I Remember

In loving memory of my Step-Mother Bayla Bas R. Moshe OH.

I guess this letter comes better late than never though I suspect I would be a much happier person had the necessity of writing it never arisen. It’s been a steep and winding road my heart has traveled, and I am still barely capable of expressing in words the emotions I haven’t been able to feel for so long. Healing does comes with time, and the time seems to have arrived. By which means and specific method I remain clueless, but thankful nonetheless.

You didn’t technically bring me into this world, but you did provide for and enhance my existence for the brief time you shared this life with me, and I am eternally grateful for that. You left this world long before I could ever understand gratitude or realize what exactly it was that I was to be thankful for. I have missed the opportunity to tell you how grateful I am.

There was so much mystery around you (and father) that I never felt as if I really knew either of you well. Maybe it was the recalcitrant child, maybe it was the distant father, maybe it was nothing, and maybe it doesn’t matter at all. Perhaps this is the reason I didn’t openly mourn then, and still haven’t grieved, from your passing. Mystery is a fog that obscures everything but fear. Childhood to me is mostly a blur. There are some things, however, that I do remember.

I remember being introduced to my “new” mother and recoiling a bit out of childish shyness. I remember overcoming that shyness rather quickly. I remember you helping me read and write in Yiddish and in English, and how proud you were of my early literary accomplishments and poetic fantasies, sloppily scribbled in crayon or chalk on a freshly re-painted kitchen wall or on the edges of a coloring book. I always wanted to be a writer, and had Providence allowed your love and nurturing to continue, perhaps that dream would have been realized. I know you also wanted what would make Father proud, too, so poetry had to be put aside for the Chumash and Mishnayos. He was much luckier in love than I think he ever realized.

I remember you bentching Shabbos Licht and the smell of fresh chalah. I remember you fussing around in that tiny kitchen we had on St. Marys. I remember running home from Shul ahead of Father so that I could have you to myself for a few minutes, to hear a story from your life or a story you would concoct spur of the moment. I remember it feeling really good to have a mother and father like everyone else, short lived as that situation turned out to be. I remember you being the only person who would stop whatever it was they were doing and listen to what I had to say. I remember saying Krias Shema al haMitah and asking HaShem to let you live forever.

I remember the Yiddishe lullabies we would sing at bedtime, and the way your dark eyes would dance when you smiled or laughed. I remember how conversation with Father would trail off into Russish or Poylish when I wasn’t supposed to hear something perceived too sensitive for tender ears. I remember for the first time feeling loved as a child. I have spent much of my life seeking that comfort and safety that you offered me then, and my greatest fear is that I will never find it again. Yours was the only soft voice I ever heard.

I remember other things, too. I remember being told that you were very sick, and that you’d be away in the hospital for days at a time. I remember getting shoved off into next room every time a conversation related to your illness ensued. I remember the resignation and silence between you and Father, which I sensed placed a greater strain on an already difficult circumstance, and the thickness of the air in the place. I remember you sleeping in a separate room from Father and not knowing why. I remember listening to your voices at night in conversation while lying awake in bed, and not being able to make out the words. I remember my safety being threatened by something invisible and mysterious.

I remember the smell of hospital rooms and long well-polished corridors with their immense dungeon-like doors, bearing untold secrets within. I remember the vinyl furniture in the lobby, the gift shop, and vending machines filled with all sorts of shiny treife zachin, that Father forbade me from even looking at, let alone eat. I remember being fascinated by the architecture and massiveness of the huge cathedral across the street from the hospital. I remember Father getting angry whenever someone would take ‘his’ special parking spot, as if it had remained one of the great un-yet discovered secrets of the known universe until Father and his rusty station wagon happened upon it. I remember my indignation and frustration at being told when, where, and how I was going to visit my own mother, and that being under a certain age, my mentality would be too frail to comprehend the severe matters at hand.

I remember talking to you for a few minutes a day on the phone, dutifully telling you that I loved you and missed you, when in fact I was not yet sure what those things meant. I remember reading you my first feeble attempts at poetry, or showing you my latest artwork, and you crying. I also remember not knowing how to react to your pain. There was a numbness that began to overtake me from that point forward. Eventually, I stopped feeling altogether. Please understand. I didn’t know how to be any different.

I remember the ambulance coming to the house, and Bubbe Chana helping you into the ambulance. I remember the driver in his blue uniform and hat, rushing around opening and closing steel boxes and doors. I remember the flashing lights, the neighbors gathering around to witness the tumult, and then being shuttled back into house, and the door closing behind me. I remember voices, but no words. Images yes, but no clear pictures. That frenzied night is the last memory I have of you. I never had the chance to speak to you, hug you, or see you again. From that time on, there would be no audience for my words, no gentle critique of my art, and no guiding hand for my emotions.

You managed to live another few weeks, slipping in and out of a coma. There were no more phone calls, no more poems, and nothing related to your condition was spoken of within earshot. I was never invited to visit the hospital, and now understand why. Father shipped me off to summer camp, hoping to distract me, and perhaps allow himself some space. I went back to being the thoughtful, somewhat introverted, and lonely child I had always been and, for the most part, remain, even today.

I remember Father informing me of your passing. I had been staying at a chaver’s home overnight. Immediately upon entering through the back gate, Father asked me why I hadn’t called to ask about how you were doing. I was surprised and shocked more by his inquiry than the news of your death! He had not once discussed his pain, his anger, his hurt, or anything related to your illness with me and all of the sudden he expected me to become obsessively inquisitive. It’s not that I blame him, since neither of us possessed the ability to adequately articulate our feelings. Anger is always an easy emotion to pull out when you don’t have any idea what to do with feelings, and you decide that you have to feel something no matter what.

I remember the Levaya. I remember lots of people that I didn’t even know offering their tanchumim. I remember the long, slow walk behind the Aron, the heap of dirt at the Bais haChaim, and Father saying Kaddish. I remember it being more like a movie, like something that was happening to someone else, but not me. I felt nothing, or didn’t know what to feel. Forgive me. Childhood can seem surreal when it’s so painful or numbing that you don’t want to be there anymore. That numbness clouds the memory, too. I don’t remember Father ever speaking to me of you after the Levaya.

There are things you don’t get to find out about someone when they are taken from you too soon. They are the little details in life that make it sweeter, and physically bind you to those you love. I have no idea what your favorite color was, your favorite flower, or what ever in the world it was that possessed you to marry my Father. I have always wondered what it would be like to talk with you now, maybe listen to Chopin or Schubert together. I used to listen to those records when I was home alone after you were gone.

I would have liked for you to have known your Ayniklach. They are as much yours without ever knowing you as they are their biological grandparents that do. I did my best, though it was never enough, and I really could have used your guidance through all these years of soul-searching and turmoil. How much have I yearned for compassionate words!

I haven’t forgotten you and never will. I don't remember everything, but I do remember enough.

Tokin' Jew

"Inebriation is voluntary insanity." (Seneca the Younger (4BC-65AD)

Ok. I admit it. I have smoked my fair share of cannabis. Maybe not enough make me a blithering fool or a total slacker, but enough to take ‘edge’ off a long work week or an aching back. It’s not much different than drinking a few glasses of wine, which normally accompany a ‘fatty’ anyhow. I live by a “work first, play later” credo, and I never consume alcohol or marijuana if I will be working or driving. I am also very careful with WHOM I choose to partake. The company one keeps when one recreates says much about one’s tastes and determines what kind of social effects will occur. For this reason, I like to drink and smoke in the privacy of my own abode, usually while sitting right where I am now, in front of this computer, logging my random musings onto a hard drive already sick and tired of being rebooted back into consciousness every time I show the slightest bit of minor brain activity. Since I am the kind of guy who is exactly the same everywhere I go, and abide by an internalized standard of conduct, my behavior doesn’t shift much from sober to less than sober. I don’t overdo it anyway. Well, most the time anyhow.

I am a firm believer that pot-smoking would solve at least a few of the world’s problems. We send tons of weaponry and machinery all over the world in order to promote ‘democracy’ and offer peoples a better way of life, but where has that method worked? I say we drop large bales of high quality marijuana on these people. There are any number of cogitations one manifests when wasted, but marching in formation and attacking the next village ain’t one of them. Every single member of the Taliban, the KuKluxKlan, and the Bush administration should be FORCED to smoke at least two giant spliffs a day of the funkiest Canuckistani chronic available. I don’t see any problem with a government that runs the nation from a large sofa, clad in sandals and Hawaiian shirts, conducting press conferences from the Cabana Room with Jimmy Buffet crooning in the background. I’m not the least bit worried if they don’t get anything done, since it is my opinion they have done way too much of the wrong things already, and less of the wrong thing is always the right thing to do.

Personally, I like the way it feels. I don’t become a different person when smoking weed, I become a more open ME. The Talmud says “There are three ways to judge a person BEKISO, BEKASO, and BEKOSO.” They are how one handles money, how one handles anger, and how one handles inebriation. I have seen people who are normally very measured and calm come completely unglued under the influence of alcohol or marijuana. I never get high with them a second time. Bad Ju-Ju. As the adage goes “nichnas yayin yatza sod.” (Wine goes in and secrets come out.) It’s very true for marijuana also. If you want to know what is on a person’s mind when they let their guard down, fire up a joint with them. It’s a sort of truth serum. You quickly discover who your friends are, which are NOT now, and which never were.

