Jewish graffiti

Greetings.

Jewish date:  8 Tishri 5771.

Today’s holidays:  Ten Days of Repentance (Judaism), Feast Days of Cornelius and Cyprian (Roman Catholicism), Paryushana (Hinduism), The Day That Shall Not Be Named (Church of the SubGenius).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Got Science?”.

Topic 1:  Jewish outreach gone wrong.  In practically any religion, getting the message out, at least to the members, is of value.  Thus outreach in some form is to be expected.  And anything which can be done right can probably be done wrong, too.  And Jews are no exception in this regard.

The most famous Jewish group engaging in outreach is Lubavitch, known officially as Ḥabbadh (Chabad).  This group of Ḥasidhim are famous for setting up tables in public settings and inducing men to put on tefillin, and I did see a few instances of this.  Lubavitchers are also famous for many of them thinking that their last rebbe, Menachem Mendel Schneerson, is Mashiaḥ (the Messiah), despite the inconvenient fact that he died in 1994.  And this belief featured almost always in Lubavitcher signs which I saw in Israel:

The top caption reads “May our lord, our teacher, and our master, king, the Mashiaḥ live forever and ever."  The lower caption reads “Mashiaḥ promises—not even one Jew will remain in exile!”

What really struck me is that the religious advertising, both Lubavitch and of other groups, was not limited to legal signs.  There was also a sizable amount of graffiti.  How anyone rationalizes petty vandalism is unknown to me—graffiti is a form of damaging the property of other people or the public in general—but they do it anyway.

This illegal poster reads “The anointed king (= Mashiaḥ) will live”.  All the Lubavitcher vandalism I saw was in the form of posters.

Less famous for outreach, but clearly working hard at it, are the Breslover Ḥasidhim.  This is one of the groups featured in the Israeli film ’Ushpizin.  During my trip, some of them repeatedly set up a station at the end of Ben Yehudhah Street in Yerushalayim and played loud music with the intent of attracting people.

Notice the poster, which bears the caption “Na Naḥ Naḥma Naḥman from Uman”.  Rav Naḥman was a Breslover rebbe, and he is buried in Uman, Ukraine.  This caption was revealed in a mysterious note in 1922, and some Breslovers use it as a mantra.  And they have been hard at work trying to spread this mantra by spreading it all over Israel, often in the form of graffiti.  There were some posters, but a lot of the copies of mantra were written by hand:

Religion often blurs into politics, and so it should be no wonder that religious vandalism also can have a political aspect.  To give two diametrical examples:

This sticker proclaims “Today all know Kahana’ [= Meir Kahane] is right!”, referring to the angry Zionist political activist whose activities went beyond peaceful protest and civil disobedience into violence.  In opposition to this, we have this unacceptable accusation:

The writing reads “Zionists = murderers” and was probably written by someone of a Neṭure Qarta’ or Satmar bent.  The writer definitely has no grasp of what the Israeli government or Zionists actually do.

Anyone with any information on how anyone rationalizes the sorts of petty vandalism documented in this post, please let me know.

Topic 2:  For today’s religious humor:  “Kitteh Komic of teh Day: Gods n Goggies”:

This comic, of course, reflects very primitive notions of godhood.

Peace.

Aaron

The Old City of Yerushalayim

Greetings.

Jewish date:  7 Tishri 5771.

Today’s holidays:  Ten Days of Repentance (Judaism), Feast Day of Our Lady of Sorrows (Roman Catholicism), Paryushana (Hinduism), Feast Day of St. Gilles de Rais (Church of the SubGenius).

Worthy causes of the day:  “DemocracyForAmerica.com » Stand with Patrick Leahy”, “Save Darfur Coalition:  Give just 60 seconds for Sudan”, and “Tell Congress: Don't extend the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy”.

