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!