There is nothing more irritating than an idiot with the ‘munchies.’ I learned this lesson during the few months I worked a pizza delivery job for friend of mine. People who are high will call no less than 10 times at 30 second intervals wondering why the pizza they ordered 3 minutes ago hasn’t arrived yet. Here is some professional advice. If you are planning to get high, call for the pizza FIRST, and then smoke yourself into a coma within 6 feet of your front door. Please stop calling 100 times just because you forgot that you called 10 seconds ago. At least once a night we’d have some pot-head on the phone swearing by the Mother Mary and all that is Holy that he ordered a pizza from us, only to find out he dialed the wrong number. The up side of delivering pizza to stoners is that marijuana seriously erodes one’s ability to perform algebraic functions, and this allowed me to ‘leave’ very generous tips when making change. After all, it’s hard work serving the mathematically impaired.

Most of all, I enjoy the few blissful moments when I truly don’t give a shit about anything. You’re never going to catch me ranting about Divrei Chazal contradicting each other or the lack of archeological evidence for Shlomo HaMelech, or anything else for that matter. Most likely, I will ramble on in a sing-song about how the beauty of life is that it’s meaningless, how I’ll be forgotten someday, and how I still really love life for what it is, then have a final glass of Chardonnay and shuffle off to an early bedtime. Basically, when I have a good buzz on, I am a warm, sappy, philosophical drunk who falls asleep soon thereafter. Life of the party I am not in that condition. There is another reason I don’t use marijuana more than once in great while anymore. It does nothing for my creativity. You don’t write much when you’re stoned, and if you’ve been thinking about anything productive, it will be long forgotten by the time you lift yourself off the couch at 3 am to relieve yourself and then try to quench a life-threatening case of cotton-mouth.

Half the fun of smoking weed is finding it. There is a wonderful tingly sensation that one experiences whilst imagining oneself thwarting the valiant efforts of law enforcement, God, and your parents all in the same moment. That is, in part, why drug dealers are very popular people. They offer you the opportunity to feel universally naughty. Dealers convey the impression of being the pharmacists of the Underworld, and everyone wants to shake hands with the Devil.

We all know how drug dealers are portrayed in the movies and on television, and I can promise you, none of the dozen or so marijuana growers and distributors (they hate the word dealer) I know resemble Al Pacino or Pablo Escobar. They are mostly a mixed bag of old bikers, young hip hoppers, ex police officers, and really cool grandmothers who contrary to popular myth, do NOT sell to children or encourage children to get high. The main reason is simple. Kids have no money. Customers without money are bad customers, like in any other business. Lots of these people HAVE children, too, and try to keep their kids safe from the fallout by educating them honestly about drug use. That means teaching them both drug facts and more importantly, people skills. Not everyone can be trusted with a good time.

I tried my hand at selling marijuana, thinking it might be a way to raise some extra cash. (Didn’t really go as planned, I must have been high when I thought of it.)I was just a middleman though. The real money is made by those who import large quantities or the big growers and even they take some huge financial and legal risks getting into the business. If you have a bad season, you could end up with a crop that you couldn’t GIVE away, let alone sell, though it’s common to find some customers so desperate or gullible they would buy oregano if you rolled it in papers. For those low on the drug distribution chain, you won’t be living the glorious life of an oversexed rock star. Your fortune is earned piecemeal, looking pretty much like any other job (except that one doesn’t usually get sent to prison for selling sofas.) I would purchase a pound or two at a time, find a friend I could trust to split it up, package it, and slowly let select people know that I had some weed. Time, effort, and lots of waiting are involved. This was almost fun until I did a cost/benefit analysis of the process, and ended up shit-canning the whole idea permanently.

For starters, I wasn’t getting the kind of return that one should for taking such a risk. I specifically targeted those who were more educated and working in white collar jobs, because I imagined they would be less likely to try sources of lower intelligence or integrity than myself, and they would not haggle over prices. Man, was I wrong. Not only did they “Jew” me back and forth, but some expected me to deliver! Then, they would tell me how “they know a guy who will sell them such and such” for 1/3 my price. These folks thought they were dealing with an amateur, but I learned how to handle such ploys way back when I was a kid working in my mother’s furniture stores. My answer was always “For that price buy 2 and bring me 1!”, and the deal was then closed. Don’t bluff a bluffer.

Then of course one has to deal with the people who want you to ‘loan’ them some marijuana. That’s right. They want marijuana on credit, and they will run off a long list of friends and relatives they promise to bring to you if only you hand them a ‘quarter’ of your best weed, and wait until he/she gets their paycheck on Friday. I had extended credit to select individuals, but NEVER to customers who are blabbermouths. These are the same idiots who get pulled over for having a tail light out, and immediately upon surrendering their license and registration to the patrolman, begin giving up names of every shoplifter, deadbeat dad, and marijuana smoker they know. The key to safe drug dealing (sounds kinda dumb, I know) is a very quiet and somber sort of grapevine underground advertising. Loose lips sink ships and ‘no tickie, no washie.’

The biggest mistake anybody who gets into the business makes is “getting high on his own supply.” There is no profit in smoking away the store. These same idiots will exchange weed for sexual favors, which is the DUMBEST thing anyone can do. I had a woman, and an attractive one at that, try to barter sex for drugs. Now, believe it or not, I had the same experience in the furniture market and already knew how to handle this in true “Aronovitz” fashion. I calmly explained to her that I had overhead costs of gas, lighting, and heat that had to be met even before I began selling, and if I could take what she was offering me and offer it to someone at the electric company, the gas company, or the IRS and have my bills paid THAT way, I would be cutting those deals every day. Since the commodity she chose to barter with is non-transferable, there was no bargain to be struck. Simple as that.

In any case, what little money I ended up making for all my troubles was just NOT worth it, but I stayed at it for a while longer. Why? People wanted me all the time. It is a bit of a rush to be popular. This popularity, however, was soon discovered to be as fleeting and intangible as my profit margins. When people know you have weed, they act like you are their ‘best friend ever in the whole wide world’, but when your supply is gone, you don’t exist at all. If a customer calls me and I have nothing to sell, the customer doesn’t stop to ask “Say Shlomo. How are the cats? How’s your day job going? What’s the weather out there?” If the customer, even one who has purchased from you for YEARS, doesn’t get what they need, CLICK! It’s just you and the dial-tone. That’s it. It’s a very fickle and fair-weather world. I made more friends and lovers selling furniture than I ever did selling marijuana. (And more money, too.)

Some recoil in terror at the idea of someone smoking marijuana. I understand the concerns of parents, educators, and law enforcement. Nobody wants children smoking weed, or wants having adults getting behind the wheel while impaired. In an ideal world, we could endure widespread marijuana use without any catastrophic effects. Until we start giving mandatory CAT scans and psychiatric evaluations to anyone who wants to smoke up, however, we should continue to exercise an inordinate amount of caution. I don’t see myself ever advocating the widespread legalization of marijuana except for medicinal purposes, and that person better be really, really sick. As I said above, I have seen seemingly rational people go completely ape-shit under the influence, and that just means that not everyone can be trusted with a good time.

Whatever you do, do it safe and plan ahead. Above all, avoid idiots. Nothing ‘harshes’ a good buzz like stupidity.

Peace!

She's Nobody's Girl

Isis: Egyptian Goddess of Love, Death, and Life

Silky strands of blackened flax
Lay gently across smooth patches of olive skin
Her warm breath teasing my shoulder
She will come and go as she pleases
I am weaker than weakness
Knowing that our futures will not be shared
I am powerless
Loving her

We all remember our first love in a way that we cannot remember the rest. Our first act of passion leaves a lasting mark, though sometimes it more resembles a scar or an open wound than it does a healthy patch of dermis. Maybe it was my vulnerability at time, maybe it was really something, maybe I was delusional, and maybe it was all of the above. One doesn’t have the benefit of rational hindsight when in the midst of it, and even 14 years later, I can’t be truly objective about the whole affair. I still think about her and I still wonder.

I have loved in between then and now, and memories of her don’t really cloud my love for another anymore. She has gone from being an icon, to a shadow, then a distant silhouette, to a faint cloud that passes in a far off sky, but she is still hovering around in the back of my psyche, tempting and warning me all at once. She was my first love, and though not the deepest or most caring of the loves I’ve experienced, it was certainly the most powerful. Yet, because of who she was, and most likely continues to be, it was not to last.

People have a lot of different ideas about love and what love should be or feel like. Some associate love with sex, responsibility, friendship, and honor. Love is a chemical reaction. Thoughts and feelings of pleasure set those chemical reactions into motion. Touch will also do that, as would anything else pleasurable. Maybe I’m just older now, and the juices don’t flow like they used to. Some say that I am jaded. I experience my current love as one that is lasting, deep, and calm like a fresh water inland lake, teeming with life within and around its lush banks. Everyone and everything comes to drink from it, and feels safe resting along its quiet beach or swimming in her sun-warmed waters.

