Redeeming First-born Donkeys

by the Bray of Fundie

Seems we've developed a tastes for seeking out new and exotic Mitzvos while routinely ignoring or transgressing the ones that confront us daily.

I've got an aesthetic gripe as well. To me the decorations adorning the newborn Donkey are:

1. Historically inauthentic. I somehow doubt that in ancient Israel, in an agrarian society of farmers and ranchers that may have featured many such pidyonos in a herd in any given year, that the ranchers bothered with dressing up the First-born Donkeys.
2. The decorations seem kitsch and garish. Who came up with this idea/design? It looks to me like something more appropriate for a grade school arts and crafts project than for a community wide once in a lifetime Mitzvah observance.
3. Is Tzaar Baalei Khayim not a factor? In the video I link to below the donkey seems a bit uncomfortable. Just leave the poor beast alone and get it over with as swiftly as possible
4. Is the donkey the "kheftza" the Mitzvah or the sheep that it is being redeemed with? It seems to me that as the sheep is what will ultimately be the gift to the Kohen IT should be getting all dolled up, or maybe both animals, but why ONLY the donkey?

To see a video of the recent Melbourne community First-born Donkeys redemption click here.

What's next? A"snuff film" about a rancher who chose option "B" (
יג וְכָל-פֶּטֶר חֲמֹר תִּפְדֶּה בְשֶׂה, וְאִם-לֹא תִפְדֶּה וַעֲרַפְתּו="And every firstling of an ass thou shalt redeem with a lamb; and if thou wilt not redeem it, then thou shalt break its neck)

How would such a donkey be decorated??? With a black hood?

Search for more information about the first born donkey redemption at 4torah.com.

There Goes the Sun; Birkhas haKhamah and Existential Angst

By the Bray of Fundie

Imagine (or recall) how a twelve year old boy eagerly looks forward to wrapping T’filin for the first time; or a novice in Yeshiva pushes himself and studies diligently to complete his first Mesikhta. L’havdil, in the realm of the mundane, imagine (or recall) how a weekend warrior trains for his /her first 10K or marathon race or a recent real estate licensee goes to contract on the first house that they’ve sold.

We all savor the personal, professional, intellectual and spiritual “firsts” in our lives. These breakthroughs proffer the dimension of pleasure unique to novelty and freshness and represent growth, progress and self-actualization. For Jews in particular it evokes the Qedushas Reishis= the sanctity of Primogeniture/ "firstness" that we acquired during the slaying of the firstborn/exodus from Egypt.

But how many of us young enough to blog and in reasonably good health ever stop to consider the “lasts” of our lives? The last Shabbos? The last time we embrace a child or a spouse? And, most devastating of all, the "last" that vanquishes all further "firsts" ...our very last “last”...our last breath?

Twenty eight years ago I pronounced Birkas haKhama for the first time. This coming Wednesday, Please G-d, I will do so again. But based on my age, obesity and family medical history, in all likelihood, it will be for the last time. If I even live another 28 years it is a long shot that I will still be of sound enough mind and body to celebrate the suns next coming with my co-religionists.

Call me a nonconformist or, better yet, a misfit, but the fanfare surrounding this rarest of brakhos, it’s novelty and lack of rote, fill me with foreboding and anxiety not with anticipation and enthusiasm. Come Wednesday, as those around me open themselves to the light and warmth of the “first” sun, I will be filled with apprehension of the darkness and chill of my inevitable grave. In spite of my braying fundamentalism, my obsession with my own Jewishness, my self-definition so identified with my non-Goyishkeit, on the Eve of this Passover I will identify with an ancient Egyptian during the Plague of Darkness, paralyzed by the shadows as the Jews around me celebrate the light.

Qedusha -Havdala...have you had yours today?

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Matzah-Matzah G-d

By the Bray of Fundie

Think the annual post-Purim OCD search and destroy Khametz mission is tough? Try to imagine what it must have been like in the Bais HaMiqdash where Khametz Meal offerings were prohibited on the Altar all year long 1!

While DB has been confronting the issue of animal sacrifices quite a bit lately he’s written nary a word about the Menakhos=meal offerings. But the facts are that although the menu of Menakhos sported a more elastic definition of Matzah than we do today 2 (ours are Ma'afeh Tanur =baked in an oven exclusively), the fact remains that for one week a year we raise the bar of our bread kashrus to Temple altar levels. Put another way, on Pesakh we ingest only that (bread) which is kosher for G-d. Here's my take:

Khametz is singular in the entire Torah dietary code in that its prohibition derives from neither ingredients, ingredient combination, manner of death, health nor location. It is a matter of processing and in particular, the time elapsed in the food processing.

We tend to think of infinity or transcendence as being “longer” than finite time. When the past extends behind any starting point and the future unfurls beyond any ending point that’s infinity. But consider the possibility that infinity is not longer than time but qualitatively timeless. No time at all. An immobile present, a tick on the clock that never tocks.

When we watch-guard Matzah lest it become khametz, when we keep the process under 18 minutes, we are endeavoring, as much as our finite-under-time humanity allows us, to bake an infinite bread, a bread that is the staff of eternity rather than of (mortal) life.

Much has been said and written about the Qorban Pesakh=Passover offering-Paschal Lamb, having been the first Qorban in history of which human beings partook (all the Qorbanos of Bereshis were Olot=burnt offerings or… what the Greeks call holókauston or "holocausts"). In the idiom of our sages such edible offerings are M’Shulkahn Gavoha ka zakhu= “(we) merited (dining) from the table on high”. IMO this is true of Matzah as well. On the night/festival when G-d acquires us as His slaves we eat of His infinite bread, much as the slave of a Kohen may eat T’rumah while freemen Yisraelim may not.

Now…doesn’t that make the cleaning, scrubbing, high priced Matzah and Matzah Fibrosis/indigestion all worth it?

Bonus riddle: (edited in deference to Hershy) During the 40 year sojourn in the Wilderness the Israelites ate manna bread. Described in the Torah as "Bread from Heaven". In theory if we could get our hands on some could we fulfill the Mitzvah of eating Matzah on Pesakh with Manna Bread?

