Jewish date: 10 Ṭeveth 5772 (Parashath Wayyeḥi).
Today’s holidays: The Fast of Ṭeveth (Judaism), Feast Day of John Neumann (Roman Catholicism), Eve of Epiphany (Greek Orthodox Christianity), Feast Day of St. Ludwig II (Church of the SubGenius), Mungday (Discordianism).
Greetings.
I finished Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged, and I have started her The Virtue of Selfishness, which very early on makes it crystal clear that Atlas Shrugged is not mere fiction but an expression of her philosophy. Please bear with me while I get through The Virtue of Selfishness. The resulting review will probably almost exclusively show how both books are a textbook example of the trope “Artistic License - Religion”, also known as “You Fail Religious Studies Forever” and a subtrope of “Did Not Do the Research”. (And it should go without saying that artistic license is not acceptable at any time one is supposed to be propounding the truth.)
In the meantime, today is the Fast of Ṭeveth. In the interests of popular religious education, I present you with a number of relevant articles: “Three Days in Tevet: The 10th: Breaching the Walls of Jerusalem”, “The Tenth of Tevet”, and “The Fast of the Tenth of Tevet on OU.ORG”.
Peace, and have an easy fast.
’Aharon/Aaron
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Sunday, December 25, 2011
Ḥanukkah, “Jesus Responds to Rick Perry's "Strong" Ad”, and “Uh Oh! The Dirty Truth About Santa's Carbon Footprint”
Jewish date: 29 Kislew 5772 (Parashath Wayyiggash).
Today’s holidays: Ḥanukkah (Judaism), Christmas (Christianity), Feast of Robert “Bob” Leroy Ripley/Festival of Fish-Fighting, Fisting and Felching (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of the Greater Mysteries (Thelema).
Greetings.
I have gotten very bad about posting regularly. I still have not finished reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, which at 1,080 pages, much of it lengthy monologues and lectures, takes quite a while to get through, though I am getting close to the end. Due to the philosophical nature of the work—reportedly it is not a mere work of fiction, but something of a lengthy morality play—I may go on to read her (much shorter) The Virtue of Selfishness as well to get a more solid idea of what her philosophy really is before writing a review. So please bear with me on this. Like it or not, a number of Republican politicians—who seem intent on having a big effect on the United States and by extension the rest of the planet—are reportedly Ayn Rand fans, and as Rand’s philosophy falls into the category of “religious fallacies and misinformation”, this is something I have to tackle. (I am thinking about going back and reading about LaVeyan Satanism, which reportedly is derived from Ayn Rand’s moral code, afterwards. This should take less time to produce a review, as I have an unpublished review of some of the books already written and Anton Szandor LaVey is a much more fun writer once one realizes how much he is writing really is projecting an image.)
In the meantime, you are getting miscellany.
2) “Jesus Responds to Rick Perry's "Strong" Ad”, submitted by Barry.
This is totally fair and gets what Jesus claims in the Gospels right.
3) And something more or less in the way of religious humor, but with a serious point, for our Christian friends: “Uh Oh! The Dirty Truth About Santa's Carbon Footprint”.
Peace, happy Ḥannukah, merry Christmas, and happy whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year.
’Aharon/Aaron
Today’s holidays: Ḥanukkah (Judaism), Christmas (Christianity), Feast of Robert “Bob” Leroy Ripley/Festival of Fish-Fighting, Fisting and Felching (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of the Greater Mysteries (Thelema).
Greetings.
I have gotten very bad about posting regularly. I still have not finished reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, which at 1,080 pages, much of it lengthy monologues and lectures, takes quite a while to get through, though I am getting close to the end. Due to the philosophical nature of the work—reportedly it is not a mere work of fiction, but something of a lengthy morality play—I may go on to read her (much shorter) The Virtue of Selfishness as well to get a more solid idea of what her philosophy really is before writing a review. So please bear with me on this. Like it or not, a number of Republican politicians—who seem intent on having a big effect on the United States and by extension the rest of the planet—are reportedly Ayn Rand fans, and as Rand’s philosophy falls into the category of “religious fallacies and misinformation”, this is something I have to tackle. (I am thinking about going back and reading about LaVeyan Satanism, which reportedly is derived from Ayn Rand’s moral code, afterwards. This should take less time to produce a review, as I have an unpublished review of some of the books already written and Anton Szandor LaVey is a much more fun writer once one realizes how much he is writing really is projecting an image.)
In the meantime, you are getting miscellany.
1) This is Ḥanukkah, and so I present a number of relevant articles: “The Triumph of Chanukah”, “Hanukka, extremism and religious freedom”, Hanukkah and How War Should Be Celebrated”, “Chanukah: The Fight for What’s Right!”, and for a bit of irony, “Hanukkia lit in spot Hitler decreed Final Solution”.
2) “Jesus Responds to Rick Perry's "Strong" Ad”, submitted by Barry.
This is totally fair and gets what Jesus claims in the Gospels right.
3) And something more or less in the way of religious humor, but with a serious point, for our Christian friends: “Uh Oh! The Dirty Truth About Santa's Carbon Footprint”.
Peace, happy Ḥannukah, merry Christmas, and happy whatever holiday you celebrate this time of year.
’Aharon/Aaron
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
An open letter of complaint to the Israeli Police
Jewish date: 19 Kislew 5772 (evening) (Parashath Wayyeshev).
Today’s holidays: New Year for Ḥasidhuth (Judaism), Feast Day of John of the Cross (Roman Catholicism), Whiny Victimization/Co-Dependency Day (Church of the SubGenius).
NOTE: This letter has not been sent to the police, because they do not seem to have any publicly listed E-mail address, and their complaint-submission software will not run on a Macintosh. It is being sent, however, to the Prime Minister’s office, the Ministry of Public Security, several political parties, and the Jerusalem Post, as well as being posted on my blog, Divine Misconceptions (http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/).
I write this letter with great sadness, but it is necessary to do so.
