Maṣṣah and Paul’s continuing scholarly incompetence

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

Pesaḥ and Shavu‘oth

Jewish date:  8 Siwan 5771 (Parashath BeHa‘alothekha).

Today’s holidays:  Friday of the Seventh Week of Easter (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of Basilides, (Thelema), Feast Day of St. Wacky Wall Walker (Church of the SubGenius).

Greetings.

I hope to finish up Pesaḥ (Passover) and also discuss Shavu‘oth (Pentecost) today.  (Working on that got delayed by the whole Lady Gaga business and other things I have been working on.)  Let’s see what we can do…

Yom ṭov sheni (second day of festivals):  Before Rav Hillel II enacted the current version of the Jewish calendar, the start of months was determined by empirical sighting of the new moon.  This was long before modern communications, and so places far from the court declaring the new moon might not hear about it for some time.  Thus communities in the Diaspora often had a real doubt what day it was, and thus they kept an extra day of the holidays in the Torah just to be sure.  When the current calendar was enacted, the practice remained despite the lack of a doubt; the reason I heard is that people liked having an extra day off.  It has been retained to this day except for Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement); apparently no one liked fasting for two days in a row.  In Israel, the practice is (and apparently always has been) not to add an extra day.  Nothing felt wrong about it, though it did make both Pesaḥ and Shavu‘oth noticeably shorter.  I also ended up doing things on days I previous had treated as festivals that I would never have considered doing before.  E.g., yesterday was the second day of Shavu‘oth in America but an ordinary day here in Israel.  And I went to work and did laundry, both of which are simply not to be done on a festival.

Also:  It is not quite correct that yom ṭov sheni is observed in the Diaspora and is not in Israel; how one practices is actually dependent on where one lives.  I knew some Israelis back in Charleston who did not keep yom ṭov sheni, though they were very private about it.  I have also heard of Jews from America visiting Israel keeping yom ṭov sheni to various degrees.

The sedher:  I attended a sedher (only one) by a mixed Middle Eastern-’Ashkenazi family.  Liturgically there was not really anything unusual, though the tunes used for singing were not the ones I was used to.  This was the place I first ate soft maṣṣah.  They also had multiple sedher plates, and the man of the house gave some Qabbalistic explanations of details of the sedher.  I was very impressed with the handling of the children, which encouraged their participation and involved handing out prizes to them.

Qiṭniyyoth:  ’Ashkenazim (such as myself) have the practice of not eating qiṭniyyoth during Pesaḥ.  This group formally consists of legumes and grain-like seeds, e.g., rice, corn, peas, and beans.  There is a good deal of controversy over what the boundaries of this prohibition, e.g., whether peanuts and quinoa included.  There is even controversy over where the practice came from, and some ’Ashkenazim have dropped it altogether (“A New Explanation for Eschewing Qitniyoth”, “The Prohibition Against Qitniyoth on Pesah: Anatomy of an Error”, “The Road Map from Qitniyoth to Qorban Pesah”).  I did not go to such an extreme, but buying food for Pesaḥ in Israel is complicated that much of what is available contains qiṭniyyoth (as opposed to Pesaḥ food in the United States, which never does).  I did, however, keep three cans of kasher for Pesaḥ corn on my coffee table as a demonstration of my lack of paranoia.

Restaurants:  In the United States, I never heard of restaurants open for Pesaḥ.  Having a restaurant open on Pesaḥ requires a lot of preparation and cost, and the turnout has to be large enough for just a few days to make it worthwhile.  Previously, I had only heard about it being done at McDonald’s here in Israel, something about “matzoburgers”.  This Pesaḥ I found lots of restaurants open on Pesaḥ with their food certified as being kasher for Pesaḥ.  And on a date in Yerushalayim I ate pizza with a potato-based crust at one such restaurant.

