HEY JEWS

Free Passover crossword puzzle incoming:

This week's crossword is a meta by @AimeeLucido + avcx forever-friend @metabymatt.

It comes with an original drawing by New Yorker cartoonist Robert Leighton, which figures into the meta.

If your family can't be together on Passover, try solving this together remotely!

— American Values Club (@AVCXWord) April 6, 2020

Huh, so I guess it turns out we *are* doing a Zoom seder with our temple. Let's see how that turns out, but it could be worth it for the novelty alone.

Speaking of how things turn out, my younger daughter's bat mitzvah is (still, at least for now) scheduled for September. A lot of her friends had been teasing her for being on the young end, and the last of the bunch to be a bat mitzvah, but in an ironic twist all of their April and May and June services have been rescheduled for October, November, December. So she may end up being among the first!

lovely thought about korach that i just saw from Yeshayahu Leibowitz

"The Judaism of Moses is arduous. It means knowing that we are NOT a holy people. The Judaism of Korah is very comforting. It allows every Jew to be proud and boast that he is a member of the holy people, which is holy by its very nature. This obligates him to nothing. There is no greater opposition than between the conception of Am Segulah (a chosen people) as implying subjection to an obligation and Am Segulah as purely a privilege. He who empties the concept of the Jewish people of its religious content ... and still describes it as Am Segulah turns this concept into an expression of racist chauvinism.

The uniqueness of the Jewish people is not a fact; it is an endeavor. The holiness of Israel is not a reality but a task. "Holy" is an attribute that applies exclusively to God. It is therefore inapplicable to anything in the natural or historical domain. He who does so apply it is guilty of idolatry. He exalts something natural or human to the level of the divine."

remarkable

Interesting. Maybe related (my theology is half-assed and rusty at best), my younger daughter has been working on her torah portion, which is right when Moses finally reaches the promised land and God more or less reiterates the key tenets of nascent Judaism while threatening those who deviate or fall off. And my daughter was a little annoyed, reading it as more or less extortion: you better do this, or else. And even though this is nothing I really think about, it did make me try to find a way to describe to her what could be going on there, namely that God is giving his followers his blessing but also a choice, but that choice requires work, and in return for doing that work God promises to be forgiving and let you try again, even if that work is not done right, or quickly, or consistently. It's less extortion and more God imparting the wise notion that putting in the effort, even failing, is better than just getting the holy imprimatur and coasting on his support. At least that's how I read it. Yes, you are chosen, but it is kind of a two way street, so don't get complacent.

god is all about continual improvement per ISO 9000

It makes a lot of sense that moses judaism would be sisyphean tbf

My daughter was all, wait a minute, if Moses did all this stuff for God, and brought the Jews to the promised land, then ... why doesn't he get to go into the promised land? (The reason given is clearly total BS.) Or poor Abraham, who is prepared to murder his son until a last minute reprieve, ha ha, all is good, except he and Isaac never see each other again, whoops. The pious can't win for losing.

here is my stance on God and the Jews:

you do what God tells you not for prudential reasons but because God tells you to

I usually try to read the torah with the understanding that the most extreme punishments are likely reserved for the things about wish the drafters intended to send the strongest message/the ideas that were held most sacred. Of course, this is circular to an extent, but I prefer to try to read the Torah by its own internal logic--to the extent that such logic is consistent--rather than according to my own independent moral values.

IIRC, Moses loses his privilege to enter the promised land because he not only disobeys God, but does so in a way that makes him, rather than God, appear to be the one with the power to bring forth water. By punishing Moses so severely, God sends a message that is directly related to the "crime," i.e. even Moses, the great leader, is not exempt from obedience to God.

An episode that always bothered me more was the smiting of Aaron's sons. I mean, obviously the fact that they die for not following the proper ritual practice emphasizes that said ritual practice must be really, really important, but it's hard for me to accept.

or, more succinctly, xpost

if it were merely prudent to observe the laws and customs of the Torah it wouldn't be holy

Which is actually just a terrifying way of teaching the real moral lesson: doing the right thing because it is right, not because it is expedient or, as you say, prudent

Which is why it's always been more instructive to me to read "the right thing" as beyond the most literal interpretations. Like, what is the right thing here, why is this right thing "the right thing" and how is following these instructions getting me there? Vs. "do this or else," where "the right thing" is inseparable from god's will. *Why* does god instruct such and such is "the right thing?" What is the bigger picture?

