A mere three years after completing her residency training in 2011, surgeon Carla Haack found herself in the throes of job burnout. She had been devoting her life to the hospital, working 14-hour days including weekends for months at a time. Often the opportunity to eat a meal wouldn't arise until the end of the long work day.

You could have taken the textbook definition of burnout and stuck it on me. I was miserable, and the work became unsustainable for me, said Haack, a general and acute care surgeon at Emory University Hospital. I was exhausted, depleted and probably had some diagnostic features of depression.

As a result of giving everything to the care of her patients, she ended up with nothing left for herself. Haack had even thought about leaving the practice. The combination of long hours, the increasing clerical demands of medicine and constant worries about patients' health led to symptoms of burnout.

Haack represents a growing number of physicians experiencing job burnout, characterized by emotional exhaustion, feelings of cynicism and a low sense of personal accomplishment. A 2011 survey by the Mayo Clinic found that nearly half of physicians in the United States have at least one symptom of burnout, and the phenomenon is more common among doctors than other professions. A type of burnout called compassion fatigue often affects health-care professionals and can result in a loss of empathy for patients, emotional numbing and a sense of no control.

This can have a detrimental effect on patient outcomes. Studies have found that higher levels of physician burnout correspond to more medical errors, which represent the third leading cause of death in the United States.

To combat physician burnout, some medical schools have launched programs to teach soft skills to better equip their doctors for today's stressful health-care environment. Learning compassion, empathy and resilience that speak to the human service challenges of the job have helped many individuals rediscover the meaning of medicine and why they became a doctor in the first place.

Since 2014, Emory has offered cognitively based compassion training (CBCT) courses free of charge for staff, faculty and students at the medical school. Each course runs for 10 weeks, meets once a week in person and also includes at-home exercises. Enrollment has grown every year, with a total of 171 faculty/staff members and 239 medical students having completed the course.

CBCT draws from traditions of Tibetan Buddhism mind training that have been secularized with a focus on compassion and well-being. The course begins with meditative exercises that emphasize self-compassion, then asks students to expand these emotions to their loved ones, strangers and finally difficult people. Each class combines didactic teaching and guided meditation.

A study on second-year medical students at Emory found that those randomized to CBCT reported increased compassion along with decreased loneliness and depression as compared with a control group. The greatest impact of CBCT occurred in students who came into the course with high levels of depression, who maintained their compassion throughout the semester. Those with similar levels of depression in the control group experienced a loss in compassion in the same time frame.

Medical students are this really unique population that suffers from incredibly high rates of depression, suicidal ideation and burnout, said study author Jennifer Mascaro, a biological anthropologist at Emory. Not surprisingly, they also seem to suffer a decrease in empathy and compassion during training. It's hard to feel compassion when you're just trying to keep your head above water.

An eight-week program at Stanford Medicine, called Compassion Cultivation Training (CCT), similarly combines traditional meditation practices with contemporary psychology and scientific research. The training involves daily guided meditation, breathing practices, and a weekly two-hour class with lecture and discussion. While CCT is open to members of the medical school and public, it does require a registration fee of $395.

James Doty, a Stanford neurosurgeon and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education,and his colleagues have studied aspects of CCT not only for health-care providers but also for people living with chronic pain and post-traumatic stress disorder. A randomized controlled trial of CCT found that adults who took the course showed significant improvements in all three domains of compassion compassion for others, receiving compassion from others and self-compassion as compared with a control group.

Similar programs exist for medical students and faculty at Massachusetts General Hospital, the University of Virginia School of Nursing and Georgetown University School of Medicine. Medical schools and hospitals are increasingly investing in compassion and empathy training with the hopes to combat burnout in providers but also for any downstream benefits that patients may receive. Patient-perceived physician empathy improves patient satisfaction and compliance, while burnout is associated with an increased risk of medical errors and malpractice.

When a health-care provider is present and connecting, what happens? Patients' anxiety is decreased, they become calm and this is all simply as a result of human connection, Doty said. So if we create an environment where patients feel that they're being truly cared for and that they're not just another cog in the wheel, it really changes everything.

After completing the CBCT course earlier this year, Haack has already felt a greater level of engagement with work. While the long hours and paperwork do persist, compassion training has allowed her to exercise the self-care she had been lacking for years.

Being a surgeon is one of those situations where somebody trusts you and puts their life in your hands, which is both a privilege and an incredible responsibility, Haack said. The class has already made a profound difference, and I've learned that having a genuine desire for someone to be happy and free of suffering does not mean that I have to carry their pain around with me.

Read more:

Fathers sing more to daughters and roughhouse with sons, study finds

WHO creates controversial reserve list of antibiotics for superbug threats

As bike commuting soars, so do injuries. Annual medical costs are now in the billions.

See the original post:
Tibetan Buddhism-based 'compassion' training for doctors targets burnout - Washington Post

Twin Peaks Blue Rose team Agent Tammy Preston, Agent Albert Rosenfield, and Deputy Director Gordon Cole face the darkness of Coopers double in an earlier third-season episode. Screenshot via Showtime.

Twin Peaks eccentric, upstanding FBI Special Agent Dale Cooper may well have been on to something when, twenty-five years ago, he tried to employ deductive technique, Tibetan method, instinct, and luck in unraveling the mystery of Laura Palmers murder. That was way back in the shows third episode, Zen, or the Skill to Catch a Killer (1990). The mysteries in Twin Peaks currently running third season (subtitle: The Return) have only multiplied, along with the very existence of Dale Cooper, for it seems there are now two Coopers roaming the earth.

[Ill stop here to say something that maybe should go without saying, given that last sentence: talking about Twin Peaks is tricky. It wont make sense if you havent been watching, and it might not make sense even if you have, not in any traditional meaning of sense, at least. Plus, theres the problem of spoilers. Well, Ill do my best.]

This notion of double-Coopers, and doubles in general, again, relates the show to a bit of Buddhist thinking specifically, a Tibetan word: tulpa.

When FBI Agent Albert Rosenfield (played by the recently departed Miguel Ferrer) imparts to Agent Tammy Preston (Chrysta Bell) where the name for Blue Rose cases come from like X-Files, Blue Rose cases are infused with the supernatural and paranormal he tells her of the first-ever such case, years ago, in which a woman named Lois Duffy manifested in two forms at once. One, Albert tells us, says I am like the Blue Rose, is shot, and then vanishes.

Albert asks Tammy to parse the meaning of this use of blue rose. Its not something found in nature, she replies. Its something conjured a tulpa. Albert nods in approval.

So: whats a tulpa? Heres Wikipedias definition:

Tulpa, nirmita, or thoughtform, is a concept in mysticism of a being or object which is created through spiritual or mental powers. The term comes from Tibetan emanation or manifestation. Modern practitioners use the term to refer to a type of imaginary friend.

Indeed, just as Lois Duffys body (or, rather, one of them) disappeared; so too have we been seeing bodies appear and vanish throughout this series of Twin Peaks. Sometimes, theyve seemed to come in and out of thin air, materializing in the shows otherworldly realm known as the Black Lodge. Or, they might manifest in the real world, as Agent Dale Cooper in place of a lookalike named Dougie Jones has, while another, more nefarious emanation of Cooper known as Mr. C. roams about on business that is anything but upstanding.

All this, we can be sure, is mystical business, with roots in something far older than the first Blue Rose case. (Is it significant, too, that Twin Peaks is a translation of Shuang-feng, home for thirty years to the fourth patriarch of Chan Buddhism in China? Nahhh.) In recalling and relaying a dream thats riddled with doubles and, we gather, clues FBI Deputy Director Gordon Cole, played by Twin Peaks director David Lynch, quotes an ancient phrase from the Upanishads, just as Lynch, an evangelizer for Transcendental Meditation, likes to do: We are like the dreamer who dreams and then lives in the dream.

