Why I fast on Tisha'b'Av
Orthoprax explains more eloquently than I ever could today.

(Brief summary: Temple or no Temple, the wars that led up to the destruction of the Temples was an enormous human tragedy.)

Klinghoffer on evolution
In this week's Forward, David Klinghoffer asserts that Jews should start lobbying school boards in favor of the "intelligent design" theory of life's origins.

I think Klinghoffer has a point, but am not so sure about his ultimate conclusions.

He is right in suggesting that most forms of Judaism favor something like "intelligent design." ("ID")* The idea of a God who creates everything by definition implies Divine design in some sense of the word. (I emphasize "some sense" because phrases like "intelligent design" are mere metaphors: I'm not sure it really makes sense to speak of an Infinite Being acting "intelligently" or "not-so-intelligently" in the way that a human being can so act).

But unlike Klinghoffer, I am not sure the discussion ends there. Given that Judaism presupposes something like ID, does that mean that our rabbis should be arguing that D should be taught in public schools to non-Jewish students? As is always the case, the question of where to draw the line between what Jews should believe and how/whether those beliefs should be applied to law governing a predominantly non-Jewish society is a vexing one. (See my Dvar Torah of August 1 on urban growth boundaries).**

In other words, there are really two issues here
(1) what was the Jewish view of ID?
(2) does church/state separation mean that the Jewish view of ID doesn't belong in the public schools, any more than the Jewish view of the Sabbath belongs in the public schools?

Klinghoffer talks about (1) but I'm not sure he realizes the importance of (2).

*Klinghoffer goes on to suggest that Darwinism is inconsistent with Judaism because its "reliance on random genetic variation as the root source for complex life" contradicts the idea of Divine creation. Since I have forgotten everything I learned in high school biology, I cannot intelligently agree or disagree. I suspect it all depends on the meaning of the word "Darwinism." If by "Darwinism" you mean evolution in the common-sense definition of the term, Klinghoffer is wrong because even apparently "random" genetic variation can be Divinely created. If by "Darwinism" you mean what Charles Darwin actually wrote and thought during his lifetime, the question is obviously more complex.

**In fact, the reason that I decided to blog about Klinghoffer is that his article overlaps with the August 1 post. The question of whether the Jewish view of evolution belongs in secular schools' biology classes doesn't seem that much different, in principle, from the question of whether Jewish land use regulation belongs in Oregon law. Both involve the question of to what extent Jewish tradition should inform our views in secular political matters.

so much for the claim that nobody wants to live in cities
One of the arguments for the pro-sprawl "everyone wants to live in the suburbs" theory is that even if some cities have been gaining population, the population gains don't reveal anything because the gains are due to immigration rather than to native-born whites (the theory being that the former group can't afford to live in the suburbs, while the latter group can). But get aload of this story from today's Washington Post:

"The white populations of the District, Arlington and Alexandria have grown this decade even as the region's outer counties have grown more diverse, according to new census estimates to be released today that underscore how the area's soaring housing prices and job sprawl are reshaping its racial and ethnic dynamics.

The city and those close-in Virginia suburbs had higher percentages of non-Hispanic white residents in 2004 than in 2000, a reversal of past trends, the estimates say. Minority groups grew more slowly than in the past, or declined."

"New census estimates say that the white share of the population has risen since 2000 in the District, Alexandria and Arlington and that the region's outer counties are becoming increasingly racially and ethnically diverse.

In the District, Arlington and Alexandria, whites became a larger share of the population -- by a rate that ranked in the top 10 among the nation's jurisdictions, according to Brookings Institution demographer William H. Frey. Whites account for 30 percent of the D.C. population, up from 28 percent in 2000, and their numbers rose 3 percentage points in both Arlington, to 64 percent, and Alexandria, to 58 percent."

And this is in a city that in many ways is still a mess: low-prestige public schools and a murder rate of about 35 per 100,000 (more than FIVE TIMES that of NYC, roughly twice that of Chicago). Imagine what would happen if the District worked.

