The Other Side

Do you have the time?

2009-03-29T20:50:00.002-04:00

Time. Do you have time? How much time do you have? Can you have time, hold it in your hand, show it to your friends, admire its sparkle and glare and enduring attractiveness and its unwillingness to be locked down in a neat scientific box, its resistance to being defined and categorized and understood and forgotten about? Can you boast about how much of it you have to your drunken friends at that bar with the beautiful women where time passes all too quickly and extinguishes illusions much as a cold shower extinguishes desire?

Time. Enchanting but hazy, like the fleeting remnants of a charmed dream or the misty outline of the seductive siren painted by an expressionistic painter whose vivid palette was robbed by time itself, leaving nothing but a dull charcoal-gray behind. Do we have enough of it? Have we spent too much of it thinking, dreaming, working, studying, scheming, planning for the tyrannical and terrifying future that is now long behind us, passing us by with nary a nudge or a wink or a suggestive whisper about the imminent arrival of the promised possibilities clinging to its bosom? Have we killed time? Can it be bent, curved, spliced, chopped up into minuscule little quanta carried on the energizing beam of glowing light?

Time. Does it flow like a cold spring in the silent night, steady and unending, grinding down the rocks in its path to the smooth dust-like sediment upon which future events are etched? Does the arrow of time fly faster than the human imagination, competing with cupid’s arrow for the chance to wreak havoc upon the hearts of men? Does the passage of time multiply the possibilities in an endless stream of exponentially proliferating states, or does it expose the futility of idle reverie by a devastating collapse of the wave function like a collapsing bridge exposed to a violent sandstorm in a desert where sanity dictates a bridge should never be built? Will time promote the growth of a flower carefully watered and nursed and lovingly tended but which nobody ever thought to plant? Have I wasted my time, or has time wasted me?

Time. It passes in silence leaving chaos behind. And yet, the knowledge that more of it is to come inspires the greatest achievements known to existence. It provokes bright-eyed hope and eager anticipation for that phantasmal chimera known as the future, something that never arrives but always remains just out of grasp right there in the very near future. It turns wise men foolish and idiots into prophets. It is a never-ending carousel of cavorting horses and colored elephants and bad speakers blaring loud music, turning round and round and round without getting anywhere.

Unless. Unless. Unless the time of time is NOW. Glorious and effervescent and right in front of us in all its florid beauty, this now. Future and past and present are now. I shall seize the moment, for otherwise the “moment” is nothing but a cruel illusion called ......time.

Cockfights and psychopathic chickens

2009-03-23T16:39:00.006-04:00

The biologist David Sloan Wilson, author of Darwin's Cathedral among some other popular books, has an interesting and somewhat controversial view on human evolution. He promotes the idea that evolution works on a group scale, and not merely on the scale of each individual organism. As social creatures, group survival may depend on traits that would work against individual survival had that individual been less inclined to seek out a social group to be part of. Dr. Wilson is an entertaining and persuasive speaker, and while his presentation is full of interesting little anecdotes and thought experiments whose outcomes are self-evident, he does manage to make you think about things from a different and sometimes unusual perspective.

Take this thought experiment: two people are stuck on a desert island with no resources, no shelter, no food, no protection from predators, and… no movie theaters or shuls even. One of those people is what we would consider the very embodiment of evil: selfish; cruel; malicious; lacking self-control; and an Aroini to boot. The other is the polar opposite: kind; considerate; caring; selfless; and a disciple of mother Theresa. You leave them for a couple of weeks and then come back to see the result of your sociological experiment. Who would you expect to have survived all the hardships, and who do you think served as a tasty bit of shark food? Right.

Now consider the same experiment, but split between two islands with no means of communication between them. On one island we have a community of evil bastards as above, and on the other we have a community of kind and considerate non-bastards. This time, you leave them there for a generation or two. Which community is more likely to survive and prosper, and which community is likely to quickly collapse with most members serving as food or firewood, with the few survivors remaining in a sorry pre-historic state to boot? Right again. What does this tell us about the forces that drive human evolution and the evolutionary forces continuously shaping the human view of morality?

Now take the psychopathic-chicken experiment. Chickens on an egg-laying farm live in groups -- nine chickens to a crate. In one version of the experiment, researchers selected the most productive chicken from each crate and put nine of those together in a new crate. They then did the same with the offspring of these super-producers, and again with the offspring of those. After six generations, they had a crate of...... 3 super-chickens -- the rest had been murdered by their crate-mates -- and those that were left were continuously fighting and at each other's throats, so much so that their egg-production dropped to a minimum. They had bred a failed chicken society.

How did that happen? Well, it turns out that successful individuals in a community depend on having better access to resources and on the cooperation of other members in the community. They're also good at getting an outsized share of the limited resources available. After a couple of generations, as competition grew fierce and the best producers by necessity grew even fiercer, they had bred a group of psychopathic chickens, worried only about their own needs and quickly killing off anyone in their way. As a result, the society collapsed.

The same experiment was done again, but with a different twist. Instead of selecting for the best individual producers, they selected for the crate which had the best production. After a few generations they had bred a community that was living in excellent harmony (at least as far as chickens are concerned) and producing on average 130% better then the other crates. The selection process chose for the community which was best at sharing the resources in a way that makes most use of it, and the results reflected that efficient organization and produced a successful chicken society.

And so, Wilson argues, instead of the idea of evolution being one that promotes selfishness, fascism and immorality as some detractors argue, it can be argued that the idea of evolution should promote harmony, charity, kindness and even...... religion, with religion being a tremendous force for group cohesion and hence group survival.

This is an interesting argument, but it rubs me the wrong way. I find it a very dangerous thing to argue that since kindness helps along evolution, kindness should therefore be promoted as a value. Evolution is not a moral value; it is simply a statement of fact. Evolution states that those who are good at surviving and reproducing actually survive and reproduce (somewhat self-evident, once you give it some thought); it does NOT say that those (and only those) good at surviving and reproducing SHOULD survive and reproduce. Evolution has nothing to say on how things should be and what behaviors we should value.

We quickly run into huge moral conundrums if we try looking at it in any other way. For example, we have ignored the fact that from an evolutionary perspective, while it is true that moral societies are more likely to survive and reproduce, evil individuals living in those moral societies are even LIKELIER to survive and reproduce. They're still evil assholes, however.

I took up this issue with Wilson, and while I don't think I was as clear as I could be (I had a glass or two of wine at that point) he did agree with me. What he's saying, in short, is that since we do value what we call morality in any case, we might as well use evolutionary thinking to promote that morality. For example, he says that in one of his lectures, when he told the chicken story, one of the faculty members in the university came up to him and said "I have names for these chickens!" When you promote only the best researchers and the individuals with the most voluminous publishing portfolios and put them on the same faculty, they will inevitably behave like the psychopathic chickens. He strongly advocates you always promote the best groups of researchers, people who have shown a propensity and ability to work together efficiently and who will produce good research as a group. And the same goes for all other kinds of community policies.

To this I can only add: Don't be a chicken!

Am I missing something?

2009-03-17T13:15:00.006-04:00

"A coed retreat focused on pleasing women joins San Francisco’s sexual underground," says the Times. Not very surprising, is it? What the headline doesn't say, however, is that it joined the "sexual underground" in San Francisco AND...... Orthodox Brooklyn.

From:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/fashion/15commune.html

"At 7 a.m. each day, as the rest of America is eating Cheerios or trying to face gridlock without hyperventilating, about a dozen women, naked from the waist down, lie with eyes closed in a velvet-curtained room, while clothed men huddle over them, stroking them in a ritual known as orgasmic meditation — “OMing,” for short.
...
"Ms. Cherwitz commutes to New York and offers private sensuality coaching at a satellite outpost operated by One Taste on Grand Street. Many of her clients, she said, are married Orthodox Jewish couples from Brooklyn."

As you can see, the answer to the title of this post appears to be "yes, yes you are."

What Women Want

2009-01-29T15:37:00.003-05:00

How do you define 'want'? Can we have enough introspection to know what we truly want? Does our desire for certain possessions and experiences and knowledge have purely neurobiological underpinnings that we are unaware of consciously, and when we do become aware of them we construct post-hoc explanations which sound logical but are really just-so stories we tell ourselves in order to cover up the fact that we are utterly clueless of what compels and motivates us?

Whenever I have this question -- 'What do you want?'-- put to me I readily admit that it is a very difficult one to answer. I can enumerate a long list of my desires, but I'm unsure if that actually answers the damned question. What does a simple list of what I wish for and dream about say about what I truly want? If I want to eat chocolate can I also 'want' to lose weight? If I want to jog every morning is it possible that I want to sleep in? If I want to have varied sexual experiences is it true that I don't want to hurt anyone? Can I want to finish an advanced degree and want more leisure time and want to write on my blog and not want to put in the necessary work and want to tell people "fuck off" and pity them and want to be kind, even while I know all these are clearly contradictory? Is wanting something the same thing as desiring that thing? Is desire the same as obsession?

The field of neuropsychology attempts to answer some of these questions and illuminate how we explain our brain to ourselves, sometimes borrowing heavily from other fields such as conventional psychology, philosophy, sociology and even animal behavior. Studies on stroke patients unable to recognize there is such a thing as a left side nevertheless show they are unconsciously aware of what's going on that side, but being unaware of the reasons they 'know' certain things they construct elaborate tales of why things are as they are and why they say the things they do. These are often illogical and nonsensical to those of us consciously aware of the other side, but it is impossible to persuade them of the fallaciousness of their theories. The HM case also made some fascinating contributions to the field, as did the technology that allows for single-cell neuron imaging in some restricted cases.

However, the inferences are often muddled and the conclusions contradictory. I think nobody is bold enough to claim we can answer these puzzles with any precision as of now. We don't yet know what want is or how it is created or if we are conscious of what we want -- or even if we want what we want. Which is why I think the title of a recent New York Times Magazine piece (What Do Women Want?) that inspired the title of this post (and from where I shamelessly stole the picture) is hackneyed and silly, even while I think the content is intriguing and illuminating of human psychology as a whole. And I would bet the lickerish illustrations accompanying the piece is a consequence of someone betting this is What Men Want. Additionally, the dichotomy of the title of the piece and the keyword used in the name of the web page (see link) also gives us something to ponder. But most interesting is what the article says about human desire and about what we want, and the dichotomy -- or is it? -- between the two.

I should note that this post is entirely a filler for a single word. Now imagine if I tried to write filler for a whole sentence? I'd have to fill a book with fascinating stories before being able to construct the sentence I wanted. Seriously though, I've always found words intriguing in general and I find that word play in particular captivates my attention. And the way words mean different things in different contexts and idioms sometimes don't even make sense is something that is fascinating to observe. (This, too, is being studied in certain branches of neuroscience.) For example, I always fight the urge to answer the question "how are you?" as if it really means what the words imply: with a detailed explanation of the biological molecules and organ systems that explain "how" I am. How else can I be? To me, how something is translates into a question about how it works. Another example: why are dirty pictures called that when in reality the people in them or often at their most clean, having just showered or bathed? And why...... oh, I can go on and on, but I ran out of time.

Happy holidays!

2008-12-21T17:04:00.005-05:00

Happy Chanukah, everyone! What a wonderful time of the year.

For some. But that old fat S.O.B. refuses to put any gifts under my menorah. So you're welcome to send me Chanukah gifts; if you don't know my mailing address sending email will do. Have you ever sent an email as a present to yourself when your inbox was empty just so you had something to read? No? I guess it's just me, then. I'm a jolly old fellow.

My daughter asked yesterday if it's true that the fat man with the long white beard used to be Jewish at one point in time. But of course! Can't you see his long white beard? However, when he heard the rumors about him running the biggest elf sweatshop ever discovered and his odd proclivity for visiting prepubescent children in the dark of the night and leaving them gifts, he, like any good Jew should, converted to Christianity to avoid the inevitable wave of anti-Semitism. Unlike this Bernie Madoff fellow who didn't have the sense to do that before confessing to running the biggest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world. What was he thinking? Doesn't he realize that now we'll have to find a nice crypto-Goy willing to take one for the team and start an even bigger Ponzi scheme? I'm sure some wall-street execs are lining up for the job as we speak.

The children's school started teaching some real history and biology and math, finally. Only in very general terms, but still more than I once imagined possible. The government is tightening the screws and something had to give. The teacher hit on a novel solution: she reads the history of agriculture as it appears in the text, but then warns the students to disregard anything that contradicts the Torah -- without pointing out exactly what those things are. I relish the times when I'm asked, Are we allowed to believe that? and I get the opportunity to hit home the message that you should NEVER listen to someone trying to tell you what you should or should not believe. You believe whatever seems to you to be the truth. A concept you'd think is self-evident, but somehow isn't. Logic? people will wonder. What, you rely on LOGIC!?!? Are you crazy or something? Deranged? All the while, I thought logic is the most ranged thing to rely on. And I still do.

For some light holiday reading some fellow bloggers have written about shame, castration, cold-blooded murder and secretly lesbian mikvah women in the Hasidic community. Really. I think the holiday eggnog should be better stirred, myself. But who knows? I'd be afraid to enter those search terms in Google, as some will no doubt do. A search string of "castration murder secretly lesbian women banana" should provide much holiday amusement. ('Banana' for the potassium; what did you think?)

Go easy on the latkes and doughnuts, and may the Chanukah candles provide much warmth and light for whatever lies ahead. And the same for the Christmas spirit or Chanukah bush, if you're so inclined. Happy holidays!

Let It Snow

2008-12-15T12:14:00.006-05:00

Oh the driving outside is frightful

But the weather is so delightful

Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow!

A Love Poem by Yehuda Amichai

2008-12-14T01:37:00.006-05:00

Wedding

There is joy that weeps for seven days and seven nights. There is

a wedding wherein the bride and groom

are so far one from the other

that the wedding canopy does not suffice to cover the both of them

together. And the voice of the Rabbi who weds

and the voice of "harei at" ["I take thee"]

is lost in the speaker's desert.

Harei at, rat, tat, rat-a-tat tat,

like a solitary machine gun

before the start of battle or after its end.

There is a wedding wherein your night

is my day. Your days are getting longer

while mine, shorter. And the Rabbi who wed us

despaired here and is delivering eulogies there.

That is a safer bet.

--Yehuda Amichai

Translated from the Hebrew by myself (with some help from Yehuda Amichai)

חתונה

יש שמחה שבוכה שבעה ימים ושבעה לילות. יש

חתונה שבה חתן וכלה

כל כך רחוקים זה מזו,

שהחופה לא תספיק לכסות אותם

יחדיו. וקול הרב המקדש

וקול "הרי את"

יאבדו במדבר של המדבר.

את, את, ת, ת, ת ת,

כמו מכונת יריה בודדת

בפתיחת הקרב או אחר סיומו.