This notion of questioning what is dream and what is reality is one often asked by Buddhists, too: Regard all dharmas that is, phenomena as dreams, goes one of Atishas famed mind-training slogans. As for the idea of the thoughtform, it in fact comes to us by way of a Buddhist text one that Agent Dale Cooper was seemingly able to quote from memory, as Laura Palmers father Leland died in Coopers arms. Wikipedia, again: The term thoughtform is used as early as 1927 in Evans-Wentz translation of the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and has its roots in Tibetan Buddhism and Bon. Just who, and what, in the Twin Peaks universe are thought-forms? Just whose body is a mind-made body, as a tulpa might be defined?

This being Twin Peaks, such questions may well remain forever unanswered. In the meantime, as we wait and see, the best thing might be to regard it all as a dream. But Ill leave you with this definition of nirmita, the above-mentioned corollary to tulpa, as rendered in The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism:

In Sanksrit, conjured, referring to something perceived by the sensory organs to be real but that is in fact illusory, like the moon on the surface of a lake or the water in a mirage. The term is often associated in Buddhist literature with the various doubles the Buddha conjures of himself in order to bring varying types of sentient beings to liberation.

Read more:
Twin Peaks, in key new episode, nods to Buddhism again - Lion's Roar

August 16, 2017 | Corrected: August 16, 2017

The College Board announced Wednesday that it will expand the availability of a digital version of the SAT this school year.

The company will give a practice version of the SAT online in some school districts in December, and then administer a fully operational, digital version of the SATand the PSAT 8/9to more students in the spring of 2018, said Cyndie Schmeiser, a special assistant to company CEO David Coleman.

College Board officials couldnt provide an estimate of the number of students who will have access to the online SAT this year, saying only that they anticipate a slight increase in participation in 2017-18, and additional increases in the next few years.

Last fall and spring, more than 5,000 students in 17 school districts took the SAT online, spokesman Zach Goldberg said. Another 5,000 students took the online version of the PSAT 8/9, he said.

Next springs digital tests will take place within the College Boards school day testing program, which serves the 10 states, and about 250 school districts, that give the SAT or PSAT to all of their students.

The 2017-18 expansion of digital SAT and PSAT testing will be conducted on a platform designed by the American Institutes for Research, which powers a number of state-mandated testing programs.

The College Boards announcement comes as assessments increasingly move onto computer screens from pencil and paper. The PARCC and Smarter Balanced exams are required in 20 states and the District of Columbia, and nearly all students take them online. The two national language-proficiency tests for English-learners, designed by the WIDA and ELPA21 consortia, are given online. And as of this year, all tests in the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, are now digital, said spokesman Stephaan Harris.

The College Boards main rival, ACT Inc., has been offering a digital version of its college-admissions test for three years in all 16 states and 1,100 districts that require students to take the ACT, said company spokesman Ed Colby. In 2016-17, 82,000 of the 1 million students who took the ACT through those programs took it online, he said.

Both the College Board and ACT said theyre not yet sure if they will offer a digital version of their college-admissions exams in their national programs. In those programs, students sign up for the test on their own, and typically take it on weekends. But Colby said that ACT testing abroad will be all-digital starting in the fall of 2018.

By making an online version of the SAT widely available, the College Board hopes to supply something that customers with state-, district- or schoolwide contracts have asked for, Schmeiser said. An online option can make it easier to provide accommodations for students with special needs, and might eventually shorten the turnaround time for getting scores back, she said.

Most online tests are still available in paper-and-pencil versions, for students who need that option, and districts or schools that lack the technological firepower for large-scale online testing. The digital SAT will be no different; Schmeiser said there are no plans to do away with the paper version.

Computer-based testing, however, has come with a unique set of problems.

Technology glitches have brought state testing to a halt in some places in recent years. And Education Week found a pattern of students performing better on the paper-and-pencil version of the PARCC test than on the computer version. Scores on some online tests can also be influenced by the type of device students take them on: tablets, desktops, or laptops.

Schmeiser said the College Board has been studying such mode effects as it developed the online SAT, and will continue to do so, but it doesnt see any signs of a problem.

When we offer the SATon paper or digitalstudent scores will be comparable irrespective of the mode or the way they took it, she said.

Years of developing digital versions of other College Board tests, such as Accuplacer, which colleges use to determine course placement, and CLEP, which is used to award college credit, have informed this latest round of work on the SAT and the PSAT, Schmeiser said.

Keith R. Krueger, the chief executive officer of CoSN, which represents chief technology officers in school districts, said most of his members will welcome the chance to have their students take a digital SAT.

Students would prefer to take tests online, he said. They live in a digital world.

But CoSN cautions districts to make sure they are fully prepared for online testing before they venture into it. The organization encourages them to use its suite of free online self-assessment tools to gauge their readiness for digital assessments.

Districts must have adequate security and technology systems to support the tests, must be able to provide good training for staff members, and must make surewell before testing daythat students are familiar with the devices theyre taking the tests on, Krueger said.

Web Only

Back to Top

Read more:
More Students to Take SAT Online - Education Week (subscription)

Two of China's leading online education companies, backed by a who's-who of top venture capital firms, are embroiled in an ugly public relations fight involving pornography, alleged hacking and threatened legal action. The episode has caused an outcry from investors and industry participants, with the latest being Baidu Inc., an investor and former parent of one company, releasing a statement with harsh words for all involved. The facts are still unclear, yet it seems certain that both firms are destined to lose their reputation, credibility and perhaps their valuations.

The spat began August 9, when an influential Weibo account known for posting sensational content released numerous screenshots showing improper and potentially pornographic text content on an education mobile app operated by Yuantiku, which is backed by A-list investors including IDG Capital, Matrix Partners, CMC Capital, New Horizon, Tencent and Warburg Pincus. The next day an education TV station aired a program exposing the same improper content. The timing of the incident is critical, as China is in the midst of a campaign to clean up its Internet. Pornographic content of any kind could lead to harsh penalties.

Yuantiku's engineers tried to figure out how the improper content got into its platform, as its software should have spotted and deleted it. After researching the IP addresses of the users posting the improper content, Yuantiku came to believe the content came from the offices of its chief rival, Zuoyebang. In Yuantiku's opinion, the staff at Zuoyebang, which is backed by Sequoia Capital, Legend Capital, GGV Capital and Tigal Global, had posted the improper content as part of a smear campaign.

Things came to a head on the morning of August 14, when Zuoyebang announced a US$150 million series C financing round. That afternoon, Yuantiku held its own press conference, telling the media that it had been set up by rival Zuoyebang and that it had already alerted the police. Yuantiku's vice president Li Jin posted on his WeChat account that day: "We decided to let everyone know about this disgusting incidentto let them know that one must take responsibilities for doing evil."

Zuoyebang quickly fired back, releasing a statement saying: "Our peer's statements are against the factsWe do not want to engage in verbal disputes. We have kept all evidence and are prepared to protect our rights via legal means to fight against defamation from others."

Yesterday, Baidu, formerly the parent company and a current shareholder of Zuoyebang, jumped into the fray, issuing a statement with harsh messages for both companies. Baidu is particularly sensitive as all of Yuantiku's accusations use term Baidu Zuoyebang, instead of Zuoyebang, making it appear that Zuoyebang is a Baidu affiliated entity.

"Zuoyebang is an independent brand and independent corporate entity. There is no such brand or entity as Baidu Zuoyebang. As an investor in Zuoyebang, Baidu does not participate in the daily operations of ZuoyebangWe have not been a part of the dispute between Zuoyebang and Yuantikubut Yuantiku has used the Baidu brand in all of its published materials. We have collected evidence and submitted a law suit against the company and all related parties," Baidu said in the statement.

