Klal Yisrul Spoke...and the World Listened

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It seems that the UN is finally getting savvy to the fact that the World-Wide-Web is ah shtik timeh.

Who Cares what I Think?

Sure I could upload yet another post relating my true and candid feelings and opinions about the CitiField Asifa but why bother?  Who cares what one no-account Anonymous J-Blogger thinks?  Much less one with as tiny a readership as mine.

Many a J-Blogger could have saved themselves many hours of writing and re-writing  had they just taken this approach.  With rare exceptions The J-Blogosphere would be none the poorer for it. Some of the best posts are the ones never written.

My Post-Asifa Post

1. As I do not need it for parnusseh This post is in violation of Baseline Halokha.  NOT a מילי דחסידות. Have my brother Kharedi Bloggers taken this into consideration before uploading their  Post-Asifa Posts? אלא מאי you will tayneh that you are fighting the good fight in combating all the negative posts form the sundry haters and oifegeklerta J-bloggers.  To this I imagine Rav Wosner and Rav Duhn Sehgahl would say : מי ביקש זאת מידכם וכל שכן דפקר טפי.

2. Borukh Shehkeevahntee.  Rav Wachsman addressed the Cosmic Imbalance when he said (I paraphrase) "Klal Yisrael must rise like a Lioness. Earlier generations were stronger than us and did not have to battle as grave a nisayon as us."  Which left me scratching my head.  How are weaker people supposed to make a fight of it against stronger opposition?  But at least he mentioned it.

3. I am bilingual and had no problem following all the speakers except for the Skulener Rebbes Mashba"k. Nevertheless Rabbi Wachsman was my favorite speaker (full disclosure I left before Rav Mattisyahu Solomons talk).  This seems to be the consensus among all the English Speakers that I spoke to.  I wonder how the ESLers felt.  Has anyone either spoken to many of them or monitored their blogs/ newspapers?. I wonder who their favorite speaker was.

4. For once I am basically speechless and at a loss for words. There is much to assimilate and process.

Asifa Apathy-Not a Good Thing

With apologies to Martin Neimoller First the Timeneh traifeneh internet fahrfihred   the nerdy tech wonks, and I did not speak out -  because I was not a nerdy tech wonk; Then the Timeneh traifeneh internet fahrfihred the modern Young Israel types, turning them into Orthoprax, and I did not speak out - because I was not a Young Israel type; Then the Timeneh traifeneh internet fahrfihred the already at-risk kids, and I did not speak out - because I was not at risk (or so I arrogantly thought); Then the Timeneh traifeneh internet fahrfihred the Tuna-Baigels , and I did not speak out - because I was not a Tuna Baigel; Then the Timeneh traifeneh internet fahrfihred   frum businessman who couldn't compete without it,  and i did not speak out- because I was not a businessman; Then the Timeneh traifeneh internet fahrfihred   BY girls who had to go online for Raizel Wright, and I did not speak out because I was not a post-Sem BY girl; Then the Timeneh traifeneh internet fahrfihred   every litle kid with a PSP who chanced across a WiFi hot spot and I did not speak out because my kids were all grown up; Then the Timeneh traifeneh internet fahrfihred me -  and no one even noticed, they were all too busy tweeting, friending, shopping commenting and blogging- there was no one left to speak out for me.

The Citifield Asifa and the Cosmic Imbalance

Those of us who have enjoyed the blessing of a Yeshiva education have often heard snippets of Jewish Lore that profess the idea of a Cosmic Balance between good and evil being maintained in order to "even the playing field" of human free will / choice.  I'm sorry to say that I don't have any text based sources so some of  the ideas / divrei Torah that follow might in fact be Yeshivisha-Urban legend.  Still,  while they may not be precise or accurate Yeshiva alumni will no doubt find them familiar.

1. That the period of prophecy ended when the אנשי כנסת הגדולה = "men of the Great Assembly" successfully prayed for the elimination of the יצרא דעבודה זרה =inclination towards idolatry.  It was determined On-High that a world in which true prophets still roamed but that lacked a nearly carnal yen for offering animal sacrifices and libations to bronze figurines would be one in which the deck was stacked too much in favor of good.  Suspending true prophecy was the way to level the playing field for evil.
READ MORE AFTER THE JUMP

New Teeth for an Old Saw

Most who read me here or commenting elsewhere would opine that as Kharedi Fundies go I am not much of a Kanoi. AAMOF  I am so moderate on many issues that it is not even clear whether or not I am a true kharedi at all. But as  Torah-learning Jew I've found a healthy place in my makeup for extremism.


