The Lord in Flatbush

I drive up to work with Sol, who lives a few cubicles down from mine. He takes the B train from Flahtboosh everyday to meet me at my car, and off we drive on to the FDR, Deegan and points north.

Sol is old school frum – doesn’t cover his head at work. But anyone mislead by his bare head does so at his own peril. For this Jew is one crazy frummie boasting incredible emunah (faith). I’ve never witnessed anyone ‘koreh oomishtachaveh’ (bowing and kneeling) like this guy does at minkha, for which, incidentally, he always drafts me and (guilt ridden) I always (reluctantly) attend. You see, as unofficial and unelected corporate shamis (sexton), Sol is required to spend a significant portion of his day working the phone lines, collecting other Jews from around the company and throughout Westchester for his mincha minyan.

This Sol likes bargains. More than once he’s shlepped cans of tuna fish, dozens of them, in plastic bags from the heart of Borough Park to the depths of Midwood (for non-Brooklynites, that’s about three miles).

And why not? If Season’s light tuna fish is 20 cents cheaper at Moishe Pipik’s grocery, who's he to sneeze at the four dollars he'd save for only five hours of his time on Sunday? Law school for his daughter ain't cheap you know.

As we drive through Yonkers on our journey north Sol volunteers that he had enjoyed a particularly pleasant weekend. He seemed, in fact very pleased with himself.

“Why?”
“I was very excited.”
“So what’s so exciting?”

Very exciting news indeed -- a monster one-day special on Tropicana OJ. How can you beat a half-gallon container of any variety for $1.99? Sol triumphantly describes how he defied ShopRite's strict limit of two containers per customer (only available in any case on purchases of $10 or more). Upon exiting, he simply turned right around and re-entered the supermarket, and repeated this exercise another eight times that Sunday. Each of us and our tiny victories.

Switching subjects, Sol goes on to tell me of a certain Rabbi Rottenberg who tends a flock in Flahtboosh. During one of his shiurim (lessons) the Rabbi let his students in on a crucial piece of historic and linguistic information they were unlikely to hear anywhere else. It was a well-known fact, he informed his rapt listeners, that ancient Egyptians were fluent speakers of…Yiddish. Some slightly more worldly listeners glanced at each other suspiciously.

Undaunted, Sol raised his hand. Rabbi Rottenberg called on him.

“Rabbi, what nussach (accent) did the Egyptians use?”
“I’m not sure. But I'll look into it.”

On May 2, 1287, England's Jews were arrested en masse. It was second time this happened: nine years earlier the entire Jewish community was thrown in prison on suspicion of ‘clipping the coinage’. Three hundred people were hanged on that occasion. This time however, there simply wasn't enough ‘evidence’ to convict. Nevertheless, the Jews were able to avoid expulsion by paying a ransom of 12,000 pounds of silver.

A Reclaimed Vine in the Pardes

They reported on it on Nazi Palestinian Radio (NPR) and the Bolshevik Broadcasting Company (BBC). Its name was whispered beside water coolers from the big fat apple to frisco, and they couldn't shut up about it on that boob tube. Lips everywhere uttered the name of this place, this new wonderland, some sort of pardes (from which the word 'paradise' is derived from). For it was only months before that it magically appeared ‘yesh m’eyn’, something from nothing. Yet they said that millions had already entered into this mysterious realm with the utterly stupid and unsexy name of 'blogosphere'.

Then around Hannuka time, I myself passed through the gates of the mythical pardes, leaving the darkness of the winter solstice behind.

And what an amazing discovery this was…this alluring vineyard of ideas, gleaming sweet fruits, pearls of wisdom and originality hanging heavy off the fragrant vines. And so many souls, once caged, now liberated (mostly from Veelimzboorg. Mahnsee, Bodo Pahk and Flahtboosh) leaping jauntily from blog to blog.

Awe struck and wide eyed I proceeded deeper, but not before pausing at a small clearing to plant my own vine.

I named it. And it even flourished for a while. I too felt liberated, and I don’t even come from the cluster of oh-so-holy towns mentioned above.

Excitedly, I watered my vine with my own two shekels, hoping someone would care and share. A few actually did come to visit and pick the fruit of my vine, but not as many as I had hoped. I knew these things take time, but still, I’m an impatient Jew, quick to lose steam. And there were so many other impressive vines in full bloom with so many devoted visitors, leaving mine easy to ignore. After all, what’s the point of painting a painting if no one stops to gaze if not admire? Why write a book if it’s destined to remain unread, shut on a darkened shelf? The challenge seemed almost insurmountable

So, like many other disillusioned bloggers, I abandoned my vine in the depths of winter, with a silent, guilty promise to return one day. yet from a distance, I noticed that some curious souls managed to stumble upon my lonely plant.

But I’m happy to announce, with absolutely zero fanfare, on a day that happens to fall on my daughter’s eighth birthday, that I’m back.

Aside from my triumphant resurfacing on this date, something else occurred exactly 201 years ago, in the life of the Jewish people: Upon his return from the Austerlitz campaign, Napoleon was assailed by a group of Alsatians (a mongrel Franco-German border region, Alsace is in northeastern France), who blamed the Jews in their midst for all their misfortunes. One half the estates in the province, these goyim alleged, were mortgaged to, and now owned by their Jewish creditors. A massacre loomed over Jewish heads, they threatened darkly. Meanwhile statewide attacks ensued against Jewish influence in general. On this 30th day of April, 201 years ago, Napoleon declared himself to be violently against the Jews, but before anyone could utter the word pogrom, he changed his mind a mere week later, taking the first steps leading to the creation of the Great Sanhedrin the following year.

Valentine of love, hate and death

Beginning in kindergarten, our teachers in yeshiva implanted and nurtured within each of our little minds a tiny virus, known as HAS, or Halloween Aversion Syndrome. If gestated successfully (and it often wasn’t) this virus programmed the mind it inhabited to utterly reject the dastardly thirty first day of October, to see it as muktzeh, a form of idol worship, evil witchcraft, and to always remember that this day was a special time for desecrators of Jewish cemeteries.

