Posts from — April 2008

On some level the story of yetzias miztrayim is not just the story of leaving Egypt, or even of leaving slavery, but a story of building human consciousness itself. It seems to me symbolically important that in going from Egypt to Israel, the Israelites also went from Africa to the Middle East. Human history is filled with failed attempts to leave Africa. This last time, we succeeded.

In Egypt, the pyramids were temples unlike anything human civilization had ever seen. Pharaoh thought these were tributes to him. He did not understand that the slaves were building temples for God.

But we were slaves in Egypt. And perhaps too often we focused on the bitterness of being slaves to Pharaoh instead of the learning and growth some of us were accomplishing.

There was nothing to do in Egypt but build and help others build. No markets to master, no degrees to attain, no political processes to manipulate. All intellectual pursuits worth attaining had to be focused within.

It was only a partial success. We did not succeed in our mission. Many were overwhelmed with the brutality of being slaves, and the mission was aborted early.

We took what we learned in Egypt, and replanted it in the Land of Israel. We built a temple of our own to God. But the gaps in our partial success can be seen in our own collective memory, and in the focus of the Hagaddah, We do not discuss what we learned in Egypt, or what we were supposed to accomplish. Rather, we focus on a miraculous Exodus, and on the pain of being slaves. This focus on victimology instead of internal and communal accomplishment hinders us to this day. The replacement focus is an understandable–but still tragic–stumbling block to greater consciousness and refinement. Many laugh at us for this. Not because we are failing to be like them, but because we are failing as Jews. This is not what being Monotheistic should mean. This was the siren that Dasan and Avirum responded to. These men sought a better place in Egypt, and did not prioritize serving God and growing spiritually.

Today we live in an era when it seems that Monotheism is almost an afterthought for many segments of Jewry. The Left is overly concerned with social justice. The Conservative Movement is the most twisted offender, like a severely OCD person who can’t stop washing and rewashing his hands when in front of a sink. The Modern Orthodox seem all but consumed with Zionism and/or a second-rate materialism. And if the haredim had written the Haggadah, they would write solely about Moshe Rebbeinu and the Eruv Rav,

Certainly celebrating a move from savage and brutal life to one of law and (hopefully) shrewd compassion is rightly a critical part of the Pesach story, and so is the justice meted out to those who arrogantly attempted to enforce tyranny. But we should not forget the growth accomplished by the slaves of Egypt, and ask ourselves why slavery was an important part of the learning in the first place. On some level, it is they who are our role model. Those who accepted on faith that they were on a learning mission grew from the utter lack of ego distractions. They were learning to serve God, and were helping others to do the same.
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Until fairly recently, I was upset that the Torah spoke of miracles of leaving Egypt that I do not believe happened. Staffs turning into snakes, rivers splitting, all that mythical stuff. But the miracles need not be literal, but rather, are to underlie the impossibility of human existence by pure chance. The story of leaving Egypt is important in explaining the noble quest for the building of civilization, and the growth of human consciousness itself.

All human beings originally come from a brutal and harsh primitive world. Some have stayed there. Others have left, but still retain many aspects of that brutality, which resurfaces in so many horrible ways. This is how life is when you don’t consistently seek a higher consciousness, based on a hope that that is what we are supposed to do with our time here.

Evolution itself is a quest, always threatened by hateful leaders, and the natural plagues that the world throws at us. The Passover story is a hope that this journey of man is not in vain, and not without purpose, but is about growth. We can leave Egypt behind, but we must be grateful slaves to God to truly escape from being reluctant or willing slaves to the Pharaohs of life.

A Zissen Pesach

Our beloved former mayor is interviewed by the Forward’s Daniel Treiman. The focus of the interview is Koch’s continued fight against anti-Semitism. While I am not particularly interested in the “defense” organizations fundraising efforts fight in this regard, Koch is a different story, as he is a legitimate Jewish leader. The elected kind. And he was a Jewish leader even when mayor of New York, something unheard of before Koch.

