Hashem Is Here Hashem Is There

A friend of mine has at least two children.

One, age 3, asked, "How come I can't see or touch God?"

The 6-year-old answered:

Because God is everywhere! If God were visible, you wouldn't be able to see anything but God. If God were touchable, you wouldn't be able to touch anything else. Same with tasting, and hearing. So God has to be invisible and untouchable, because otherwise you wouldn't be able to get anything done.

Ve’ahavta le-*Rī‘u-kha Kamokha ?

Shemot/Exodus 10:10 —וַיֹּאמֶר אֲלֵהֶם
יְהִי כֵן יייי עִמָּכֶם
כַּאֲשֶׁר אֲשַׁלַּח אֶתְכֶם
וְאֶת טַפְּכֶם
רְאוּ כִּי רָעָה נֶגֶד פְּנֵיכֶם

Old JPS Translation:
And he said unto them:
'So be the LORD with you,
as I will let you go,
and your little ones;
see ye that evil is before your face.
I don't remember where or when I got this idea, or who I got it from, but did you ever wonder what if רעה here isn't the Hebrew word ‘evil’ — but is instead meant to represent the name of the Egyptian sun-god, Ra?

In that case, maybe a translation of this pasuq should look like this:

And then [Par‘o] said to [Moshe and Aharon],
“Fine, be that way. And may your god be with you
when I kick you out,
and your little dog kids, too;
be aware, though, that Ra will get you!”

The Dayenu Factor

I have friends from college who have what they call a "Nazi Fund" — a stash of money that they keep around just in case the United States of America falls into totalitarianism and they need to get the heck out of Dodge.

Former Air Force officer Mikey Weinstein is fighting hard to make sure that they'll never need to use it.

Read the month-old interview of him
in¹ three² parts³ at Salon.
Here's a juicy teaser quote:

Many [evangelical Christians] tell me, "Mikey, OK, Anne Frank, Dr. Seuss, Jack Benny, Gandhi, they're all burning eternally in the fires of hell." And here's the distinction they just don't fucking get, these cocksuckers do not get this: I would give my last drop of blood and my last breath, and I would commend my three children in the Air Force -- one of whom's going to be heading to Iraq in a few months -- to give their last drop of blood and their last breath to support the rights of these people to believe that Anne Frank is burning eternally in hell … If they want to believe that their version of Jesus has her burning eternally in hell, I'd give my life for that. But I will not do that if my government tells me who are the children of the greater God and who are the children of the lesser God or no God at all. And that's what these monsters are doing.

If you are in the USA, and your synagogue says a prayer for the American armed forces, you might want to keep in mind to ask God to protect our soldiers from hostile enemies on foreign soil... as well as hostile 'friends' back here at home.

Why Indiscriminate Kiruv Is Wrong

see Overheard in New York.

What Was Pharoah Afraid Of?

What was the Pharoah at the beginning of Shemot/Exodus so afraid of, that made him declare 'open season' on Israelite baby boys? Let's look at his own words:

Hey, the Nation of the Israelite People is greater and more powerful than us! C'mon, let's be wise to them — lest they get more numerous, and it may be that war will be called against us, and they, too, will become added onto our haters, and they will fight us, and ascend from the land.

The end of Par‘o's unwanted scenario is that Beney Yisra’eil will fight against Egypt, ועלה מן הארץ, "and ascend from the land".

What does that mean? The King of the Land of Fertile Black Soil probably would not use the same philosophical geographic motion axis as the Israelites, who still hold that "Israel is the highest of all lands" and therefore we speak of making aliyá 'ascent' when we speak of moving there.

My theory (please tell me if you've seen this somewhere else) is that when he said "ascend from the land", he meant "come up [as if] out of the land itself, like a plague of zombies rising up out of our own soil to devour—" woops, sorry, got carried away for a second there. But the idea is that he's expressing anxiety NOT over the possibility that the Israelites will leave Egypt and go 'up' to Cana‘an, but instead that they will form a native-grown 'fifth column', rising up as if out of the very soil that has been nurturing them since the time of Yoseif, to betray and slaughter their so-far magnanimous hosts (who at this point stopped being so magnanimous after all).


hey, look! ancient egyptian reconstructed religion!