A similar virus was implanted to do the same for St Valentine’s Day. As a result I instinctively recoiled since the age of 5 from anything remotely Valentinian. My future wife was horrified upon discovering that I was infected with the anti-Valentine virus. After all she grew up in a goyishe suburb, where everyone was appropriately amorous on St Valentine’s, an evening of romantic dinners and perhaps even gifts (bribes?) of roses, jewelry or lingerie. One time she scolded me for failing to make reservations at some French restaurant she had eyed. Lucky for me though: nothing for a non-religious orthodox Jew to eat in the joint, with all those horrible treifeh entrées filling the menu.

FYI -- there were actually three Saint Valentines, all martyred in the latter years of the Roman empire. The current legends that characterize Saint Valentine were invented in 14th century, notably by Geoffrey Chaucer and his circle, when the feast day of February 14 first became associated with romantic love.

I’m too scared to tell my wife, but there is a fine reason for Jews not to celebrate St Valentine’s. For it was on this day that the Massacre of Strasbourg took place in 1349, perhaps the worst of the terrible series of outrages which took place at the time of the Black Death. The city council was favorable to the Jews, and resisted efforts to harm them. The populace however blamed Jews for the fluctuation in the price of corn, and felt that the council was conspiring to protect them.

On Febrary 14, a mob barricaded the Judengasse and drove the whole Jewish community to the cemetery where they built a huge pyre. About 2000 Jewish men, women and children were burned to death. A new council took over and declared that Jews shall be barred from the city for a century, but this kherem was eased 20 years later.

Among the spoils of that day was a shofar the mob had found in the shul. This find confirmed the suspicions of the townsfolk: it was, they said, prepared by the Jews in order to betray the city. By blowing it, the Jews would be able to inform their allies lurking outside the city walls.

For many years after, the so-called ‘Judenblos’ was blown each evening on a ‘grusselhorn’, an imitation shofar, as a warning to any Jews to depart the city limits before nightfall, and also as a reminder to the townspeople of their miraculous escape from the devious of the Jews in 1349!

Happy Valentines!

From Cambridge to Munkatch

I'm back with a minor story to relate, which actually began about 5 years ago. Otherwise, I've been kept busy by unimportant ad-hoc assignment at work, which I attempt to complete with cheerful aplomb. The mortgage must be paid you see, so too yeshiva tuitions and Saturday night restaurants dinners for the wife (so that she continues to like me), which also means a $12/hour babysiiter.

Robert to Avram Part I

I used to work for an energy trading concern in Midtown Manhattan, a sort of mini Enron. Like many other companies like it, it closed after the collapse of Enron. Many interesting, well educated and talented young people worked there, most holding advanced degrees from Princeton, Harvard and MIT. One of my buddies there, I’ll call him Robert, held degrees in physics, mathematics and philosophy from MIT, and was one of the designers of the system of wholesale electric power trading in the US and elsewhere. Robert was a brilliant little guy with lively inscrutable little eyes hiding behind thick glasses and a mouth naturally shaped into an impish Mona Lisa smile.

When I first met him, and after years of wrestling with the issue, he had finally decide that he did believe in god, and had entered the next stage: the process of accepting that the one true revelation is the one received by Moshe at Sinai.

'Why?' I asked him.

'Because I believe!' He answered happily.

Now known as Avram, he moved to the Upper West Side (for a ‘true’ Jewish experience), hosted shabbes dinners at his house, and invited attractive twenty- and thirty-something potential baal tshuva candidates to share his revelation. He invited to once: during dinner an Aish haTorah rabbi (a former reporter and himself a Harvard grad) rose to speak. The assembled 'attractives' listened raptly, and nodded enthusiastically. Their souls were introduced to prophecies revealed through hidden codes, to the notion (the fact, he said) that 2.5 million people at Sinai can’t lie and couldn’t be wrong and more ‘facts’ I can’t remember. Also, I tried to raise several points, but after two (surely brilliant) questions, the Rabbi was on to me and ignored my raised hand. He wasn't interested me. I was rejected for the new revelation. He wanted fresh meat, tabula rasa, naive and wide eyes with no base of knowledge. New 'naaseh venishma' troops. He had no need for an ex-yeshiva boy cynic, and so he brutally cut me out. I was left to nibble on one of those spicy Israeli pickles.

But Avram remained hungry. He became dissatisfied with what he thought of as uninspiring, dry moderdoxy and was getting bored by Aish haTorah.

To be continued...

On this day in the life of the Jews...The first Auto de Fe in 1481; The Spanish Inquisition established by Sixtus IV, but it didn't begin in full force until 30 months later, when six men and women were burned publicly in Seville for 'Judaising'. This was the first of about 2,000 such burnings across the Iberian peninsula, the last of which occurred in 1826. In total, 31,912 were burned in person (alive or dead) while another 17,659 were burned in effigy. And in our own day, Jew hate in Spain especially, has been redirected into vicious Israel hate. For as anyone with seychel realizes, Israel is the embodiment of the 'The Jew', since it's not vogue -- not yet -- to be an overt anti semite. Not yet

Of Bo, Yavneh and Pernambuco

If you wanna be a good husband and daddy of three juvenile terrorists, there's no time for doing anything for yourself. That's it. No time for painting, writing, serious reading. Maybe when the kids go to sleepaway camp in a few years, maybe then I'll find some time to have the chutzpa to indulge myself. That's why I feel so fortunate to have discovered bloggery, which I can do a bit of at work.

This week's portion of the week is Bo (Come!), which together with the latter part of last week's portion (Va'era) combined to form the heart of the Passover story. The 10 plagues overlap both portions. To my eye, the first ten chapters of the book of Shmot (Exodus) come across as a a narrative description of a panel of pictograms on some pyramid wall. The khartoomim (Pharaoh's Royal wizards), staffs morphing into snakes, the centrality of the river, and the litany of plagues have a very Egyptian flavor.

Documentary analysis of the plagues suggests that not the 10 plagues didn't originate from one source (Moshe for the devout). Rather, the Priestly school (P) was responsible for some them while a later combination of the Yahwist and Elohists schools (JE) were the origin of the rest. In any case, I'd like to turn the discussion over to Littlefoxling's comments on Ve-era & Bo ; I highly recommend reading the comments as well.

I cam across an interesting review of a catalog from an exhibit at the Museum of Eretz Yisrael. The exhibit featured the remains of a Philistine geniza in Yavne. The article mentions the Philistine temple at Tel Qasila, north of the Yarkon River (just across from northern Tel Aviv). The location of this temple is notable since this expands the presence of Plishtim further up the coast, north of Jaffa, into the traditional territory of the tribe of Dan. This raises questions about the origin of Dan, and is a topic I will cover in the near future.