יש חתונה שבה אצלך לילה

ואצלי יום. אצלך מתארכים הימים

ואצלי מתקצרים. והרב שקדש אותנו

כאן התיאש ומספיד הספדים שם.

זה יותר בטוח.

Mind over Matter

2008-11-17T14:30:00.003-05:00

The brain is a powerful little machine. Powerful and complex enough that even with all modern advances in medical science in general and neuroscience in particular it still isn't understood very well (the poor thing). We know it has executive function over practically all biological systems, and yet we continue to be surprised by the extent to which what we consider the conscious part of the brain, such as emotions, appear to influence the mechanics of illness and disease.

Doctors have long known that placebos can have a real and measurable influence on well-being. That is an astonishing factoid, if you think about it; it shows that a simple change in thinking patterns may have real influence on many kinds of complex biological processes. If it hadn't been so well known, we'd probably be quite startled to discover it. We'd demand a double-blind placebo controlled study to prove it, which I'm quite sure has never been done (especially not the "placebo controlled" part). And yet, we know it's true.

The latest news is an article published in Cancer about a research study showing, among other beneficial aspects, a lowered risk of breast cancer recurrence in women who received psychological counseling. The authors hypothesize that stress hormones may ultimately affect cancer growth. Even while we know that the brain plays a major role in the endocrine system and mood affects stress hormones, I think most would find this outcome very surprising. Pleasantly so, if you happen to be a psychologist or embrace any other kind of pseudo-scientific beliefs. The hidden powers of the brain continue to amaze.

However the problem with the brain, I find, is that it has, well, a mind of its own. How many times had I not wanted to eat that piece of chocolate but have been overruled by my brain, which appears to have an irrational fondness for chocolate, potato chips, and babies? (But no, I don't eat babies.) Too many. How many times have I wanted to do one thing but my brain insisted I do something else? It often insists on thinking about something completely irrelevant even while I'm trying hard to work on something else -- and does so VERY LOUDLY.

Another problem with the mind is that if something goes just very slightly wrong with it -- or even not necessarily wrong, but just slightly different -- you can be in for a world of hurt. And if something goes just slightly wronger still, you're basically fucked. Such is the power of the mind.

So does that mean mind has domain over matter? It depends. The mind clearly has influence over the matter it can physically control, such as your own body or, in turn, things your body can physically control. You can in fact learn to lower your heart rate or raise your temperature in some situations, just by using your mind. You can even punch someone in the chin and change their own mind! But unlike what dreamy gurus with long beards selling cheap metaphysics -- or other deluded and deceitful characters -- would have you believe, your mind cannot influence matter it has no connection to or physical laws it has no control over. It cannot influence the properties of steel or the laws of probability or the force of gravity. Well, except insofar as the gravity of any situation is contingent on the perception of your own mind; if you don’t mind, it doesn’t matter. Mind over matter. Hey, I’ll drink to that.

Important PSA

2008-11-07T12:52:00.010-05:00

Important public safety announcement, complete with illustration, from here (as far as I can tell, these people are serious!):
http://www.jewishsexuality.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=182&Itemid=69

Immodest dress can cause traffic accidents and other public hazards

But my scientific observations show otherwise: there are many more horrible traffic accidents when there's snow outside and people are at their most modest! Obviously, dressing too modest is what causes accidents. For the love of all that is good and proper, we need to convince everyone to wear tank tops and shorty shorts when walking outside, especially in the wintertime. Think about all the lives saved and heartache avoided!

Sex, Fear, and Ignorance

2008-09-17T18:20:00.006-04:00

By now you must have heard the stories and allegations swirling around in our community, stories of molestation and abuse and a task force that's going to deal with it and the shame of being associated with said taskforce -- not to mention the dent in future shiduch prospects for your grandchildren and perhaps great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren until the end of time as a result of being associated with said taskforce. And you must've wondered: Why? Why the pig-headed refusal to deal with serious issues? Why the solemn silence and studied ignorance of those who think themselves leaders, and why the venomous derision and frenetic denials by those who think themselves pious followers?

Buried at the end of the most recent story on the subject in The Jewish Week is a quote by the latest man of the moment, Dr. Benzion Twerski, which provides a big part of the answer to all the above questions -- a bigger part, perhaps, than even he meant it. Here is the quote: "I think people simply don’t know, there are rabbis who don’t know. There’s a lot of education that needs to go on." Indeed.

On a most fundamental level, there's a lot of education that needs to go on in the Hasidic community. Education in general, of course, but in keeping with the subject, sex-education in particular. The ignorance about sex and sexuality amongst young people (and older people, too) in the community is astonishing. And the fact that many of these people marry and have children before being cured of their ignorance -- some are never even cured at all -- is profoundly sad. This sad lack of knowledge contributes to a twisted and non-realistic view of sex and a perverse fear of dealing with anything related to the subject. It isn't that I think the Hasidic view on sex itself is perverse; although that is true, too. But the lack of education, ANY kind of education, on the subject matter leads to total confusion and contributes to the sad state of affairs as we see it.

Children learn at a young age, both explicitly and by implicit signals they pick up from the adults around them, that any discussion or mention or anything else to do with genitals or other sensitive areas of the human body is evil and obscene. Not for us, is the message. Do not touch or look or think or speak of it. Do not mention it or ask questions about it or wonder what it is for. This may work well up to a certain age, but once the hormones kick in, equal measures of guilt and curiosity take over -- ENORMOUS equal measures of guilt and curiosity. Combine the guilt, silence, complete and utter lack of knowledge, a healthy dollop of self-doubt and embarrassment -- and for those a bit more educated, no healthy outlet at all (you quickly learn that masturbation is the most horrible sin you can ever hope to commit) and you can see how a very warped view of things is developed, internalized, and becomes part of who you are. As any half-wit, or at least any educated half-wit, can see, this provides a veritable paradise for molesters and all kinds of other miscreants and shady characters who always know how to make full use of vulnerability and weakness.

Unfortunately, this confusion about sexuality often survives well into adulthood. There is an intensely memorable and hard-hitting scene in the new movie Leaving the Fold by Eric Scott, a movie about Haredi Jews leaving the Haredi lifestyle: "Izzy" looks long and hard straight into the camera with a tormented expression on his face, and after an uncomfortably long silence and a few long and awkward pauses in between manages to say (I'm paraphrasing from memory): 'Wedding night... is rape. People are raped. It's terrible. Forced to do something you've always considered terrible and shameful with a complete stranger. Not only the girl is raped... the man, too. They are both raped.'

And there are many who feel the same way. Many never come to terms with a healthy view of sexuality. Parents, in their desperation to keep their children holy and pure and forestall any kind of emotional pain and upheaval, don't know how to deal with all these stories or even worse, imagine they *do* know how to deal with it: by denial, rejection, and vociferous condemnation of anyone who tries to do something about it publicly. It all comes back to fear and ignorance and lack of education, and we are seeing the fruits of that policy.

Regrettable, the extremely conservative official view of sex in the Hasidic world (and in the general, the Jewish Orthodox world) isn't any help. Sex or anything remotely sexual under most circumstances is considered a supremely evil force -- evil enough to cause your soul long-lasting injury and irreparable damage. Evil enough to cause not only spiritual distress but physical suffering as well. It is to be eschewed and rejected and hidden solely in the bedrooms of heterosexual married couples when the wife is not a niddah. Not that I'm here to decry the sexual mores of Orthodoxy -- or you know what, maybe I am. Lighten up! Guess what: people... fuck. They fuck and have sex and make love; sometimes even doing all these at the same time! (But sometimes, not.) As long as you don't hurt anyone it isn't dirty or evil or immoral -- it is divinely spiritual. Or maybe it's just some good fun, like biting into a freshly baked fruit tart straight out of the oven, with hot filling running all over the place and sumptuous crumbs lingering in your mouth and providing that famed afterglow. Delicious.

Why should hot apple pie only be shared by two people of opposite sex who are married to each other, and only for approximately two weeks out of every month? What great harm is prevented by this arbitrary rule? (Provided you use protection for your hand so you don't get burned, of course. Remember, not harming anyone includes yourself.) It makes little sense to me. Then again, many other things make little sense to me. Like the fact that to have an intelligent discussion about, say, piloerection and whether as a fear-response in humans it's truly a vestigial behavioral expression of an otherwise useless protein coded for in the genome, or whether that claim can only truly be tested for vestigial morphological features and in this case represents a just-so story with little scientific basis -- or really to have an interesting discussion or argument about much anything else, I have to go far far away from where I am and from the people I know. And I have to hide that fact. And worry about the shiduch prospects of my grandchildren and great-grandchildren and great-great-grandchildren until the end of time. But more about that in a later post. Maybe.

Thoughts

2008-08-26T16:23:00.005-04:00

There are so many things I’d like to say. So many things. But finding the words to say them is hard work, and I’ve been on a work-avoiding binge lately. And so I’m staring down this blank page with all the writer’s courage I can muster. I stare. And stare. And stare some more. I feel very courageous indeed, but still, the page remains blank. It isn’t that my mind remains blank -- oh no, not at all! In fact, my mind is full of thoughts. Happy thoughts and sad thoughts. Angry thoughts and ugly thoughts and amusing thoughts. But mostly beautiful thoughts. Thoughts I need to share. Thoughts scurrying around in my mind like little worker ants building huge elaborate tunnels out of grains of synapses and piling them high, high, high up and out of reach where the cruel foot of reality doesn’t tread.

So many things I’d like to share; so many things I need to say. But the words... the words are not there. Painfully absent. Gone. Blown away by an imaginary wind into an imaginary sea. I check other blogs; maybe I’ll find the words I’m looking for there. They aren’t there. I check my own blog; perhaps there’s a new post up. A post I haven’t written and haven’t published, but a post that I know exists nevertheless. But no, it isn’t on my blog either. It’s been hours now. In the past, it’s been days. Months, years, decades even. So many things to share, no words to share them.

Maybe poetry. Poetry is the language of the soul. I’m sure you’ve heard that before, but do you understand what it means? Poetry is a language when no other language will suffice. When you lack the words to say what you feel and instead try to make others feel what you say. But poetry is made out of words, and the words are... gone. I try two black coffees; no sugar, no milk, no taste. Just coffee. But the words don’t come. The thoughts do -- of course they do. Piling up against the fire-exit in a great stampede of jumbled color and shape. Trying desperately to get out, they remain locked in. Locked in and cruelly crushed by the endless stream of consciousness behind them, struggling, fighting to get to the same exit only to be locked in by the same steel bolt forged in a hellish place with no words.

Hellish? That’s a word. But it wasn’t the one I was looking for; it won’t do. I’d know hell if I see it -- I haven’t seen it. I look out the window; what a gorgeous day. Big chunky snow-white clouds in a clear blue sky. A cool strong breeze bows the branches of the trees all in the same direction, as if they’re trying to prostrate themselves in a beautiful temple to a beautiful goddess but can’t quite bring themselves to touch the floor. Is Mother Earth the temple, or is Mother Earth the goddess? Maybe both. Now the trees are vigorously waving their leaves -- red, green, full of life, full of promise, full of hope -- at... what? At a passing bird! The bird swoops low over the trees and dances in the breeze to admire the view. I don’t know what kind of bird it is: a pigeon? A seagull? It must appreciate the magnificent beauty of it all. It would surely share its thoughts with us, if only it could. But it can’t; it lacks the words. I know how it feels.

The breeze has blown the edges of the clouds into thin wisps of funky shapes. This one looks like the s-shaped neck of a swan -- a big, white, striking, sky-bound swan. It’s craning its neck to try and see something far away over the horizon, where the angels sing while they tend the young growing rainbows in the rainbow garden. Yes, yes, that’s a needless flight of fancy. Needless: we don’t need it. The universe is full of sublime beauty and transcendent joy, man made and nature made, mysterious and explicable, if only we care to find it and appreciate it. And share it. So many things to share, so many things to say, no words to say it with.

Sublime and transcendent -- those are words. Words I can use. Words I should remember. But do you understand what I mean by those words? Look at these magnificent buildings, with huge classical columns and victorian windows. Awe-inspiring splendor, designed and built by men and women like you and me. Here, let’s stand in the spray and feel the wind in our hair. Do you feel the salty taste of the misty breeze? Do you ever wonder what makes the ocean salty? Why sodium and chloride remain abundant in our seas today while calcite precipitated out and formed limestone, which combined with silica forms the brilliant white sands we are standing on? Isn’t that fascinating? Look at the cliffs above us; do you understand the process of erosion that conspired to create them just so, so imposing and majestic, jagged and foreboding, so inviting yet impossible to climb?

Look at the flaming red sun now sinking below the horizon. Nuclear fusion is blasting us with more energy than we can use. Imagine that! How incredibly powerful the process of fusing hydrogen to form helium. And it sustains all life around us, the people, the animals, the plants! And the people, what magnificent creatures! The sublime (there’s that word again) and incomprehensible beauty of the human form: the subtle and exquisite curves of the female body; the y-shaped crease that forms between her thighs and stomach when she folds one leg over the other just so; the way her hair falls over her shoulders protectively as if to cover the small blemishes on her skin; the well-muscled back and shoulders of the male athlete; the smooth dent where his biceps meets the triceps; the set jaw just before the jump. No two are alike! Has any sculptor ever created something more beautiful than the human form?

And then the human mind -- what a magnificent machine. Newton and Leibniz and the fundamental theorem of calculus -- how simple and powerful and beautiful! Amazing complexity made simple by some mathematical tricks, all done by this small mushy machine in our heads. Has any computer programmer ever created something more remarkable than this?

Which reminds me: I have many things to finish. I don’t have time to write this, especially not without the words I need. My desk is piled high, my to-do list is getting longer by the moment. Fuck this; why do I work with these dumb machines, unable to understand or appreciate what I do for them, unable to commiserate with my frustrations, unable to understand what I feel, unable to laugh at my jokes, unable to do anything but able to do it fast? In the process I’ve turned into a robot myself. I’d rather share some thoughts. But how to do that without words? Do you have any ideas?

Why are you reading this? Yes, I’m talking to you. You! You ARE reading this, are you not? Do you feel joy, sadness, anger, amusement, merriness, grief, glee, pleasure? Please, do share! I’m interested in what you have to say. No, I do not care what you look like or what you wear or how smart you think you are not. Most people don’t. If they think about you at all (and not about the appointment they are about to miss or the fight they had this morning) they wonder what you think of them. Isn’t that hilarious? So many people are preoccupied with what others think of them, when really what others think of them is mostly ‘I wonder what s/he thinks of me’. It’s the great cosmic joke.

Anyway, what I am interested in is what you have to say. Did you want to read something about my duplicitous life, about the Hasidic culture I live in but don’t live? Sorry, I find that topic boring. I do not care about all that -- really, I do not. Did you want to read something funny or amusing? I’d love to make you laugh you know. Oh yeah, I would. And I can. I can make you laugh and I can make a pretty girl smile. But this post is about some other thoughts, some thoughts I’d like to express, things I’d like to say, but don’t have the words to say them.