I apologize for not having posted earlier this week.  I am keeping busy with other things (such as getting ready to move to Israel) and allergies.  Expect a lot of posting disruptions for the next few months because of the move.  Also expect a different posting schedule after the move, at the very least posting happening at different hours.

I also would like to apologize for neglecting current religious news, such as everything surrounding the Cordoba Initiative’s planned mosque near Ground Zero (a lot of it paranoia, ignorance, immaturity, and dishonesty) and Dr. Stephen Hawking’s unjustified claims about the existence of God.  This is not a denial of the importance of these topics.  Rather, I feel it more important that I generate content than simply comment on other people’s content.  I was in Israel recently, and I saw things not discussed in the news, and no one can report on what I saw but myself.

Topic 1:  The Old City of Yerushalayim/Jerusalem.  The name is something of a misnomer.  The original city of Yerushalayim, at the time of Dawidh (David) was to the south of the Temple Mount.  Yerushalayim has been demolished and rebuilt a number of times since then, with the city walls in different places.  E.g., the wall from the First Temple Period runs through the current “Old City”:

The current “Old City”, which has the Temple Mount at its southeastern corner, was (re)built by the Ottoman Turks, making it the “Old City” by virtue of the fact that the rest of modern Yerushalayim grew (and continues to grow) around it.  It is not a modern city.  The streets are mostly narrow and unsuited for automobile traffic.  On those streets that can carry vehicular traffic, pedestrians are frequently dangerously close to vehicles.  Some streets are largely or entirely covered overhead and are more properly corridors rather than streets.

The Western Wall and the Jerusalem Archaeological Park, which are properly in the Old City, have been discussed previously in this series.  And the Temple Mount itself, as I have not visited it yet, I plan to discuss when I do visit it (YHWH willing).  So what does that leave to discuss?

1) The Temple Institute.  This organization housed in an unassuming building close to the Temple Mount is working to prepare everything necessary for the rebuilding of the Temple.  Unfortunately, they do not like people taking pictures of their exhibits (which I respected), so you will have to visit them yourself to see what they have created.  But closer to the Temple Mount, they have put on display one item:

This is the menorah (candelabrum), which they are probably willing to have out in public due to the fact that it is large and heavy enough that carrying it off would be at best difficult, given that people walk by it 24 hours a day and there is nowhere to park a getaway vehicle.  Many other utensils, such as the shulḥan (table for showbread) and incense altar, are housed in the Temple Institute itself.  Reportedly there has been work on the main altar, though I do not know where that is housed.

2) The Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

This is where Jesus is supposed to have been crucified and buried.  I did not visit it so much as stick my head in the courtyard where it stands and take two pictures.  (Maybe I will feel a bit braver next time about approaching it, though entering it is out of the question.  If I take a non-Jewish friend with me next time, I may get some pictures of the inside.)  This building is reported as being claimed by all the major pre-Protestant Christian churches, and the truce under which they share it is tense at best.  At the right upper-story window you will notice a ladder; it has been there for a few hundred years because the factions cannot agree on who has the right to take it down.  It has been moved around a bit in contravention of the refusal of the factions to agree on who can move it.  I am not sure what Jesus would have made about all of this, though I suspect Christians may find inter-Jewish squabbles just as impenetrable and weird.

3)  The shops.  Where there are tourists, there are inevitably people trying to sell things to tourists.  (And I am NOT talking about that Judaica/Jewish bookstore near the Temple Mount, which I entered to get out of the heat and was allowed to browse in peace.  I am talking about the little shops found on the way to the Temple Mount and Church of the Holy Sepulcher.)  You definitely want to stay away from those people who run the tourist trap shops in the Old City, because they are extremely aggressive and will do whatever they can to try to get you to buy something.  (They are even more aggressive than the beggars near and at the Western Wall.)  This includes the merchants claiming you will get a blessing if you buy something, even something inexpensive.  These merchants are not actually dangerous, even in the Muslim Quarter—physically attacking potential customers would be bad for business, especially with Israeli police with big guns around—but they can be a real hassle.  Under no conditions should you enter their shops, as the merchants may try to block your exit.  The interesting thing (in terms of religious fallacies and misconceptions) about these shops is the ecumenicism:  the merchants often have things to suit a variety of ideological tastes.  For example:

Notice the presence of pro-Israeli and pro-“Palestinian” T-shirts.

