Posts from — October 2006

There are certain things that threatened to drive a man to madness. Or at least, a bad mood.

Like radio playing at work.

I am not here to listen to pop songs. I am not here to listen to you sing. I don’t care what happened during last night’s game.

I am here to blog work. And I need to be able to think.

So with all due respect, please keep your back office, working class culture to the confines of your cubicle. I don’t want to hear pop music; I don’t want to hear sports commentators.

I want a little peace and quiet. So I can wage war.

Against the demons in my head.

So turn it down.

It has come to my attention that certain people do not understand the concept of non-Zionism. This ignorance does not exist in the ultra-Orthodox world, since they all but invented the concept. And most committed Zionists understand this as well.

This is the subject of dissertation after dissertation, but allow me to explain on one leather heeled (and not sandaled) foot what apparently some who should understand this weren’t taught. [Ed. note: Snide (but funny) comments intentionally not inserted here. Weak explanation for their absence three paragraphs down.]

Non-Zionists are not the same as anti-Zionists. Not at all. We do not hate the Zionist Entity, and use the term (mostly) the same way the Zionists do, which is to say, ironically, except we always skip the quotes, because it’s funnier, and we aren’t as respectful to the medina generally. We (non-Zionists) do not base our Jewish culture around the state, and we do not generally get all that involved in the state’s decisions; at least, not compared to either Zionists or anti-Zionists.

A Jewschool contributor dismissed non-Zionism (three comments below my second one) because she claimed, “terrorism is way beyond the pale under any circumstances.�

Okay, let’s clear this up fast and furious, because this is an egregious statement about non-Zionism (from a rabbi!), and really deserves unbridled DK treatment, but never the less, I will pull my punches a bit. Just this once.

Non-Zionists do not support terror against Israel. None of us. That only exists in anti-Zionist circles. We hate terrorism. Quite frankly, we hate die-ins. We do not support those who enable the enemies of the State of Israel. And we certainly don’t deny the Jews’ ancient and unbroken connection to the Land of Israel. If someone is doing that, such a person has been influenced by anti-Zionism, and is outside the sphere of pure non-Zionist thinking.

In reality, some of us may accept more hawkish behavior by Israel than lefty Zionists ever would. But still, we simply don’t believe the whole thing was definitely a good idea, and doubt that the Muslims will ever accept our presence as a Jewish state in the Middle East. It looks less like a shofar (whether defined religiously like the Kookniks, or Marxist like the Laborites) of the redemption to us, and increasingly like an inviting bull’s eye for conflagration.

But we desperately hope that we are wrong.

“Are you ready to rock?”

The BWOG, Columbia University’s undergraduate magazine, takes a look at Aish HaTorah’s expansion into the university system.

In “Pimp My Faith,� Yelena Shuster writes,

Quickly, he handed a flyer telling me to “light my Jewish fire” with Aish, “the hottest alternative for Jewish life on campus.” There were three recruiters, all dressed modestly in Abercrombie. [...]The young guy was Rabbi Sam Bregman, the 28-year-old of Aish, which means “fire” in Hebrew. Not a gray-bearded rabbi out of my childhood, Bregman is young and hip.
Or at least, he tries.
“You seem like a cool girl with a cool personality. I haven’t spoken to many people here like you. Let me hit you up for some coffee,” he said.

Aish is definitely an “alternative� lifestyle. I will give them that. And who doesn’t want to hit on a “cool girl� with a “cool personality?� Hey, have a little rachmones. These Aish alumni don’t get to expand their vocabulary very much while at yeshiva. Rather, they spend their time contracting their vocabulary, fitting as many adjectives as possible into the Big Brother Rebbe Newspeak Guide. You would be shocked how useful and sufficient basic frummie words such as “mammish,� “taka� and “gishmack� are as substitutes for excessively descriptive ones. Avoiding flamboyant speech is a way of avoiding quirkiness in favor of a more subtle non-conformity, just like dressing in black!

So give the Big Aish Rabbi on campus a break. He is not pandering, he is simply following the true charedi BT format. Radical ideas need to be explained in terms accessible to the masses. And simple ideas need simple syntax.

How “cool� is that? Wait, it gets better. Here come the holidays!