As for Zuoyebang, Baidu said it has asked the company to fully investigate the matter and advised the company to strengthen its integrity. If the contend did come from the company's servers, it should punish related staff accordingly.

"As educators, you must first make yourself a role model. This type of public relations battle in the Internet education sector and the fact that company executives speak with total disregard for facts and sometimes with obscene language are disappointing the whole industry. This has also let down the students and parents, failing to gain their trust. It is hurting the healthy development of the sector," Baidu said in the statement.

This view has been widely echoed by other observers. One anonymous investor said "We felt very saddened by this. The market has not really reached the stage where it's live-or-die for participating players. Some companies are focusing on the wrong place. This will harm these companies and the whole industry, because if students and parents lose confidence in them, they will also lose confidence in the sector."

Another online education executive commented that "This scandal has far exceeded regular competitive behavior. The target this time are the students and the users, which is truly terrible for the growth of online education."

Zuoyebang and Yuansouti, operated by Yuantiku and the main entity engaged in the dispute, are the top two K12 education mobile app in China. Zuoyebang operates a K-12 homework Q&A and online community platform, while Yuansouti allows users take a picture of a particular problem and submit it to its database for immediate answers and help. Both companies have raised financing of around a quarter billion U.S. dollars.

As of the end of July, Zuoyebang and Yuansouti were ranked as the first and second most actively used android K12 apps in China. Zuoyebang's weekly active users took around 2.1% of total active users for this type of app in China, while Yuansouti has a 0.6% share, according to data from Cheetah.

Education mobile apps were the fastest growing sector in the mobile Internet in China. As of June, education mobile apps grew 22.4% year-on-year, second only to food delivery apps. But competition in the sector is fierce, with around 70% of the 8,000 online education firms in China suffering losses, according to an online education survey.

The three parties, including Baidu, have threatened each other with lawsuits. Few outsiders know what really happened. As legal documents get released if the lawsuits do materialize, we will have a better idea of the facts. But one thing is for sure, this school yard brawl will hurt all involved.

Read the rest here:
Ugly Fight Between Chinese Online Education Firms Enrages Investors - China Money Network

MOSCOW, Aug. 15, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --BeOne, the Russian blockchain start-up is revolutionizing online education and course delivery by creating a distributed ledger backed platform. The BeOne platform is designed to offer a range of courses to users with different educational backgrounds in various domains. The platform, currently undergoing closed alpha testing has announced the launch of its ICO campaign to raise the necessary funds to build a comprehensive finished product.

Users on BeOne can teach or learn a wide array of skills, starting from cooking to photography. The platform is designed keeping the needs of students and instructors in mind. The platform makes it easier for instructors to create and share informative education content of various types at a fraction of the cost while earning better returns than any other online course platform out there. Meanwhile, users/students can lay their hands upon exhaustive course content for a small fee.

BeOne users can take part in the webinars hosted on the platforms, avail one-on-one consultations and get immediate answers to their queries. When it comes to courses, they can just purchase a particular module of significance based on their needs instead of paying for the whole course. The platform also allows users to search for like-minded people and join interest groups to learn together. For instructors and course creators, BeOne has a broad range of monetization models that charge commission not higher than 10%, which is the least in the industry.

The BeOne ICOis set to go live on Aug. 28, 2017, at 12:00 (MSK). During the month-long crowdsale, investors can purchase the platform's tokens by depositing BTC, ETH, LTC or DASH. The BeOne tokens serve as the mode of transactions on the platform. The platform has set a maximum cap of 10 million tokens out of which 9 million will be available for purchase during the crowdsale.

BeOne has an attractive bonus option in place for early bird investors. Those investing during the first three hours of the ICO stand to gain a 50% discount on the token purchase. Following which, the tokens will be made available at a 20% discount for the next 72 hours.

Out of all the funds raised during the ICO, BeOne will allocate 50% for marketing, 20% for development, 20% for onboarding instructors and the rest 10% for operating expenses. More information about the education platform and the ICO is available on the company's website.

About BeOne

Based out of Russia, BeOne is an innovative decentralized online learning platform that enables users to make money by sharing skills, knowledge, and experience. The company is striving to make online educational resources more affordable and readily accessible to people of all age groups across various domains.

Learn more about BeOne at https://be-one.coAccess BeOne whitepaper at https://be-one.co/wp/whitepaper_eng.pdfBeOne on Twitter https://twitter.com/beone_coBeOne of Facebook https://www.facebook.com/beonecoJoin BeOne Telegram Channel at https://t.me/beoneco

Media Contact

Contact Name:Kristina SmirnovaContact Email: rel="nofollow">kristina@be-one.coLocation:Moscow, Russia

BeOne is the source of this content. Virtual currency is not legal tender, is not backed by the government, and accounts and value balances are not subject to consumer protections. This press release is for informational purposes only. The information does not constitute investment advice or an offer to invest.

Related Links

Bitcoin PR Buzz

BeOne

View original content with multimedia:http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/beone-packages-blockchain-technology-and-online-education-into-one-announces-ico-300504999.html

SOURCE BeOne

Read more from the original source:
BeOne Packages Blockchain Technology and Online Education Into ... - Markets Insider

China-focused venture capital firm H Capital has led a US150 million series C round in Zuoyebang, a K-12 online education spin-off from Baidu Inc.

It marks the largest funding round in the K-12 online education industry. Tiger Global Management LLC., Sequoia Capital, Legend Capital, GGV Capital and Xianghe Capital also participated in the round, according to a company announcement.

"I have been focusing on online education industry, and I believe the combination of education and Internet technology will create great companies," said Chen Xiaohong, founder at H Capital. "Zuoyebang has made significant developments in the past two years, and I believe they have the potential to grow in the future."

In September 2015, Baidu spun off its online education platform Zuoyebang as part of the search engine giant's strategy to make its various new businesses independent and open them to outside investors. The platform currently has nearly 60 million monthly active users, and have over 70% market share in the K12 online education market.

The company focus on providing assistance to K-12 students on their homework, including problem search, one-on-one Q&A, teacher live streaming videos and homework evaluation.

Zuoyebang previously raised a US$60 million series B round from GGV, Sequoia and Legend Capital last September. One year prior, it also received a US$25 million series A round from Sequoia and Legend Capital. The company plans to use the latest proceeds to improve its products and build up its team.

See the article here:
H Capital Leads $150M Round In Chinese K12 Online Education ... - China Money Network

Ruth Thieme with her father, the Rev. Wolfgang Shulte-Berge.

Ruth Thieme felt close to her adoptive mother and father growing up in university towns in California and Arizona. But the fact that her biological parents gave her up always bothered her, even though her adoptive parents assured her that the reasons were benign.

Being adopted made me feel unwanted or thrown away, or that somehow I wasnt good enough, said Thieme, now 35. Why would someone give their baby away?

When she turned 18 and her parents told her that her real father was a Catholic priest working in a small parish outside Cologne, Germany, she understood her biological parents decision better, and decided she wanted to meet them.

I didnt know what I wanted from them, she said. I just wanted to meet them and ask for any genetic markers in case I wanted to have children. I didnt know whether I wanted a relationship.

Her initial meeting with the Rev. Wolfgang Shulte-Berge in 2000 would prove to be the catalyst for an unusually close father-daughter relationship that would span the next 12 years and unfold in countries throughout Europe.

He was always gung-ho about connecting with his daughter, Thieme said. The minute I was there, he was a part of my life.

Still, Shulte-Berge insisted on keeping their relationship a secret, until shortly before his death four years ago, a condition that Thieme readily accepted.

He was in this tiny town with maybe 5,000 or 7,000 people, and I knew that if word got out, it would ruin his reputation, Thieme said. I cared more about the relationship with my father than whether it was a secret of not.