And so the sun sets and the stars come out. Did you know that Alpha Centauri, the closest star to our solar system, is almost 4.5 light years away? Light years. Think about that for a moment. Let’s go to a quiet corner and contemplate that. Can you imagine? And look at all the magnificent and dazzling stars, the quiet sound of the ocean, the song of the night. Is it not beautiful? Look at the tear rolling down my face. Don’t you worry, it isn’t a tear of sadness. It is in lieu of words, words I can’t find, words that escape me, words I imagine went to live with the angels in their rainbow garden. Do you know why tears are tear-shaped? It is because of surface tension and hydrogen bonding. Fascinating, is it not? The universe is full of mesmerizing stuff like that.

See, the universe is full of sublime (there’s that word again!) beauty and transcendent joy just waiting to be experienced. Do you want to experience it with me? Look me in the eye; can you experience my thoughts? Because I want to share, but can’t find the words. You cannot experience them you say? That’s alright -- I’ll go have another coffee.

Tagged

2008-06-30T17:17:00.009-04:00

I have been tagged. Tagged three times. Tagged, but I haven't been playing. I am now IT without wanting to be it, IT without actually being it. They want me to fill out an atheist questionnaire. There's a small difficulty though: I'm not an atheist. True, I don't believe in the existence of a God or Gods -- certainly not a personal one. But I'm not "an atheist." I am no more an atheist than I am "an a-Elvist." For how can one define themselves by something they are not? (Only God can do that.) So I am not a theist, true. But my identity isn't -- and can't be -- defined by my lack of theism any more than it is defined by my lack of belief that Elvis is alive and working as an undercover agent for the DHS. "Hi, I'm an atheist and an a-Elvist! Pleased to meet you." This is silly.

What am I then? Let’s see what my choices are. I can define myself by what I do. Like in that* old Yiddish joke, I (occasionally) eat pig and dance with shiksas: I am "a sheigetz."

(*It goes like this: "Rebbe, rebbe, my son has gone crazy, meshugeh!"

"What happened?"

"He eats pig and dances with shiksas!"

"So? If he danced with the pig and ate the shiksas I'd say he's crazy. As it is, he's just a sheigetz!")

But this doesn't work too well outside of a joke. By this same reckoning I am also a chocolate-eater, a cyclist, a sex-ist, a sleepyhead; a moneymaker and a troublemaker and a diaper-changer, too. Clearly, you can't be defined by everything you do, and how would you pick and choose? Next, you could try to define yourself by what you most LIKE to do. But that doesn't work to well either. How does what I like to do define who or what I AM? I like reading and I like thinking. I like pina coladas and I like the feel of the ocean -- and I like making love at midnight (in the dunes on the cape). As you can see, this doesn't work as a categorization.

I've been discussing this with a good friend recently. We'll call her Alice for the purpose of this post. Alice is a smart, earnest but easygoing woman, with long raven-black hair and a bright, easy smile that exposes just a slight bit of her upper teeth. She makes an excellent partner with whom to discuss existential questions -- or really any other thing, as well.

"I think I'm going mad," I said.

"Glad to hear it," she says.

"I'm not joking!"

"I know -- you never do!"

No, listen. See, this living a life that is so absolutely incongruous with the way you see yourself, combined with an inability to define yourself any other way is a Perfect Storm – a sure recipe for madness. Total, fucking madness. It may have been workable for a while, but it's not a good long-term plan, is it?

So she says "Then write about your life; that must help." (Can you detect the sarcasm?)

I wait for Alice to finish brushing those loose, phantom hairs away from her eyes. She has this endearing tic of brushing non-existent hair out of her eyes whenever she gets nervous or the discussion gets a bit animated -- makes me want to lean over and tuck her hair behind her ears for her. (I guess it's a bit like I twirl my payos in the same situation, only I sometimes DO finally tuck my payos behind my ears.)

"Sweet baby Jesus" I say, "I don't WANT to write about that! That’s not who I AM!" And this is a problem: I am not who I am.

She then suggests I write about my enrolling in an undergraduate physics program, but I don't think it makes for very interesting reading. It certainly makes for some boring writing, and besides, that still isn't who I AM. It's like those people who -- consciously or unconsciously -- feel this need to insert their qualifications in every other comment they write, especially if they're arguing with someone on any subject whatsoever. Psychologist, molecular biologist, historian. You soon realize these people define who they are by the qualifications they earned in school and hang on to it as if it’s a bungee-cord someone forgot to tie around their waist -- as if without it they wouldn’t be given the time of day and with it you’re supposed to be dazzled by their... what exactly I’m not sure. Nobody IS what they studied, much as they try to convince you otherwise.

I then suggest to Alice I'll write about my adventures (or "adventures"). Her eyes grow just a bit wider than they already are. (Alice has wide, expressive blue eyes (a rare combination with that hair, I think) that always seem like something is hiding behind them -- like she knows a great mystery she's not letting you in on. I'm beginning to suspect this may be true.)

"Aren't you afraid of what people will say?"

No! I'm not afraid of what people will say. What WILL they say? Why do I care what the couple of loony-tunes (and one fuckwad) will say, anyway? Will I define my life by what "people" will say? Where am I, in Williamsburg or something? (Don't answer that.)

"But you don't HAVE any adventures!" says Alice. (She has this way of being convincing even when she's not. It's cute.)

Ah, that’s a more serious issue. But not fatal.

"I'll make some shit up!" I blurt out after a pause.

"Bet you can't!"

Now I can't back down anymore. It's a challenge, and I don't like to lose a challenge -- most especially not with Alice.

"I can even make YOU up!" I say. And so I did.

I win.

Voices in my head

2008-06-04T13:52:00.002-04:00

Did you know there's a beautiful and easy proof that the square root of 2 is irrational? The ancient Greeks evidently did. By this same beautiful method you can prove Theaetetus's statement that the diagonal of a square is incommensurate with its sides. And his teacher Theodorus already knew that the square root of all natural numbers 3 to 17 (excepting 4, 9 and 16 obviously) are irrational -- this in circa 450 B.C.! And yet it took me 2,500 years (plus 15 minutes of reading the history of calculus) to understand this. A bit slow on the uptake, I guess.

I have seen the future...... and it is one-tenth of a second ago. Click here to read about it. Amazing.

I have seen the past...... and it is ten thousand years ago. See here. Incredible.

Yes, those guys from an uncontacted tribe are trying to shoot down the surveying aircraft with bow and arrow! Cute. Imagine the story they were telling around the campfire that night: "Hey guys, you shoulda seen the one that got away! It was THIS big, made a terrible noise, didn't even move its wings, and had huge spinning tent-poles on its nose. I SWEAR ON MY MOTHER'S SPIRIT!"

I wonder if they also have skeptics, believers, and a concept of existential angst. Or maybe they (like me, matter of fact) are just trying to get through life without, well, dying in the middle. Which is a noble cause, I think.

Epilogue

2008-05-25T11:01:00.003-04:00

So this lands in my email inbox, totally out of the blue. (This concerns the guy I mentioned in the previous post, the one I've had a couple more conversations with since. Nice, fascinating fellow.)

Hi there,

My name is ****** and I am emailing you in regards to David *****. Your address was in his email account.

I am not sure how close you were to David but it is with deep sorrow and regret that this email is to inform you that David took his own life on --/--/----.

I was very close to him and I am offering support to his family by letting people know.

Please feel free to email me back and I can provide you with his family contacts if you would like.

There is a memorial service for David on --/--/---- at *********.

Regards,

I'm sorry David. I wish you could know that when you called to chat and in the end I promised to meet up in the city when I get the chance, I was serious. And when you called again and I said the same thing again I was serious too. I did finally email you and leave a message with a date I was free to meet; I wondered why you never replied. Comparing the dates, I now see that at that time you were........ dead. Shit! Fuckin' hell.

Faking it

2008-04-08T15:40:00.005-04:00

"Are you a Hasidic Jew, or an Orthodox Jew?" That's the question someone dropped on me out of the blue -- someone who was obviously neither. That's a false dilemma if I ever saw one, but something I wasn't particularly in the mood to explain just then. "Both" I said. And that was the start of a two hour in-depth conversation. With a Catholic, born to a Jewish mother, and harboring the grandiose dream of living a Hassidic life. Oops.

And so it was that I -- doubter, apikores, rebel that I am -- found myself making Hasidic life sound all palatable and reasonable and sensible to an outsider on the verge of opting in, all while suppressing the urge to say, Are you out of your fucking mind??? For how could I do any different? He was obviously delighted to have found a real insider, someone who could help him make sense of it all: the rituals, lifestyle, isolationism, conservatism, language, funny dress. Somewhat of a self-educated religious scholar himself, he already knew all about the laws and minutia that govern daily existence.

--"You recite a brachah before eating?"
--"Yeah."
--"...anything?"
--"Pretty much."
--"Isn't it tough to remember sometimes?"
--"Nah. It becomes second nature."
...
--"I don't think I could give up my dream of having a professional career in my field of study."
--"You don't have to."
--"Not many Hasidim have a professional career, do they?"
--"That's because most don't bother getting a degree. But you already have one."

And so on. Hamming it up. Being the deity's advocate, you could say. It's an odd thing. I am no longer that paranoid about an insider catching me breaking the rules: eating in a non-kosher restaurant, sending email on Shabbos, skipping tefilin. What will they do? Not count me as the tenth in a minyan? I don't daven with a minyan anyway (or daven at all). If their delicate sensibilities are liable to get wounded by such outrageous acts, I'd suggest they don't snoop. And if they feel the need to tell me about their hurt sensibilities, I'd advise they go defenestrate themselves -- carefully, because they're apt to get hurt.

But in the presence of outsiders and most especially, knowledgeable outsiders, I sometimes feel duty-bound to play the part. Live up to my fashion sense and sartorial choices. So there is a secular Jewish woman watching me buy a non-kosher bowl of chicken soup. Will she suppose it's kosher? Will she conclude Hasidim don't eat kosher? Will she think me a hypocrite? And here is a Jewish-Catholic man thrilled to get some spiritual encouragement and opinions from someone who walks the walk. Should I burst his balloon? No, I don't think I can do that.

So I fake it; I make the right noises and motions and say the right words at the right moment. Yes, it can leave me unsatisfied, but why rain on someone's parade? I'm sure lots of people can relate.

See No Evil

2008-04-02T12:24:00.004-04:00

Oy, temptations. You've got to give it to him: he looks the other way! What a Kiddush Hashem. (Does anyone know if this picture was staged?)

Darwin's Bulldog

2008-04-01T12:14:00.003-04:00

I recently bumped into an interesting review of Darwin's The Origin of Species. (Read it in its entirety here.) Written by one Thomas Henry Huxley ("Darwin's Bulldog") and published in the April 1860 issue of Westminster Review, I find it a fascinating read for several different reasons. There's the struggle to understand inheritance ("the offspring tends to resemble its parent or parents") without any knowledge of genetics; the hubris of confidently proclaiming that "science will some day show us how this law is a necessary consequence of the more general laws which govern matter" and the attempts to make sense of that; the elegant and concise arguments; and the biting wit.

Most of all, it's writing like this that make it a worthy read:

Everybody has read Mr. Darwin's book, or, at least, has given an opinion upon its merits or demerits; pietists, whether lay or ecclesiastic, decry it with the mild railing which sounds so charitable; bigots denounce it with ignorant invective; old ladies of both sexes consider it a decidedly dangerous book, and even savants, who have no better mud to throw, quote antiquated writers to show that its author is no better than an ape himself; while every philosophical thinker hails it as a veritable Whitworth gun in the armoury of liberalism; and all competent naturalists and physiologists, whatever their opinions as to the ultimate fate of the doctrines put forth, acknowledge that the work in which they are embodied is a solid contribution to knowledge and inaugurates a new epoch in natural history.

You have to admire someone who can write like that. And this little snippet remains (mostly) true now, almost 150 years after it was written!

Piano Man

2008-03-18T11:41:00.002-04:00

I caught a nice rendition of this song at a piano bar not long ago. So I went and looked up the original. A nice song, ain't it?

The Road Not Taken

2008-02-11T13:33:00.001-05:00

--by Robert Frost

TWO roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Ruminations

2007-11-24T19:58:00.000-05:00

Jews own the world. We dominate science and literature (even science fiction!). Particle physics and cognitive psychology. Banks, news-media and the entertainment industry. So how come I can't find a single nice Jewish gymnast? We are a failure!

Chanukah is a beautiful holiday -- it truly is. The lights, the songs, the family parties. But we do need a Santa figure to complete the picture. I think I'll tell the little ones that the Rebbe comes down the chimney to leave them presents under the menorah. (They already know that he knows who's been naughty or nice, so we've got that part covered.)

After some experimentation, I can report that Jingle Bells is a nice song to sing to yourself while soaking in a hot bath, particularly when it's snowing outside. For the shower, I recommend singing Hava Nagila -- dancing a little jig doesn't hurt. But don't slip!!! (I can't overstate the importance of this last step.)

Xenon forms way too many compounds to be called a noble gas. I mean, xenon hexafluoride? Come on!

A tetrahedron is a beautiful thing.

Is the fact that as pervasive and important a mathematical constant as Pi is an irrational number a simple cosmic accident, or a sign of an intelligent designer with a wicked sense of humor?

Is the fact that sex is messy and sticky and makes you assume weird and bendy positions you'd never assume otherwise a sign of an intelligent designer with a wicked sense of humor, or a sign of an intelligent designer with an adolescent sense of amusement and a slight sadistic streak?

Does Jacob Stein really mean all the mean things he says, or is he simply a misunderstood soul in desperate need of a hug?

Death

2007-11-15T18:43:00.000-05:00

He's dying, apparently.

"Eight months -- at the most." The doctor, wearing a cool matter-of-fact demeanor wholly inappropriate to the words coming out of his mouth, shifts from foot to foot, eager to run to his next patient. He's a busy man; he has additional death-sentences to deliver and poisons that bring destruction but with it, a hope for that most precious of commodities, life, to administer. There's no time today. He rushes off -- morphing from angel-of-death to bearer of good news and later back again, like some grotesque gargoyle sprinkled with pixie-dust -- leaving only shocked silence behind.

Impossible! He's much too young!

"Six months," the second-opinionator said, a bit more glumly. "With treatment."

"And without?"

"Two months. And," he adds casually, "that may be the better option from a quality-of-life perspective."

"No way!"

Yes, way. And so it is. Another person falling victim to the vicissitudes of an indifferent universe. As much as it sucks watching someone close to you watch someone close to her die a slow, painful, confusing death, I imagine it sucks even more to actually die a slow, painful, confusing death. 'Suck it up,' I think to myself. 'Try to lighten the mood. Where's the wit and the humor? Leave the gloom for the blog!' Indeed. Jokes are easy. Some understated absurdities delivered with a twinkle and a phony oh-I-just-thought-of-that spontaneity and you're set. He laughs and laughs, and I feel much better about myself. But when nobody is watching, I can't help but think.

