Fly Fishing for Bass

Until last week, I had never tried to catch a bass on a fly rod. As a kid, I used to fish for bass on a Zebco rod with a red and white bobber and night crawlers on three pronged hooks. However, in 1994 that I saw A River Runs Through It. This amazing film introduced me a whole other world of fishing, where you did not stand on the shore but in the water, and you did not plop a worm covered hook in a lake, but rather gracefully cast a small dry fly lightly on the stream. I decided that I would leave behind the bait fishing of my youth and graduate to the higher form of casting a dry fly.

Last week, I realized that I had become a fishing snob and it had not served me well. I took a trip to a river in northern Connecticut that was located in a nature preserve. Walking from the car towards the stream, I went by a small two-acre lake. I glanced into the water from shore and saw a number of tiny bass swimming gleefully towards me. With my nose held high, I walked past the lake and to the stream, a beautiful, wide and fast flowing piece of water.

I spent the next three hours casting and walking up and down that stream and I did not find a single trout. There were signs posted at many points on the river indicating that this was fly fishing only water. Someone had even created a small flat metal cutout of a trout and put it on a tree, as a marker of appreciation for this good fishing spot. Yet here I was in the heart of spring on a cold-water stream and not a single trout was to be found. Finally, I gave up and started walking back to the car.

Passing the small lake once again, I saw the bass swimming eagerly. I stopped and thought to myself: “Why not?” Replacing the red copper john nymph with a brown elk hair caddis fly, I began to cast on the surface of the lake. I quickly discovered that bass are not the most intelligent of fish. One after another, these tiny fish would hit the fly after a few seconds on the surface.

After pulling in a half dozen small ones near the shore and releasing them, I decided to cast out a bit further. The elk hair caddis landed 40 or so feet from the bank, and I gave the fly a little twitch to attract a fish. The fly went down, and I expected to reel in another tiny fish, but this time it was different. The rod bent and the line was tense. I started to reel in and a good size bass leaped out of the water. The fish fought well but finally I held him in my hands. I had caught a two-pound smallmouth bass.



Picture: The bass in hand.

The bass was not a pretty as a trout. It lacked the pink shine of a rainbow or the beautiful dark spots of a brown trout. But as I stood there for a moment with the good size fish in my hand, I felt that same sense of excitement, joy and appreciation for the beauty of nature as with any trout. Then I released the fish back into the lake and walked back to the car feeling content.

On my drive home from the lake, it occurred to me that my fish snobbery had prevented me from a fine pastime, casting a fly rod for bass. Especially in the summer, when water temperatures rise too high for trout, I will now search out a good bass lake. I also discovered that being a snob makes sense when drinking fine wine or eating French cheese. When it comes to fishing however, any time that we are able to spend in a river, lake or ocean, fishing for trout, bass or any kind of fish, is time well spent.

Mother’s Day and Women in Judaism

In honor of Mother’s Day, this blog post is about the changing attitudes towards women in Judaism. Until the 20th Century, Judaism did not have a very good track record in how it treated women. Much of the Torah is transcendent, setting high standards for ethical behavior like “love your neighbor as yourself.” Yet when it came to women, the Bible is sexist.

The Torah says that a woman is ritually impure during her menstrual cycle. The term for a woman with her period is niddah, coming from a Hebrew root meaning “to cast out.” Rather than accepting menstruation as a natural part of biology, the male authors of these parts of the Torah saw it as something to be feared.

Even today, some Jews practice the laws of niddah, so that ultra-orthodox Jews will not shake hands or touch a woman in case she may have her period. The impure state of niddah ends with the dunking in the mikvah, the ritual bath. Reform Judaism abolished the laws of ritual purity and most modern Jews do not practice them.

As Judaism continued to evolve, women still were not treated equally. In Jewish tradition, women have three commandments reserved only for them: the lighting of Shabbat candles, preparing challah, and once again the laws of ritual purity. These were the only mitzvot, commandments, that women were required to practice while men were obligated to perform 613!

Women had the option of participating in pray in the synagogue but only if sitting in the back section behind a mechitza, a divider. Women could not wear a tallis or yarmulke. They could not study or read from the Torah. And of course, women could not become a bar mitzvah or a rabbi. In the movie Yentel, Barbara Streisand has a passion for studying Judaism and wants to enter the yeshiva. Only by disguising herself as a man can she participate in Torah and Talmud study.

Then things began to change. For thousands of years, boys had become bar mitzvah, the rite of passage to adulthood where 13-year-old males read from the Torah. In 1922, Judith Kaplan became the first bat mitzvah in Jewish history. It only took 3000 years! Judith was the daughter of Mordecai Kaplan, the founder of Reconstructionist Judaism, the fourth branch of American Judaism. Mordecai Kaplan was a philosopher and innovator and he wanted his daughter to have the same experience as any other boy.

It probably was no accident that the first bat mitzvah was in 1922. Only two years earlier, in 1920, the 19th Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, giving women the right to vote. Equality of women was an issue at the forefront of American culture, and Mordechai Kaplan responded with the first Bat Mitzvah. Today, most synagogues offer bar and bat Mitzvah equally, and give both boys and girls the opportunity to read from the Torah.

