tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-12518973510133941492024-02-08T05:31:53.779-08:00the view from the craterramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.comBlogger30125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-17608826973540587792012-10-22T05:30:00.003-07:002012-10-22T05:30:56.553-07:00Flags with Chickens & Ploughs & AK-47s on them<br />
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I've been making this point since graduating high school right before Reagan was elected. One can't force feed people ten years out of the stone age centuries of philosophical and political development. They don't want it, don't understand it, and can't handle it. What drives this is basically a mixture of mental laziness and stubborn faith in liberal illusions about how we're all really exactly the same because we all love our kids and enjoy hot dogs. </div>
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I forget the talmudic source, but there's a great saying, Nefesh r'eiva, kol mar matok. To a hungry soul, every bitter thing is sweet. Hand a starving buddhist or muslim a nice Oscar Meyer, he'll eat it, and hate you for it. The Jew might or might not feel the need to do teshuva for saving his/her life by eating treif, but hatred wouldn't be part of the equation. There was a huge revolt in India under the British because of a rumor, like the one that precipitated the 1929 Hevron Massacre, that the new bullets were greased with pork fat. Neither was true. Didn't matter. Never does. These are the same cultural land pirates that gave Lawrence such fits, because once they had pillaged as much as they could carry, his army disintegrated.</div>
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This goes back a long way, and not just in America. Shimon Peres works on the same delusions that fueled Herzl's Altneuland: that modern medicine and flush toilets will mystically, magically, mysteriously turn people whose greatest contribution to the world is the protection racket *, whose ideology tells them they are a superior form of life entitled to revenge for any assault they attempt unsuccessfully*, who make NASCAR loons and Soccer louts look cultured, into secular liberal democrats. They burned the free clinic in Hevron, the first and only real medicine to which they'd ever had access, btw.</div>
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Parenthetically, the inability or unwillingness to name the problem in the obvious way to avoid "upsetting" the terrorists' sponsors and relatives (and sponsoring relatives) in Saudi Arabia, Quwait, Qatar, UAE is troubling, not to say stupid, and certainly not to say potentially disastrous. Engineers and people I know in geology aren't sanguine about deriving huge amounts of hydrocarbon fuel from the Med field ("Leviathan") off Israel's coast, but it would be nice, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, two large sources of oil are essentially off line, as far as the US is concerned: Iraq AND Iran. One can understand why a guy in the White House with three muslim (two Arabic) names and a ring on his finger with the Shuhada on it would want to tone down the rhetoric and keep the remaining sources as happy as possible.</div>
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ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-25885682343906734462012-10-22T05:28:00.002-07:002012-10-22T05:28:21.192-07:00Sarah Silverman, Jr.<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">What journalistic giant chose the title for this piece?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Well, her father has clearly read Gen.14, in Lech Lecha, next week's parsha, where Avraham pursues an army with a battalion, attacks by night, and refuses to take literally so much as a shoe lace in recompense, clearly making the point that his family is not to be trifled with. To be honest, I've used the four letter term Mr. Silverman used in this connection, but I would not use it in public or in "print". I shouldn't like my vulgarity preserved for posterity.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">I fail to comprehend why Reform beginning to call HUC-JIR graduates "Rabbi" after WW2 obligates the Orthodox to accept that claim any more than Reform is obligated, in its own secular humanist terms, to accept the traditional tenets of Orthodoxy. The graduates deserve academic respect for their MAHL, but a different title would be more appropriate. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There is a new field called History of Science. A PhD in that does not make one a scientist. A Reform MAHL may make one a scholar. One guy reverse engineered, e.g., five of Bialik's longest poems, tracking down the biblical and talmudic source of every phrase. It is an outstanding and valuable piece of work, at least for those of us who can read Bialik in the original Hebrew. It made a great master's thesis. It no more makes him a rabbi than a few scales on my feet make me a lizard.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Her various relatives' interactions with the Jewish, or Israeli (not necessarily the same thing), world: why exactly does Mr. Silverman think they are relevant? How do their actions impact the value of hers? Why does he think this note is an attack on him, and his whole family? Is he defensive about his daughter's choices, perhaps as a reflection on his parenting?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There are plenty of ignorant, hostile people in (most unfortunately) all of the "movements" within Judaism. Anyone who knows ANYTHING about the culture, however, knows something of Avot. I grew up Reform (KI, Elkins Park, PA). Even before I started studying seriously (I hate to tell you, but the difference between "Hebrew School" and serious study is the difference between university science courses and watching Itchy and Scratchy cartoons on the Simpsons to learn anatomy.) I knew about that time capsule of tannaitic advice. Shaming someone in public is considered akin to shedding blood.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Wishing a woman a decent, normal relationship and family, whether she wants to pursue it or not, is a blessing. Why so much defensive hostility in response? Threatened? To the extent that every Jewish woman who chooses to refrain from reproducing is definitely a smaller next generation, and between external threats and the propensity of the modern movements to produce large proportions of apostates, our world wide population is shrinking, yes. </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Threatened by her foul mouthed "celebrity"? Really? You think, because he's an orthodox rabbi, he's never heard a woman curse? You think women in orthodox Judaism have no power? Go to a Chabad shul once and ask the rabbi for anything but halachic advice. Watch him turn to the rebbetzin. Anything to do with interacting with the real world, you watch who is the boss.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">She is clearly a very bright youngish woman. Frankly, I think the chances of her choosing to redirect her life into more traditional paths is minimal. I cannot see why wishing her the traditional blessing we say over any child, that s/he may grow to learning (Torah), marriage (Chupah), and good deeds (Ma'asim Tovim) should offend anyone, especially a Jew. Whether she chooses to form a family of her own is, of course, up to her. I wish her the same as the rabbi did. Go ahead. Hand me my posterior.</span></div>
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ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-65269759980286334132012-10-22T05:26:00.006-07:002012-10-22T05:27:23.438-07:00Amuse bouche<br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Oh, Jack Welch. What a gutless weasel. "Those Chicago guys will do anything...change the numbers", but he's not accusing anyone of anything? I'm just a simple guy with a worthless BA from a public university, but that sounds like two accusations (general lack of integrity and willingness to manipulate data, i.e., lie) to me. If he stands by his tweet, he's making the accusations. This shows how stupid Welch thinks everyone of us is. It's the old journalistic "alleged". One can safely (i.e., without being sued) publish nearly anything if one essentially admits one has failed to check one's facts. An "allegation", look it up, is a claim, usually of wrongdoing, typically without proof, i.e., not necessarily more than a nasty rumor. Why does anybody want to read anything this robber baron (look it up) has to spew?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">A Texan school district is testing RFID tags for students. This really sucks, but answer this: Washington DC's defense for being unprepared for the occasional blizzard, every occasional blizzard, is always "it doesn't happen every year". Make sense to you? Well, the one time in ten years one school has an armed intruder, a boiler explosion, whatever, won't it be a good thing to know who is where precisely and immediately? Not to say I don't see the drawbacks. The official motivation is apparently combatting truancy because, drumroll, funding is based on attendance!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It is actually quite deniable that the "Palestinian people" have suffered in pursuit of a homeland. They are a synthetic, syncretic people invented in 1964 by Egyptian intelligence. The cannon fodder was drawn from captive Arab populations in ARAB countries. They have suffered because their own ARAB people won't have them. Most of them actually originate from other ARAB countries, immigrating to Eretz Israel only as the influx of Zionists and Zionist money produced livable conditions for a larger population. Three generations of indoctrination in Lebanese, Egyptian, Syrian, Iraqi prison (refugee) camps may have produced the illusion of social and cultural cohesion, but it was all made up in the last half century. And thanks, Russia, for the logistic and AgitProp support, and UNRWA for the "special" regime.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Some doynck has a picture of what gas prices were when Obama took office, implying the current prices are his fault and under his control, as opposed to how things were under his predecessor. MULE FRITTERS!!! I live in the Washington DC suburbs of Maryland. In JULY 2008, I was paying $4.09. Then prices fell, right up to the election, to $1.49, which was (just BTW) what it was when Dubya took office! Look it up. Amazing. 60% decline in three months. Explain THAT economically. The prices started back up less than two weeks later, and skyrocketed back in less than two years. No, oil didn't go up by a factor of three. And we STILL have subsidies on these companies, because a few billion in profit per quarter... PROFIT...per QUARTER... look it up... isn't sufficient reason for them to stay in the business.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Obama apparently wears, and has since before he met Michelle, a ring inscribed with the Shuhada, the Muslim declaration of faith, on his wedding ring finger. Where did he get it, and does he know what it says? This is not necessarily damning. Not NECESSARILY. This is the guy who told us his name (Barack) was Swahili. He has two Arabic names, and a family name from a Muslim clan in mostly Muslim Kenya. Look it up, there are several swahili and kiswahili online dictionaries. Barack is exactly as Arabic as Houssein. Was he ignorant or lying? It needs to be determined before the meaning of the statement, or the ring, can be. Although, as a big Tolkien fan, I can't say a gold ring with an ominous inscription makes me feel exactly warm and fuzzy.