Caveat: The statistics upon which the Post's story is based are from Census Department estimates, which (as noted very briefly in my 8-3 post) are not entitled to enormous weight.

my idea of good leadership
"As to stating what has been the most important event of the administration, I don't believe there has been any. If I had to make an answer to that question I should say that the best work, in my opinion, has been in the improvement of the city sidewalks. The good labor begun on the walks has been continued, and as the perfection of that endeavor has been my particular hobby this year, I am pleased at the results obtained."

-Frank Rice, mayor of New Haven, 1910 (from Douglas Rae's great book, City) (who I'm proud to say was a Republican)

Would that instead of World Savers of various types, we had people like Frank Rice in the White House - and the Senate, and the House, and the state legislatures, and the city councils....

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I normally don't write about Israeli stuff, but this passage from the Atlantic Monthly grabbed me
"The second intifada also began with the intention of provoking the Israelis and subjecting them to diplomatic pressure. Only this time Arafat went for broke. As a member of the High Security Council of Fatah, the key decision-making and organizational body that dealt with military questions at the beginning of the intifada, Nofal has firsthand knowledge of Arafat's intentions and decisions during the months before and after Camp David. "He told us, 'Now we are going to the fight, so we must be ready,'" Nofal remembers. Nofal says that when Barak did not prevent Ariel Sharon from making his controversial visit to the plaza in front of al-Aqsa, the mosque that was built on the site of the ancient Jewish temples, Arafat said, "Okay, it's time to work."

Thanks to Bloghead for unearthing this fact.

White House at night (or, a little positive speech)
Last night I went to one of the local synagogues and heard a rabbi (whose name I cannot recall) discuss the evils of gossip and similar negative speech. He urged us to avoid harmful speech not just by trying to control ourselves, but by trying to see the good in people. So right now I am going to practice some positive speech for once.

Afterwards, I took the 16th Street bus home and by an odd coincidence I got off in Lafayette Park across from the White House. I walked to the White House.

Because Pennsylvania Avenue across the street from the White House is closed to auto traffic (and has been for a decade), I walked onto that great avenue-and I realized that I didn't feel like I was in a big city anymore.

Instead, you could hear the crickets, and you could hear the tourists talking to the cops.

It was unearthly and it was beautiful. It was like being in Carbondale, only with the White House in front of me.

And it occurred to me that for once our politicians had done something right.

Hurrah for President Clinton for closing Pennsylvania Avenue to cars!

And Hurrah for President Bush for keeping Pennsylvania Avenue closed!

more Kotkin-bashing
Kotkin wrote:

We don't yet know entirely how the terrorist threat -- "the fear factor" -- exacerbates urban depopulation trends. It is clear that American inner-city residents reacted far more strongly to 9/11 than people in suburbs and smaller towns. Polls taken months after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington showed that twice as many big-city residents as suburbanites, and four times as many as rural residents, felt "great concern" about future attacks.

More palpable are the decisions by financial services firms to shift more of their operations to suburbs and smaller towns, in part because they are less vulnerable to a potential terrorist assault. Jobs that used to be done in Manhattan are migrating to New York's outer suburbs, as well as to places such as Florida.
By contrast, in today's New York Times:

From Bensonhurst to Morrisania to Flushing, new homes are going up faster now than they have in more than 30 years. In 2004, the city approved the construction of 25,208 housing units, more than in any year since 1972, and that number is expected to be surpassed this year. Already, officials have authorized 15,870 permits.

Looked at another way, the city has 38 percent of the region's population but accounts for half of its new housing starts. Much of that development is being fueled by private money, a phenomenon not seen since the 1970's.

The mushrooming of housing development is an outgrowth of the city's decade-long population boom, low interest rates, government programs and a slide in crime, housing experts and city officials say. It has affected every borough and most neighborhoods, reshaping their physical form, ethnic makeup and collective memories.