Shulte-Berge did his best to answer all Thiemes questions, explaining that her adoption was intended to be an act of compassion after he confessed to another priest that he was involved with a woman who was pregnant.

Shulte-Berge said the priest with the approval of their bishop quietly arranged to have a Catholic couple adopt the child. That couple, Thiemes parents, were college professors working in Germany who would soon return to the United States.

During the decade after Thieme met her father, Shulte-Berge flew to the United States four or five times and visited his daughter. And once a year she would meet him in Europe for a two-week vacation, when they would travel together, talk endlessly, and try to make up for the years they had lost.

Get Fast Forward in your inbox:

Forget yesterday's news. Get what you need today in this early-morning email.

Almost always, their conversations centered on Shulte-Berges desire to be a father as well as a priest. In the early 1960s, Shulte-Berge explained, he was one of many young priests who believed incorrectly that the celibacy rule would soon be lifted, allowing them to marry and have families.

Since her fathers death, Thieme has married and has had a son who carries her biological fathers name, Byron Wolfgang Best. She has stayed in touch with her biological mother, while continuing to meet more members of his fathers family.

Before he passed, he let his entire family know he had a child, Thieme said. It was something he didnt want to do until it was close to the time he was going to pass because there are people in his family who are older and still very conservative. Shulte-Berge also insisted that local authorities issue Thieme a new birth certificate, one with his name listed as her father.

Thieme, a practicing Catholic, has become an advocate for abolishing the celibacy rule for Catholic clergy, something her father had hoped would happen in his lifetime. He wanted me to do whatever I could that was in my power to talk about this, she said.

Renate Hilda Waltraud Brandt thought her lover, a Catholic priest, would be happy when she told him she was pregnant back in 1969. The two had a bond that had endured a two-year separation while the Rev. Alois Ober did missionary work in Madagascar.

At that time, there were a lot of people in the ministry who were rebelling against celibacy, said Brandt, then a committed socialist living in Germany. There were quite a few priests who left the priesthood because of it.

She thought Ober might be one of them.

But, after fantasizing together about having a child before she was pregnant, Ober reacted negatively to the news that he would be a father, and soon made it clear that he was not about to give up the priesthood.

From then on, Brandt and her young daughter lived at the margins, depending on how generous Ober was feeling. The priest would make occasional visits to Brandt and little Nicole, but, before long, the adults were arguing over child support.

When I asked him for help, he was so arrogant, Brandt said, adding that Ober was reluctant to provide more than modest support even though he ran a lucrative business on the side.

Eventually, a friend helped persuade Ober to provide give more, as Brandt and her daughter embarked on a nomadic life, living in experimental, communal households in Germany, Austria, and even India.

We moved around all the time, said Nicole Brandt, who uses the name Presence now. By the time I was 14, I had been to 14 different schools.

By then, Brandt and her daughter had moved to Northern California, where they were frequent visitors at an Oregon commune run by a controversial guru named Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh.

Ober objected to Brandts involvement with the commune, but they stayed in touch, and Brandt and her daugher always kept Obers identity a secret.

No one knew he was a priest, Nicole Brandt later wrote in her journal.

Over time, however, Nicole Brandt grew disenchanted with her fathers occasional letters and yearned for a closer connection.

The letters he wrote to me felt like carbon copies of one another, she said. I told him Id love to have a more intimate conversation and he never responded to that.

Nicole Brandt said she made two serious suicide attempts during her teen years as she struggled with the feeling that she was unworthy, in part because of her absent father.

Growing up, you want to have a meaningful relationship with your father and feel that you matter, and I didnt have a lot of that, she said.

As an adult, Nicole Brandt made peace with her father and began visiting him in Germany every couple of years around Christmas. But, in 2007, when she arrived at his home, she learned that Ober had been hospitalized with a serious illness. Thats when she learned the limits of what it means to be a secret daughter.

My father was a closed book, Nicole said. He saw to it that none of his family members, including his mother, father, sisters, and brothers, ever met or knew of me.

When she was introduced to her uncle as Obers daughter, she said his reaction was a challenge: Do you have any proof?

Ober died later that day and left a large estate, though very little went to Nicole Brandt. More distressing, she said, is the fact that Obers relatives her relatives prevented her from going through her fathers belongings, depriving her of the chance to learn more about him.

As Nicole Brandt wrote in her journal: Of all the wealth he possessed, this was the most important thing of all to me to be able to go through his home, his personal belongings, and perhaps find some clues as to who he was and what he valued.

It was Flag Day, June 14, 1969, and the Rev. William J. Manseau arrived at the house on Boston Street, a stones throw from St. Margaret Church in Dorchester, with a sense of rising anticipation. But he was taken aback when he found a crowd of reporters waiting for him, even though their presence should have come as no surprise.

Are you the priest? The one whos getting married? the reporters all seemed to ask.

I am, Manseau replied.

A short while later, Manseau and his wife-to-be, Mary Doherty, a former nun, were married in the crowded living room of Dohertys childhood home. Three of Manseaus fellow priests officiated at the ceremony, witnessed by friends and family members who later celebrated during a reception at Florian Hall.

I came to this juncture by realizing that in order to be true to the gospel I had to enter into the deepest relationship possible with another Christian, Manseau said to a Globe reporter at the time.

But, despite the public nature of his wedding, the church never censured Manseau in any formal way, even though the penalty at the time was instant excommunication. As far as hes concerned, hes still a priest, though he does not wear a clerical collar and the church does not permit him to say Mass in a Catholic church, because hes married and has a family.

Ive been a Catholic priest for 56 years, said Manseau, who has also served as a minister in Protestant churches and maintains a pastoral counseling practice in Nashua, N.H. He is still married to Mary, and together they have raised two sons and a daughter.

Manseau has also played an active role in several organizations that represent Catholic clergymen who have married publicly, raised families, and are seeking to be formally reinstated as Catholic priests.

Its common sense, he said, noting the shortage of Catholic priests worldwide. You have trained personnel able to provide a service that really benefits a lot of people.

The argument in favor of letting married men serve as priests rarely focuses on the taboo subject of the children of priests, and the hardships they endure when forced to keep their fathers identity a secret.

By contrast, the children of priests like Manseau who marry the mothers of their children appear to have more satisfying lives.

One of Manseaus sons, Peter, wrote a book affirming the road taken by his parents: Vows: The Story of a Priest, a Nun, and Their Son. And in 2007, at the annual conference of the organization Corpus, which promotes the idea of married Catholic clergy, several children of former priests who have married and raised families spoke glowingly of how well things can go for children of priests whose fathers decide to openly marry and have families.

Theyve been raised in loving homes, said Manseau, a past president of Corpus. Thats what does it.

Michael Rezendes can be reached at michael.rezendes@globe.com

Read the original post:
Love and loss in the shadows: children of priests try to connect with their fathers - The Boston Globe

The Haskalah, often termed Jewish Enlightenment (Hebrew: ; literally, "wisdom", "erudition") was an intellectual movement among the Jews of Central and Eastern Europe, with certain influence on those in the West and Muslim lands. It arose as a defined ideological worldview during the 1770s, and its last stage ended around 1881, with the rise of Jewish nationalism.

The Haskalah pursued two complementary aims. It sought to preserve the Jews as a separate, unique collective and worked for a cultural and moral renewal, especially a revival of Hebrew for secular purposes, pioneering the modern press and literature in the language. Concurrently, it strove for an optimal integration of the Jews in surrounding societies, including the study of native vernacular and adoption of modern values, culture and appearance, all combined with economic productivization. The Haskalah promoted rationalism, liberalism, freedom of thought and enquiry, and is largely perceived as the Jewish variant of the general Enlightenment. The movement encompassed a wide spectrum ranging from moderates, who hoped for maximal compromise and conservatism, to radicals who sought sweeping changes.