Shavu‘oth:  This holiday is largely ignored and unknown in the United States outside of observant circles.  Here in Israel, it is a national holiday, and everyone takes it off.  It is so well-known over here that  I even saw a relevant advertisement:

Pardon the perspective, but sometimes one does not find a good place to stand while taking a photograph. This one is for cheesecake, which is commonly eaten on Shavu‘oth.

I did not notice anything particularly unusual about the observance of Shavu‘oth, other than everything was compressed into one day rather than two.  I did find out that Sefaradhim/Middle Eastern Jews read the Book of Ruth at night rather than during the day, but this did not strike me as more than a mere variation.

OK, someone remind me to blog soon on the holidays which occur during the counting of the ‘Omer.

Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

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

The Rapture and soft maṣṣah

Greetings.

Jewish date:  16 ’Iyyar 5771 (Parashath Beḥuqqothay).

Today’s holidays:  Day 31 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Feast Day of Bernardine of Siena (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Edward II (Church of the SubGenius).

Note:  I am working my way through An Episode of Flatland, so there is another theological review coming up, though with the other things I am trying to do, this will take some time before it gets written and published.

Topic 1:  The Rapture according to Harold Camping is tomorrow (21 May 2011).  See “May 21: Is the end near?”, “May 21 End of the World: Harold Camping's $72M business”, and his farewell letter.  Please note that though the end of the world as we know it has been predicted many times before, all of these predictions have been wrong.  If the Rapture actually happens tomorrow, I will be nothing less than shocked.

Topic 2:  Back to discussing Pesaḥ.  One thing they have over here which I only heard about in the United States is soft maṣṣah.  The maṣṣah available in the United States is hard and brittle, more of a cracker than a proper bread.  But maṣṣah in the old days was softer.  E.g., korekh literally means that one wraps the maṣṣah around the qorban Pesaḥ (paschal sacrifice, which would be lamb or baby goat) and maror (bitter herbs).  (See “Soft Massa: It’s the Real Thing”.)  I was delighted to find soft maṣṣah commercially available in Israel, and so I bought a three-pack to examine them myself.  These were not the first that I ate; at the sedher I attended they had soft maṣṣah.  The following pictures are of the maṣṣah I bought myself.

This is the box the maṣṣah came in.  Do note that according to the instructions on the box indicate it should be kept frozen, unlike brittle maṣṣah, which requires no refrigeration.  The box was kept in my freezer until Pesaḥ.  I put the box in the refrigerator and let it defrost.

 This is what a soft maṣṣah looks like.  I thought it would look more like a pita than this.

It is also fairly thick.

A soft maṣṣah compared with a brittle maṣṣah.

Comparative maṣṣah thickness.  The soft maṣṣah is noticeably thicker.

Not visible in the photographs are the physical properties.  It is much less bendable than pita, though (expectedly) a lot more than brittle maṣṣah.  It still is flexible enough to wrap lamb and romaine lettuce in it.  The taste is fairly doughy, even though it is thoroughly baked; it takes getting used to.

Topic 3:  Sunday is Lagh ba‘Omer.  “Lagh Ba’Omer - A Gratuitous Holiday” claims that the holiday is not what it is commonly claimed to be.

Topic 4:  For today’s religious humor (something I have not done in a while: “The LOLcat Passover story”.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

Pesaḥ advertising

Greetings.

Jewish date:  2 ’Iyyar 5771 (Parashath ’Emor).

Today’s holidays:  Day 17 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Feast Day of St. Guiness (The Stout) (Church of the SubGenius), Friday of the Second Week of Easter (Roman Catholicism).

