How Normal People Think

So I was hanging out with a group of friends last night, discussing, inter alia, my theories about mashiach, the wisdom of cutting one's own hair, and how one should cope with the fact that women are basically second-class citizens in Judaism.

[The last discussion was interesting enough to merit its own post, but I have no patience at the moment for chick stuff. B'Kitzur, my friend came up with 4 basic options: 1)Make up and/or believe fluff about it being about how women different and special and spiritual; 2) throw out the whole thing; 3)start picking and choosing within the system based on what appeals to you; 3) work within the system to make it less problematic. We basically chose 4, with a dash of 5) suck it up.

Did you know the etymology of suck it up? Fascinating.]

But what struck me was how similarly we were able to approach the issue. I mean, we were all able to pretty frankly admit the facts of the case, reject the fluff, discuss the historic reasons for such practices, debate the pros and cons of each option, and try to define the boundaries of legitimate action within the system. And, more impressively, we were able to joke about the limits of our own intellectual honesty (just enough to stay frum, to be exact).

And then I asked them all- do normal people think like this? I mean, I'm pretty sure that they don't, certainly not within the Orthodox community. But how not? I mean, how can one be moderately intelligent and not come to these sorts of conclusions? I mean, obviously not my personal conclusions, because they are frankly quite odd, but conclusions of the same general order of magnitude, if the term makes any sense. I understand if one rejects thinking about certain things, but how exactly do intelligent Modern Orthodox people seriously think about Judaism without reaching some opinions- any opinions- majorly outside of the mainstream way of thinking?

This is one of my less coherent posts, and I would delete it, but I really do want to know, and also I have not posted for ages, so I'm just going to let it go, and hopefully some sense managed to emerge.

Before-Sleep Thoughts

So there was this study that I once heard about that said that people who are told that the placebo they are taking has a side-effect of causing insomnia sleep better than people told that the drug has a side-effect of drowsiness. Apparently the former attribute all of their inability to the sleep to the drug, and stop stressing over it, while the latter figure 'If I can't sleep despite this drug, I must be really, really keyed up about something.'

My question: If you know about this study, and decide to believe that your cough medicine must be keeping you up, so that it won't, and then decide to believe what's keeping you up is your belief that you should be going to sleep faster because you believe that your cough medicine is keeping you up, and then decide to believe that what's keeping you up is your belief that your belief in your belief in your cough medicine's keeping you up is keeping you up..... at what point does the whole thing become ridiculous and serve in and of itself to keep you up?

(This whole thing is remarkably similar to the 'that was my most recent thought' game, that used to drive me crazy when I did it.)

Poetry

If poetry is self-expression,

Each confession cedes possession,

And I don't think I'm enough to go around.

I'll spill my guts and spill my ink,

I'll mix my soul for you to drink,

But what if you don't want a second round?

So prose is safe and wit is shield,

And every shrug's a sword I wield,

Against the creeping front of dull cliche.

And I'm not saying it's not real,

But if I flaunt Achilles' heels,

Maybe you won't see my feet of clay.

Aaaaaargh!

A million blogs and facebook notes
full of pith and finger quotes.
And every one sneers just the same
and dreams of fifteen words of fame,
and every horse we beat is dead
and everything we say's been said
and God's been killed a thousand-fold,
then brought back with tactics just as old.
And I know that boredom's done to death
and meta's just a waste of breath.
But if you're in a fractal House of Fun,
the least you can do is look and run.

Guest Post by Talia

I don't usually write these kind of emails; foreign correspondant reporting from the field. Firstly, I'm aware that my experiences pale in comparison to other people who live here. Secondly, I don't want my identity to be defiined an Israeli in proximity to newsworthy events. After a difficult week, however, I could no longer contain this letter.

Talia

I was supposed to go to Jordan next week. An all expense paid trip, thanks to a student grant, to participate in the American Association of Cancer Research conference and present an abstract. It was going to be the first real conference that I participated in. Preparing my abstract, I put in 18 hour days to meet the deadline. When other group members voiced concerns about traveling to an Arab country, I shrugged them off. Going to Jordan was part of the charm of this conference. It would give me an opportunity to see this new country from the neutral ground of a Sheraton hotel and an international science conference.

I began to realize that this might not be possible when the military operation in Gaza started. I pushed this thought to the side. In three weeks a lot could change, I told myself. That's the beauty of the volatile Middle East. The wind changes direction and all of a sudden we're drinking bottled water and eating pretzels around the negotiating table.

Last Friday I went to Sderot for the day. Sderot is a development town in the South of Israel about three miles away from the Gaza Strip. Over the past few years thousands of rockets known as kassamim have been fired on it from Gaza, however there has been a significant increase in the frequency over the last few months. Because the town is located so close these relatively primitive rockets can hit it, as well as several neighboring kibbutzim in the area. The town has a population of 20,000 but thousands have deserted the city recently.When you hear of the constant rocket attacks on the news, you wonder why anyone would stay. Although there are some who stay for idealogical reasons, a visit to Sderot reveals the truth. Those who stay are those who have no place to go, not enough resources to start again. To combat this notion a campaign has started in the past month "kniot neged kassamim" (shopping against rockets). Every Friday Israelis from all over the country drive to Sderot to do their shopping and bolster the local economy.

When we arrived a volunteer organization briefed us on the "local customs". When you hear the warning siren, a calm lady's voice repeating "tzeva adom, tzeva adom" (color red, color red), you have fifteen seconds to reach a secure location. If there is a cheder mugan (reinforced room, required in all new apartments constructed) you should go in there. Otherwise seek protection in the innermost room, away from windows and preferably a lower floor. Rockets will be coming from the southwest, so try to go to the northeast room. When driving a car do not wear a seatbelt so that you can get out quickly in case of an alarm. After one minute you can come out. Rocket hits can be traced by the sound, loud for a direct hit nearby, and the plumes of smoke. Resume routine until the next warning.