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Some small minded, emasculated weasel named Matthew Desmond said, "It always irritates me that the people who say 'give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for a lifetime' are unwilling to give the man a fish AND, when it comes down to it, they're unwilling to pay to teach him how to fish. What they're really saying is 'I don't care if you starve, as long as I have a fish for myself." </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Being Liberal" asks if we agree. No. I can't help if a quote is misunderstood or misused. I'm not saying there aren't "I got mine" people out there. That doesn't affect the wisdom of the quote.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It is a paraphrase of Maimonides. Maimonides (12th cent) never said give a hungry man ONLY a fishing rod. Helping a person to be independent is the highest of eight levels of Tzedaka. The point of the teaching is, if you are not rich, if you aren't a saint, you are not absolved of all responsibility to help because you are unable or unwilling to solve the whole problem. See Avot, Rabbi Tarfon (late 1st, early 2nd cent): "It is not incumbent upon you to complete the work, but you are not free to desist wholly from it. The day is long, and the work is great, the workers are lazy, the reward is great, and the Master of the House is impatient."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">"Fact! Presidents don't control oil prices!"</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But he could. Wage and price controls. Nixon. Remember? Obama COULD declare that the oil giants are entitled to limited profits for the next few years, and would have to prove they were not breaking even to get a price rise. It could be done. Well, in his first two years, it could have. You remember his first two years, when gas recouped the eight years of Bush, Jr era inflation that mystically magically disappeared in the three months before the last elections, while he kept asking the Republicans to please, please, please cooperate, while they publically declared that their big goal was to keep him from achieving squat, especially a second term? Remember them?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Scotland is holding a referendum in 2014 on whether the kingdom ought to remain united, or whether the Sassenach ought to pay for their own underclass's dole. Flanders wants out of Belgium. Once, all that was needed to break up a multiethnic state was the old elements of nationalism: geography, ethnicity, language, religion. Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia fractured on ethnic lines simply because they were there. There are several ways to consider of the break up of the FSU. Beware, Iraq, Turkey, Syria. But I see a confluence of nationalism and economics: Scotland and Belgium are fracturing on ethnic lines, but because of an economic gradient. That's what I see tearing several European countries apart: when one cohesive group in one area sees itself being exploited for the good of a different group in a separate area. There is one more factor: size: Northeast Philadelphia wanted for some time to separate from the city of Philadelphia and incorporate as "Liberty County". It was just too small, and had no real economic or ethnic base: the middle class largely, but not exclusively, lived in the Northeast, but many (except store clerks, waiters and dentists) worked elsewhere, many in Philadelphia city proper. Setting up their own schools, fire, police, for example, were insurmountable obstacles. So, I don't see Cornwall pulling free, nor (short of a big recovery leading to a huge influx of tourists into northern Spain) the Basques. I don't see Italy disintegrating: the difference from one region to another is more culinary than anything else. Germany, on the other hand, in the event of serious difficulties, I can imagine fractionating.</span></div>
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ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-49993781472066233572012-10-07T19:25:00.002-07:002012-10-07T20:18:43.569-07:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">In reference to the water tunnels supplying New York City which have been leaking so badly that several upstate towns have been sinking into the quagmire for a couple of decades. One problem is "you can't shut them down" because a) NYC already stinks with quite a sufficient awfulness. No one wants to contemplate a day with 8 million toilets unflushed. b) The water pressure MAY be the only thing ho</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">lding pieces of the tunnel up. Closing the inlet could collapse more than just the tunnel, because of all the water logged soil above it. How's this? Put in a pipe, like a submarine's pressure hull, the outer diameter of which is 75% the inner diameter of the tunnel. Have inflatable bags held to the exterior by vacuum. Once in place in the tunnel, inflate the bags with that self hardening plastic foam used to fix flat tires. Hold the tunnel in place and seal the leaks. Seal the intake end with submarine concrete, the stuff made in Oregon on a recipe that goes back to the Roman port od Cosa, where the Garum came from. Well? Why not?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Tunnel 1 was completed in 1917 and runs into Tunnel 2, completed 1935. Can't find their start dates, but I bet they were post Civil war. But Tunnel 3, intended to allow 1 and 2 to be closed for repair, was authorized in 1954. Phase 1 was built between 1970 (16 year delay!) and 1998. Phase 2 won't be done, if all keeps to schedule, until 2020 (original estimates were 2012, so "on schedule" is already 8 years late). 66 years.</span><br />
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;">in response to Last Angry Woman's comment:</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"but somehow YOU manage to hold events with a million tourists and not closely scrutinize each one. what on earth is that supposed to mean? did the U.K. pull it off? indeed they did.</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 16px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br style="border-bottom-style: none; border-color: initial; border-left-style: none; border-right-style: none; border-top-style: none; border-width: initial; list-style-image: initial; list-style-position: initial; list-style-type: none; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-top: 0px;" />"Have all your venues turned out? I'm remembering Atlanta, for example."</span></span></div>
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<span class="userContent">Last Angry Woman? Really? You are assuming I'm American. You are correct, if a bit incoherent.</span><br />
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<span class="userContent">I personally have never held a major event. The largest event I've ever personally organized was for about 120 people. Mittford held an Olympics in Salt Lake City. It came off pretty well. So, for that matter did the fourth London games. If there was a bomb scare, very badly handled, at the Atlanta games, it says nothing about ME, ROMNEY, SALT LAKE, the LONDON GAMES, or PRESENT DAY AMERICA. </span><br />
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<span class="userContent">Recall how many games have been held here: St Louis (1904), Lake Placid & L.A. (1932), Squaw Valley (1960), Lake Placid (1980), L.A. (1984), Atlanta (1996). One incident. Britain has had four, all in London. What, there isn't another decent sized city in the whole country? Four, and not a single major incident. Good for you. Yes, I'm assuming your defensiveness stems from a stung British inferiority complex. </span><br />
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<span class="userContent">That "we" have held more games than "you" and only had one apparently home grown incident proves my point, which apparently you missed. OF COURSE we could have been more security conscious. AND SO COULD YOU. </span><br />
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<span class="userContent">The nature of a mass public event makes that incredibly difficult. For one thing, pissing off tourists will diminish the profits, the point of the whole futile exercise. Unless a games is held in Pyongyang, we can expect compromises to be made between hospitality and security, here, there, France, Australia, Moonbase Gingrich, anywhere. In other words, what Romney said to a batch of kneejerk hypersensitive picts was essentially true: You did a good job, balancing antagonistic factors. If you had prioritized security over hospitality and worldwide tourist shilling more, you might have done better, from a pure security perspective. Which is what he said. That was, of course, NOT, and never is, the ONLY perspective to consider in planning a huge event like an Olympic Games.</span><br />
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ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-7586658036184795992012-10-02T19:42:00.001-07:002012-10-02T19:42:24.328-07:00Amuse bouche du jour<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Three interesting things today:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/328816/why-turkey-will-never-join-eu-andrew-c-mccarthy</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">Why Turkey will not enter the EU: The "process" is designed to be interminable, and Erdogan sees it as a tool to free rampant, militant Islam of all restraint, crushing the Kemalist institutions that guaranteed ACTUAL freedom in Turkey for nearly a century.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">http://www.meforum.org/3349/israel-foreign-policy</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">The Three State Solution: Egypt and Jordan accept responsibility for the Arab populations of Gaza and Yosh, AND Israeli sovereignty over Jewish population centers in the later. Oh, Danny, really? Why? They've rejected their own people for so long, what makes you think the East and West Arabs will go for this? In exchange for what?</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: 'lucida grande', tahoma, verdana, arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 17px;">I keep seeing articles in Israeli media, but hardly anywhere else, indicating concern for the Coptic Christians of Egypt who are now going through what the reviled, robbed, and finally exiled JEWS of Egypt experienced in the 1950s, Shia Muslims and Bahais somewhat later. When the Egyptians came for the Jews, they cared not, for were they Jews? Now the Egyptians are coming for the Copts, and there is NOONE to protest in their behalf. And the crocodile is still hungry.</span>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-67110221634192113802012-10-01T06:16:00.001-07:002012-10-01T06:52:52.232-07:00100112<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: black; line-height: normal;"></span></span><br /></span>