On Tuesday, 6 December 2011, I tried to visit the Temple Mount. Most people were waived through with little scrutiny. I was not. Not only did the police object to me taking Jewish religious items up on the Temple Mount, which I expected, but they opposed to me taking a pad of paper with me to take notes on. They did not even want me taking notes at the entrance building. They wanted to know why I was visiting the Temple Mount. I had to be stubborn to avoid being turned away immediately, and I was forced to wait for half an hour while they considered whether to admit me. They ultimately refused, and they best I managed was to guilt-trip a handful of change out of them for wasting the money I spent on bus fare.
Israel has obvious security concerns. Had the police given me reason to believe that anything I was bringing with me was dangerous or that my presence was somehow dangerous, I could accept their refusing me admission. However, they refused to give me any reason other than “Because”. To make things worse, one of the officers suggested I was crazy and that the Western Wall might be a more relevant site to me. It is very difficult not to interpret this as discrimination against me for being an observant Jew.
Sadly this is not an isolated case. The second time I visited the Temple Mount, I had to go through the same security procedure. I was told a list of things I could and could not do on the Temple Mount, and I was followed the entire time I was up there by a police officer and a Waqf official. Contrast this with the first time I visited the Temple Mount, when I disguised myself as a tourist; the police admitted me without scrutiny and permitted to go practically anywhere and do anything without interference or supervision. Discrimination similar to what I have experienced has been reported by other observant Jews, too.
This may be more than just anti-Semitism or bowing to Islamic supremacism. I am also aware of a recent incident in Me’ah She‘arim in which the Seriqriqim, a group of Ḥaredhi thugs, terrorized the owner of a bookstore into acceding to their demands. In both cases, the police failed to stop people who were willing to use violence to get what they wanted rather than enforce tolerance. Giving the violent what they say they want may stop the violence in the short run, but it also teaches that violence works, thus making it more likely that they will use violence again. The policy of appeasement failed long ago; Muslims have rioted repeatedly on the Temple Mount ever since Mosheh Dayyan decided to place it in the hands of the Waqf. Even if appeasement did work, it is inherently unjust to the victims of appeasement and thus has no place in a just society. In most of Yerushalayim, the police do their jobs and anyone can go anywhere in safety. Surely they can do the same on the Temple Mount (and in Me’ah She‘arim) as well.
Dr. Aaron Solomon Adelman
Further reading:
Description of my first trip to the Temple Mount: http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/05/temple-mount-infiltration-and-vandalism.html
Description of my second trip to the Temple Mount: http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/08/visit-to-temple-mount-2-waqf-still.html
Description of a failed trip to the Temple Mount: http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/11/yishaq-rabbin-memorial-day-and-would-be.html
Discrimination against Jews visiting the Temple Mount: http://www.templeinstitute.org/police_business.htm , http://www.templeinstitute.org/guide_to_ascending_the_mount.htm
The Seriqriqim incident: http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=247516&R=R2
Today’s holidays: New Year for Ḥasidhuth (Judaism), Feast Day of John of the Cross (Roman Catholicism), Whiny Victimization/Co-Dependency Day (Church of the SubGenius).
NOTE: This letter has not been sent to the police, because they do not seem to have any publicly listed E-mail address, and their complaint-submission software will not run on a Macintosh. It is being sent, however, to the Prime Minister’s office, the Ministry of Public Security, several political parties, and the Jerusalem Post, as well as being posted on my blog, Divine Misconceptions (http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/).
I write this letter with great sadness, but it is necessary to do so.
On Tuesday, 6 December 2011, I tried to visit the Temple Mount. Most people were waived through with little scrutiny. I was not. Not only did the police object to me taking Jewish religious items up on the Temple Mount, which I expected, but they opposed to me taking a pad of paper with me to take notes on. They did not even want me taking notes at the entrance building. They wanted to know why I was visiting the Temple Mount. I had to be stubborn to avoid being turned away immediately, and I was forced to wait for half an hour while they considered whether to admit me. They ultimately refused, and they best I managed was to guilt-trip a handful of change out of them for wasting the money I spent on bus fare.
Israel has obvious security concerns. Had the police given me reason to believe that anything I was bringing with me was dangerous or that my presence was somehow dangerous, I could accept their refusing me admission. However, they refused to give me any reason other than “Because”. To make things worse, one of the officers suggested I was crazy and that the Western Wall might be a more relevant site to me. It is very difficult not to interpret this as discrimination against me for being an observant Jew.
Sadly this is not an isolated case. The second time I visited the Temple Mount, I had to go through the same security procedure. I was told a list of things I could and could not do on the Temple Mount, and I was followed the entire time I was up there by a police officer and a Waqf official. Contrast this with the first time I visited the Temple Mount, when I disguised myself as a tourist; the police admitted me without scrutiny and permitted to go practically anywhere and do anything without interference or supervision. Discrimination similar to what I have experienced has been reported by other observant Jews, too.
This may be more than just anti-Semitism or bowing to Islamic supremacism. I am also aware of a recent incident in Me’ah She‘arim in which the Seriqriqim, a group of Ḥaredhi thugs, terrorized the owner of a bookstore into acceding to their demands. In both cases, the police failed to stop people who were willing to use violence to get what they wanted rather than enforce tolerance. Giving the violent what they say they want may stop the violence in the short run, but it also teaches that violence works, thus making it more likely that they will use violence again. The policy of appeasement failed long ago; Muslims have rioted repeatedly on the Temple Mount ever since Mosheh Dayyan decided to place it in the hands of the Waqf. Even if appeasement did work, it is inherently unjust to the victims of appeasement and thus has no place in a just society. In most of Yerushalayim, the police do their jobs and anyone can go anywhere in safety. Surely they can do the same on the Temple Mount (and in Me’ah She‘arim) as well.