I only experienced three tzeva adoms in my three hour visit there. First one, walking down the street towards the pizza shop with my friend, Shana. Ran into the nearby restaraunt, where everyone was rushing into the kitchen, the inner most room. Most of the patrons were visiting from the center of Israel to support the economy and had never experienced a tzeva adom before. The cook joked around that anyone who wanted to help with the dishes was welcome to stay. When we left the kitchen the waitresses showed us the plume of smoke to identify where the rocket had landed. Around one kilometer away in an open field.'"Bshetach patuach, ein nifgaim v'lo nigram nezek". ("In an open area, no injured and no damage was caused", the phrase used to describe such incidents on the hourly news.) The next two I was in a building. We all gathered silently in the stairwell. Tobie, my sister, got separated from me and I turned around panicked to find her sitting five stairs up.

It was in the middle of this trip that I realized the absurdity of visiting Jordan. As if the security situation was a factor in planning a trip, like making sure there wouldn't be a cold spell for the beach holiday. I remembered that line from Catch-22, where Yossarian exclaims "they're trying to kill me!". It's not just a political situation or struggle for power. The third rocket landed half a kilometer away, a direct hit on a house. One woman was lightly wounded. They're trying to kill me.

After that third rocket it was more difficult to be in Sderot. As we drove in the car looking for a grocery store all I could do was evaluate the surroundings for a good place to jump out and seek shelter, trying to orient myself so we could hide on the northeast side.

You forget and you don't forget. The week after home in Rehovot, a safe fourty minute drive away from Gaza, the everyday sounds of the city sounded like rockets exploding in the distance. The fear that they've brought in better rockets that can do the extra 50km and soon my life will be like the life of those people in Sderot.

I wrote a polite letter to the AACR explaining that I would like to withdraw my abstract due to the difficult security situation. I included a link to the Israeli National Security Council website instructing Israelis not to travel to Jordan.

There was another email I wanted to send instead. I wanted to to yell at them for living in their fantasy world where Middle East peace is only an international conference away, where dialogue and coming to understand the other side is the only solution. For some reason the AACR conference symbolized for me the United Nations, Europe. All those groups who are so quick to condemn but don't give a damn that they're trying to kill me. I know it's obscene to be a Western state and to have a more developed military with modern technology and to believe you have a right to exist despite the European origins of most of your citzens. The world should have thought of that sixty years ago when they decided to give the Jewish people its own state. I'm sorry, I really am. I don't know if this was the best way for history to have been written. When Palestinians tell me how they feel torn away from their land and locked into villages, I wish there was another option. I want to tell the AACR, the UN, those people in conservative suits and coordinated ties who believe the world has evolved past warfare and dialogue is the only solution, they're trying to kill me. Look me in the eye and tell me that you really understand that.

We all are angry at someone. Some turn their anger to Hamas, others to the Israeli government, others at God. I'm angry at the World. And if we are angry long enough and loud enough, we hope to drown out the pain.

The Play

In honor of the Purim season in general and Rosh Chodesh in specific, I have decided to post a couple of my favorite scenes from the much-described play. I actually wanted to post the whole thing, but Miri very properly pointed out that it is rather long and might have potential theoretical copyright issues if anybody is ever interested in doing anything with it. So I picked a couple of the most fun ones and will post them over the next couple weeks. For good, clean fun, play spot the allusions. Extra points if you spot some we didn't intend. If people are entertained and interested in reading more and promise that they won't steal the whole thing and sell it to their pseudo-Bais Yaakov high school first, they can e-mail me and it could possibly be arranged.

Scene 5

Night time. Bigsan enters, strolling thoughtfully. A few seconds later, Seresh runs up and then nonchalantly falls into step beside him. Quite possibly on the pocket.