Gee, if all the jobs are in Florida, how come people are building homes in New York?

beating up on Kotkin
Joel Kotkin's recent Washington Post essay, now lying atop his web page, is worth discusssing for a few of its errors.

Kotkin begins by wasting space recycling claims about how American cities are losing population in the wake of 9/11 (based on Census estimates, which, as noted in this article, are not worth all that much, because 1990s mid-decade Census estimates were far more pessimistic than justified by the actual 2000 Census).

He also asserts that sprawling auto dependency makes terrorism harder (disproven by his own admission in the same article that al-Qaeda terrorists plotted to blow up the airport in the national capital of sprawl, Los Angeles).

But the most interesting (and disturbing) portion of his article is his attempt to blame cities for terrorism. Kotkin writes:

"Now, cities may have to face a different menace. Sadly, many metropolitan leaders seem less than prepared to meet today's current terrorist threat head-on, in part due to the trendy multiculturalism that now characterizes so many Western cities. Consider London's multiculturalist Mayor Ken Livingstone, who last year actually welcomed a radical jihadist, Egyptian cleric Sheik Yusuf Qaradawi, to his city.

Multiculturalism and overly permissive immigration policies have also played a role here in North America. Unfettered in their own enclave, Muslim extremists in Brooklyn helped organize the first attack on the World Trade Center in the early 1990s. Lax Canadian refugee policies have allowed radical Islamists to find homes in places like Montreal and Toronto, where some might have planned attacks on this country, like the alleged 2000 plot to blow up Los Angeles International Airport.

In continental Europe, multiculturalism has been elevated to a kind of social dogma, exacerbating the separation between Muslim immigrants and the host society. For decades, immigrants have not been encouraged or expected to accept German, Dutch or British norms, nor have those societies made efforts to integrate the newcomers. Not surprisingly, jihadist agitation has flourished in Hamburg, Amsterdam, Madrid, Berlin and Paris as well as London.

If cities are to survive in Europe or elsewhere, they will need to face this latest threat to urban survival with something more than liberal platitudes, displays of pluck and willful determination. They will have to face up to the need for sometimes harsh measures, such as tighter immigration laws, preventive detention and widespread surveillance of suspected terrorists, to protect the urban future.

They will also need to institute measures that encourage immigrants to assimilate, such as fostering greater economic opportunity for newcomers or enforcing immersion in the national language and political institutions. Militant anti-Western Islamist agitation -- actively supportive of al Qaeda, for example -- also must be rooted out; it can be no more tolerated in Western cities today than overt support for Nazism should have been during World War II."

In other words, Kotkin takes the "blaming the city for its problems" approach to a whole new level: not only is he blaming cities for bad schools and high crime, he is suggesting that if only cities stopped allowing Muslim immigrants to enter and agitate they would be safer."

Kotkin overlooks one small fact: the issues he discussed (to the extent that they are within the control of any government) are national issues, NOT issues within cities' control.

To go blow by blow:

1. Kotkin attacks "overly permissive immigration policies" and asserts that cities need to "face up to the need . . . for tighter immigration laws." But cities have no control over which foreign immigrants live within their borders. Immigration is an issue handled by the national government, both in America and (as far as I know) elsewhere.

2. Kotkin attacks "multiculturalism." Multiculturalism is an intellectual (or perhaps pseudo-intellectual) movement, not something that government can legislate or abolish. Does Kotkin seriously think that if Ken Livingstone woke up one morning and issued a press release stating "Ken Livingstone hates Muslims", that radical Islamists would be deterred from living in or blowing up London?

3. Kotkin also wants curbs on civil liberties, endorsing more preventive detention, police surveillance and curbs on hateful speech. I think he might have a point- but again, these are not local issues. Even in New York City's judges started denying bail more routinely, they are limited by state criminal justice law and by federal constitutional criminal procedure (since the Fourth, Fifth, Sixth, Seventh, and Eighth Amendments all relate at least in part to criminal justice). Similarly, any attempt to curb radical Islamic speech implicates First Amendment issues.