Dr. Aaron Solomon Adelman
Further reading:
Description of my first trip to the Temple Mount: http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/05/temple-mount-infiltration-and-vandalism.html
Description of my second trip to the Temple Mount: http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/08/visit-to-temple-mount-2-waqf-still.html
Description of a failed trip to the Temple Mount: http://divinemisconceptions.blogspot.com/2011/11/yishaq-rabbin-memorial-day-and-would-be.html
Discrimination against Jews visiting the Temple Mount: http://www.templeinstitute.org/police_business.htm , http://www.templeinstitute.org/guide_to_ascending_the_mount.htm
The Seriqriqim incident: http://www.jpost.com/NationalNews/Article.aspx?id=247516&R=R2
Friday, December 2, 2011
The heresy of Paul in Acts and Romans 1-4
Jewish date: 6 Kislew 5772 (Parashath Wayyeṣe’).
Today’s holidays: Nativity Fast (Christianity), Friday of the First Week of Advent (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Rodan (Church of the SubGenius).
Greetings.
I am still reading the New Testament in Koinē Greek, and I am not enjoying it one bit.
The Acts of the Apostles is nothing less than propaganda for Paul. Once Paul has his famous vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, he is depicted as perfect and his Jewish opponents as nothing less than hypocritical scum. Paul engages in preaching and faith-healing like Jesus, only with less personality. His opponents are depicted as trying to kill him, legally or extralegally on ill-defined charges of heresy. If there is any historical basis for this, the writer certainly glossed over what anyone found wrong with Paul and probably fabricated any attempts on his life. Whatever was wrong with Paul, heresy is not sufficient reason for assassination.
Why Jews would hate Paul is made extremely clear in The Epistle to the Romans, in which he explains his belief system, which is nothing less than heresy and worthy of excommunication. Here are the notes I have written on the first four chapters, which are getting increasingly detailed:
Romans 1—Paul introduces his thesis that faith is all that really matters and cites Habakuk 2:4 to rationalize it, as if any of the prophets ever preached faith without works. Paul claims that humanity is morally corrupt.
Romans 2—Paul cites Psalms 62:13 and Proverbs 24:12, confirming that YHWH treats humans according to their actions, illogically trying to introduce Jesus into the process. Paul then accuses Jews of hypocrisy, creating a nonexistent quote by botching Isaiah 52:5 and Ezekiel 36:22—ignoring that the complaints brought in those days may no longer be relevant to those living in later times—and devalues physical circumcision in favor of “circumcision of the spirit”. This is blatantly illogical. Since YHWH in the Hebrew Bible puts heavy emphasis on obedience to the Torah, the “circumcision of the heart” mentioned in the Hebrew Bible is dedicating oneself to doing what YHWH commanded, including physical circumcision.
Romans 3—Paul assumes everyone is sinful and should be doomed. That the Hebrew Bible preaches repentance and the willingness of YHWH to forgive the repentant is utterly ignored. Psalms 51:6 is torn from context as if it were a pronouncement of doom rather than part of a prayer. Paul also cites in quick succession, as if they were a continuous passage, a botched version of Ecclesiastes 7:20, a botched version of Psalms 14:1-3/Psalms 53:1-3, Psalms 5:10, Psalms 140:3, a botched version of Psalms 10:7, a botched version of Isaiah 59:7-8, and Psalms 36:2. None of these passages makes any claim of universal unrighteousness, and many refer directly to the wicked. (Do note that Psalms is poetry; it is great source material on feelings and prayers, but it is not really useful for statements of fact, as Paul is trying to use it. Not to mention botching quotes and getting them out of context makes for invalid arguments.) On this flimsy basis, Paul dishonestly and illogically claims that one cannot be righteous by keeping the Torah and proclaims that justification, for both Jews and non-Jews, is only through faith.
Romans 4—Paul tries to bolster his argument that salvation is only through faith by trying to work it into the case of ’Avraham. Paul hinges this on Genesis 15:6, which he cannot even quote correctly, which says (in the original Hebrew), “And he [’Avram] believed in YHWH, and he thought it for him [as] righteousness.” The word I have translated as “righteousness”, ṣedhaqhah, also can mean “justice”, and it is commonly used to denote something akin to charity, only with connotations that helping the needy is done not out of compassion, but because it is the right thing to do. ’Avraham had had multiple prophetic encounters with YHWH. Furthermore, YHWH had kept him alive on a journey across the Middle East, giving him some reason to believe that he was not hallucinating. To believe in YHWH was the sensible thing for ’Avraham to do; it is a matter of intellectual honesty, not special piety. The Hebrew is also ambiguous as to who considered ’Avraham’s belief righteousness, ’Avraham or YHWH. Nowhere does YHWH claim that ’Avraham is righteous merely due to belief. In contradiction to Paul’s thesis, ’Avraham doubts that he will have children and later on that he will have an heir through Sarah, yet YHWH never holds his doubts against him. Paul tries to bolster his faulty claim with Psalms 32:1-2, which deals with YHWH’s forgiveness, not belief, before returning to ’Avraham and spouting antinomianism, wrongly implying that all nations are descended from ’Avraham by misinterpreting Genesis 17:4 and Genesis 15:5, ignoring that ’Avraham was not so unwavering in his faith. Paul still does nothing to explain the blatantly obvious problem that it makes no sense whatsoever for YHWH to give the Torah and demand adherence to it over and over again—a matter of action—if what He really is interested in is faith.
Peace and Shabbath shalom.
’Aharon/Aaron
Today’s holidays: Nativity Fast (Christianity), Friday of the First Week of Advent (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Rodan (Church of the SubGenius).
Greetings.
I am still reading the New Testament in Koinē Greek, and I am not enjoying it one bit.
The Acts of the Apostles is nothing less than propaganda for Paul. Once Paul has his famous vision of Jesus on the road to Damascus, he is depicted as perfect and his Jewish opponents as nothing less than hypocritical scum. Paul engages in preaching and faith-healing like Jesus, only with less personality. His opponents are depicted as trying to kill him, legally or extralegally on ill-defined charges of heresy. If there is any historical basis for this, the writer certainly glossed over what anyone found wrong with Paul and probably fabricated any attempts on his life. Whatever was wrong with Paul, heresy is not sufficient reason for assassination.
