Both philanthropic approaches remain important, necessary and effective not only for their nonprofit beneficiaries and society at large but for the businesses that implement them, and have been discussed in prior columns (see “Businesses Have Big Stake in Improving their Communities” from The Denver Post on March 20, 2011).

Increasingly, however, businesses are implementing a third approach to addressing social problems by adding social innovation to their community investment portfolio.

In “Social Innovation, Inc: 5 Strategies for Driving Business Growth Through Social Change,“ (2011), author Jason Saul argues:

To link social change and business outcomes, companies must rethink their approach to social change. This isn’t a matter of retrofitting your existing social contract strategies with better business justifications; it’s about coming up with fresh, innovative strategies that are specifically designed to create business value through social change.”

Social innovation is not traditional corporate philanthropy, or social responsibility, or giving back, or putting values first and profits second. Rather, it is about “innovating creative, market-based solutions that result in high growth, profitable business opportunities.” To accomplish this, Saul explains how businesses can:

• Create revenues through submarket products and services.
• Enter new markets through backdoor channels.
• Build emotional bonds with customers.
• Develop new pipelines for talent.
• Influence policy through reverse lobbying.

To develop strategies to solve social problems, business leaders must first determine in what ways their business might impact, or be impacted by, social issues. Health care, education, hunger, environmental degradation, food deserts, depletion of nonrenewable natural resources, the uninsured and homelessness are just a few of the social problems that businesses impact and that impact businesses, and can be addressed with profitable business innovation.

Then ask where the company’s core competencies can make the biggest difference. In what areas of expertise is the company a market or thought leader? The answers to these preliminary questions will begin to shape the discussion of how to generate profits while making a difference in the world.

Examples of social innovation abound. Coca-Cola Recycling LLC is a for-profit subsidiary seeking to recycle 100 percent of Coke’s beverage packaging and containers in the U.S., lowering its costs of production, reusing nonrenewable resources and reducing litter. Walmart’s $4 prescriptions helped it become one of the largest pharmacies in the country, while saving consumers billions of dollars, and making access to medicine easier and more affordable for the uninsured and patients on Medicaid. Office Max’s “A Day Made Better” campaign provides free school supplies to thousands of classrooms, while boosting market share, revenues and employee engagement. Encana Oil & Gas converts nonprofit and government vehicles to cleaner, less expensive and domestically produced natural gas and partners with community colleges to train mechanics to work on those vehicles.

Encana community investment adviser Joyce Witte observes: “Everyone wins when companies generate business value through social change.”

Architect and sustainability expert William McDonough said, “There are three ways to change the world: change China, change California, or change Walmart.”

Business has unprecedented power, reach, resources and impact on the lives of nearly everyone on the planet. Letting business do what it does best — generating profits through innovation — may be our best hope for creating solutions to the challenges of our time.

This post originally appeared in the Denver Post on Sunday, January 22, 2012 and is posted here with permission by the author.

Tikkun Olam in Rabbinic Judaism refers to a broad array of rabbinic enactments (Takanot) both social and economic, embodying concern with the welfare of Jewish society. We cannot do justice in a brief article such as this to the full gamut of these enactments or all their details but we can get a sense of what their intent and scope was.

One of the issues that the classical rabbis had to address was that of ransoming captives taken by Gentiles. Should the Jewish community pay any demand that the captors set or should they only pay what would be considered a reasonable sum based on the labor market value of the individual? If they agreed to pay any sum that the captors demanded they could indirectly be encouraging more kidnapping, the consequent endangerment of individual lives and as well the impoverishment of Jewish society. If they bucked the demands of the captors they could be endangering the life of the kidnapped individual. Against the backdrop of this moral challenge the Mishna records the ruling, ”One may not ransom captives for more than their [Labor Market] value for the benefit of society -Mipnei Tikkun Ha’olam. ” (Talmud Bavli Gittin 45a). In concert with this Mishna the Shulchan Arukh (Code of Jewish Law) rules, ”We do not redeem captives for more than their [labor market] worth for the benefit of society -Mipnei Tikkun Ha’Olam- in order that enemies not exert themselves to conduct kidnappings…”(Yoreh Deah Laws of Charity 252:4)