In its various changes, the Haskalah fulfilled an important, though limited, part in the modernization of Central and Eastern European Jews. Its activists, the maskilim, exhorted and implemented communal, educational and cultural reforms in both the public and the private spheres. Owing to its dualistic policies, it collided both with the traditionalist rabbinic elite, which attempted to preserve old Jewish values and norms in their entirety, and with the radical assimilationists who wished to eliminate or minimize the existence of the Jews as a defined collective.

The Haskalah was an extremely multifaceted phenomenon, with many loci which rose and dwindled at different times and across vast territories. The very name Haskalah only became a standard self-appellation in 1860, when it was taken as the motto of the Odessa-based newspaper Ha-Melitz, though derivatives and the title Maskil for activists were already common beforehand in the first edition of Ha-Meassef from 1 October 1783, its publishers described themselves as Maskilim.[1] While Maskilic centres sometimes had loose institutions around which their members operated, the movement as a whole lacked any such.

In spite of this diversity, the Maskilim shared a sense of common identity and self-consciousness. These were anchored in the existence of a shared literary canon, which began to be formulated in the very first Maskilic locus at Berlin. Its members, like Moses Mendelssohn, Hartwig Wessely, Isaac Satanow and Isaac Euchel, authored tracts in various genres that were further disseminated and re-read among other Maskilim. Each generation, in turn, elaborated and added its own works to the growing body. The emergence of the Maskilic canon reflected the movement's central and defining enterprise, the revival of Hebrew as a literary language for secular purposes (its restoration as a spoken tongue occurred only much later). The Maskilim researched and standardized grammar, minted countless neologisms and composed poetry, magazines, theatrical works and literature of all sorts in Hebrew. Historians described the movement largely as a Republic of Letters, an intellectual community based on printing houses and reading societies.[2]

The Maskilim's attitude toward Hebrew, as noted by Moses Pelli, was derived from Enlightenment perceptions of language as reflecting both individual and collective character. To them, a corrupt tongue mirrored the inadequate condition of the Jews which they sought to ameliorate. They turned to Hebrew as their primary creative medium. The Maskilim inherited the Medieval Grammarians' such as Jonah ibn Janah and Judah ben David Hayyuj distaste of Mishnaic Hebrew and preference of the Biblical one as pristine and correct. They turned to the Bible as a source and standard, emphatically advocating what they termed "Pure Hebrew Tongue" (S'fat E'ver tzacha) and lambasting the Rabbinic style of letters which mixed it with Aramaic as a single "Holy Tongue" and often employed loan words from other languages. Some activists, though, were not averse to using Mishnaic and Rabbinic forms. They also preferred the Sephardi pronunciation, considered more prestigious, to the Ashkenazi one, linked with the Jews of Poland who were deemed backward. The movement's literary canon is defined by a grandiloquent, archaic register copying the Biblical one and often combining lengthy allusions or direct quotes from verses in the prose.[3]

During a century of activity, the Maskilim produced a massive contribution, forming the first phase of modern Hebrew literature. In 1755, Moses Mendelssohn began publishing Qohelet Musar ("The Moralist"), regarded as the beginning of modern writing in Hebrew and the very first journal in the language. Between 1789 and his death, Hartwig Wessely compiled Shirei Tif'eret ("Poems of Glory"), an eighteen-part epic cycle concerning Moses which exerted influence on all neo-Hebraic poets in the following generations. Joseph ha-Efrati Troplowitz was the Haskalah's pioneering playwright, best known for his 1794 epic drama Melukhat Sha'ul ("Reign of Saul") which was printed in twelve editions by 1888. Juda Loeb ben-Ze'ev was the first modern Hebrew grammarian, and beginning with his 1796 manual of the language, he authored books which explored it and were vital reading material for young Maskilim until the end of the 19th century. Solomon Lwisohn was the first to translate Shakespeare into Hebrew, and an abridged form of the "Are at this hour asleep!" monologue in Henry IV, Part 2 was included in his 1816 lyrical compilation Melitzat Yeshurun (Eloquence of Jeshurun).

Joseph Perl pioneered satirist writings in his biting, mocking critique of Hasidism, Megaleh Tmirin (Revealer of Secrets) from 1819. Adam HaCohen was primarily a leading metricist, with his 1842 Shirei S'fat ha-Qodesh (Verses in the Holy Tongue) considered a milestone in Hebrew poetry, and also authored biblical exegesis and educational handbooks. Abraham Mapu authored the first Hebraic full-length novel, Ahavat Zion (Love of Zion) which was published in 1853 after twenty-three years of work. Judah Leib Gordon was the most eminent poet of his generation and arguably of the Haskalah in its entirety. His most famous work was the 1876 epic Qotzo shel Yodh (Tittle of a Jot). Mendele Mocher Sforim was during his youth a Maskilic writer, but from his 1886 B-Sether Ra'am (Hidden in Thunder) abandoned its strict conventions in favour of a mixed, facile and common style. His career marked the end of the Maskilic period in Hebrew literature and the beginning of the Era of Renaissance.

The central platforms of the maskilic "Republic of Letters" were its great periodicals, each serving as a locus for contributors and readers during the time it was published. The first was the Knigsberg (and later Berlin)-based Ha-Meassef, launched by Isaac Euchel in 1783 and printed with growing intervals until 1797. The magazine had several dozen writers and 272 subscribers at its zenith, from Shklov in the east to London in the west, making it the sounding board of the Berlin Haskalah. The movement lacked an equivalent until the appearance of Bikurei ha-I'tim in Vienna between 1820 until 1831, serving the Moravian and Galician Haskalah. That function was later fulfilled by the Prague-based Kerem Hemed from 1834 to 1857, and to a lesser degree by Kokhvei Yizhak, published in the same city from 1845 to 1870. The Russian Haskalah was robust enough to lack any single platform. Its members published several large magazines, including the Vilnius-based Ha-Karmel (18601880), Ha-Tsefirah in Warsaw and more, though the probably most influential of them all was Ha-Melitz, launched in 1860 at Odessa by Alexander Zederbaum.

While the partisans of the Haskalah were much immersed in the study of sciences and Hebrew grammar, this was not a profoundly new phenomenon, and their creativity was a continuation of a long, centuries-old trend among educated Jews. What truly marked the movement was the challenge it laid to the monopoly of the rabbinic elite over the intellectual sphere of Jewish life, contesting its role as spiritual leadership. In his 1782 circular Divrei Shalom v'Emeth (Words of Peace and Truth), Hartwig Wessely, one of the most traditional and moderate maskilim, quoted the passage from Leviticus Rabbah stating that a Torah scholar who lacked wisdom was inferior to an animal's carcass. He called upon the Jews to introduce general subjects, like science and vernacular language, into their children's curriculum; this "Teaching of Man" was necessarily linked with the "Teaching (Torah) of God", and the latter, though superior, could not be pursued and was useless without the former.