S: What are we doing tonight, Bigsan?
B: Same thing we do every night, Seresh...waiting on the king.
S: Well, the waiting, I don't mind. It's the running to get him things-
B: -and then running to put them back-
S: -and then running to get them again-
B: -because now that he thinks about it, he really does think that maybe he wants a drink over water after all-
S: (all in one breath and getting so carried away that he forgets where they were going with this)-but actually maybe not, because it's true that he's thirsty, but does he really want to drink in bed, and actually Bigsan, I think he's really better off if he doesn't, because every time I try drinking in bed I get it all over my chin and usually down my neck too and then sometimes it goes down the wrong pipe and you start choking and then it's really just not worth it, but then again, if you'd just sit up to drink, you know, it wouldn't happen, but then of course, you get all woken up and then there was this one time when I-
B: (hurriedly) Precisely. (insinuatingly)...gets pretty annoying, doesn't it?
S: Well, yeah, because then you're all wet and your shirt-
B: I mean about the king.
S: Oh. Right. Yeah. That too.
B: are you pondering what I'm pondering, Seresh?
S: Um....I think so, Bigsan, but won't uniforms made entirely out of cotton candy get sort of sticky in the summertime?
B: (sort of stunned for a second or two, opens his mouth to say something, then shakes his head and moves on in an “Anyway...” sort of way) Um, no....I was pondering the idea that it's about time that we (lowers voice dramatically) did something about the king.
S: You mean like ignore him?
B: (still more dramatically) I mean like...kill him
T: Kill the king?
B: Precisely.
T: What, our sovereign king?
B: Indeed.
T: For making us run errands?
B: Exactly.
T: Yeah, sure. I'm in.
B: Well, as it just so happens, I've got a cunning plan...
Exeunt, Bigsan's arm over Teresh's shoulder and whispering conspiratorially. Mordechai either emerges from some nook or cranny or the spotlight highlights where he has been hiding in shadows.
BLACKOUT
Throne room. King on throne. Bigsan and Teresh are lead in by Charvonah and Guard 1.
Ach: (trying to look stern and cunning and stuff)
Gentlemen- if I may call you that-
The time has come we had a chat.
Tell me, how do you enjoy your work?
Are the hours long? Do you like the perks?
Teresh: Well, actually, I was just saying to Bigsan the other day that the dental plan was a bit-
Bigsan: (speaking over him) By which he means to say that we are completely satisfied with our jobs, your most excellency.
Ach: And against myself- you've no complaints?
No qualms, no wrath, however faint?
Bigsan: (groveling really quite pathetically at this point) Oh, no, sire, your most wise and unfailingly pleasant highness. Who could dare to have any hint of thought of inclination of lack of complete satisfaction in your greatness's employ?
Ach: Such thoughts are sweet, if they are meant...
Now. You two claim that you're content
But I put this to you instead:
You hate my guts and want me dead!
Bigsan: My lord! The very notion! I assure you, the idea is the furthest thing from my mind. In fact the very mention fills me with such sorrow and horror that-
Ach: Indeed? A reliable source has told the Queen
Some Marduke? More-duck? Meredach I mean-
Or was it- bother, never mind-
Now, is it true that you are so inclined?
Bigsan: Oh most gracious source of all wisdom, if I could be so daring as to suggest that you could possibly be in error-
Ach: We've heard enough from you today-
Let's hear what your sidekick has to say.
Teresh: (quite probably not faking his forgetfulness) What, me? Well, you know...it's hard to say, really...you know how things are....I'm sorry, but I've forgotten the question... was it something about mushrooms?
Ach: Just one tiny piece of information:
Are you plotting my assassination?
Teresh: (nervous glance at Bigsan) Oh, sire, please. What a ridiculous idea! I can tell you, your majesty, sire, sir, with really complete confidence, that my friend here is not planning to kill you even just a little and that the only reason that he might possibly maybe just happen to have a vial of poison in his pocket is for some entirely legitimate reason, like he's planning to build up a resistance over the course of years, so that someday, if he is ever is challenged to a battle of wits-
By this time the guards, who are quite a bit sharper than Achashveirosh (who is just standing there sort of stunned by the flow of words) have gone through Bigsan's pockets and found the vial.
Ach: Good gracious! Jeepers! Oh my! And wow!
I'll punish you villains- by hanging, I vow
And the story- including the name of that guy-
Shall be writ in the records of Paras and Madai.

Self Sacrifice

In my heart, I shall build a temple
To the splendor of His honor.
And in the temple, I shall build an altar
To the radiance of His glory.
And for an eternal flame,
I will take the fire of the Akeidah.
And for a sacrifice,
I shall bring up my only soul.
(בלבבי משכן אבנה by Rav Hutner (?) )

I just finished reading Till We Have Faces by C. S. Lewis. As I often find to be the case with Lewis, it was literarily a bit dull and theologically complex and fascinating. The story is a retelling of the myth of Psyche and Cupid, so its heavy-handed allegory is to be expected. One of the main themes of the book, as I understood it, was the question of love and selfishness. Love, according to Lewis, is often only a mask for selfishness- a lust to devour the other person, to co-opt their personality. True love means to give, to meld, to relinquish your selfish interests in owning the other person.

So far, so good. But the extension and corrollary of this is that to love God, we must utterly submit to His will. As Lewis expressed it in Screwtape Letters, we must yield even our individuality to Him and then He may choose to regift it to us, according to His will. In the book, the primary metaphor for this was Psyche's required unquestioning obedience to her god/husband and the horror caused by Orual's attempts to fight the gods or question their will.

Reading the book, I found that this bothered me. At first, I tried to attribute it to the medium. Since I am morally opposed to feeling any need to worship my theoretical husband, the metaphor of spousal obedience as our duty to God rubbed me a bit the wrong way. (Although I don't think that the decision was purely incidental on Lewis's part. But that gets in to larger and even more confusing questions of how I feel about his take on gender in this book and in general, so I'm going to leave that to the side for the moment.)

But that's not really it. Because even if you grant that no reverence is due a regular husband, surely nobody can doubt that Psyche must and ought worship her husband who happens to be a god. The problem is that I think that I do doubt that. And I'm not sure how I feel about that fact.
To elaborate: upon realizing that the gender issue was not the main thing at stake here, I found myself attributing such views of total self abnegation to Lewis's Christianity. And it is true that there is something very Christian about the concept of man's nothingness in comparison to the infinitude of G-d. (Or perhaps more exactly, there is something very that idea about Christianity.) To the best of my very limited knowledge, that's why they invented Grace and did away with good acts, for the most part.

Be that as it may, reverence and submission towards God are hardly foreign to Jewish theology. The phrase "Negate your will before His will" is a pretty succinct description of the basic command and I think that it's a sentiment that one can found repeated pretty regularly throughout the sources.

But nevertheless, I find myself unable to accept the premise that God is somehow greater than my soul. And so I have a convenient set of beliefs which include a God who enjoys humans giving Him a run for his money; a soul that is fundamentally composed of the same material as God Himself, just in difference concentrations; a morality that is created through the struggles and the choices of the human soul; an emphasis on the human-crafted halacha; and a few very creative interpretations of the akeida story. I am perfectly willing, on an intellectual level (which is the easy level to be perfectly willing on), to die for God. I am equally okay with the idea of killing myself or others for Him, provided that it seemed a moral thing to do. But I will not destroy my self for Him.

And I am very fond of this theology. It is, after all, mine. However, I wonder- I can't help but wonder- if I created it as a very long and roundabout way of getting around the basic statement that there's really no getting around: God is greater than me.

I know, I know. It's pretty fundamental. And intellectually, I almost, almost believe it. Except that when you translate 'me' to 'my soul', I just can't find myself buying it. And I can't decide whether that is a theological victory- the inherent divinity of the soul standing up for itself- or a triumph of my baser pride refusing to bow even to God. Since I currently believe in my belief system, it's hard for me to see that it might be having negative implications on my entire religious practice, but I nevertheless have some sense that accepting the premise that I should and must sacrifice even my self to God is a pretty major theological point, that ought to be impacting almost all of my daily life, once I've figured out how I feel on the subject.