Qedusha-Havdala...have you gotten yours today?
________________________________________________
1. Leviticus 2:11
יא כָּל-הַמִּנְחָה, אֲשֶׁר תַּקְרִיבוּ לַיהוָה--לֹא תֵעָשֶׂה, חָמֵץ: כִּי כָל-שְׂאֹר וְכָל-דְּבַשׁ, לֹא-תַקְטִירוּ מִמֶּנּוּ אִשֶּׁה לַיהוָה.
11 No meal-offering, which ye shall bring unto the LORD, shall be made with leaven; for ye shall make no leaven, nor any honey, smoke as an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
2. Leviticus 2:5,7 And if thy offering be a meal-offering baked on a griddle, And if thy offering be a meal-offering of the stewing-pan

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Interpersonal Inyanim

By the Bray of Fundie

POST DELETED PREEMPTIVELY IN A DESPERATE REFLEX RESPONSE TO MY SELF-PRESERVATION INSTINCT.

Primogeniture-Palooza Digest II

By the Bray of Fundie

Well guess what? There isn't going to be a Primogeniture-Palooza Digest II or III. Sorry Cubbies... but 9 non Bray comments on a post I worked so long and hard on just doesn't cut it. You guys aren't interested in reading/commenting? Then I'm too exhausted to write.

I hope that Dov is right and that Esav really was a nice guy as you are walking in his footsteps.

וַיֹּאכַל וַיֵּשְׁתְּ, וַיָּקָם וַיֵּלַךְ; וַיִּבֶז עֵשָׂו, אֶת-הַבְּכֹרָה="and he did eat and drink, and rose up, and went his way. So Esau spurned his legacy. "

To paraphrase President Nixon: "My wife is a respectable Kharedi Cloth-coat. You're not gonna have 'ol Bray's Primogeniture-Palooza Digest posts to kick around anymore"

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Primogeniture-Palooza Digest I

By the Bray of Fundie

As a follow up to this post I offer a digest about what the Mefarshim say re: these P'sukim:

(Exodus 4:22-23)
כב וְאָמַרְתָּ, אֶל-פַּרְעֹה: כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה, בְּנִי בְכֹרִי יִשְׂרָאֵל.22 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh: Thus saith the LORD: Israel is My son, My first-born.כג וָאֹמַר אֵלֶיךָ, שַׁלַּח אֶת-בְּנִי וְיַעַבְדֵנִי, וַתְּמָאֵן, לְשַׁלְּחוֹ--הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי הֹרֵג, אֶת-בִּנְךָ בְּכֹרֶךָ.23 And I have said unto thee: Let My son go, that he may serve Me; and thou hast refused to let him go. Behold, I will slay thy son, thy first-born.'--

In no particular order:

Ibn Ezra: As a Bekhor is a firstborn so too the ancestors of the Hebrews were the first to worship Me (sayeth HaShem). I love them and have compassion for them as a father would a son who serves him. You took (usurped) them as eternal slaves and so I will kill your bekhor.

Hamek Davar (Netzi"v of Volozhin): HaShem is not messaging a commoner but a King. A Kings sons are all princes, not mere sons, and his eldest is not a mere prince, but the Crown Prince. This position/office has significance even while the father Pharaoh lives. The Crown Prince is groomed for his assumed primogeniture succession by assisting his father in administration of the kingdom and in matters of state.

The Hebrews are MY crown Princes (sayeth Hashem). They assist me in administering MY Kingdom. (cp. Haamek Davar on the verse of
ג אַף חֹבֵב עַמִּים, כָּל-קְדֹשָׁיו בְּיָדֶךָ; וְהֵם תֻּכּוּ לְרַגְלֶךָ, יִשָּׂא מִדַּבְּרֹתֶיךָ.
3" Yea, He loveth the peoples, all His holy ones--they are in Thy hand; and they sit down at Thy feet, uplifted by leading". tamtzis : A Jews actions has far greater effect, for better or worse, on world affairs than all the geopolitical machinations of the non-Jews combined).

Thus the threat of Makkas Bekhoros is not one of visiting a personal tragedy for the Egyptian Pharaoh as a man, but to undermine his Kingdom as a King...tit for tat for his undermining the Kingdom of Heaven by enslaving the Divine Kings Bekhor/ Crown Prince. This is one King threatening another Kings err ...kingdom.

Rashi P'shat One: Bekhora is an expression of greatness and preeminence, not a literal expression of first in a chronological birth sequence. We find a precedent for this simile in the verse of: (Psalms 89:28) כח אַף-אָנִי, בְּכוֹר אֶתְּנֵהוּ; עֶלְיוֹן, לְמַלְכֵי-אָרֶץ. =28 "I also will appoint him first-born, the highest of the kings of the earth" describing David's preeminence among ANE Kings:

Rashi P'shat Two: This verse is a reference to Yisrael/Yaakov the Historical personage not the nation that sprung from his loins. It is as if HaShem is speaking through Yitzchaks larynx. (Gur Aryeh dryly comments, "so it would not be HaShem's Bekhor that we are referring to but Yitzkhaks") To use Rashi's idiom "Here G-d G-d affixes his signature (the seal of G-d is truth) on the sale of the primogeniture by Esav to Yaakov." [So much forYaakovs heel-grabbing and amoral approach to business ethics!]

Why this would be included in a warning to the Egyptian Pharaoh who, at first glance, doesn't seem to have a horse in the race of the Yaakov Esav primogeniture dispute, remains a mystery.

Rashi concludes; HaShem is unlike a flesh and blood king relying on an element of surprise to wreak vengeance on his enemies. This is the last of the strikes/plagues yet he warns Pharaoh about it first. Why? because G-d is more interested in the repentance of evildoers than in vengeance.

Ay... we don't find that Moshe actually delivered this message to Pharaoh in his first meeting or at all. At the very earliest, according to some readings of the Midrash /Rashi, he alluded to the plague of the firstborn when warning Pharaoh about the plague of Hail. Another unsolved mystery.

Qedusha-Havdala...have you gotten yours today?

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Festival of Freedom... or Primogeniture-Palooza?

By the Bray of Fundie

From Rebbish to Reconstructionist and from Dayenu doyens to nabobs of Negro spirituals, Pesach is universally understood as the Festival of Freedom. The Haggadah basically begins with “We were slaves to Pharaoh down in Egypt land” and concentrates on the suffering and injustice of slavery and the consolation, empowerment and injustice redressed of liberation.