Notice a lot of Judaica—and a big crucifix.

Here is a real doozy.  Lots of Judaica, but also those fancy eggs favored by Orthodox Christians and evil eye amulets in a style favored by Turks.  Notice the menoroth have seven branches; such a style is supposed to be reserved for the Temple and not for general use.  (But it may be a bit much to expect a Muslim shopkeeper to know and respect this.)  There were also a number of other items, such as chessboards and six-string ukeleles, which kept showing up at the shops, but whose connection to religion or Yerushalayim I am unaware of.

Topic 2:  For today’s religious humor, this book which I found in a bookstore in Yerushalayim:

There is nothing wrong with this book, but somehow Green Eggs and Ham in a country where the two most popular religions forbid eating pig meat seems rather odd.

Peace.

Aaron

The Jerusalem Archaeological Park

Greetings.

Jewish date:  29 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Ha’azinu).

Today’s holidays:  ’Erev Ro’sh hashShanah/Eve of the New Year (or one of them anyway) (Judaism), Ramadan (Islam), Birth of Mary (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Jill St. John (Church of the SubGenius), Nativity of the Theotokos (Greek Orthodox Christianity), Feast Day of Robertus de Fluctibus (Thelema).

Worthy cause of the day:  “Protect us from toxic coal ash”.

Topic 1:  The Temple Mount, continued.  The Western Wall is an extremely tame area.  It has been cleaned up and made very convenient for visitors.  (There is security to go through to get there, but there is security everywhere in Israel.)  Do note that the archaeological digs at the site are hidden; they cannot be seen by anyone visiting the Western Wall.  Less well publicized is an area of the retaining walls at the southwest of the Temple Mount, which has been cordoned off and is now called the Jerusalem Archaeological Park.  Though that area has also been cleaned up to some extent and plants planted, one can get a better feel of the destruction wrought by the Romans in 70 CE when they destroyed the Second Temple.  Take a look at this:

That is a big pile of blocks.  The same sort of huge blocks which make up the retaining walls of the Temple Mount.  And there are an awful lot of these huge blocks lying around in the Park.  These are pieces of stone too large to be dislodged easily; even 2,000 years later, the retaining walls of the Temple Mount are still standing.  The Romans had to expend a lot of effort to knock them over the edge.

There are also rather a lot of pieces of columns lying around.

Unlike the Western Wall, at the Park there is little reluctance on the part of the caretakers to show the place in a desolate state.

What I saw that the Romans did makes me wish I had done my pilot trip right before the Nine Days rather than waiting until ’Elul, as the Nine Days commemorate the destruction of both Temples.  Also to be noted is how much the Islamic and Christian rulers from 70 CE to 1948 cared about the Temple Mount:  they really did not.  The Muslims built on top of the Temple Mount in order to assert the supremacy of Islam over Judaism, and the Christians temporarily turned the Dome of the Rock into a church to assert their own supremacy.  But neither bothered to clean up the mess made by the Romans.  The Park is an area where they had stalls to sell sacrificial animals and materials, as well as money-changers and ritual baths—a place necessary for the proper functioning of the Temple, but hardly glamorous.  Now at least these stones are getting serious scholarly scrutiny.  But given the current political climate, I expect it to be some time before everything is returned to its correct place.

And, yes, this is where Jesus reportedly went crazy.  The writers of the Gospels were no fans of the sacrificial service or any other Jewish institution.