Today in the life of the Jews....The Capitulation of Pernambuco in 1654; In wake of the inquisition, many Jews fled to Latin America, whose rapidly developing cities would swarm with Marranos. Since Pernambuco (now known as Recife) was one of Brazil’s major port cities, it isn't surprising that a significant Jewish community developed here too (the tzniusdik ways of the Pernambucanas were another good reason to dock there).

The Dutch seizure of Pernambuco from the Portuguese was strongly supported by the Jews, and in the tug-of-war between the two colonial powers, the Jews fought alongside the Dutch. Eventually, the Portuguese reconquest of Pernambuco resulted in a mass exodus of the city’s Jews to Amsterdam and ultimately to New Amsterdam, which was destined to become the greatest city of refuge in history.

Fishing in the sacred soil

The other day I had the great honor of sharing with you a catchy ditty that my father picked up while at Pirkhey (literally 'flowers', an orthodox youth group, for any of you Jewish and gentile goyim that may have chanced upon this wonderful blog) in the 1930s.

In my youth, my father would perform an amusing rockette-like jig in his bathrobe whenever he’d be inspired to sing this song for me. One of the song lines refers to a certain Rivkeh as being a ‘favorite dish', as the singer looking forward to Shabbes, when ‘we’ll eat gefilte fish.’

Which is good segue to the discussion at hand. Fish on Shabbes was always an important part of the Yid’s diet. In the cities of antiquity however it wasn’t easy to buy fish in towns far away from a shore.

In late 2005, while digging in the remains of an ancient building in the City of David just south of the Old City wall, Israel Antiquities Authority archaeologists made a very interesting discovery.

Careful sifting of the soil revealed a considerable quantity of animal bones. The bones of sheep, goat and cattle are routine discoveries but this sifting produced a substantial amount of fish bones. In Jerusalem, which is far from the sea and large rivers, the consumption of fish was not an insignificant matter.

The fish were identified by Professor Omri Lernau of the University of Haifa, a renowned expert on the subject. In a preliminary examination, he identified the following species of fish: Nile perch, which was imported from Egypt; mullet, sea bream and red drum, which were brought from the Mediterranean Sea and catfish from freshwater rivers.

Fish bones have already been found in buildings that date to the end of the Iron Age in previous excavations in the City of David. Now it seems that this fare, which in Jerusalem was most certainly considered a luxury, was served up on the residents’ tables already in the latter part of the 9th century and in the 8th century BCE.

This find is also associated with the name of one of the city’s gates during this period, the “Fish Gate”, which is mentioned several times in the Bible (Zephaniah 1:10; Nehemiah 3: 3; II Chron. 33; 14) and the local fish market probably existed nearby.

During the period of the Return to Zion (5th century BCE) Nehemiah, the governor of Judah, complained that the men of Tyre (Phoenician sailors) resided in Jerusalem and that they are the ones who brought the fish to the city and sold it to the residents of Jerusalem specifically on the Sabbath.

A few observations:

1) How was the fish kept fresh during the long Donkey ride up to Jerusalem? Maybe they only sold the fish in the winter.

2) What’s with the catfish? Catfish, treife catfish, eaten in ir hakoidesh during the first temple era! Wow! Might this be a piece of evidence that kosher laws were written by the Priestly source after the destruction of the first Temple, during the Babylonian exile?

3) Even after Shibat Tzion (return form the exile) many Jews bought fish on Shabbes from the Phoenician sailors.

And now to this week's issue of Today in the life of the Jews:

The death of Anacletus II, the ‘Jewish Pope’, in 1138. His great grandfather was a prosperous Jewish banker named Benedict, who became a goy for an aristocratic shidukh. The convert’s son and grandson, Leo and Piero Leoni, became prominent in Roman civic life. The latter decided to steer his son Piero Pierleoni to an (ultimately successful) clerical career fueled by his money and connections. Pierleoni would become a cardinal, then a papal legate in France, and finally ascend to the papacy (reportedly through bribes), taking the name Anacletus II upon the death of Honorius II (I presume you’ve been keeping up on your papal history). Many resented his raw use of money to fuel his career, not to mention his Jewish ancestry. He was widely derided as an antipope, and European royalty preferred his rival Innocent II. By lavishing his fellow Romans with gifts and parties, Anacletus II was able to retain the devotion of his paisans, and his day job. BTW -- unlike other meshumads, he was friendly to the Jews.

A Tale of Tubas and do you believe in magic?

I’m in a playful mood. Yippie. How about a little game I just devised? Here's how it goes. Read the brief story below, then follow the instructions:

"Hussam Sawafta was born in Tubas in the West Bank. Last month, Hussam’s brother Salah, an Islamic Jihadi, was killed in a shootout with Tzahal forces. Then last week, Hussam was arrested, charged with helping his brother Salah plan a terror attack in Israel."

So far, just an ordinary story of a scummy Arab terrorist meeting his rightful fate, and the arrest of his odious brother. Nothing unusual, right?

Wrong. This story is a bit more interesting, for this isn't merely the tale of the elimination of an abomination. So now, please pretend to cut the italicized text below and paste it into the paragraph above, right after the first sentence:

‘Having found work in Israel in 1991, Hussam converted to Judaism, changed his name to Asaf Ben David, became frum, got married and had four kids.'

Now, to finish this curious game, add the text below as the final sentence in the story:

‘It seems Hussam had re-established contact with his family in Tubas months before, and converted back to Islam following his brother’s death’.

What can one say. Here's a person that burned his bridges to his family, forsook everything to become a Jew, and not only a Jew -- a frum Jew. Jewish wife, kids. And yet...
So: what wonderful lessons can be learned from this little tale? Anyone?

Oh yeah, thanks for playing!

Item 2: Today's Science Times has an article about superstition. Lets face it, when we think no one's watching we have at some point in our life exhibited all sorts of weird, even obsessive compulsive behaviors. like avoiding cracks on the sidewalk, touching objects repeatedly, or even making sure we stepped back and then forward the correct number of times while reciting shmoneh esreh. Or that we (pretend) we enunciate every single word during davening, for if we didn't, we'd have to go back and pronouce the word(s) properly. Or we step into sealed rooms during sud attacks with our right foot (read below). The Times article follows.

from the NY Times, January 23, 2007

Do You Believe in Magic?