A second hurdle to women’s equality was in the area of leadership: in traditional Judaism, women could not become rabbis. That changed too in 1972 when Sally Priesand become the first woman rabbi in Jewish history. Rabbi Priesand was ordained a Reform Rabbi at Hebrew Union College, the same seminary where I studied. She became a rabbi in 1972, exactly 50 years after Judith Kaplan become the first Bat Mitzvah.

I also believe that the state of American society in the early 1970s helped Reform Judaism break through this barrier. At that time, the women’s movement pushed for equality of the sexes. In 1972, Congress passed the equal rights amendment, which guaranteed equality of the sexes in America but it was not ratified by enough states to become part of the Constitution. In the early 70s, women were also rallying for equal pay in the workplace and for equal hiring, based on one’s qualifications not one’s gender.

Judaism was ready for a new innovation, the first woman rabbi. Here is how Rabbi Priesand described her journey:
“I decided I wanted to be a rabbi in 1962 at the age of 16. Fortunately, my parents gave me one of the greatest gifts a parent can give a child: the courage to dare and to dream. When I decided to study for the rabbinate, I never thought much about being a pioneer, nor was it my intention to champion the rights of women. I just wanted to be a rabbi. Thus, I have spent my entire career in congregational life.”

In the 21st Century, Reform Judaism has complete equality of the sexes in our religion. At my synagogue, Temple Shearith Israel, and at all Reform synagogues, women do everything that a man does: women study torah, pray, teach, become board members, and even become the president of the Temple (if they are gluttons for punishment!) Speaking of which, American society has come even further in the pursuit of equal rights for women, so that we almost elected a woman to be the president of the United States.

I am proud to be a Reform Rabbi because of the equality that our movement demands. The Bible teaches that we are all created in the divine image and with a divine spark. And thus it is our obligation to treat every person with dignity, equality and respect.

Why do Jews not eat pork?

Not consuming pork is a defining tradition in Judaism, one of main rules of keeping kosher, the Jewish dietary laws.  In the book of Leviticus, God told the Israelites that they may eat any animal that has a cleft hoof and chews the cud: this includes ox, sheep, goats, deer and cows. However, God prohibits Jews from eating pork since it is an animal that has a split hoof but does not chew the cud. As with many of the laws of the Torah, there is no real reason given for why Jews cannot eat pork. The Bible only states that the pig is unclean. Here God tells us what we cannot do, and the reason seems to be: “Because I told you so!”

Jewish commentators throughout the ages have tried to understand why God would prohibit the consumption of pork. Some scholars believe that the pig simply became taboo in Israelite culture early on and we have upheld that tradition until today. Other commentators suggest that even before there were doctors, Jews realized that the pig could be dangerous to eat as it spends most of the day in its own refuse. Or maybe we cannot eat pork because as the old joke goes: “It is hard to be Jew!” Whatever the reason for the prohibition of pork, it was a powerful practice that Jews have upheld for millennia.

I suspect that if you took a survey of American Jews today, the vast majority would say that they eat pork. Ever since arriving on American shores, Jews have strived to assimilate and fit in with the larger culture. For many people that meant giving up specific Jewish practices that made them stand apart, like not working on Saturday and avoiding bacon and ham.

Even in Israel, many secular Jews eat pork. They call it basar lavan, which means “white meat,” like tv commercial slogan: “The Other White Meat.” It is interesting that Israelis do not use the biblical word chazer, which means pig. Perhaps the Jewish stigma against eating pork can still remain strong, even for those who do choose to eat it.

I grew up eating pork like any good Midwestern American boy. In my family, we did not practice any of the kosher laws. We ate pork, pepperoni, ham and bacon. I grew up in a Reform Synagogue in St. Louis and was confirmed. However, it was not until I entered Tufts University that I became very interested in Judaism. Yet, I had no connection or background with the kosher laws. Like most American Jews I knew that pork was forbidden in Jewish practice, but I still kept eating pepperoni pizza.

Then one day I was in the dining hall and I saw a grilled ham and cheese, a sandwich that I had consumed a dozen times that year and always enjoyed. As I thought about eating that ham and cheese, I actually got a little bit nauseous. At that moment, I knew then that it was time for me to give up pork. I have not had a slice of ham or a piece of bacon since.

Looking back, it was my rising sense of Jewish commitment that was coming into conflict with my American lifestyle and dietary choices. I could no longer stomach the idea of eating pork if I was going to continue to move closer to Judaism. So I gave it up. Today, I practice a modified from of keeping kosher: I do not eat pork and shellfish, but I do mix meat and milk. This compromise works for me, and it is a very Reform way of approaching Jewish tradition.

Reform Judaism stresses the idea of informed choice. Reform Jews need to learn about the Jewish rituals and traditions and why they are important. Then we choose which traditions to follow in our lives, traditions that give us a sense of meaning and connection to Judaism. For me that meant that I do not eat pork, but I do not practice other kosher laws like separating meat an milk.

The beauty of Reform Judaism is that each person can choose his or her own level of ritual practice. The danger of Reform Judaism is that we must have some level of Jewish practice to keep our religion meaningful and alive. Informed choice does not mean wholesale rejection.

People sometimes ask me if I miss eating pork, and I always say: “Yes, sometimes I do.” But my refraining from pork is a way of acknowledging the laws of keeping kosher, and it makes me feel closer to my Judaism and Jews stretching all the way back to the Bible.