My first love was not such a tranquil experience. She was like riding the rapids. No exaggeration there. Her highs and lows engulfed everything around her. When she gave herself to me sexually and spoke to me of love, I felt like the whole world was mine and I couldn’t get enough of her. Everywhere I went she was there and I saw her in everything. I was possessed in mind and body by her. She probably smiled to herself thinking just that. Was it merely lust? If lust can do that to man, then I say please! Do it again! But just for a little while. I’m not as young as I used to be.

She taught me how use passion, how to enjoy sex, how to have love, how to mourn, and how to recover. Oh, make no mistake in this regard, she had no intention of teaching me anything. She always had her own motives for anything she did. I may never know exactly why she loved me, or claimed to. She knew her power, and I was not its first or last victim. There was a latent romantic inside me that she brought out and then killed without a care, very much like someone who wished to adorn their home with a houseplant, but then forgets to water it or leaves it outdoors in a frost. I know that she cannot be thinking of me as I am thinking, all these years later, of her.

Perhaps she flew from the ones who loved her because she didn’t wish to be trapped or end up a centerpiece on someone’s emotional dinner-table. Perhaps she crushed men’s hearts and souls because she was secretly mad at them for having power over her at some point, and she sought to even the score. Perhaps she bored quickly. Perhaps she sought an escape. Perhaps she was just plain cruel. Perhaps it was something much deeper. Maybe it was fear of herself.

There is a song by Bonnie Raitt called “Nobody’s Girl”. If you knew this woman I’m speaking of, you’d know it was written about her(and me.)

She don't need anybody to tell her she's pretty
She's heard it every single day of her life
He's got to wonder what she sees in him when there’s so many others
Standing in line
She gives herself to him, but he's still on the outside.
She's alone in this world
She's nobody's girl
She's nobody's girl
She shows up at his doorstep in the middle of the night
Then she disappears for weeks at a time
Just enough to keep him wanting more
But never is he satisfied
And he's left to pick up the pieces
Wondering what does he do this for
She's off in her own little world
She's nobody's girl
She's nobody's girl
He said, Before I met her, I didn't love nothing.
I could take it or leave it,
That was okay, but, she brings out a want in me, of things I didn't even
Know that I need.
She does anything she wants, anytime she wants to.
With anyone, you know, she wants it all.
Still she gets all upset over the least little thing
When you hurt her, it makes you feel so small.
And she's a walking contradiction, but I ache for her inside.
She's fragile like a string of pearls,
She's nobody's girl.
She's nobody's girl.
She's nobody's girl.

Noahide Laws? Or Noahide Flaws?

"Looking for Love in All the Wrong Places"

Of the many fantasies that the Rabbis have conjured over the centuries, the Seven Noahide Laws are perhaps the most pretentious and Biblically unsound of them all. It is one thing for Rabbis to make rules for their fellow Jews, to instruct Jews in those rules, and to adapt or expand those rules when the situation warrants such action. Yet, these same rabbis find that it isn’t enough to be shoving superstition down the throats of their fellow Jews, it has become popular to even tell the gentiles (goyim) how they should be living their lives also. We Jews have always resented being evangelized or preached to by other religions, yet have no difficulty in demanding a very specific standard of ethics and morality from our gentile neighbors. The assumption is that the world is divided into 2 groups, Jews who have the Torah, and Gentiles who have always known of these 7 laws, these Laws being considered universally known to all mankind through the family of Noah. How the rabbis knew this is beyond me. There is NO corroborating evidence of this from any archaeological or historical sources. Of course, lack of evidence never stopped the Rabbis before. Why should it now?

The Noahide Laws are as follows:

1) Avodah Zarah: Prohibition on idolatry.
2) Birchat HaShem: Prohibition on blasphemy and cursing the Name of G-d.
3) Shefichat Damim: Prohibition on murder.
4) Gezel: Prohibition on robbery and theft.
5) Gilui Arayot: Prohibition on immorality and forbidden sexual relations.
6) Ever Min HaChay: Prohibition on removing and eating a limb from a live animal.
7) Dinim: Requirement to establish a justice system and courts of law to enforce the other 6 laws.

Men and women are equal in their responsibility to observe the Seven Universal Laws. NO exceptions, and those who refuse are to be executed. Ignorance of the law, just like with the IRS, is no excuse. Maimonides in Hilchos Melachim (9:1-19) enumerates the culpabilities of a Gentile who violates any of the Seven Laws. The punishment, even for theft of very little value, is death, when the same acts committed by a Jew would be completely permissible.

What is the biblical source for the Noahide Laws? I don’t find these laws stated or alluded to in Genesis, and despite lengthy debates and halachic responsa on the matter, I have yet to locate chapter and verse as a specific Torah source for the Noahide laws or the premise behind those laws. (See below for details.) There are other general references to law and order from Ecclesiastes and Proverbs, but outside of those, I see no basis for Noahide law and/or claim of universal knowledge of them. This is important since Jewish Law is based first and foremost on the Five Books, not the Prophets or Writings. They may be used anecdotally to support Torah law and for moral or historic purposes, but not for the establishment of laws. Even if in this instance it were proven to be an exception, one would still have show chapter and verse as to the details involved. Like much rabbinic blathering and over-imaginative exegesis, the Noahide laws, too, are the result of wishful thinking projected beyond the scope of Judaism without any basis in Torah itself.

So the question remains, if the Torah doesn’t say it, then how do we know it to be so? If God says what He means and means what He says, it follows that what God doesn’t say is as important as what He does. The Torah clearly states (Deut. 4:2 & 13:1),
that one should not deviate one iota from the word of the Torah, meaning that the Word tells everything we need to know in reference to it, and reading our own desires and wishes into it is strictly forbidden. If it is the Divinely inspired word of an All-Knowing super-psychic God, then our additions/subtractions obfuscate the true intention and inevitably blind us from its true meaning.

So, dear Rabbis, where’s the Noahide “beef?”

One of the standard responses of the rabbis is to say that God never punishes anyone without warning or without first making the prohibition well known, therefore God could only have punished the world after He let them know the rules. This seems fair enough at first glance. No rules, no Flood. Yet, this is backward logic. We are more or less HOPING that God doesn’t operate that way, since that would violate our own human sensitivities, but there is no Biblical premise to assume that God considers sensitivities at all. God never considers the emotional state of a transgressor. (A woman who cheats on her husband cannot claim that love is a powerful need lacking in the marriage or domestic abuse as a cause for her infidelity; those variables are completely irrelevant in determining her fate.) So too, without a direct verse to support the claim, how can we be sure that our inference of this universal knowledge of Noahide Law is, in fact, accurate?

The application of Noahide Law itself supports this. Ignorance is no excuse to the rabbis, and a gentile who is unaware of the Noahide Laws is just as guilty as one who violates them intentionally (every offense gets the death penalty.) So the Aboriginal or the Pygmy is as guilty as the Frenchman, without ever having been exposed to Bibles, rabbis, and Noahide Laws (O, how I envy them). So the assumption which serves as a basis for Noahide laws (the specifics still lacking), falls apart under the practical application of those very same principles. On one hand, they claim the law is a Universal and natural understanding, and yet say it is possible to NOT know about them!

To answer the questions of culpability without cognizance, some rabbis offer an esoteric excuse by claiming that Noahide laws are written into the genetic code from the Creation, and that this knowledge is innate or subconscious, meaning that on a biological/unconscious level, we ARE fully aware of these rules (whether or not we are aware that we are cognizant.) This doesn’t make sense to me either.

Firstly, if this knowledge is genetically passed to us from God, then how are we able to violate it? Or to forget about it? It is tantamount to saying that a bird can somehow forget that it is bird, ignore its own wings, and then refuse to fly! It would mean that something could willfully violate its own physics. If the God-given code of bird is inviolate to the bird, then why assume anything different for the human, if one claims genetic/mental or spiritual predisposition?

At this point the rabbis throw out the “free will” card. This is kind of like Monopoly’s “get out of jail free” card for theology and metaphysics. It means that anything goes for humans, and no matter how innate, supernatural, or powerful the influence, we humans can, somehow or someway, manage to ignore what is claimed to be the very basis of our being, either spiritually or physically. If God creates you a certain way, then don’t worry; you can always ignore your molecular structure.

The rabbis also point to the almost universal prohibition against for incest as a support for this theory. In Nature, we do not see brothers and sisters, as a rule and under normal circumstances, procreating. (There are evolutionary/biological reasons for that.) Ok. Then someone please tell me who Cain and Abel made babies with. There wasn’t anyone else around, according to the Torah. The rabbis answer that question with the proposition that Cain and Abel were born with twin sisters, with whom they began having children. WHAT? Am I hearing this right? A minute ago some rabbi was telling me that Noahide Law was an innate predisposition passed to us from Creation (which would preclude one from engaging in incest), and now, right from the get-go that same guy is telling us that the very first people on the planet had to violate it?