Another challenge the classical rabbis needed to address was encouraging the wealthy to assist their impoverished fellow Jews through the granting of interest free loans. The Torah obligates a Jew or Jewess to grant an interest free loan to a fellow Jew or Jewess in need. (Deuteronomy 15:7-12) The Torah also obligates the cancellation of all such debts when the Sabbatical year arrives. (Deuteronomy 15:1-6) In reality, there came a time where the net effect on a collective level of these dual commandments was to discourage wealthy Jews from loaning to poor Jews as the Sabbatical year approached lest they could not recoup their loans because of the arrival of the Sabbatical year. In this context the Mishna records,” Hillel enacted the Pruzbul for the benefit of society-Mi’pnei Tikkun Ha’olam.” (Mishna Gittin 4:3) Pruzbul, a Greek abbreviation for the word prosboliboti which means: a court appointed to prevent harm and impoverishment (He’Arukh as quoted in Kehati commentary on Mishna Gittin 4:3) was a mechanism where the person who extended the loan was able to collect the loan even once the Sabbatical year had arrived. This because they technically handed this loan over to the Rabbinic Court who would collect it as the prohibition of collecting outstanding loans from the onset of the Sabbatical year technically fell upon the individual not the rabbinic court. (Melechet Shlomo Commentary on Mishna Gittin 4:3) Regardless of one’s opinion of rabbinic hermeneutics and casuistry and how that intersects with Biblical values the mechanism was a part of the economic safety net of rabbinic era Jewish society and is a primary of example of classical Tikkun Olam.

There are other several other examples of Tikkun Olam in the Mishna tractate Gittin which concern themselves with issues of: recapturing captives (4:6), purchasing stolen Torah Scrolls, Teffilin and Mezuzot (4:6), Family Law (4:2, 4:3, 4:7) and Purchases of land from Gentiles (4:9) among other issues (5:3).

The last example from the Mishna we shall explore concerns slavery. The Torah, as many are aware, had a system of slavery applying to both Jews and Gentiles — the details of which are beyond the scope of this article. (see Maimonides, Mishne Torah Laws of Slavery) There was, if you will excuse the term, a hybrid type of slave: one that was half free and half slave. The initial concern of the School of Hillel is resolving the issue of how this hybrid slave apportions his labor time with their view being that he works one day for his master and one day for himself. The School of Shammai was not satisfied with the mere concern with the Hybrid Slave’s labor and instead concerns itself with the hybrid slave’s marital predicament. By way of background a free person could not marry a slave nor could a slave marry a free person. The implications of this for our hybrid slave were: as he was half free he could not marry a fellow slave woman and as he was half slave he could not marry a free woman. The only option it would seem would be to let him remain without the ability to marry. The School of Shammai resolves that for the benefit of society –Mipnie Tikkun Ha’olam the master is obligated to free him entirely (with the former slave still owing half his value to his former master) for as scripture states, ”Not for void did [God] create [the world] rather to inhabit it.” (Isaiah 45:18) The School of Hillel, originally intent on keeping the slave in its no-marriage-land’s status reversed its opinion and ruled in accordance with the School of Shammai. (Mishna Gittin 4:5)

Let us take a considered look at these examples of classical Tikkun Olam and see what we can extract from them relevant to our own interests in this work of world repair. In the first example of fiscal limitations on the ransoming of captives, it is teaching us that the value of the community and preventing future harm to other individuals within it takes precedence over the value of any one individual. In the example of extending loans to the poor we see that the rabbis were willing to accept the dysfunctional reality of the Torah’s intended system in their present state and innovate a mechanism that would ultimately serve one of its core aims- helping the poor. In our last example of slavery we see that the rabbis were willing and able to see the humanity of a slave and to see through to a deeper Divine intention beyond that of the mere formality and technical concerns of labor law. I believe when you abstract the principle from each of these specific cases we have energizing ideas that link classical Tikkun Olam with contemporary Tikkun Olam.

These cases, and the principles latent within them, point us in the direction of concern with the collective good, not the enshrinement of individual convenience; the favoring of the innovation of the individual versus the stagnation of the establishment and the supremacy of the Divine intent over the Gordian technicalities of the Divine Law.