Here's why I'm worried: I can't seem to work up a proper awe of God. I can blame it, perhaps, on my non-royalistic background and the general culture of equality, which means that I don't have a default setting of humbled submission to apply to the situation. But sometimes I find myself yearning for some visceral, emotional, paganistic reverence laced with terror that I simply cannot find myself capable of feeling. Somewhere along the way, I have dialed up my conception of my self and dialed down my conception of God so that I can't really, really fear Him.

And even worse- as a cause or effect or side-effect or parallel phenomenom- I think I have managed to deanthromorphize Him to a degree that I'm having a hard time loving Him either. It's not good. And I try to explain it away by saying that emotions are not critical and that I'm not a particularly emotional person, but I felt more once and I'm pretty sure I should be feeling more now.

But to throw my current beliefs about God out the window for the sake of some visceral emotionalism that I'm not sure I'm ever going to be able to acheive hardly seems to be the answer. Especially since I'm still pretty convinced of their accuracy. And not at all sure that they contradict the emotions that I'm trying for. Which leaves me.... nowhere really. Confused, mostly.

I'm going to close with a poem that I wrote a bit ago, ostensibly on behalf of a character (right. Okay. So here's the deal. I know that people ought to write what they know, but what I know is largely typical hackneyed teenaged angst and I'm not interested in reading it, let alone writing it. So when I am bored and in the mood to versify, I often create a character who is writing a poem about a situation which he is in, which allows me to borrow not only his circumstances, but often his voice, which I find to be less self-conscious and more talented than my own. I know it doesn't make sense. Go along with it), but with a pretty clear realization of its allegorical accuracy:

Our lips spell out the love songs
that so many sang before us.
We add our thin falsettos
to their ever-soaring chorus.

And only fools, we whisper,
wear their hearts upon their sleeve.
And if we have lost nothing,
then there's nothing we can grieve.

So let us ask no questions
and we'll have to tell no lies.
For we can kiss like lovers
if we only close our eyes.

Beinisch on Friedmann

I know that nobody other than me really cares about Israeli judicial politics, but sometimes the Supreme Court just bugs me so much that I have to rant about it somewhere, even though I am perfectly aware that a decent constitutional lawyer would probably make mincemeat out of my feeble rage. The following is a quote from a JPost article about Chief Justice Beinisch:

She also criticized his bill to establish a search committee to choose the presidents and deputy presidents of the magistrate's and district courts instead of the current arrangement where the appointments are made by a joint decision of the justice minister and the president of the Supreme Court.

"This is [part of] a program to take away the prerogatives of the president," said Beinisch.

"Friedmann says this is because the Supreme Court president is not responsible for his decisions because he is not elected by the public. This is an incorrect understanding of the judicial system. The whole court structure is such that it is not made up of elected officials. Trying to weaken it because it is not responsible to the public goes to the very roots of the judicial tradition in Israel. There has been a constitutional understanding since the establishment of the state.

"Every justice minister knew who was in charge of the judicial system."

Beinisch added, "[Friedmann] has plans, that is true. It is part of his world view. I hope the Knesset will understand the ramifications of these plans and act accordingly. If the Knesset approves his legislation, I will hand my concern over to every Israeli citizen."

Beinisch said she was not sure the changes Friedmann wanted to made were constitutional.

What principally annoys me about all of the above is the way that Beinisch pretends that the current system is somehow divinely or even nationally mandated. The Constitution of which she spoke was not reached through any special process nor based on any special majority. Bits of it demand that any amendments require 60 votes (i.e. the majority of the members of Knesset and not simply of those voting.) That's it. There was never any intention for it to be anything beyond that. Whether the history of Israel has always supported apolitical appointments is not really clear. The reason that there was never any real clear constitution on any subject at all was because nobody ever agreed on anything.

And the committee for appointing Supreme Court justices is full of political figures. In fact, the special apolitical nature of court appointments is largely caused by politics: The members of the court come to the appointment committee as a bloc, while the members of Knesset and the government are drawn from the Coalition and the Opposition, which means they're at each other's throats. So it's not really at all clear that the judicial self-appointment was ever what was intended.

But beyond that, Beinisch refused to address the question of whether the measure is a good idea (at least, not in this article. I can't pretend to be an expert on her opinions.) She hides behind the current legal situation as though it were the gospel, which is particularly ironic coming from one of the most activist courts out there. The fact is, she is loudly and angrily pointing out that the proposed reforms are, in fact, different than the existing situation- that Friedmann is using these reform to change things. Gasp.

Particularly interesting is the fact that in the same article Beinisch decries the fact that the court is dependent on the Justice Ministry for budget and is involved in senior court appointments. Somehow, this legal (and possibly constitutional. I don't know which laws govern the question) arrangement is not part of her hallowed status quo, not an expression of the basic tenets of the Israeli legal system. I guess that honor only goes to the bits of it that promise absolute judicial freedom, not the bits that might aim at some clumsy balance of power.

Neo-Sabbateanism

Sometimes, the meandering pathways of the interwebs lead you down twisted and unexpected paths, so that, leaping from link to link like stepping stones scattered at random in the ocean of knowledge, you come upon things that just make you say huh.

(I personally most like the bit where they subtly explain away the conversions.)