But could it be that we are missing the forest for the trees? Here JS complained about the limp-wristed siyumim summarily ending the Fast of the Firstborn. But absent that fast we would have little or nothing concretized in our ritual Pesakh observances that deal with the issue of Bekhora. Yet when Moshe finally accepts his mission as redeemer of Israel he was instructed to deliver this message to Pharaoh: (Exodus 4:22-23)

כב וְאָמַרְתָּ, אֶל-פַּרְעֹה: כֹּה אָמַר יְהוָה, בְּנִי בְכֹרִי יִשְׂרָאֵל.
22 And thou shalt say unto Pharaoh: Thus saith the LORD: Israel is My son, My first-born.
כג וָאֹמַר אֵלֶיךָ, שַׁלַּח אֶת-בְּנִי וְיַעַבְדֵנִי, וַתְּמָאֵן, לְשַׁלְּחוֹ--הִנֵּה אָנֹכִי הֹרֵג, אֶת-בִּנְךָ בְּכֹרֶךָ.
23 And I have said unto thee: Let My son go, that he may serve Me; and thou hast refused to let him go. Behold, I will slay thy son, thy first-born.'--

Counterintuitively it seems as though Pharaoh’s main crime was not enslaving the Hebrews. If this were the case (and if I were G-d) then the obvious poetic justice threat ought to have been “You are unjustly enslaving the Hebrews. Liberate them or I will enslave the Egyptians”. It seems as though the evil of the slavery inhered in its capacity to impede, suppress, and even “kill” the Bekhora of the Children of Israel. Hence the midah k’neged midah = quid pro quo threat of slaying Pharaoh’s firstborn.

Let’s face it. Our contemporary sedorim are meant as surrogates of the Seder akheelas korban Pesakh= the order of consumption of the Paschal lamb. The mezuzos on our doors are stand-ins for the blood smeared door-posts and lintel of the night preceding the Exodus that protected us from the Plague of the Firstborn. Yet we seem to concentrate exclusively on freedom and fail to accord any primacy to, well, our own primacy.

In the coming days I hope to bl”n share with you my humble adaptations of what the great meforshei HaMiqra say about the passage that I cited. But in the meantime; how do YOU understand it? What do we mean when we say that Yisrael is kavayakhol, the Bekhor of HaShem? Why is this emphasized rather than the slavery itself? How does slavery compromise primogeniture? And/or how is slavery antithetical to primogeniture?

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A Havdala Tidbit

By the Bray of Fundie

Besides the overt quantitative gulf separating the two, there are subtler qualitative differences distinguishing the 613 incumbent upon the Bnei Yisrael from the 7 Mitzvos incumbent upon Noahides.

One of these may be that while on both a national level (Na'aseh V'nishma) and on a personal level (Qrias Shma AKA "accepting the yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven") Jews perform the commandments only following an informed consensual commitment to do so no parallel prerequisite commitment obtains for the "set" of the 7 Noahide Mitzvos. When it comes to the Bnei Yisrael HaShem Kavayakhol, the Divine Governor, derives His power to govern from the consent of the governed

Also, TTBOMK there is no idea of Khinukh=training of children for the Noahide Mitzvos either. Whatever binds adult Noahides to perform these commandments does the same for the underage children. For Noahides there is no rite of passage, no transformation from an aino metzuveh=un-commanded to a metzuveh=commanded that parallels the Jewsih Bar/Bat Mitzvah.

We associate the age of consent with legal adulthood. IMO the havdala described above means that Bnei Yisrael enjoy a riper, more mature relationship with G-d than the balance of humanity.
Qedusha-Havdala...have you gotten yours today?


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Torah vs. Science Clashes? Meh...it's all Semantics!

guest post by A12.
mined and truncated by the Bray of Fundie

...and comment mining begets more comment mining. This one is causing me some major cognitive dissonance. It seems (I emphasize seems) to provide a sober dispassionate argument for believing in BOTH Science and Torah.


...First - It makes no sense to hate science. That is like saying that you hate screwdrivers, calculators,....Science is a tool. ...you dislike science because (some) of the findings made by using science do not square with a literal reading of the Torah. However, you are posting your comments using a computer: the product of the use of science. I'm sure you consult with your physician and take prescribed medications for illnesses: again, science. ....It would appear that there is much, where science and its findings are concerned *not* to hate - yet you make a blanket statement that you "hate" it.

Second -...If you're balancing your finances monthly, paper, pen, and calculator in hand - or spreadsheet program - and you crunch the numbers and they tell you that things will be tight - or you don't have enough to cover all of your expenses - do you hate your calculators or spreadsheets because you do not like the outcome they are giving you? (as a matter of fact I do. everything is personal) That's what you are doing to science. Science is based on the data, and it gives the outcome it has to, just like your calculator - and it doesn't do so for any nefarious version, it doesn't try to make you mad, it's just where the data leads it. ...

Fourth (sic, this is third..or did I lose count?)-Why is science "hated" for giving outcomes different from the literal words of the Torah, when other discrepancies are overlooked? For example - isn't a fish considered halachically dead once it is taken out of the water? However, we all know that if you put the fish back in soon enough, it swims away, perfectly alive. We also know that if someone cooks a brisket in a pot, wash it thoroughly and then cook potatoes in the pot, the potatoes have the status of meat. However, a person looking at the potato - who didn't know the pot's status - would not consider the potato to be meat, they would consider it a potato. ...So, my question to you is why is it different when it comes to science?If science looks at the world and says the earth is 4.5 billion years old, why can't it be 4.5 billion years old the way a fish plucked out of the water and then put back was still alive, even though it was halachically dead before? If science finds that humans evolved, why can't that be acceptable, just as it is not offensive to anyone that a potato is still biologically a root vegetable, but takes on the status of meat after being cooked in a meat pot? Why can't it be that, just as a fish is halachically dead, but not scientifically dead, they earth is halachically 6000 years old, but not scientifically 6000 years old? That halachically humans were made from the dust of the ground, but scientifically, humans evolved? Fish swimming away after being caught and potatoes remaining potatoes after being cooked in meat pots don't raise anyone's ire and don't seem to contradict Torah . . . but that is another facet of science presenting things one way and Torah/halacha presenting it another. If you can be okay with one and find nothing offensive about it, why not the same for the other?