One important distinction between classical Tikkun Olam and our present direction of it is that classical Tikkun Olam was essentially concerned with the insular Jewish society. There are no rabbinic enactments of Tikkun Olam for Gentiles as it should come as no surprise that they were not under the religious jurisdiction of the classical rabbis. Another distinction worth noting is that classical Tikkun Olam was top down; that is to say, an educated, all-male rabbinic elite made rules for the masses of the Jewish people to follow. In our Tikkun Olam, it is more grassroots and egalitarian, individual men and women perceive inequities and suffering and seek to right wrongs; often their efforts blossoming into organizations and entire movements.

Let us address these distinctions straightforwardly: contemporary Tikkun Olam is not classical Tikkun Olam. The Jewish world today is for the most part integrated into the modern world and as such is more aware and concerned than ever with the plight and sufferings of other people (Yes Bubie and Zieda, other people suffer too!). The world that the rabbis sought to repair i.e. Jewish society while still existent is not what constitutes the sole world for most Jews. When a Jewish woman or man can turn on a television or watch a documentary movie and see what is happening in Africa this is part of their world, especially when they can get on an airplane and be there within two days. As well, while an educated rabbinic elite still exists, we live in a world where their power is largely persuasive not coercive. Today there is a certain truth to the notion specifically as it applies to aspects of Tikkun Olam that the people lead and the rabbis follow and this can at times be quite healthy and productive as rabbis are not the sum of all knowledge, wisdom and virtue even in understanding how to apply and evolve the Torah.

It is important to note that while there will always be reactionary and narrow views that seek to limit the definitions, directions and applications of a category such as Tikkun Olam to its classical expression or seeks to focus Jewish attention in and on itself, this by no means should be associated with Orthodoxy as a whole while it is certainly fair to associate it with Orthodoxy in part, admittedly, the larger part. Nevertheless, I think its important for Boulder’s Jewry to understand some of the Orthodox expressions of contemporary Tikkun Olam lest they are abrasively led to believe that Orthodoxy as a whole somehow wants to turn back the clock or neglect our obligations as privileged world citizens.

First, I point the reader to Uri l’Tzedek an Orthodox Social Justice Organization (www.utzedek.org) which was founded and is directed by graduates of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah, a liberal and progressive Orthodox rabbinical seminary in New York. Its mission reads, ”Uri L’Tzedek is an Orthodox Social Justice organization guided by Torah values and dedicated to combating suffering and oppression. Through community-based education, leadership development and action, Uri L’Tzedek creates discourse, inspires leaders, and empowers the Jewish community towards creating a more just world.”

Second, I point the reader to the Green Restaurant Association (www.dinegreen.com) founded and led by an Orthodox Jew, Michael Oshman. The GRA’s mission reads, ”To create an Environmentally Sustainable Restaurant Industry.”

Third, I point to Rabbi Aaron Levy, another graduate of Yeshivat Chovevei Torah who is a board member of Rabbis for Human Rights whose mission statement reads, ”Founded in 2002, Rabbis for Human Rights- North America is an organization of rabbis from all streams of Judaism that acts on the Jewish imperative to respect and protect the human rights of all people. Grounded in Torah and our Jewish historical experience and guided by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, we advocate for Human Rights in Israel and North America…”

These are but a small reflection of Orthodox Jewry’s interest in contemporary Tikkun Olam which has been a developing trend since the 1960’s, when Orthodox Jews and rabbis were involved in the Civil Rights Movement as today they have been involved in Darfur and many other just causes. Finally, I encourage people to read the book “Tikkun Olam: Social Responsibility in Jewish Thought & Law” published as part of The Orthodox Forum Series, part of Yeshiva University, the flagship institution of Modern Orthodoxy in America. Opinions and the knowledge base of individual rabbis will always vary; this work reflects what some of Orthodoxy’s most brilliant and learned minds have to say on the subject.

Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook, one of the great Torah visionaries of the 20th century, once said, ”The old will become new and the new will become holy.” Tikkun Olam Boulder style is certainly new in comparison to classical Tikkun Olam. It’s worth exploring in what ways it already is holy and in what ways can more holiness suffuse and be fused to its already brilliant light.

