Wednesday, April 17, 2019

Review on Alabama Radio Station


Book Bit for WTBF-AM/FM in Troy, Ala. For April 16, 2019

WTBF FM 94.7, AM 970 and FM 96.3 of Southeast Alabama will run the attached as audio this holiday weekend – this is part of the program “On the BookShelf.”

A book for reflection for the Festival of Passover:
“Mensch Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi” by Joshua Hammerman (HCI)

The author ,a rabbi of three decades, suggests that the word “mensch” is a Yiddish word that needs adding to the American lexicon. A mensch is someone who is righteous, decent and morally mature. It is a journey of faith and civility. For Jews, there is no greater honor than being called a mensch, and it’s a really wonderful way to recognize someone who has been growing as a human being. I think it’s a terrific idea.

“Mensch Marks” represent his personal Torah scroll, the sacred text of his experiences, the life lessons he has learned along his winding, circuitous journey. He uses the template of 42 steps, the number that Israel wandered in the Wilderness, and creates 42 essays organized into categories of character (Mensch marks) as stepping stones toward spiritual formation.

This is not strictly a religious book, but like in the Book of Esther God’s fingerprints are all over it. There are lots of very funny incidents from his career, but they also lead us to a deeper awareness of our own brokenness and of God’s incredible love for His people. Rabbi Joshua Hammerman reflects on the life and career of his father, also a rabbi, who died suddenly at age 60. His essays “cover crucial moments of failure and forgiveness, loving and letting go, finding deeper meaning in one’s work, and holiness in the seemingly inconsequential moments of everyday life.”  In the segment on “The Nobility of Normalcy”, he writes, “Everyday holiness leads to a life of enchantment and purpose.” He reflects on lovingly caring for his brother Mark, who is “intellectually challenged”. He sees the gentle, subtle hand of God in the childhood wisdom of Winnie the Pooh. Like him, I prefer a life of busyness to a life whose time is wasted doing nothing of significance.

As someone who has served as a bi-vocational Methodist pastor for almost 30 years, I found it powerful that our experiences have so much in common. Rabbi Joshua Hammerman’s descriptions of being humbled by his calling, his struggles to serve his congregation while not giving his family short-shrift, and his delight at seeing the Hand of God in nature and in occasional moments of human interaction, touched me deeply. I could really identify with Rabbi Joshua’s description of dashing back and forth between the ER rooms of a congregant and of his young son, desperately trying to bring the peace of the Almighty to both patients.

I wish we were neighbors. I’d like to think that we would be friends. And my new goal is to be the kind of person who deserves to be called a mensch, not so I could wear it like an accolade (hey! The Christian guy wants to appropriate a Jewish honor!) but to see it as a challenge, like being an Eagle Scout. It doesn’t stop with achieving the rank; getting it pushes you to live in such a way that you honor the rank by living its deepest truths. May it be truly said of each of us, if we seek to live in peace with God and each other. May you be a blessing to others this Passover.

Interview ‘These are untethered times’ Brian Koonz April 14, 2019 AP

AP Interview ‘These are untethered times’