One obvious question arises from the actions of the Biblical characters themselves. If the Noahide laws and their consequences were well known to everyone, then how did Judah (Gen. 38:1-30) manage to solicit a prostitute, have it turn out to be his own daughter-in-law, and not only not suffer any consequence for his action, but be rewarded with sons from her to carry on his lineage, and eventually become the kings of Israel? In light of the assumed Noahide laws, the stature of a man like Judah, the clear and blatant violation of those Laws would have to end in horrible punishment, not unlike the generation of the Flood, but it seems the REVERSE was true.

Even before Judah’s adulterous tryst with Tamar, we have the little story about Jacob‘s daughter Dinah (Gen. 34:1-31) It turns out that Dinah was seduced and perhaps date-raped by a local prince. Shimon and Levi were upset about that and perhaps rightly so. They came up with a plan to kill everyone in the town. The rabbis tell us that the men of the town deserved to be killed as punishment for the action of their leader, since he violated one of the Noahide laws and they, by refusing to prosecute him for it, violated another Noahide law themselves. Now, if the Noahide Laws were universally known, then why did Jacob get so upset when he found out that his sons punished the townsmen? Jacob should have been pleased that his boys were enforcing the universally accepted moral code, but he wasn’t. Jacob was more worried about disenfranchising himself from the other locals who would view him and his family as bullies. (This seems reminiscent of the American invasion of Iraq.) The question remains, why would Jacob worry about what anyone else thought if he was just doing what God wanted? What God expected to be done? And why would the other locals be upset by Jacob’ sons doing what they must have known, according to their knowledge of Noahide Law, to be a correct and proper response? Maybe the knowledge of Noahide Law wasn’t quite as universal as the rabbis would lead us to believe. (The RamBam says that the men of Shechem were killed for their leaders kidnapping of Dinah.)

Refutation 1

Let us restate again the problem here. The Noahide Credo is not claimed to be a product of rabbinical wisdom, philosophy, or analogy. These seven laws are (according to the rabbinists) commandments that were commanded by God, first to Adam, and then through Noah to all humanity, and these commandments are found in the Torah. My purpose here is to refute that claim. I showed (above) the unlikelihood of there being such laws in the first place. This portion speaks directly to the Torah verse the RamBam sites as the Scriptural source for the Noahide laws, and how laws are derived.

Maimonides in Hilchos Melachim, is perhaps the clearest source we have for the rabbinic ideas of the Noahide Laws, and the Messianic Age. Let’s not forget that the RamBam was a powerful intellectual and philosopher and, agree or not, his Mishneh Torah was a tremendous accomplishment. One can also see Sanhedrin 57a for the Talmudic discussions of the Noahide Laws. The verse is offered there, and that is where Maimonides gets the idea.

Genesis 2:16 “And God of the powers commanded upon the man saying; from all the trees of the garden you may eat.” This is a rough translation, but to the point. This is the verse the Rambam sites as proof positive of the Noahide Credo being given to Adam. Whatever the RamBam was smoking that day is either against US law or not yet approved by the FDA. Either way, I’d like some of that smoke.

The Rambam also rules in (Hilchos Melachim 8:13): "Moshe Rabeinu commanded from the mouth of G-d to convince all the inhabitants of the world to observe the commandments given to the Children of Noach”, but we find no place in Torah where Moshe was actually commanded to do so, and we are forced to take it on faith that this relayed to Moshe from God. 8:13 continues and says “Anyone who refuses to accept the Noahide commands is to be executed.”

To the normal person reading the Biblical account, this verse means what it says and says what it means in its context. God is preparing to give Adam his very first and perhaps only restriction, and prefaces that by reassuring Adam that even if restricted from eating from the one tree, he will still have a wide range of vegetation in the garden left to consume. 2:16 and 2:17 are one idea, the word “laymor” (saying) refers to God relating to Adam the entire warning, that verb connecting the two verses as one. It doesn’t make much sense otherwise. Immediately thereafter, God shifts gears and decides that Adam needs a wife. (I wish I’d gotten to Adam first to warn him, he might have declined the offer, generous as it sounded.) So far, not too complicated.

The rabbis believe the Torah comes in layers, kind of like an onion, and they call this the Pardes (garden), an acronym for Peshat (simple meaning), Remez (hints & allegory), Drush (derived explanations), and Sod (mysticism/esoteric.) They also propose various methods for these interpretations based on anything from word-associations, to numerology, to juxtaposition. The rules for these are laid out in the Oral Laws, handed down as the Mesorah to Moses directly from God and then passed to the Elders, and so forth. So they claim.

Now, who in his right mind, without being told, would think to look for the Noahide Laws in Genesis 2:16? It seems like a Herculean stretch of the imagination to make such an assumption. Remember, we are not dealing with Shakespeare, Ovid, or the New York Times here, but the inviolate word of God. A God who says what He means, and means what He says. Now, the question is, how did the rabbis know that 2:16 referred somehow to six or seven universal commands of morality, justice, and faith? To us, it’s just talking about trees!

To understand how this happens, let’s break 2:16 down word by word and then add the rabbis interpretational method.

‘vayetzav’…the root here is TZAV (command) and this is also the root of the word mitzvah (commandment.) The rabbis claim that TZAV here takes on the same meaning the word TZAV in Hosea 5:11, where the word TZAV refers to the orders of tyrants and despots who order/command peoples to worship idols. So, the Rabbis conclude, this verse must, since it uses the word TZAV, also refer to idol worship, and here God was not only warning Adam about trees, but also instructing him and his descendents not to worship idols. The rabbis seem to be saying here that since God was already giving out orders to Adam about one thing, He might as well throw in everything along with it. Why waste the opportunity?

This brings up some obvious questions.

1) Does this mean that every time we find the word TZAV throughout the Torah, we can say those verses also refer to a prohibition of worshipping idols? Let’s test out this theory. The most prominent example would be in Leviticus 6:2. Could Leviticus 6:2 be referring to idol worship? The verse is about Moses commanding Aaron (TZAV) in the details of the daily burnt offering in the Tabernacle. I hardly find it feasible to conclude in any way that TZAV here and TZAV in Hosea 5:11 have any connection at all, unless you would say that Moses was teaching Aaron how to perform idol worship! Strike One.

2) What exactly leads the rabbis to derive the meaning of Genesis 2:16 from Hosea 5:11? The Torah comes first, not only in time, but in authority, since events closer to the Creation and/or Sinai are considered of greater weight. So then, why isn’t this the other way around? We should be interpreting Hosea 5:11 from Genesis 2:16! The very first time the word TZAV is used in Genesis 2:16 and by the rabbis logic, Genesis 2:16 should set the precedent for every other instance in which we use the word TZAV or a form thereof. So, following the likely rabbinical method here, Hosea 5:11 (and every other verse like it) must be really talking about trees! We end up having no way of knowing how to relate one instance of TZAV to another. Strike Two.

3) Hosea prophecized from 760-720 BCE, which means that Hosea 5:11 didn’t exist when God told Adam about the trees. In fact, Hosea 5:11 didn’t exist, either in concept or context until right up to about 761 BCE, which means that no one before that time could have known what Genesis 2:16 meant without it. Now, if no one knew what it meant (outside of its obvious intent), then how did anyone know, until the time of Hosea, that there were really any Noahide Laws passed to Adam at all? Strike Three.

This same method is used for the remaining part of Genesis 2:16, only with other verses from the Tanach. If you take this rabbinic logic to its illogical end, you will end up creating a huge interpretational mess. They seem to ignore time, space, context, and plain meaning at a whim, and the slightest bit of critical thinking exposes their fraud instantly.

There is no reason to take the word TZAV out of its own meaning, as a verb attached to a particular noun in a given context. There are similarities that can be drawn form words in the Torah, since the Torah is language specific, and word-association has its place. Words have roots and derivatives that can shed light on deeper understandings without radical distortions of the plain and obvious context.

Refutation 2

The Midrash says that God went to each of the 70 Gentile nations and offered them the Torah. Each nation asked some general questions about what the Torah demanded, and each declined due to some particular reason. One asked about stealing, another about murder, and yet another about adultery. Each nation was informed that such acts were strictly forbidden, and then each nation of the 70, feeling that these crimes/activities were integral to their lifestyles or cultures, decided that the Torah was not for them. All this was to have transpired at some time before the revelation at Mt. Sinai.

Every yeshiva boy/girl or Hebrew school kid learns this Midrash. It is commonly used to answer the age-old question of “why us?” and to give “chizuk” (encouragement) by making us feel special and unique for having the Torah. This might give us bit of a superiority complex, too, but I can live with that. Sometimes though, the same rabbis leave out the Midrash about God holding the mountain over our heads and FORCING us into accepting it. This notion is derived from the verse that says the Jews were camped “tachas hahar”, meaning literally “under the mountain.” I’m not here to debate the Midrash, as I think its rubbish anyhow, but to point out yet another glaring inconsistency of the Rabbis, based on the above mentioned Midrash together with the suggested notion of Noahide Laws.

Ok. Lets look at the time-line again to get the rabbinic story straight (if that’s possible.)