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"Gaza Mom Chooses Israeli Hospital to Save Baby</span></h2>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">After losing 3 babies to rare birth defects at Egyptian hospitals, a Gaza mother followed doctors' advice and took her fourth to Israel."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">This poor "Palestinian" woman apparently has children with congenitally blocked bowels.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">CHOOSES. SHE CHOSE an ISRAELI hospital, and the Jew Devils took her in and SAVED HER CHILD'S LIFE. </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Because Jews are so evil and cheap and set so low a value on life.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Gee, they didn't chase her off with a stick, in "apartheid" Israel? No, she just crossed into Israel at the Erez checkpoint and went to an Israeli hospital. I'll bet she has full Israeli medical coverage. BTW, why do Egyptian hospitals suck so bad, and which Gazan doctor said, "If you want decent care for your little Arab baby, go ask the Jews"?</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; line-height: 18px;">There's a Republican Security Council ad out listing numerous violent acts by muslims against Americans since 1979, including terror attacks on civilians (e.g., Achille Lauro) and military personnel (e.g., Khobar Towers) and attacks on US Military personnel deployed abroad (e.g., Afghanistan). One can't really compare their killing armed Americans who came to their own tin piss pot excuses for countries to stop them from murdering EACH OTHER (and shipping opium products world wide) with them coming HERE to murder Americans. Each has its own heinousness. And they missed the 2002 Beltway Sniper, the airborne soldier who grenaded the officers' tent in Kuwait in 2003, and the Pakistani Mumbai attack of 2008. I'm not sure if there were Americans killed in the multiple train bombings there in 2006.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">ebay asks: </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;">If I drove a Maserati, I would _________. (Insert YOUR dream.)</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 17px;"><a href="http://bit.ly/O09l73" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">http://bit.ly/O09l73</a></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Not. I would never drive a single vehicle for the price of which I could have a fleet of hondas, the maintenance of which would require me to have another car half of the time and cost as much as the car itself. It's like asking how I'd enjoy my coffee at $20 a cup, like that nauseating stuff that ferments in a rodent's digestive tract in Borneo. I understand that there isn't much of it. Who wants to spend their working life up a rat's butt squeezing turds? But that isn't a reason to pay extra for fecal coffee. Scarcity of penis substitutes isn't a good reason to pay two to three times the average annual American income for this little red motorized dildo.</span>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-63727078365570381052012-09-24T09:25:00.002-07:002012-09-24T09:27:49.866-07:00Sept 20-24<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Sept 20, "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">So, WHY didn't Moshe Rabbenu get to take an El Al donkey into Eretz Yisrael? Well, when the Shotrim, Datan and Abiram (Edward G. Robinson and Frank de Kova (F-Troop's Chief Wild Eagle) in the movie), met him on the way out from kvetching t</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">o Pharaoh, he ricochet-kvetched to H": Things are WORSE! Why did You send me? Rashi comments: You are not up to Avraham's standard. When I told him to sacrifice the son for whom he waitd so long, through whom I had said his inheritance would descend, he just got up early the next morning and set out to do it. For this, while you WILL see My victory over Egypt, you will NOT see My victory over the kings of Canaan. This does not quite explain why Avraham pleading for Sodom is not equally "quibbling with H"'s methods", though.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Sept 20, "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Lessee... on the one hand, Israel says it's okay with a civilian nuclear program in Jordan... on the other hand, the US warns Israel that any actio on Iran's nuclear program would likely lead to a rupture of the current worthless (okay, tha</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">t's just MY opinion) ties with Egypt and Jordan. Ah, Ike's Atoms for Peace. Like partition, it worked so well. The question is, would it lead to a cessation of US baksheesh to those countries?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Sept 21, "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">I do not understand. In my culture, Judaism, we have a principle older than Islam or even Christianity governing the relations between Jewish law, Halachah, and civil law of any country in which we live as a minority. It originates with the</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"> prophet Jeremiah at the beginning of the Babylonian expulsion. Dina d'malchuta dina. "The law of the land (literally, kingdom) is the law". Unless a civil law specifically requires something forbidden or forbids something required by scripture (e.g., eating a weekly ham sandwich, or forbiding circumcision), Judaism requires us to obey the laws of the country in which we live. Why exactly can't that standard be extended to any other groups that have their own legal traditions? Why exactly can't they be required to extend respect to American society, if they hope to have American respect extended to their cultural standards?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">"</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;"><br /></span></span>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Sept 24, "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Anyone else hear the ticking? From the "friendly, peaceful" demands to "renegotiate" the Egypt and Jordan piece (deliberately spelled thus) treaties? Agreements Egypt, at least, has been in breach of practically since the first American ba</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">ksheesh arrived? The situation, though, especially in Sinai, has gotten ridiculous. Riots everywhere? Saudi funded Egyptian newspapers fomenting revolution in Syria at three removes? Did I mention Iran? But the ticking is so soothing. You have to understand, the NRC "strategy" called "Defense in Depth" has spread to State: Nothing will go wrong. If anything were going to go wrong, it would have already, but it hasn't, so it won't. It won't. It WON'T. Shut up. Sort of like the guy who jumped off the Empire State Building, and said, as he passed each floor, "So far, so good." Johnson and de Gaulle's advice in June 1967 was to wait for the Arabs to strike. Besides, you know to what previously solved case this situation reduces: Osirak. Wait for Israel to handle the problem (could that sixth German Dolphin sub Ehud Barak wants be a cruise missile launcher?), condemn Israel, go to Bullfeathers for bourbon and backslapping about how successful THAT total lack of action was."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">sept 24, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">It looks like the honeybee problem is man made and worse than I ever thought. A new (1994) type of insecticide causes it, and it spreads so fast because bees do not, in the US, primarily make honey. They are trucked from farm to orchard to </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">pollinate, and fed modified corn syrup laden with... just the sort of neonicotinoids that cause CCD. Apparently, the California almond growers use half the bees in the country. Something like 25 times the revenue of US honey making in almonds. What do we lose if we continue this way? Fruit, berries, onions, pumpkin. Say goodbye to Thanksgiving dinner as we know it. Apple/blueberry pie. French Onion Soup. ANY decent soup. Triple berry smoothies.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">"</span><br />
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</span>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-77852095468069275602012-09-24T09:21:00.003-07:002012-09-24T09:29:54.888-07:00Sept 14-19<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Sept 14, "Egypt, Yemen, Libya, Tunisia, Sudan (attacking Germans. Germans?), Akko, Yerushalayim. Somehow, ISRAELIS managed to keep rioters out of US embassy. "Only a strong, ISLAMIC state will 'quell the rage'". Appease Arab barbarity now?!? Oh, oops, sorry, "militants" storm peacekeeping base in Sinai. Missed that one. Are you getting this yet?"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Sept 15, "</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">It's an interesting experience, not needing a vest, either to cover the stretch of my shirt over my paunch, nor the unsightly muffin top. Also, being able to button the neck of a shirt in which I couldn't do that when I bought it for my father in law's funeral in 2005."</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Sept 16, "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Just read about the Smurfette principle: in any cartoon not specifically aimed at girls (She-Ra, Gem, Princess Guenevere), either there will be only 1 female character, who will B essentially "the" chick, or there may B "feminized versions</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"> </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">of the existing male characters" (Daisy Duck, Minnie Mouse). The Archies & spinoffs (Sabrina the teenage witch, Josie & the Pussycats) & Scoobie Doo R apparently the exceptions that prove the rule. Tula the Geomancer on Pirates of Darkwater was clearly more than just the "chick", but she was pretty much the only female ever on the show. There were numerous females on Gargoyles, but I don't recall any besides Demona & Angela, Goliath & Demona's "lost" daughter, appearing for more than an episode or 2. Every clan obviously needed an egg layer. I don't know that I'd call Wonder Woman exactly the "chick" of the Justice League. Personally, I always found her ability to stop bullets with manual dexterity & bracelets more impressive that Superman's solar powered invulnerability, but I'm hard pressed to name another "chick" in the pantheon before 1980. Things seemed to pick up (even out?) with Raven & Starfire in the Teen Titans, but I was a big Avengers & Xmen fan, not a DC expert. While later groups did include multiple simultaneous females (Rogue, Storm, Shadowcat, Phoenix, even the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants had Mystique & that blind, elderly precog), the XMen only had Wondergirl for years. Reflexively as I wanted to snort derision at this idea, one thing struck me. My daughter LOVED Avatar, partially for the strong, active, independent female characters: Katara, Toph, Azula, Mai, Tai Lee, Katara's mother (Kya) & "Grangran", Zuko & Azula's mother Ursa, & many incidental but significant females. When we looked for action figures, we never found any females. Ever. Even on ebay. We never found an Iroh, either, but she's got Aang, Sokka, Zuko, Bumi, Roku, even a plush Momo. No females, though, & that's a 21st century series.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Sept 18, "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Love the Romney response to the Romney take on Mencken, that 47% of America is composed of parasitic fools. Inelegant phrasing. Like there's a way to say, "Screw you guys, I'm going home" that will inspire affection and confidence."</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Sept 18, "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Apparently, Romney has said something else that deeply outrages the Liberal Blogosphere: "The Palestinians have no interest whatsoever in achieving peace." Oh, My G-d, the man has been reading what the Palestinians themselves have been saying, or accounts of what effect twenty years of concession, appeasement, and political correctness have actually had, instead of clinging limpet-like to a bunch of warm, fuzzy, but baseless assumptions about "universal values". I think THIS Republican must have LEARNED something at Harvard."</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Sept 19, "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Get this straight: If you say something that upsets a muslim, and he chooses to go on a murderous rampage instead of calling you an idiot or writing a letter to the editor of initiating a lawsuit, it's your fault. Their standards must be</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">respected everywhere, they have no need to respect anyone else's anywhere. International bodies should make the exercise of free speech illegal HERE because it might "cause" riots in the Muslim world. Or Paris. Or Sweden. This is what they are saying, loud and clear, over and over."</span></div>