Whole comment here

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Travel is Broadening (and G-d is Great)

By the Bray of Fundie

Where I normally daven, Yotzros are omitted except during the Days of Awe.

But I had yet another rare treat last Shabbos.

My "host Shul" was a Nusakh S'fard Bais Medrash where the Yotzros for Parshas Parah were said. However, the congregation did omit the last long piece beginning with the words אין לשוחח right before Qedusha*. By then my curiosity had been piqued and in perusing the omitted passage I found the paytan/liturgical poet waxing euphoric about the "uniting opposites" peculiarities of the Torah.

Inspired by the self-contradictory power of the Red Heifer to purify the impure while simultaneously defiling the pure, he cites a long list of similar Mitzvos.

In no particular order, here is a partial list of the paradoxical peculiarities described by the paytan:

1. Yivum The levirate Marriage vs. the default prohibition of one's brothers wife.
3. Shatnez Garments of wool+linen mixtures vs. T'keles b'sadin (i.e. woolen strings in a linen Tallis, not sure why he skipped the avnet=the gartel of the Kohanim)
3. Dam nidah vs. dam besulim
4. Generic married women vs. Eshes Y'fas Toar
5. Partial negah impurity vs. complete coverage purity. (edit shkoyakh to Product and Lakewood Guy)
6. Meat and milk vs. kosher udders.

I'm not sure why, but Cherubim vs. prohibited graven images did NOT make the list.

Re-reading it and the quasi-Sabbatean, yet not antinomian lyric: מתיר מאסורות מותרות-נותן מטמאות טהורות I wondered if this might possibly be a secondary kavanah when we make the daily blessing of matir asurim. A kind of continuation of Birkas HaTorah.

In any event the paytan's poetry reminded me of the overt covertness of the Torah and of the Rambam's famous line in the (desert) sand for khukim/ irrational Mitzvos. Insoluble mysteries and enigmatic conundrums in the Torah abound. In fact, they are front and center for anyone not deep in denial. It also reminded me that a basic idea of our monotheistic theology is that HaShem alone can unite all opposites and be the One source for all things, even for what is (apparently) mutually exclusive. All of this doesn't RESOLVE Predestination vs. Free-will or theodicy but at least it gives one a framework in which to "file" them.

Bonus discovery for parochial me: the lyrics of the Belzer hit כי אתה מלך מלכי המלכים--מלכותו נצח וכו' come from this past week's Yotzros! (I had not known this previously...live and learn) ___________

* Oddly this long passsage appears in the Artscroll All Hebrew Ashkenaz but not in the bilingual edition...HMMMM...

Custom Query-(Closely) Reading the Golden Calf

By the Bray of Fundie

I was a guest for Shabbos in one of the great bastions of Torah Truth. The Baal Qoreh in the Shul where I davened gave the Khet HaEgel=the sin of the Golden Calf portion of the reading the Tokhakha=chastisement/rebuke treatment. I.e. he read that portion more swiftly and in an undertone compared to the rest of the Parsha. To me this was an innovation. I've never heard another Baal Qoreh read it that way. I thought it was cool. After all, if you're going to terror-infuse the effect why not terror-infuse the cause?

I complimented the Baal Qoreh on his creativity. He claimed that he wasn't being creative, that "it's brought in poskim" to read it that way. Engrossed (and I do mean gross) as I was in the post-service Kiddush the man had absconded before I could obtain a source. Minhag curiosity is one thing but Matjes Herring and a piping hot Chulent swimming in grease is quite another.

Do they lein it that way in your Shul? Anyone know which (if any) poskim cite this cutom? Is this an ancient custom making it's way back into the vogue or just another egregious example of G-d's Cossacks "improving" Yiddishkeit again? Does anyone read the Khet HaMeraglim=the sin of the spies this way? At the very least I'd expect Mar Gavriel to pipe in and my gracious host, the Ba'al HaBlog, to provide us with the historically accurate cultural osmosis that's behind this minhag de jour.

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When a Jewish Girl Intermarries a Crucifix....

By the Bray of Fundie

When a Jewish girl intermarries a Crucifix (not a X-tian, not someone wearing a crucifix around his neck but the shesee 'v'eyrev itself) who officiates? A Rabbi a Priest or a carpenter? Is this even intermarriage?

Think that it couldn't happen? Think again!

Send gifts here.

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Thars Gold in Them Thar Comments

Mined and edited by the Bray of Fundie

First exposure to "Peleg" and I like what I read. As a man of both Science and Faith he brings to the table a lot more cache and credibility than I can. I bolded what I consider to be the "money" quotes. Displaying a very well developed Havdala/Qedusha consciousness he waxes clear and eloquent about the natural and the miraculous (and, to be candid, advocates for Torah Umadah, not my hashqafa):

"I started out life wanting to become a nuclear chemist. Got darn near there, but it wasn't in the cards for me. Still, I think I learned my science well. And along the way, I also got religious. For a while, I thought I'd have to maintain a sort of double-think because the two bodies of knowledge seem to be in conflict in so many ways. After much thought and living and learning was expended on the problem, I think I've finally found a way to live comfortably in both worlds.

What I came to realize is that, not only can Torah and Science comfortably co-exist, in the world, and in my mind, they aren't even in conflict. In order for there to be a conflict, you first have to be contending over the same territory and, in the case of knowledge systems; they have to have a common epistimologic foundation.The epistimologic foundations are totally different.

First, what each system regards as truth turns out to be completely different concepts. In science, a truth is essentially a theory, something empirically determined. It is not immutable nor is it eternal. In Torah, a truth is something derived from Torah, is immutable and eternal. Empirically testing of a Torah truth is neither necessary nor relevant. So, since they cannot even agree on what a Truth is, there isn't any basis for any sort of comparison. Furthermore, what each knowledge system considers to be valid evidence isn't at all the same thing, but I won't belabor that point.Science is about what can be perceived and measured and verified by experiment. Torah is about what is right and wrong, why we are here, and what we are supposed to do. If you want to build an atom bomb, you won't find much relevant information in Torah, but if you want to know, given certain circumstances, if using the bomb is the right thing to do, Science isn't going to provide much help.They just aren't dealing with the same problems and questions. They both provide valuable knowledge about the world, but not the same knowledge. Even more, you can't evaluate the usefulness or veracity of one system using the rules of the other. They don't intersect in any significant ways. They stand separate. So, as a scientist, I have trouble explaining or even accepting miracles and such things. As a frum Jew, I have no doubt that there have been and there are such things. ….