First: God gives a code of universal law and morality to Adam. That Code is updated after the Mabul (Flood) with one additional law. This law is universally accepted and transmitted from Noah to the subsequent generations.
Then: God goes around to all the 70 gentile nations and offers them an opportunity to accept the Torah. Each of those 70 refused, based on their own cultural preferences and morality, unacceptable as that may be seem.
Then: God tells Moshe at Mt. Sinai to force all the Gentiles to keep the Noahide Laws, laws which they should have already known about, yet, such a monumental undertaking somehow escapes mention in the Tanach until 10 centuries later.

In light of our discussion on Noahide Law, this Midrash becomes problematic. Here goes. Follow carefully.

The assumption is that Pre-Sinai all of humanity knew about the Noahide Laws. So, if they already had this wonderful moral code to live by, then why did God offer them a Torah? They would have already been fulfilling everything that was required of them and would be, in any case, considered as righteous Gentiles. So what would the Torah have added for them, if they were already righteous in the eyes of God? And if they weren't fulfilling even the Seven Noahide Laws, then why would God expect them to accept and keep the 613?

In addition, the Midrash states the questions and concerns offered by the 70 nations, and lo and behold, among them are stealing, murder, and adultery! Three of the seven Noahide Laws! The Gentiles could have simply answered “Oh. We have those already. Remember?” And if God already knew about the Noahide laws (seeing as He’s the one who gave them), why when asked what the Torah contained, did God respond with stealing, murder, and adultery? He perhaps should have mentioned tefillin, shatnez, or kashrut! It seems that God was asking them to do something they never heard of before, from the plain fact that they seemed rather surprised when they heard of it. What this entire scenario implies, if we are to take the Midrash at face value, is that there was no long-standing Noahidic tradition, since it seems that neither God nor the 70 nations He surveyed seemed to be aware of it!

Mis-Nagid made a very good point on his weblog that I had planned to touch upon in respect to the humanistic value of such laws and the danger they pose to freedom and free thinking. On the surface, these laws seem rather innocuous, but once one begins to extract the details and follow their implementation to a logical conclusion, the results are very disturbing.

If you have a theory about why the Rabbis would need to come up with such a claim, please let me know. I think it was another layer of lies to cover their tracks when holes began to show up in their alleged Mesorah.

Jew-Do (My Miserable Mastery of Martial Arts)

Wu-Shu (Sport)

I’ve been unsuccessfully trying to master any one of the two zillion martial arts for the longest time. Maybe I’m not the fighting type, but I’m not the bleeding type either, and don’t want to find out how that feels, so I keep trying. Miserably, I might add.

In one class, a style I do not remember, we started with proper breathing and screaming techniques. It looked more like a Lamaze class for people with Tourette’s syndrome, and within a short time I could break my own water and shatter glass. I only thing I learned in there was how to hold back my laughter. Never underestimate the value of that skill. It comes in handy at work.

The next attempt was Tai Chi. I know there are benefits to Tai Chi such as improved balance, deep breathing, and meditation, and that’s all fine and good. But if I’m under any kind of threat at this point, I kind of think that running really, really, really fast in the other direction will provide more protection than moving really, really slow within a five or six foot radius. There should be more Tai Chi classes available for those who like to move slowly. Maybe, just maybe, that would get the slowpokes out of the passing lanes, or out from in front of us in the supermarket, and all together in one room where they belong, sequestered from the rest of us who didn’t evolve directly from snails.

Next came Kendo. That’s Japanese fencing for the uninitiated. If you can afford private lessons take them. Otherwise, you will subject to constant humiliation at the hands of 10 year old Japanese kids 1/3 your size, who visit the dojo to see how ‘round eyes’ is managing with their tradition. A match begins and ends with the kid flicking the boken or shinai out of my hands with 0.3 seconds, after which he (or she) calmly and ceremoniously 'air-hacks' me into Sushi. Nothing builds confidence like that experience. It’s no wonder Japanese cars are better. Their kids are building them!

Then there was aikido. Never mind asking. Did you ever see how women used to launder clothing before the washing machine was invented? That’s what the Aikido experience seems like to me. The instructor is the beating and twisting the laundry (me) against the mat, over and over again. Time was way overdue to add some fabric softener. I love the art, and the science of the art is a wonder to behold. Isaac Newton would have loved Aikido. From a distance! The scientific know-how that enables mankind to launch probes deep into the outer reaches of our solar system is the very same technique that the Sensei used to pummel me repeatedly off the canvas, the wall, other students, and the ceiling. I learned two important lessons in Aikido. Don’t pick fights with the instructor, and never underestimate the pull of gravity.

Boxing is really cool and of all the sports that are out there, it’s the only one I follow religiously, but as you probably have already seen, I have always worn eyeglasses. My eyesight is not what you’d call ‘bad’, unless you consider that the average person with 20/20, when wearing my specs, can see the future! So even when training in the gym, which I love to do, and thinking that I’m doing quite well, quickly discover that once any serious sparring ensues, at least half the punches thrown are being delivered from a nearly-invisible hologram at a very, very short distance from my face. Once my health insurance premiums and deductibles went up too high, I figured it was time for a change of hobby. Painful AND expensive sounds too much like marriage to be considered worthwhile endeavor.

Then I tried Philipino Knife fighting. Well. By the time the first two weeks went by, I was so skilled in hurting others (and myself) with a blade that I started to eat my toast dry for fear of losing a digit. The song says there are “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover”, but in knife fighting, there seem to be any number of ways to “leave your lover” in little pieces. Sounds messy. Whose going to clean THAT up?

Then came archery. Oh, this was definitely NOT good. A bow and arrow in my hands is like a deaf man playing an out-of-tune one string guitar. Just glad I’m Jewish-American and not Native-American. I’d be chased off the reservation. I suppose if I were to have a real native name it would translate into something like “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you”, “Don’t quit your day job”, or “he was adopted.”

I don’t like guns. I’m happy the Israelis have lots of them, but for myself I’d rather remain defenseless. We are ALL safer that way. I can’t even shoot straight with a camera and I don’t expect my aim to improve much if firing an AR15. I’m safe enough giving off the impression that I might carry a gun around than actually having one. Fear of the unknown is an awesome weapon.

I suppose the best self-defense is still a friendly smile, a laugh, and an apology when necessary. Being prone to the occasional social blunder (say it’s not so!), I have mastered the art of humility and begging forgiveness. Groveling is a martial art taught to Jewish men by their wives. It’s not pretty to watch, but it might help you survive. I wonder what a tournament would look like. I shudder to imagine.

If nothing else, the martial arts gives one a real appreciation for the human body, its frailties, and its immense power. Or, in my case, it let me know just how much punishment I could stand before I quit. Not much. That’s for sure.

Bus Stories of a Meandering Jew

I’ve traveled a great deal around the continental US and Canada, and I’ve done most of it by Greyhound or some other non-descript bus line. I know you’re going to ask, “You have a nice car, or you can afford to fly. Why Greyhound? There are lots of crazy people riding those buses!” What you don’t realize is that is precisely why I love riding the bus. The people who DO ride the bus are usually the poor souls who can’t afford to do get around any other way, or those, like myself who are fascinated by communal travel, and love interacting with other travelers. I’m crazy. We all know that.

When you travel by car, and I enjoy that, too, but without the benefit of satellite radio you are pretty much going to have to endure long hours of country music and gospel preaching as you cross this great land of ours. In the air, every passenger straps themselves into a tight little seat, puts down the tray table, slaps on the headphones, and secretly wishes they were alone on the flight. Unlike the plane, one can stretch out on the less crowded buses, and even grab the long bench in back if one doesn’t mind being close to the bathroom, and catch a decent nap. Being trapped by myself in a car, however, even a nice one, is just plain boring, and if you enjoy the trip as much as the destination, you don’t mind having a few other people to share it with along the way.

Bus travel is interesting. It’s kind of like jury duty on wheels. Once you get on, there is no getting off, you are trapped for long period of time with the same people, and no matter how bad the ride may get, you’re stuck for the duration. I can think of no better opportunity to meet and befriend compete strangers than when trapped in motion for 6 hours at a time, and bored senseless looking for something to obscure the images of passing tractor trailers and cornfields. The buses are filled with people who have real stories to tell about life, pain, and hope, and many times those stories turn out to be the very reason they're riding the bus.

I enjoy listening to others speak about how they ended up where they are, or even just stories about dumb things that happened along life’s road. Poor people have better stories than rich ones. Rich people have life stories that are boring. They have so many people doing other things for them, that I have to wonder what it is they do to keep themselves breathing, other than managing all those people they hire. The people on the bus don’t bore me with giddy little anecdotes about trinkets from Bali, or how a Rolex they ordered ended up being shipped to their Paris address (how on earth did they survive that one!) I met real people, some with real hefty problems, and most of them, believe it or not, showed a tremendous amount of courage, hope, and good humor.

The dangerous people that we are always being warned about don’t actually ride the bus. They hang around in the bus terminals and prey on those who ride the buses, looking for stray luggage or dropped money. I learned this in Chicago and once again in Reno. I was never accosted or robbed, but there were always a good number of drifters and scum looking for teenage girls or old ladies traveling alone. On a trip out to Denver, I befriended a 19 year old girl after telling some bum that I was her uncle to chase him off. And yes, we did spend a couple of nights/days together once we reached our destinations. I don’t remember her name, but I DO remember everything else.