April 14, 2019

For 25 years, legendary baseball announcer Mel Allen was the voice of the New York Yankees. He called games with the descriptive skills of a novelist and the lyrical cadence of a storyteller.
But in the summer of 1996, when baseball was in full bloom, Allen’s iconic delivery went silent.
His funeral was held at Temple Beth El in Stamford, where Rabbi Joshua Hammerman stood in front of the congregation while the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford sat with 700 others paying their respects.
During Allen’s eulogy, Hammerman spoke of an important legacy: “Mel Allen’s life was one long, extended, exhaustive, exhilarating, triumphant prayer. It was a call to all of us to see the sublimity in the smallest things, the pitch one inch off the corner, the stolen sign, the first seasonal shifts of the wind.”
The first seasonal shifts of the wind, indeed.
Life has always been about seasons, Hammerman understands, from the birth of children and the loss of loved ones, to the moments in between that make us human — and the opportunities they extend us to be a mensch.
Mensch is a Yiddish word, one that largely resists definition. But a consensus would agree that a mensch is someone who is selfless, decent and kind, a person of character, wisdom, integrity and humility.
Someone like Mel Allen. Someone like Joshua Hammerman.
This month, Hammerman’s most memorable and inspired writings have been collected in a new book, “Mensch-Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi,” published by Health Communications, Inc. The 240-page book is available at local bookstores and through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online retailers.
“I always try to look for common themes when I write, keeping things real and down to earth,” Hammerman said in a recent telephone interview. “I like to go beyond the masks we wear and reveal who we really are, so we can help one another repair the world.”
At a time when differences have fractured a collective identity in America, Hammerman writes with a prescriptive catharsis. After more than 30 years as a rabbi — first in New York’s Hudson Valley and later in Stamford — Hammerman offers a theme of universality to his congregation and others who have read his work in the Stamford Advocate, The Washington Post and The New York Times Magazine.
Ultimately, Hammerman puts it this way, succinctly and spot on: “These are untethered times.”
The rabbi looks to shore up this sentiment with essays and sermons over six themes in his book: Work and Worship, Loving and Letting Go, The Nobility of Normalcy, Pain and Perseverance, Belonging and Becoming, and Failure, Forgiveness, Justice and Kindness.
Through his own life lessons — the victories and the failures, the celebrations and the sadness — Hammerman has written a softcover road map for today’s hard-knock world.
“I’ve tried to set an example in everything that I do,” said Hammerman, who earned a master’s degree in journalism from New York University after earning a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. “I’ve never felt like I’ve been a shepherd, but rather, a fellow traveler.
“Writing is my lifeblood. It’s always fed into my work as a rabbi. My work with people, with congregants, had fed my writing. I honestly don’t think one can exist without the other. I write constantly as a way to spread a message of love and hope.”
But this message only works if it’s shared with others in abundance. Those people who reach out to pollinate the planet with love and hope do the calling of a mensch.
“The word mensch goes so far beyond being just a good person. You know how Eskimos have 50 words for snow? It’s the same thing with mensch, but with even more words,” Hammerman said.
“Everyone talks about the lack of civility today. Given the state of our world, we need to turn the word mensch — and what it represents — into something that is not a foreign import, but rather, a word that is trending, something that is the ‘Word of the Year’ that people adopt in the English language just like bagel and chutzpah.”
Hammerman grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. His mother, Miriam, was a gifted pianist. His father, Cantor Michal Hammerman, was a renowned vocalist and the dean of New England cantors. Together, their influence shaped him profoundly in his journey to become a rabbi.
Hammerman was a first-year rabbinical student in New York when his father died of a heart attack. Today, at 62, he is slightly older than his father was on that New Year’s Day in 1979.
“There comes a point when you want to make sure your life message is heard loud and clear,” Hammerman said. “You don’t have many opportunities to get that right.”
For Hammerman, “Mensch-Marks” is one of those opportunities, the chance for one book to speak volumes — some of it even in Yiddish.
Brian Koonz is a freelance writer and former reporter, editor and columnist for the Hearst Connecticut Media Group.

Tuesday, April 16, 2019

How to be a mensch at your Seder (or Easter Dinner). R.N.S





Opinion

How to be a mensch at your seder (or Easter dinner)



Pages from several rare haggadahs. Photos courtesy of David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Duke University
(RNS) — With Passover and Easter approaching in just a few days, a palpable sense of dread can be felt around the nation. While we love our families dearly, how can we sit at the same table as that obnoxious uncle or unbearable sibling who — fill in the blank — 1) wears a MAGA cap in lieu of a yarmulke, 2) thinks President Trump is the 11th plague, 3) thinks Rep. Ilhan Omar is the devil incarnate or 4) thinks that corruption that is “all about the Benjamins” must be referring to Prime Minister Netanyahu.
Our divisions can sometimes be emphasized at Passover seders, where Jews traditionally tell the story of the Exodus through a simple but profound liturgy called the Haggadah. With over 4,000 versions of the seder narrative available, however, it’s possible to tell the same sacred story from nearly anywhere on the ideological  spectrum.
We can choose to look at the Exodus story as a universalist liberation tale, one that would make any newbie socialist proud (“Let all those who are hungry come and eat”). Or it can be a populist revenge tour for all the wrongs brought upon the Jewish people from time immemorial (“Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that did not know You”).




Monday, April 15, 2019

5-Star Review on Amazon - “Mensch*Marks is an amazing book.”




5.0 out of 5 starsThe Torah of Pooh
April 4, 2019
Format: Paperback
First, I love books written by Rabbi's. I've never read a bad one. Their style of writing incorporates humor (sometimes very dry—without an olive), with lots of insight and wisdom. Mensch*Marks is no exception. Rabbi Joshua Hammerman had me laughing, concerned, prodded to think, and often surprised at his transparent analysis of Judaism: Mensch*Mark 40—Should Jews Turn The Other Cheek? This four page essay of "Looking Evil in the Eye," was an "eye opener" into the Jewish approach to "turning the other cheek" when disaster disrupts a community. The essay gave me pause to consider the Jewish ethos v. Christian ethos. I cannot find fault with either, but lean more toward Rabbi Hammerman's POV based on the precept of teshuvah. He explains why "turning the cheek" denies human contact: "face-to-face where true reconciliation can only occur when two human beings can truly see what is human in the other." There are other thought provoking essays you may or may not agree with, but will certainly expand your mind and possibly your heart.