Torah doesn't help me make a living -- I'm a computer programmer -- but science and a scientific way of thinking does. We put men on the moon with science, and there is nothing miraculous about it. It is a fantastic accomplishment, but it’s not any way a miracle. Nothing in Torah helped those rocket scientists to shoot those guys up there and bring them home. That Torah can't put a man on the moon doesn't diminish Torah one bit. It would if it makes any serious claims to being a source of knowledge for such an endeavor, but no reasonable person makes such a claim. Sure, I've heard those claims made, but never from a person who truly understands both Torah and Science.

I'm happy with what I believe. I now have two very powerful tools for living my life. The trick is knowing when to apply which tool. I think I am better off than someone who only has one set of tools to deal with the world. Either a person finds the physical world a complete enigma (those that only admit to Torah knowledge) or a person finds life rather flat and empty of true meaning and purpose (those that only function according to science). My world is wondrous because I have at least some sense of how it works at a physical level (I am still amazed that a machine as big and heavy as an airplane can actually fly, ...) and wonderful because I have a way of connecting and experiencing something, in some way, at some level, the reason for my existence. Some people can't see miracles in their own lives. Neither could I a while ago. It's simply a matter of learning how to look. "

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A Bloggish Shpiel

by the Bray of Fundie

Disclaimer: It has long been established that I have a tin-ear when it comes to humor. But as I see no fresh Bear meat yet today I figured that "b'mokom she-ain ish is herring oikh fish" and decided to try my hand. I won't mind if you laugh at me rather than with me... Just as long as you laugh.

Bray: (staggers in wedging himself sideways through the front door.)

Mrs. Bear: Welcome! Purim Sameyach. That nutty-professor fat-suit costume is SOOOOOOOO convincing...it must have set you back a pretty penny!

DB: Err honey...that's no costume.

Bray: (admiring DBs getup) So you really ARE the man in the Golden Bear Suit! Here, I brought you Shalakh monos (hands DB two books tied in a ribbon)

DB: What's this?

Bray: Well shalakh manos need to be two minim and that's what I got for you; Canon and Creativity: Modern Writing and the Authority of Scripture by Robert Alter and God in Search of Man : A Philosophy of Judaism by A.J. Heschel!

DB: Delicious. Thanks.

Female Bearling: Daddy that fat man is wearing a black hat. Didn't you tell us that people like him mistreat children?

DB: You're safe shaifeleh... but hide your brothers...

Bray: Who's the Shaigatz sitting next to you?

DB: Don't tell me you don't recognize BOTH?!

Bray: I didn't recognize him in the Spodik and wooden shoes. I'd like to say some Purim Torah

DB: Why should today be any different?

Bray: (in mah nishtanah sing-song) How is this afternoon different from all the others?

DB: That's Peysakh you idiot!

Bray: I thought you said it was BOTH?! Anyhow (taking up the mah nishtanah sing-song again) because on all other afternoons there is havdala consciousness..

DB: (rudely interrupting) speak for yourself.

Bray:...but on this afternoon of Purim there is havdala obliviousness. עד דלא ידע בין ארור המן לברוך מרדכי the blessed and the cursed...the Jew and the anti-Semite they're all one and the same. Now why do you suppose that is?

Mrs. Bear: Because Purim isn't really a holiday?

Female Bearling: It's just a cover story for getting drunk!

Male Bearling: Because this way girls can dress as boys and vice versa?

DB: (Shouting at Male Bearling) GET BACK IN YOUR ROOM AND STAY THERE!

BOTH: I'll email Reb Pinky the question and get back to you.

DB: Oh no you won't... this is a family blog. (turning to Bray) So nuu??? What's the Teretz?

Bray: I can't tell.

DB: Typical Chaim, all sizzle no steak. All empty braying assertion never a shred of evidence or proof.

Bray: speaking of empty what's with the serving platters ? What's for dinner? I think that you guys take Yom K'Purim a bit too literally around here.

first hosafah 1:20 EST

DB: (handing Bray a serving platter of pickled tongue) Here's a gastronomic stimulus package for you.

Bray: (grimacing) hold your tongue Beary. I didn't vote for BHO and the only organ meat I like is hacked liver.

DB: (rolling eyes) well glad to see that McCain had a lock on the moron vote.

Bray: I didn't vote for McCain. I wrote in Mayor Richard Daley the first. And besides, I'm an imbecile..not a moron.

DB: Today it's hard to tell the difference. The first Daley?!? How'd you vote for him...he's been dead for years?!

Bray: So what? When he was alive the dead voted for him, now that he's dead why can't the living vote for him?

DB: Stop flattering yourself.

QWERTY: It's really a halakhic shaila. While Bray still seems to have a heartbeat his brain flat-lined years ago.

Abe: Dead men voting? Finally the evidence of a miracle I've been waiting for. All hail Saint Richard and the Chicago Alder-Angels. Not to mention Bray...the dead fatso walking.

Bray: OK forget the food. This is a mishteh HaYayin. What've you got to drink?

Mrs. Bear: Do you prefer Jack, Johnnie Walker Blue or some fine single malt? Or..if you're a purist we've got a lovely Merlot..

DB: (rudely interrupting) Merlot? With tongue? C'mon sweetheart, you call that a good wine and food pairing? talk about a shidduch crisis!

Bray: That's OK. Kool-Aid is my beverage of choice.

2nd hosafah 2:55 EST

Yoetzet Halakha: I'd advise against inebriation. According to the R"emuh you can fulfill the ahd Da'loh yahdah requirement by napping .

Bray: And I'd advise you to limit your unsolicited advice to better wine-food pairings than Merlot and tongue..talk about Lashon HaRah!!!

Yoetzet Halakha: Why of all the insecure misogynist creeps...

Mrs. Bear: Why of all the boorish ungrateful guests!!!

Bella Abzug: Ladies... if you can't take the heat then get back into the kitchen

DB: See I was right. insecure she-men like Bray are worried about status. Save your fear-mongering whining for the next meeting of chauvinist losers of America.

Bray: You're not right you're left. Besides you are ahd d'lo yahdah bein Yoetzet Halakha l' Av Beit Din U'Moreh Tzedek without drinking even a drop.