The old saw goes I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue!  


This oft repeated aphorism comes from1964 Republican Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwaters acceptance speech. Based on something we learned in this past Shabbos' Perek.רבי לויטס איש יבנה אומר, מאד מאד הוי שפל רוח, שתקות אנוש רמה I'd like to fit it with new teeth.  The Meforshim, especially the Rambam, point out that anivus/ shiflus is the exception to the rule of the "Golden Mean" of midos. I.e. whereas in all other midos the ideal is to tread the middle ground between the two extremes e.g. neither fiscal irresponsibility nor stinginess are good midos.  They are extreme attitudes towards ones own property / money.  One should strive for the healthy middle ground of fiscally- responsible generosity and sharing. However, this is not the case when one contemplates the polar opposite midos of שפלות = lowliness and גאוה = haughtiness/ hubris. When considering where to stand one should adopt the extreme midah of shiflus.


But it is not enough to be an Onov defined as halfway between gaava and shiflus , One must be a "very very" shfal ruakh.  And so Rebee Levitahs Ish Yavneh would remind you that extremism in the pursuit of  humility  is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of self-negation is no virtue!  

Fisking Some of the Things Every Jew Should Know?

Erev Shabbos DovBear published a Link to a Post he had published six years to the Day earlier.

I copied and pasted Some of the Things Every Jew Should Know below.  My responses are in blue.

1 - It is kosher to disbelieve in magic
define magic
2 - It is kosher to take midrashim figurativly
some...not all
3 - It is kosher to believe in the old universe.
maybe
4 - Mixed seating at weddings is mutar.
says who?
5- It's not ok to steal from the government or from a Gentile.
define OK
6 - One realiable authority on a food product is more then enough.
define reliable
7 - Black Hats are not required, even in Brooklyn
they may be for davening.  they definitely are for group identification / solidarity
8 - Reciting Parshas Hamon isn't an ATM.
it isn't even a credit line
9 - Gebruchts is not a chumrah.
so you are saying it's baseline Halakha?
10 - Living in EY is a mitzva.
B'zman hazeh??? Makhlokes 
AFTER THE JUMP

Hamavdil bein Anti-Semite L'Jew

Sometimes Havdala springs forth from the unlikeliest of sources. Who would've thunk that the Havdala-addled Dr. Freud could have written this:

A particularly favorable case for tendency-wit results if the intended criticism of the inner resistance is directed against one’s own person, or, more carefully expressed, against a person in whom one takes interest, that is, a composite personality such as one’s own people. This determination of self-criticism may make clear why it is that a number of the most excellent jokes of which we have shown here many specimens should have sprung into existence from the soil of Jewish national life. They are stories which were invented by Jews themselves and which are directed against Jewish peculiarities. The Jewish jokes made up by non-Jews are nearly all brutal buffooneries in which the wit is spared by the fact that the Jew appears as a comic figure to a stranger. The Jewish jokes which originate with Jews admit this, but they know their real shortcomings as well as their merits, and the interest of the person himself in the thing to be criticised produces the subjective determination of the wit-work which would otherwise be difficult bring about. Incidentally I do not know whether one often finds a people that makes merry so unreservedly over its own shortcomings.

Who new that a infamous מחלל שבת could be motzee us with this Havdala?!?

In any event it points to the tried and true rule that a pinteleh yid is never fully extinguished.  In it's dying embers it is yet deathless. In some it finds expression in a compassion and an acute Weltschmerz. In others in  a sensitivity to Qedusha and, in Dr. Freuds case, in a sensitivity to Havdala.

Why am I posting this now?   המבין יבין
Hat Tip: A Treasury of Jewish Folklore page 265 
בא המבדיל והעמידן על אחת 
"Those who cannot tolerate Havdala cannot appreciate Qedusha"

Stuff One No-Account Blogger Says About Oorah.

Part One of my anti-Oorah Screed here

separated at birth?

Well as reported in my previous post they asked for it (what I think / say about Oorah) so here it is in no particular order.

O Oorah...How do I hate thee...let me count the ways:

1. Employing cult-like guilt trips you consistently underpay your tutors, mentors and counselors.  That's when you pay them at all and don't guilt-trip them into volunteering outright.  Assuming for a moment that dee vuss zitzen bahm shissel are NOT getting very rich very fast (a very naive assumption indeed) but are "pouring everything back into the business" you really need to re-prioritize and spend less on mass mailings and marketing and more on compensating those doing the recruitment and teaching grunt-work in the trenches.