Why Jews would hate Paul is made extremely clear in The Epistle to the Romans, in which he explains his belief system, which is nothing less than heresy and worthy of excommunication. Here are the notes I have written on the first four chapters, which are getting increasingly detailed:
Romans 1—Paul introduces his thesis that faith is all that really matters and cites Habakuk 2:4 to rationalize it, as if any of the prophets ever preached faith without works. Paul claims that humanity is morally corrupt.
Romans 2—Paul cites Psalms 62:13 and Proverbs 24:12, confirming that YHWH treats humans according to their actions, illogically trying to introduce Jesus into the process. Paul then accuses Jews of hypocrisy, creating a nonexistent quote by botching Isaiah 52:5 and Ezekiel 36:22—ignoring that the complaints brought in those days may no longer be relevant to those living in later times—and devalues physical circumcision in favor of “circumcision of the spirit”. This is blatantly illogical. Since YHWH in the Hebrew Bible puts heavy emphasis on obedience to the Torah, the “circumcision of the heart” mentioned in the Hebrew Bible is dedicating oneself to doing what YHWH commanded, including physical circumcision.
Romans 3—Paul assumes everyone is sinful and should be doomed. That the Hebrew Bible preaches repentance and the willingness of YHWH to forgive the repentant is utterly ignored. Psalms 51:6 is torn from context as if it were a pronouncement of doom rather than part of a prayer. Paul also cites in quick succession, as if they were a continuous passage, a botched version of Ecclesiastes 7:20, a botched version of Psalms 14:1-3/Psalms 53:1-3, Psalms 5:10, Psalms 140:3, a botched version of Psalms 10:7, a botched version of Isaiah 59:7-8, and Psalms 36:2. None of these passages makes any claim of universal unrighteousness, and many refer directly to the wicked. (Do note that Psalms is poetry; it is great source material on feelings and prayers, but it is not really useful for statements of fact, as Paul is trying to use it. Not to mention botching quotes and getting them out of context makes for invalid arguments.) On this flimsy basis, Paul dishonestly and illogically claims that one cannot be righteous by keeping the Torah and proclaims that justification, for both Jews and non-Jews, is only through faith.
Romans 4—Paul tries to bolster his argument that salvation is only through faith by trying to work it into the case of ’Avraham. Paul hinges this on Genesis 15:6, which he cannot even quote correctly, which says (in the original Hebrew), “And he [’Avram] believed in YHWH, and he thought it for him [as] righteousness.” The word I have translated as “righteousness”, ṣedhaqhah, also can mean “justice”, and it is commonly used to denote something akin to charity, only with connotations that helping the needy is done not out of compassion, but because it is the right thing to do. ’Avraham had had multiple prophetic encounters with YHWH. Furthermore, YHWH had kept him alive on a journey across the Middle East, giving him some reason to believe that he was not hallucinating. To believe in YHWH was the sensible thing for ’Avraham to do; it is a matter of intellectual honesty, not special piety. The Hebrew is also ambiguous as to who considered ’Avraham’s belief righteousness, ’Avraham or YHWH. Nowhere does YHWH claim that ’Avraham is righteous merely due to belief. In contradiction to Paul’s thesis, ’Avraham doubts that he will have children and later on that he will have an heir through Sarah, yet YHWH never holds his doubts against him. Paul tries to bolster his faulty claim with Psalms 32:1-2, which deals with YHWH’s forgiveness, not belief, before returning to ’Avraham and spouting antinomianism, wrongly implying that all nations are descended from ’Avraham by misinterpreting Genesis 17:4 and Genesis 15:5, ignoring that ’Avraham was not so unwavering in his faith. Paul still does nothing to explain the blatantly obvious problem that it makes no sense whatsoever for YHWH to give the Torah and demand adherence to it over and over again—a matter of action—if what He really is interested in is faith.
To sum up my reading of Romans so far: Paul is grossly intellectually dishonest and engages in rhetorical fraud to try to prove his points. Follow him and anyone like him at your own peril.
Peace and Shabbath shalom.
’Aharon/Aaron
Sunday, November 13, 2011
Yiṣḥaq Rabbin Memorial Day and a would-be visit to the Temple Mount
Jewish date: 16 Marḥeshwan 5772 (Parashath Ḥayye Sarah).
Today’s holidays: Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Otis Campbell (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Osiris (Thelema).
Greetings.
I know I am doing a bad job about blogging lately. I am absorbed in reading Atlas Shrugged, I am feeling guilty about not writing about some of the stuff I have been reading in the New Testament, and I have started to watch Mahabharat, a dramatization of the great Indian epic Mahabharata. Not to mention I am getting distracted by the need for me to do job-hunting.
Last Wednesday I planned to go to the Temple Mount again. I had actually planned to go during Sukkoth, but I got sick and had to postpone the trip. I decided to go on Yiṣḥaq Rabbin Memorial Day, the anniversary of his assassination. Why? Because it is a quasi-holiday which has no positive significance for observant Jews and no direct connection with the Temple Mount; to be blunt, it strikes me as nothing less than an abomination due to the all-too predictable disaster of Oslo. This video should give a good idea what I am talking about. Given this deliberately mismatched symbolism, I presumed it would be a great opportunity to catch the Waqf and police off-guard and engage in my creative interpretation of civil disobedience more easily. (I intended to try to get the police officer and Waqf official who would follow me around over piles of rubble.)
There was a snag in my plans. When I got there, I found these signs posted:
These signs say that from November 6 to 9 the Temple Mount would be closed to visitors because of the Muslim holiday, namely ‘Īd al-’Aḍḥá. That’s right: someone in the government or the police thought a Muslim holiday was a valid reason to close the Temple Mount to non-Muslims, as if non-Muslims particularly cared if it was a Muslim holiday or not or Muslim intolerance was any more excusable on a Muslim holiday.