Topic 2:  This plate I photographed in a shop window on my last day in Israel:

This is evidently meant to be the Ro’sh hashShanah equivalent of a sedher plate.  Each of the compartments is labeled with the name of a different symbolic food.  Symbolic foods are a form of prayer performed by eating something meant to reflect a wish.  All the names on this plate are Hebrew and Aramaic, easily making for untranslatable wordplay.  For an English example, some people on Ro’sh hashShanah eat lettuce, half a raisin, and celery, the wordplay intended being “let us have a raise in salary”.  (Yes, that is groan-worthy.)  The symbolic foods listed on this plate (from the top, going clockwise) are:  black-eyed peas, leek, beet, apple, pomegranate, date, squash, and fish.  For some reason, the head of an animal is left out.  (If anyone knows anything about the legality of selling cow brains for food in Israel, please let me know.)  One could also argue something is wrong when honey is omitted, though to be fair it is rather messy and often kept in a squeeze-bottle.  The point of this plate is clearly commercial.  There is no obligation to have all symbolic foods on the same plate or stick to a standard set.  Lettuce-half-a-raisin-celery is very recent, and there also have been symbolic foods based on Yiddish wordplay.  Still, at least this is a better idea than the plastic shofars.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor: “shana tova” (= “good year” or approximately “happy new year”):

Yes, someone hacked a Muppet skit.

Peace and shanah ṭovah.

Aaron

The Western Wall

Greetings.

Jewish date:  28 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Ha’azinu).

Today’s holidays:  Laylat al-Qadr (Islam), Ramadan (Islam), Tuesday of the Twenty-Third Week of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Susan St. James (Church of the SubGenius).

NOTE:  In the spirit of the imminent Ten Days of Repentance, I hereby unconditionally forgive all those who have sinned against me in the past year and request the forgiveness of those I have sinned against.

Topic 1:  The Temple Mount (Har habBayith).  I did not visit the Temple Mount itself on my pilot trip.  Given my sheer disgust at Muslim efforts to over the past several hundred years to Islamize the site (including wholesale illegal excavation and denial of any relevance to Judaism despite all the evidence to the contrary), coupled with the Israeli government foolishly trying to appease Muslims by forbidding any Jewish worship up there, I chose to stay off the Temple Mount in an effort to avoid causing an international incident and ruining my chances at making ‘aliyyah.  I am saving getting kicked off the Temple Mount for praying up there until I have already made ‘aliyyah.

Nevertheless, I made it a priority to visit the Western Wall (hakKothel hamMa‘aravi), in fact doing so as soon as I realistically could after checking in at the hostel I was staying at.  (It was only about half an hour away on foot.)

I took this picture the last day I was in Israel from a special spot set up for nice photographs of the Western Wall.  The first thing one should notice is this place is huge.  (My photographic skills are limited, so do not be surprised if they fail to capture everything I mention.)  Herod the Great was a horrible person, but at least he knew something about architecture.  So when he set about reconstructing the Second Temple and the Temple Mount, he made everything as big as he could.  (And the Temple Mount, as far as what counts as the Temple Mount under Jewish law, was already 500 cubits × 500 cubits, something to the tune of 0.25 km × 0.25 km, no small potatoes.  And Herod added on to that.)  The scale is so large that my camera was not equal to capturing everything in one shot; one will notice the Dome of the Rock on top of the Temple Mount on the left, but the Dome of the Chain was too far off to the right to be photographed at the same time.  The Western Wall, which is the western retaining wall of the Temple Mount, shows two sections vertically:  an older, Herodian section below made of large, stylized blocks known as “ashlars”, and a younger, Islamic section above made of much smaller blocks.  (Despite Islamic pretenses of superiority, they failed to out-Herod Herod.  Herod’s blocks are around half the height of a human, while the Muslim blocks are wimpy twerps by comparison.)  Straight ahead are sections set aside for men (on the left) and women (on the right) to pray.  Not really visible but still there on the left are arches attached to the Western Wall; the undersides of them have been repurposed as prayer and Torah study areas.  Visible on the left are the Western Wall information center, a place where they hand out free food in the morning after shaḥarith (morning prayers), public restrooms, and a yeshivah.  On the right side is a ramp leading up to the Temple Mount.  In front is a large open area, and in front of that are archaeological digs.  The digs are well-hidden from anyone visiting the Western Wall.