Female Bearling: Mr. Bray how can you make fun of girls on Purim? Where would we have been without Esther? One strong Jewish woman did what hundreds of wimpy Jewish men could not.

DB (beaming): ג מִפִּי עוֹלְלִים, וְיֹנְקִים-- יִסַּדְתָּ-עֹז:לְמַעַן צוֹרְרֶיךָ; לְהַשְׁבִּית אוֹיֵב, וּמִתְנַקֵּם. =
3 "Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast Thou founded strength, because of Thine adversaries; that Thou mightest still the enemy and the avenger". Be still Braybee.

Bray: Well maybe if they didn't have proposition 8 in Xerxes' Empire it might've been Hadas instead of Haddasah...

DB: (turning to female bearling) quick...make sure the door on the boys room is locked and bolted.

CA: Esther was a true visionary she understood what even contemporary Ortho fanatics can't...that the salvation of the Jewish people depends on intermarriage, preferably with the upper crust of gentile society.

Yoetzet Halakha: Let the record show that I'd advise against that. Wouldn't do much for the cause of Taharat HaMishpakha.

BOTH: The Jews are G-d's chosen people and the state of Israel is the chosen banana republic of the chosen people. Why in the world would they want to intermarry with say, flying Dutchmen?

Bray: v'nahapoch hu...

(To be edited /discontinued...)

Flattening the Mountains (YAWN)

by the Bray of Fundie

In recent posts the Ba’al HaBlog has professed his skepticism in miracle-working Rabbis, of ANY era, and wondered (ad nauseum) about whether during the revelation @ Sinai the Heavens descended or if the mountain was raised.

I’d like to opine that while staunchly maintaining his “belief” in TMS=Torah min HaShomayim=Torah (of divine authorship) given from heaven, his is a mere pro forma belief at best and some fancy semantical footwork at worst. I’d also like to opine that whatever actually happened at Sinai is beside the point. In the DovBearian conceptualization of the event Heaven was brought down to earth.

How did I develop these opinions? By closely reading these revealing comments:

“I don't think Abraham Lincoln could do miracles, and I respected him. I don't think the Vilna Gaon or Rashi or the Ramban could work mofsim and I respect them. Why do you presume that my rejection of the magical ability of phonies and frauds translates into disrespect for anyone who deserves it? ....”

"I don't think Rabbis can perform miracles for the same reason I don't think Einstein can fly. ...it’s possible to respect great people for their genuine talents and accomplishments without also thinking they have magic powers. By denying that Rabbis can perform miracles I am not disrespecting the rabbis; ...."

"I recognize that there is no evidence than so things, but for reasons I've explained millions of time, I choose to make a leap of faith for most biblical miracles....Read my lips: No rabbi had the power to cure sicknesses. Not one."

Here’s the havdala between Einstein’s actual inability to fly and Rav Khanina ben Dosa’a alleged inability to cause vinegar to combust or the Khazon Ish's reputed expertise at neurosurgery:

Einstein was a Scientist. He exerted his brilliant mind to comprehend G-d’s will as revealed in the works of creation AKA the laws of nature. These laws govern the revealed world/cosmos and within the closed system of nature, are constant and immutable. As a human flying is supernatural it would contradict numerous laws of nature and hence, within the closed system, it is impossible.

And so whence miracles?( After all both Dovie and I believe in the historicity of at least some.)The answer is that the revealed cosmos is not the sum-total of reality. There are other (normally) unseen and imperceptible systems that are governed by different laws. When there are fissures in those systems, higher than and transcendent of nature, we have the superimposition of a different set of laws. As the default settings governing nature are suspended we have, right here on terra firma, what we call miracles.

Any Torah worthy of its name derives from these unseen and imperceptible systems. The “S” in TMS does not mean "the galaxy". As something spatially higher than and remote from earth the galaxy does however serve as a useful metaphor for where Torah came from.

When we say that Torah kodmah L’Olam= Torah precedes the Cosmos, we don’t merely refer to a time sequence. We mean that it takes precedence over “reality”. The Ramban famously wrote that empiricism can never be applied to the Torah אין מופת חותך בתורתנו. This is because having created this reality ( אסתכל באורייתא וברא עלמא = "He gazed into the Torah and created Creation") and destined to create a new one (eschatology) , Torah can never be measured or tested against the body of the extant and static “reality”.

This is why I believe in the potential of supreme and supernal Talmidei Khakhamim to work miracles. It is not because I am a credulous naïf. I realize that 95% of contemporary “Mequbalim” are charlatans no better than John of G-d and sadly are sometimes real-life Jewish Elmer Gantrys. I also realize that a large majority of miraculous powers and episodes attributed to Gedolei Torah over the years have been embellished by fevered repetition and even fabricated by over-enthused students or followers. But to paint ALL gedolim with the broad non-miraculous brush that DovBear has IS to disrespect them, and the Torah itself-the stuff of their scholarship, through underestimation.

I agree that it is no knock on Einstein’s scholarship to say that he couldn’t fly. But it IS a knock on RKBD scholarship to say he couldn’t (not didn’t) make vinegar burn. The “stuff” of the two scholars’ scholarship is qualitatively different. Quantum mechanics, for all its cranial abstraction, still analyzes the mundane, extant reality. Lomdus and Pnimiyus HaTorah analyze Qodesh, a system that transcends nature. Familiar with Qodesh-Nivdal mechanics, the very greatest of the Torah’s students can tap into and manipulate the fissures of that transcendent system

But the putative TMS believer Dovie denies all of this. His “Shomayim” is that of Carl Sagan, not of the AriZal. Having denuded the Torah’s source of all of its abstract otherness, of its Qedusha and Havdala, having transformed "heaven" into nothing more than the uppermost crust of the earth, having flattened Mount Sinai to a monotonous prairie, it is easy to profess a belief in TMS. For it makes little difference if the authorship of such a Torah is human or divine. The Infinite Divine Himself has been cut down to limited finite natural human contours and proportions.

There is a beautiful vort from the Khidushei HoRim . Using an apparent redundancy (The heavens are the heavens of ) in a verse in the Psalms he reveals the raison d'être of humanity as follows:
הַשָּׁמַיִם שָׁמַיִם, לַיהוָה; וְהָאָרֶץ, נָתַן לִבְנֵי-אָדָם = "The Heavens are HaShem’s , but He gave the earth to the sons of Adam that THEY might make something heavenly out of it.”