Yeah, I think that, in a roundabout sort of way, this concept helps to lay groundwork for universal moral or ethical principles -- you follow them out of "obedience" to a moral system rather than because of what is prudent or expedient in the moment. But I don't think that is the "why" of the Torah, the why of the Torah is God, period.

Leibovitz, the subject of Mordy's revive, says that the Torah is not a system of morals or ethics, that a person can and should learn those independently of the Torah.

Of course, that's probably a bit of an outlier view -- some of the Torah's laws (though not all), clearly have moral and ethical content. There are laws about kindness, stealing, murder. There are laws about hospitality. There are laws about putting up a railing to prevent injuries. There are laws that may have some connection to public health. There are laws that have no discernibly independent reason other than maybe superstition (don't mix wool and linen), there are laws that seem to have come from a place of rejecting the barbaric practices of the other.

I think it's more likely that at the time(s) it was written, the idea of having entirely separate categories of morals, ethics, civil laws, criminal laws, ritual laws, etc. that might be found in entirely separate texts was not so widespread, and weaving all of these together in one book made a kind of cultural sense.

None of that really answers the question "So what am I supposed to do with all this as a Jew living in 2020?"

Which I think is what Josh is getting at

Yeah, that's the bigger picture I was talking about. The "why" of the Torah is always "because God," but I've always found interpretation outside of strict dogma more rewarding, personally.

I think the confusion partly comes from a sort of pre-modern, pre-literate unity of physical, material, cultural and spiritual life. That's why it feels like such a mish-mash of different things at times -- there was no compartmentalization of "this book tells you how to be good to your fellow man" "this book tells you how to prepare a sacrifice" "this book tells you how to dress" "this book tells you how to celebrate a holiday" etc. And I think that's also why the laws can sometimes be confusing to modern people. But that's all still a historic sort of reading that, again, doesn't speak to what to do with all of it in 2020.

None of that really answers the question "So what am I supposed to do with all this as a Jew living in 2020?"

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, June 23, 2020 3:32 PM (one hour ago)

one of the catchphrases of the reconstructionist movement is "tradition has a voice but not a veto" and one of the things that means for me is that as Moderns there's no getting around the fact that our values come from more than one place

We've got the Deuteronomy we have and not the one we might want but as Jews who continue to study Torah and much else besides to this very day we have other resources than shrugging or rejection to take us out of the fundamentalist mindset Christian hegemony steers us into when we read it. Like, my understanding of the rabbinic treatment of the death penalty in the Torah was to patiently render it void through argument. One doesn't know if the Torah's death penalties were ever applied in any polity anywhere. One might suspect the rabbis of having started with their desired conclusion (make it impossible to render a death penalty) and finding the arguments to get them there. One might suspect similar things of (e.g.) the Conservative movement's rulings on homosexual behavior. It's not so much that we pick and choose our scriptures but that to us, they don't actually work like that, they work in a different way I can't adequately explain to myself.

But like rabbinic cunning also isn't the only way to make sense of Torah. We know people wrote, redacted, and compiled the Tanakh, Jews like us, and wrote down their own practices and values and stories and lo, the received text. We make sense of it that way, sometimes. Some words in the Torah scarcely make sense to scholars, readings are disputed. And then in the liturgy we chant "v'ahavta et adonai elohecha", we try to love god with all our hearts, because after all god told us to, commands it, and maybe we make sense of some Torah that way. Most Torah, most of us don't know, we can't make sense of it because the time to study is short. The sweetest thing of all for Tevye was the idea of being rich enough to study, and he didn't even have Sefaria.

Maybe one might say, adopting an academic register, making sense of Torah is productive of Judaism.

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/06/29/in-search-of-king-davids-lost-empire

In search of David. Was he real and what did he do. Archeologists and more quoted

We've been planning a bat mitzvah for September, which is going to happen in some way shape or form with the same or more or fewer restrictions than are in place right now. Currently the guidance is max 50 people, masked, socially distanced, though I doubt we'll come close to 50. We had a virtual meeting with the rabbi today about all the moving parts. Anyway, apparently rather than souvenir yarmulkes people are starting to print up souvenir face masks!