His sweetest essay, "Hugging, Blessing, Letting Go"...is about his son Dan's Bar Mitzvah and as his son's officiating rabbi and father standing with his son on the bimah, he recollects Dan from the crawling baby to his recent "cherubic voice becoming a subtle rasp" and realizes "with every embrace their must be a release." In the end, the Rabbi father realizes, "Only parents can love children enough to let them go."

Mensch*Marks is a collection of essays spanning the thirty plus years Rabbi Hammerman has spent comforting the sick, coupling the lovers, burying the dead and between his rabbinic duties being a good husband, loving father and simply a human being. His authentic approach has opened my eyes to the rabbi's I study under and perhaps have never seen as simply another human being. He's given me greater respect for their person, for the demands of their rabbinate life and for that, I am grateful.

Mensch*Marks is an amazing book. Each chapter preceded with an explanation of the essay and each part preceded with a quote from A. A. Milne's Winnie-the-Pooh, each one right-on for the content.

The underlying theme of Mensch*Marks is becoming a good mensch (a person of character) something Hammerman's father instilled in his son. This collection of essay's portray’s Rabbi Hammerman's journey on the menschlichkeit path. He writes, "Today, I have started the process toward becoming a mensch." I'd say he's made his mark.

Sunday, April 14, 2019

Books: Rabbi Hammerman has a road map for today’s hard-knock world - CT Hearst Newspapers, including Stamford Advocate


 Updated 
CT POST 


NORWALK -  THE HOUR

FAIRFIELD CITIZEN

GREENWICH TIME 

WESTPORT NEWS

THE WORLD NEWS NETWORK


For 25 years, legendary baseball announcer Mel Allen was the voice of the New York Yankees. He called games with the descriptive skills of a novelist and the lyrical cadence of a storyteller.
But in the summer of 1996, when baseball was in full bloom, Allen’s iconic delivery went silent.
His funeral was held at Temple Beth El in Stamford, where Rabbi Joshua Hammerman stood in front of the congregation while the likes of Joe DiMaggio, Yogi Berra and Whitey Ford sat with 700 others paying their respects.
During Allen’s eulogy, Hammerman spoke of an important legacy: “Mel Allen’s life was one long, extended, exhaustive, exhilarating, triumphant prayer. It was a call to all of us to see the sublimity in the smallest things, the pitch one inch off the corner, the stolen sign, the first seasonal shifts of the wind.”
The first seasonal shifts of the wind, indeed.
Life has always been about seasons, Hammerman understands, from the birth of children and the loss of loved ones, to the moments in between that make us human — and the opportunities they extend us to be a menschMensch is a Yiddish word, one that largely resists definition. But a consensus would agree that a mensch is someone who is selfless, decent and kind, a person of character, wisdom, integrity and humility.
Someone like Mel Allen. Someone like Joshua Hammerman.
This month, Hammerman’s most memorable and inspired writings have been collected in a new book, “Mensch-Marks: Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi,” published by Health Communications, Inc. The 240-page book is available at local bookstores and through Amazon, Barnes & Noble and other online retailers.
“I always try to look for common themes when I write, keeping things real and down to earth,” Hammerman said in a recent telephone interview. “I like to go beyond the masks we wear and reveal who we really are, so we can help one another repair the world.”
At a time when differences have fractured a collective identity in America, Hammerman writes with a prescriptive catharsis. After more than 30 years as a rabbi — first in New York’s Hudson Valley and later in Stamford — Hammerman offers a theme of universality to his congregation and others who have read his work in the Stamford Advocate, The Washington Post and The New York Times Magazine.
Ultimately, Hammerman puts it this way, succinctly and spot on: “These are untethered times.”
The rabbi looks to shore up this sentiment with essays and sermons over six themes in his book: Work and Worship, Loving and Letting Go, The Nobility of Normalcy, Pain and Perseverance, Belonging and Becoming, and Failure, Forgiveness, Justice and Kindness.
Through his own life lessons — the victories and the failures, the celebrations and the sadness — Hammerman has written a softcover road map for today’s hard-knock world.
“I’ve tried to set an example in everything that I do,” said Hammerman, who earned a master’s degree in journalism from New York University after earning a bachelor’s degree from Brown University. “I’ve never felt like I’ve been a shepherd, but rather, a fellow traveler.
“Writing is my lifeblood. It’s always fed into my work as a rabbi. My work with people, with congregants, had fed my writing. I honestly don’t think one can exist without the other. I write constantly as a way to spread a message of love and hope.”
But this message only works if it’s shared with others in abundance. Those people who reach out to pollinate the planet with love and hope do the calling of a mensch.
“The word mensch goes so far beyond being just a good person. You know how Eskimos have 50 words for snow? It’s the same thing with mensch, but with even more words,” Hammerman said.
“Everyone talks about the lack of civility today. Given the state of our world, we need to turn the word mensch — and what it represents — into something that is not a foreign import, but rather, a word that is trending, something that is the ‘Word of the Year’ that people adopt in the English language just like bagel and chutzpah.”
Hammerman grew up in Brookline, Massachusetts, just outside of Boston. His mother, Miriam, was a gifted pianist. His father, Cantor Michal Hammerman, was a renowned vocalist and the dean of New England cantors. Together, their influence shaped him profoundly in his journey to become a rabbi.
Hammerman was a first-year rabbinical student in New York when his father died of a heart attack. Today, at 62, he is slightly older than his father was on that New Year’s Day in 1979.
“There comes a point when you want to make sure your life message is heard loud and clear,” Hammerman said. “You don’t have many opportunities to get that right.”
For Hammerman, “Mensch-Marks” is one of those opportunities, the chance for one book to speak volumes — some of it even in Yiddish.