Vampires

So I've been thinking about vampires and their aversion to religious objects and, overanalysing as is my wont, I have a few questions:

Are all religious symbols valid or just Christian ones? If the latter, does that conclusively prove the validity of Christianity? If the former, do either vampire or victim have to be aware of the nature of the symbol or would it be sufficient for the symbol to exist even in some distant, unheard of tribe somewhere? Would a cross work for a Jew? Does it depend on the religion of the vampire? If a cross would work, would it be forbidden for the Jew to use one because that would constitute idolatry? Is a Magen David a valid religious symbol, given its relatively modern origins and the lack of religious power attributed to it? Could vampire-shunning be used as a test for the religious validity of a practice or symbol? Can the cross be made out of any material and if so, why don't people just make one with their fingers at the critical moments? If there are limitations on material, what are they? Do they relate to the permanancy of the material, the consistency, or is there a closed list of valid materials? Would a plastic cross do the trick? Would a tattoo of a cross work? Must the vampire see the cross or is general presence sufficient? Can he avoid the problem by closing his eyes? How much of a barrier is required to block the influence of the cross? Is a single layer of material sufficient, and if so, could vampires wear sunglasses, or would protective material be required for all exposed areas of skin? If a priest recited a prayer and spat on the vampire, would that constitute holy water? What if the priest is secretly not a very holy person at all? What if a regular person said a bracha and spat? What bracha would you make? Would it be a bracha l'vatala? If so, would that negate the holiness factor?

Shomer Follow-Up

I had forgotten the oh-so-sweet rush that comes from a blog posting- the sense of accomplishment when you look at the torrents of words that have somehow poured forth from your fingertips; the anticipation laced with a bit of anxiety as you wait to see how the world has accepted your offering; the thrill of joy each time you check and see that there is a comment, and the curious suspended excitement as you wait for the page to load. So addictive it is. Enough to stir me from my habitual torpor, actually having something useful to say be darned.

And from that unusually florid introduction onward:

I was talking to one of my roommates about my last post (She reads, apparently, but will not comment, thus necessitating actual verbal dialogue. The horror, the horror.) and we both attributed the shomer negiah phenomenon to reason #2 below: the gap with the values of society.

To elaborate: once upon a time, Jews lived largely among Christians or various ascetic sects and could generally go along with the idea that sex was- generally or entirely- bad. Of course, they realized that sex in marriage was a different story, but then again, so did the Christians and so everybody was happy and halacha developed along lines that fit everybody's values and that was that.

But nowadays, general society has massively different opinions on a number of different fronts. The first is that sex is pretty much alright when done for almost any reason or situation (barring a mutually accepted loveless marriage, which still is somehow very immoral.) The second- and more interesting- is that love justifies all. People in books, movies, real life will do unbelievably silly and/or immoral things under the banner of love and even if it ends tragically for themselves or others, Love is brought out as some ineffable, overarching, incontrovertible justification.

Last year, I attended a shiur in which the speaker suggested (based, I believe on Paradise Lost and C. S. Lewis) one of the most compelling definitions of Avoda Zara that I had ever heard: Idolatry is taking one value or ideal and setting it above everything else- putting it in the place of God. Over the years, there have been idolatries of nationalism, of honor, of nature.

And ever since then, those have been the terms in which I have framed my annoyance with almost all bits of culture out there, from ridiculous paeans to Love like Enchanted to otherwise sensible books. They seem to worship love. But I believe (with the firmness of one who has no personal experience on the issue) that love justifies nothing that is not otherwise justified, and nothing that is overwise justified needs love to justify it. (Including sex.)

The problem is that even for those who intellectually agree with that sentence, I think society's canonization of love makes it difficult to wholeheartedly pledge themselves to a standard that is often going to be in conflict with the all-important Love. And therefore pro-shomer arguments are forced to base themselves on the relatively weak ground that shomer is actually the best servant of Love, rather than the stronger and less arguable point that it is a religious requirement likely formed with little to no interest in what effect it will have on Love, one way or the other.

Shomer Negiah

Izgad linked to an interesting article by Matthue Roth (author of the 'great but flawed Orthodox novel') discussing shomer negiah. Actually, the article simply described a phenomenon of which I think people are pretty generally aware: Modern Orthodox young people tend to view shomer negiah as optional, if not downright nerdy.

This is a fact that has always fascinated/annoyed me (according to context, mood, and audience.) For me, personally, it is less a religious issue at this point than a sociological one. (Also, not a personal one. I have had no personal experience on the subject, besides the awkward work-handshake situation, so I have no dog in this fight.) But here's my religious take off the bat, just to get it out of the way:

To the extent of my knowledge, shomer negiah (when the girl is a niddah, as most unmarried girls are these days) is possibly a Biblical level prohibition, possibly a Rabbinic one. (Based on the verse "To a woman in her niddah, you should not approach to bare her nakedness." Not, perhaps, a necessary reading by modern standards, but in Talmud homiletic terms, a pretty strong one.) Like most prohibitions found in the Talmud, you can discuss the legitimacy of the Biblical reading, the societal influences pushing the reading\prohibition, and the moral/psychological value of the prohibition from here until the cows come home, but there is little intra-halachic basis to write off the commandment. And, as is generally the case, there are various loopholes that the halachic system and the Jewish community has chosen not to go with. So, from a purely halachic standpoint, there isn't really any intra-system reason that it should be weaker than almost all the kashrut we currently keep, or 99.9% of shabbat.

But for some reason, it is considered a legitimate question in even observant circles to ask "Are you shomer?" And they don't mean shomer shabbat or shomer kashrut, or general shmirat mitzvot. And for that same inexplicable reason, answering 'no' gets you nothing worse than being thought at worst 'a little left-wing' and at best 'normal' in a way that admitting to not really keeping kashrut never would.

I am at a loss to explain these things. I can come up with a few general guesses, but they fail the basic test of explanations, which is that they could predict which things would be like this and which wouldn't. But here they are:

1) It's too hard. Unlike turning on lights and eating milk and meat together, shomer negiah offers too much temptation for hormone- or love- addled minds can overcome. The problem: this doesn't really explain why it's okay to state in general that you don't even attempt to be shomer; if the action is regarded as a irresistable sin, you'd think there'd be more shamefacedness about it. Also, Jews are pretty insane about the oddest stringencies in the most difficult situations. I doubt that shomer negiah presents any insurmountable obstacle to people who really, really believed that it was wrong.