Historian Shmuel Feiner discerned that Wessely insinuated (consciously or not) a direct challenge to the supremacy of sacred teachings, comparing them with general subjects and implying the latter had an intrinsic rather than merely instrumental value. He therefore also contested the authority of the rabbinical establishment, which stemmed from its function as interpreters of the holy teachings and their status as the only truly worthy field of study. Though secular subjects could and were easily tolerated, their elevation to the same level as sacred ones was a severe threat, and indeed mobilized the rabbis against the nascent Haskalah. The potential of "Words of Peace and Truth" was fully realized later, by the second generation of the movement in Berlin and other radical maskilim, who openly and vehemently denounced the traditional authorities. The appropriate intellectual and moral leadership needed by the Jewish public in modern times was, according to the maskilim, that of their own. Feiner noted that in their usurpation of the title of spiritual elite, unprecedented in Jewish history since the dawn of Rabbinic Judaism (various contestants before the Enlightened were branded as schismatics and cast out), they very much emulated the manner in which secular intellectuals dethroned and replaced the Church from the same status among Christians. Thus the maskilim generated an upheaval which though by no means alone broke the sway held by the rabbis and the traditional values over Jewish society. Combined with many other factors, they laid the path to all modern Jewish movements and philosophies, either those critical, hostile or supportive to themselves.[4]

The Maskilim sought to replace the framework of values held by the Ashkenazim of Central and Eastern Europe with their own philosophy, which embraced the liberal, rationalistic notions of the 18th and 19th centuries and cast them in their own particular mold. This intellectual upheaval was accompanied by the desire to practically change Jewish society. Even the moderate maskilim viewed the contemporary state of Jews as deplorable and in dire need of rejuvenation, whether in matters of morals, cultural creativity or economic productivity. They argued that such conditions were rightfully scorned by others and untenable from both practical and idealistic perspectives. It was to be remedied by the shedding of the base and corrupt elements of Jewish existence and retention of only the true, positive ones indeed, the question what those were, exactly, loomed as the greatest challenge of Jewish modernity. The more extreme and ideologically-bent came close to the universalist aspirations of the radical Enlightenment, of a world freed of superstition and backwardness in which all humans will come together under the liberating influence of reason and progress. The reconstituted Jews, these radical maskilim believed, would be able to take their place as equals in an enlightened world. But all, including the moderate and disillusioned, stated that adjustment to the changing world was both unavoidable and positive in itself.[5]

Haskalah ideals were converted into practical steps via numerous reform programs initiated locally and independently by its activists, acting in small groups or even alone at every time and area. Members of the movement sought to acquaint their people with European culture, have them adopt the vernacular language of their lands, and integrate them into larger society. They opposed Jewish reclusiveness and self-segregation, called upon Jews to discard traditional dress in favour of the prevalent one, and preached patriotism and loyalty to the new centralized governments. They acted to weaken and limit the jurisdiction of traditional community institutions the rabbinic courts, empowered to rule on numerous civic matters, and the board of elders, which served as lay leadership. The maskilim perceived those as remnants of medieval discrimination. They criticized various traits of Jewish society, such as child marriage traumatized memories from unions entered at the age of thirteen or fourteen are a common theme in Haskalah literature the use of anathema to enforce community will and the concentration on virtually only religious studies.

Perhaps the most important facet of Masklilic reform efforts was the educational one. In 1778, partisans of the movement were among the founders of the Berlin Jewish Free School, or Hevrat Hinuch Ne'arim (Society for the Education of Boys), the first institution in Ashkenazi Jewry that taught general studies in addition to the reformulated and reduced traditional curriculum. This model, with different stresses, was applied elsewhere. Joseph Perl opened the first modern Jewish school in Galicia at Tarnopol in 1813, and Eastern European maskilim opened similar institutes in the Pale of Settlement and Congress Poland. They all abandoned the received methods of Ashkenazi education: study of the Pentateuch with the archaic I'vri-Taitsch (medieval Yiddish) translation and an exclusive focus on the Talmud as a subject of higher learning, all presided over by old-school tutors, melamdim, who were particularly reviled in Maskilic circles. Those were replaced by teachers trained in modern methods, among others in the spirit of German Philanthropinism, who sought to acquaint their pupils with refined Hebrew so they may understand the Pentateuch and prayers and thus better identify with their heritage ignorance of Hebrew was often lamented by Maskilim as breeding apathy towards Judaism. Far less Talmud, considered cumbersome and ill-suited for children, was taught; elements considered superstitious, like midrashim, were also removed. Matters of faith were taught in rationalistic spirit, and in radical circles also in a sanitized manner. On the other hand, the curriculum was augmented by general studies like math, vernacular language, and so forth.

In the linguistic field, the maskilim wished to replace the dualism which characterized the traditional Ashkenazi community, which spoke Judaeo-German and its formal literary language was Hebrew, with another: a refined Hebrew for internal usage and the local vernacular for external ones. They almost universally abhorred Judaeo-German, regarding it as a corrupt dialect and another symptom of Jewish destitution the movement pioneered the negative attitude to Yiddish which persisted many years later among the educated though often its activists had to resort to it for lack of better medium to address the masses. Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn, for example, authored the first modern Judaeo-German play, Leichtsinn und Frmmelei (Rashness and Sanctimony) in 1796. On the economic front, the maskilim preached productivization and abandonment of traditional Jewish occupations in favour of agriculture, trades and liberal professions.

In matters of faith (which were being cordoned off into a distinct sphere of "religion" by modernization pressures) the movement's partisans, from moderates to radicals, lacked any uniform coherent agenda. The main standard through which they judged Judaism was that of rationalism. Their most important contribution was the revival of Jewish philosophy, rather dormant since the Italian Renaissance, as an alternative to mysticist Kabbalah which served as almost the sole system of thought among Ashkenazim and an explanatory system for observance. Rather than complex allegorical exegesis, the Haskalah sought a literal understanding of scripture and sacred literature. The rejection of Kabbalah, often accompanied with attempts to refute the ancientness of the Zohar, were extremely controversial in traditional society; apart from that, the maskilim had little in common. On the right-wing were conservative members of the rabbinic elite who merely wanted a rationalist approach, and on the extreme left some ventured far beyond the pale of orthodoxy towards Deism.[6]

Another aspect was the movement's attitude to gender relations. Many of the maskilim were raised in the rabbinic elite, in which (unlike among the poor Jewish masses) the males were immersed in traditional studies and their wives supported them financially, mostly by running business. Many of the Jewish enlightened were traumatized by their own experiences, either of assertive mothers or early marriage, often conducted at the age of thirteen. Bitter memories from those are a common theme in maskilic autobiographies. Having imbibed the image of European bourgeoisie family values, many of them sought to challenge the semi-matriarchal order of rabbinic families which combined a total lack of Jewish education for women with grating them the status of providers early marriage, and rigid modesty. Instead, they insisted that men become economically productive while confining their wives to the home environment but also granting them proper religious education a reversal of what was customary among Jews, copying Christian attitudes at the time.

The Haskalah was also mainly a movement of transformation, straddling both the declining traditional Jewish society of autonomous community and cultural seclusion and the beginnings of a modern Jewish public. As noted by Feiner, everything connected with the Haskalah was dualistic in nature. The Jewish Enlighteners pursued two parallel agendas: they exhorted the Jews to acculturate and harmonize with the modern state, and demanded that the Jews remain a distinct group with its own culture and identity. Theirs was a middle position between Jewish community and surrounding society, received mores and modernity. Sliding away from this precarious equilibrium, in any direction, signified also one's break with the Jewish Enlightenment.

Virtually all maskilim received old-style, secluded education, and were young Torah scholars before they were first exposed to outside knowledge (from a gender perspective, the movement was almost totally male-dominated; women did not receive sufficient tutoring to master Hebrew). For generations, Mendelssohn's Bible translation to German was employed by such young initiates to bridge the linguistic gap and learn a foreign language, having been raised on Hebrew and Yiddish only. The experience of abandoning one's sheltered community and struggle with tradition was a ubiquitous trait of maskilic biographies. The children of these activists almost never followed their parents; they rather went forward in the path of acculturation and assimilation. While their fathers learned the vernaculars late and still consumed much Hebrew literature, the little available material in the language did not attract their offspring, who often lacked a grasp of Hebrew due to not sharing their parents' traditional education. Haskalah was, by and large, a unigenerational experience.[7]

In the linguistic field, this transitory nature was well attested. The traditional Jewish community in Europe inhibited two separate spheres of communication: one internal, where Hebrew served as written high language and Yiddish as vernacular for the masses, and one external, where Latin and the like were used for apologetic and intercessory purposes toward the Christian world. A tiny minority of writers was concerned with the latter. The Haskalah sought to introduce a different bilingualism: renovated, refined Hebrew for internal matters, while Yiddish was to be eliminated; and national vernaculars, to be taught to all Jews, for external ones. However, they insisted on the maintenance of both spheres. When acculturation far exceeded the movement's plans, Central European Jews turned almost solely to the vernacular. David Sorkin demonstrated this with the two great journals of German Jewry: the maskilic Ha-Me'assef was written in Hebrew and supported the study of German; the post-maskilic Sulamith (published since 1806) was written almost entirely in German, befitting its editors' agenda of linguistic assimilation.[8] Likewise, upon the demise of Jewish Enlightenment in Eastern Europe, authors abandoned the maskilic paradigm not toward assimilation but in favour of exclusive use of Hebrew and Yiddish.