AFTER THE JUMP

עורה-עורה-עורה שפלותי

Gaining traction in Frum society over the last decade, some causes/ maledictions / marketing campaigns have become so ubiquitous and in-your-face that there is just no avoiding them nor feigning ignorance about them. Think; emails for the Erev Rosh Chodesh Sivan Tefilas HaShela'h, posters and websites for pilgrimages to Uman and Lizhensk, Kupat HaIr inserts into your favorite publication,  bonfires and Chai Rotel Mashkeh campaigns for Lag B'Omer,  Shaimos trucks on every corner from Purim until erev Pesach and/ or that old evergreen: slanted not, kholila, curved Menorahs surmounting Chabadsker piloted automobiles for weeks before, during and after Chanukah.

But the granddaddy of them all, the undisputed champion of unceasing, ululating, unctuous, obnoxious, ostentatious ubiquity is... Oorah. What with their $5-a-Prize Chinese Auction (is there any one left of the Jewish faith in the USA or Israel who has NOT received either a snail-mailing or emailing or both from them???) and it's attendant Radio-thon, Fiveish mascot and "Shmorg" kosher entertainment DVDs, troops of gaudily masqued Yeshiva Bochrim collecting for them on Purim in any community with a population of more than 50 Jews, their Kars-for-Kids radio ads in all 50 states and their Cucumber and Kirby Card telecommunications empire, Oorah, like queers, are everywhere and we better get used to it.

But I can't help it.  I CAN'T get used to it. Almost without fail everything I see and hear from Oorah makes my blood boil.  There latest assault on my sense and sensibilities is a video clip called "Stuff people Say about Oorah".

Blogger Finds New Ways to Depress Me

Not being a technophile (boy is that ever an understatement) I can't say that Bloggers new look warmed the cockles of my heart.  OTC, boomers like me get used to a format, get comfortable with it and then resist and are intimidated any and all changes.  So when I saw the new format I released a pneumatic krekhtz, rolled my eyes, then rolled up my sleeves and told myself:  "You can do this Matzah-Bray of Fundie. It's really not so difficult."  And so I have.  I've posted two times now (this will be the third) since the changeover to the new look.

What has been more difficult than posting has been coping with a new feature on the new look that has taken the tatters of my self-esteem and run them through the office shredder.  I speak of a little number called "view count"  with the graph /envelope icon to its right, which records how many people have viewed a particular post.

For Illustrative Purposes Only.  Halevai I Should get These View Counts!

As if my stat counter numbers of page loads and returning visitors were not pathetic enough I now have to contend with even more anemic numbers letting me know that posts that I have slaved on for hours have, on average,  been viewed by less than a minyan .  What is even more sobering is that these "views" are counted even if they lasted only a few seconds. Bottom line is this whole Red-Tent Blog is arguably the most pathetic exercise in self-flagellation in the history of the J-Blogosphere.  If not for the rare traffic that comes my way when Rafi decides to link a post this would be an island inhabited by around  4 people.

Come to think of it it's not the blog that is pathetic...it's the blogger.

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I am a great בעל זכרון

My faculties for recollection manifest true genius.

I can't remember large portions of the siddur and certain parts of bentching despite being an FFB.
I don't believe that there is a single mishna or omud gemora that I can recite Baa'l peh verbatim.
I can't recall which Mesikhta I learned during which year of my Yeshiva and Kollel education.
I have certain cousins who most definitely are my relatives but I can't remember just how we are related.
When I misplace things they usually stay misplaced until the following years Pesach cleaning.
I may have early onset Alzheimers.  I have not been diagnosed but this much is clear; I can remember plenty of peoples faces whose names utterly elude me.
I would never remember my own simchas and vacations if not for the photos and/ or videos of them.

So where do I get off saying that I am a great Ba'al Zikoron???  Simple! Slights, put-downs and insults stay fresh in my mind for decades after they occurred. All you need to do is be פוגע in my kovod in the slightest and I will remember it vividly and in meticulous detail until I die or contact Alzheimer's, whichever is first.  Not only do I remember the actual hurtful word, behavior facial expression or תנועה but like scabs growing on old wounds, I encrust these with embellishments that metastasize into full-blown mythologies of avla and עלבון. So much so that I give the impression of memory in sharper detail than I really possess.

What a photographic memory have I.