Yisakhar ~ Zevulun

Today I noticed something that I had originally noticed last year, when doing "original flavor" Shnayim Miqra’ ve’Ehhad Targum (this year i've moved on from targum Unqelos to peirush RaSh"Y, next year who knows?

Anyway, remember how Ya‘aqov/Yisra’eil blesses his 12 sons/tribes in Bereishit/Genesis 49?

Zevulun and Yisakhar are told:

Zevulun will dwell at the seas' shore;
and he, a shore for ships, with his flank by Tzidon.

Yisakhar is a large-boned donkey,
sprawling among the sheepfolds
(or: fireplaces, rows of household vessels).
And he saw a resting place, that it's good,
and the land, that it's pleasant;
and he tilted-down his shoulder to bear,
and became a working serf.

(translation based on JPS, Fox, and RShR"H)

The most common explanation for this seems to be that the tribe of Zevulun participated on commerce and international trade, supporting the tribe of Yisakhar, who spent all their time 'bearing' the 'burden' of learning Torah, teaching Torah, and making Halakhic decisions.

Unqelos, however, has a very different interpretation:

זְבוּלוּן, עַל סְפַר יַמְמַיָּא יִשְׁרֵי;
וְהוּא יְכַבֵּישׁ מָחוֹזִין בִּסְפִינָן וְטוּב יַמָּא יֵיכוֹל,
וּתְחוּמֵיהּ יְהֵי מָטֵי עַד צִידוֹן.

יִשָּׂשכָר, עַתִּיר בְּנִכְסִין — אַחְסָנְתֵיהּ, בֵּין תְּחוּמַיָּא.
וַחֲזָא חוּלָקָא אֲרֵי טָב, וְיָת אַרְעָא אֲרֵי מַעְבְּדָא פֵּירִין;
וִיכַבֵּישׁ מָחוֹזֵי עַמְמַיָּא וִישֵׁיצֵי יָת דָּיְרֵיהוֹן,
וּדְיִשְׁתְּאַרוּן בְּהוֹן יְהוֹן לֵיהּ פָּלְחִין וּמַסְּקֵי מִסִּין.

(my Aramaic is rusty, but i believe it means something like...)

Zevulun will dwell on the coast of seas;
and he will conquer regions by ships and eat the sea's bounty,
and his territory will stretch to Tzidon.

Yisakhar is burdened(?) with property(?) —
his storehouses(?) are between territories.
And he saw the earth that it's good, and the land that it produces fruits;
and he conquered the regions of nations and destroyed their inhabitants,
and those that remained there, they made them work and pay labor-taxes.

Completely different image of the tribes of Yisakhar and Zevulun, eh?

No sitting around the beit midrash "shtaiging" it up for these guys.
No supporting the 'learners' with peaceful trading voyages.

Nope, just lots of war. War and conquering, with (possibly coordinated) land and sea-based invasions! Not to mention the killing people part, or the forcing the survivors to work for you part.

Which do you think is a more realistic portrait of Lei’a's youngest tribes?

נבואה בגויים תאמין

מדרש איכה רבה ב' י"ז:

אם יאמר לך אדם,
          „יש חכמה בגויים“ — תאמין.
          „יש תורה בגויים“ — אל תאמין.

R' Gil Student has three posts on this issue:
          1. In Defense of Rabbi Hertz
          2. Torah from Gentiles II
          3. Quoting Christian Bible Commentaries


איגרת תימן
(Maimonides's Letter to Yemen)
Judeo-Arabic (original):

...ואמא כוננא לא נצדק נבווהֿ עמר וזיד, פליס דֿלך מן אגֿל כונהם מן גיר ישראל כמא יטֿן אלעואם, חתי נלתגֿי ללתפקה מן קולה מקרבך מאחיך, לאן איוב וצופר ובלדד ואליפז ואליהוא כלהם ענדנא אנביא ואן כאנוא ליס מן ישראל, וכדֿלך חנניה בן עזור נביא שקר מלעון ואן כאן הו מן ישראל, ואנמא נצדק אלנבי או נכדֿבה מן גֿההֿ דעואה לא מן גֿההֿ נסבה...
פאן קאם נבי סוי מן ישראל או מן אומות העולם ודעא אלי דין משה רבנו ע"ה וחטֿ עליה ולא זאד פיה ולא נקץ מנה, מתֿל ישעיה וירמיה וגירהמא, נטלב מנה אלמעגֿזה...