The political vision of the Haskalah was predicated on a similar approach. It opposed the reclusive community of the past but sought a maintenance of a strong Jewish framework (with themselves as leaders and intercessors with the state authorities); the Enlightened were not even fully agreeable to civic emancipation, and many of them viewed it with reserve, sometimes anxiety. In their writings, they drew a sharp line between themselves and whom they termed "pseudo-maskilim" those who embraced the Enlightenment values and secular knowledge but did not seek to balance these with their Jewishness, but rather strove for full assimilation. Such elements, whether the radical universalists who broke off the late Berlin Haskalah or the Russified intelligentsia in Eastern Europe a century later, were castigated and derided no less than the old rabbinic authorities which the movement confronted. It was not uncommon for its partisans to become a conservative element, combating against further dilution of tradition: in Vilnius, Samuel Joseph Fuenn turned from a progressive into an adversary of more radical elements within a generation. In the Maghreb, the few local maskilm were more concerned with the rapid assimilation of local Jews into the colonial French culture than with the ills of traditional society.[9]

Likewise, those who abandoned the optimistic, liberal vision of the Jews (albeit as a cohesive community) integrating into wider society in favour of full-blown Jewish nationalism or radical, revolutionary ideologies which strove to uproot the established order, also broke with the movement. The national Jewish movements of Eastern Europe, founded by disillusioned maskilim, derisively regarded it in a manner similar to other romantic-nationalist movements' understanding of the general Enlightenment as a naive, liberal and assimilationist ideology which induced foreign cultural influences, gnawed at the Jewish national consciousness and promised false hopes of equality in exchange for spiritual enslavement. This hostile view was promulgated by nationalist historians from Simon Dubnow and onwards, and is was once common in Israeli historiography.[10]

A major factor which always characterized the movement was its weakness and its dependence of much more powerful elements. Its partisans were mostly impoverished intellectuals, who eked out a living as private tutors and the like; few had a stable financial base, and they required patrons, whether affluent Jews or the state's institutions. This triplice the authorities, the Jewish communal elite and the maskilim was united only in the ambition of thoroughly reforming Jewish society. The government had no interest in the visions of renaissance which the Enlightened so fervently cherished. It demanded the Jews to turn into productive, loyal subjects with rudimentary secular education, and no more. The rich Jews were sometimes open to the movement's agenda, but mostly practical, hoping for a betterment of their people that would result in emancipation and equal rights. Indeed, the great cultural transformation which occurred among the Parnassim (affluent commumal wardens) class they were always more open to outside society, and had to tutor their children in secular subjects, thus inviting general Enlightenment influences was a precondition of Haskalah. The state and the elite required the maskilim as interlocutors and specialists in their efforts for reform, especially as educators, and the latter used this as leverage to benefit their ideology. However, the activists were much more dependent on the former than vice versa; frustration from one's inability to further the maskilic agenda and being surrounded by apathetic Jews, either conservative "fanatics" or parvenu "assimilationists", is a common theme in the movement's literature.[11]

The term Haskalah became synonymous, among friends and foes alike and in much of early Jewish historiography, with the sweeping changes that engulfed Jewish society (mostly in Europe) from the late 18th Century to the late 19th Century. It was depicted by its partisans, adversaries and historians like Heinrich Graetz as a major factor in those. Later research greatly narrowed the scope of the phenomenon and limited its importance: while Hasklaha undoubtedly played a part, the contemporary historical consensus portrays it as much humbler. Other transformation agents, from state-imposed schools to new economic opportunities, were demonstrated to have rivaled or overshadowed the movement completely in propelling such processes as acculturation, secularization, religious reform from moderate to extreme, adoption of native patriotism and so forth. In many regions the Haskalah played no part at all.[12]

As long as the Jews lived in segregated communities, and as long as all social intercourse with their Gentile neighbors was limited, the rabbi was the most influential member of the Jewish community. In addition to being a religious scholar and "clergy", a rabbi also acted as a civil judge in all cases in which both parties were Jews. Rabbis sometimes had other important administrative powers, together with the community elders. The rabbinate was the highest aim of many Jewish boys, and the study of the Talmud was the means of obtaining that coveted position, or one of many other important communal distinctions. Haskalah followers advocated "coming out of the ghetto", not just physically but also mentally and spiritually, in order to assimilate among Gentile nations.

The example of Moses Mendelssohn (172986), a Prussian Jew, served to lead this movement, which was also shaped by Aaron Halle-Wolfssohn (17541835) and Joseph Perl (17731839). Mendelssohn's extraordinary success as a popular philosopher and man of letters revealed hitherto unsuspected possibilities of integration and acceptance of Jews among non-Jews. Mendelssohn also provided methods for Jews to enter the general society of Germany. A good knowledge of the German language was necessary to secure entrance into cultured German circles, and an excellent means of acquiring it was provided by Mendelssohn in his German translation of the Torah. This work became a bridge over which ambitious young Jews could pass to the great world of secular knowledge. The Biur, or grammatical commentary, prepared under Mendelssohn's supervision, was designed to counteract the influence of traditional rabbinical methods of exegesis. Together with the translation, it became, as it were, the primer of Haskalah.

Language played a key role in the haskalah movement, as Mendelssohn and others called for a revival of Hebrew and a reduction in the use of Yiddish. The result was an outpouring of new, secular literature, as well as critical studies of religious texts. Julius Frst along with other German-Jewish scholars compiled Hebrew and Aramaic dictionaries and grammars. Jews also began to study and communicate in the languages of the countries in which they settled, providing another gateway for integration.

Berlin is the city of origin for the movement. The capital city of Prussia and, later, the German Empire, Berlin became known as a secular, multi-cultural and multi-ethnic center, a fertile environment for conversations and radical movements. This move by the Maskilim away from religious study, into much more critical and worldly studies was made possible by this German city of modern and progressive thought. It was a city in which the rising middle class Jews and intellectual elites not only lived among, but were exposed to previous age of enlightenment thinkers such as Voltaire, Diderot and Rousseau.[13] The movement is often referred to the Berlin Haskalah. Reference to Berlin in relation to the Haskalah movement is necessary because it provides context for this episode of Jewish history. Subsequently, having left Germany and spreading across Eastern Europe, the Berlin Haskalah influenced multiple Jewish communities who were hungry for non-religious scholarly texts and insight to worlds beyond their Jewish enclaves.