By BENEDICT CAREY

A graduate school application can go sour in as many ways as a blind date. The personal essay might seem too eager, the references too casual. The admissions officer on duty might be nursing a grudge. Or a hangover. Rachel Riskind of Austin, Tex., nonetheless has a good feeling about her chances for admittance to the University of Michigan's exclusive graduate program in psychology, and it's not just a matter of her qualifications. On a recent afternoon, as she was working on the admissions application, she went out for lunch with co-workers. Walking from the car to the restaurant in a misting rain, she saw a woman stroll by with a Michigan umbrella. "I felt it was a sign; you almost never see Michigan stuff here," said Ms. Riskind, 22. "And I guess I think that has given me a kind of confidence. Even if it's a false confidence, I know that that in itself can help people do well."Psychologists and anthropologists have typically turned to faith healers, tribal cultures or New Age spiritualists to study the underpinnings of belief in superstition or magical powers. Yet they could just as well have examined their own neighbors, lab assistants or even some fellow scientists. New research demonstrates that habits of so-called magical thinking — the belief, for instance, that wishing harm on a loathed colleague or relative might make him sick — are far more common than people acknowledge. These habits have little to do with religious faith, which is much more complex because it involves large questions of morality,community and history. But magical thinking underlies a vast, often unseen universe of small rituals that accompany people through every waking hour of a day.The appetite for such beliefs appears to be rooted in the circuitry of the brain, and for good reason. The sense of having special powers buoys people in threatening situations, and helps soothe everyday fears and ward off mental distress. In excess, it can lead to compulsive or delusional behavior. This emerging portrait of magical thinking helps explain why people who fashion themselves skeptics cling to odd rituals that seem to make no sense, and how apparently harmless superstition may become disabling.The brain seems to have networks that are specialized to produce an explicit, magical explanation in some circumstances, said Pascal Boyer, a professor of psychology and anthropology at Washington University in St. Louis. In an e-mail message, he said such thinking was "only one domain where a relevant interpretation that connects all the dots, so to speak, is preferred to a rational one." Children exhibit a form of magical thinking by about 18 months, when they begin to create imaginary worlds while playing. By age 3, most know the difference between fantasy and reality, though they usually still believe (with adult encouragement) in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy. By age 8, and sometimes earlier, they have mostly pruned away these beliefs, and the line between magic and reality is about as clear to them as it is for adults.It is no coincidence, some social scientists believe, that youngsters begin learning about faith around the time they begin to give up on wishing. "The point at which the culture withdraws support for belie fin Santa and the Tooth Fairy is about the same time it introduces children to prayer," said Jacqueline Woolley, a professor of psychology at the University of Texas. "The mechanism is already there, kids have already spent time believing that wishing can make things come true, and they're just losing faith in the efficacy of that."If the tendency to think magically were no more than self-defeating superstition, then over the pitiless history of human evolution it should have all but disappeared in intellectually mature adults. Yet in a series of experiments published last summer, psychologists at Princeton and Harvard showed how easy it was to elicit magical thinking in well-educated young adults. In one instance, the researchers had participants watch a blindfolded person play an arcade basketball game, and visualize success for the player. The game,unknown to the subjects, was rigged: the shooter could see through the blindfold, had practiced extensively and made most of the shots. On questionnaires, the spectators said later that they had probably had some role in the shooter's success. A comparison group of participants, who had been instructed to visualize the player lifting dumbbells, was far less likely to claim such credit. In another experiment, the researchers demonstrated that young men and women instructed on how to use a voodoo doll suspected that they might have put a curse on a study partner who feigned a headache. And they found, similarly, that devoted fans who watched the 2005 Super Bowl felt somewhat responsible for the outcome, whether their team won or lost. Millions in Chicago and Indianapolis are currently trying to channel the winning magic."The question is why do people create this illusion of magical power?"said the lead author, Emily Pronin, an assistant professor of psychology and public affairs at Princeton. "I think in part it's because we are constantly exposed to our own thoughts, they are most salient to us" — and thus we are likely to overestimate their connection to outside events.The brain, moreover, has evolved to make snap judgments about causation, and will leap to conclusions well before logic can be applied. In an experiment presented last fall at the Society for Neuroscience meeting, Ben Parris of the University of Exeter in England presented magnetic resonance imaging scans taken from the brains of people watching magic tricks. In one, the magician performed a simple sleight of hand: he placed a coin in his palm, closed his fingers over it, then opened his hand to reveal that the coin was gone. Dr. Parris and his colleagues found spikes of activity in regions of the left hemisphere of the brain that usually become engaged when people form hypotheses in uncertain situations.These activations occur so quickly, other researchers say, that they often link two events based on nothing more than coincidence: "I was just thinking about looking up my high school girlfriend when out of the blue she called me," or, "The day after I began praying for a quick recovery, she emerged from the coma." For people who are generally uncertain of their own abilities, or slow to act because of feelings of inadequacy, this kind of thinking can bean antidote, a needed activator, said Daniel M. Wegner, a professor of psychology at Harvard. (Dr. Wegner was a co-author of the voodoo study, with Kimberly McCarthy of Harvard and Sylvia Rodriguez of Princeton.) "I deal with students like this all the time and I say, `Let's get you overconfident,' " Dr. Wegner said. "This feeling that your thought scan somehow control things can be a needed feeling" — the polar opposite of the helplessness, he added, that so often accompanies depression. Magical thinking is most evident precisely when people feel most helpless. Giora Keinan, a professor at Tel Aviv University, sent questionnaires to 174 Israelis after the Iraqi Scud missile attacks of the 1991 gulf war. Those who reported the highest level of stress were also the most likely to endorse magical beliefs, like "I have the feeling that the chances of being hit during a missile attack are greater if a person whose house was attacked is present in the sealed room," or "To be on the safe side, it is best to step into the sealed room right foot first.""It is of interest to note," Dr. Keinan concluded, "that persons who hold magical beliefs or engage in magical rituals are often aware that their thoughts, actions or both are unreasonable and irrational.Despite this awareness, they are unable to rid themselves of such behavior."On athletic fields, at the craps table or out sailing in the open ocean, magical thinking is a way of life. Elaborate, entirely nonsensical rituals are performed with solemn deliberation, complete with theories of magical causation."I am hoping I do not change my clothes for the rest of the season,that I really start to stink," said Tom Livatino, head basketball coach at Lincoln Park High School in Chicago, who wears the same outfit as long as his team is winning. (And it usually does.) The idea, Mr. Livatino said, is to do as much as possible to recreate the environment that surrounds his team's good play. He doesn't change his socks; he doesn't empty his pockets; and he works the sideline with the sense he has done everything possible to win. "The full commitment," he explained. "I'll do anything to give us an edge."Only in extreme doses can magical thinking increase the likelihood of mental distress, studies suggest. People with obsessive-compulsive disorder are often nearly paralyzed by the convictions that they must perform elaborate rituals, like hand washing or special prayers, toward off contamination or disaster. The superstitions, perhaps harmless at the outset, can grow into disabling defense mechanisms. Those whose magical thoughts can blossom into full-blown delusion and psychosis appear to be a fundamentally different group in their own right, said Mark Lenzenweger, a professor of clinical science,neuroscience and cognitive psychology at Binghamton, part of the State University of New York. "These are people for whom magical thinking is a central part of how they view the world," not a vague sense of having special powers, he said. "Whereas with most people, if you were to confront them about their magical beliefs, they would back down." Reality is the most potent check on runaway magical thoughts, and in the vast majority of people it prevents the beliefs from becoming anything more than comforting — and disposable — private rituals. When something important is at stake, a test or a performance or a relationship, people don't simply perform their private rituals: they prepare. And if their rituals start getting in the way, they adapt quickly.Mr. Livatino lives and breathes basketball, but he also recently was engaged to be married. "I can tell you she doesn't like the clothes superstition," he said."She has made that pretty clear."