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ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-16065417963823003992012-09-24T09:17:00.002-07:002012-09-24T09:31:18.082-07:00Sept 8-14<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sept 8, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">PLG. PRD. BDL. QDSh. ChLQ. ChTzH. Why do we need 6 verbs for "separate"? QDSh means set aside for a particular, holy, purpose. BDL seems to mean a dichotomous division. ChTzH, means to bisect, as an arrow (Chetz) does a bow (Qeshet). ChLQ, which seems to mean divided evenly in more than two parts. PLG appears to indicate a natural division, as in Palgei Mayim, streams of water. But I'm still tryin</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">g to figure out why we need PRD, what specific shade of meaning it represents.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Similarly for beautify: PAR and HDR can both be used for that, as in tiphara/tipheret or hidur mitzvar (doing a mitzvah not merely minimally but beautifully, joyfully).</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">So why would Rashi say that a perfectly common comprehensible shoresh/root in our parsha today was ACTUALLY a unique word, found nowhere else, meaning one of these two things?"</span></span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">Sept 10, "Only Jerusalem has a monument to the victims of 9/11. </span></span></div>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Let's see.... HOW many of our Arab allies have a memorial to the victims of 9/11 in their capitals? Oh, right, I forgot, the US doesn't recognize Jerusalem, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">the </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">o</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">nly place with a Liberty Bell Park, a Kennedy Memorial, a 9/11 memorial as the capital of Israel. Because it would upset our Arab "allies"."</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Sept 11, "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">September 11, 2001. I was on a treadmill at Gold's Gym, now closed. The tvs all faced in; the treadmills all faced the windows. I got off, and noticed lots of folk staring at the monitors Two weight machines later, everybody was watching the monitors. It felt like the 1986 day the Challenger crashed. I walked past the EE lounge at UMCP about 30 seconds into the 72 second flight. On the way home,</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">I was astounded there was no traffic. Most of the way up 270, I turned on WTOP, and... BOOM. This 2001 day, I saw the smoke from the Pentagon. My 4 year old was in the kiddie room, where the very nice Afghani lady who ran it, Hamida, was freaking out because her daughter was a Marine corporal who worked there, & she didn't answer her phones. Fortunately, she had the day off and had just turned them off. My wife had chosen that day, of all days five years before or after, to take the metro UNDER the Pentagon, and of course cell phones did not work in the metro at that time. It was, as the Chinese say, an interesting morning."</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Sept 12, "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Interesting... anyone else note that the argument and tactics against human induced climate change almost exactly parallels the same industrially generated delays regarding CFCs?</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">" (See Sept 24, BEES)</span></span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Sept 14, "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Egypt... Libya... Yemen... Now Tunisia... Because we have freedom of speech, not because of Israel. Because an Egyptian Coptic Christian made a film. How many people died because of films in which Jesus was shown as less than perfect? Ho</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">w many movies show David, Solomon, Samson, Abraham, Moses as less than perfect? When was the last time Israeli Jews attacked the American embassy, or there was an antiamerican riot at the Vatican? Are you getting this yet? When did the archbishop of Canterbury lead a frothing mob against the embassy in London, or hindu clerics whip a pack of howling jackals up against the Mumbai embassy?"</span></span><br />
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ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-27628502384791343642012-09-24T09:13:00.001-07:002012-09-24T10:15:52.807-07:00Sept 1-8<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sept 1, apropos of Republican advice, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">One might consider whether their advice was worth having, considering the results the first time. There's a value to experience, of course, but OUR experience is they crashed the system (allowed the crash and militated to make the "system" vulnerable) and then stood in the way of remediation while blaming their successors. Of course, NAFTA, a Clinton era "accomplishment", exacerbated the problem.</span>"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sept 3, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Apparently, another batch of lovely fellows took umbrage that a woman was sitting in the front of an Israeli bus. Thankfully, they seem to have inflicted nothing more violent than loud noise on her.</span></span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"><br /></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">I don't quite get what these idiots are trying to achieve by displaying such hideous middot. My daughter went to an orthodox school, where her favorite teacher was an "ultra-orthodox" rabbi. He hol</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">ds an annual barbecue for his fourth graders, boy and girl alike, at his home. We go to a Chabad shul, and this is NOTHING my rabbi would condone. When those awful people spit at those little girls in long skirts and called them whores, we got three sermons in a row on how awful and how totally unjustifiable such behavior was on a Torah basis.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">One wonders. Torah teaching on the subject is from Brachot: Who embarrasses his fellow in public is as if he shed (literally poured) blood. Shaming a person publicly is elsewhere one of the several reasons it would have been better if that person (the shamer) had not been born.</span></span></div>
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</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">What I can't figure out is how they can even speak to her: Avot 1:5. "Yossei the son of Yochanan of Jerusalem would say: ...do not engage in excessive conversation with a woman. This is said even regarding one's own wife--how much more so regarding the wife of another. Hence, the sages said: One who excessively converses with a woman causes evil to himself, neglects the study of Torah, and, in the end, inherits purgatory." So, how dare they even address her?</span>"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sept 3, responding to a Reuters story, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">"Iran could strike U.S. bases if Israel attacks: Hezbollah"</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"><a href="http://www.reuters.com/" rel="nofollow nofollow" style="color: #3b5998; cursor: pointer; text-decoration: none;" target="_blank">www.reuters.com</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">BEIRUT (Reuters) -They could strike, and have struck US bases and other assets (Pakistan this morning? USS Cole? 9/11? US embassies in Africa? Khobar Towers? The fi</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">rst attack on the WTC? Marine barracks and embassy Beirut?), whether Israel attacks Iran or not. And not just the Iranians: there is enough of it that there is a term (Green on Blue violence) for Afghan trainees attacking American trainers, just like "Palestinians" did Israelis in the same situation. The Argentine Jewish Community center, of course doesn't count.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sept 5, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">It's so inspiring that the British policy of denying Jews any rights that "upset" Arabs, of recognizing the Muslim right to express "upset" violently and destructively, has spread from the British mandate for A Jewish Homeland in Eretz Yisrael ארץ ישראל to so many other places, many supposedly "sovereign" states.</span>"</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sept 8, "<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Many moons ago, in the green of the world, around the bicentennial, I looked up my last name. I found it odd that it meant "small lake or pond: tarn" in German but "river" in Yiddish. I chose the German meaning, and have been using Agami אגמי as the Hebrew version since the early 1980s. My daughter has heard this, like so much else, FAR too many times, but apparently, because it has a Dr. Who resonance (the companion du jour is Amy POND, whose daughter is RIVER Song, because the people who raised her had no word for pond), suddenly, it's COOL. Like bow ties and fezzes."</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">Sept 8, "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">So, I'm reading Yehoshua chapter 9, because Joan is napping and Jessica is at a friend's house (napping, I later learn), and it's Shabbat, soooo... I don't know how I missed the NUMBER of parallels to earlier Hebrew models. He meets an ange</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">l before a momentous confrontation like Yaakov, he stops the Yarden like Moses does Yam Suf, AND he leads his men on a forced 20 mile up hill night march and beats a confederation of kings in a rescue mission like Avraham. I mean I read this last Summer. And I guess you could say he massacres Yericho and Ai, like Shimon and Levi."</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Sept 8, "</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">The shofar or ram's horn has been used to call Jews together at least since the Exodus from Egypt (Yetziat Mizrayim). Today it is played in the synagogue on weekdays after morning services (Shacharit) throughout the month of Elul, culminating on Rosh haShanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) in the month of Tishrei. In the Jewish tradition, this represents the forty days Moses spent </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 18px;">on Mount Sinai betreen the incident of the Golden Calf (Egel haZahav) and the gift of the second set of tablets (Sh'nei Luchot haBrit) containing the Ten Commandments (Aseret haDibrot).</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">There are four "notes" played in various patterns throughout the High Holiday services. T'ki'ah ia a long, uninterrupted blast. Sh'varim (broken) is three short blasts. T'ruah is approximately nine very short toots. T'ki'ah g'dolah is basically a T'ki'ah held for as long as one has breath.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">Playing a shofar requires practice. It is very similar to playing a trumpet, or any brass instrument, except that the mouthpiece is not as easy to use. Basically, one presses one's lips together and forces breath out through them, producing the sort of vibration we all remember from kindergarten. Holding the shofar against one's vibrating lips produces the clarion, inchoate call we all know so well.