Jewish date: 19 Nisan 5772 (Parashath Shemini).
Today’s holidays: Ḥol hamMo‘edh Pesaḥ (Judaism), Day 4 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Wednesday in the Octave of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Annual $30 Donation (Church of the SubGenius).
Greetings.
It has been far too long since I last posted. A lot of this is due to preparation for Pesaḥ (Passover), though I have had other things keeping me busy, and I hope this post will be a step in the direction of getting caught up. Towards that, I present two topics today:
1) Relevant to Pesaḥ, some articles on the symbolism of maṣṣah (unleavened bread): “A new look at Hametz, Matza and everything in between”, “Deconstructing Matzo”, and “Leavened or Unleavened: A History”. To summarize: At the time, Egypt was the only place at the time where people made ḥameṣ (leavened bread). Thus eating maṣṣah, even before leaving Egypt, was a symbolic rejection of Egypt and what it stood for. This strikes me as a very elegant explanation.
2) My notes on the last chapters of Romans, following up on my notes on chapters 1-4 and 5-12:
Romans 13:1-7—Paul preaches submission to authorities. This includes the government, which he claims are “God’s servants”.
Romans 13:8-14—Paul preaches love, claiming it is “the fulfillment of the Torah”, glossing over that at best just the moral commandments can be subsumed under the rubric of love. Cites Exodus 20:12-13 in scrambled order are presented as subsumed under love. Leviticus 19:18 is given as the source for the commandment of love.
Romans 14:1-23—Paul seems to be preaching that one who is strong in faith should not act in an antinomian way such to cause someone who is weak in faith to stumble, in particularly bringing up food and drink. (Paul still brings no valid justification for antinomianism.) Cites fragments of Isaiah 49:18 and Isaiah 45:23 dishonestly as if they were a continuous quote.
Romans 15:1-13—An attempt to back up the previous section. Cites Psalms 69:10, a botched version of Psalms 18:50, a botched version of Psalms 32:43, Psalms 117:1, and a botched version of Isaiah 11:10 as if they had anything to do with Jesus.
Romans 15:14-22—Paul proclaims himself minister to the Gentiles, appointed by Jesus, trying to back up his appointment with his allegedly having performed miracles. (Miracles are not actually valid proofs of prophecy when proclaimed by a heretic.) Cites Isaiah 52:15 as if it had anything to do with Jesus.
Romans 15:23-33—Paul plans to visit Rome.
Romans 16:1-27—Paul sends greetings to various people.
Please note that this is entirely in keeping with Paul’s intellectual dishonesty and scholarly incompetence in the previous chapters. I am not optimistic about the rest of his letters.
Peace and happy Pesaḥ.
’Aharon/Aaron
Showing posts with label ḥameṣ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ḥameṣ. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Sunday, May 22, 2011
The Rapture and Pesaḥ preparation
Greetings.
Jewish date: 18 ’Iyyar 5771 (Parashath BeMidhbar).
Today’s holidays: Day 33 of the ‘Omer/Lagh ba‘Omer (Judaism), Fifth Sunday of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Elphinstone (Church of the SubGenius).
Topic 1: This is a followup to the last post, in which your humble blogger noted that Saturday (21 May 2011) was supposed to be the Rapture according to Harold Camping. (This is actually the second time he has predicted the Rapture; the first was 1994.) As should be obvious to anyone, he was wrong—as everyone who has predicted the end of the world as we know it has been before. Other people have felt inclined to comment on this whole incident, both on when the Rapture was supposed to occur and the silence from Harold Camping afterwards (“Predictor of May 21 doomsday to watch it on TV”, “Broadcaster silent as "Judgment Day" hours tick by”, “The Rapture Is Not Saturday -- It's Tonight”, “As hours tick by, "Judgment Day" looks a dud”). At least one atheist has taken advantage of it for profit by agreeing to take care of people’s pets after the Rapture if paid in advance (“After The Rapture, Who Will Walk Your Dog?”). Some people downright made fun of it:
Personally I do not find the failure of the Rapture to appear so funny. Some people actually believed that Camping was right and spend their life savings. Now these people look like a bunch of idiots, are broke, and are going to have to deal with the social and economic consequences. Great going, Camping.
Topic 2: More on Pesaḥ (Passover) in Israel. Preparation for Pesaḥ was largely unremarkable, though made somewhat easier because I have a small apartment and thus not much to clean. Having a small apartment also makes it a lot easier to search for ḥameṣ (leavened grain products, which are forbidden on Pesaḥ), as there was less area to search.