Rabbi Zachary Goldman is the founder and rabbinic administrator of the EarthKosher Kosher Certification Agency and is the educational director of the Institute for Halakhic Conversion. The author of numerous books, essays and articles on a diverse range of Torah he lives with his wife and children in Boulder, Colorado.

The way we learn Torah affects the way we relate to people.

I studied for many years as an adult in several very observant yeshivot in Israel. The yeshiva where I received my Rabbinic Ordination hosted many prominent Rabbis, including a former Rabbi of a large city in Israel, numerous poskim (halakhic deciders) and writers in Encyclopedia Judaica. I began learning with my chevruta (study partner) at 4:30 in the morning, braving many freezing cold hours in the unheated Beit Midrash. I was the gabbai (organizer) of the early morning minyan, and a central figure in the yeshiva for four full years.

I offer this background not to extol my role, but to note that I played a very central and conspicuous part in the yeshiva.

That being said, it is quite mind-boggling now for me to look back and realize that in the countless hours during those four years not once did a single Rabbi approach me and ask, “Aryeh, how are you doing?” I repeat – Not Once.

Innumerable times I was asked, “Aryeh, did you understand the Gemara? Did you crack the Tosephot? Aryeh, what new idea can you say today?”

But not once was I asked how I was doing.

“I”, as a Jew and a human being, was not important. The only thing that was significant was the Torah learning I was engaged in.

I think this attitude led to my valuing myself only insofar as I could master the Talmud and other books. This led to a total disconnect between myself and my learning. I replicated this modeling with my chevruta, Ariel. What did I care how Ariel was doing? I never talked with him about his life.

My wife Sandra once asked me while I was studying with Ariel, “How is he doing? They’ve got three little kids, is he sleeping, is he overwhelmed?” I looked at my wife dumbfounded, telling myself “She obviously doesn’t get what Torah learning is about. How should I know how Ariel is?! And what do I care? The only thing Ariel and I care about is – did we crack the Gemara. Caring and talking about each other? That’s equivalent to bitul Torah (wasting of Torah studying time).”

It was pure learning. And purely disconnected from life.

Which is, of course, the opposite of what Torah learning should ultimately be. It should be the greatest connector to life.

Now it is many years later and of course I am embarrassed and ashamed of what I wrote above and much more.

Which leads me to the present furor and crisis visiting Israel these days and thoughts which I am sure many will consider heretical.

It seems to me that men have been directing the condition of Judaism for the last several thousand years. I look around and ask myself, “Is learning which is disconnected from life going to make us a more compassionate and spiritual people? Is this really the way of Torah? Is Torah really just about accumulating more and more information without pausing and reflecting and applying it to life?”

It didn’t cross my mind to connect my learning to my life. My wife Sandra always connects her learning to her life.

Men have always been the ones in power. We know that it is very hard for someone in power to relinquish or even share it. Especially when one’s reputation, prestige, and livelihood depend on keeping the status quo intact.

But maybe the time has come for us men to admit that we have really bollixed up this whole Judaism thing, and give the women a chance to fix it.

Maybe it’s time to reflect on that for a while.

It all started the summer before my last semester at UW-Madison.  I had heard good things concerning the technology entrepreneurship scene in Boulder, Colorado and I wanted to check it out.  Without any plans, I got on a plane and went to Boulder in hopes of networking with tech start-ups.

The first night I was in Boulder, I went to a group meditation and sparked up a conversation with a nice young man named Chris Thorne.  Chris just so happened to be working for a tech start-up called Spot Influence, and was nice enough to share the BOCC* with me—a networking event for the tech start-up industry. Tuesday morning came along and my socks were knocked off by how perfectly things fell together–the BOCC was EXACTLY what I was looking for.

As the BOCC concluded, I began a conversation with a smart dude who just so happened to be a graduate from UW-Madison–the college I was currently attending.  Not too far into the conversation, we also figured out that we were both Jewish. Perfect timing, for at that precise moment Cheryl Fellows from Boulder Jewish News was walking by and heard our conversation.  She clarified that we were Jewish, and simply handed me a sticker that said “Boulder Jewish News.”