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 18px;">But here's the catch: Each shofar is unique, and most are not deliberately worked into a nice, symmetrical, trumpet-like mouth piece. The only way to get one to work is to hold it up to one's mouth and try and try and TRY……. until that sound starts coming out.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #333333; line-height: 18px;">B'hatzlachah! (Best of luck!)</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">"</span>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-28318684865546542272011-12-20T12:02:00.000-08:002011-12-20T12:02:35.043-08:00122011Well, it wasn't "brave Muslim warriors." Apparently, it was just five Muslim girls on her soccer team, who had been mocking and belittling her for some time, but only felt they needed to dry gulch the girl when she stood up for herself, like Belgium wasn't a Muslim country, under Shari'a, and nonMuslims still had some actual rights.ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-67135778288955584682011-12-03T19:06:00.001-08:002011-12-03T19:20:09.380-08:00<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Wow. Been since September.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Amazingly, this is only being noticed in Jewish media. In Belgium, 5 Moroccan teens beat a 13-year old Jewish girl, screaming Dirty Jew & Go Back To Your Country. Yes, 5 five 5 BRAVE MUSLIM WARRIORS dry gulched a single Jewish girl, 5 immigrants told a native to leave. Are we getting this yet? Anyone remember a few years back when 5 Afghanis threw rocks through an NYC laundromat's plate glass window at a pregnant Hasidic woman? Did anyone else notice the Jewish woman sliced open in Flatbush a week ago (11/15) by someone who jumped into an escape van after the murder?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">11/29 </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Jordan radicalizing. Egypt's military council warning it will not accept an election that threatens the military's privileges. Lebanon shot four katyushas into the galil overnight. Oh, then there are Pakistan and Iran. How deep a hole should I dig?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Soooo.... Isfahan nuclear plant blows up... And BooBoo Nuttenyahoo seems to think that the PLO should be buried in baksheesh for NOT calling death and destruction down on its "peace partner" after its failed end run around statehood at the UN... And a NJ guy was just arrested in Cali for concluding a custody visit by ejecting his two year old daughter off a bridge IN HER CHILD SAFETY SEAT... AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">So, finally I understand Sigd. It celebrates the reacceptance of the Torah under Ezra haSofer. Sort of a reverse Tisha b'Av. It was actually last Shabbat (the 29th of, as CCTV put it "Chesh-wan"), but happy Sigd anyway!</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">12/2 </span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Did TARP and TOO BIG TO FAIL make you angry? No? Hear about the $7.7 TRILLION the Fed apparently secretly gave to banks at 0.01% so they could buy federal reserve notes at about 3%... yes, the fed gave the banks free money it didn't have... in the trillions... and then the same banks lent that money back, making billions. What is the sound of 330 million people puking?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">PotUS has adopted a new campaign catchphrase: "Change Is". In the name of Sweet Fanny Adams and all that is good and holy, could you spare it, guy? That's the best you could do? Compare to FDR, who DIDN'T say, "Fear Isn't", JFK who didn't say, "Go Do Something", LBJ's Great Society at least painted a picture. Really? Two lousy words that say NOTHING? Change is what? Good? Bad? Coming? Necessary? Full of cheese?</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Hizb'allah is blaming their recent work accident on Zahal. Too bad it's probably not true. Katyushas into Israel FROM Lebanon OUGHT to be answered. But the most likely chain of events involve someone misreading the persian translation of the Chinese directions on a box of detonators.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">The Newt is making the standard noises about moving the US Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem again. Understand: It will NEVER happen. Besides the facts that it would be expensive (& we are trillions past broke), & that there is no really suitable place for it, & that it would piss off every country from France to Malaysia, once done it could NEVER BE USED AS A CAMPAIGN PROMISE AGAIN. Think of this as one more cynical attempt at manipulating us to focus ANYWHERE but on what a jerk he really is. The Qimoy and Matsu of 2011, version 1.1.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Just saw a great bit of slang. I've been using terms like Yechupetz and Yennemsville and ’in the middle of great, vast, freaking nowhere’, but apparently "Sof haOlam, Smolah" סוף העולם, שמאלה means the same thing.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Look at the news from Egypt. The electoral news. The Moslem Brotherhood, which is moderate like cheesecake is low calorie, will likely get a majority, and a MORE extreme party will likely get another 10-15%. A 60-70% coalition of the people who have been blowing up the natural gas pipeline to Israel and Jordan about once a month. Hooray for the democratic fallout of the Arab Spring.</span></div>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: large;">Our Buddy Leon Panetta wants Israel to make some unilateral concessions, the only unilateral moves the Arabs find acceptable, to lure the Arabs back to the negotiating tables, where Israel can be more conveniently pressured to make further concessions to the Arabs for the sake of a peace that includes constant bombardment BY the Arabs. He says Israel needs this. Actually, he is confused. PotUS needs something he can point to and call a success before the election, and he doesn't care who pays for it, or how badly it explodes, as long as the explosion comes after he gets that 2nd term, and it isn't right next to him. And the alternative is a guy named Newt. No, Potter fans, not "Scamander".</span></div>
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<br /></div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-49642408308299464922011-09-10T09:19:00.000-07:002011-09-10T09:19:33.041-07:00Ten years later<br />
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I was reading R. Adin Steinsaltz' comments regarding what happened ten years ago. I have great respect for him as a scholar. I think he is a great man.</div>
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September 11, 2001, I was working out at Gold's Gym on Muddy Branch Road. My daughter was in preschool at a local synagogue. My wife was taking a Metro train under the Pentagon. Suddenly everyone was watching tv rather than exercising. Then there was a scream from the kiddie room. There was a very nice Afghan woman running the place. She had fled her homeland with four kids after her husband was killed forhis apparently intolerable western habits, like shaving and letting his wife go around without a hijab. Her daughter, at the time a Marine corporal, worked at the Pentagon. Fortunately, but frighteningly at the time, she had gotten a day off, and left her phone off the hook so she could sleep in. Her mother, who couldn't contact her, was of course frantic. I spent two hours comforting her, worried as I was myself. At the time, one could not contact anyone on the Metro with a cell phone, you see. I hugged both my daughter and my wife a little tighter than they might have liked that day.</div>
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I have not thought that America was different, in the sense of invulnerable. I have followed the news since, as a small child, I watched Peter Jennings, and Ted Koppel cover Viet Nam in bush jackets. I paid attention.</div>
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I had expected 9/11, or something very much like it, and said so, and was repeatedly described as insane, paranoid, alarmist. I had anticipated such an event since the 1976 Entebbe rescue, and again when the Arabs who call themselves "Palestinians" (I have friends who are, or were, "Palestinians", Jews born in Eretz Yisrael under the British mandate, so called specifically to deny them those "legitimate national aspirations" that Arabs use the term to assert for themselves.) asserted their level of civilization with the suicide bombing Intifada in 1987, and twice as much after the first attack on the World Trade Center in 1993. It must be understood that Muslims essentially feel they are entitled to harm kaffir (US), and are entitled by the natural functioning of the universe to succeed in attacking kaffir. If they attack us, and FAIL, they feel entitled and obligated to seek REVENGE for our not being harmed as much as they had hoped. When the towers did not fall, and we imprisoned some of the people responsible, I knew they, or their fellows would try again.</div>
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Today, we see that organizations are still sending people to strike the West in the teeth, but that individuals also spontaneously decide to do the same. Al Qaeda apparently sent a cell of either American or American documented terrorists to carbomb either New York or Washington over the tenth anniversary of 9/11, and G-d willing we got the real guys, not the distraction. Recall, though, that a Muslim IT-guy decided to car bomb Times Square not all that long ago because his career wasn't what he'd hoped. </div>
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We are heading into a time where we need a prophet more than a scholar, a time when Glen Beck will be seen retroactively as the voice of sanity. I'm not calling him a prophet. All I mean is, we don't seem to ever actually learn from our mistakes and act on that knowledge. In 2001, the EMS people had the same problems at the towers they had in 1993. Last Thursday, there was a huge blackout across Arizona, California, and parts of Mexico caused by a cascade resulting from the replacement of a single component, a capacitor in a voltage controlling unit. Similar outages have occurred over the last twenty years. The question always asked is not what do we need to do, but why didn't the systems in place work. We need to shift to the active voice.</div>
ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-49858976172521593972011-09-02T10:11:00.000-07:002011-09-02T10:11:18.176-07:00051211 Lag B'Omer<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><b>Lag B'Omer</b>, the 33rd day counting from <b>Pesach</b> (<b>Yitsiat Mitzrayim</b>, Leaving Egypt) to <b>Shavuot</b> (<b>Matan Torah</b>, Receiving the Torah) is coming up May 22. The Rabbis tell us it is the day the plague among <b>R. Akiva</b>'s students lifted, leaving 24,000 dead for lack of <b>midot</b>. This doesn't explain the bonfires or the bows and arrows. Historians tell us the "plague" was a couple of Roman legions. <b>Lag B'Omer</b> commemorates the <b>Bar Kochva</b> rebellion, 132-135 ce, which established the last independent Jewish state in <b>Eretz Israel</b> for 1,813 years. The bonfires were for the dead. The Romans were real good at making inconvenient people dead. It was the third Jewish war against Roman suzerainty (67-70 ce, <b>Masada</b>, 115-117 ce, <b>Kitos</b>). Nobody rebelled against Romans like us.</span></span></div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-1967283338460140362011-09-02T09:59:00.000-07:002011-09-02T09:59:13.354-07:00Random Torah Thoughts<br />