4. Kotkin says cities must "institute measures that encourage immigrants to assimilate, such as fostering greater economic opportunity for newcomers or enforcing immersion in the national language and political institutions." Kotkin fails to say how cities (or indeed any government) can do such things. And since Kotkin himself writes earlier in his essay that "businesses and industries escape the urban core to operate in small towns and even the countryside", he really has no reason to believe that cities can do anything to "foster greater economic opportunity to newcomers." Perhaps cities could "enforce immersion in the national language" by abolishing bilingual education- but since as far as I know the 9/11 and London terrorists knew English, I don't see what this point has to do with terrorism.

neat Jewish legends (or dvar Torah re Nine Days)
I went to a DC Beit Midrash study session and learned a bit last night.

First, a little background: We are in the middle of the "Three Weeks" before Tisha'b'Av (that is, the period when observant Jews seriously mourn the Second Temple's destruction, which took place on the 9th of Av in 70).

If you spend enough time around observant Jews you will commonly read, or hear, that the Second Temple was destroyed due to sinat chinam, "baseless hatred." But we learned last night that this is not quite right- not just because the phrase is not quite an accurate translation of the Hebrew,* but also for other reasons (to be explained below).

The rabbi began with this story from the Talmud:

"Gittin 55b:The destruction of Jerusalem came about because of [two men named] Kamza and Bar Kamza in this way. A certain man had a friend named Kamza and an enemy named Bar Kamza. He once made a party and said to his servant: "Go and bring Kamza [to the party]." The servant went and brought Bar Kamza.

When the man [who was giving the party] found him there, he said: "Hey, you tell lies about me; what are you doing here? Get out."

[Bar Kamza] said: "Since I am here, let me stay, and I will pay you for whatever I eat and drink."

He said: "I won't [allow you to stay]."

"Then let me pay for half the party."

"No," said the other.

"Then let me pay for the entire party."

He still said, "No," and he bodily removed him.

Said [Bar Kamza to himself]: "Since the rabbis were sitting there and did not stop him, this shows that they agreed with him. I will go and inform against them to the [Roman] government.

He went and said to the emperor: "The Jews are rebelling against you."

[The emperor] said: "How can you tell?"

He said to him: "Send them an offering and see whether they will offer it [on the altar in the Temple]."

So [the emperor] sent with [Bar Kamza] a fine calf. While on the way [Bar Kamza] made a blemish on its upper lip or, as some say, on the white of its eye, in a place where we count it a blemish but they do not.

The rabbis were inclined to offer it in order not to offend the [Roman] government. R. Zechariah ben Abkulas said to them: "People will say that blemished animals are offered on the altar."

Then they proposed killing Bar Kamza so that he could not go and inform against them, but R. Zechariah ben Abkulas said to them: "Is one who makes a blemish on consecrated animals to be put to death?"

R. Yochanan (ben Zakkai) thereupon remarked: "Through the scrupulousness of R. Zechariah ben Abkulas, our House has been destroyed, our Temple burnt and we ourselves exiled from our land.""

Obviously, Bar Kamza and his enemy were engaged in something like baseless (or more accurately, disproportionate, hatred). (B.T. Gittin 55b-56b]

But our speaker focused more on R. Zechariah ben Abkulas. Zechariah was unwilling to see an impure animal offered up for sacrifice regardless of the impact of the refusal to sacrifice upon the Roman government. Thus, a war started, large numbers of people died, and the Temple was destroyed all because R. Zechariah and his colleagues were focused on a minor point of halacha. R. Zechariah's problem was not baseless hatred; there is no evidence from this story that he hated anyone. Rather, the problem is that his priorities were out of whack. He was more interested in the ritual purity of sacrifical animals than in avoiding war.