Getting rid of ḥameṣ was accomplished by making sure I ate it all before Pesaḥ. The common practice of selling one’s ḥameṣ to a non-Jew before Pesaḥ was totally irrelevant to me. Some, such as the Ga’on of Vilna, have decried the practice as not being a real sale, at least as normally performed; in my case, if I had any ḥameṣ left, it was in the form of individual crumbs or grains hidden in inaccessible parts of my apartment. In practical terms, such ḥameṣ is worthless and unsellable. No one in their right mind is going to buy isolated crumbs, and if they really wanted to buy such crumbs (maybe due to insanity), one cannot really take possession of and exercise the authority of ownership on something one has no real access to. Such a sale would therefore be, to say the least, absurd. I therefore relied on disowning any such ḥameṣ, which is pretty easy since it was nothing anyone would want anyway.
There is a common practice of burning any ḥameṣ left over on the morning before Pesaḥ, and this was practiced very publicly over here. There is a field next to the local mall, and there were large piles of and barrels filled with ḥameṣ being burned.
That is my shadow you see in front. I personally would have preferred that a lot of this ḥameṣ would have been given to non-Jews (no point in wasting edible food), but there are very few people who are visibly non-Jewish here in Giv‘ath Shemu’el.
Now somebody prod me to talk about the sedher, qiṭniyyoth, and yom ṭov sheni on Tuesday. If I pick up the pace, I may actually get caught up with discussing the Jewish holidays before Shavu‘oth…
Peace and enjoy burning stuff this Lagh ba‘Omer.
’Aharon/Aaron
Jewish date: 18 ’Iyyar 5771 (Parashath BeMidhbar).
Today’s holidays: Day 33 of the ‘Omer/Lagh ba‘Omer (Judaism), Fifth Sunday of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Elphinstone (Church of the SubGenius).
Topic 1: This is a followup to the last post, in which your humble blogger noted that Saturday (21 May 2011) was supposed to be the Rapture according to Harold Camping. (This is actually the second time he has predicted the Rapture; the first was 1994.) As should be obvious to anyone, he was wrong—as everyone who has predicted the end of the world as we know it has been before. Other people have felt inclined to comment on this whole incident, both on when the Rapture was supposed to occur and the silence from Harold Camping afterwards (“Predictor of May 21 doomsday to watch it on TV”, “Broadcaster silent as "Judgment Day" hours tick by”, “The Rapture Is Not Saturday -- It's Tonight”, “As hours tick by, "Judgment Day" looks a dud”). At least one atheist has taken advantage of it for profit by agreeing to take care of people’s pets after the Rapture if paid in advance (“After The Rapture, Who Will Walk Your Dog?”). Some people downright made fun of it:
Personally I do not find the failure of the Rapture to appear so funny. Some people actually believed that Camping was right and spend their life savings. Now these people look like a bunch of idiots, are broke, and are going to have to deal with the social and economic consequences. Great going, Camping.
Topic 2: More on Pesaḥ (Passover) in Israel. Preparation for Pesaḥ was largely unremarkable, though made somewhat easier because I have a small apartment and thus not much to clean. Having a small apartment also makes it a lot easier to search for ḥameṣ (leavened grain products, which are forbidden on Pesaḥ), as there was less area to search.
Getting rid of ḥameṣ was accomplished by making sure I ate it all before Pesaḥ. The common practice of selling one’s ḥameṣ to a non-Jew before Pesaḥ was totally irrelevant to me. Some, such as the Ga’on of Vilna, have decried the practice as not being a real sale, at least as normally performed; in my case, if I had any ḥameṣ left, it was in the form of individual crumbs or grains hidden in inaccessible parts of my apartment. In practical terms, such ḥameṣ is worthless and unsellable. No one in their right mind is going to buy isolated crumbs, and if they really wanted to buy such crumbs (maybe due to insanity), one cannot really take possession of and exercise the authority of ownership on something one has no real access to. Such a sale would therefore be, to say the least, absurd. I therefore relied on disowning any such ḥameṣ, which is pretty easy since it was nothing anyone would want anyway.
There is a common practice of burning any ḥameṣ left over on the morning before Pesaḥ, and this was practiced very publicly over here. There is a field next to the local mall, and there were large piles of and barrels filled with ḥameṣ being burned.
Now somebody prod me to talk about the sedher, qiṭniyyoth, and yom ṭov sheni on Tuesday. If I pick up the pace, I may actually get caught up with discussing the Jewish holidays before Shavu‘oth…
Peace and enjoy burning stuff this Lagh ba‘Omer.
’Aharon/Aaron
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