Self-described as “a liberal with sanity,” these are code words. Koch was really not a liberal, but rather, more of a social-democrat, though he has drifted right-ward to some extent in recent years. His support for Bush’s reelection was highly disappointing.

Koch remains hysterical, and he is in rare form as recounts his experience attempting to assuage the conflicts he had with the African-American community.

I’ve had a mixed relationship with Al Sharpton. We’re good friends currently. I had him arrested in 1978. And every time he introduces me, he always says, “This man had me arrested, and he made me famous, and he never stopped talking to me, and we’re friends.” And that’s all true. And he invited me to his 45th birthday at a church at about 116th street, and I went. I didn’t have any security, was all by myself. I went up there, and I walked into the sanctuary where the event was, and there was applause, and then Al Sharpton invites me to speak. And I look at this crowd, it must have been 2,500 people in the church — it was enormous — and there in the front rows were some of the people who had given me lots of problems when I was mayor, and I couldn’t help myself, and so as I looked at this crowd, I say, “Do you miss me?” And they roared.

Every other article Big Aish produces seems to be either on the handicapped — mental or physical — or the Holocaust. They are so creepy. Just really creepy. I think I am going to start tracking both, if you don’t mind.

From the rock band The Clash! Heeb focuses Jewishly only on food, which is kind of annoying.

You were living with your Jewish grandmother at the time of London S.S. Did she or your mother know about the band?

They never knew about it, we were ashamed of it.

So when you were living with your grandma, did she cook for you?

Totally. She cooked Jewish food.

Do you still have a taste for Jewish food?

I do, but I don’t eat meat anymore.

David Duke is, of course, the former leader of the Klu Klux Klan. He is not a nice guy, and certainly no friend to the Jewish community. Many were shocked that the JTA would post his letter to Obama, outlining a lot of white nationalist anger against the Jewish community. I was shocked as well. Shocked at how much of what he said has merit.

Let’s take a look at some of the Krazy Klansman’s issues against segments of the Jewish community before we dismiss his complaints—as so many reflexively dismiss the complaints of white Christians—as racist, and therefore immaterial.

Better-qualified White students, employees, working men and women face intensive racial discrimination that you and the other major candidates deceptively call “affirmative action.”

Check! It is so bad, this gang-banging of whitey, that even the East Asians have joined in, with no outrage from anywhere to the left of race realist circles. East Asians should not be beneficiaries of quotas or affirmative action on anything.

Many White people can no longer use the public school system that their own taxes pay for because “people who aren’t like them” have made their schools awash in violence, educational mediocrity, drugs, sexual degeneracy and gangsta rap.

I don’t know how much gangsta rap really affects the white student population, but in the inner city schools, this is often all too true. I have heard far too many rich Jews condemn working class racism towards minorities in their schools even as they send or eventually will send their own children only to private schools.

Millions of White people who have paid exorbitant taxes all their lives can’t afford medical insurance and decent medical care in no small part because “people who aren’t like them,” such as illegal immigrants and able-bodied, welfare parasites, people who have paid no taxes at all, have overloaded the system.

Here, Duke is only partially correct. He doesn’t want to advocate socialism, so instead he blames it on the tax burden. But it is absurd that so many working class people are paying for others to receive socialized medicine while they receive no coverage. This is cruel and disgusting.

They are bitter because unelected economic czars such as Greenspan and Bernanke, Wolfowitz and a whole coterie of Jewish “people who aren’t like them” have ripped them off and have let so-called “free trade” destroy the American economy.

The Jewish role in promoting privatization and globalization is large and unfortunate. It is a communal embarrassment.

They are bitter because other Jewish Neocon “people who are not like them,” have led us into a catastrophic war for Israel in Iraq, a war that will cost the American people trillions of dollars and that has killed or ruined tens of thousands of American lives (While Jewish dead or wounded are spectacularly underrepresented in those terrible casualties).