2) It's too weird. Society, as a whole, has changed drastically from the Victorian mindset that would have regarded such a thing as even semi-normal. Society today, instead of stigmatizing love/sex, has nearly idolized it, so that the most ridiculous and immoral actions seem to gain validity if done in the name of love. As such, the official halachic stance is simply not tenable in the modern world and under modern sensibilities. To be modern, in effect, means to disobey the halacha in this case. The problem: there's plenty of weirder and/or more 'offensive' things that the modern orthodox will continue to do. Shomer negiah, actually, sounds pretty good when phrased in sweet, airy terms to the general world (Read, for example, Gila Manolson). Certainly better than shechitta or various other things that we keep.

3)It's not all that exceptional. Maybe Modern Orthodoxy, in general, is dropping prohibitions left and right, and this is simply the only one that occurs to me at the moment. If so, the shomer negiah phenomenon is symptomatic of a general trend in modern orthodoxy that is well beyond the scope of this suddenly-quite-long blogpost.

4) Who knows? Sometimes religion just evolves, working along its own path, weaving in and out of history. In a hundred years, perhaps this will just be one of those things. I think that what makes this trend different is the fact that halacha has never really caught up. Nobody's trying to reinterpret the law or challenge the validity of the prohibition. They just ignore it, in a manner that must be causing some pretty unhealthy cognitive dissonance out there.

Does my ever-wise blogging audience have any suggestions?

A Timely Post

It was not until I had begun typing that I realized how timely this post was, so I went back and change the title and decided to run with it.

As part of my ongoing attempt to bring myself up to the proper level of culture and general knowledge that I would be getting from a normal college, I have begun to read the New Testament. The following are my general thoughts on the subject, in no particular order. While none of them are particularly original, they all interested me at the time:

1. There is no possible way that I can read this without a bias. Even ignoring any prior conditioning I have, I'm simply not reading this as an article of my faith that it is morally useful to appreciate. Quite the opposite. So any comparisons to Tanach are simply not going to be fair.
2. That said, I'm not overwhelmingly impressed. It's nice. It's certainly nice and sweet and preachy, and just jam-packed with all sorts of quotable quotes. And that's it. I can see sweet, moral people being all inspired by its sweet, moral lessons, but it doesn't feel like it has any meat to it. For me, it's rather like my high school Navi class (and I'm sure they'd both love the analogy): full of pretty lines and "how can we apply this to our lives?" without firm guidelines or anything real. I'm sure there are people who like that sort of thing; I'm just not one of them.
3. The story of John the Baptist's head is exactly- I mean uncannily- like the story of R' Yishmael the Kohen Gadol. I mean, isn't John even the son of the Kohen Gadol or something? And the girl and the face... There's got to be some copying or joint source there. I bet there's a doctorate somewhere out there on that very subject.
4. Wow, there's a lot of stuff about faith and the world to come. A lot. I actually like worldviews that have less of an emphasis on both. Which seems to be more common in Tanach than in modern Orthodox society.
5. It's quite repetitive, isn't it? I mean, aside from the Gospels being the same things in slightly different wording, each gospel has multiples of each story. Twice with the loaves and fishes, at least three predictions of the Crucifixion, countless lepers and demon-possessed. I wonder if there's Bible criticism on this stuff.
6. They, like the gemara, are really, really big on Eliyahu. There doesn't seem to be any such emphasis in the later bits of Tanach, except for that one quote at the end of Zechariah.
7. I keep getting annoyed at Jesus for being egotistical and self-centered and overconfident. And I know that when you're G-d, you're allowed to wander about and think that you're so special and that it's better for people to bathe your feet than help the poor and that loving their families more than you is evil and whatever, but it's still really annoying when it's coming from the mouth of a character who is technically human. (Maybe it's my sidekick sympathy kicking in) You just want to tell him to get over himself. And I guess one could have the same objections to G-d, but to me it's quite different when you're incorporeal and infinite and so forth.

Enchanted

Many movies annoy me. Quite a few bore me. Some offend me. But Enchanted may well be the first movie that left me not only irate, but also genuinely puzzled how anybody who saw it could be otherwise.

You see, the charm of fairy-tales and chick flicks is that they don't ask certain questions. Boy meets girl, boy and girl overcome wicked stepmothers or their modern substitutes, boy and girl ride off happily into the sunset and everyone applauds. And if somebody cynical chooses to sneer and ask questions like "But what do they know about each other?" "What sort of basis do they have for a relationship?" "Can they even have a normal conversation with each other?" "What's going to be in thirty years when they're both ugly?", well, that's between me and whichever unfortunate person I'm ranting to.

But Enchanted decided to ask those questions. And I was really pleased. Here, I thought, reading the brief plot blurbs in ads, here would be a fun, crazy, charming movie where Disney gets a chance to laugh at itself and its skewed vision of romance, where fairy tale people learn about the real world and real world love.

Spoilers ahead, I suppose. But only for those who were naive enough to believe the above.

After the opening Disney-fairy-tale part of the movie, I was excited. The musical number was pure classic Disney, overdone enough to be read as a brilliantly subtle self-parody. The gritty little chipmunk worried me- grittiness was enough of a pseudo-twist that it almost made you think that they meant the whole thing. But still, my bubble remained unburst.

The real-world. The divorce attorney who's getting engaged. A very promising speech about love being about knowing the other person, understanding their strengths and weaknesses. Yay, I thought, they really are going to talk about how silly- and ephemeral- fairy tale love is.

As the attorney chatted with his daughter about women accomplishing things in the world and why that's nice, I turned to my friend and said, "What they had better not do- and actually I have enough respect for them to have faith that they won't do this- is have this man become involved with the princess."