Here's another story from the same period (though it does not directly mention the war or the Second Temple's destruction).**

"It once happened that two priests were equal as they ran to mount the ramp [in the Temple to where priests removed ashes from sacrifical altars] and when one of them came first within four cubits of the altar, the other took a knife and thrust it into his heart . . . All the people burst out weeping. The father of the young man came and found him still in convulsions. He said 'May he be an atonement for you. My son is still in convlusions and the knife has not become unclean. [His remark] comes to teach you that the cleanness of their vessels was of greater concern to them even than the shedding of blood." (B.T. Yoma 23a-b]

In this story, two priests are racing to see who can remove ashes from an altar; one of the two stabs the other (apparently to prevent the latter from getting to the ashes first). The father of the victim, instead of mourning his son, points out that at least the knife is not ritually unclean (Why not? Because the son is not dead, so the knife is not rendered ritually impure by contact with a dead body). So even the father of the victim has his priorites out of whack- ritual purity is more interesting to him than the possibility that his son is dying.

Again, these stories suggest that the Jewish elite was more focused on ritual persnicketiness than on human life- and thus that such perverted priorities, rather than "hatred" was at the root of the Temple's destruction.

(My editorial comments, unrelated to the rabbi's): I wonder how this legend can be related to the historical reality that the war leading to the Temple's destruction was the result of an apparently different sin: Jews were stupid enough to believe that they could take on the Roman Empire and win.

One supernatural explanation might be that if Jews were more well-behaved, a Divine miracle would have saved them from the Romans.

A more naturalistic explanation might be that the revolt against Rome was itself a matter of perverted priorities: the rebels valued Jewish national independence over physical survival and the survival of the Temple. (It may*** even be the case that anti-Roman nationalists made halachic arguments for the rebellion- in which case the war may have been based on halacha gone amok, just like the examples of misconduct discussed above).


*According to the speaker (Rabbi Freundel of Kesher Israel)The Hebrew word in question does not literally mean "baseless" but merely "disproportionate."

**But nevertheless, according to the rabbi, we have good reason to believe that the story came from the waning years of the Second Temple, because it names people who OTHER stories suggest lived during that period.

***I emphasize the word "may"- I am not learned enough to have any idea whether this was the case.

Dvar Torah- Mase'ei
This week's Torah portion is one of my favorites, because it addresses my scholarly specialty: land use law.

God tells Moses to assign land to the Levites, and orders that "The town pasture that you are to assign to the Levites shall extend a thousand cubits outside the town wall all around. You shall measure off two thousand cubits outside the town . . . That shall be the pasture for their towns." (Numbers 35:4-5). The medieval commentator Rashi explains that the first thousand cubits around the town was for general open space and the second for pasture fields and vineyards.

In other words, the Levites must establish a "green belt" of pasture around their towns- seemingly the first recorded instance of urban growth boundaries. (I write about this law in more detail in a draft of my forthcoming article about sprawl and Judaism.)

An urban growth boundary (UGB) is a kind of line in the land prohibiting most or all suburban development outside of a regional greenbelt. Oregon has had UGBs since 1980 (see my article on Oregon's UGB - go here then search for 2002 Utah L. Rev. 1 at internal engine in upper right hand corner). For example, the Levites presumably could not build outside their UGB, the pasture land 1000 . Growth boundaries have been highly controversial; opponents allege that they violate developers' property rights. (See here for libertarian attacks on Oregon's policies and here for environmentalist defenses of Oregon's policies.)

But the Torah appears to endorse UGBs - or more broadly construed, endorses redevelopment within existing urban boundaries and discourages ever-expanding suburbia (or even ever-expanding urbia).

Obviously, 21st-century Americans aren't Levites, don't have walled cities, and most of us don't need cow pastures outside our cities. So Numbers 35:4-5 can't be applied literally.