This day in the life of the Jews will return tomorrow.

Shabbes and the tree of knowledge

My father Leo was what I call a ba'al she'ela, 'one who questions'. For those unfamiliar with Hebrew, this is a play on words, a pun, on ba'al tshuva, or one who returns to the fold of the devout, essentially a born again Jew. Whence the pun? Well, tshuva means 'answer' as well as 'return', so anyway...

Yeshivish till he was 18, Leo began to spend too much time with his handful of buddies at the Brooklyn Public Library, reading all sorts of apikorsus. The ringleader and poisoner was a certain Jerry Eckstein who began to whisper in their tender ears all sorts of sexy new ideas, and lead them to the forbidden books, the tree of knowledge. This leader of the teen delinquents would eventually become an esteemed philosophy professor at SUNY Albany. Hard to believe that whole bunch of 'em are all about 80 years old today -- All except for my father who died 14 years ago.

Leo learned many interesting songs at pirkhey, which he passed down to me, and I figured I'd share with you one for Shabbes and mitzva night:

Down the ol' Canarsie line,

Down the ol' Canarsie line,

For ev'ry hundred people,

The Jews were ninety nine,

So on a hot Yom Kippur day,

All the Jews, they stayed away,

So the BMT went bankrupt

On that Yom Kippur day!

Rivkeh my dahling,

Rivkeh my love,

Hop into my pushcart,

And I will take you home...

Shabbes, is coming,

We'll eat gefilte fish,

But Rivkeh, my dahling,

You ah my fayvrite dish!

Rivkeh my dahling....

Today in the life of the Jews: The arrest of Jews in France by Philip Augustus in 1180. His father Louis VII was more tolerant, but even before Louis died, Philip was find of persecuting landsmen. One Shabbat he whisked a large number of Jews from synagogue into prison. They were liberated only upon payment of a ransom of 1500 marks of silver, which incidentally didn't protect them from the general expulsion of 1182. At this time however, the domain of the French king was rather small, but the territory under French control gradually expanded, and Jews were expelled from any new territories that came under their control.

Coping without me, Abisl Abbas and Jews who liked ghettos

Figured I'd check in. Hope my three day absence didn't worry any of you too much, and that you were able to cope. If you couldn't, I would understand that too. The long weekend is always dominated by the kinderlakh, rendering bloggery impossible.

Just a brief note on Eretz Yisruel: in the early 1990s, Rabin & Peres thought it would be a great idea to provide tens of thousands of rifles to Arafat & Co, assuming the latter would take care of Hamas, doing the dirty work for the Jews. But Arafat turned the weapons on Jews. In a new spin on Groundhog's day, circa 2006, Olmert & Co. supplied tens of thousands of rifles to Abu Maazen (Abbas) & Co, assuming the latter would use them on Hamas. As it turns out, the moderate Abbas, the holocaust-denying Abbas, delivered a speech to his minions in which he implores them to aim their guns against 'the occupation' and not each other. Anyway...

It's imperative that you be informed that 402 years ago today (or the year 1605, lest your life become needlessly complicated) In the life of the Jews was the day that the Ghetto in Verona, Italy was officially established. Until then, Jews lived where they pleased on the peninsula. Oddly, it seems they didn't mind too much; the forced resettlement seems to have afforded them feelings of security and solidarity. It was exactly five years earlier that they dedicated a new synagogue in the ghetto (It was the first day of Shvat), a day that was ordained a special holiday, featuring Purim-like festive processions and celebratory hymns. This curious day was celebrated in this manner until the French Revolution - about two centuries.

Hebrew speaking Egyptian princesses and a 'ciao' to the paisans

Its Friday. which means its time for my absolutely brief indispensable comments on the weekly portion.

First of all, Shemot is fascinating for a few reasons. First, the origin of the name 'Moshe', derived, so the text tells us, from 'Min hamayim mishiteehu' or 'I drew him from the water'. So an Egyptian princess, it seems spoke perfect Hebrew. But shouldn't he have been named at his Brit Mila? And shouldn't we have been told what that name was? Josh Waxman on parshablog insists that the definition provided in the text for his name is correct, grammatical contortions notwithstanding, and in any case is better than the alternatives. One of these is 'Moseh', an Egyptian word meaning 'is born', and appended to the name of many Egyptian kings such as Thutmoseh and Ramoseh. Sounds most likely to me, but I guess I don't have a frum agenda.

There is also an interesting reference to 'Bayamim harabim hahem' (roughly 'those many days ago') which of course implies that the text was written many years after the events.

Finally, Shemot seems to be a rich vein for documentary hypotheses research. In the first two chapters god is called 'Elohim' while Tzipora's Midianite father is called Reuel (notice the typically Hebrew 'el' in his name, which means 'see el'). Then in Chapter 3, the YHVH name appears and Reuel is now known as Yitro. Space and audience attention span grow short. The multitudes of readers must get back to work. I welcome all insights on these issues.