Amused by the hype, I signed up for an Aish Passover seder. Rabbi Bregman immediately requested to be my Facebook friend. At the seder, he explained that we “chill” on the left side of our seats while drinking wine, announced “let’s roll” before washing our hands, and kept on asking, “Are you ready to rock?”

Isn’t, like, Charedism is so fucking awesome! Duuuude.

Hat tip: Failed Messiah

There is a story of R. Yisroel Salanter, father of the Mussar Movement, who towards the end of his life, got up to speak, but forgot what he was going to say. He declared, “This is the biggest mussar of all.�

The NY Times has a story of William Utermohlen, who painted his descent into dementia once his Alzheimer’s was diagnosed.

I just want to reiterate, that just because I am not happy about the OU partnering with Aish.com doesn’t mean you should take my word for it that Aish is fundamentalist. They are just very frum. Perhaps you could say stringent. And they just don’t want to let go of beautiful traditions. Like, say, ritual sucking (with your bare lips) of a baby’s wounded, circumcised, bloody penis with your mouth. Some things are just too precious to let go.

Aish.com respectfully and sensitively explains,

The process you describe is called “metzitzah,” whereby the mohel suctions out some blood from the wound area, so that it does not become infected. This process is considered essential for the baby’s health, and may be performed even on Shabbat (Talmud - Shabbat 133b). Further, there are kabbalistic reasons why this suction is part of the circumcision process. (”Orach Chaim” to Leviticus 12:3, echoing “Tikunei Zohar”)

It is absolutely not “essential” to the baby’s health. This is wrong. We know this now. We know this all too well. The Talmud was wrong. But Aish can’t admit that. Because they are raging fundamentalists. And ladies, remember, sucking a penis is not something advisable between consenting adults. Only between a man and a baby.

Remember, rabosai, only Muslims and Christians can be fundamentalist. Just ask any fundamentalist Jew!

And now, from your weekly portion on Aish.com,

Today we experience some of the unifying force of the Tower of Bavel as we live in a veritable global village. And perhaps this is where the problem begins.

Over the past 200 years, since the advent of modern technology, man has become increasingly secular. The more we can figure out the hows and whys of the world, it seems, the less we need to believe and trust in God and religion. Man has become too confident, too secure with his control over many things in the world and looks at religion as designed for primitive thinkers.

Judaism has a very different outlook. We are not afraid of technology [editor’s note: see the charedi internet ban.]. In fact we embrace it, but we must always keep it in perspective.�

Please join me next week in this ongoing series with selections from the OU’s partner in outreach, Aish HaTorah.

Let Them Wear Black!
I don’t know how I missed this, but the Orthodox Union and Aish HaTorah, which denies evolution, uses statistically meaningless Bible Codes as a way to entice people into charedism (the ends justifies the means, rabosai!), are actually doing a joint project together called Project Inspire.

They make holiday cards, and are producing a general “campaign to unify the Jewish People by means of monthly / bimonthly initiatives to share the richness and wisdom of our heritage in simple and inspiring ways.�

When traditional Jewish organizations work in partnership with fundamentalist organizations, they are providing cover and legitimacy for the latter’s radicalism, excesses, and highly problematic recruitment practices, which is already more than acceptably glossed.

Let it be clear: The Orthodox Union has one set of standards for its own members, and another very different one for partnerships with those seeking to “mekarev” (recruit) secular Jews who “aren’t frum.â€?

Hat tip: BeyondBt

Like the Kotsker Rebbe before him, HE has slammed the kiddush cup to the floor.

Before, he suggested. We suspected.

But now, finally, his terrible psak, made explicit.

I also have no doubt that there is no way anyone can prove it true, and that given all currently available evidence to the contrary, a rational objective assessment can only conclude that it most likely isn’t very true at all.

Where do we go from here?

Probably out. But just for dairy. Just in case.

Failed Messiah has a great post on single BT sexuality.

Shmarya writes,

What they did instead is suffer, because they believed their commitment to halakha and to God demanded that. This often led to other problems (at least from the perspective of Orthodoxy), from nocturnal emissions to, as halakha puts it, “willful spilling of seed.” And, in case you missed it, there is a strong strain of thought in Orthodoxy that equates that with murder – a pretty tough Catch-22 to be in. You’re born with a sex drive that you cannot use without “destroying” your soul. (This is exactly the dilemma gays face, with one major difference. – we can get married and have a “kosher” outlet. Gays only can do that if they are able to direct their desires in that way, something that rarely is possible.)