I also went to the Chain Gate, which Jews are not supposed to use to visit the Temple Mount.
I did not expect to be admitted—and I was not—but I decided to try anyway as part of my campaign to let the police and government know that the Temple Mount does matter to observant Jews. The guards had nothing useful to tell me about the closure: “It’s closed” and “It’s a Muslim holiday”. They could not give me any cogent reason whatsoever that the Temple Mount should be closed to non-Muslims on a Muslim holiday. All I can infer is that the police would rather give in to Muslim delusions of grandeur rather that do their job and enforce tolerance. That is pathetic.
Oh, for the record, whoever is responsible now owes me 32.50 sheqels for bus fare, 5 sheqels for use of a miqweh (yes, they charge), and 7,777 US dollars in wasted time and suffering.
Now I have to go reschedule my trip again, which is not going to be this week due to rain. And get around to writing about Acts and Romans. And a bunch of other stuff…
Peace.
’Aharon/Aaron
Today’s holidays: Thirty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Otis Campbell (Church of the SubGenius), Feast of Osiris (Thelema).
Greetings.
I know I am doing a bad job about blogging lately. I am absorbed in reading Atlas Shrugged, I am feeling guilty about not writing about some of the stuff I have been reading in the New Testament, and I have started to watch Mahabharat, a dramatization of the great Indian epic Mahabharata. Not to mention I am getting distracted by the need for me to do job-hunting.
Last Wednesday I planned to go to the Temple Mount again. I had actually planned to go during Sukkoth, but I got sick and had to postpone the trip. I decided to go on Yiṣḥaq Rabbin Memorial Day, the anniversary of his assassination. Why? Because it is a quasi-holiday which has no positive significance for observant Jews and no direct connection with the Temple Mount; to be blunt, it strikes me as nothing less than an abomination due to the all-too predictable disaster of Oslo. This video should give a good idea what I am talking about. Given this deliberately mismatched symbolism, I presumed it would be a great opportunity to catch the Waqf and police off-guard and engage in my creative interpretation of civil disobedience more easily. (I intended to try to get the police officer and Waqf official who would follow me around over piles of rubble.)
There was a snag in my plans. When I got there, I found these signs posted:
These signs say that from November 6 to 9 the Temple Mount would be closed to visitors because of the Muslim holiday, namely ‘Īd al-’Aḍḥá. That’s right: someone in the government or the police thought a Muslim holiday was a valid reason to close the Temple Mount to non-Muslims, as if non-Muslims particularly cared if it was a Muslim holiday or not or Muslim intolerance was any more excusable on a Muslim holiday.
I also went to the Chain Gate, which Jews are not supposed to use to visit the Temple Mount.
I did not expect to be admitted—and I was not—but I decided to try anyway as part of my campaign to let the police and government know that the Temple Mount does matter to observant Jews. The guards had nothing useful to tell me about the closure: “It’s closed” and “It’s a Muslim holiday”. They could not give me any cogent reason whatsoever that the Temple Mount should be closed to non-Muslims on a Muslim holiday. All I can infer is that the police would rather give in to Muslim delusions of grandeur rather that do their job and enforce tolerance. That is pathetic.
Oh, for the record, whoever is responsible now owes me 32.50 sheqels for bus fare, 5 sheqels for use of a miqweh (yes, they charge), and 7,777 US dollars in wasted time and suffering.
Now I have to go reschedule my trip again, which is not going to be this week due to rain. And get around to writing about Acts and Romans. And a bunch of other stuff…
Peace.
’Aharon/Aaron
Sunday, October 23, 2011
Harold Camping, Shemini ‘Aṣereth, and heretics who do do not know enough to copy a text straight
Jewish date: 26 Tishri 5772 (evening) (Parashath Noaḥ).
Today’s holidays: Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Bobby London (Church of the SubGenius).
Greetings.
This is going to be a variety of things.
1) You may remember that Protestant minister Harold Camping predicted that the world as we know it would end on May 21, 2011 (noted in “Mark your calendars for the Rapture, but don’t hold your breath”, “The Rapture and soft maṣṣah”, and “The Rapture and Pesaḥ preparation”), which of course failed to happen. Well, Camping came up with a new prediction after that that the world as we know it would end on October 21, 2011. Unless this blog post is a figment of your imagination, this did not happen. Details can be found at “Oct. 21 'Doomsday' So Far Pretty Quiet” and “Radio prophet gone from airwaves on new Judgment Day eve”. I hope he will figure out his system does not have good predictive power and quit, but I am not that optimistic.
2) Shemini ‘Aṣereth/Simḥath Torah: I spent a lot of Sukkoth sick and under self-imposed quarantine in my apartment. This naturally limited what I could see people do. I did get out before Shemini ‘Aṣereth/Simḥath Torah (I went to see a doctor and found I was not infectious), so I can report what happened then. Simḥath Torah is distinguished by the haqqafoth ritual, in which the Torah scrolls are carried around the reading table seven times (nominally, practically much more than this) with singing and dancing to celebrate the end of the annual reading cycle and the start of the new one. Unhappily for me, the disease I have is a respiratory infection, which made singing for me unrealistic. Good thing that there were a lot of other people there to take care of that. Dancing was somewhat more limited than what I am used to. The synagogue I currently attend for Shabbath and holidays meets in trailers, as their permanent location is currently under construction; this results in crowding even under ordinary conditions. On Simḥath Torah, this resulted in slower dancing and fewer fancy moves than there might have otherwise been in order to avoid collisions. Haqqafofth also have a tendency to go on for extended periods of time, which prompted my synagogue to do some creative scheduling. At night, dinner was served at the synagogue right after services, thus avoiding any delay from people having to go home and get everything ready. In the morning, qiddush was held at the synagogue between the Torah reading and yizkor (the memorial prayer for the dead), avoiding the need for anyone to wait until a few hours into the afternoon to eat. There is also the practice of calling up all men to read from the Torah on Simḥath Torah; at first I thought they were skipping this practice entirely, but they placed it at the very end of the services. This is the first time I have ever heard of such a practice. I heard mention of secondary haqqafoth being done elsewhere; even though I had not heard of that practice, due to my condition, I declined to investigate it. Maybe next year.