Today in 1493: The Jews were expelled from Sicily. The island had been under Spanish control for 81 years. This ancient community had flourished on the island since before the appearance of Christianity, through the Muslim and Norman periods, never suffering the degradations of Jewish communities elsewhere in Europe. They possessed a rich liturgical tradition and even had a university.

But 514 years ago today they were sent off in ships, as their long-time neighbors waved goodbye from Palermo's rooftops. Of course, before departure the crown forced them to pay an extortionate tax, as a sort of going away gift.

Shabbat Shalom.

Vanity and posterity

My plump, semitic tukhis is attached to a swivel chair in a cubicle, itself in a cubicle ocean, a cubic-acre beehive of cubicles, for eight hours a day in a leafy town north of NYC. While my usual work schedule is, shall we say, chronically unhectic, I've been assigned 'busy work' which has required my drowsy semi-undivided attention over the past two days. The purpose of this work is to make sure someone else is actually doing their own job, which they probably aren't. You see, politics are so pervasive in large corporations (as they are in a small company, classroom or three year old play group) that people fear confrontation.

Even the most minute of confrontations are to be avoided at all cost. So instead of asking someone directly if they're completing the task they're paid to do, they avoid even the whiff of confrontation by getting someone else (in this case, me) to do the work too, to make sure the job is complete. This sort of 'busy work' is only the latest example of the plague of waste of time and money rampant in my large company and most probably throughout corporate America.

In short, its wonderful to know that the value of whatever I do and will do here at work will amount to exactly gurnisht, efes. I know, I know...anything is better than the four (or was it five) layoffs I've endured since 1998. And as I'm fond of saying, its also much better than leprosy, or venereal warts, or one of those diseases once can read in detail about in Tazria-Metzora. In stark contrast, winning at least third place in the 'work that outlasts one's life' contest, let me introduce the subject of the present edition of...

...Today in the life of the Jews: Abraham Mapu was born near Kovno, Lithuania on this day in 1808. His books served as the ideological basis of the Zionist movement. Mapu introduced the first Hebrew novel in 1853. Until then, only Hebrew translations of novels from other languages were published. His masterpiece, Ahavat Tzion, was eventually translated into Yiddish, German and English. He died in Konigsberg, Prussia (now Kaliningrad, Russia) in 1867, while writing a book about Shabbtai Tzvi.

Sabbath without gravity

I've been riveted by the thousands of beautiful images being transmitted to Earth from the Cassini space craft orbiting Saturn, each resembling a masterful abstract painting.

Many of you know that Cassini launched a smaller minicraft (known as Huygens) at Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Titan is a complex world in its own right, similar in many ways to primordial earth as it existed (with apologies to devout readers) billions of years ago. Huygens snapped many photos as it parachuted down to Titan's surface.

You'd see something like this if you were gazing out an airplane window over the lake regions of Minnesota, southern Finland or northern Quebec. In fact the lakes in this picture are filled with liquid methane and dot Titan's northern latitudes.

Titan is just one of several moons orbiting Saturn and Jupiter which may be home to primitive alien life forms. And we haven't mentioned Mars. Astronauts will visit these places one day.

There are many Jewish laws which will face challenges if and when religious Jews ever leave the orbit of planet earth.

But I'd like to focus on the question of Shabbat. How does a devout Jew observe Shabbat, or daven in space? Let's assume a devout Jew in the year 2037 moves permanently to a base on the moon, which doesn't spin. How would one daven three times a day in an environment where day and night don't alternate? And what if our little frum astronaut friend gets transferred to a space station orbiting Saturn, which revolves around the sun once in almost 30 years. What would that do to our (24 x 7 x 365 earth schdule) weekly parsha reading?

On this day in the life of the Jewish people in 1784: the poll tax was abolished in France by Louis XVI. Until then, Jews living in the eastern provinces of Alsace and Lorraine (just an FYI -these regions are a mix of German and French cultures) were required to pay a special road toll upon entry or departure from all cities. Known as Impot de Pied Forchu (poll of the cloven foot) this tax was identical to one imposed on every animal going to market. It's worth noting that despite the delay to full emancipation for the Jews of England, degradation was always much worse in most countries on the Continent, as late the French Revolution.

Colors scrubbed into black & white, and grim events in Basel 658 years ago

Black and white aren't merely the preferred wardrobe colors of the Jewish hyper-devout. They're also a reflection of the way view the Torah's personalities.

What makes the Bible wonderful? It's that its characters are lovingly painted in various colors, warts and all, glorious in their many flaws, people we can identify with and not some perfect gods. And thoroughly human.

Look at some of our heroes: Abraham essentially gives his wife (twice) to a king to protect his own skin, then, like a zombie attempts to sacrifice his son, Isaac who in turn grows up to be passive and semi senile. Isaac is cheated by his mama's boy, second born son Jacob, who with his mommy's help underhandedly gains the rights of the first born from his slightly dimwitted brother Esav.

Jacob blatantly and stupidly favors his son Joseph, who brags to his brothers about being 'da man'; his brothers will one day be the founders of our twelve (or eleven, or thirteen, depends where you read) tribes; yet they sell their brother to a bunch of proto-arabs (Yishmaelites or Midyanites, the scripture can't decide here either) and tell their father that a mean animal ate him up. Meanwhile, our saintly four mothers exhibit jealousy, competitiveness and are not shy about pulling shtiks. Great stuff.

Jump foward to King David who we revere so, head of a legendary line of kings, forefather of the Messiah to come....Yet this same David undermines King Saul, was a mercenary for the despised Philistines, had rivals routinely assasinated, voyeuristically watched Bathsheba showering below his window and seized her from her husband Uriah who he sent to a sure death at the front on the Golan Heights...I can go on and on.

And there are the raunchy stories which you and I relish. Take Tamar. Make that the two Tamars. One poses as a hooker to lure her father in law Yehuda (Judah) in Genesis (as a result of the sexual problems of Onan his son and her husband).
Then another Tamar, this time David's daughter, has incestuous sex wth her brother Amnon. My perush (commentary) on it is that Tamar was a word in lushon hakodesh (holy tongue) for 'hottie' or 'vixen'. In fact an echo of this definition has trickled into Englsih. How? the definition of Tamar is 'date', as in the fruit of the palm. But this word's homograph (same spelling different meaning) is another sort of date, the one that guys take out. So we can say that Tamar was, shall we say, a hot 'date', involved in two of the naughtiest stories in the Tanakh...