There was a time when Judaism recognized concubinage and other relationships that circumvented these problems. Rabbis removed these from Jewish life. The reasons why are beyond the scope of this post. But in modern times, their removal has certainly damaged many lives and caused much defection from Judaism.

It is interesting to me how contempt for male sexuality in charedi circles is given a pass. Guess everyone is too busy worrying about why women don’t have a birth party, or why when menstruating, they are considered unclean, or of course, why women are not considered fit for public leadership positions or are accepted as full communal members in some time-bound ways.

But while other cultures and religions certainly have larger issues with female sexuality, the charedi Jewish view on male sexuality, particularly a BT’s (never mind a goy’s), is all too frequently the grimmest, most contemptuous, and most repressive outside of a few small cults relying on spaceships for total dehumanization.

As the fundamentalist Aish.com writes, between waxing hysterical over a Holocaust movie (y’all respect Hollywood, right?) and a subsequent undocumented Holocaust maiseh that sounds like a Y.L Peretz satire, “Nowhere does a person have more potential for expressing “barbaric” behavior than in the sex drive.â€?

And don’t point to priests in the Catholic Church. That lifestyle isn’t advocated for the masses. For the masses, the charedi outlook is much more repressive.

So we win! (Except for cults, but they don’t count.)

As we start the new cycle of the Torah, replete with strong and distinct matriarchs, we must remember that many in the Reform Jewish community are not able to read Hebrew, have not studied the Chumash, but know that it is very sexist.

Fortunately, there is a new “A Women’s Commentary,� and though it won’t be read by many outside of narrow academic circles and Reform clergy (the Reform masses are not particularly devoted to old scrolls), it will function to plagiarize offer alternative ideas through modern interpretations.

The JTA reports,

“How many people know that when the Torah describes Abraham mourning the death of Sarah, it’s the only time in the entire text that a man mourns a woman?�

Now sexist apologists might note that when Miriam died, they no longer had a well running in her merit, and all sorts of rock abuse occurred in exasperation, and the whole camp in its entirety mourned. But that’s different! The whole camp is not one man! Gotcha, traditionalists!

“Or that Adam and Eve were equal partners in crime?�

Clearly, the JTA and “A Women’s Commentary” is correct. When G-d kicked both their asses out of paradise, we thought this was because G-d wasn’t sure who was at fault, and that He was simply administering collective punishment.

And there is more! Much more.

More than traditional commentaries, the new volume will focus on women when they’re in the text of the Torah — and also when they’re glaringly absent, editor Tamara Cohn Eskenazi said.

For instance, Chayei Sarah deals with the death of Sarah and the courting of Rebecca. Abraham’s slave finds Rebecca at a well, where she offers him water, and he asks her family if he can take her back to Canaan to wed Abraham’s son.

The women’s commentary is careful to point out that Rebecca gives her consent. Rebecca is an active, not passive, character from her very introduction in the Torah, the commentary says.

This is a fascinating chiddush. Most of us assumed that Rebecca, credited as a heroine among depravity, was, in fact, abducted against her will at the well, according to Abraham’s directive.

So how about that. She actually said “yes,� and was not wed against her will in flagrant violation of Jewish law, both in terms of forcing a marriage and kidnapping.

Well, I’ll be a son of a bitch!

And there is this as well,

While the description of Eve being created from Adam’s rib is commonly taken as a sign of Eve’s inferiority, it’s more a statement of their equality, she says. They’re described in Genesis 1:26-28 as being of the same flesh, both “created in God’s image and blessed with fertility and power.

Amazing what brand spanking new ideas the Reform can come up with when someone actually checks the Hebrew version. Fortunately, that won’t happen with most of their constituents, so by all means, present these very modern new egalitarian insights as your own.

If I were a Reform rabbi, I would do exactly what these women are doing. Steal from commentaries throughout the ages and claim I am writing an updated socially modern one.

Who’s going to check? It ain’t in the King James version!