It has been quite a while since I posted.  I have experienced my first Pesaḥ (Passover) in Israel, and there is a lot to comment on.  (And I had better get cracking if I want to comment on it.  There are other things coming up that will definitely merit discussion.  Not to mention I am very busy these days.  E.g., I have now received my shipment from the United States, and parts of my apartment look a lot like Tetris and need desperately to be reordered.)  Given my series on holiday advertising in Israel, something one expects to start well before the actual holiday (at least it does in the USA), we will start there.  The holiday advertising I saw did pick up a bit for Pesaḥ, but one would often be unaware of it.  For example:

The former is a fashion advertisement.  The latter is for perfume.  Neither of them gives any impression that these stores are trying to show off their Pesaḥ spirit.  A bit closer is this one:

This one actually shows (and is for) relevant food, though it is not ostentatious.  The closest anyone got to ostentation is this one:

At this place they were actually selling silver utensils which might be used during Pesaḥ.

In the USA, there are not just advertisements seeking to cash in on major holidays, but public decorations for several of them as well.  I did not see any Pesaḥ decorations, and the nearest thing I saw to them were a few signs like this one:

This does not go much further than wishing everyone a happy Pesaḥ.  So far the USA is still beating Israel on commercialization and overdoing of holidays.

I hate to stop here, but my Internet connection has been very unreliable recently, and I would rather get out something than nothing.    I hope to write about preparing for Pesaḥ and Pesaḥ itself soon.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

Purim has not been commercialized either

Greetings.

Jewish date:  19 ’Adhar Sheni 5771 (Parashath Shemini).

Today’s holidays:  Great Lent (Christianity), Lent (Christianity), Annunciation of the Theotokos (Christianity), Feast Day of St. Brian Michael Bendis (Church of the SubGenius).

I really need to post more often.  There is a lot going on relevant to religion, and I cannot cover it all.  This includes the Islamist terrorist attacks Israel has experienced recently, which really add nothing new to anything I have already written or reported before other than to show that too many Muslims still have no interest in peace with Israel.  It cannot be stated enough that the terrorists themselves are a bunch of pathetic losers who go for easy targets, such as sleeping babies, rather than tackling heavily armed military targets like real men and women.

Holiday report:  This past Sunday was Purim, the events leading to its founding being described in the Book of Esther.  I went out looking again for the holiday commercialization found in the United States, and I found none of it here in Giv’ath Shemu’el.  There were a few signs advertising Purim parties:

(The clowns come up due to the custom of dressing up in costumes on Purim, and clowns are a common costume choice.)  However, I found little evidence of stores trying to get into the Purim spirit.  On the left side of the lower picture, one may notice a drug store, and in there I met two employees in costume, one in a witch hat and the other wearing a cape.  That was it.  So far Israel is in the lead in avoiding corrupting holidays into commercial monstrosities.

The celebration of Purim itself was fairly standard, though with some twists not necessarily experienced in the United States.  There were the readings of the Book of Esther (Meghillah) in synagogue; the noise-making when the name of Haman was read was regulated by red and green light bulbs instead of the manual signs I have seen before.  Costumes, as expected, were more common among children than adults.  (Sorry.  No pictures.  I normally try to avoid photographing people.)  A beggar actually showed up in synagogue, making it very convenient to give the required gifts to the destitute (mattanoth la’evyonim).  I received a number of gifts of food (mishloaḥ manoth) myself, and the contents, as in the United States, tended heavily towards baked goods and junk food, though I did end up with some alcoholic beverages.  (My personal practice is to give out produce, mostly to whomever is around in synagogue or even on the streets.  Many people find this confusing.)  The festive meal (se‘udhah) I had with a friend and company in a Ḥaredhi town.  The inhabitants widely broke the stereotype of stodginess, with a lot wearing costumes (including a number of the adults), including one confusing, shiny costume which included a sign saying something in Hebrew to the tune of “Don’t ask me what I am.  I don’t know.”  A lot of little girls for some reason were dressed as brides.  Now, there is an old and controversial tradition of getting drunk on Purim, and at the se‘udhah a number of people who had had too much to drink wandered by.  I have seen people not used to drinking getting drunk on Purim and acting strangely before, but this was the first time one of them tried collecting money for a yeshivah.  Fortunately, none of these people who were having trouble holding their alcohol did anything worse than get happy and uncoordinated.