And the younger daughter's bat mitzvah is now in the books! It was an interesting experience. About 25 guests, grouped by family and spread out in the community hall, everyone masked, other guests "attending" via Zoom on screen. Obviously it was not ideal, but we talked a bit after about how the imposed intimacy sort of gave the experience new meaning/significance. No party, no distractions (other than technology). Just people gathered together, orderly, doing the best the can with what they have to work with. Felt very ... fitting, in some ways, though it was also sad to see all these people who couldn't be there. Like our Aussie family that woke at 2am Sydney time to share the experience with us, or old friends stuck in their respective spaces. Both very weird but very fortunate to have the two grandparents in town, our first guests in months and the first we've seen of them in almost a year, it feels like. But there was no way they were going to stay home.

And my daughter did beautifully, of course.

mazel tov

Rosh Hashanah online I guess

Yeah, they're broadcasting out services on Vimeo, so that we can all stream it on our TVs.

mazel tov Josh!

https://youtu.be/PrS3H0Li7yo

Johnny Mathis doing Kol Nidre

was watching our livestream. I had been reading up on the nebulous origins of kol nidre, about how it may have become traditional as an act of defiance in the face of forced conversation. Watching our temple (as I imagine many congregations are doing) work so hard to pull the service together against all odds might have been a less dire challenge but in its own way an act of inspiring tenacity in keeping with the roots of kol nidre.

Yom Kippur is such a beautiful holiday. I almost wish I'd have committed a transgression in the last year so I could make amends and ask someone forgiveness just to get in the spirit of things.

The local Rabbi I liked moved to Brooklyn and we were able to watch him doing a service from NY via zoom

last couple hours of the fast are always the hardest, but I'm gonna make it

Tried with the online services but it's kind of depressing. We also just moved and were never even members of our prior neighborhood synagogue so I don't really have a congregation I feel a connection to right now, but being in person among strangers is still way better than watching on a screen. Next year I really hope to do the whole day at synagogue.

http://linuxmafia.com/~rick/xmas.html

Minor but funny gaffe:

When Abrams lost by just shy of 55,000 votes, she told Vogue: “I sat shiva for 10 days. Then I started plotting.”

https://external-lga3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/safe_image.php?d=AQApKBEDdV1spkdR&w=500&h=261&url=https%3A%2F%2Fassets.vogue.com%2Fphotos%2F5d41b1a2b9a8370008fb2566%2F16%3A9%2Fw_1280%2Cc_limit%2Fvogue-september-battle-royale-01.jpg&cfs=1&sx=0&sy=17&sw=1280&sh=668&ext=jpg&_nc_cb=1&_nc_hash=AQCB3HpSjPGhw0-w

My wife asked me to get the materials from the mailboxes. "What are you talking about?" I asked. "Oh," she said, "I agreed to help the block make luminaries."

"Wait, luminaries?" I said. "Like, for Christmas!?"

"No," she said. "For the winter solstice."

And I said, get the fuck out of here. That's like people claiming there is no religious component to Christmas trees (true!) so they have nothing to do with Christmas (false!). Anyway, I tried to find any indication of people in America lighting luminaries for the solstice, or anything other than Christmas, and nada. As my daughter said, "even the word 'luminaries' sounds Christian," and my wife came close to shooting wine out her nose.

I don’t even know what that is but it sounds goyish for sure

Same

Is that like putting candles in paper bags?

Sounds like an American Catholic thing, primarily Hispanic:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminaria

Candles in paper bags is pretty universal, just saying

It's convoluted. By the same token snickerdoodles might be considered Christian, because they get made for Christmas.

If candles in paper bags were pretty universal I would have seen them over the past few decades any time other than just Christmastime. Now flaming brown bags with poop left on the front porch? That's universal.

We eat snickerdoodles all the time, so dunno. But egg not? More controversial.

I had a gingerbread cookie my kids teacher made and it was good but I was thinking about how it tastes about equally foreign to me as Indian sweets.

lol egg not. "Egg nog? More like egg *not*!"

Tonight we googled to see if there were other kinds of nog, and the answer is apparently ... not.

flaming dogshit in paper bags is pretty universal