As I was saying, these are all colorful, ambiguous personalities, drawn in pastels, anything but black and white. Thoroughly imperfect.
And human.

So what did the Rabbis do? They took these carefully crafted characters and turned them all into good guys and bad guys. The three fathers and four mothers? Perfect and godlike. Everything they ever did was perfect in every way. And not only that: they were all great scholars and prophets, knowing Torah, halachot, Rashi, Tosfot and each and every other commentator to ever come. And what of the abandoned Yishamel (Isaac's brother) and cheated Esav (Jacob's older twin)? Reshaim. Evildoers.

I once had a brief exchange at table 12 ar some relative's vedding in Ir Hakoidesh (Borough Park) with my cousin Heshy about Yaakov and Esav. As we awaited the khatan and kallah (groom and bride)to emerge from seclusion, I said something about Esav getting screwed by Yaakov. Heshy rose up, almost tipping over his soup, knaidalakh (dumplings) and all, thundering, pointing wildly:

"But Esav was a rasha (evil)!".
"That's not how he's portrayed in the scripture." I said. "And if he was a rasha, how come Isaac loved him so much?"
"All the mefarshim and midrashim, everyone knows he's a rasha! What do you know?"

And so it is with all the characters. Heshy's response is typical of fundamentalist Jewish thinking. Over the ages the rabbis scrubbed the colorful multi dimensional tapestries scrubbed into flat blacks and whites. I guess we shouldn't make things complicated for our kolel boys and ulpana girls.
Brought to you by the same guys that insist that Shir Hashirim (Song of Songs) isn't an erotic love song.

On this day in 1349, a massacre took place in Basel in what is today Switzerland. This was one of the most tragic in a series of anti Jewish spasms of sadism that occurred during the Black Death, which decimated a third of all Europeans. Jews were accused of having spread the pestilence by poisoning wells, though people knew that this wasn't so; Jews died with everyone else.
A massive wave of massacres had swept the region of Savoy. When it spread to Basel, city elders attempted to protect the Jews, in vain. The mob gathered all of the town's Jews, and forced them all into a shack on an island in the middle of the Rhine River. The shack was set alight and burned down with the Jews inside.
Against their parents wishes, a few of their children were saved and baptized.
A decree was later issued banning Jews from Basel for 200 years; the decree was overlooked as soon as the town's requirements demanded it.



*lithograph by Marc Chagall 'Tamar, the daughter in law of Juda'

The Bible is fun! But, alas, no one cares. Also, evil in 1575 Seville

Where are you? I've now been blogging religiously for a couple of weeks, and I'm still eagerly and impatiently looking for an uptick in the number of visitors. Where are you people? I need fans.

I was hoping to find some comment on last week's parsha, but '0 comments' it remains, day after day. The sort of anomalies discussed (see the entry for this past Friday) are what make the Torah (and the rest of the Hebrew Bible) the incredibly fascinating 25 century old puzzle it is.

As many of you know, we can find examples of contradiction, doublets (two versions of the same story), triplets, and transmission mistakes in practically every portion of the Torah. None of the questions I raise are new, and many of these issues have been remarked upon by commentators through the ages (but secularly only over the past 2 centuries). Yet relatively few people know or are interested in the subject. Why has the remarkable topic of secular biblical research remained obscure? Why do people know so little of the work of biblical critics since the enlightenment?

Devout believers for the most part, and with a few exceptions, are certainly uninterested. These issues scare them. So how might many of them they explain these biblical mistakes and contradictions? Simple: 'There is no contradiction or mistake, and it's arrogant and rude to even consider that mistakes may exist in God's handiwork. It's that you don't understand. If you want understand, go ask a brilliant rabbi who'll have all the (appropriate) answers. But whatever you do, do not dare draw any conclusions yourself! The Rabbi will provide them for you.'

And 95% of everyone else, including supposedly educated Ivy Leaguers? They'd say something like: 'Bible? God? history? Judaism? Criticism? What's that? And oh yeah, who cares? Whatever.'

I don't think I exaggerate here.

Its also interesting how many highly educated secular people who do have an interest in Judaism don't ever think of investigating the bible with a critical eye, which is the most interesting way of exploring it. It doesn't occur to them to ask: Why was it written this way? Why was this particular story inserted here? Why would later writers and editors allow contradictions and mistakes to remain? I'm getting ahead of myself: they wouldn't think of the existence of writers or editors, and they simply aren't aware of the incredible research done and insight gained in the area of critical Biblical scholarship by many intellectual giants over the past 200 years to this very day.

I suppose, and its been remarked on elsewhere, many secular people who one would expect to exhibit secular curiosity are really attempting to escape the rational, and are searching for some form spirituality. They just assume without question that there's some vague 'divinity' attached to the Bible in some undefined way, whatever that may mean, and they don't know how to think about what that may (or may not) mean.

On this day in the life of the Jews: In 1575, the so-called Auto de Fe, or Act of Faith, took place in Seville. This was the solemn proclamation and execution of Inquisition sentences against heretics, many of whom were marrano (hidden Jews). Considering spilled blood much too messy, Spaniards and Portuguese preferred execution by fire, which took place at the Quamadero ('place of burning). Please note that not everyone was burned alive, since formal confession and repentance (An Iberian Christian form of tshuva) secured strangulation before burning. It appears that gathering at the fiery spectacle at the Quamadero was a fashionable pastime. YS"V.

Next, a reflection on the substituting of stark black and white for pastels in the Bible.

The mystery of the changing tribe names

I'm introducing some new features on NYAPIKORES. First, each blog entry will contain a brief synopsis of key events that occurred on that day in the life of the Jewish People, with an emphasis on the forgotten past -- essentially pre-World War II. So here we go: on this day in 1895, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, accused of treachery, was publicly degraded in Paris, in the face of his cries of innocence. He was deported to Devils Island soon after. Theodore Herzl would soon be aroused to kick start the Zionist movement.

Apart from 'this day in the Jewish life', I'm introducing a weekly feature to appear on Fridays. This will be a brief comment on the weekly portion in the ancient NYAPIKORES tradition...