<div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">PaLaG. PaRaD. BaDaL. QaDaSh. ChaLaQ. ChaTzaH. Why do we need 6 verbs for "separate"? QaDaSh means set aside for a particular, holy, purpose. BaDaL seems to mean a dichotomous division. ChaTzaH, which means to bisect, as an arrow (Chetz) does a bow (Qeshet). ChaLaQ, which seems to mean divided evenly in more than two parts. PaLaG appears to indicate a natural division, as in Palgei Mayim. But I'm still trying to figure out why we need PaRaD, what specific shade of meaning it represents.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">I've long said that 10 Shvatim (tribes) weren't "lost", that a) it was 9.5, (the Levi'im were in the North/Yisrael & the South/Yehudah), & b) the Shvatim weren't lost, the Tanakh tells us were they went, assimilated, intermarried, disappeared into the background demographic. When the Bavlim conquered Yehudah, the new exiles found no Jews to greet them. What did I miss? Reuven, Gad, & 1/2 of Menasseh were living across the Yarden, & the Levi'im also had cities in Gilad. It was actually either 9 (there ARE still Levi'im), or 9 2/3 (MOST of the Levi'im were lost) tribes.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px; min-height: 15.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px 'Lucida Grande'; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 5.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Now that I have "reactivated" my original facebook account under my actual name, I am my own friend, and show up as other people's mutual friend. I feel like Lot, sort of, who was twice his own father in law.</span></div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-16131880685652851972011-08-21T10:09:00.000-07:002011-08-21T10:09:03.833-07:00Perfectly Possible Miracles<br />
<div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The shabbat before the 9th of Av is called Shabbat Hazon. It is named for the first word of the haftarah, the first chapter of Isaiah, Chazon (vision) of Yishayahu/Isaiah. The last Lubavitcher Rebbe, ztz"l, put it that we ought not to consider this shabbat a mournful day. First of all, mourning is inappropriate for shabbat, and second he felt it should be a day of motivation towards a more positive future. I wonder whether his idea might stem from a frequent Jewish practice. We frequently diminish the joy of a positive occasion, removing a drop of wine as we recite each plague at the Pesach seder, there is a fast of the first born before Pesach and of Esther before Purim. I am inclined to see the Rebbe's slant on Shabbat Chazon as seeking the same sort of balance by taking from the full cup of bitterness tisha b'av represents.</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I learned an interesting lesson recently regarding Rashi's commentary. When he says he is explaining according to the plain meaning of the text ("Pshat"), Rashi frequently seems to me to involve some imaginative story. For example, he says at one point that Sarah was rewarded with renewed youth and breasts swollen with milk, and she suckled all the children that came to Isaac's weaning. I took this to be fairly fanciful. Does anyone else remember the Chinese policewoman during the last big earthquake there, who left her baby with her mom, and found nursing about a dozen babies, saving their lives by the way, was the most effective emergency aid she could render. In other words, there's no reason Sarah couldn't have done the same. Silly me.</div><div><br />
</div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-6122698489535844802011-08-21T10:05:00.000-07:002011-09-02T11:01:56.118-07:00Crippling Self-Interest<div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">
I don't know how many times I've started reading the Torah, and gotten up to Joseph in Breishit or the Mishkan in Shmot before bogging down and starting over some time later. For the first time since my daughter was born, this Summer I've read the Torah in the original up to Balak in Bamidbar. </div>
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We've read bits of the parsha at many Shabbat breakfasts for years, and we've read Balak specifically several times. Somehow, the stories of Sihon, the Amorite king of Cheshbon, and Og, the king of Bashan, which immediately precede it submerged in my mind. Reading them first, suddenly Balak's desperation to acquire Bilam's services makes total sense.</div>
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Moshe sends messengers to Sihon, saying Israel has no interest in his lands or resources, will keep on the highway, but can we please cross his land? The same message is sent to Og of Bashan. The response in both cases is not only negative, but hostile. Both gather all the force they can and come out to attack Israel. Both of them and their forces are annihilated, leaving no remnant, not even the frequent "and I alone remain to tell thee" guy. Their lands are conquered.</div>
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Now comes the Balak story. Apparently, he intends to deny Israel passage (Couldn't they just go through the territory they just conquered?), and intends to fight us, or expects us to initiate hostilities with him. He knows that Sihon and Og paid a hefty price for trusting to the valor of their soldiery. He therefore turns to a prophet, not an Israelite one, but a prophet of the Israelite G-d.</div>
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Balak doesn't get that this G-d is not one of the concocted, carved Elilim. When Bilam says he can only do what H" permits, Balak clearly interprets it as a negotiating position. He sends a second delegation, larger and more impressive than the first, to fetch Bilam. He asks, when Bilam arrives, why he didn't want to come, since Balak surely would reward him well, as if that was the only important consideration. </div>
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Balak's "hired" prophet, however displays his integrity and indeed three times says the words H" puts in his mouth. The first time, when Bilam, amid great pop and sacrificing, blesses Israel, Balak just won't give up, just can't get that there are nonmaterial considerations at play. He takes Bilam up on a second hill, and a third, where Bilam utters words we say every morning to this day, "Mah tovu ohaleicha Yaakov", How good your tents are, Yaakov, your dwellings, Israel.</div>
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The inability or unwillingness to see any perspective but one's own self interest can be crippling.</div>
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ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-62174168177821084712011-07-29T13:53:00.000-07:002011-07-29T13:55:17.871-07:00Fill your hand, pardner<div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Years ago, when I read Black Elk Speaks, I was struck by how often he used "rubbed out" to mean "killed". I learned later that Black Elk's son, who translated, was fascinated by 1920s gangster fiction. I was reminded of this reading about the consecration of Aharon and his sons. A Hebrew expression meaning literally "fill their hands" is used repeatedly. In cowboy parlance, it means, "draw one's pistol", but here it means consecrate, make fit for service as priests. It seems to come from the manner of separating the grain offering/minchah: The priest/kohen takes all the frankincense/levonah and a handful of the fine grain mixed with oil/solet b'lulah b'shemen to burn on the altar/mizbe'akh. The rest is eaten by the kohanim.</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I also find it interesting that there is a separate verb for to serve, to minister (l'sharet) to and to act as priests (l'kahen).</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-59697548467650810522011-07-27T20:14:00.000-07:002011-07-28T05:11:34.264-07:00Why do Jews put stones on grave markers?<div class="MsoNormal">My guess, they are <span style="font-family: ArialMT;">cheap, almost universally available, and (here's the actual Jewish angle) incapable of accepting ritual impurity (tumah). They are inherently pure, from a Jewish legal/religious (halachic) perspective, and thus perfect for placing on the memorial of those of whom we say, zichrono,ah livracha, may his/her memory be a blessing, referring I think to those Biblical figures of whom H" said, all the peoples will be blessed in you.</span><o:p></o:p><br />
<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><br />
</span><br />
<span style="font-family: ArialMT;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: arial; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Another thought: Many cultures put some of their native soil in or on a grave in a foreign country. This could be a vestigial version of that.</span></span></span></div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-51227103621429481872011-07-27T11:09:00.000-07:002011-07-27T11:09:47.993-07:00Haftarot: Familiar, but how familiar?<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We all know we read a portion of the Torah (Teaching, Instruction), the first five books of the Tanakh ("Bible") every Shabbat, and that each is accompanied by a Haftarah, a reading from the Nevi'im (Prophets), the second section. There are also Haftarot for special occasions. One the readings comes from three books. The Haftarah for VaYelekh, near the end of Devarim (Deuteronomy), comes from Hoshea, Mikhah, and Yoel. Altogether, there are sixty-four prophetic readings in the course of the year, excluding major holidays. Are the readings evenly spread throughout the Nevi'im, or do a few books dominate the list?</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Out of those sixty-four, twenty-eight, slightly less than half, come almost evenly from just two books: fifteen from Yeshia (Isaiah) and thirteen from Melachim (Kings).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Shmuel (Samuel), Yeremiah (Jeremiah), Yechezkel (Ezekiel) each have five to ten readings drawn from them.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Yehoshua (Joshua), Shoftim (Judges), Hoshea (Hosea), Michah, and Malakhi are the sources for two to four readings.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Yoel (Joel), Amos, and Zechariah each provide one reading.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">All the historical books of the "Primary Chronicle" are represented, but Shmuel prodominates. All three major literary prophets are well represented, but Yeshiah gives as many as Yeremiah and Yechezkel combined, more than any other individual book. Six of the twelve minor prophets are included, but only Hoshea provides more than two Haftarot.</span></div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-46136724473192902162011-07-27T09:00:00.000-07:002011-07-27T09:00:01.611-07:00As we approach Rosh haShana<div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The shofar or ram's horn has been used to call Jews together at least since the Exodus from Egypt (Yetziat Mizrayim). Today it is played in the synagogue on weekdays after morning services (Shacharit) throughout the month of Elul, culminating on Rosh haShanah (New Year) and Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement) in the month of Tishrei. In the Jewish tradition, this represents the forty days Moses spent on Mount Sinai betreen the incident of the Golden Calf (Egel haZahav) and the gift of the second set of tablets (Sh'nei Luchot haBrit) containing the Ten Commandments (Aseret haDibrot).</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There are four "notes" played in various patterns throughout the High Holiday services. T'ki'ah ia a long, uninterrupted blast. Sh'varim (broken) is three short blasts. T'ruah is approximately nine very short toots. T'ki'ah g'dolah is basically a T'ki'ah held for as long as one has breath.