But this portion does raise difficult questions- not just the substantive question of whether Americans should control sprawl through UGBs, but the broader question of the Torah's relevance to modern public policy. To what extent are Torah values relevant to government in a secular world?

I don't have an answer to this question- but it is a big and interesting question.

Dvar Torah - Mattot
This week's Torah portion contains one of the most ethically challenging and bizarre incidents in the Torah. The Hebrews fight a short war with Midian, kill the male soldiers, and are stuck with numerous women and children as prisoners of war (Numbers 31:9).

Moses asks his soldiers: "Did you allow all the females to live? They were the same ones who were involved with the children of Israel on Balaam's advice to betray the Lord over the incident of Peor, resulting in a plague among the congregation of the Lord.* So now kill every male child, and every woman who can lie intimately with a man you shall kill. And all the young girls who have no experience of intimate relations with a man, you may keep alive for yourselves. (Num. 31:15-18)."

At first glance, the portion suggests that our ancestors were engaging in Divinely-ordered casual genocide. But let's take a second look at the rest of the portion.

Nowhere is it mentioned that Moses's order is actually implemented. (Nor, for that matter, is it mentioned that God commanded this order). So maybe it didn't happen.**

Here's an alternative scenario:*** Moses is very old, has already been told he will not enter the Promised Land, and is probably a bit stressed out after realizing that he stood idly by while Midianite women seduced Hebrew men (a problem solved a couple of Torah portions ago at Num. 25 by Phineas, who kills a couple of malefactors and thereby causes everyone else to return to their senses). So maybe he flips out for a few minutes and says something he doesn't quite mean. Eventually, he returns to his senses, and the Midianites are sent off to take their chances in the wilderness or enslaved or something.****

The whole episode is more evidence that after 40 years of leadership, Moses is getting overly prone to fits of anger- another example of the evils of anger.


*NOTE: Moses is referring to a Midianite plot to have Midianite women sexually seduce Hebrew men and encourage them to engage in Midianite idol worship; the affair led to a plague - kind of a Biblical version of sexually transmitted diseases. See Numbers 25.

**NOTE - Counterargument alert: the list of the proceeds of the war includes 32,000 Midianite virgins (Num. 31:35) but not any non-virgins. This list could be interpreted to mean that all the non-virgins were killed- but it could also be interpreted to mean that non-virgins just weren't worth enough to be listed as plunder.

***NOTE: This is not a traditional explanation. My impression is that most traditional commentaries either defend Moses or try to mitigate Moses's conduct by suggesting that maybe not ALL the non-virgins were killed, just the ones engaged in the sex scandal. And of course, my explanation raises another difficulty: why doesn't the Torah say that the orders weren't carried out? A possible explanation- because Jews have generally not been powerful enough to run around committing genocide, the Torah's author thought that discouraging genocidal behavior was a lower priority than telling Jews not to engage in idolatry or mate with heathens.

My year in small town America is now over...
and I'm back in Our Nation's Capital, living about five blocks from the White House.

What will I miss about Carbondale?

1) The sense of closeness to nature: even in back of the Wal-Mart in the city's sprawl district, there were cornfields and you could hear the birds and crickets. Where I lived (about a 10 minute walk from City Hall) I got woken up by the birds, and saw not just birds but wild rabbits etc. (not to mention too many insects, though thankfully no roaches). In Washington, I feel like humans are in control. In Carbondale I felt like animals really ran the place, and humans are just tenants.

2) The sheer smallness of the place: you can walk from one end of town to the other in just two hours.

3) SIU Law, a wonderful place to work.

(Not to mention human beings who know who they are, one in particular).

What I won't miss: Mainly just that there isn't enough Jewish life to make me happy. The synagogue only meets on Friday nights (a concession that they've given up on Saturday and Yom Tov), so I pretty much had to create my own Jewish life on Shabbos and Yom Tov. And walking to synagogue on Friday nights through muddly, sidewalkless hills (see here for examples of what that was like) is not an experience I would like to repeat again.