I have put my willow and myrtle branches into a vase with water in the hopes of growing them. The willow seem to have grown the beginnings of roots. I also hope to grow trees from the seeds in my citron, but I plan to wait for it to fully ripen first. I have no hope for growing anything from the palm frond.
This wraps it up for the Tishri holidays. The next holiday, other than the monthly Ro’sh Ḥodhesh (new moon) is the very recent Yiṣḥaq Rabbin Memorial Day, which I am eager to find out if anyone really pays any attention to and why. (Really. The man committed treason by enabling the enemies of Israel and ignoring that said enemies had no real interest in making peace. That, if anything is a reason not to dedicate a holiday to him, even if he did get assassinated.)
3) Every year, observant Jews are expected to read through the entire Torah three times, twice in the original Hebrew and once in a language they understand, usually Aramaic. They also commonly read commentaries on the Torah as well; this year I have chosen to read the classic Hertz’s Ḥummash (Hertz, J. H., ed. The Pentateuch and Haftorahs: Hebrew Text, English Translation and Commentary. London: Defus d’universitah Oxford, 1929-1936. 2nd ed. London: Soncino Press, 1961. Print.) and, since I have this thing about religious fallacies and misinformation, a heretical (“Conservative”) commentary (Lieber, David L., and Jules. Harlow. Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary. Travel-size ed. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004. Print.). To be sure, reading a “Conservative” commentary which makes it clear in the introductions that the people who put it together do not believe in Judaism in the traditional sense of the term is annoying. But what is more annoying than the commentary is the text of the Torah printed above the commentary. Why? Because they dared change the text. I am well aware that annotations have been added to the printed text of the Torah due to the script being defective. But the heretics decided that certain passages (Genesis 2:23; 3:14-16; 3:17-19; 4:6-7; 4:23-24; 7:11 in my reading so far, not to mention the entire hafṭarah for Parashath Bere’shith) are poetry, and so they took the liberty of taking liberties with the spacing of the text to show off the poetriness. This is a direct violation of a great unwritten rule:
Because these idiots have reformatted the text as poetry, some reader who is not so well-informed on the history of the formatting of the Hebrew Bible may get the wrong impression that the poetic formatting is actually part of the text and impose an interpretation which may not be correct. Good going, heretics.
Peace.
’Aharon/Aaron
Today’s holidays: Thirtieth Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Bobby London (Church of the SubGenius).
Greetings.
This is going to be a variety of things.
1) You may remember that Protestant minister Harold Camping predicted that the world as we know it would end on May 21, 2011 (noted in “Mark your calendars for the Rapture, but don’t hold your breath”, “The Rapture and soft maṣṣah”, and “The Rapture and Pesaḥ preparation”), which of course failed to happen. Well, Camping came up with a new prediction after that that the world as we know it would end on October 21, 2011. Unless this blog post is a figment of your imagination, this did not happen. Details can be found at “Oct. 21 'Doomsday' So Far Pretty Quiet” and “Radio prophet gone from airwaves on new Judgment Day eve”. I hope he will figure out his system does not have good predictive power and quit, but I am not that optimistic.
2) Shemini ‘Aṣereth/Simḥath Torah: I spent a lot of Sukkoth sick and under self-imposed quarantine in my apartment. This naturally limited what I could see people do. I did get out before Shemini ‘Aṣereth/Simḥath Torah (I went to see a doctor and found I was not infectious), so I can report what happened then. Simḥath Torah is distinguished by the haqqafoth ritual, in which the Torah scrolls are carried around the reading table seven times (nominally, practically much more than this) with singing and dancing to celebrate the end of the annual reading cycle and the start of the new one. Unhappily for me, the disease I have is a respiratory infection, which made singing for me unrealistic. Good thing that there were a lot of other people there to take care of that. Dancing was somewhat more limited than what I am used to. The synagogue I currently attend for Shabbath and holidays meets in trailers, as their permanent location is currently under construction; this results in crowding even under ordinary conditions. On Simḥath Torah, this resulted in slower dancing and fewer fancy moves than there might have otherwise been in order to avoid collisions. Haqqafofth also have a tendency to go on for extended periods of time, which prompted my synagogue to do some creative scheduling. At night, dinner was served at the synagogue right after services, thus avoiding any delay from people having to go home and get everything ready. In the morning, qiddush was held at the synagogue between the Torah reading and yizkor (the memorial prayer for the dead), avoiding the need for anyone to wait until a few hours into the afternoon to eat. There is also the practice of calling up all men to read from the Torah on Simḥath Torah; at first I thought they were skipping this practice entirely, but they placed it at the very end of the services. This is the first time I have ever heard of such a practice. I heard mention of secondary haqqafoth being done elsewhere; even though I had not heard of that practice, due to my condition, I declined to investigate it. Maybe next year.
I have put my willow and myrtle branches into a vase with water in the hopes of growing them. The willow seem to have grown the beginnings of roots. I also hope to grow trees from the seeds in my citron, but I plan to wait for it to fully ripen first. I have no hope for growing anything from the palm frond.
This wraps it up for the Tishri holidays. The next holiday, other than the monthly Ro’sh Ḥodhesh (new moon) is the very recent Yiṣḥaq Rabbin Memorial Day, which I am eager to find out if anyone really pays any attention to and why. (Really. The man committed treason by enabling the enemies of Israel and ignoring that said enemies had no real interest in making peace. That, if anything is a reason not to dedicate a holiday to him, even if he did get assassinated.)