About an hour later, I took that sticker out of my pocket, looked at it and placed it on the back of my Mac Book pro–I don’t know why I did, I don’t really like computer stickers.  Either way, my trip concluded – successfully – and I was off to Madison, WI for my last semester.

A few weeks into school, I was working on my start-up – WomStreet.com – with my business partner, Alex, who just so happens to be Jewish as well.  As we were talking, we were approached by a nice Jewish lady named Chava Cohen.  She saw the Boulder Jewish News sticker, asked if we were Jewish and then proceeded to talk to us about her Jewish student organization JEM.  It just so happened that Alex knew all about JEM and actually went on his Birthright trip through them.  Because of that conversation, I found out about Birthright – an amazing opportunity for young Jewish adults to escape to the motherland for free – and signed up for my Birthright trip through JEM.  My trip starts in three days.   (Follow my trip on twitter: @VfordVendetta.)

Let’s connect all the dots:

1.  I went to Boulder wanting to network with Tech Start-ups, and I had no idea how it was going to happen.

2.  I met a random guy at a random meditation who told me about the EXACT event that I was looking for.

3.  After this amazing event, I sparked a random conversation with a random guy who just so happened to graduate from the school I was currently attending, and we both shared the same Jewish heritage.

4.  While I was conversing with this random guy, the second we realized that we were both Jewish, Cheryl from Boulder Jewish News walked by, heard our conversation, and gave me a sticker that said Boulder Jewish News.

5.  For no reason at all, I placed that sticker on my Mac Book pro, which I never do.

6.  Back in Madison, while working at a coffee shop with my Jewish partner, a nice Jewish lady from JEM told us about Birthright.

7.  It just so happened that my partner knew about Birthright, because he went to Israel with them.

8.  Now I’m going to Israel.

Steve Jobs – one of my heroes – once said that it’s impossible to look forward and see how things will work, you can only look back and connect the dots.  These were some serious dots.

*BOCC (Boulder Open Coffee Club) is an open conversation between tech enthusiasts/entrepreneurs at 8:00 am every other Tuesday at the Atlas Purveyors Coffee Shop on Pearl Street, Boulder Colorado.

Professor David Shneer, Singer Chair in Jewish History at CU. (Photo by Glenn Asakawa/University of Colorado)

The Boulder Jewish community I have come to know and love was never on more amazing display than this week.  This online newspaper published the at-times vitriolic debate about the idea of separation and holiness in Judaism, which was at heart what Rabbi Goldfeder was addressing in his initial missive (or salvo, as some read it).

I loved the questions he was asking, even though I fundamentally disagree with how he comes down on the core questions of hierarchy, power, and separation.  And I was so impressed that Rabbi Rose and Rabbi Soloway, to whom Goldfeder’s first letter was indirectly addressed, took Goldfeder to task in his equally headstrong letter.

As the head of Jewish Studies at CU Boulder and co-chair of the upcoming Limmud Conference (January 21-22, 2012, and registration is still open, although to guarantee a spot, register by Wednesday January 18, www.limmudcolorado.org), I am personally much more moved and engaged by the kind of vigorous debate that these two rabbis opened up on the pages of this newspaper than I am about proving myself correct.  If a provocative letter drives readers to think more deeply about what they think, all the better.  And it would be even better if readers then educated themselves, so that they would not just have feelings and opinions, but would know more about how to justify them.  (On this point, I’m more of a Litvak than a Hasid.)  Bottom line–it took guts for Rabbi Goldfeder to make his comments, which he knew would be a minority opinion in a place like Boulder.  And it took guts for Rabbis Soloway and Rose to take Goldfeder to task point by point.

It is this kind of debate and conversation that has made Boulder a model Jewish community around the world, something I heard over and over again when I was at Limmud UK a few weeks ago.

Next week, the Boulder rabbis, including Rabbi Rose from Har Hashem, will once again model what community conversation should look like at Limmud, when they sit on a panel together, something that rarely happens in the Jewish world. Limmud is a special place, one set up more towards liberal rabbis’ approach than to Goldfeder’s, since Limmud favors non-hierarchical engagement among Jews, their friends, and family (in other words, it is much less interested in separation, hierarchy, and boundaries).