I no longer feel the urge to live in a place as big as Washington. But I would like to live in a place with a daily minyan, so that if my parents die before me I could say Kaddish for them. (Of course I realize that some of you might think this is nutty- on the other hand, people more observant than I might not think this is asking enough). Carbondale falls on the wrong side of the line (though some pretty small places fall on the right side - for example, I think Champaign-Urbana has a daily minyan).

dvar Torah- Pinchas
At the end of last week's Torah portion, Pinchas (or Phineas) kills a Hebrew who is apparently behaving in a disorderly manner and flaunting his sexual relationship with a heathen princess in a highly obnoxious way. At the beginning of this week's portion, God tells Moses that Pinchas and his descendants shall be granted some sort of covenant of peace and friendship(Numbers 25:12-13). The commentaries I have read differ as to whether this "covenant" is a reward for Pinchas's action or something else (perhaps a way to restrain Pinchas from further zealousness).

But regardless of what we think of the details of Pinchas's conduct, the whole story raises a broader question: has monotheism really been an unmixed blessing? Or has it led to religious intolerance, giving people an excuse to murder each other in the name of their God (or in the name of their particular way of worshipping God)? On the other hand, was paganism any better?

I got a partial answer to the last of these questions yesterday, when I visited the Cahokia Mounds, a set of mounds built by a Native American tribe around 900 years ago (roughly 1100-1200). According to this state of Illinois website this was the most sophisticated prehistoric civilization north of Mexico.

According to the state website, one of the mounds I visited contained:

"300 ceremonial and sacrificial burials, mostly of young women, in mass graves. The main burial appears to be a male ruler about 45 years of age, laid on a blanket of more than 20,000 marine shell disc beads. Near him were the remains of others sacrificed to serve him in the next life and a large cache of grave offerings. The skeletons of four men with their heads and hands missing were found near the largest sacrificial pit, which held the skeletons of 53 women between the ages of 15 and 25. Several other mass burials were also uncovered."

Evidently, the "good old days" of paganism weren't so good after all.

dvar Torah- Balak
This week's Torah portion includes the following phrase: "there shall come a star out of Jacob." (Numbers 24:17).

The "star" has often been understood to be the Messiah. For example, in 132 Simon bar Kosiba organized a Jewish revolt against Roman occupation of Israel. Rabbi Akiva, one of the great Torah scholoars of his time, thought that bar Kosiba was the Messiah because of his early military successes. Some called bar Kosiba "bar Kochba" - or "son of a star"- an allusion to the "star" in Numbers 24:17.

Despite Rabbi Akiva's Messianic dreams, Bar Kosiba's revolt was eventually a dismal failure. The Romans killed about half a million Jews, and leveled Jerusalem to deter further revolts. (For more info go here. Perhaps if no one had claimed that bar Kosiba was the Messiah, his rebellion would have died earlier and fewer Jews would have been slaughtered.

Unfortunately, bar Kochba was not the last false Messiah. In the 17th century, the Jewish world was rocked by the Sabbatai Zevi movement. (Just Google Sabbatai Zevi and you'll find plenty of commentary, or search for him in Jewish Encyclopedia. Zevi claimed to be the Messiah, and although did he did not lead a military uprising, he caused some Jews to impoverish themselves by getting rid of their property in preparation of his messianic reign.

Why were people so credulous? Partially because some fairly respected commentators believed that the Messiah was coming sometime around that time: For example, Kabbalist Moses Cordervero wrote: "Though not delaying the date of redemption, they [our sins] have hidden it so that its light is invisible until the appointed time. But none of these things will be later than the year 408 [1648], and some will occur earlier, such as the resurrection [of the dead] in the Holy Land." (From Scholem, the Mystical Messiah). Instead of getting a Messiah, Jews in the Ukraine got massacred in 1648.

(For a more complete discussion of Messianic predictions and the rationale for same, go here.