The secret to better bus travel is planning ahead and having a plan B when things don’t go as expected. Sometimes it requires a bit of ingenuity, sometimes more money. The thing to watch out for in the big city terminals, aside from the police and the criminals, is the bus companies themselves. They tend to oversell tickets the same way that airlines do. They know that a certain number passengers might not show up, probably due to parole violations, so they feel it is safe to overbook. In the rural areas this isn’t a problem because passengers are generally few in number, but in the cities it IS. If you are traveling out to Ekvelt, Wisconsin, there is only going to be one bus a day going that direction, and if you end up being booted off the bus, you’ll be spending the next 24 hours fending off a sore tuchis from sitting in the bus station. Keep a towel handy.

I was only bumped off a bus once in Chicago, and Greyhound was more than gracious about it, refunding my entire fare AND offering me an extra one-way to anywhere I wanted to go in the 48 states. The funny part is that they had only sold 1 ticket too many , and as luck would have it, right behind me at the end of line for boarding the bus stood a pregnant woman and her 3 year old daughter. I knew it was going to be a long wait for the next one, but chivalry kicked in and I walked away. Chances are you’re not the only person stranded in the bus terminal and you might find some pleasant company to help pass time while you’re waiting.

Travel light. Nothing ruins the road trip like having to shlepp around too much stuff. As a guy who wasn’t particularly careful about shaving everyday anyhow, one disposable razor worked fine for shaving under the neck. If you are finicky about showering everyday, don’t use the bus as your primary mode of cross country travel. Travel in the summers so you can wear sandals and a light jacket, though if you are going anywhere near the Rockies, be prepared to freeze if you’re not prepared. At many of the bus stops they have souvenir booths. Avoid buying crap along the way. It’s just more to carry. Stretch as often as you can, and laugh more than usual. Find someone pretty and make conversation. Traveling light is also a state of mind.

Always bring something to break the monotony. Nothing kills faster than boredom. I brought along with me a miniature computerized chess game (I suck at chess), some light reading, and a deck of playing cards for when I was feeling more social. The cards came in handy on a leg between Butte and Sandpointe, when the bus suddenly broke down in the middle of Gornisht. There were a few marines on leave on that bus and we played poker for about three hours until help arrived. They had some stories to tell, and I wish I had written them down. Marines DO know how adapt, innovate, and overcome. One of them smuggled an entire case of Labatt’s onto the bus. It wasn't cold, but it was there. A good time was had by all.

One funny story, which occurred on the same bus, was sitting directly behind me. You know, when you grow up in the ghetto of orthodox Jewish Brooklyn, your life is pretty much limited to whom you meet right then and there, and when you hear stories about what happens to people out in the country, you seldom get to see it up close and personal. I’m sure many of you have heard the jokes about the Redneck or Hillbilly that somehow managed to run himself over with his own pick-up truck. You’ve heard of him, I MET him.

The poor bastard was in a cast that extended from his ankle all the way up over his hip. That could not have made bus travel any easier to bear. So, in pure Aronovitz fashion, I remarked, “I’d hate to see what the other guy looks like!” He laughed, and then of course proceeded to share every gory detail of this comic tragedy that he could recollect. Before I recount his saga, let me preface by saying that I KNEW already how the story was to begin before he even began telling it, and yes, it began with drinking heavily, as I imagined (doesn’t everything?). Here is his story.

“I was drinking a lot that night. My wife had left me for the 3rd time and I was really upset. So I drove back up past the farm to Rosie’s Bar to get my mind off her. (In that part of the country nobody actually ‘drinks’. They just ‘get their minds off’.) To make a long story short (probably because he didn’t remember much more than that), it was raining when they closed down the bar so I decided, even though I was way too drunk for driving, that I would drive home anyway because it was still raining (seamless logic, no?). My trailer is set up on a hill and there is steep incline (he didn’t use THAT word) getting up to it. So I drove home, turned off the engine, and got out, when I noticed the truck starting to roll backwards. I must have forgotten to set the parking brake again. (Notice how he said “again”.) So I ran down the hill ahead of the truck and tried to stop it with my leg.”

There you have it. If I hadn’t been on the bus, I never would have met the legend.

More to come!

If you have any good bus stories, please share them!

Foamy

Feel My Squirrely Wrath!

This is a dedication to Foamy. If you don’t know who Foamy is yet, please visit him at www.illwillpress.com. There is profanity and adult subject matter, so it is not for children. Much thanks to Krystina G for showing me the way to Foamy, and sharing Foamy-isms with me during the day, making our office a lot more fun. (KG is an awesome Graphics Artist, too.)

Judaism: Original or Just Extra Crispy?

The New Shul?

It is often claimed that we Jews had the truth before anyone else, or that at least, we inherited the truth from our forefathers who, as the Midrash says, “fulfilled the Torah before it was given.” (That claim alone is worth questioning.)

Did we? Are we absolutely sure about this? I am willing to cede that we have formed an interesting conglomeration of ideals into a cohesive religious doctrine, but that’s as far as it goes. When tracing the roots of each of the particular beliefs, however, one always ends up staring right into the eyeballs of the Early Canaanites, Zoroastrians, or Greeks. We might have the Christians to thank, too, because there seems to be so much that we do, have changed, or don’t do so as not to resemble them.

If one tracks the chronology of changes in Jewish philosophy, practice, and society alongside the rise and fall of the surrounding empires, one thing stands out very clear. Our conquerors left more than just graves and widows behind. It is extremely rare that a vanquished nation feels none of the cultural effects or influences of its conquerors. The effects have gone way beyond those that would occur due to an attitude Rabbinic Law that demands Dina d’Malchusa Dina (the law of the ruling power is to be followed.)

The most profound examples are the administrations of Ezra and Nechemiah. Both were Persian ministers sent by Cyrus (who the NaCh calls a ‘moshiach’) to reeducate the populace of Jerusalem. One of the first edicts of Ezra was that Jewish men should divorce their gentile wives. For a nation that expanded its ranks by intermarriage (following the lead of Melech Shlomo), that would have been quite a shock to the system. Yet, the the most drastic change was the way that Tumah and Tahara were implemented. Previous to the time of Ezra (d.350 BCE), the levels of sanctity of the home were not on the same level as that of the Bais HaMikdosh, but after this time, new rules were put in place that applied to husband and wife as well.

I thought that unlikely until I explored the extant Zoroastrian texts and compared them to the Laws of Nidah and Taharas HaMishpocho (Family Purity) that we have today, and found remarkable if not almost plagiarized similarities between them. The Zoroastrian fixation/obsession with sex, menstrual blood, and death became, as result of Persian influence, part of our heritage. Among the other ideals NOT mentioned by Moshe, but later adopted from the Zoroastrians are messianism (moshiach), techiyas hamaysim (Resurrection of the Dead), and bans on intermarriage.

Example: Nidus & Taharas Hamishpocho

It is well known that in Canaanite culture, the woman was sequestered during her period, and it was socially unacceptable to have sexual contact during the menstrual cycle. The Canaanites were not alone in that belief, since many cultures considered it a time of ritual impurity and death. Bleeding out in those times was generally fatal, and little was really understood about female anatomy, ovulation, and menstruation. Each culture developed its own way of handling those things it could not understand.

Now I can say with relative certainty that the early Israelites were influenced by Canaanite culture because the sons of Jacob married Canaanite women(Torah SAYS so), were born, lived, and worked among Canaanites, no doubt were influenced by their surroundings. Not an unreasonable assumption to make.

(Suggested reading: The Red Tent by Anita Diamand. I loved it.)

So it is not surprising that Moses would write in Lev. 18:19 "and unto a woman during the unseemliness of her period, you should not draw close to uncover her nakedness." (I really hate translating that way.) Notice that there is no mention of mikveh, washing, waiting, counting, checking, etc.

Lev. 20:18 “If a man lies with a woman during her period and uncovers her nakedness, opening her source, and she exposed the source of her blood; both of them will be cut off from the people.”

Both prohibitions are listed among the sexual taboos, but NOT among the laws of ritual purity. Being read in context lets one know clearly that this restriction is not one of purity in the sense of ritual cleanliness, but rather is one of a moral/social nature, similar to those other sexual restrictions it is listed among.

There is no specific detail as to what "washing" means. Many verses relating to ritual impurities say "verochatz es besaro" (He should wash his body), but give no detail as how to wash. The Torah does not say anywhere "vetovayl es besaro" (he should immerse his body), but simply bathe, which reasonably could mean just a simple bath or even shower. In addition, if her period was a matter of ritual impurity, then it would have a sacrifice of some sort associated with it, yet there is none.

There is an exception for a woman after childbirth, but this case is ONLY related to after childbirth and NOT normal sexual contact.

Lev. 12:2-8 “When a woman gets pregnant and bears a son, she will be unclean for seven days; just as during her period she will be unclean. (Skip to verse 4) “And for 33 days she will wait for blood purification; no holy thing can she touch, and to the temple she may not come until her days of purification are complete.”