3) Every year, observant Jews are expected to read through the entire Torah three times, twice in the original Hebrew and once in a language they understand, usually Aramaic. They also commonly read commentaries on the Torah as well; this year I have chosen to read the classic Hertz’s Ḥummash (Hertz, J. H., ed. The Pentateuch and Haftorahs: Hebrew Text, English Translation and Commentary. London: Defus d’universitah Oxford, 1929-1936. 2nd ed. London: Soncino Press, 1961. Print.) and, since I have this thing about religious fallacies and misinformation, a heretical (“Conservative”) commentary (Lieber, David L., and Jules. Harlow. Etz Hayim: Torah and Commentary. Travel-size ed. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2004. Print.). To be sure, reading a “Conservative” commentary which makes it clear in the introductions that the people who put it together do not believe in Judaism in the traditional sense of the term is annoying. But what is more annoying than the commentary is the text of the Torah printed above the commentary. Why? Because they dared change the text. I am well aware that annotations have been added to the printed text of the Torah due to the script being defective. But the heretics decided that certain passages (Genesis 2:23; 3:14-16; 3:17-19; 4:6-7; 4:23-24; 7:11 in my reading so far, not to mention the entire hafṭarah for Parashath Bere’shith) are poetry, and so they took the liberty of taking liberties with the spacing of the text to show off the poetriness. This is a direct violation of a great unwritten rule:
YOU WILL NOT TAMPER WITH TRADITION.
Peace.
’Aharon/Aaron
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
Yom Kippur and Sukkoth
Jewish date: 20 Tishri 5772 (Parashath Bere’shith).
Today’s holidays: Sukkoth (Judaism), Feast Day of Luke the Evangalist (Christianity), Feast Day of St. Richelieu (Church of the SubGenius).
Greetings.
This is not the best of times for me to be posting. I have been noticeably sick (fever, coughing, questionable temperature sensations, lethargy, lack of appetite) since Saturday night. For the sake of avoiding passing on the disease to someone else, I have stayed inside my apartment since then. The only reason I was able to post anything on my other blog on Sunday was that I had written the post already. I am doing better now, though still not fully recovered yet. Being sick not been good for my Divine Misconceptions-related activities. I had hoped to visit the Temple Mount as far back as Sunday—and have fun leading the police officer and Waqf official following me over big piles of rubble in the name of creative interpretation of civil disobedience—and at this point I do not realistically expect to be able to do so until next Sunday. My condition has also made writing unrealistic. (There is recent material by creationists I have felt needs criticism, and my writing the criticism is going to have to wait a while longer.) At the moment, I do feel up to reporting a bit about Yom Kippur and Sukkoth in Israel.
Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement): Largely the same as Ro’sh hashShanah, except a lot of fasting. Unlike other fast days, spending all day at home is usually not an option. Since no one (except minors and those medically unable to fast) has any meals to go to, there is no push to keep the services short, and thus they can stretch to fill the entire day. We only got about an hour’s break between musaf and minḥah. It also can be very tiring.
Sukkoth (Tabernacles): I have heard mention of the practice of starting to build the sukkah (a ritually prescribed booth to dwell in during Sukkoth) at night right after Yom Kippur. My landlord actually did so. There is also an older practice of using actual fruit to decorate the sukkah. (Most people these days use plastic fruit.) My landlord has bunches of real dates hanging in and outside of his.
Sukkah decorations vary a lot, depending on the tastes of the owners of the sukkah. Two I have seen so far have had mirrored balls in them, ones that would look quite normal on a Christmas tree. These made me think rather of some pictures by M. C. Escher, such as this one:
I rather like the idea an Escher-inspired sukkah and based on this may eventually make a go at it myself. Though reproducing certain aspects of his work may prove challenging. I do think this image may be somewhat doable if executed correctly:
OK, off the creative goofiness and on to other things.
In the United States, one normally acquires the ’arba‘ minim (four species: palm, willow, myrtle, and citron, which get ritually waved) through a synagogue, except maybe in New York City. I expected to get them from someone sitting out front of the synagogue, as people had done before for other religious purposes, such as selling scrolls of Esther and checking tefillin. I ended up buying mine from a group who had a kid hand out advertisements. There were other such advertisements posted, and the alternative would have been to walk into Bene Beraq, where I had already seen some people trying to sell ’ethroghim (citrons) for outrageous prices. (See the Israeli movie Ha’Ushpizin, which features a 1,000 NIS ’ethrogh. None of the ones I saw were quite that expensive, but there is some truth to the premise.) The set of ’arba‘ minim I got was actually good quality, but with one flaw: usually one also receives a holder for the palm, myrtle, and willow woven out of pieces of palm frond to make the assemblage easier to handle—and somehow I did not realize I had not gotten one until too late. This does not invalidate the ritual waving in any way, but it is not ideal, and I have been practically paranoid about trying not to accidentally strip leaves off the willow and myrtle. Also, waving the four species in an apartment dominated by bookshelves (such as mine) without hitting anything is rather tricky.
In the old days, new moons were declared by a special committee, and people in the Diaspora often had to wait for days to find out when the new moon had been. As a result, many critical holidays were celebrated for an extra day due to doubt on when they actually were. When the fixed calendar was instituted—thanks to the Roman persecutions making it necessary—the extra days continued to be observed except for Yom Kippur. (The reason I was told was that people liked having an extra day off and refused to give up the extra days.) For liturgical purposes, observing the extra days can make a mess of things, as the original doubt is not implemented uniformly. Pesaḥ (Passover) and Sukkoth are divided into two parts, yom ṭov (the festival proper, on the first and last days) and ḥol hammo‘edh (intermediate days of lesser holiness). In the Diaspora, the second days of Pesaḥ and Sukkoth are treated as if they were yom ṭov in every respect, which means the technically correct prayers for ḥol hammo‘edh are not said at all. On Sukkoth specifically, things are worse. In the musaf prayer, the special sacrifices for that day are recounted, and since different sacrifices are to be brought on every single day of Sukkoth, not only are the wrong sacrifices specified for the second day, but an attempt to compensate by doubling up the sacrificial readings is made on the following days. It gets even weirder on the eighth day, the semi-independent festival of Shemini ‘Aṣereth (Eighth Day of Assembly). Unlike the last day of Pesaḥ, it does get treated a bit as doubtfully ḥol hammo‘edh, with (some) people eating and sleeping in the sukkah. However, due to the extra day added on to the holiday, there is an awkward second eighth day, which to make things a bit less confusing gets dubbed Simḥath Torah (“the joy of the Torah”) and which marks the completion of the annual cycle of reading the Torah. Here in Israel, we have none of this weirdness of extra doubtful days, and the liturgy makes a lot more sense.