And think.

And think.

What will I tell the children? They're very close to him, and they'll have questions -- lots of them. Even if they won't articulate them, it'll probably be better if I speak with them about it eventually. Of course, we'll need a different approach with the teen-aged children than we do with the younger ones. I cannot in good conscience reinforce the nonsense everybody else will be selling -- heaven and hell and eternal life. Although, I will not be cruel and contradict it -- that wouldn't make any sense either. But I doubt that brings much comfort anyway. All it does is cause you to make stupid decisions.

Like, deciding treatment based on what this or that Rebbe said -- someone they dug up from the far sides of the earth. Are you frigging kidding me??? We're talking about life-and-death here, and you're making decisions on a senile old man's word because you think he is holy and has a special connection to God? The same God that brought this on in the first place! I seethe and simmer, but I don't say anything; it's futile. I have no real word in this, and it'll only cause further pain and suffering. I calm down when I realize we are really talking death-and-death here, not life-and-death. When you don't have much to lose, making decisions based on whatever brings you comfort makes logical sense. Even lighting candles and promising to be good so God won't punish him anymore. Wait....... punish HIM??? Why, you think God misplaced your address and decided to punish him to get back at you? He can't find you on Google? What kind of pathetic deity is that? Oh well. Anyway, what to tell the children? The best approach is probably to explain your own view of life (and death) and how you deal with it yourself, made more palatable for younger ears of course. So, how do I deal with it myself? Good question!

Life is fleeting; death is inevitable. We all need to live a life meaningful to us in the here and now, and enjoy every day as it comes. Life is a wonderful gift, not to be squandered on ruminations of fear and death. Live a good life as best you know how, and you'll have no regrets when the inevitable catches up with you -- be it today, tomorrow, or hopefully, many many years from now. Grab life by the horns and enjoy the ride, because all too soon you'll be thrown off. Most important, make sure people around you enjoy your ride as well -- bull riding in an empty arena is a joyless and meaningless and pointless exercise. Live every day as though it is your last, yes, just like our sages said. You will not go wrong.

What a hypocrite!

What would I do if I knew I'll most probably be dead in, say, eight months? I'm pretty sure it will not be what I'm doing now. There are things I need -- absolutely need -- to say, things I must -- must! -- do, places I'd like to go, before I'm finished here. So what am I waiting for? For a death sentence lovingly delivered, wrapped in white and green with the sweet-sour smell of disinfectant and the cacophony of beeping machinery all around? Or maybe death will come suddenly, like a silent monster sneaking out of a child's worst nightmares and with a sudden whoooosh! is gone again, taking your most prized possession with it? Who really knows? Why am I not taking my own advice? Maybe because some things are best left unsaid and undone. Or maybe, just maybe, because I'm a cowardly fool. Perhaps something in-between those two?

Meanwhile, watching a car roll off a cliff in slow motion -- getting increasingly battered on the sharp and menacing rocks on the way down, each dull thud! a sure sign things are worse and the bottom is closer, waiting for that final terrible sound it makes when it reaches bottom, soon, soon, too soon -- just makes me cringe. Poor passenger. What can I say? Death just puts a crimp in my step.

Jihad

2007-10-31T15:46:00.001-04:00

Recently, I found myself at a family simchah (celebration), seated next to some pious and scholarly friends and relatives. While I don't particularly enjoy the scholarly kind of discourse this usually entails, it's certainly better than the stupid and inane discussions of Hasidic politics and which Rebbe now hates whose brother and who exactly is going to which Hell that usually passes for pleasant chit-chat at these events, and I have much more to contribute, too. So the discussion is going along swimmingly -- Talmudic quotes, halachic nitpickings, comments on the food -- until the attention turns to the poor guy sitting at the other table in jeans and brown shirt, small kippah perched atop a head-full of unruly hair, the neat store-bought folds clearly identifying the kippah as new and the wearer as an 'outsider'.

"Who's he?" someone asks.

"Oh, he's Yankel's brother," someone else says, "the one who went to live with his father after the split. Remember?"

There's an audible gasp and from the audience around the table with eyes opened wide in pained surprise, as if an invisible boot just collectively kicked everyone in the gonads.

"Him??? Wow. Look at him. He's a regular goy now!"

This is followed by much clucking of tongues and shaking of heads. An unbelievable sight, he is. He could've grown up such a nice Chassidish young man, just like his brother. Instead, he doesn't look like us at all!

We didn't get much time to digest this tragedy when the most pious at the table quickly turned the discussion back to practical matters. First, there's the matter with the wine. He surely doesn't keep Shabbos even in public, and thus can turn the wine into yayin nesech -- unkosher wine, just by touching it. There's some discussion on that, and I start feeling uncomfortable. Next, the discussion veers to more weighty matters: are we allowed -- nay, are we commanded -- to kill him, as we do a heretic? Again, there's some discussion pro and con -- while I can't help thinking, Jeezus christ on a stick! here we go again! Are these people listening to themselves? Are they totally unaware that they sound exactly like the despised Muslim Jihadis? I need to say something. But what?

At last, the most learned of the group pronounces the verdict: we're not allowed to kill him, but we're also not allowed to save him from mortal danger -- a concept known as lo ma'alin v'lo moridin. After this exhausting scholarly dialogue, the conversation turns back to the mundane. Needless to say, I'm totally exasperated at this point. "What a pity," the fatwa originator is now saying, "he could've grown up such a nice young man, instead of the worthless, brainwashed secular soul he is now."

I see my chance. "You realize" I cheerfully intone, "that he thinks exactly the same of you?" That elicited a smug chuckle, exactly as expected. Seeing me as an ally, he couldn't help interpreting my words the opposite from how I intended it. Everyone around the table was quick to agree. Sure, he thinks the same of us. He thinks WE are brainwashed. Ha ha, how incredibly silly of him -- he can't see the truth in front of his very eyes! I give some time for this self-congratulatory groupthink to sink in. Finally, the gabble subsided.

"You know the difference between him and us, though," I lean in conspiratorially. Of course everyone knows the difference. He's wrong, and we're right! He wants to eat pig and have lots of degenerate sex, while we're holy and pious! He's silly, we're smart!

"Well, he wouldn't even dream of killing you, and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't have second thoughts about saving you if he sees you in mortal danger!"

Silence. Some uncomfortable shifting in the seats. "Huh???"

"As I said. Doesn't that mean he's actually right about the brainwashing, while you are all wrong?"

More uncomfortable silence. "Uh, uhm, err, well, see, I certainly would save him in THIS day and age. Those things are not applicable today."

"Thank God! You sounded pretty self-righteously serious when you discussed this just five minutes ago."

And we all went back to eating the food. To the Jihadi's credit though, I'm pretty sure he finally thought about it. Twice.

A Play

2007-10-16T17:42:00.000-04:00

A synagogue. People are walking about, mumbling and periodically shouting at an invisible presence in that disembodied manner of the subway tramp. Suddenly:

Moshe: "Shhhhh!!!!"

Baal: [Icy stare; goes back to discussing the merits of the Kuzari and the chemical differences between protium and deuterium]

Moshe: "Shhhhhh!!!!" [Thump, thump, thump]

Baal: [Glare]

Moshe: "Hisssssssssss! We're davening!!!"

Baal: [Sarcastically] "We are?"

Later, Moshe and Baal meet outside:

Moshe: "Sorry for that; I understand we all have a yetzer hara (evil inclination), and I sometimes fall prey to it as well. But have you ever thought about the terrible calamity you bring about by talking in the middle of prayers?"

Baal: [Sweetly] "Oh, thank you for worrying about my soul and my eternal reward. At least somebody does! That's so kind of you."

Moshe: "You don't understand. It's not you I'm worried about, it's me! If I don't say anything I'm liable to get punished myself!"

Baal: "Wow, now I've lost all respect for you. I thought you were selflessly worrying about my wellbeing. Turns out you're just being a selfish crank! All you care about is yourself?"

Moshe: [Stare]

Baal: [Fuck you, too]

===---===---===

An apartment. Children and adults are walking about mumbling to themselves, and periodically shouting (but not at an invisible presence).

She: "Seen the latest news out of Iran? See how they oppress women? How messed up they are!"

He: "Yeah. I think we should move there. We'd be happy."

She: [Smile] "What makes you say that?"

He: "Well, we live in Iran now. We might as well go all the way."

She: [Huh?] "How?"

He: "Have you tried going out with uncovered hair lately? Uncovered arms? How about with colored stockings? You'd be burnt at the stake, pilloried, and if that's not enough, run out of town! How about if you dress in a way considered too modern? Didn't work out too well for Toby."

She: "That's totally different."

He: "How, exactly?"

She: [Uh, uhmmm. Hmmm...] "I don't go out with that stupid looking chador!"

He: "You're right. You do shave your hair clean off, though. Don't you think those frum chador-wearing women think that is stupid?"

She: "Let's finish this conversation."

He: "Okay." [Damn it!!!]

Sufi Hakafos and Sheine Meidelech

2007-10-06T20:30:00.000-04:00

How I spent my Simchat Torah: (Run at double speed to get an almost exact approximation of my hakafot. Can you spot me?)

(Hat-tip: Ben Atlas)

How I'd rather spend it: (Sheine meidelech... swimming in the sea, according to the singer. Can't argue with that logic, can you?)

Yom Kippur Reflections

2007-09-22T18:14:00.001-04:00

Beseech, beg, shout. Again and again. Is God deaf? Is he impressed by tears, by gal, by song? How many times does he need to hear how great and wonderful He is, how we are all sinners, slaves, and the very embodiment of Nothing next to His infinite greatness? Is his infinite ego that fragile?

"Forgive us, for we have sinned!" The list in the prayers is long and complicated, and of course repeated often. Sins that I've never even dreamed of, and wouldn't want to be in the same room with those who have. I'm weary. Did anybody commit these?

And of course the promises. Totally sincere. "I'll never do that again!" It's Yom Kippur after all -- a time for repentance. What hypocrisy! Why the mask? We know you'll be back to the same shenanigans as soon as the day is over! Is your God so feeble minded that he's fooled by the same faux sincerity display every single year, like the travelling side-show fooling the foolish with the three-card Monte every year again?

And so, locked away in my humble little hideaway, I reflect: will I live another year under my mask? Will I continue to live but not live, love but hate, be passionate but stay empty, yearn for nothing, laugh heartily -- but more so, bitterly? Can I afford to do that again? Can I afford not to?

Time to go. Musaf is coming up. And I'll have you know that thanks to Larry Craig, I did NOT take a wide stance here. That would be inappropriate; it's Yom Kippur, for God's sake!

Have an easy fast -- even though by the time you read this the fast is
probably over.

Bite Your Tongue

2007-08-09T17:01:00.000-04:00

"Hi!" he smiled sweetly, turning to face me with the air of a man who just bumped into a really pretty girl (which, just to be clear, I most definitely am not) at a bar (which, just to be clear, it most definitely wasn't) and has great hopes for the conversation that might ensue. I fix him with a quizzical look -- the look that silently expresses 'do I know you from somewhere? Can't you see I'm busy? Do you know where the nearest bathroom might be, or my ten year old might pee his pants soon? Where did the oldest wander off to? Oops, the little one is kicking the display that says 'Do Not Touch!' again. Why is it so dark in here? There you go, just throw up. I'll get a tissue. Hey, how did the baby get THAT?!?! Yes, I'm enjoying myself -- aren't we all? Why do you ask?'

"Are you from around here?" he continued cheerfully, seemingly oblivious to my thoughts.

"Yes. You?"

"No. From France -- Marseilles."

"Oh." Apparently, there aren't that many Jews in Marseilles, and this typical French tourist decided that now is a good time to talk to the Jew right here in the museum. Great.

"You know, this is really tough," he continues, vaguely motioning in the direction of the huge flat screen modeling the big bang and the formation of our planet over and over and over again in an endless loop, like the movie Groundhog Day writ large. "After all, we KNOW Hakadosh Baruch-Hu created the world out of nothing, less than six thousand years ago. It says so explicitly in the Torah. Right? What are we supposed to think?"

Oops. I do a quick double take, adjusting my mental image from 'typical French tourist' to 'bare-headed, bare-shouldered, Chareidi French Jew' as fast and with as little facial expression as I could muster. What tipped him off that I might help him with his predicament? Was it the long payos? The big black velvet yarmulke? Damn. Now this is really great. He traveled all the way from France to New York so he could discuss theology with........ me! The irony is delicious. Dark thoughts start forming in my head. I'll explain to him the stupidity of what he just said. I'll laugh in his face. Or maybe I should tell him he can be a believing Jew and still believe in the big bang? It's possible -- many pull that off. Or should I tell him I don't believe in his ridiculous God?

"I know," I shrug, "it's tough."

"But........ it's really tough, isn't it?" He sighed a long drawn-out sigh.

Oh man. This is too much. I shrug again, smile the sweetest smile possible under the circumstances, bite my tongue, and hurry off to find a bathroom.

===---===---===

"Look, there are so many goyim in here" I vaguely hear my oldest saying to my second-oldest. I wasn't really listening up to this point, so much as being happy they are entertaining each other instead of arguing or fighting. But now my interest is piqued. "I know what we should do," she continues. "Lets refrain from looking at some of them and then we can pray for whatever we want and our prayers will be answered. My teacher said if you keep holy and stop yourself from looking at a goy, you can pray for whatever you want."

What an excellent education she's getting! And I'm paying for it, even. How proud that makes me! But my second is unconvinced. "Yeah? I'll refrain from looking at the next one and then pray for Moshiach. And when he doesn't come, I'll know it isn't true!" A budding scientist, I think to myself. I wonder how long it'll take until he applies the scientific method to everything she's taught. Oh well. Anyway, I need to say something. I can't let the 'dirty goyim' bromide pass without a comment, lest my own children turn into the very people I cannot stand with a worldview I cannot stomach. But as soon as I open my mouth, my wife shoots me a dirty look. She knows my views on this particular subject and we have agreed to disagree. But of course, I better not confuse the children with my poisonous opinions. I understand that look well. It says 'you better bite your tongue, or I'll do it for you, and not in the good way.' So I do as told, and bite my tongue -- again.

===---===---===

"A food stand!" I exclaim enthusiastically. I need to get something to eat, or at least a drink. Maybe even for the children as well. "Everything has an OU" I add helpfully, with faux enthusiasm. It has an OU-D, but does it really matter? But my poor wife is horror-stricken.