And, for the guy in the back row asking if I got intoxicated at the se‘udhah, the answer is “no”.  I prefer to do my drinking on Purim early and to try to take a nap.

I have been told that the stores in the United States are already selling food specially for Pesaḥ (Passover).  You can find valuable information about the holiday at OU Kosher for Passover.  Like all the holidays over here, the stores here in Israel have been very low-key on Pesaḥ, too, but I did see this book for sale the other day:

The title translates as “The Story of ’Afiqo-Man:  A Pesaḥ Haggadhah for Children”.  This would be a good time to groan at the pun.

Peace and Shabbath shalom.

’Aharon/Aaron

Looking for Raj Patel and Maitreya in all the wrong ways

Greetings.

Jewish date:  20 Nisan 5770 (Parashath Shemini).

Today’s holidays:  Ḥol hamMo‘edh Pesaḥ (AKA Passover; Judaism), Day 5 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Easter (Christianity).

Topic 1:  “A Brief Passover Message from Rabbi Shmuley”:  In this article, Rav Boteach argues that people do not want true freedom and prefer systems in which they do not have to make choices for themselves, i.e., conformity.  Being free requires nonconformity and making choices to do the right thing, even if no one else is doing it.

Topic 2:  “Raj Patel - Bible Code”.  An anonymous commenter on the BloggersBase version of my blogs recommended this page, claiming “Raj Patel is being used as a mouthpiece for maitreya. Don't be fooled by any of these smooth talking liars”.  (And, yes, we are discussing the claim that Share International holds Raj Patel is the Maitreya again.)   The “mouthpiece” claim is based not on objective, verifiable evidence, but rather on Bible codes.  I have already noted that Bible codes do not work.  This alone should disqualify any claim based on them.  However, this Bible coder clearly has ascended to a new level of Bible code incompetence.  “Raj Patel” and “Maitreya” are not Hebrew words.  The Bible coder has let software do his transliteration for him, resulting in the sequences ראיפתאל and מתרי.  Anyone who knows any

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor, in which I take advantage of other people’s Easter humor:  “ How am I”:

“der iz a speshul ring of hell”:

“Easter Bunneh”:

and “How to Make Peepshi = Peeps Sushi”.  The last is Barry’s suggestion.

Peace and ḥagh sameaḥ.

Aaron

Sedher stuff

Image via Wikipedia

Greetings.

Jewish date:  17 Nisan 5770.

Today’s holidays:  Ḥol hamMo‘edh Pesaḥ (AKA Passover; Judaism), Day 2 of the ‘Omer (Judaism), Holy Thursday (Roman Catholicism).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Tell Congress to stand up to corporate influence” and “Heart Disease and Stroke. You’re the Cure.”

Topic 1:  “Obama’s Hospitality: A Question of Character” and “How Was Yours ?”  In the former, Rav Shmuely Boteach notes that it is possible and practical to treat those with whom one disagrees respectfully. Rav Boteach notes that Binyamin Nethanyahu is not the first major leader Barack Obama has treated badly for political reasons.  The latter is a Dry Bones cartoon which notes the inconsistency between there being a sedher at the White House, considering Obama’s maltreatment of Nethanyahu over Israel exercising sovereignty over Jerusalem and the famous prayer from the sedher which demands Jewish sovereignty, “Next Year in Jerusalem!”, which carries an additional, currently politically explosive connotation of Jewish sovereignty over the Temple Mount and rebuilding the Temple.  (Sacrifices are supposed to be brought at the Temple on the Temple Mount.  And Obama is going to be taking flack for as long as he keeps trying to get Israel to do stupid things.)

Topic 2:  For today’s religious humor:  “happy Passover!”.

Note:  Those unfamiliar with the sedher can find more about it and Pesaḥ in general at OU.ORG.

Peace.

Aaron