jesus was an illiterate Jewish peasant/carpenter/simple preacher man who suffered from hallucinations and who has been characterized anywhere from the Messiah from Nazareth to a mythical character from mythical Nazareth to a mamzer from Nazareth (Professor Bruce Chilton, in his book Rabbi Jesus). Analyses of Jesus’ life by many contemporary NT scholars (e.g. Professors Crossan, Borg and Fredriksen, On Faith panelists) via the NT and related documents have concluded that only about 30% of Jesus' sayings and ways noted in the NT were authentic. The rest being embellishments (e.g. miracles)/hallucinations made/had by the NT authors to impress various Christian, Jewish and Pagan sects.
The 30% of the NT that is "authentic Jesus" like everything in life was borrowed/plagiarized and/or improved from those who came before. In Jesus' case, it was the ways and sayings of the Babylonians, Greeks, Persians, Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, OT, John the Baptizer and possibly the ways and sayings of traveling Greek Cynics.
http://www.earlychristianwritings.com/theories.html
For added "pizzazz", Catholic/Christian theologians divided god the singularity into three persons and invented atonement as an added guilt trip for the "pew people" to go along with this trinity of overseers. By doing so, they made god the padre into god the "filicider".
Current crises:
Pedophiliac priests, atonement theology and original sin!!!!
Luther, Calvin, Joe Smith, Henry VIII, Wesley, Roger Williams, the Great “Babs” et al, founders of Christian-based religions or combination religions also suffered from the belief in/hallucinations of "pretty wingie thingie" visits and "prophecies" for profits analogous to the myths of Catholicism (resurrections, apparitions, ascensions and immaculate conceptions).
Current crises:
Adulterous preachers, "propheteering/ profiteering" evangelicals and atonement theology, all male hierarchies and strange banking and funding.