"Not in front of the children!" she hisses. "You know we have to be careful with their chinuch -- their upbringing!" Yeah, I know. Start them off on OU-D and soon they'll think there might be nothing wrong with looking at goyim! Next thing you know, they're dancing with a shiksa while balancing a pig on their heads. I bite my tongue yet again -- really hard this time. It hurts (no, not the tongue), but is still better than the alternative. Or is it?

In the spirit of Tish'a Ba'av

2007-07-24T17:44:00.000-04:00

Blue and green and wind, a beginning full of hopes,
A future sight unseen, yet to know the ropes
Shimmering glass, glistening, as far as you could see
Eyes blinded by light, surely that's for me

Oh laugh and run and stumble, wounds are never sore,
See! It is life, forever more

Dreams haunting and fresh, and sweet as apple pie,
Disturbed by angry diamonds, telling you a lie
Worry and distemper, the sharp horizon etched
Shadows stamp and shout, not as far-fetched

Laugh and run and stumble, shaken to the core,
See! It is life, never more

Atop glistening stars - gauzy heaven blown by air,
Beneath - flaming marble, you look and stare
Cry and shout and bellow, in deafening silence beseech
Back - a hellish hollow, forward out of reach

Laugh and run and stumble, remember days of yore?
See! It was life, tossed out the door

Ring of Fire burns, without any fuel at all
Scorched around the edges, when the flames were small
Yellow and red and white, much bigger than he
And so it burns a hole, where the soul used to be

Laugh and run and stumble, don't listen to lore,
See! This is life, and so it will be more

A lonely figure on a ship, on the waves of space,
Chilled by the mist of time, finding no solace
Battered, crushed by Nothing, black irony is thus
Chased a phantom, from a dream, that never even was

Laugh and run and stumble? Not like before,
It was life indeed, but now it is no more

Stories

2007-07-23T15:08:00.000-04:00

I've long thought that if we would republish the stories in Nach (the Hebrew biblical books outside of the Pentateuch) under a different cover, dressed up in modern language and perhaps illustrated by a skilled illustrator, it would put any modern history text or popular work to shame. The narrative is so varied and stories so numerous that a skilled storyteller should be able to regale anyone, whether young or old, ignorant or educated, for hours and hours on end.

There are tales of war and intrigue, ghosts and angels, prostitutes and generals, kings and rebels, outsized heroes and frightening villains, loss and grief, guile and innocence, religious devotion and pagan tomfoolery, horrible rape and tender love, wanton murder and miraculous resurrection, terrible revenge and great reward, irony and revelry, and what not? They run the gamut of the human experience in both fact and fiction, sprinkled with poetry throughout and all set in the great arc of Jewish history. No wonder we, entertainment-averse Chassidim, refuse to teach Nach in our schools!

Apparently, the entertainment and business potential of all that wasn't lost on one Suleyman, an Arab dragoman living in 19th century Syria. A clever and witty fellow, that Suleyman, and one who obviously knew his trade well and understood how to tailor his services to his clientele, all while amusing himself with his ability to befuddle his charges with what should've been very familiar stories. And so, here is his unique take on Sampson's revenge (Judges 15) and Elijah's slaughter (1 Kings 18:40), courtesy of the memoirs of Marmaduke William Pickthall:

One English parson he [Suleyman] bedevilled utterly by telling him the truth--or the accepted legend--in such a form that it seemed false or mad to him.

As they were riding out from Jaffa towards Jerusalem, he pointed to the mud-built village of Latrun and said:

'That, sir, is the place where Simpson catch the foxes.'

'Ah?' said the clergyman. 'And who was Simpson?'

'He was a very clever gentleman, and liked a bit of sport.'

'Was he an Englishman?'

'No, sir; he was a Jew. He catch a lot of foxes with some traps; he kill them and he take their skins to Jaffa to the tailor, and he tell the tailor: "Make me one big skin out of these little ones." The tailor make one thundering big fox's skin, big enough for Simpson to get inside of it. Then Simpson, he put on that skin one night, and go and sit out in the field and make the same noise what the little foxes make. The little foxes come out of their holes to look; they see one big fox sitting there, and they not know it's really Simpson. They come quite near and Simpson catch hold of their tails and tie their tails together. Then they make the noise, and still more foxes come, and Simpson catch hold of their tails and tie their tails together, till he got hundreds and hundreds.'

'Whatever did he do with them?' inquired the parson.

'He set fire to them.'

'What on earth did he do that for?'

'That, sir, was to annoy his wife's relations.'

'And would you believe it,' added Suleyman when he told me the story, 'that foolish preacher did not know that it is in the Bible. He took it all down in his notebook as the exploit of a Jewish traveller. He was the Heavy One.'

...

One afternoon, when I was riding round the bay from Akka towards the foot of Carmel, supposing Suleyman to be a hundred miles away, I came upon a group of tourists by the river Kishon, on the outskirts of the palm grove. They had alighted and were grouped around a dragoman in gorgeous raiment, like gulls around a parrot. The native of the land was holding forth to them. His voice was richly clerical in intonation, which made me notice that his audience consisted solely of members of the clergy and their patient women.

'This, ladies and gentlemen,' the rascal was declaiming like a man inspired, 'is that ancient riffer, the riffer Kishon. It was here that the great Brophet Elijah bring the Brophets of Baal after he catch them with that dirty trick which I exblain to you about the sacrifice ub there upon that mountain what you see behind you. Elijah he come strollin' down, quite habby, to this ancient riffer, singin' one little song; and the beoble they lug down those wicked brophets. Then Elijah take one big, long knife his uncle gif him and sharben it ubon a stone like what I'm doin'. Then he gif a chuckle and he look among those brophets; and he see one man he like the look of, nice and fat; and he say: "Bring me that man!" They bring that man; Elijah slit his throat and throw him in the riffer. Then he say: "Bring his brother!" and they bring his brother, and he slit his throat and throw him in the riffer ... till they was ALL gone. Then Elijah clean his knife down in the earth, and when he'd finished laughin' he put ub a brayer.

'That was a glorious massycration, gentlemen!'

The preacher was Suleyman, at struggle with the Heavy Ones.

(Hattip: BAR)

Administrativa

2007-06-17T01:29:00.000-04:00

Take note: a great blogging gadol, the inimitable Shtreimel, has been hacked, his blog defiled, his email stolen. The Hassid (--and The Heretic) lost its Shtreimel, and it is ~~not~~ pretty -- but x-rated. For the time being, you can reach him at conartistic1@gmail.com.

Update:
He's back!

Godspeed

2007-06-14T20:34:00.000-04:00

(A repost from something I've written elsewhere)

יומו של הקב"ה אלף שנים שנא' כי אלף שנים בעיניך כיום אתמול
A day to God is a thousand years, as is said: "For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by"

So I read the above and think (yeah, yeah, I shouldn't do that, I know): exactly at what speed is God traveling to achieve this kind of time dilation? And given that, how big a distance did God manage to travel so far?

For simplicity's sake, let's assume for now that God is traveling at constant velocity. (I think -- but may be mistaken -- that we can achieve a more dramatic effect if we have God maintaining constant acceleration. But I'm not sure even a deity can sustain that indefinitely.) Also, let's discount the possibility that God is permanently parked right next to a black hole (although that would explain a lot).

For starters, I'm trying to get a Lorentz transformation calculator working. But I'm woefully ignorant on how exactly I should deal with velocity figures. My calculator doesn't understand v. ;-) So, anyone else ever wondered about this question? (Thought so.)

Why I need to know God's speed, you ask? Well, first of all, as Orthoprax knows, we need to know these things. "If the issue is important to [us], then practically we cannot let it remain undecided." But mostly, I'd really like to know if I can beat Her in a race to the End.

Update 1:
Since nobody offered to help, I was forced to think about it some more. We need to express v in terms of the speed of light, of course! Duh, what a stupid question.

Since a mean Hebrew year has 365.2468 days, we need a time dilation factor of 365,246.8.

So, to simplify {1day / sqrt(1- v^2 / c^2) } into {1/ sqrt(1- 0.999999999996251^2)} (we take c=1 to simplify the calculation) gets us pretty close. That means God is traveling at (approximately) 299,792,457.998876 meters per second, or 670,616,629.381881 m.p.h., right?

Hmmm, I think I may need a new minivan if I hope to beat that!

Update 2:
All this further means, of course, that to find the speed necessary for any time dilation factor f (in this case 365,246.8), all we need to do is {sqrt(1- (1/f)^2)c} (simple, huh?), which, with c expressed in meters per second of 299,792,458, gives us the correct answer of 299,792,457.998876! (And also yields a more accurate figure for v: 0.999999999996252)

Was it that difficult to say {sqrt(1- (1/f)^2)c} instead of letting me figure it all out with pen and paper??? Gee, thanks! ;-) So now, how about we add acceleration into the mix? Anyone?

P.S. To those who inquired (or wondered but didn't inquire): the picture on the previous post is not of a real person, but rather of a larger-than-life sculpture by the incredibly talented artist Ron Mueck. Click here for a gallery of his work. (Warning: some images may be offensive to some. Proceed with caution.)

תשמ"ד

2007-05-08T15:26:00.000-04:00

Nineteen Eighty-Four

He knew that sooner or later he would obey O’Brien’s summons. Perhaps tomorrow, perhaps after a long delay—he was not certain. What was happening was only the working-out of a process that had started years ago. The first step had been a secret, involuntary thought, the second had been the opening of the diary. He had moved from thoughts to words, and now from words to actions. The last step was something that would happen in the Ministry of Love. He had accepted it. The end was contained in the beginning.

נעץ סופו בתחילתו, ותחילתו בסופו

JIB awards

2007-04-16T17:30:00.000-04:00

It appears that unbeknownst to me, some kind-hearted soul decided to nominate this here humble blog for a JIB award in the Jewish Skepticism category. I'm flattered. And bemused.

What are the JIB awards, you may wonder? The winners of the JIB awards are awarded with a JIB award, which consists of -- you guessed it -- an award called the "JIB award". It's a contest whose purpose is to identify -- in no uncertain terms and in categories split into as many sub-atomic classes (and sometimes provoking the associated Sound and Fury) as is humanly possible -- the blog-writer who can attract the most readers of the kind who are idle, bored and soft-minded enough that they can be goaded, by endlessly repeated and hollow entreaties, into mindlessly and vigorously bleating "this blog good, that blog bad" over and over and over again, like good little sheeple.

In that vein, I urge everyone to vote for DovBear in the Jewish skepticism category. Thank you.

P.S. To the entity that nominated this blog: Should you chose to identify yourself, you will receive the coveted Hamlitze"l (*) award.

(*) הנותן מתנה לחבירו צריך להודיעו

Smoke and Mirrors

2007-03-19T22:19:00.000-04:00

"Here," he said, "let's try this one."

"Why not?" I shrugged. "Let's." I shot one last, furtive glance all around and quickly ducked inside. "Think anyone took a picture?" I quipped, only half-jokingly. He seemed annoyed.

I stopped to get my bearings. We were standing in the entrance of a dimly lit and somewhat gloomy diner on an unfamiliar street in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Since my visage makes it apparent that I should be eating only kosher, and it is equally apparent that this diner doesn't quite serve glatt meat, I sincerely hoped the neighborhood is unfamiliar to any other Orthodox members of the wandering tribe as well. I'd rather this delightfully incongruous sight not be the talk of the town tomorrow morning, as it is liable to be if someone heimish spots me here.

We didn't stand for long. Soon, a perpetually smiling waiter with a pleasant demeanor approached and offered to seat us at a table of our choosing. We chose one with an unobstructed view of the comings and goings outside, but not one close enough to the floor-to-ceiling windows to allow the passers-by to catch sight of us. You can never be too safe.

"Menus" the waiter said, as he dropped them at our table. I picked one up and halfheartedly scanned the strange choices offered, almost disappointed when I couldn't find kugel or chulent or even chicken soup. Nothing seemed worthy of trying, which was just as well. I wasn't very hungry, anyway. It wasn't food that compelled me to come all the way out here, but rather ... what exactly? I wasn't entirely sure, but I knew this: it was a rare chance of spending some time with friends who knew my true self, and it promised to be an interesting time. A time away from never-ending obligations, away from an emotionally taxing charade, away from an impossible two-faced existence, away from soul soiling duplicity, away from pervasive and repugnant judgmentalism, away even from too many years of exhausting philosophical and theological ruminations, arduous debates and the total destruction of a worldview I was taught to hold dearer than life itself. Away from it all.

"You're not going to eat?"

"I guess I should," I muttered as I picked up the menu again, looking -- without success -- for something I might call food. A flash of inspiration suddenly hit. As long as I'm here, I thought, I might as well pig out.

"Get me number thirteen," I told the smiling waiter next time he came around. "And don't go overboard with the sauce."

He took the menu from me and looked at the number I indicated. Canadian bacon, it said, served with something uninteresting and tasteless. To his credit, he didn't flinch or even skip a beat. "Sure," he said simply, though I can only imagine the tale he must have told the kitchen staff or his friends later at the pub.

The first bite was rather delectable, I have to say. I savored the delicious taste -- the taste of freedom and autonomous choice. The second was a bit smoky and heavy on the palate. The fifth tasted positively slimy, the next was nauseating, and by the time I finished the first slice I was ready to throw up. "Pig is horrible," I kvetched. "Let's move on to better things."

===---===---===

Better things, it turns out, involves a bigger crowd. We were a motley crew assembled in an apartment set in a motley neighborhood far from prying eyes, with a prominent crucifix serving as droll silent commentary and a comical finishing touch to what surely would have been an amusing scene in turn-of-the-20th-century Yiddish theatre -- only this was more of a reality show. We were a crowd of friends -- chasidish and yeshivish, some frum-looking and some obviously frei, some apparently men and some obviously women -- assembled for no particular reason other than to meet and pass the time in pleasant company. Just like a shalom zachor, I thought, only better.

To my surprise, I soon felt more at ease than I've felt at any chasidish farbrengen in a long while. The feeling of stifling uniformity I get each time I attend a community event -- which feels like attending a lemming convention -- was noticeably absent. So were the mind-numbing spirit-rotting arguments about chasidish politics, discussions of the latest rabbinic prohibitions and proclamations and news about who else had a baby (yet again) or got engaged at the ripe old age of eighteen to someone they've met for a grand total of thirty minutes and conclusively determined their absolute compatibility since, see, one of them is a boy and the other a girl.

I was busy enjoying the atmosphere when some kind-hearted soul produced free beer (thanks!). Things were taking an interesting turn. Soon, someone else produced free hugs (much appreciated!) and yet another ... free pot (dude!). I felt strangely transported -- to an alien civilization, a different age, or perhaps an alternate reality. Am I dreaming? I imagined how it must have felt for those living in the restrictive conformity of the 50's suddenly finding themselves thrust right into the hippie culture of the 60's and 70's. We were far from being a bunch of counterculture hippies, of course, but the cultural disconnect was similarly disorienting -- and exhilarating.