Sadly Dovie turns this teaching on its head and consistently strives to make something earthly, material, flat and mundane out of the Heavens themselves.

NEXT UP: The neurosurgery diagram of the Khazon Ish

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Valmadonna II; or.. my Partial Mea Culpa to DovBear

By the Bray of Fundie

I went to the exhibit today. Impressive doesn't do it justice. I felt like a kid in a look-but-don't-touch candy store where, if allowed to, I could gorge and get a sugar high for months if not years.

There are several questions I want to email to the tour guide/curator, Mr. David Wachtel , and bl"n when I get the chance I'll post about his responses. In the meantime one impression I walked away with should give succor to DovBear in his efforts to educate me.

Close followers of this blog know that I often lock horns with the Ba'al HaBlog over celebrating or condemning the culture and legacy of Eastern European Jewry. Basically I have a very Eastern-European-centric view of Judaism while Dovie entertains a Western-European/American-Centric view. Something I saw in the exhibit today gave me pause and began to validate the ursine's position.

The Library was arranged according to country and city of origin. There were four plus "tables" (in the reading room) of Italian works while only one of Eastern European origin. Now as history-challenged (oblivious) as I am, I realize that global economies are of fairly recent origin and that, historically, most goods and services had to be grown/produced/manufactured fairly close to the location of the consumer. For most of human history no local demand meant no local production.

By this calculus ,to have been home to SO MANY printing presses and printers , Italy must have been a mecca of Jewish Scholarship. Sure I'd heard of the publishing houses of Venice (Vinetzia) and Livorno and knew that the Rama m'Fano and the Ramkha"l were both Italians. But IIRC over 30 Italian cities were represented. It's enough to have made one think that Vilna, Kovna, Brisk, Volozhin, Warsaw, Cracow, Lemberg, Zhitomir, Pressburg, Lisa, Sanz and Sokhatzov et al were all in Italy rather than in Eastern Europe. To my surprise I was "forced" to conclude that Italy hosted many more more TKs, Qabbalists and Yeshivas than I'd previously been aware of. Score one for the Western Europeans.

My only plausible deniability is this: perhaps the outsize representation of the Italian Judaica publishing houses is based on fewer Eastern European Jewish Books surviving the Holocaust just as fewer Eastern European Jewish people did. This is among the questions I'd like to put to the tour guide/curator.

Why is this only a partial "mea-culpa"? Because the aforementioned Mr. Wachtel repeated the story of Henry the VIII seeking the advice of "Jewish Doctors" AKA Rabbis, almost verbatim. This, despite being accutely aware that Henry the VIII reigned long after the official expuslsion of the Jews of England. Unlike knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathing me, he is a classically trained and University credentialed bibliophile and historian with connections to the JTS. His only alteration in the urban legend's re-telling is that the eighth Hank wanted to see what tractate Gittin could offer him not tractate Yevamos.

Final point: One need not be Kharedi in order to be obnoxious, only Jewish. It was a very mixed crowd of over 300 in the room during the tour running the gamut from secular to Khasidic. Despite repeated requests from Mr. Wachtel to turn off cel-phones as it interfered with his microphone, there were microphone interruptions and interference from start to finish of his 45 minute presentation. (For the curious out there, no, I was not the guilty party). And while I suppose that the visceral love of "the People of the Book"' for their books was a Qiddush HaShem, the simple lack of Mentchlikhkeit was the opposite and another sad example of elevating the soulless and inanimate above the soul-infused and human so characteristic of contemporary Judaism.

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You'll make a voluntary payment to your food server, but not to your blogger? Toss a tip in the hat, please, and buy Dov's book. (thanks!)

A Royal Repast for the Jewish Bookworm

By the Bray of Fundie

Sotheby’s Auction House is displaying the Valmadonna Trust Library until tomorrow. This is one of the most impressive Judaica collections in the world.

I’ve heard it rumored that YU, BMG of Lakewood, Chabad Headquarters and the JTS have all eyeballed the exhibit with an eye towards obtaining the collection. The size and price of the collection, along with the strings that the current owner has attached to the sale, probably make it out of reach for private collectors.

I won’t vouch for the historicity of this (and even if I did as a Kharedi I have zero credibility when it comes to history or science) but a delicious urban legend has sprung up around the Bromberg Shas being found in Westminster Abbey.

Henry the VIII’s troubled marriage to Catherine of Aragon began as a levirate marriage AKA Yivum. Catherine had been the childless widow of young Henry’s brother, Arthur prince of Wales . A Jewish Scholar told Henry that, per the Talmud, Levirate marriages were no longer considered a mitzvah as Khalitza= the widow release transaction, is the way to go in such scenarios. (parenthetically this issue was debated with much sturm und drang here less than a month ago!)

As ammo in his appeals to the Catholic Church to have the marriage annulled the eighth Hank wanted to be able to cite the pertinent Talmudic passage chapter and verse as it were. And so the eventual six-time khoson went out and treated himself to a Bomberg Shas!

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You'll make a voluntary payment to your food server, but not to your blogger? Toss a tip in the hat, please, and buy Dov's book. (thanks!)

Anti-Religious Coercion

by The Bray of Fundie

A basic tenet of Judaism is that humans are endowed with free will. Yet the Pharaoh of Egypt was stripped of his.

This weeks Parsha begins:
א וַיֹּאמֶר יְהוָה אֶל-מֹשֶׁה, בֹּא אֶל-פַּרְעֹה: כִּי-אֲנִי הִכְבַּדְתִּי אֶת-לִבּוֹ, וְאֶת-לֵב עֲבָדָיו, לְמַעַן שִׁתִי אֹתֹתַי אֵלֶּה, בְּקִרְבּוֹ.
" And the LORD said unto Moses: 'Go in unto Pharaoh; for I have hardened his heart, and the heart of his servants, that I might show these My signs in the midst of them; "

The Rambam explains that being stripped of ones free-will is a weapon in the arsenal of Divine punishments . When a sinner abuses their free will in a particularly egregious way (s)he may be punished by losing it and being forced to continue sinnning with no opportunity to ever repent:

ד [ג] וְאִפְשָׁר שֶׁיֶּחֱטָא הָאָדָם חֵטְא גָּדוֹל אוֹ חֲטָאִים הַרְבֵּה, עַד שֶׁיִּתֵּן הַדִּין לִפְנֵי דַּיָּן הָאֱמֶת שֶׁיִּהְיֶה הַפֵּרָעוֹן מִזֶּה הַחוֹטֶא עַל חֲטָאִים אֵלּוּ שֶׁעָשָׂה בִּרְצוֹנוֹ וּמִדַּעְתּוֹ, שֶׁמּוֹנְעִין מִמֶּנּוּ הַתְּשׁוּבָה וְאֵין מַנִּיחִין לוֹ רְשׁוּת לָשׁוּב מֵרִשְׁעוֹ, כְּדֵי שֶׁיָּמוּת וְיֹאבַד בַּחֲטָאִים שֶׁעָשָׂה

The Egyptian Pharaoh is a textbook example of this type of crime and punishment.