In this context Rabbis Goldfeder, Soloway, and Rose will be Gavriel, Marc, and Josh, but I want to emphasize that it is the context that shapes the human relationships.  In the same way that in my classroom, students call me Professor Shneer, any of those students who come to Limmud will call me David, because in the Limmud learning environment, we are all learners together.

So while it is true that Rabbi Goldfeder took public what had been a private, and undoubtedly painful, conversation between himself and Rabbi Soloway, it behooves all of us to take seriously the core arguments about the nature of Judaism at hand here, which in fact have little to do with denominations and everything to do with our own relationship to Judaism and Jewish community.  And next weekend, you can join in this conversation in person, face to face, in an I-Thou kind of way, when Boulder will be on amazing display at Limmud CO.  Don’t miss the conversation.  Register now (www.limmudcolorado.org)

Author Stephanie Schneider with friends

My internship in India is slowly coming to an end. I will be presenting my final project the last two days in January. It has been an amazing adventure getting to this point and yet I wonder to myself, “Have I even scratched the surface of what needs to be done?”

I am creating a committee of volunteers in the organization I am in who will carry on performing essential functions for their growth. The volunteers are a committed group of professionals who have come together with different skills and experiences for the cause of fighting to keep children in school.

In my final weeks here, I wonder if I have done as much as I could have. I suppose that is the great question of everyone who goes abroad to serve. Living and working in India gives me a new appreciation for all the privileges I have had through my life, one being the education I was able to have. Growing up, the only place I had to work was in my studies, I never had to experience what it is like to have to do labor at the age of ten or what it is like to be hungry or want to study but not being informed of my options or that it is even a possibility. I am so blessed to have been able to have this experience and to have met so many wonderful people. The culture, the people, and every experience I have had here will forever impact my life for the better.

Rabbi Joshua Rose

I would like to respond to the discussion started by Rabbi Gavriel Goldfeder’s article about the important concept of maintaining havdallah, distinction between holy and profane. Rabbi Marc Soloway did an admirable job of responding to some of the issues raised in Rabbi Goldfeder’s piece.

In looking at the conflagration that their debate has started, I would like to touch on one of these points and would like to address the larger issue of how we speak to and about one another in a diverse Jewish world.

As usual, Rabbi Goldfeder has something to teach us. I am quite blessed to name him among my good friends and as so many of us do, I so often take away from my encounters with him something profound and beautiful. His emphasis on the importance of maintaining a havdallah, a distinction between holy and not-holy, is essential to Jewish life. As he knows, this notion is so critical to a Jewish vision of the world that it is fundamental to every Jewish Movement.

While distinctions are important to maintain, false distinctions are important to avoid, and I’m afraid that our discussion has come to focus on these. To take one important example that so many have commented on already: there is no reason for us to choose between maintaining holiness and sanctity in our lives and bringing good to people in the broader world, be they Jews or non-Jews, whether they are in our country or somewhere else. God forbid we should ever have to make such a choice.

Yitzchak Meir Alter, the founder of Ger Hasidism, had a beautiful explanation for why the stork, known in Hebrew by the noble name of hasida (the loving one) was a non-Kosher animal. The stork, he taught, is known as hasida because it’s magnificent capacity to care for and love those of its own kind. It’s holiness does not extend to make it kosher, however, because it’s concern and love did not extend beyond its own kind. The Rebbe concludes that a Jew’s love and compassion must radiate out to all people.

Acts of courage, goodness, vision and beauty that ease suffering and elevate creation should be celebrated and honored. Rabbi Bronstein and Rabbi Soloway are to be commended for the good their work has done and for bringing honor to the Jewish people with this avodah. Many other rabbis in our community have done equally powerful work. There is much more to be said about this but that is not my purpose here.

I want instead to talk about derech eretz, a complicated concept that is not fully described when it first appears, in the Mishnah (Avot chapter 2). Two primary meanings as understood by centuries of interpretation are relevant to the discussion that has unfolded in our community.