I stared at her hands as she slowly, carefully, ground the cannabis flowers into a form she claimed was more conducive to smoking. I was getting an education, though not exactly the one I always wanted. She was giving an education, though not exactly to the people she ever imagined. She seemed bewildered to be teaching this to a couple of Hasidim in full regalia, but I couldn't blame her: I was fairly bewildered myself. Should I try it? I contemplated this for a while. On the one hand, I'm way too old and have too many responsibilities to start experimenting with drugs and alcohol, and I'm still too young to have a mid-life crisis. On the other hand, There's a time for everything, as the astute poet claims in Ecclesiastes, and this seemed a good time for losing my mind. The poet won out.

A horrible minutes-long coughing fit accompanied the first puff I took out of the pipe. I never knew I could go this long without catching my breath. What did I just do? And then everything changed.

I giggled at the slightest provocation. How amusing, I thought to myself, about nothing in particular. I tried to explain a great epiphany I just had about the way lobsters are killed and eaten -- but was interrupted mid-sentence by my own laughter. I never finished the thought, suddenly grasping that it doesn't really make any sense -- and neither does anything else. We live in an absurd world, I concluded, and I like it that way! I had a couple more epiphanies, but was having a hard time trying to articulate them. The English language seemed foreign and unfamiliar, totally useless for expressing whatever it is that was going on in my mind; Yiddish didn't have the desired effect either. I realized that shutting up is the prudent thing to do; how amusing!

It was my turn again. I inhaled deeply, keeping the smoke in my lungs as long as I could. Then I exhaled slowly, and reality as I knew it vanished in a puff of smoke.

I tucked my chin into my chest like a pugilist squaring off against a feared opponent, closed my eyes and lost myself in my own mind. What an interesting and remarkable place to be lost in! Wow. I didn't want to find my way out!

The background chatter seemed like so much white noise: comforting, but unintelligible. From time to time I glimpsed little vignettes of the reality around me, like the one-second stills in an advertising reel attempting to impress some sort of subliminal message. And what an amusing message it was! I listened to short one-sided snippets of the ongoing conversation -- something about hand-cream and wine, about chicken and college, about porn and chulent -- and smiled knowingly at what they mean to me, even though I was sure they mean something else entirely to whoever was uttering those words.

Touching my own skin felt oddly sensual and invigorating. I ran my fingers through my payos and longed for the pure bliss and divine pleasure it must be to run a hand through a woman's hair -- something I've never experienced. And then I thought about how easily I amuse myself, and was greatly amused.

We're sitting in some sort of restaurant again, but I can't be bothered to find out how we got here. "Do I seem weird to you?" I ask whoever is sitting next to me. "Because I seem weird to me." We were eating dinner -- or breakfast, I wasn't sure. I knew it's very late and time to go. A drunken Arabic woman is sitting right next to me for some odd reason, something I find amusing at first, until she starts cursing the Jews. I shoo her away. Someone was being very friendly to her in Arabic and there's some discussion and general befuddlement as to why she suddenly turned spiteful. I smile to myself, wondering why it doesn't occur to anyone that our friendly colleague who exhausted his Arabic vocabulary trying to flirt must've thrown in some juicy Arabic curses without realizing what he did. A simple miscommunication -- the root of most hostilities. An epiphany, but not one I have the vocabulary to share.

"Hey," I say to my chauffeur. "I know I may be out of my mind right now, but it seems to me you're driving between lanes."

"I know," came the reply.

"You know?! Get the hell back in lane, then!"

"I'm trying."

"Nice!" For the first time in many hours, I'm not amused.

===---===---===

I get up with a start. The sun is shining brightly through the window, and it seems a day like any other. Did I just dream all that? I wonder. I never had such lucid dreams. What a silly and self-indulgent escapist fantasy, writ large by an especially vivid dream! Or was it? I look around; the bed seems familiar, but it definitely isn't mine. Neither is the room, or the house. A tangy and bitter aftertaste assaults my taste buds, and a pungent smell lingers in my nostrils: the taste of bacon, and the smell of weed. What is going on? Did I really escape my own little prison, leaving everything I cherish behind? Did my past, my history, my identity, my very self, just vanish in a Puff of Smoke?

I stumble into the bathroom and stare blankly in the mirror. A man is staring right back, a wry, mocking grin painted on his face.

"What do you think you're doing?" the man in the mirror sardonically asks. "Flee? From what? 'Prison?' Whom are you kidding? Look at yourself! Look where you are, who you are, what you have! You know where you belong, and that's that!"

A nasty little man, this man-in-the-mirror. Can I not back up a couple of decades and start again? I'm traveling down a track that's going to the wrong destination. Can I not at least jump over to the neighboring track?

"You dim-witted, feeble-minded klutz. This train doesn’t go backwards! You can't get there from here. You want to forcibly rip up the track you're on and try to reach that track over there? You'll travel in the sand, you say? Ha! And what do you think will happen to all the little cars you're pulling behind? You'll wreak a great amount of havoc, and the ensuing dust and debris will so gum up the works that none of you will ever make it over there anyway!"

You stupid, malevolent, and pessimistic little shit. You're lucky I'm still all kinds of mellow, or I might have socked you in the kisser right here and now -- whoever you are, Mr. Man in the Mirror. Stop with the stupid metaphors and leave me be! Please? Pretty please?

"Now, now, look here. You seem rather disheveled. Brush the knots out of your beard, comb and curl your nice payos, and go get with the program before you get into real hot water. You know I mean the best for both of us. That's all you can, and will, do."

Fuck! I need another toke.

The Meaning of Meaning

2007-02-28T20:52:00.000-05:00

What is the meaning of life?

At one time or another, all thinking people grapple with a variant of this question. It is a dangerous and subversive question, in a sense; a question that causes one to seek, compels one to challenge, and tears one away from the spider-web of complacency. It is for this very reason that religion seeks to prevent its adherents from asking this question, and it does so by pretending it has the most compelling answer. It is unfortunate to me to see how, as Chasidim, we inculcate our young with the precarious notion that meaning is only to be found in God and religion. An obviously erroneous idea, but so powerful and appealing that once caught, like a virus, it is very difficult to shake.

I've never seen the logic in that claim. How is doing everything that an invisible and incomprehensible sky-monster commands somehow moral and meaningful? You are nothing more than a slave following the whims of his owner, toiling in fear of punishment and in hope of reward, and oh yeah, for the "love of thy master." Where is the morality? How is that the pinnacle of meaning?

"Subverting your desires," the adherents of this mind-numbing atrocity claim, "for the desires of God -- that is the very height of human achievement." How much more so, then, if instead of subverting our desires for the benefit of an imaginary being -- who, even according to believers, has no real needs or desires and can gain nothing from our meaningless actions -- we subvert them for the benefit of very real beings who have real needs and desires and have a tremendous amount to gain? How much more admirable that is! Expending energy placating an invisible bogeyman with ancient rituals doesn't seem especially moral to me. Instead, take away from the time and energy spent chasing your desires and go help the needy, visit the sick, feed the hungry, brighten the melancholy, take out the garbage, and save the world. That is true morality!

"Expressing ultimate fealty to your creator is the height of human accomplishment!" so goes an alternate version of the theory above. But why? Any creator sophisticated enough to create such an amazing machine can have no use for my stupid, vacuous and necessarily limited attempts at fealty. It can have no affect on Her! "It is for your own good, not for the creator's," the hangers-on will argue. How is this a laudable accomplishment, then? For my own good? That is pure selfishness! Fealty should be expressed -- even at the expense of your own comfort -- to humanity as a whole, and to specific humans in particular: friends, family, children, spouse, lover. That is a triumph of the human spirit!

From a very young age, our children are brainwashed to regard any human pursuit outside of Avodas Hashem (service to the Lord) as inherently meaningless. The filthy secular culture, we are repeatedly warned, is adrift in an abyss of purposeless pursuits and worthless endeavors. It is the way of ultimate meaninglessness, darkness, and futility. (Meaning, of course, but never quite mentioning, sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll.) Only God can add meaning to life.

The tragedy of this lie is not hard to see. What happens when someone fearlessly stares into the mouth of the abyss, and decides he likes it? Rock-and-roll is fun, drugs are pleasant, sex is divine. Never having acquired the skills to negotiate the minefield of self-destructive temptation and never having the chance to rethink the meaning of meaning, mindless hedonism, nihilism, guilt, depression, and aimlessness are his likely lot. It is a self-fulfilling prophecy, a cruel and terrible lie foisted on the unsuspecting and malleable minds of our youth.

The pure logic of "love others as you would yourself," an eminently reasonable rule once we realize we are all truly equal, is suddenly -- to those who never had the opportunity to think about it in this way -- lost when divorced of the idea of an enforcing deity. Any suggestion that altruism is also possible, nay, only truly possible without a belief in God and an ultimate reward will be met with a look of contempt and incredulousness. A suggestion that real meaning is derived by bringing happiness to other humans and not to Gods will garner the same reaction. Unconscionable!

But you know what? We don't need the promise of ultimate reward and the threat of ultimate punishment to bring meaning into our lives. Basking in the glow of an incomprehensible feminine Deity-figure (Shechinah) for all eternity is bound to get tedious anyway. I bet that after only, say, ten billion years one is bound to die of boredom. Even if, as rumor has it, Her skin never wrinkles. I'd rather take my chances and bask in the glow of a (sometimes) comprehensible feminine deity-figure in this world, not in the next.

And punishment? O Yahweh mighty son of El, whatever I may have done, I have nothing on you. The depths of your depravity is impossible to fathom with our puny human minds. Need I enumerate the destruction you have wrought on guiltless children throughout the ages? Plagues, drownings, burnings, impalements, the blood and guts of innocents. The commandments, proudly inscribed in your magnum opus, to murder and kill for any perceived slight against you. And you go around boasting about our father Abraham, who was all ready and eager to murder his own son on your command. You can rest assured that you'll never get me to do that! Kill? No thanks. You want him dead? Do it yourself, O omnipotent one!

So, in the end, what brings meaning to human life? Remember the golden rule. Do whatever you can to increase human knowledge, so you can leave the world in a better condition than the one you found it in. Be altruistic, so you'll be the cause of more happiness than the opposite. Help others, so you increase compassion in this world. Be selfless, so you, and others, can be content. And do it all without waiting for a bag of candies in the hereafter. Let the human spirit soar; it is the path to eternal bliss.

And what about sex, drugs, and rock-and-roll? Of course. As long as you don't hurt someone -- or yourself. In the spirit of Purim, gather your associates and dance a little jig, gather round your family and knock back some drinks, and go have hot and passionate monkey-sex with your lover and best friend.

Simches Peerim

Head in the Sand

2007-02-21T18:16:00.000-05:00

Some of my brethren, fellow Chasidishe bloggers, have practically made a sport of something most would consider very unsporting -- burying their heads in the sand. They like to trumpet their faith loudly and stridently, seeing themselves as vociferous defenders of all things Orthodox in general and Chasidish in particular. All the while refusing to engage in rational debate anyone not prone to see things in the exact way they do. That is a failing common to fundamentalists of all stripes, and not something we can ever hope to eradicate. Some people are beyond the reach of reason.

I do not take particular pleasure in knocking others' most cherished beliefs, and I generally do not go around seeking out blogs proclaiming faith in the God of our fathers just so I could attempt to dissuade them of notions I consider hopelessly erroneous and dangerously flawed. Sometimes, however, when one of those self-proclaimed Chasidim puts up an invective filled, inane screed against those "rotten heretics" of the chasidishe persuasion, I am tempted to reply in kind. That is a failing of mine I hope to rectify some day.

That is what happened here (http://tinyurl.com/24e36bl). For some odd reason, that blog owner chose to delete my comment. I'm sure he would love an opportunity to debate his point of view, but doesn't want to upset the sensibilities of other delicate souls reading his blog and give them indigestion -- or worse. Therefore, I've decided to repost my original comment here, in order to give anyone who wants to comment on this issue an opportunity to do so. I'm kind, like that. Here is my deleted reply: (Please make sure to read the original post first, or the following will make no sense. Italics is text quoted from Nuch's original; regular text is my reply.)

Nuch:
"What have I been thinking..."

Always dangerous...

"Their goal is to plant those into every one visits their blog for a good read, the innocent come there just to read something light enjoy and have fun, when in fact they are fed poison, and are caught in a web of 'kefira' and Apikorses."

Are you fond of conspiracy theories in general, or is it only this particular stupidity that caught your fancy? The goal of most blogs, such as it is, is simply to express the opinions, musings, frustrations, and views of the blog owner. There is no cunning scheme to force-feed anyone the "poisonous" truth, as you seem to think. Is your goal with the blog to brainwash others with the lie of Orthodoxy?

"Never ascribe to an opponent motives meaner than your own." -John M. Barrie

"These rotten bloggers who are missing the proper education to know what Torah or mitzvahs are "

While that is no doubt true for some, I'd bet many of "those" are better educated in what Torah and mitzvahs are than you are yourself (not to mention less rotten).

"Emunah is something that our parents and grand parents gave their life for"

Some of them did, indeed. However, arguing the truth based on someone else's conviction and sacrifice for that supposed truth is a logical fallacy. (For example, many others gave their life for Christianity -- and Islam. That says nothing as to whether those faiths are true.)

"If one doesn't believe in the thirteen principles of Jewish faith the ANI MAMIN he is officially considered a מין and is not a part of 'klal yisroel'"

A pity, then, that the Rambam himself didn't believe in the simplistic formulation you have in mind. For example, he didn't believe in a gehenom in the afterlife -- and neither did he believe in your conception of gan eden. Or didn't you read his perush on Sanhedrin on which the thirteen principles are based? Talk about not getting a proper education!

"Now, they claim to be intellectual apikorsim, but the truth is that it's not intellectuality that brings them to stop believing, but solely temptation"

An old canard, based on nothing more than wishful thinking. Did you even attempt to determine the truth in that claim? Or do you simply accept it because it is mighty convenient, so your puerile world view can remain unthreatened by the inconvenient reality that others have honestly investigated the bedrock on which your childish faith is based and found it lacking?

"They claim to have come to the conclusion of "apikorses", but the truth is that they are non believers because they don't know enough, or anything at all or about the subject to believe it"

Or, perhaps, they know more about the subject than apparently you can wrap your mind around.

"It's like I don't believe in the nuclear technology, it doesn't exist, and so I have a ton of questions on the whole 'sugya' of aerodynamics, it must be a lie, it cant be"

Projecting, much? Do you think that because you are woefully undereducated others must be the same? Did you attempt to understand the opposition? Did it even enter your mind that perhaps they have a point? Did you attempt to listen? Debate? Educate yourself?

"that brings them to come to conclusions that are not based on knowledge, but on suffering"

Another canard, based on the feverish imaginings of someone unwilling to consider his own biases.