This week's parsha (portion) is Vayekhi ('And he lived'), the last section in Breishit (Genesis), the centerpiece of which are Jacob's blessings to his sons on his deathbed. While devout Jews view the blessings as prophecy, they are actually a reflection of many tribal realities as they existed during the Judges and monarchy periods (which began hundreds of years after the purported events reported in this weeks portion were to have occurred). These later events were then projected back into the semi-mythical Israelite past, to be retold and discussed as allegories. Judah and Efraim (one of Joseph's sons -- traditionally Joseph ended up with two tribes named after his two sons: Efraim and Menashe) received the best blessings of all from Jacob, and lo and behold, they were to become the two leading, and eventually rival, tribes.

There are many interesting insights to glean from the blessings, but we'll touch on only a few. For example Yisakhar, comes from two words, Yesh Sakhar, or 'have salary' - seems the Yissakharites were paid laborers of the Canaanites. Benjamin is called a killer wolf, which may be an allusion to the horrible story of Pilegesh BaGiv'a (the concubine of Giv'a), itself a close facsimile of the story of Sodom. I'll discuss that another time.

Anyway, I'd like to dwell (I'm supposed to keep this short, right?) on the list of brothers (tribes) which is the traditional lineup most familiar. Reuven Shimon Levi Yehuda etc. I'll assume that you're familiar with the list, and if not you can look it up in the portion. Now, one would assume that the tribal roster wold remain consistent through the Tanach. But this isn't so. In Dvarim (Deuteronomy) 33, Shimon is absent from Moshe's series of blessings to the tribes. Why?

Meanwhile, Shoftim (Judges) 1, features a very different list, in which Joseph is an independent tribe apart from his sons Efraim and Menashe. Reuven, Gad, Levi and Yisakhar are absent. Odd.

Finally in Shoftim 5, which contains the very ancient Song of Devora, we find yet another roster.
Here, not 12 but 11 tribes are mentioned. Three are not sons of Jacob: Machir, Gil'ad, and Meroz. Five on the traditional list are absent: Shimon, Levi, Yehuda, Menashe and Gad. Hmmm...
Its been observed by many scholars for a variety of reasons that its likely that the traditional list is most recent, while the roster in Devora's Song is most ancient.

Its not surprising that in general yeshiva students aren't urged by their rabbis to study the prophets and writings. Exposure to these neglected parts of the Bible would raise too many questions in their minds, bring attention to inconsistencies and even raise doubts in their innocent minds as to the divine authorship of the Torah. Who needs such trouble?
Shabbat Shalom.

God on the blog

A perusal of my blogger profile would indicate that I'm interested in all sorts of stuff. If you're too lazy to check, they range from astronomy and history to Biblical criticism, to Israel to energy policy. I'm still grappling with whether I should keep the subject of this blog narrowly focused, which some might find less confusing, or broadbased, which would be a better reflection of me.

In my initial wanderings in this strange landscape I've been drawn instinctively to the fascinating blogs of anonymous (generally nonbelieving) hasidim who cathartically use bloggery to express themselves profoundly and hilariously, providing a window both into their daily lives and turbulent souls and minds. The existence of god is a recurring theme, theological arguments with rabbis are reported, and wonderful discussions carried on through the days and weeks. Many of these great blogs have been posted along the right. There's also a fun argument for and against god's existence between Sam Harris and Dennis Prager on Jewlicious.com.

Today, I managed to shock the guy I drive up with (a Flatbush frummie), when I referred to Tanaim and Amoraim (the rabbis mentioned in the Talmud) as reform rabbis. Let's face it, I told him, the laws they designed have little to nothing in common with the laws of the Torah.

Tali-Ban upon you Yids

Rookie bloggers often screw up, and so I somehow erased a monumental, brilliant entry and must begin again. This version will pale in comparison to its predecessor, as bayit sheni was no match for Solomon's. Anyway, I raise two items, related in two ways. The first was published on the summer solstice, the second almost exactly on the shortest day of the year. Well, almost. In any case, they're reflections of the same reality, the process of Haredizing Orthodox and Talibanized Haredi. On the year's longest day it was reported that HaModia, the Gerer Hasidim news organ, had banned the unblurred appearance of the female poonim (face) upon the sacred pages of its book catalog. Then at this time of the year's longest night, we discover that restrictions have been placed upon devout women attaining advanced degrees. I could go on, but I must return home to administer baths and supervise homework. Meanwhile in Qatar, female college college enrollment exceeds that of males. Its true...Ah shandeh, no?

Parting the Red Sea Over Kiddush

As a spanking new blogger I understand that with contemporary attention spans being what they are, it's best to keep entries short and succinct, so that you keep visiting.
So here it goes.
Anyway, I can be found most Sabbaths (not shabbes or Shabbat so as not to confuse goyishe visitors) after services sitting in the synagogue with my buddies (even a couple o' classy ladies too, sometimes) in the basement sipping scotch at kiddush (scroll down to my introductory entry to read more about this). This past weekend I found myself sitting next to a modern looking guy, thirty five-ish.
"So tell me," he says leaning back, "If you were able to go back in time, where would you go?"
I guess he wasn't interested in my own time travel preferences since he promptly answered his own question. "If you ask me, I'd go back to the splitting of Yam Soof (the Red Sea). Man, that must have been some sight."
I couldn't resist. "Yeah, some sight. If it really happened."
This stunned him. "What's that supposed to mean?" he shot back with a frown.
"I just don't think it happened."
"How can you say that? Why would you think that?"
I tried to be diplomatic, attempting to mask my (unfortunate) condescension. "I don't believe in miracles."
Modern thirty five-ish guy scanned his memory banks for proof of a miracle, coming back at me with what he was certain was an 'ahah' to end all 'ahahs'. "So you wanna tell me that thirty nine SCUDS landing in Israel and not hurting anyone wasn't a miracle?"
I was unmoved. "God has had plenty of great opportunities for timely miracles," I said as laconically as possible. "The one thousand good Jews massacred by suicide vermin could have used a miracle, don't you think? And six million others also would have found some use for a miracle or two, no?" I lost him right then, as he conveniently turned away to offer a 'good shabbes' to someone else.

Now I'd never want to upset anyone... But why is it that otherwise thinking, people of the modern age (I love retro terminology) accept without question that events described in the Torah happened exactly as reported? In fact, few stop to think about this. And the devout either accept things as written or keep their doubts to themselves.
I hope I haven't lost you yet. Stay tuned.