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Playing a shofar requires practice. It is very similar to playing a trumpet, or any brass instrument, except that the mouthpiece is not as easy to use. Basically, one presses one's lips together and forces breath out through them, producing the sort of vibration we all remember from kindergarten. Holding the shofar against one's vibrating lips produces the clarion, inchoate call we all know so well.</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 14.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But here's the catch: Each shofar is unique, and most are not deliberately worked into a nice, symmetrical, trumpet-like mouth piece. The only way to get one to work is to hold it up to one's mouth and try and try and TRY……. until that sound starts coming out. </span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">B'hatzlachah! (Best of luck!)</span></div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-55577260673306585082011-07-20T05:30:00.000-07:002011-07-20T05:41:19.784-07:00Oil spots, garbage dumping, divorce.<div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">071811</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Two stories just screamed at me from the Israeli press this morning. Perhaps I should say, they made me feel like screaming</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It wasn't that the German government is apparently willing to subsidize a sixth Dolphin class nuclear missile capable submarine. Two were delivered a decade ago. Two are still under construction. The navy says it doesn't NEED a sixth submarine, but Ehud Barak knows better.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It wasn't that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, Admiral Mullen, is visiting Israel for the last time in that capacity, or that several Republican congressmen are planning a visit to Yehudah and Shomron communities. Peaceful visitors are all welcome.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">It was the war of attrition being waged with oil and garbage.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Outside of Ofra, "someone" seems to have gotten the idea of oiling the road on a descent. The way it was put, "the accidents that do not fail to happen are reported in the local paper, and nowhere else." Brilliant! One teenager with a pint of used motor oil on a dark night can make a road impassable for days, until it is cleaned, and then he can do it again the next night! </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Oil spots on the road</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Apparently, the Temple Mount is not the only place for which some people have no respect. No, history is not alone, nature is also on their "who cares?" list.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Waqf dug out huge quantities of of archaeologically sensitive material, no permit, no notice, from under the Dome of the Rock, and dumped it in a ravine. Remember that, it speaks to pattern. If you are a fan of The Naked Archaeologist, you know that it took a prominent Israeli scholar, Gabi Barkai, five years to get permission to examine the contents of the midden. </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">More recently, "someone" has been dumping toxic garbage in nature areas. Ah, for America, where they are just growing marijuana in the National Parks! </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Garbage dumping, not a huge problem? But it's such a simple, easy, cheap way to make an area unsafe, unhealthy, unpleasant, and once the Jews leave because the government doesn't clean it up or punish the culprits, guess who moves in? </span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Simultaneously, the government is legalizing bedouin encroachment in the Negev.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Oil spots, indiscriminate excavation, indiscriminate dumping, "settling" (squatting) all over the place. Anyone else see a pattern?</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">======================================================</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">071911</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Two horrible rabbi stories recently. All you see on the crawl is two horrible rabbi stories. But they're so different, if you just know a few details. Both are divorce stories.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In one, the rabbi of a prominent New York orthodox synogogue is in the middle of what appears to be a nasty divorce. His wife has revealed that the man has been consorting with prostitutes. On Shabbat. Ewww.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In the other, a rabbi and his wife apparently kidnapped and threatened a man with bodily harm because he was holding his wife captive, an Aguna, "chained" woman, a so-called grass widow. They were attempting to get him to agree to allow her to remarry.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">This ought to have been solved long ago, and in fact it was, but modern batei din (Jewish courts) are reticent to apply any pressure to some guy who wants this sort of revenge on his ex-wife. One guy sat in an Israeli jail for years. He was happy as a clam: plenty of exercise, plenty of sleep, three squares a day, unlimitted time to study. Ultraorthodox heaven. That he was destroying his wife and children's lives didn't seem to bother him.</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 17.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font: 14.0px Helvetica; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But anyway, two rabbis in the news. Both sound horrible on the crawl. They're NOT both "bad rabbi" stories, though.</span></div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-35777634592062088112011-05-22T09:53:00.000-07:002011-05-23T20:56:05.233-07:00052211 General Knowledge Bible QuizThe answers follow the questions<br />
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">1) How many books are there in the Hebrew Bible/Tanach?</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">2) What is the difference between the Torah & the Hebrew Bible/Tanach?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">3) What are the 3 divisions of the Hebrew Bible/Tanach?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">4) Name all the books of the Torah.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">5) Who is the traditional author of the Torah?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">6) In what book does Moshe first appear?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">7) In what book does Moshe LAST appear?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">8) Why is Moshe not allowed into Eretz Yisrael?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">9) Who takes over from Moshe?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">10) Name 4 Judges/Shoftim, other than Samson/Shimshon or Deborah.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">11) Name the 3 major literary prophets.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">12) Name 6 of the 12 minor prophets.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">13) Other than the Psalms/Tehillim, name 4 books from the Writings/Ketuvim division of the Hebrew Bible/Tanach.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">14) Name the 6 biblical books, other than the Torah, which are read in their entirety in the synagogue each year.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">15) Which books of the Hebrew Bible/Tanach are usually divided into 2 sections?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">16) How many books of the Hebrew Bible/Tanach are named after men?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">17) How many books of the Hebrew Bible/Tanach are named after women?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">18) Of what books is King Solomon/Shlomo haMelech the traditional author?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">19) How many dreams are mentioned in the story of Joseph?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">20) How many kings ruled over all 12 tribes of the people of Israel?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">21) What is the latest event mentioned in the Hebrew Bible/Tanach?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">22) What does the word "Torah" mean?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">23) In what book does Saul appear?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">24) In what book does David appear?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">25) In what book does Solomon appear?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">26) In what book does Elijah appear?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">27) What was the largest tribe?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">28) What was the smallest tribe?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">29) To which tribe did Saul belong? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">30) To which tribe did David belong? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">31) Who was David's great grandmother? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">32) What is the modern term for tirosh/"new" wine? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">33) How were the Shvatim/Tribes camped around the Ohel Moed/Tent of Meeting? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">34) Who built the first Miqdash/Temple? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">35) Who built the second? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">36) What distinguishes the Olah from any other sort of sacrifice? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">37) What did Daniel, Nehemiah, & Joseph all have in common?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">38) Who is the traditional author of the Primary Chronicle (Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings), & Lamentations?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">39) Who is the traditional author of Tehillim/Psalms?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">40) Who is the traditional author of Shir haShirim/Song of Songs, Mishlei/Proverbs, & Kohelet/Ecclesiastes?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-align: center; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial; font-size: 14pt;"><b>Answers.</b></span><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">1) 24 or 39. The minor prophets can be counted as 1 or 12, Samuel, Kings, Chronicles, & Ezra/Nehemiah as either 1 or 2 each.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">2) The Torah comprises the first five books, the first major division, of the Tanach.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">3) Torah, Nevi'im/Prophets, Ketuvim/Writings.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">4) Genesis/Breishit, Exodus/Shmot, Leviticus/Vayikra, Numbers/Bamidbar, Deuteronomy/Devarim.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">5) Moshe/Moses.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">6) Exodus/Shmot.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">7) Deuteronomy/Devarim.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">8) He strikes a rock H" tells him to talk to to get water.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">9) Yehoshua ben Nun.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">10) Othniel ben Kenaz, Ehud ben Gera, Shamgar ben Anath, Gidon (Yerubaal) ben Joash the Abiezrite, Abimelech ben Jerubbaal, Tola ben Puah ben Dodo, Yair haGiladi, Yiftach haGileadi, Ibzan of Beth-lehem, Elon the Zebulunite, Abdon ben Hillel the Pirathonite, Samson ben Manoah haDani of Zorah.