"and you need to filter out the heretics and atheists"

Or maybe, just maybe, you actually need to figure out if you hold a tenable position? You can't keep sticking your head in the sand, you know. (Well, you can, actually, but it isn't very useful advice to give to others.)

"I will not get into any debates" said he, knowing he will lose. What makes you so sure you are right, then? The cosmic accident of your birth to observant Jewish parents? Had you been born to observant Christian parents, you'd be sure that Jesus was the messiah and son of God, and condemn all disbelievers to hell!

Time to grow up and realize that the particular circumstance of your birth has no bearing on the universal Truth.

Education

2007-02-12T18:23:00.000-05:00

"You know," a co-worker -- secular, worldly, well-educated -- causally said to me recently, "you really should enroll in an institution of higher learning and get a degree. "It seems like an excellent -- and well suited -- opportunity for you."

I was taken aback. Has he read my mind? To the best of my recollection, I've never mentioned to him my burning desire to get a higher education. That thought has been occupying a large part of my sub-conscious lately, an uninvited nuisance which took up permanent residence in some dark nether-region of my mind, popping up periodically to harass me and beg for attention like a too-cute squirrel popping out of an attic to beg for food from the other side of the window. Something you vigorously try to shoo away in the daytime while busy with the hustle and bustle of everyday life, but in the stillness and quiet of a lonely winter night secretly wish would keep coming back to beg and pester, just so you know you're still alive.

"To what end?" you may ask. I wonder about that myself. Will an education bring any practical benefits, at this point? Is it worth pursuing just for the sake of it, for the pure sake of gathering knowledge? Should I indulge just because I want to?

Certainly, there must be an element of rebelliousness in that desire. An irrational but human need to stick it to The Man, to a system that, while providing a solid religious education, quite deliberately and perniciously tries to keep us ignorant of all secular human knowledge and progress in the past couple of centuries. The system fears knowledge, and inculcates in its followers an absurd arrogance about the correctness of its worldview and the folly of the idiot "scientists," a word mentioned with the same derision and scorn that "communist" used to illicit in mainstream America in the McCarthy era. All the while, social pressures assure that very few are educated enough to question that world view. If you mention that you believe the world is older than 6,000 years you will literally be laughed at, and if you persist, people will wonder if you have a screw loose for believing in such a bizarre notion.

It is remarkable to observe the baseless haughtiness of the uneducated, extremely ignorant of their own extreme ignorance. That is what an education -- and, arguably, an effective brainwashing -- grounded in anti-rational polemics will do. I've often wondered, doesn't anybody else wonder why we are so afraid of the free exchange of ideas? Can our worldview not withstand the scrutiny of differing ideas and opinions? Of course, the true answer is that it cannot -- at least not in its current form, as history has shown. And the leaders and policy makers instinctively know and understand that! Yet, I believe they -- and most everyone else within the community -- are genuinely and deeply convinced that they are the sole bearers of the ultimate Truth. Self-reflection is apparently not a human strong point.

With the advent of new technologies, this prison of enforced ignorance may be breaking down. Anyone with knowledge of the English language (itself kept to a minimum within the community), a basic post-high school secular education (What??? totally unheard of!), and enough perseverance (okay, so we've got one out of three) can now take most courses offered at MIT, totally free! Just click here to get started. This in itself isn't enough to get someone who is starting from scratch educated, but eventually technology and educational goodwill will progress far enough to put all the necessities of a basic education online, and the mighty chains whose links are forged of nothing but illiteracy will crumble into dust. At least, here's to hoping.

And so, I ponder the questions: Should I get my GED, apply to college, and pursue a post-secondary degree in mathematics, biology, or physics? Perhaps try for a doctorate? Is it possible to pull this off while providing for a family with more than a few children? If I find a way, will this be the beginning of the unraveling of my two-faced existence? If it won't, will I -- and more importantly, my family -- be able to withstand the inevitable tongue-wagging of the community busybodies? Will it be another cautionary tale of the terrible destruction the evil Internet has wrought? Should I simply do it?

Maybe I should. And, maybe I will.

Enlightenment

2007-01-08T22:09:00.000-05:00

A question that is debated every so often in the frum-skeptical community is this: Are we witnessing the beginnings of a new social movement in our communities, a new Haskalah that has the very real potential of carrying away large parts of the younger generation on the sweeping winds of social change, forever transforming the face (and viability) of the community as we know it? Or is the community of hidden skeptics much smaller than it seems at first glance -- the voices deceptively amplified by the narcissistic and self-referential nature of a burgeoning online community -- and destined to go the way of the dodo bird when even our children are effectively brainwashed to obediently toe the line and grow up (or already grew up) to be good little believers?

In other words, is this the painful beginnings of an exciting new social development -- incubated in forced ignorance, hatched by a sudden burst of freely available and easily accessible information, and nourished by the freewheeling Internet spirit of effortless and ubiquitous human connection? Or are we merely witnessing the few grotesque offspring of the goose that laid the golden egg, soon to be effectively crushed (or expelled) by a community that does not tolerate deviant geese and suffers not such aberrations as golden eggs?

I've been meaning to post my thoughts on this for a while, but the day is short and the work is long, the workers are lazy and the reward isn't great. Instead, I'll repost something from the comment thread on the previous post, something that touched on this subject.

Writes Mikeskeptic:

Do we frum skeptics aspire to be the vanguard of a new Enlightenment that could slowly unfold over the next generation or two or are we content to be just the most recent links in a chain of secret apikorism that undoubtedly stretches back 25 centuries, but remains an obscure sideshow to the continuing successful transmission of fundamentalist Orthodoxy?

And I reply:

Mike:
"Do we frum skeptics aspire to be the vanguard of a new Enlightenment that could slowly unfold over the next generation or two"

Yes, I think many of us would love that. The hitch being that unlike the great social movements -- such as Socialism and Zionism -- the original Enlightenment piggybacked on, we don't have much to sell. We need a movement with lofty goals and a great promise of social change that inflames the passions of the heart and stirs the depths of the soul. Something that inspires the famed idealism and passion of the young and ignites the zeal of the old. A movement that inspires yearning for something bigger, something more, and something better -- with a strong intellectual bent to wrap it up and make it all smooth and palatable, like a glass of fine wine.

Simple disbelief does not a movement make. Where is the inspiration and excitement in that? And unlike what some would have us believe, mindless hedonism has zero pull as well. Otherwise, half of Williamsburg's youth would've been hipsters or "artists" by now. There's a reason this doesn't happen.

Additionally, it needs a fearless and brave leader to get the ball rolling. It's really hard to be the vanguard of anything while hiding behind a cloak of anonymity. (Well, unless you're going for some sort of Trojan horse tactic. ;-) )

What do you think?

Mermaids

2006-12-25T20:43:00.000-05:00

Continued from here:

Sea monsters! Yes, turns out the answer to life, the universe, and everything is... sea monsters. I realize you might wonder how that answers anything, and I would too; but I've been enlightened now.

"I have pictures!" he exclaimed breathlessly, after his mad rush to catch up to me before I leave the place and leave his sensational discovery painfully bottled up inside him like a hermit who won the Mega Millions.

"What pictures?" I ask reflexively, before having time to think if I really want to know, which I didn't.

Taking his cue, he launches into a long monologue that somehow culminates in the grand finale of an incredible answer to all his questions, finally proving his longstanding faith in our mesorah, our sages, and by extension, our God. It goes something like this:

His difficulties all started with the realization that the physical world doesn't really work the way our sages portray it. Once that realization hits -- and when it does, it hits hard -- you start to feel unsure in the logic, metaphysics, philosophy, and theology of our sages as well. After all, if they're wrong in one field of human knowledge, they might be wrong in the others as well. At least it bears investigating. And the result of those investigations is what is feared the most. It is almost an instinctive dread -- a reluctance to take that first step down the slope at the bottom of which we have been taught lies unimaginable horror and debasement.

Now he has nipped the original problem in the bud. Our sages aren't mistaken in the ways of the world; it is we who are simply ignorant and yet to discover how right they really were! And he has the exhibit to prove it. As is well known, Rashi, the brilliant and highly regarded medieval commentator, claims the existence of man-mating mermaids (what fun!); he even identifies them as siren, the name derived from Greek mythology. What do we do with an obviously mythical creature taken for genuine in our mesoreh? Why, we claim it is genuine!

"The Asian tsunami uncovered amazing creatures," he tells me. "They prove our sages right!"

I know immediately that he is referring to these pictures. These hoaxes have been making the rounds for a long time. But he is convinced.

"Look what the scientists didn't know, but our holy sages did!" he exclaims with great fervor and conviction. His eyes glow with an almost sacred zeal. It suddenly dawns on me that he has invested great emotional capital in persuading me of the correctness of his view. He is hoping to use my change of heart to help dissipate his own troubling and ever-increasing doubts.

"If we didn't know about this, what else don't we know?" he continues excitedly. "We may yet be wrong -- and our sages right -- in medicine, cosmology, physics, zoology......" his voice trails off. I don't know if it is because he suddenly realizes the absurdity of carrying the argument this far, or because he considers his arguments self evident and obviously correct by now. Whatever the case, he finishes with an expectant smile and semi-triumphant but obviously worried demeanor, waiting for my reaction.

I make a split-second decision. Do I laugh at him and tell him he's crazy? Do I send him to the snopes article so he can see the hoax for himself? Do I launch into a philosophical and sociological discussion on the nature of myths in our history and culture?

"You're absolutely right," I say with the most earnest expression I can muster. "Perhaps we are really wrong, and our sages and mesorah always right."

He looks at me quizzically. "What?"

"Yes," I repeat. "We may be full of hubris. Who are we to argue with the greats that came before us? Science might yet change tomorrow after another tsunami, but our knowledge is everlasting."

The smile on his face gets wider -- very wide indeed. He is pleasantly surprised by the easy victory over his inner and outer nemesis. "Right!" he sighs with relief. "Exactly right!"

And thus I put him out of his misery. Back to the old childish and comforting beliefs of his cult; no longer tortured by doubts. (At least until he realizes the foolishness of all this himself -- which will probably not be long in coming, and at which time he'll start bombarding me with more questions, I'm sure.)

As I lay in bed that night, confident that he at least is sleeping well, this nagging doubt kept troubling me: have I done the right thing?

On the sexual habits of the Frum species

2006-12-06T16:28:00.000-05:00

I apologize to those waiting for the second part of the story in the previous post. I hope to have it up soon. In the meantime, enjoy this light-hearted intermission.

And now for something completely different...

Hasid and Litvak: a study in contrasts

A certain Mr. Ken Mondschein, while "not passed out in a puddle of absinthe" -- as he assures us elsewhere with that self-deprecating humor of the struggling Literati -- penned a fascinating article about the online peccadillo's of Frum Romeos roaming Craiglist's shadowy halls of sexual indulgence. You can find it here:

http://www.jewcy.com/feature/frum_seeking_frum

Writes Mondschein:

"Orthodox Jews choose hormones over Halacha with the aid of sites such as Craigslist, the FrumSex mailing list on Yahoo! Groups, and the Israeli-based, Hebrew-language forum Hyde Park. With its long arms and reassuring anonymity, the Internet is threatening to radically alter Orthodox life."

Unfortunately, after venturing that tantalizing morsel of pseudo-prophetic prose, he fails to follow up on the implied assurance of showing us precisely how the Internet will accomplish the goal -- vilified by some, sought after by others -- of radically altering Orthodox life. Instead, he simply chose to quote the misspelled missives of desperate dalliance-seeking dunderheads. Mesmerizing, to be sure, but not conducive to meaningful analysis. I guess he would rather leave the research for the authors of blogs such as this one to expound upon.

And so, in the interest of furthering anthropological science and human knowledge, I started perusing "Frum" Craiglist postings while blithely taking copious notes together with my copious amounts of coffee. Only to be startled out of my merriment by stumbling into something I didn't anticipate: the stereotypical Hasidic / Litvish divide. Without further ado, here, for your edification, is exhibit A. Observe:

The warm-hearted Hasid, always ready to do Chesed and give contributions:

Chassidic, Frum Girls or Ladies. - m4w - 28

Reply to: pers-243592251@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-12-03, 5:53PM EST

Hi, I am a Brooklyn Jewish guy who would like to contribute my lust to a worthy receiver as a casual or possibly ongoing occasion.

Myself: 28 yo dark hair nicely taken care, good looking nice slim body 5’8”

I prefer someone decent looking around my age and towards the slender side.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

And now, the kalte Litvak, obsessing about... Halachah???

Frum man looking for special shabbos guests - m4w - 29

Reply to: pers-242763517@craigslist.org
Date: 2006-12-01, 5:46PM EST

I am a frum man who knows the entire mishnayos baal peh , and I am looking for a special female shabbos guest who wants to come over and sing zemiros and eat the festive shabbos meal and then come up to my bedroom for desert !

Please , only females apply. And please be showered and groomed properly.Remember that according to the vilna gaon in his tshuvas volume 3 pp206-208 says that women should always hit that thang at least once a week with a depilatory powder or a razor.Obviously , as a litvak ,I am required to follow the vilna gaon's sheetah.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

The stereotypes are true, after all!

Reality

2006-11-27T17:27:00.000-05:00

His eyes. They betray his thoughts, those eyes. He's anxious, uneasy, eager, excited. On the cusp of a great triumph. He has his trump card now, and is intent on using it on his unsuspecting nemesis. It's not the first such imagined card, nor, most likely, will it be the last. But that little detail is lost in the exhilarating anticipation of finally -- after many sleepless nights -- proving his old, outdated, yet very comforting notions right. Notions he never questioned before having that bothersome concept called reality rudely shoved down his throat; reassuring notions he now dearly wants to believe in again.

His eyes dart around the hallway. Inside, the stragglers are finishing up the last minyan. The loud Amen's, Bruch Hu's, and other shrill proclamations of God's ultimate authority and insatiable need for constant praise reverberate through the entrance hall where we congregate in small groups to discuss politics, news, the weather, and the latest Chasidishe gossip. We have some time now, those of us who manage to be more punctual and start our prayers on time, and incidentally, also more courteous, finishing our prayers without feeling the need to presumptuously shout at God and create a deafening din in his divine ears.

I notice him from the other end of the hall. His eyes stop when they meet mine. A weak smile spreads across his lips, feeble but unmistaken, almost curling up in an amused smirk. It is then the realization hits me; I am the nemesis he is looking for, the one whose peculiar ideas need refutation in order to grant respite to his troubled soul. He rushes towards me, mindlessly crashing through the startled groups of amicable chatterers standing in his way like a runaway elephant at a Ringling Bros. circus parade. My heart sinks. "Not again," I think to myself, "not again."

It is quite by accident that I assumed this role. It all started with an innocent conversation on cosmology and the nature of our solar system, and the tired old Copernican debate -- which can't rightfully be labeled a debate really, so much as stubborn clinging to centuries old discredited dogma. No matter. I bumped into him holding forth on this issue in a small circle of friends, expounding quite masterfully on the well-known Ptolemaic position of the Rambam and other rishonim and explicating their position while bringing proofs from later sages agreeing with them.