Indeed, throughout history Jews have speculated about (and predicted) Messianic deliverance. When times were good, good times were interpreted as a sign of upcoming redemption; when times were bad, persecution of Jews was interpreted as "the birth pangs of the Messianic age." Needless to say, all such predictions have (so far) been proven wrong by a Messiah's failure to emerge.

So whenever one of your friends (or enemies) tells you that Messianic deliverance is coming, smile politely and thank him for the information- but don't give away all your worldly goods just yet!

back to self-promotion
My city livability rankings have been updated to take into consideration 2004 crime statistics. As in the past, New York is no. 1 and various southern cities struggle for the cellar. The rankings are based on crime, public transit, and pedestrian life.

My urban photos site now includes pictures of my new apartment in Washington and of what I saw when I walked to shul in Carbondale.

the only thing I have to say about the last act of terrorism (the bombing in London)
I share in the condolences, etc. echoing through cyberspace. Beyond that, all I can do is find a quote I liked:

"I think it important to try to see the present calamity in a true perspective. The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. If men had postponed the search for knowledge and beauty until they were secure, the search would never have begun... The insects have chosen a different line: they have sought first the material welfare and security of the hive, and presumably they have their reward. Men are different. They propound mathematical theorems in beleaguered cities, conduct metaphysical arguments in condemned cells, make jokes on scaffolds, discuss the latest new poem while advancing to the walls of Quebec, and comb their hair at Thermopylae. This is not panache: it is our nature."

C.S. Lewis, quoted by Andrew Sullivan.

May we continue our metaphysical arguments, jokes, and mathematical theorems this coming Shabbos and every Shabbos, in war and in peace - but hopefully more in peace.

Dvar Torah- Chukat
In this Torah portion, Moses strikes a rock to bring forth water, and shortly thereafter (for reasons not obvious from the text) God tells Moses that he and Aaron will die before entering the land of Israel (Numbers 10:12).

The commentators are divided as to what exactly Moses did wrong - whether he should have spoken to a rock instead of striking it, or whether his tone in addressing the people should have been milder.

But what grabbed me this week was Samson Raphael Hirsch's comments about the matter: "Precisely by making even Moses and Aaron expendable for further progress . . . God demonstrates the sanctity of His absolute greatness, whose objectives are not dependent on any outside factor and to which even men like Moses and Aaron are not indispensable."

Just as no one was indispensable 3300 years ago, none of us are indispensable today. In the words of Charles de Gaulle, "the cemeteries are full of indispensable men." (And no doubt, indispensable women).

Congress gets it right, Pelosi misunderstands Constitution
Last week, the House voted to prohibit federal bureaucracies from subsidizing the use of eminent domain for profit-making projects. In other words, local governments can still take your property and give it to developers (as long as they pay just compensation as required by the Kelo ruling), but they can't do it with federal money. (See story here).

Nancy Pelosi demurred, asserting "This is in violation of the respect for separation of ... powers in our Constitution."

Dead wrong. The Supreme Court didn't say that local governments HAVE to take property for eminent domain when developers want them to- just that the Constitution does not preclude this option. So if local governments don't want to use eminent domain they don't have to- and similarly, if the state and federal governments don't want to subsidize such eminent domain they don't have to either.

In fact, I think Congressional action might just give us the right balance between public interest in redevelopment and the public interest in protecting private property- eminent domain that is (as President Clinton once said about abortion) safe, legal and rare.

The case for levity
A Talmudic Tale: Rabbi Beroka, upon coming upon Elijah the Prophet in the marketplace, inquired whether anyone there was worthy of the world to come. Elijah at first says "No" but then points to two men.

"What is your trade?", asked Rabbi Beroka.

They replied, "We are jesters. When we see someone depressed, we cheer him up."

- Raphael Jospe et. al., Great Schisms in Jewish History, p. 135 (noting that Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, liked this story)