The Neocons sold the war, they did not lead the country to war…but Duke’s language is close enough to the truth to hurt, isn’t it?

Christian Americans are also sick of the fact that the Christian meanings of Christmas are being driven from public life, with crosses and nativity scenes banned from public land in our nation’s capital while at Chanukah a huge Jewish Menorah, symbol of Jewish ethnocentrism and Jewish resistance to assimilation, is put across from the White House and dedicated by the Jewish extremists of Habad Lubavitch.

Duke is partially right. Chabad should be driven from both the white house and the public square, and he is correct that their demands for public parity are meshugah.

Does Duke exaggerate a bit? Sure. He is a conspiracy theorist? Absolutely. But he hits far too closely to the reality far too frequently for any of us to be comfortable with where we are as a community, or for where we have helped push this great country in recent years.

Hat tip: EV

Steve Sailer, who is a fascinating paleo-conservative writer, has posted an article appearing to illustrate how Ashkenazi Jews have a very different distinct genetic code compared to that of Europeans.

This doesn’t bother me so much, as I think most of us 1) consider Sephardim the same race as Ashkenazim, which makes Ashkenazim a Middle Eastern people and race, and 2) recognize there is a racial difference between us and other Europeans.

I would like to see the differences between Jews and other Middle Eastern groups graphed out like this. I find this sort of thing fascinating, and ultimately, more convincing than the “race is a social construct” camp.

Update: I’m not the only one who wanted to know. Steve Sailer has posted a 3-D graph comparing Ashkenazi genetics to other Middle Eastern groups and to Europeans. Very interesting.

Jewcy deserves major credit for bravely and courageously denouncing genocide denial. While most Jewish organizations are usually subdued, even silent, on the subject of Holocaust denial that exists on the far-left, far-right (and is much more entrenched elsewhere, such as in the Muslim world) Jewcy and Jewcy alone has dared to breach this taboo subject in the Jewish community and say, “Genocide denial, even Holocaust denial, is not okay.” Jewcy is also breaking ground on what was up until now the unexplored methods of genocide denial.

There will be other essays by Oliver Kamm forthcoming on this controversial subject, so matter which side you are on, stay tuned! Also forthcoming next month on Jewcy: a much needed–and dare I say, overdue–refutation to the Flat Earth Society.

Jewcy: What matters now!

I am, to be clear, an abolitionist on the residential automobile. The kind of society we need to create is a radical, almost incomprehensible reversal of Jeffersonian America.

Long-term, there is no other way, and long-term is a lot shorter-term than we would like to think.

Never the less, there are some obvious shorter-term alleviations that we should be able to force Congress to pass right now. In an email, Set America Free writes,

The way to break OPEC’s stronghold over our economy argues Robert Zubrin is for Congress to pass a law requiring that all new cars sold in the U.S. be “flex-fueled,” capable of running on any combination of gasoline or alcohol fuels: Such cars already exist - two dozen different models of flex-fuel vehicles (FFVs) are being produced by Detroit’s Big Three this year - and they only cost about $100 more than identical models that can run on gasoline only. But this constitutes only about 3 percent of the new-car market. Within three years of such an Open Fuel Standard, there would be 50 million cars on American roads capable of running on alcohol fuels. Under those conditions, fuel pumps dispensing alcohol would be everywhere - creating, for the first time, an effectively open market in vehicle fuels, and competition for OPEC oil.

I am a public transit fanatic, particularly on rail, and I like the (newly revamped and expanded) site Jspot generally, and enjoy Rabbi Jill Jacobs’ posts specifically.

Which is why it is so bizarre that Rabbi Jacobs can be so wrong about something we both agree on passionately.

Rabbi Jacobs writes in “Subway rage, “

“I’m a huge fan of all subways, but particularly of the New York subway system;”

Me too! Here, I expect Rabbi Jacobs to launch into the brilliance of our express trains (we invented them!) and how other Americans need to learn to live without a car like we do.