Skip to verse 6 – 8 where it lists in detail the place, time, and number of sacrifices she must bring in order to be allowed into the Temple. No where does it mention mikveh or washing at all!! So we find that even in a case where the temple is involved, where ostensibly the standard should be much higher, that there is no washing involved in the woman’s purification, but merely a waiting period and a small sacrifice.

The changes imposed by Ezra and Nechemia accompanied the changes that went along with the Cyrus’ Temple. The Jews did not build an alternate Temple on Gerizim without reason, but because they SAW what was going on in Jerusalem, along with the new rules imposed upon them, along with a different language (Avestan.) Part of the new rules were ritual immersion and extra stringencies for all sorts of things, both holy and mundane, which came directly from Zoroastrian law, but NOT from the Torah.

http://www.avesta.org/pahlavi/shayest3.html

This link will take you to Shayest Na-Shayest ('Proper and Improper'), a chapter out of the Avesta, which is part of the body of intricate Zoroastrian laws related to ritual impurities of menstruation. There, one sees the close similarities between rabbinic doctrine and the Zoroastrian laws, though even the Zoroastrians go well beyond the Rabbis in some respects.

The Jews are conquered by the Assyrians, who in turn are absorbed into Babylon. Persia conquers Babylon and takes over its empire. Persia has evangelical Zoroastrian King named Cyrus. Jews that are exiled to Persia become influenced (converted) by the King. King sends personal ministers (Ezra and Nechemiah) back to their native homeland (Israel) to spread Zoroastrianism, thus promoting both the religion and securing the realm through unification of religious practice. No doubt there was a political end in mind also. The Persian Kings routinely co-opted the names and styles of local gods and goddesses to their own thinking in order to placate the indigenous peoples. Marduk, a Babylonian god, was brought into Zoroastrianism after the Persian conquest as well. It also is likely that Ezra and Nechemiah were either accompanied by Persian forces, or at least had the threat of their presence available to them to enforce the new changes.

(Marduk and Ishtar, both Babylonian gods, sound way too much like Mordechai and Esther. I’m doubly suspicious because the story of Purim doesn’t have any historical corroboration from alternative sources.)

The Greeks

The Greeks had no less an influence upon Jewish thought than did the Persians. The Kabala is adapted from Plato and other Neo-Platonists such as Philo Alexandria (born 25 BC) and Plotinus(204-270AD). Much of classical Jewish thought was shaped by Aristotle and Plato, and the Scholastics from all three religions wrote apologetics in tandem with one another during the rich philosophical periods in Euro-Middle Eastern history.

In the Talmud, we find a few of Zeno’s Paradoxes (born 490BC) in one form or another. This is not just a speculative venture on the part of a bored Talmudic Sage interested in a mental exercise. In one particular case (the one I can remember anyhow), Zeno’s idea was central to a halachic decision regarding the Laws of Sabbath Carrying, where if deliberately transgressed, would possibly draw the death penalty as a result. This is found in the first chapter of the Gemara Shabbos, and the name of the paradox is Kluta k’Huncha Dumya. The question is whether or not an object thrown over the airspace of a private domain , can be considered as if it is resting in that domain, thus becoming a desecration of the Sabbath. Zeno’s paradox of airspace, rest, and arrows is used to resolve this question, without, of course, any mention of Zeno of Elea.

The Kabala, which didn’t take its present form until the Ari Z’L in the 1500s, had its Jewish roots in the Mishnaic/Talmudic Era, but the foundations are much older. Plato’s (427-347BC) concepts of forms, ideas, justice, virtue, use of allegory, and Hermeticism made their way into Jewish Mysticism and Kabalistic Ethics. Many claim that it was the other way around, and that the Greeks stole the ideas from the Jews, but the chronology and the evidence show that it is otherwise. The influence of Stoics and Cynics was no less profound. Consider the close political and social ties between the Jewish communities of Israel and those of Alexandria, the center of knowledge and philosophy in the modern world, and the historical dots get connected very quickly.

These are just a couple of examples where Jews borrowed or were forced to accept non-Jewish ideals into Judaism. I don’t feel compelled to observe something as a mitzvah because a Greek Philosopher, or some Persian Tyrant decided it would be fun or politically expedient to have us concern ourselves with it. The problem is that Judaism has been doing so many non-Jewish things for so long a time that it is has become deeply ingrained in the cultural mindset, and reinforced by lack of knowledge as to the original sources. Oh well.

We are not the original, but like the Moslem, Hindu, or Christian (who copy much from us), just another version of “Extra Crispy.” I have no need for a religion at all, let alone one that fails to recognize or acknowledge its roots.

All Hail the Colonel! (OH)

Reshus L'Mashchis

כיון שניתן רשות למשחית אינו מבחין בין צדיקים לרשעים

"Kiven Shniten Reshus L'mashchis Aino Mavchin beyn Tzadikim la’Reshaim" (Talmud Bava Kama Chapter 6)

This phrase is usually brought out when the Shoah (Holocaust) is discussed, to explain why both religious AND non-religious Jews were killed and why the killing was indiscriminate. One would think, considering all the promises made in the Torah to those who keep the commandments, and they would naturally be spared the wrath that ensues. I can think of no better testimonial to the Faith of Israel and the existence of God, than the protection of his faithful in troubled times. But alas, it was not to be.

For those of you who don’t know what that phrase means, I’ll translate it here. “Since permission is granted to the Destroyer, He (the Destroyer) makes no differentiation between Righteous and Wicked.”

This means that once God unleashes this ‘punisher/destroyer’, it no longer matters whether one is righteous or sinful, because this Destroyer doesn’t make any effort to discern between good and bad individuals. Shit. Even Santa Claus manages that! What’s up with the Destroyer? Is he dumb? Or is he just lazy? How is this possible?

This is the excuse intended to justify all the inconsistencies in God’s Judgments/Actions as it concerns protecting the righteous and punishing the wicked. It is but another layer of deceit, another level of rabbinic spin-doctoring, serving as more apologetics/excuses as to why God fails to keep His promises and routinely disregards His own sense of jurisprudence as it is stated in Torah.

The claim is that this Destroyer does not (or cannot) make differentiations, but in Exodus, when God told Moses that He was going to kill the First Born of Egypt, He instructed Moses to have the Jews paint a mark in blood on the doorpost of their home, so the Angel Destroyer would see that it is a Jewish Home and not kill the firstborn inside. What we see from the Plague of the First Born is that this Angel Destroyer is in fact capable of discerning between good/bad, Jew/Gentile, and believer/apostate. This is why we call the holiday Passover. The Torah suggests that the Destroyer IS capable, but for some reason the rabbis do not. (It’s about time they got their story straight.)

Furthermore, the Talmud in Bava Kama (I’m so glad I looked it up) is explaining why the Israelites were told to stay in their homes the entire night, because being outside would expose them to the Destroyer. The reason staying in the home would protect them from destruction was because they were participating in the Paschal Offering (that’s where the blood came from for the doorpost) and the Destroyer would see that the people fulfilled the Mitzvah and skip over their homes. So it was this one and only Mitzvah they had that saved them. So why didn’t the 613 mitzvos of Torah (plus the 7 of the Rabbis) act as enough protection for the righteous Jews of the 1940s?

Now some would argue that it was the non-religious who brought down the Destroyer on everyone. Maybe so. But that doesn’t explain how the righteous became caught up in that. If we go back to the Exodus from Egypt, Rashi explains that only one fifth of the Jews actually left Egypt, and the remaining ones were killed in the Plague of the First Born. So once again I ask, if God was able to differentiate in ancient times, why wasn’t He able to do it in the 20^th century?

In addition to all of the above issues, angels like Raphael, Satan, or the Angel of Death, according to Jewish Tradition do not have free will, but are mindless messengers of God. For this reason, it is claimed, the Angels did not receive a Torah because without free will, a code of law would be unnecessary. This ‘Destroyer’ is essentially an automaton, fulfilling the will and desire of its Maker. So if God made it, and God sent it, then why do we not say that God Himself does not discriminate between righteous and sinful, and cut out the middleman?

This deception is designed to deflect attention and blame for our suffering from the God who ORDERED it, onto a ‘Destroyer’, who in reality could have done nothing less than it was commanded to do by his Superior. If I program a computer to send out a virus over a wide network, then it is not the computer that is to blame, but the programmer and operator of that computer. Angels are, in every sense of the word, inanimate objects in motion, possessing neither will nor consciousness of their own. This is what Judaism believes.

The bigger issue is how God can take such an attitude that is direct conflict with everything that anyone holds as fair and just, that the righteous are rewarded and only the guilty are punished. If God is truly Omniscient, then He must KNOW who is deserving of punishment or not, yet He, for some unknown reason, decided that fairness was not a priority. Its not reassuring to imagine that even after years of following the spirit and letter of Jewish Law, that one could be swept away by suffering and murder as if he had been the greatest evildoer of all time. This means that in spite of God’s Omniscience and assumed love for Justice and Right, He is willing to IGNORE His own Torah, and murder the righteous along with the wicked. God doesn’t have to worry though, since his Rabbis are planning another argument in His defense.