Haskalah did not stay restricted to Germany, however, and the movement quickly spread throughout Europe. PolandLithuania was the heartland of Rabbinic Judaism, with its two streams of Misnagdic Talmudism centred in Lithuania and other regions, and Hasidic mysticism popular in Ukraine, Poland, Hungary and Russia. In the 19th century Haskalah sought dissemination and transformation of traditional education and inward pious life in Eastern Europe.[where?] It adapted its message to these different environments, working with the Russian government of the Pale of Settlement to influence secular educational methods, while its writers satirised Hasidic mysticism, in favour of solely Rationalist interpretation of Judaism. Isaac Baer Levinsohn (17881860) became known as the "Russian Mendelssohn". Joseph Perl's (17731839) satire of the Hasidic movement, "Revealer of Secrets" (Megalleh Temirim), is said to be the first modern novel in Hebrew. It was published in Vienna in 1819 under the pseudonym "Obadiah ben Pethahiah". The Haskalah's message of integration into non-Jewish society was subsequently counteracted by alternative secular Jewish political movements advocating Folkish, Socialist or Nationalist secular Jewish identities in Eastern Europe.[where?] While Haskalah advocated Hebrew and sought to remove Yiddish, these subsequent developments advocated Yiddish Renaissance among Maskilim. Writers of Yiddish literature variously satirised or sentimentalised Hasidic mysticism.

Even as emancipation eased integration into wider society and assimilation prospered, the haskalah also resulted in the creation of secular Jewish culture, with an emphasis on Jewish history and Jewish identity, rather than religion. This resulted in the engagement of Jews in a variety of competing ways within the countries where they lived; these included the struggle for Jewish emancipation, involvement in new Jewish political movements, and later, in the face of continued persecutions in late nineteenth-century Europe, the development of a Jewish Nationalism. One source describes these effects as, "The emancipation of the Jews brought forth two opposed movements: the cultural assimilation, begun by Moses Mendelssohn, and Zionism, founded by Theodor Herzl in 1896."[14]

One facet of the Haskalah was a widespread cultural adaptation, as those Jews who participated in the enlightenment began in varying degrees to participate in the cultural practices of the surrounding Gentile population. Connected with this was the birth of the Reform movement, whose founders such as Israel Jacobson and Leopold Zunz rejected the continuing observance of those aspects of Jewish law which they classified as ritual, as opposed to moral or ethical. Even within orthodoxy the Haskalah was felt through the appearance of the Mussar Movement in Lithuania and Torah im Derech Eretz in Germany in response. Enlightened Jews sided with Gentile governments in plans to increase secular education among the Jewish masses, bringing them into acute conflict with the orthodox who believed this threatened Jewish life.

The spreading of Haskalah affected Judaism as a religion because of how much the different sects desired to be integrated, and in turn, integrate their religious traditions. The effects of the Enlightenment were already present in Jewish religious music and opinion on traditionalism versus modernization. Groups of Reform Jews such as the Society of the Friends of Reform and the Association for the Reform of Judaism were formed because they wanted and actively advocated for a change in Jewish tradition, mainly rituals like circumcision. Another non-Orthodox group was the Conservative Jews, who emphasized the importance of traditions but viewed with a historical perspective. The Orthodox Jews were actively against these reformers because they viewed changing Jewish tradition was an insult to God and that fulfillment in life could be found in serving God and keeping his commandments.[15] The effect of Haskalah was that it was a dividing factor between sects.

Another important facet of the Haskalah was its interests to non-Jewish religions. Moses Mendelssohn criticized some aspects of Christianity, but depicted Jesus as a Torah-observant rabbi, who was loyal to traditional Judaism. Mendelssohn explicitly linked positive Jewish views of Jesus with the issues of Emancipation and Jewish-Christian reconciliation. Similar revisionist views were expressed by Rabbi Isaac Ber Levinsohn and other traditional representatives of the Haskalah movement.[16][17]

This articleincorporates text from a publication now in the public domain:Singer, Isidore; et al., eds. (19011906). "Haskalah". Jewish Encyclopedia. New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company.

More:
Haskalah - Wikipedia

By Muftau Ogunyemi

Akure A university lecturer, Mr Anthony Akapa, on Thursday advised the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) to partner with the media for effective public enlightenment and sensitisation.

Akapa, a Senior Lecturer of Mass Communication at Joseph Ayo Babalola University (JABU), Ikeji-Arakeji in Osun, gave the advice at the 2017 3rd Quarters Retreat in Akure organised by Ondo State Command of FRSC.

He spoke as the guest lecturer at the retreat entitled: Public Education: A Veritable Tool in Archiving the Corps Mandate.

According to him, FRSC needs to be proactive by introducing policies that can checkmate activities of motorists and manage the public expectations.

In its efforts to be proactive, FRSC must put effective programmes in place with a view to reaching out to the public.

The only way to achieve this and its other mandate is to link up with the media in the area of awareness campaigns and sensitisation of the public

Partnership with the media will drastically reduce carnage on our roads and it will also help to manage public expectations from the corps, he said.

Akapa also charged FRSC officials and personnel to be more dedicated to their duties and avoid acts capable of destroying the image of the corps.

Also, Mr Agustine Aipoh, the Zonal Commander in charge of Osun, Ondo and Oyo, explained that the workshop was to educate and enlighten men of the corps on their relationship with the public.

The idea is to continue to improve on various means and methods of reaching members of the public; for every organisation to succeed, it must have guidelines.

We have an operational guideline which we review periodically to accommodate new developments or updates.

This is why we also have stiff sanctions against anybody that violates the operational guidelines, Aipoh said.

He said that FRSC had been engaging its staff in various conferences, seminars, training and workshops to update their knowledge on public expectations from them.

In his remarks, Mr Vincent MT Jack, the FRSC Sector Commander in the state, said that the retreat was to give men of the corps brotherly perspective on issues at public domain.

The retreat will also help to open up the space to know the issues that basically lead to clashes within our men and motorists.

Public enlightenment will assist the Corps to do its job better and there will be no crisis in the cause of doing our assignment, he said.

View post:
Partner With Media For Effective Public Enlightenment, Lecturer Urges FRSC - SundiataPost (press release) (blog)

Photo Robert Wright

OMS LAW: To the extent that Buddhism encourages its practitioners to cast aside the self on their way to enlightenment, it can seem like a fools errand. The self isnt so easy to shed, as Buckaroo Bonzai noted: No matter where you go, there you are. But that doesnt mean theres no wisdom to be found in the effort. The journalist Robert Wright a practicing Buddhist who often explores the intersection of science and religion, as in his 2009 best seller The Evolution of God makes the case for a Zen lifestyle in his latest book, Why Buddhism Is True, new at No. 4 in hardcover nonfiction.

Wright has been a spiritual seeker for a long time. In 2002 he founded a video site called MeaningofLife.tv, in which he talked to various people about matters relating to (wait for it) the meaning of life. Hes still editor in chief, and last month participated in a conversation posted there with the Buddhist author and emergency room doctor Daniel Ingram. The video, which touches on everything from current politics to Buddhist sociopaths to Wrights own level of spiritual attainment, offers an endearing look at Wright fumbling toward ecstasy. It also suggests that meditation can echo more pharmaceutical paths to enlightenment.

On my first retreat I had an experience that bordered on hallucinogenic, that had to do with viewing the interior of my mind, Wright says as Ingram beams an encouraging, euphoric grin his way. And at first I was, like, Whoa. I mean, this is my first retreat, right? And at first its like red and purple and Im like: Whoa. This is a new place. And then, what I observed was actually in a sense that thought, except that, for the first time, what it looked like was one entity saying it to another, and I realized it was kind of like the inside of my mind. I dont actually consider that the most interesting proximity to not-self that Ive had. But anyway, there is that. Such experiences, he added, can convince you that our ordinary way of seeing things is pretty deeply confused. You have apprehensions that are quite different from your ordinary way of experiencing things. Like and this is another version related to not-self youre meditating on a retreat, and you feel that the tingling in your foot is no more a part of you than a bird thats singing, right?

Right, Ingram said. That tingling is actually important, because thats impermanence, and thats vibrations

Actually, Wright interrupted, this may have just been a tingling in my foot. I dont mean this may not have been a special tingling.

See the original post:
A Science Writer Embraces Buddhism as a Path to Enlightenment - New York Times