ה לְפִיכָּךְ כָּתוּב בַּתּוֹרָה "וַאֲנִי, אֲחַזֵּק אֶת-לֵב-פַּרְעֹה" (ראה שמות ד,כא; שמות יד,ד): לְפִי שֶׁחָטָא מֵעַצְמוֹ תְּחִלָּה וְהֵרַע לְיִשְׂרָאֵל הַגָּרִים בְּאַרְצוֹ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמָר "הָבָה נִתְחַכְּמָה, לוֹ" (שמות א,י), נָתַן הַדִּין לִמְנֹעַ מִמֶּנּוּ הַתְּשׁוּבָה, עַד שֶׁנִּפְרָעִין מִמֶּנּוּ; לְפִיכָּךְ חִזַּק הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא אֶת לִבּוֹ.
ו וְלָמָּה הָיָה שׁוֹלֵחַ לוֹ בְּיַד מֹשֶׁה וְאוֹמֵר לוֹ שַׁלַּח וַעֲשֵׂה תְּשׁוּבָה, וּכְבָר אָמַר לוֹ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא שְׁאֵין אַתָּה מְשַׁלֵּחַ, שֶׁנֶּאֱמָר "וְאַתָּה, וַעֲבָדֶיךָ: יָדַעְתִּי . . ." (שמות ט,ל), "וְאוּלָם, בַּעֲבוּר זֹאת הֶעֱמַדְתִּיךָ" (שמות ט,טז)--כְּדֵי לְהוֹדִיעַ לְבָאֵי הָעוֹלָם, שֶׁבִּזְמָן שֶׁמּוֹנֵעַ הַקָּדוֹשׁ בָּרוּךְ הוּא הַתְּשׁוּבָה לַחוֹטֶא, אֵינוּ יָכוֹל לָשׁוּב, אֵלָא יָמוּת בְּרִשְׁעוֹ שֶׁעָשָׂה בַּתְּחִלָּה בִּרְצוֹנוֹ.

Here's a point to ponder: We know that when it comes to both crime and punishment, and merit and reward, the Divine M.O. is not just to mete out justice but to do so poetically, quid pro quo, midah k'neged midah. What, do you suppose, might be the the midah k'neged midah of stripping a sinner of his/her free will?

"Loving Leah's" Credibility Gap

by the Bray of Fundie (Edited)

Why must Hollywood utterly botch Anything Jewish that it gets its mitts on? FCOL with all the big budgets you think they could get some starving and moderately knowledgeable rabbi to serve as a consultant-fact checker!

This time they tackle a truly arcane pointy of Halakha..Yivum and Kahlitza=the levirate marriage and release ritual/transaction. Truth be told khalitza is so rare that it is routinely attended by scores of people as it is so hard to get shimush b'halakha= hands on internship, in this particular mitzvah.

Among the truly eye-roll inducing distortions in this Hallmark Hall of Shame episode: "Worse, he finds out that he is also required by Jewish law to marry his widowed sister-in-law if she is childless. ". Ridiculous. Marriage has not been an option in over a millenia. Khalitza is not merely recommended or preferred, it's all we do. Next we get this: "Leah ... removes the shoe, throws it across the room, while Jake loudly denies his brother's existence. " close but no cigar! Refusing to "raise up a name for his brother" != denying his existence.

Really makes a guy wonder. When I see the howlers mainstream media print and Hollywood disseminates about topic that I have a passing familiarity with I've got to at least entertain the following possibility: While not exactly on the level of a screenwriter taking artistic liberties in an act of fiction I still suspect...SUSPECT, that maybe scientists mock the Science Times, that historians roll their eyes at biopics, that veterans double-over laughing at war movies and that economists and captains of industry scoff at the financial pages or at least pop-media representations about the inner workings of the economy .

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Buy Dovie's book. (please)
Buy the other guy's book. (please)
Buy Mrs. Bear a gift (please)

Miracle on the Hudson (edited)

is, of course, a misnomer.

By the Bray of Fundie

No laws of nature were superseded in the landing of the plane nor in the rescuing of the passengers. No one's rational sensibilities were hurt in the making of this miracle. But as we live in an era that is skeptical of the supranational we have come to use the word "miracle" imprecisely. While a miracle means to do the impossible we use the word to mean doing the highly improbable. Thus the near-miraculous becomes, presto, change-o : the miraculous.

And while Sully himself would be hard-pressed to repeat his derring-do, rapid cool decision making and aviation virtuosity a second time, the ease with which we throw around the "M" word is a sad commentary on our society. What we REALLY found highly improbable was the competency and personal bravery that informed the safe landing and rescue of US Air flight 1549. That people in positions of great responsibility and that equipment and machinery should actually work as they were assigned and designed to is shocking and, in our expectations, improbable to the point of near impossibility.

What really rankles is that the imprecise language feeds the Qefira that "open" miracles are myths and fairy tales. There are millions of Jews out there who believe that the Biblical account of the parting of the Sea of Reeds (if it happened at all) was the confluence of a "perfect storm" of perfectly natural causes, an earthquake combined with a hurricane, or a perfectly timed Tsunami et al. For such folks any historical miracle for which no natural cause or confluence of causes can be found is, by definition, ahistorical. When you begin to call the highly improbable (yet natural) miraculous then you begin to doubt the historicity and future coming of the truly miraculous impossible.

Buy Dov's book. (please)
Buy the other guy's book. (please)
Buy Mrs. Bear a gift (please)