Yeah. Really, I don't know why I bother with my tireless optimism.

But I kept hoping, even as the chance grew smaller and smaller. Right on through the silly scenes. Despite even the catching and the bath towel, I truly hoped. I think it was Nancy who shattered that hope- Nancy, without enough personality to make the viewer sad when Robert would break off a five year relationship (five years!) for the girl he met the day before.

It was then that I realize that this movie was not a self parody. It was not correcting the foolishness that every Disney movie innocently propagates; it was going to deliberately and in cold blood, with malice aforethought, support, justify, and embrace every single one of them.

And so there was no hope left to be shattered by the rest of the movie, nor was I thrown off by the clues that almost suggested the lesson that I had once hoped for: the support for dating and actually getting to know your partner; the brief re-emergence of Nancy as a kind of sweet person; Robert having the courage and decency to break off the kiss.

No, it was clear that if the movie was going to preach against giving your life to somebody you had known for a day, it was definitely going to come down clearly in favor of giving your life to somebody you had known for two days. In favor of believing that love can conquer all, no matter the marital difficulties that have thrown you into bitter divorce proceedings. In favor of happily ever after and true love's kiss.

And what made it all more painful is that the movie had so much. It was a clever premise, and it was executed cleverly. The musical number in Central Park, the vermin cleaning song, the prince were all terribly fun. And if they never actually crossed over into self-parody, they could have done so easily. Even at the end, there were places when I could daydream of the movie being saved from itself. I even saw one brilliant ending where nobody kissed the princess and she died and then paramedics burst in, gave her CPR, pumped her stomach, and she ran to Robert and he told her that a day of song and dance doesn't trump five years of commitment and understanding....

But despite what Enchanted may have to say on the subject, many dreams don't come true. And the dream of Disney presenting a mature, balanced, moral, clever, self-deprecating love story is apparently one of them.

A Complex Problem in Game Theory

Alright, ever wise blog audience, solve the following story problem:

1) Due to the semi-strike currently existing in the university, there is one particular class (Class X) regarding whose convening there is a constant state of uncertainty.

2) The professor has stated that he will come every week, but will only give class if enough people show up.

3) Enough seems to be defined as 9+ students. Perhaps 10.
a) Normally, there are 10-12 students present.

4) Most members of the class would prefer that class not take place at all, since then they will not have to come to campus, often in the pouring rain.

5) Once members of the class have arrived, there is some disagreement about whether they would prefer that there be class or not.
a) The class is incredibly boring and most people are anyway only taking to fulfill some requirement.
b) Some members of the class seem to genuinely enjoy it.

6) Nobody wants to miss a class that does take place, since the material will be on the test and they are scarily obsessed with their grades.

7) If enough classes fail to take place, the class may be canceled, which would waste any effort already invested into class attendance.

8) There is a possibility that if the course will be canceled even if all classes take place, either because not enough students have had any attendance or because the semester as a whole will be canceled.

9) The professor, in planning the test, says that he will make every effort to accommodate students that have not been present, but that he has no idea how he will do this.

10) Neither the students among themselves, the professor, nor the university has any power to coordinate things. The only forum in which information is shared and tactics can be discussed is in the classroom itself, the discussion thus limited to people who have chosen to attend.

So....do I go to class?

The Rebbe

Like all young children, Yitzi fashioned G-d in the image of his father. Thus, Hashem was bearded, solemn, and sacred. Hashem loved everybody, just like Tatty did, but Hashem loved Yitzi the best because he was special and he would become the rebbe when Tatty went up to Hashem and left all of the chasidim for Yitzi to take care off.

At seven, he was securely expectant. By ten, he began to doubt. He was not holy when he prayed and he did not remember all his Torah and he went to sleep long before the light went off in Tatty's study. He had known that he would not be as great as the rebbeim of the stories. Now he wondered if he would be great at all.

He buried the hot-stomach doubt and continued learning. Eager teachers found signs of genius in his willing intelligence and signs of piety in his tired, wary eyes. They told each other that he was G-d-fearing and when he heard them, he wanted to tell them that he never thought about G-d. But he didn't, because he was a liar.

One afternoon when he was eleven, he came into Tatty's office. Tatty talked to him about the Tosafos's reading of Rashi and he thought about the boys playing outside and how only he had to be great and wasn't. And then he looked suddenly into Tatty's sacred eyes and it came to him that Tatty did not know. Tatty did not know that he was not great or that he wished that he could play outside instead of standing in the office learning with the Rebbe. It was too big of a thought for him to think at all once and so he broke it down into little pieces and thought it for the next few months.

These were the pieces of the thought: Tatty does not know that I am not great. Tatty is very great. Hashem gives him help to know how to lead the chasidim. But Tatty doesn't know that I am not great.

He wavered for a moment on the brink of doubt. But Tatty was great.

So there must be greatness that he could see in Yitzchak, like everybody said there was. And yet at the same time, Yitzchak was not great.

He pushed himself harder, stayed up later, clenched himself tighter when he prayed. But he never felt the still, small flame that he could see in Tatty's eyes. It seemed to him that trying was not enough, and yet he knew that fear of G-d was in his hands and the failure must be his.

Meanwhile, boys treated him with ginger respect. Meanwhile, his teachers' eyes blazed with devotion. Meanwhile, Tatty got sick and weak as though his soul was eating up his body. Meanwhile, Yitzchak's prayers and nights got longer and longer and nobody knew what a liar he was.

Tatty died when Yitzchak was twenty. His voice trembled at the funeral when he spoke of his father's greatness and his own inability to be a tenth of what Tatty had been. Weeping chasidim comforted each other with the new rebbe's humility.

Almost before shiva was over, they came to him, asking him about their businesses and their wives, begging him to pray for their sick and dying, bringing him their chickens and their consciences for his examination. They expected him to know everything the way that Tatty had.