Brian Koonz is a freelance writer and former reporter, editor and columnist for the Hearst Connecticut Media Group.

Tuesday, April 9, 2019

In a Dehumanizing World, Simply Being Human is Heroic - Review in Book Trib


What word would best describe today’s hero? Brave? Bold? Gallant? Daring? Gutsy? Superhuman?
How about mensch?
“In a world as dehumanizing as ours has become, simply being a kind, honest and loving person, a man or woman of integrity, has become a measure of heroism – and at a time when norms of civility are being routinely quashed, it may be the only measure that matters.”
So writes Rabbi Joshua Hammerman in his new book, Mensch-Marks(HCI Books), subtitled “Life Lessons of a Human Rabbi” and “Wisdom for Untethered Times.” Mensch, of course, refers to the Jewish word for a fully realized, morally evolved human being, or person of character.
“When everything has become unhinged around you, just persevere with the singular focus of being the best human being you can be and everything else will follow from that,” writes Hammerman.
The journey to moral maturity, says Hammerman, is no less heroic than what we think of when conjuring up the traditional image of a hero — although Hammerman points out for the mensch the journey is “perhaps a little less dramatic and a lot less bloody.”
Mensch-Marks is the sacred text of Hammerman’s experiences, the life lessons he has learned along his winding, circuitous journey. He offers 42 brief essays organized into six categories of character as stepping stones toward spiritual maturation: Work and Worship; Loving and Letting Go; The Nobility of Normalcy; Pain and Perseverance; Belonging and Becoming; and Failure, Forgiveness, Justice and Kindness.
While there are many takeaways, Hammerman is not at all preachy in his style; rather he captivates and entertains the reader in telling about many of his own personal experiences.
And those experiences are wide-ranging:
  • During a eulogy, revealing, at the deceased’s request, to the family that he was gay.
  • Bouncing back and forth at a hospital emergency ward between his own son and a dear member of his congregation.
  • Writing an article questioning the messianic faith espoused by former football player Tim Tebow.
  • The simplicity of a waitress refilling his cup without being asked.
  • Hearing people ask “What has God done for me lately?”
  • Going from the “me” generation to the “we” generation.
His vantage point is more multilayered than most and, as a rabbi, gives him greater influence and responsibility as  a mentor and guide to a congregation.
“Seeking kindness in an increasingly cruel landscape, or, at a time of unprecedented mobility, yearning for a sense of rootedness – well, rabbis have a two-millennium head start in dealing with all of these,” Hammerman recently said in an article in the Christian Science Monitor.
The journey to being a mensch is just that, a journey – a lifelong journey of striving to do better and be human. One is not born a mensch, and it is “unseemly,” says Hammerman, to call yourself one. Yet for Jews, he says, there is no greater honor than for someone else to call you one.
“I often use the expression when eulogizing someone,” he writes, “but I have never said, ‘she was a billionaire’ or ‘he wrote a dozen bestsellers.’ There is something about mensch that transcends professional success. Our jobs do not define us; neither do our homes, cars and stock portfolios.”
Hammerman refers to a Jewish prayer known as the Alenu, which speaks of “a future time when all humanity will be united under a single standard of morality and goodness, enhancing the prospects of harmony and peace. It doesn’t promise that we’ll get there soon but asserts that it is our responsibility to make progress toward that end.”
The author notes that in German, the term mensch refers specifically to males, but the designation in the Jewish sense is hardly gender-specific. He recounts the amusing anecdote of searching Amazon for Hanukkah gifts and coming across a mug with a picture of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, under which was the word, Mensch. As Hammerman says, she is “the quintessential wo-mensch.”
“If by sharing what I’ve learned,” he says, “I can bring just a bit more decency into the world that has lost its moral moorings, a modicum of generosity, honesty, and human connection in a world overflowing with cruelty, loneliness and deceit, then I’ll have made it to my personal Promised Land.”
Mensch-Marks is now available for purchase.