Instead, Rabbi Jacobs writes,

unlike many other places, where it’s easy to avoid encountering anyone of a different race, ethnicity, or socio-economic class, the city forces people of all walks of life into close contact with one another through the shared experience of the subway commute.

With all due respect, Rabbi Jacobs, who cares? We have an emergency situation where we are running out of cheap oil, we are destroying the earth, and you are focusing on the cheap thrills of diversity?

“A public space is defined as a place that’s open to all people–you can’t lock out the homeless, the smelly”

It is, in fact, the homeless who represent exactly what Jeffersonian America is afraid of. The most responsible thing NYC could do for the good of the country is rid our subway of the homeless. I would call in the goons tomorrow for that reason alone. And you could figure out what to do with them instead of abusing our subway system which is for commuters.

There are sites and groups that only champion social justice and rarely tackle economic justice. To be fair, this is not true of Jspot, and it is not true of Rabbi Jacobs. However, I feel this post represents which is given greater weight, and why this is misguided.

Abbot Katz joins the black-hatters who cunningly object to the term “ultra-Orthodox.” What do they want? What they really want is to be identified as the real “Jews,” nothing less. They will complain at every other possible term until everyone else is deemed treif/insufficiently frum (that’s you, Modern Orthodoxy), until and unless they are accepted as the standard, despite their ever-expanding new stringencies and radicalism.

Katz writes in the Forward that,

“Orthodox Jews seem to be seen as marking the spiritual baseline, while the “ultras” are typed as a kind of fanatic insurgency, sparse but dangerous.”

Oh, no one is saying you people are “sparse.” Your numbers and power grows everyday.

“In fact the Chasam Sofer is very much of a piece with his rabbinic predecessors and successors. Nowhere in the yeshiva world is he credited with striking a stance at any fundamental remove from his forebears.”

Why is this about the Chasam Sofer? He is hardly considered the father of ultra-Orthodoxy. Let us be clear. Katz is avoiding the true areas of significant change, from traditional Judaism to quiescent fundamentalism.

The two substantial quiescent fundamentalist movements are the Chassidic movements and the contemporary yeshiva movements respectively. These movements have changed, and their creations were both departures from normative Judaism. Additionally, many sectors of each group became more radical over time, particularly in the post-war period. That is to say, more fahfrumpt, with a greater interpretative stringency in Jewish law aimed at maximum disengagement with the secular world.

“Again, this peculiarly binary view suggests that those rabbinic giants who predated the Chasam Sofer were by definition something less, or other, than “ultra.”

No. This is to say that the normative pulpit rabbis who preceded the likes of “gedoylim” like Rabbi Ahron Kotler and the Chazon Ish were by definition something less, or other, than “ultra.”

Yaakov Menken weighs in on the ULTRA_ORTHODOX blog Cross-Currents, where he displays a profound ignorance of the difference between activist and quiescent fundamentalist classification.

“Most complaints about the use of the “Ultra” modifier stop there — pointing out that the term is both inaccurate and pejorative, and seems to lump Satmar Chasidim together with Kahanists and Yigal Amir.”

This is SUCH nonsense. Kahanists, like Rabbi Kahane himself, are rightly considered to be radicals stemming from the Modern Orthodox camp. And both Baruch Goldstein and Yigal Amir attended the flagship right-wing Modern Orthodox universities, Yeshiva University and Bar Ilan respectively. A full embrace of religious-Zionism is outside the tenants of ultra-Orthodoxy. Menken clearly doesn’t know what he is talking about. I’m shocked, just shocked, at his ignorance. Who would think that the creator of Cross-Currents and “The Everything Torah Book,” would get these basic sociological classifications so terribly wrong?

The big lie of the ultra-Orthodox is that they are normative traditional Judaism. And this is one of the reasons they prefer hagiography to history. History is not their friend. And the entire haredi-kiruv industry would fall apart if their lies were exposed.

I hope, over time, they will be.