Hebrew (according to ר' קאפח):

...ומה שאין אנו מאמתים נבואת פלוני ופלוני, אין זה ממת שאינם מישראל כפי שמדמים ההמון, ועל ידי כך נצטרך לדייק מאמרו מקרבך מאחיך, כי איוב וצפר ובלדד ואליפז ואליהוא כולם לדעתנו נביאים ואף על פי שאינם מישראל. וכן חנניה בן עזור נביא שקר ארור ואף על פי שהוא מישראל, אבל מאמתים אנו את הנביא או מכזבים אותו מחמת דבריו ולא מחמת יחוסו...
ולכן אם עמד נביא בין שהיה מישראל או מאומות העולם וקרא לדת משה רבנו ע"ה וזירז עליה ולא הוסיף בה ולא גרע ממנה, כמו ישעיה וירמיה וזולתם נדרוש ממנו מופת...

English (according to Abraham Halkin):

...Our disbelief in the prophecies of Omar [عمر] and Zeid [زيد] (=two random common [Arabic] names) is not due to the fact that they are non-Jews, as the unlettered folk imagine, and in consequence of it are compelled to establish their stand from the biblical phrase from among your own people. For Job, Zophar, Bildad, Eliphaz, and Elihu are all considered prophets by us although they are not Israelites. On the other hand, although Hananiah the son of Azzur was a Jew, he was deemed an accursed and false prophet. But we give credence to a prophet or we disbelieve him because of what he preaches, not because of his descent...
Now, if a Jewish or gentile prophet urges and encourages people to follow the religion of Moses without adding thereto or diminishing therefrom, like Isaiah, Jeremiah, and the others, we demand a miracle from him...


VideoBloggage:
(credit once again goes to rabbi waxman for the vloggage idea)
runtime: 7:13




errata and omissions:

The reason the "unlettered folk" 'establish their stand' upon the word מִקִּרְבְּךָ is because they understand it to mean that any prophet must be from among your own people. Rambam understands this qualification to mean that prophets fulfill the same function (telling the future) among your own people as fortunetellers and necromancers supposedly do among other peoples.

The name צֹפַר should be accented on the first syllable, not the second.

How Long Do You Wait?

About two months ago, I was sick with some mysterious illness that made me stay in bed all day and miss work. I went to the doctor, and they did some tests, gave me some medicine, and I got better quickly. They told me to come back in a few weeks to get the results of the tests, and when I did...

..the doctor said, "We're not going to discuss what you had three weeks ago, because you have dangerous cholesterol levels!"

My overall cholesterol levels were perfectly fine, but the balance between 'good' cholesterol and 'bad' cholesterol was completely off.

So the doctor gave me a prescription for some cholesterol medicine, and told me to take low-strength daily aspirin and certain nutritional supplements. He also said to not eat any dairy products, eggs or red meat for a month (this diet helped him after he had a heart attack associated with cholesterol levels similar to mine). The month being up, I went back today to get tested again, and I found out that I had been overdoing the dietary restrictions.

See, when the doctor said "don't eat dairy products", I understood that in a Jewish kashrut sense. No dairy. No milkhiks. I went from waiting 3 hours (which, contrary to what you may have heard, is a perfectly valid custom) to waiting 30 days. And it was not fun. I was in perpetual parva and poultry-based fleishikh zones. I was checking ingredients to see whether foods marked OU-D were actually hhalavi, and therefore medically asur, or just 'Dairy Equipment'.

Now I find out that eating milkhik food is fine, as long as I'm not having a big glass of chocolate milk, ice cream, butter, or other full-blown DAIRY foodstuffs more than once in a while (you can call it avi avot hehhalav if you want). Other medical professionals have told me that it's not the dairy that's the problem, but the fat content, and that low-fat or no-fat milk, cheese, etc, shouldn't be a problem.

What I really need, though, is more exercise.
Maybe I should make that a New [Gregorian] Year's Resolution.