I think that will be all for now. Peace.
’Aharon/Aaron
Today’s holidays: Sukkoth (Judaism), Feast Day of Luke the Evangalist (Christianity), Feast Day of St. Richelieu (Church of the SubGenius).
Greetings.
This is not the best of times for me to be posting. I have been noticeably sick (fever, coughing, questionable temperature sensations, lethargy, lack of appetite) since Saturday night. For the sake of avoiding passing on the disease to someone else, I have stayed inside my apartment since then. The only reason I was able to post anything on my other blog on Sunday was that I had written the post already. I am doing better now, though still not fully recovered yet. Being sick not been good for my Divine Misconceptions-related activities. I had hoped to visit the Temple Mount as far back as Sunday—and have fun leading the police officer and Waqf official following me over big piles of rubble in the name of creative interpretation of civil disobedience—and at this point I do not realistically expect to be able to do so until next Sunday. My condition has also made writing unrealistic. (There is recent material by creationists I have felt needs criticism, and my writing the criticism is going to have to wait a while longer.) At the moment, I do feel up to reporting a bit about Yom Kippur and Sukkoth in Israel.
Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement): Largely the same as Ro’sh hashShanah, except a lot of fasting. Unlike other fast days, spending all day at home is usually not an option. Since no one (except minors and those medically unable to fast) has any meals to go to, there is no push to keep the services short, and thus they can stretch to fill the entire day. We only got about an hour’s break between musaf and minḥah. It also can be very tiring.
Sukkoth (Tabernacles): I have heard mention of the practice of starting to build the sukkah (a ritually prescribed booth to dwell in during Sukkoth) at night right after Yom Kippur. My landlord actually did so. There is also an older practice of using actual fruit to decorate the sukkah. (Most people these days use plastic fruit.) My landlord has bunches of real dates hanging in and outside of his.
Sukkah decorations vary a lot, depending on the tastes of the owners of the sukkah. Two I have seen so far have had mirrored balls in them, ones that would look quite normal on a Christmas tree. These made me think rather of some pictures by M. C. Escher, such as this one:
I rather like the idea an Escher-inspired sukkah and based on this may eventually make a go at it myself. Though reproducing certain aspects of his work may prove challenging. I do think this image may be somewhat doable if executed correctly:
OK, off the creative goofiness and on to other things.
In the United States, one normally acquires the ’arba‘ minim (four species: palm, willow, myrtle, and citron, which get ritually waved) through a synagogue, except maybe in New York City. I expected to get them from someone sitting out front of the synagogue, as people had done before for other religious purposes, such as selling scrolls of Esther and checking tefillin. I ended up buying mine from a group who had a kid hand out advertisements. There were other such advertisements posted, and the alternative would have been to walk into Bene Beraq, where I had already seen some people trying to sell ’ethroghim (citrons) for outrageous prices. (See the Israeli movie Ha’Ushpizin, which features a 1,000 NIS ’ethrogh. None of the ones I saw were quite that expensive, but there is some truth to the premise.) The set of ’arba‘ minim I got was actually good quality, but with one flaw: usually one also receives a holder for the palm, myrtle, and willow woven out of pieces of palm frond to make the assemblage easier to handle—and somehow I did not realize I had not gotten one until too late. This does not invalidate the ritual waving in any way, but it is not ideal, and I have been practically paranoid about trying not to accidentally strip leaves off the willow and myrtle. Also, waving the four species in an apartment dominated by bookshelves (such as mine) without hitting anything is rather tricky.
In the old days, new moons were declared by a special committee, and people in the Diaspora often had to wait for days to find out when the new moon had been. As a result, many critical holidays were celebrated for an extra day due to doubt on when they actually were. When the fixed calendar was instituted—thanks to the Roman persecutions making it necessary—the extra days continued to be observed except for Yom Kippur. (The reason I was told was that people liked having an extra day off and refused to give up the extra days.) For liturgical purposes, observing the extra days can make a mess of things, as the original doubt is not implemented uniformly. Pesaḥ (Passover) and Sukkoth are divided into two parts, yom ṭov (the festival proper, on the first and last days) and ḥol hammo‘edh (intermediate days of lesser holiness). In the Diaspora, the second days of Pesaḥ and Sukkoth are treated as if they were yom ṭov in every respect, which means the technically correct prayers for ḥol hammo‘edh are not said at all. On Sukkoth specifically, things are worse. In the musaf prayer, the special sacrifices for that day are recounted, and since different sacrifices are to be brought on every single day of Sukkoth, not only are the wrong sacrifices specified for the second day, but an attempt to compensate by doubling up the sacrificial readings is made on the following days. It gets even weirder on the eighth day, the semi-independent festival of Shemini ‘Aṣereth (Eighth Day of Assembly). Unlike the last day of Pesaḥ, it does get treated a bit as doubtfully ḥol hammo‘edh, with (some) people eating and sleeping in the sukkah. However, due to the extra day added on to the holiday, there is an awkward second eighth day, which to make things a bit less confusing gets dubbed Simḥath Torah (“the joy of the Torah”) and which marks the completion of the annual cycle of reading the Torah. Here in Israel, we have none of this weirdness of extra doubtful days, and the liturgy makes a lot more sense.
I think that will be all for now. Peace.
’Aharon/Aaron
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