The first of these is derech eretz as common, decent behavior. Our Sages have understood it as a kind of meta-mitzvah that is prior to Torah both chronologically and in order of our practice. “[Common, decent behavior] preceded the Torah by 26 generations,” Rabbi Shmuel ben Nachman claims in a midrash (Vayikra Rabbah 9:3). This can be understood to mean not only that God instructed us with derech eretz long before the Torah was given, but also that in each moment of our lives derech eretz must undergird our behavior in everything we do.

When we disagree as Jews as to the proper expression of Jewish life, our relationship to the mitzvot, how we express the vision of Holiness that the Holy One demands of the Jewish people, it is incumbent upon us to act with derech eretz. This means not demeaning the religious lives and efforts of other Jews, and not cheapening their vision of the Holy and the work they have done in the world.

It is important for us to have a discussions about havdallah and the importance of distinctions in Jewish life and yasher koach to Rabbi Goldfeder for having the vision to see the need for this.

The comments online from several people reflect a deep level of hurt and in some cases a lack of respect. We have to speak about, write about and engage with one another in a way that is beautified by the mitzvah of derech eretz.

The second meaning of derech eretz is also important to our discussion. In the early modern world it came to be seen by a luminary of early Orthodoxy, Samson Raphael Hirsch, as signifying an engagement with the broader world. Of course we cannot know how Rabbi Hirsch would have felt about the way that the phrase tikkun olam is used today. But based upon his work and writing we can be quite sure I think that he would have supported engagement of Rabbis and Jewish communities in critical moral issues facing our world.

Perhaps it was in accordance with this second meaning of derech eretz that Rabbi Joseph Soloveitchik, a brilliant religious thinker and the father of modern Orthodoxy, acknowledged in an essay he wrote that Jews should work with the broader religious community on issues of civil rights, the peace movement, technology and other areas of common ground (see Rabbi Soloveitchik’s “On Interfaith Relationships”).

Precisely how these broader moral concerns of people like the Ger Rebbe, Rabbi Hirsch and Rabbi Soloveitchik play out will of course vary between communities. And different Rabbis are free to articulate, prioritize and act on these according to how they understand their obligation to do so.

But in the process of confronting the inevitable disagreements we have about these and other issues, we have to be guided by the first meaning of derech eretz, and treat one another with the kavod (honor) and love, as is fitting for all people, and in particular for Jews, to grant one another.

Blessings,

Rabbi Joshua Rose

Congregation Har HaShem

A few comments regarding the invitation from the interim president of Tunisia Moncef Marzouki for the Tunisian Jews to return to Tunisia.

First, it’s still not clear that Marzouki did indeed offer this invitation. Following a meeting with the chief Rabbi Haim Bittan, this article came out in the news with probably an interpretation coming from Haim Bittan.

What is also not clear, is under what conditions the Jews could come back.

• Can we go back with our spouses and descendants?
• Can we go back and ask for restitution for everything we lost when we fled in 1967 and even before (including real estate and other assets we left behind)?

It’s interesting to see the recent declaration of the Ennahdha party on a new Califate; a system of governement founded on the Sharia law which is going to be part of the new constitution and will maintain for Jews and non-Muslims the status of Dhimmis (in reality lower-class citizens).  We Jews slowly emerged from the old Caliphate system at the end of the 19th century after the arrival of the French, who intruduced a protectorate status to Tunisia and… some sort of protection for us.

What is not said openly is that the new regime will not allow Israelis (of Tunisian origin) to come back as tourists or pilgrims.

To conclude: It’s so unrealistic to think that Jews who have been expelled (about 100,000 then, which could be easily double that number today) will be welcome back in Tunisia. It can only be seen as a political move: first to demonstrate to the West that Ennahdha is not a real threat; second to answer to Silvan Shalom, Israeli deputy who invited the remaining 1,500 Jews, in danger, to come to Israel, knowing the Islamist turn the country is taking; and third to “balance” the Palestinian request of right of return.

But let me dream and let me believe that it is an opening to a new era, with an apology to the population of Jews for the pogroms we have been victims of, restitution of everything we have left behind, and offering the friendship of the Tunisian government and population to Jews all around the globe, including in Israel.

Inshallah,

Sylvain

Ed. Note:  Sylvain Hayoun was born and grew up in Tunisia, fleeing with his family to Paris at age 17 in 1967 after the Six Day War.