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">11) Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">12) Amos, Habakkuk, Haggai, Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Malachi, Nahum, Micah, Obadiah, Zechariah, Zephaniah.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">13) Proverbs/Mishlei, Job, 5 Megilot/Scrolls (Esther, Ruth, Ecclesiastes/Kohelet, Lamentations/Eichah, Song of songs/Shir haShirim), Daniel, Ezra, Nehemiah, Chronicles/Divrei haYamim.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">14) 5 Megilot/Scrolls (Esther, Ruth, Ecclesiastes/Kohelet, Lamentations/Eichah, Song of Songs/Shir haShirim), Jonah.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">15) Samuel, Kings/Melachim, Chronicles/Divrei haYamim.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">16) 22, counting Samuel Bet. Joshua, Samuel, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Amos, Habakkuk, Haggai, Hosea, Joel, Jonah, Malachi, Nahum, Micah, Obadiah, Zechariah, Zephaniah, Job, Ezra, Nehemiah, Daniel. 23, if you count Kohelet/Esslesiastes.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">17) 2. Ruth & Esther.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">18) Proverbs/Mishlei, Song of Songs/Shir haShirim, Ecclesiastes/Kohelet.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">19) 6. 2 of his, 2 of Pharaoh's, the Baker's, & the Butler's.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">20) 3. Saul, David, Solomon.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">21) Permission by Cyrus of Persia for the Exiles to return to Israel from Babylonia.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">22) Teaching or instruction.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">23) 1 Samuel 9.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">24) 1 Samuel 16.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">25) 2 Samuel 12.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">26) 1 Kings 17.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">27) Judah<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">28) Benjamin<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">29) Benjamin <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">30) Judah <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">31) Ruth<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">32) Grape Juice<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">33) Three tribes to each cardinal direction, Numbers 2:10-31.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">34) Solomon <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">35) The SECOND was actually built following the Shivat Tziyon/Return to Zion (Jerusalem) permitted under the Persians, c. 539 b.c.e., and was massively expanded by the Roman appointed, ethnically Edomite king Herod, early in the first century c.e. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">36) It is burned entire, not eaten.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">37) High level government jobs<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">38) Jeremiah &/or his disciple/secretary Baruch ben Nuriah<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="mso-layout-grid-align: none; mso-pagination: none; text-autospace: none;"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">39) David<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #262626; font-family: Arial;">40) Solomon</span><span style="font-family: Arial;"><o:p></o:p></span></div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-70993391864056468742011-05-20T21:18:00.000-07:002011-05-22T09:52:04.243-07:00052111 What 1967 borders?<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The thing to say about the President's speech is, these are NOT the 1967 lines to which Mr. Obama is referring. The 1967 borders include Retzuat Aza (the Gaza Strip), Yehudah, Shomron (the "West Bank"), Ramot haGolan (the Golan Heights, and the Sinai. Yes, the Gaza and Sinai that are now Judenrein (except for a few tourist spots in Sinai, the Egyptians like free money as well as anyone), and the "West Bank" where the OTHER Palestinian Authority (the one that is NOT Hamas, as though Fatah was such a deal) has autonomy and heavily armed "police". </span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">He is referring to the 1949 armistice lines. The 1948 war was precipitated by a concerted Arab refusal to accept a SECOND partition. The first partition involved the British unilaterally amputating 80% of "Palestine", the League of Nations mandate for a Jewish homeland, to give to Abdullah, one of the fugitive princes of Hejaz ejected from the newly "Saudi" Arabia. The same British created another country, Iraq, for his brother, Feisal. When the Israelis inconveniently refused to die en masse, the Arabs refused to talk peace, but only agreed to an armistice: an armistice which saw wholesale Jordanian sniping in Jerusalem, Egyptian generated "fedayeen" raids from the cesspools of Gaza, and Syrian shelling of farms and children from the Golan Heights for the next nineteen years.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Since territorial compromise is such a good idea, try asking the President how he feels about giving New Mexico back to Old Mexico.</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">=================================================</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">No, Hilda, I mean peace is not achievable by giving. It is not giving "back" at all, because there never WAS a "Palestine", nor was there ever an actual "Palestinian" people distinguishable from other south Syrian muslim Arabs, nor did most of the people from whom today's putative "Palestinians" descend live in the area of Israel before Jews started coming back in numbers big enough to have something worth stealing.</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Besides, giving hasn't worked real well. In exchange for the Sinai, there has been a very cold "peace" with Egypt, but they have cut off diplomatic ties (and now natural gas, even though it screws Jordan as well as Israel) many times, and now the man who put Sadat's assassins in jail is in custody, but the assassins are free. There is not peace in any sense anyone would recognize with Jordan, but the "West Bank" wasn't part of the 80% of the mandate the British stole for Abdullah's fief. "Palestinians" have control of Gaza and autonomy in most of the "West Bank". How peaceful are things in Sderot? How many times can the same thing not work before intelligent people understand the Einstein quote about insanity being doing the same thing again and expecting different results?</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><br />
</span><br />
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Golda Meir said we would have peace when the Arabs loved their children more than they hated us. It will take that kind of major cultural shift in the muslim world.</span>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1251897351013394149.post-461570560975644702011-05-20T20:42:00.000-07:002011-05-20T20:42:29.155-07:00032611 Response to a Dvar Torah on Shmini<div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Lord Sack's dvar torah may be found at: <a href="http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10098">http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10098</a></div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I highly recommend it. He also delivers it as a video on the same page.</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; line-height: 16.0px; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">I was honored today to attend the bar mitzvah of one Jonathan, son of friends Marsha and Doug, a young man I've known literally from the womb. He did a fine job leading elements of the services and reading his Torah portion and his Haftarah. His parsha was Shmini, which means "eighth".</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Following extensive instruction on the construction of the Mishkan, and the account of the actual construction, in Exodus, Leviticus opens with instructions on how to get the place up and running. There are seven days of preparation and ritual, the same time it took to create the world, rest included, the same length of time a wedding was celebrated in the time of the patriarchs. On the eighth day, as a boy is brought into the Abrahamic covenant, the Kohanim officiate for the first time as fully installed, fully consecrated priests.</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Moses and Aaron, at the end of chapter 9, make a sacrifice, go into the tent, come out, bless the people, and Divine fire consumes the offering, to the delight of the crowd. The very next thing that happens is that Aaron's sons, Nadav and Avihu, ignite strange fire, and Divine fire consumes them. </div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">The Chief Rabbi of England, Lord Sacks, another Jonathan, delivered a learned and fascinating Dvar Torah on this week's Parsha, in which he discusses the incident of Aharon's sons offering strange fire. He compares the spontaneity of this incident with that of Moshe in shattering the first Luchot haBrit, the tablets containing the Ten Commandments. He points out that the requirements of Kohanim, priests, and of Prophets, Nevi'im, are different. Prophets deliver a different message each time the Divine Spirit flows through them. Conversely, Priests are given explicit instructions, and are expected to follow them implicitly. This, he says, is why Orthodox Judaism has prescribed prayer: it is the offering we make in place of the prescribed sacrifices, which are impossible in the absence of a functioning Mikdash, Temple, on Har haBayit in Jerusalem. While what he says is true, it seems to me that he ignored the most important difference between the incidents: motivation, in Hebrew Kavanah.</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">When Nadav and Avihu sinned, they offered strange, Zar in Hebrew, fire. The fire is called Zar, strange, and this is clarified by the phrase "asher lo tzivah otam", "which He had not commanded them". Strange, not in the sense of odd, which would be Meshuneh, but in the sense of foreign. They acted, as newly installed priests inside the Mishkan, the portable Temple, out of personal, one might say selfish, motives. They misused holy objects and holy materials in a holy place. Was it just to enjoy their role as priests, or did they offer fire to foreign G-ds? I don't know. Their INTENTION was not to fulfill their mandated function. The fire they placed in their pans was not commanded.</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">Moshe descended the slopes of Sinai, and saw the people, very Nadav and Avihu like, cavorting and disporting and partying up a storm about an idol that, I suspect, was not an Egyptian deity, but the preJewish Semitic Bull Hadad (http://doctor.claudemariottini.com/2010/09/hadad-moabite-god.html). Moshe saw his people reverting to preAbrahamic practices, and out of fury over their sin, expressing his own intense dedication to G-d, he smashed the tablets before them. This is why Rashi praises the action in his last commentary on the Torah.</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px; min-height: 21.0px;"><br />
</div><div style="font: 18.0px Arial; margin: 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px 0.0px;">It is the intention of the act, dedication or disobedience, that determines its acceptability, not its spontaneity.</div>ramonmachteshhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10533215857236427073noreply@blogger.com0