"It's all quite clear the way it works," he argued, "they say so quite clearly in their seforim!"

I couldn't help myself. "Well," I started quietly, gently, but firmly. "The world is Heliocentric. Modern man knows that, now."

He was flabbergasted. "How can you say that? Can't you see the sages clearly disagree?"

I looked at him quietly for a second. "Indeed they do," I finally said, "but the reality is different."

He didn't quite get it. "Look," he said, rushing to the stacked bookcase. "I'll show you where they say so!"

I couldn't hide my sarcasm anymore. "Quite right," I said, "reality is determined by anything printed in Hebrew characters -- particularly if it's bound in hardcover."

He stopped cold in his tracks and turned around to stare at me. He looked at me pensively for some time, as if begging me to take my words back, make them disappear, erase them from his mind. He was clearly startled by the novelty of the irony just pointed out to him -- for the first time in his life. His mind switched into high gear trying to make sense of it all. If you listened closely you could almost hear the whizzing dials, switching levers, and running belts in his mind. Working, working. "Ah," he finally stammered, "you mean... it isn't really so?" Yes, that is what I meant.

We had many more discussions since that day. About the classical four elements our philosophical and mystical tradition embraces so enthusiastically; about nonexistent animals appearing in the Talmud; about never existing animals appearing in the fossil record; about sheidim and richos; about Pharoah and kishuf; about the windows the Talmud maintains the sun passes through each morning; and about the impassable but apparently also invisible Sambatyon. He sought answers, but our tradition let him down.

He grew increasingly troubled and disturbed, and I grew increasingly uncomfortable and agitated. Why does he insist on having these discussions with me? And if he does persist, must I oblige? Clearly, he is trying to hang on tooth and nail, trying to prove the unprovable to himself using me as a proxy.

"You know," he started the conversation one day, his voice filled with excitement and relief. "I found rishonim that hold our sages can be wrong in science!" I was growing weary at this point. "You did," I replied, "and I bet you found that printed in Hebrew in hardcover!"

Again, he stopped mid-track and stared at me, his eyes unblinking. You could hear the paradigm shift in his mind with a distant but thunderous crash, like someone suddenly shifting the balance on a playground seesaw while it's supporting your full weight. "Reality," he finally muttered to no-one in particular, "Reality!" He turned around, and with a concerned look on his face shuffled slowly away. Oh, what have I done?

He hasn't sought me out for any more discussions since that day. But now, evidently, he has found The Answer, and is very intent on sharing it with me! I wonder: what is it going to be?

(Continued here.)

Friends

2006-09-29T15:11:00.000-04:00

Come Yom Kippur, everyone is friends. People who hate each other's guts, would normally rub their hands with glee at each other's hardship, might even deliberately advise visitors to double-park in front of the others' vehicle and watch with understated amusement their baffled attempts at figuring out whom the mini-van -- out-of-state plates, spilled bag of kosher chips on the front seat, soiled diaper on the back seat, worn Tehilim (book of Psalms) on the dashboard -- belongs to, even those try hard to squelch these feeling on Yom Kippur.

On this Day of Atonement, when we implore Hashem to forgive our grave sins against His royal highness, few have the nerve to harbor feelings of resentment against their fellow man -- at least audibly. How will we face the ultimate judge if we cannot even forget a perceived slight against us in this temporal realm? Surely, that must be as nothing against the terrible affront our sins have caused the One-who-cannot-be-caused-for-He-is-the-ultimate-cause in the sacred realm. And so, we plead, and pledge, forgiveness, and all are friends for a blessed day.

Did I say all? I didn't mean that, of course. Being a Hasidic man in good standing means there's a certain class of people you can never be friends with. No, not lepers, criminals, or creeps. Rather, you can never (on pain of ostracization) be friends with the class of people perceived as less frum (pious). That includes those slightly less Hasidic, not Hasidic at all, less Orthodox, not Orthodox at all, and certainly secular folk and Goyim!

Oh, you certainly can be friendly towards them. Business acquaintances, government officials, and your janitor, all might be included in that category. But you can never be friends. Not someone you enjoy spending time with, ask advice of, share your troubles with, or with whom you just go out to shoot the breeze. The negative influence they will exert might have wide-ranging and unforeseeable consequences. A risk nobody should take, in the considered opinion of the community.

This encompasses almost all of humanity, you say? Why, yes, it does! Glad you noticed. Indeed, the pool out of which you can choose your friends is quite shallow. As ever, you can try the bend the rules a bit. Claim a business interest. Confer some professional title on an individual and explain how being friends with such a professional helps you in your daily endeavors. Or just ignore the naysayers.

Do that too often, however, and your life is liable to get very uncomfortable. People will whisper, malicious rumors will materialize, and your spouse, children, and the rest of the family will start looking with a jaundiced eye at all your activities. And what if you find yourself surrounded by, excuse me, a bunch of doofuses (doofii)? Well, that's just too bad. You cannot, under any circumstance, compromise your piety. You are trapped.

Trapped.

There's another class of people you can never be friends with. You can never be enemies with them, either, for they simply don't (or shouldn't) exist from your point of view. For a Hasidic man, that would be those with an extra 'x' in a certain chromosome pair. The differently gendered. Besides very close family members, those of that persuasion should remain invisible and unnoticed to any Hasidic male. Perhaps meriting a murmured greeting and request for information when necessary, or maybe even an expression of gratitude when it would be particularly impolite to omit that. But certainly not anything more, and definitely not friends. Heaven forefend!

Apparently, two x's in a chromosome pair in proximity to an individual with a single 'x' is a triple-X state of affairs by default. There's no such thing as friends, not even in the company of other people. There's no such thing as mixed company. The mere hint of the presence of a woman in your circle of friends is enough to get the highly efficient well-honed community rumor mill going in high gear. And once that gets going, the going gets tough. The town gossip will have a field day. "Of course he is [censored]ing her!" he'll exclaim with all the dramatic flair and absurd ostentation of a streetwalker hawking her wares on Lexington Avenue. Everyone will nod their sorry little heads in agreement and leave with a self-satisfied smirk on their face. And on Yom Kippur, they'll even be your friends.

P.S. To those readers of this blog I'd like to say, consider this: perhaps we are friends. Good friends. Even close friends. But as Freud might have said in a post-Lewinsky world: Close, but no cigar. Just... perhaps.

Angst

2006-09-22T15:37:00.000-04:00

"I'm very worried."

This sentiment is now apparent all around on the facial expression and nervous manner of the exceedingly devout. On this Rosh Hashanah, will my good deeds outweigh the bad? On this Day of Judgment, will I prevail before the righteous Judge? The anxiety is so palpable you'd think someone brainwashed these poor folks into thinking their very life depended upon upholding some strange customs and practices that can never be perfectly upheld.

And you'd be right.

Life, health, success, and happiness all depend on that very thing, according to religious teaching. And you better hope your efforts are found to be adequate, because the consequence of the converse can be dreadful. Famine, pestilence, wild animals, fire, sword, and just plain "death" are all mentioned in the liturgy, as a gentle hint of what the ultimate Judge in his ultimate Righteousness is capable of if you piss him off. You had better not do that. Him being very fickle, you have your work cut out for you. This sentiment is particularly acute now, since our tradition perceives of Him in this time of the year as an exacting King judging all living things without any compromise -- with a pettiness more befitting the proverbial Queen, if you ask me. But nobody does.

And so, anxiety and apprehension are widespread. Truth be told, it is widespread year round when it comes to observing Halacha, the God-given code of law His chosen people were chosen to choose for themselves with the gentle inducement of the ultimate threat of dropping a small mountain on their collective heads. But that is about the holiday of Shavuoth -- you'll have to wait for that story. At any rate, performance anxiety is widespread and entrenched when it comes to Mitzvahs. Many things are passionately repeated, minutely examined, and just all-around obsessed about -- just to make sure it's being done right and the Lord is properly appeased. Too many things to mention really; enough to say the atmosphere sometimes resembles an OCD inpatient clinic with a new shipment of particularly colorful and obsessed characters.

A particularly egregious example is this very holiday. The Torah (allegedly) commands us to sound a horn, or Shofar, on Rosh Hashanah; you'd think we'd take a horn and sound it, and that'd be that. But no. Due to our ever increasing doubts on how this should be done, exactly, and what kind of blowing God meant to be pleased by, we now blow the Shofar one hundred times, in every which way a human brain can conceive. But that isn't enough. We then repeat the whole exercise on the next day, just in case, you know, our calendar happens to be off by one or something.

Wait, we're not finished.

Seems some of our holy sages were particularly concerned with the prohibition of doing work on the Sabbath. A capital offense, in the eyes of God. What happens if, say, someone decides to learn how to sound the horn on a Rosh Hashanah day that happens to fall on the Sabbath? Being that it isn't that easy to do, he decides to seek out a teacher. But he's worried that the teacher doesn't have a Shofar of his own. See, he's a careful fellow; likes to cover his bases -- it's just that he happened to forget he doesn't know how to blow up until the last possible minute. In his mad dash to finish learning how to do this while there's still time to do it, he grabs his own Shofar and rushes out the door to go find the teacher before he takes his afternoon nap. Now, he just earned himself the death penalty! See, by prohibiting "work" God meant to proscribe carrying anything on the street no matter how light, in the same sense that blowing a horn means creating a centuplicate racket.

How reasonable is this scenario with the forgetful fellow, you ask? Well, how reasonable is it that you're still dirty after washing today for the 9th time? That is why it has a three-letter abbreviation and earns a prominent place in the DSM IV. This fantastical scenario sufficiently troubled our sages to compel them to scrape this whole blowing business when Rosh Hashanah happens to fall on Shabbos, as it does this year. Lock, stock, and barrel. Not a hundred sounds, not fifty, not ten, and not one. Nothing. Zero. Makes perfect sense.

Is it any wonder we suffer religious angst?

Some would delight in pointing out that skeptics and atheists don't escape feelings of angst, either. Existential angst. The question then is: Are we cursed by our very humanity to feeling angst, or are we blessed to suffer existential angst, which defines us as humans?

Wishing a happy and angst-free New Year to all our readers.

Forgive Me

2006-09-17T22:08:00.000-04:00

Early morning. All is quiet. Darkness has yet to yield its boorish grip on a slumbering world; the warming rays of sunshine's hope some hours away yet. An early morning fall chill permeates the air, serving the world as a gentle reminder to prepare for the upcoming winter months sure to bring much harsher weather. Yet, for an entire subset of the population, this scene is also the setting for a reminder more profound, more stirring, and even more worrying than this: Selichos!

Soon, there is a soft rustling on the street. Those punctual folk, prone to arrive a couple of minutes early even when the starting time is already an early 4:30 AM, can be seen rushing to Shul with sleepy eyes and untidy Peyos. They will get an early start in the Mikveh, immersing themselves in its warm not-yet-soiled waters with great sincerity in solemn anticipation of one of the great prayer events in the Jewish calendar: Selichos!

Soon the rustling grows louder and even louder still, until the entire neighborhood is full of the sound of old and young, tired and fresh, men and women, fathers with their children, all determinedly rushing -- amid excited whispers (the voices seemingly hushed by the darkness itself) of "Good Morning" -- to their own destination. The hubbub may resemble a mid-morning bazaar, but the darkness outside and the gravitas inside inform us of a reality more profound: Selichos!

The synagogue is full; the Rebbe appears. A silence falls over the crowd. The Chazan starts the prayers in a strong and booming voice, and the congregation follows. The hall fills with a cacophony of heart-rending cries, and the familiar and wrenching singsong and soulful chants sends a shudder down the spine: Selichos!

Amid the crowd is a boy, about fourteen, fifteen, or perhaps sixteen years of age. He, too, is swept up in the ambiance of his surroundings. Oh, how the burden of his boyish sins now weigh upon his shoulders! Oh Lord, "The soul is yours; the body -- your work; have pity..." he chants wistfully. The crowd grows louder. Soon, it becomes difficult to hear one's own voice over the din. The boy feels part of something bigger, something loftier than what human eyes can see or the human brain comprehend. He cries, he beseeches, he begs, and finally, staunchly requests: Forgive my sins, oh Lord! I will no longer spend time with worthless, earthly pursuits rather than spending the time learning Torah. I resolve no longer to have any impure thoughts, come what may. I will not hate anyone, nor hurt someone out of revenge. I promise! The atmosphere now feels elevated, spiritually rarefied. A deep inner contentment sets in, a spiritual glow that soothes the deepest parts of the soul and leaves an incredible longing for the divine and only a dull awareness of material reality. A harbinger of things to come; a good omen for the next couple of weeks -- the high-holiday season has only started, and the spiritual well is already filling. How comforting is the words spoken to our loving Father: Forgive me!

Fast-forward a couple of decades...

The setting is the same, the atmosphere identical. Everything and everyone around has gotten a bit older, a bit more tired and decrepit perhaps, but remained in essence unchanged. But the boy, oh that boy, has changed dramatically. Not that anyone could tell, of course. He appears for all the world as they would expect, with the accoutrements and necessary trappings of all other similar boys grown up in the past couple of decades. But the essence, the spirit, the very soul -- if I may call it that, that has changed. Forgive me!

You see, the boy had refused to remain forever ignorant, as is deemed proper by the spiritual leaders, the supposed wise and saintly men of great wisdom. He embarked on a long and bumpy journey to uncover the Truth. He ate from the tree of knowledge along the way, and grew progressively enlightened. He engaged his intellectual faculties in their highest gear, as best he knew how. And indeed, he uncovered a very unsettling Truth. His worst fears were confirmed, his nightmare brought to life. He has seen the man behind the curtain; there's no turning back now. He is living a lie! He's been taken in by a big hoax! The vagaries of life have conspired to place him in a society with many ingrained and strongly held false beliefs, from where it's practically impossible to get out. Forgive me!

The Chazan again chants with his booming voice; the crowd cries out in thunderous response. But that boy no longer beseeches, cries, begs or demands. There is no longer anyone towards whom to direct those entreaties. Like the old, torn, and tattered security blanket of a young child, the time to discard the illusory comfort of the illusory God has long past. Forgive me!

In place of the old promises not to sin, there remains the amazed bemusement at the incredibly sycophantic and obsequious nature of the prescribed prayers. In place of the soothing, spiritual glow, a troublesome antagonism now brews within. In place of longing for the divine, there remains the dull ache of the realization that he remains trapped in this alien society. Yet, it is still a harbinger of things to come: of a month spent in subjugation and prayer to a being he doesn't believe in; a month of great financial and personal sacrifice to rituals that now seem useless to him; and a month of indoctrinating his children in a way of life he's lost faith in. ~~Forgive me Father for I have sinned!~~ Forgive me son for I have changed!