But there was no certainty in him. The chasidim piled faith on him like a boulder and questions like volleys of stones, and wanted to tell them that he didn't know, that he couldn't do this, that he wasn't great. But the chasidim deserved greatness, deserved certainty delivered in Tatty's calm voice.

Sometimes he tried to tell himself that Tatty must have felt the same way, that certainty was a myth and Hashem did not speak to anyone clearly. But he had seen the light in Tatty's eyes and he had heard his voice and he knew that there was something there that he had not achieved.

He was twenty three the first time that a tale of piety sparked no hunger, but only a distant wonder. Examining the feeling, he realized that he already knew that he would never become great. That he could not be great. There was an odd certainty to the thought. But it could not be true. Greatness was a choice that belonged to him and Hashem expected him to choose it.

He pushed harder. Late at night, he would lean his head against his books and beg Hashem for the one gift that he knew that he must earn. And his students, tiptoeing past, heard him sobbing and gazed at the door in humbled awe.

He tried harder, so much harder that he could feel the straining, but he was still not great. He felt it breaking him and there was a curious desperation in his eyes that even the chasidim whose questions he answered did not know how to read.

One Friday night, he looked over the rim of his cup at the rows of devout faces staring up at him. Words boiled up in his mouth like vomit and he closed his mouth so they would not spill out. In the brief stretch of silence, he almost heard himself shout that he was not a rebbe, that he had no certainty, that he had failed them and never become great. And he could feel the relief, the burden lifted. But where would it go? Who should bear it if not the rebbe?

He could not speak. He closed his eyes on the crowd of faces, felt the tears well up beneath his eyelids and knew that the next day, the chasidim would be whispering about this latest proof of his holiness.

Then he finished kiddush, gagging on despair and his declaration that the L-rd had chosen him from among all nations and desired him from among all peoples. The chasidim passed the cup around, each awed to drink when the rebbe had put his lips.

Five Things

I've been memed by Miri. (Is that pronounced mehme or meem? I never know.) The meme is to list five semi-interesting things about you that aren't in your frumster profile, even if you don't have and would never, ever have a frumster profile. I'm not entirely sure what that means, but I'm never loathe to talk about me, so...

1) My nose is distinctly crooked. You don't notice it so much just looking at me- until I point it out to you- but if you were to look up my nose- and why would you not- you would see that all the cartilage in the middle is on one side. Which makes it slightly harder to part my hair down the middle because I can only trace up the nose starting from between the eyes.

2) I have never gotten drunk. Maybe a little giggly on Pesach, although really, that's always been more nauseous and gagging on matza, but never actually drunk. I'm secretly really curious about what kind of drunk I will be.

3) I can compose bad doggerel pretty much extemporaneously. Like so:

With no need to haw or to hem,
I am fulfilling a meme.
It's harder than it might seem,
Because I think that it might be said 'meem'.

Lousy, but fast. Of course, for all you know, I spent a half hour and rhyme dictionary over that baby.

4) I don't eat salad. Or almost any vegetable. Ever. I have recently been forcing myself to occasionally eat lettuce, but it's an uphill battle.

5) I deliberately pick up verbal quirks and use them until I get bored of them or else they become permanently incorporated into my vocabulary. The word of the week is taka, but it's starting to annoy, especially since always proceed it with a click of the tongue, like so: "*click*. This taka thing is taka a problem." Quirks that have made it include calling people dear, saying "not unlike...a ninja" with little to no correlation to the conversation at hand, and 'your nose'-ing everything. It's annoying. Your nose is annoying! Not unlike...an ninja. Who happens to be annoying.
....stopping now.


I tag anybody who actually reads this who has not heretofore been tagged.

Legal "Dvar Torah"

A piece of Torah given over by one of my Mishpat Ivri professors:

There seems to be a question in parshat Chaya Sara. Avraham says clearly that he intends to purchase only the cave of Machpela itself, but when the property is transferred, the pasuk clearly states that he received the cave, and the surrounding field, and everything on the property. Why is this? So Nechama Leibowitz says how can we explain the change? (insert thumb scooping ai-ai-ai-aiaiaiai here) If you look at the archaeological records of Hittite law texts that have been found, we see that the law ordered that when a piece of land was only partially transferred into new ownership, with the original owner maintaining some of the rights to the property, the original owner was liable in the full burden of royal taxes on the land and was absolved of such only when the land was entirely sold. So Ephron, once he realized that he was selling the most valuable part of the property, realized it made more sense to give Avraham the whole thing and make him worry about taxes.

Making this parsha, perhaps, the earliest written record of what lawyers like to call "tax planning" and cynics like to call "tax evasion".

Oh, and what I like best about this 'vort' is imagining the dozens of inspirational/brilliant chap (the talmud kind, not the British kind) explanations that have been given on the same pasuk.


Note: Ignore the craziness that the computer is doing with sizes. We just can't seem to agree these days.

To My Internet Connection

Dear 725597:

I don't think I ever really understood you. Sure, I was delighted when things started working out between us and we had some good times, back in the days when you connected easily and smoothly. But I never really understood what caused your random moodiness, your capricious silences, your sudden disconnect. Sometimes I blamed the computer; maybe sometimes it really was his fault.

But nowadays you ignore me more and more. You lie to me, saying that everything is all right, but when I test this claim, it's clear that you're not connecting to anything. And I try again and again, every means of communication possible, but there's nothing there. Sometimes you get along perfectly with all of my roommates and only sulk at me. Sometimes you strand the entire apartment.

Do you not realize how much I depend on you, how much I miss you when you aren't there, how long I sit desperately trying to force you to cooperate, pleading and cursing as you sit there, unheeding?

Someday, I am so going to find a new internet provider. And then you will be really sorry.

Tobie

A post that requires no effort

Here, read this. It's brilliant.