No one would try and justify the execution of an entire family or community because of the sin or crime of one of its members, especially when the criminal is KNOWN and can be picked out for punishment on his own. That is something done by tyrants and maniacs.

This notion of indiscriminate punishment from a God who should know better, offends humanity’s sense of both justice and compassion. I guess it is as the song says, “You only hurt the ones you love.”

Movie Reviews (The Prequel!)

Growing up ultra-religious, one learns some distaste for entertainment. There was no television in my childhood home, and going to movie theatres was strictly taboo (with the exception of Operation Thunderbolt, a movie about the rescue of the Israeli Hostages in Uganda.) Needless to say, I wasn’t exposed to any of the normal media that most people experience, and had to make do with references and images I would pick up from billboards or hear on the bus and subway. I had some catching up to do.

Even post-adolescence and into college, when my world expanded greatly from a secular education, I held this tremendous disdain for entertainment in part out of religious doctrine, in part out of habit, and in part out of just having no time to enjoy it. Wife, kids, job, school, and religious duties eat up a lot of time. I don’t remember sleeping at back in those days. The free time I did have was being used to memorize an infinite amount of data necessary for exams.

At 28 years old, when I finally gave up my last vestige of religious superstition (thank you Darwin!), I was still quite cynical regarding entertainment and found little reason to enjoy anything other than the bizarre or the patently ridiculous (thus my fascination with Japanese Monster flicks.) Being trained in school to garner and gather knowledge was my primary way of relating and even if I did happen to see a movie, my mind was just never into it, and I came away not appreciating the film at all. I was watching images, but not seeing the picture. That was 16 years ago, and as the bulimic bitch with the three-pack-a-day habit says “You’ve come a long way, baby!” Now, I can actually enjoy a good movie. Finding a good movie to enjoy is still another issue altogether.

I still don’t ever seem to be able to remember who stars in a movie, who directs it, or who wrote the soundtrack. I don’t even give a shit. Some people wet themselves with delight when they hear that so-and-so or whatzer-face will be in a movie, and no matter how piss poor the writing, they will always come out of the theatre glowing with orgasmic delight. I don’t get that at all. Especially lately, when you have all these old –ass washed up heroes of cinematic yore making the absolutely worst fucking movies in history. I swear that if I see another fill-in-the-fucking-blanks hack job of a movie, I will kill myself for being either too gullible or just too fucking lazy to get up from my seat and walk out. No amount of marijuana could get me to enjoy another whiny-ass tear-jerking tale of the single mom overcoming adversity, or some other waste of fucking screen-time family that can’t get along without a crisis. Oh. And no more cars chases and people attached to wires. I’ve seen enough of that shit to last me forever. For a car chase to be original, it would have to include myself and two Asian hookers being chased by psychic Shriners through an abandoned synagogue. The rest has been done already way too many times.

I love foreign films that don’t have happy endings. Those are the films that say to you “Life sucks and it’s predictably angst ridden. Try to get laid while you can.” The British films all have the same themes somewhere in the film: unemployment, daddy issues, and homosexuality. French films always have a sexual theme, which is why you have to love the French. No matter how bizarre things get they can always find time for a quickie. French horror flicks, on the other hand, are so tedious that you end up hoping that the director gets hacked to death by a movie-goer obsessed with the slasher/killer before the film is even completed. The French should leave the horror genre to the German’s, because every movie (Das Boat is an exception) the Storm Trooper’s racially superior offspring produce ends up being ‘horror’ anyhow. The British horror flicks are just plain campy, and there is always some wise-ass smoking a pipe and giving out wonderful advice while some closeted homosexual in an ascot is feeling frustrated over his bride to be falling under the monster’s demonic power. Even the presence of Vincent Price couldn’t save those losers. Tea?

The oriental martial arts flicks haven’t improved in 20 years, with still a lot of flying on wires, magical storylines, and really, really bad dialogue. I’ve seen better script writing in amateur-midget porn videos. I’m just glad I don’t speak Mandarin, Cantonese, or any other Chinese dialect, because God forbid if I find out what they are actually saying, it could be even worse than the fucked up dubbing job that the producer’s retarded nephew managed between packing carry-outs, and I would have to slash my own wrists out of shame for hearing it. No MSG please.

I ceremoniously piss on all vampire movies made after Coppola’s Dracula. End of story. I hope Ann Rice gets kidnapped by some Goth kids and is forced to adapt her dumb-ass blood fetish love stories to nursery rhymes with themes of racial bigotry. The movies “Blade” and “Blade II” with Wes Snipes were pretty good action flicks and I thought the idea was original, but you’d have to fill a theatre with beer and have strippers swimming in it to get me to see either one a second time. There was some lame Czech shit on recently about werewolves and vampires at war. The whole movie was gunfire, greasy Eurohair, and other than the few hot bitches in leather, it was about as cliché as cliché gets. Bite me.

Special effects are bullshit and only impress the small personas that enjoy dildos and silicone implants. So if the “T” series left an indelible mark on your soul, you should have yourself euthanised now before you reproduce. You are just another mindless ferret-brain enthralled by shiny objects and loud noises. I bet you even like car chases. How many pyro-technical light shows is enough? If you want fire and smoke go to a Great White concert.

Mob/gangster movies do not impress me at all. By the end of Godfather III, I was hoping that someone was going to ‘whack’ me out of my misery. Goodfellas and Casino provided Joe Pesci with rare opportunity to dress in own personal wardrobe on set, and at best, those films served as 1st auditions for the cast of the Sopranos. Save me a front row seat at Bada-Bing next to the titties.. Anyone fascinated with lots of hairy-knuckled illiterate Italians mumbling in ooohs and ahhhs should visit Long Island, and stay the fuck off my movie screen. Capish?

Fuck all westerns, and I mean every fucking one of them, except for the Spaghetti western. No one could make movies that bad without INTENDING to do so, and such rare effort deserves mentioning. I don’t even know if they can be called westerns (or movies) at all. Once again the Italians do nothing but annoy me. Thank heavens they can cook, or we’d have to give them back to the Germans. Please lower your arms, we’re not at war.

Believe it or not, there are lots of movies (besides the French films) that I have thoroughly enjoyed, and those movies, both older and newer will get some awesome reviews. Actors, whose cinematic exploits normally bore the living shit out of me, have recently shown me that, once again, my mind can be changed. Both Tom Cruise and Russell Crowe have renewed my faith that idiots CAN, on occasion, make a good film even better.

Stay tuned!

Kol Isha Tzricha Kavana?

One has to wonder if the rules aren't creating the problem in the first place. Lets look at "Kol Isha'.

Now if I suggest to a complete stranger that listening to a woman's voice causes unwarranted sexual arousal, I would get the same look back that my dog would give me if I tried to explain it quantum mechanics. Nobody normal would ever suggest that we would have a better society if all men were forbidden to listen to female vocals. (The exception would be made for Celine Dion. Truly, a pact with Satan if I ever saw one, and she must either go away or be killed.)

No offense to the ladies who may be reading this, but there isn't one among you that could bring me to a state of arousal just by singing, even if you have a lovely voice (and I’m sure some of you do.) I just don't operate that way, and frankly I also don't know of anyone outside of the frumme/heimishe veldt that runs for cover at the sound of Aretha Franklin asking for a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

When you start associating KOL ISHA with ERVAH, you are defining KOL ISHA as ERVAH, and every time you think of KOL ISHA, you will in fact be thinking of ERVA. It doesn't have to be empirically true for one to believe it, but so long as one can scare the pants back on someone else because of ERVA, one will also be afraid of KOL ISHA.

The Gemara in Brochos says “Ha mistakel ba’erva kashto nineres” (if you look at nudity it causes impotence), and it is followed by a Tana saying, that “even looking at the ankle of a woman in passing” constitutes ‘mistakel ba’erva’. Whew! That was one horny mutha fucka! Did he just get out of prison? (That kind of thinking reminds me of the Taliban.)

So this is what ensues from all this. You ingrain it into the poor bastard’s psyche that looking anywhere near a woman causes impotence. So this fellow now has to spend every waking hour, and probably worries in his dreams, too, that he has somewhere, somehow seen a shtickle erva in someplace, and because of that his shmuck won’t work right when the time finally comes to use it. So now you have planted the idea of ERVA in his head as a constant vigil, along with the anxieties of erectile dysfunction! What began as a regulation to deter unwarranted sexual thoughts has now blossomed into a psychological disorder, and what’s the result? What does he think about all day? Using his shmuck!

By calling something ERVA, one, by proxy, creates the ERVA. A woman’s voice is just a woman’s voice. If the words are suggestive in nature, then even if it were a man singing, I would agree that its probably not best to listen to it if it offended one’s moral sensibilities.

WARNING! If any of the men reading this have experienced an erection while listening to Ethel Merman belting out the Star Spangled Banner, please call this hotline right away. 1-800-KOL-ISHA.

Mashgichim are standing by to assist you in your time of arousal.