Praying at the Western Wall is an interesting experience.  Inside synagogues, worshippers are confined to specific areas and frequently start on a set schedule.  But at the Western Wall, even under the arches, no one is confined to any specific area, and so many different groups are normally praying simultaneously, each starting whenever they get a critical mass of worshippers together.  Without any demarcation where groups begin and end, confusion is easy.  Synagogues also frequently cater to specific strains of Judaism, but at the Western Wall, which belongs to no one Jewish group, Jews with radically different conceptions of Judaism and different levels of observance frequently pray side-by-side.  This intrareligious inclusion is refreshing.

I have other things I need to do today, but I hope to talk more about the areas around the Temple Mount soon.  The Western Wall is not all that is left of the Temple Mount as it was in the Second Temple Period, and of what is left, I also visited the much less publicized area at the southwestern corner of the Temple Mount.

Topic 2:  Barry and I got into a discussion the other day about whether I should review a number of movies with more or less religious themes.  I have decided to post the list and open the matter for public discussion:

• The Bells of St. Mary:  I thought this was a good idea.  I have seen this movie, and some of the characters have interesting religious attitudes.  Barry characterized it as “Christmas fluff, power of belief unrealistically overcoming all.  Best for the boxing nun and Bing Crosby as a surfer dude priest.”  I largely concur.
• Dogma:  I had a copy.  I watched it once.  I was so disgusted I traded it in.  Barry notes “Had some interesting interpretations on sin, absolution, and the character of Jesus.”  Dogma indeed has some interesting religious ideas.  Unfortunately, those interesting religious ideas are mixed in with so much material in severely bad taste that watching it was painful.  (If you have not already seen this movie, you likely do not want to know.)  I do draw lines on content, and I believe reviewing Dogma is more pain than it is worth.
• The Exorcist:  I have seen this movie once and found it dull.  Arguably it would be worthwhile to review as a popular depiction of exorcism.  Barry considers this movie “creepy”, though I am too jaded over horror movies to be creeped out by it.
• Jesus Christ, Vampire Hunter:  (Yes, this is a real film.)  I had a copy.  I watched it once.  I thought it was stupid (as if the title alone was not a clue this was so).  I decided it was too minor and traded it in.  Barry notes this movie is “Stupid but amusing in parts”, but for me the stupidity outweighed the amusement.
• The Omen:  I have not seen this movie.  Barry notes it has an evil child in it, and the Wikipedia description suggests it may be worthwhile examining as a popular depiction of the Antichrist.
• Red Planet Mars:  I have probably seen this movie once.  Barry correctly notes on it “Apparently Jesus visited other planets.”  Reviewing this may be a good idea.
• The Wicker Man:  I have not seen this movie, but its (bad) reputation precedes it.  I have rejected it a priori due to it being reportedly too far out of my comfort zone for me to watch.  Barry notes “The implications for neopaganism are serious.  There is also the question of the historical accuracy of the practice which is the title of the piece.  Seeing a little nudity will not kill you.”  However, I am very uncomfortable with watching depictions of full-frontal nudity, and if I watch something like this, I may need a bottle of Manischewitz to even make it possible.  That might result in an interesting review, but not a good one.

What are your thoughts on whether I should review these films?  And what other films should I review and why?

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor, in the spirit of Ro’sh hashShanah (which starts Wednesday night), I present these toys I photographed on the last day I was in Israel:

These are meant to be “shofars for children”, shofars being animal horns blown on Ro’sh hashShanah.  The stickers on the horns themselves read “good year”.  Whoever created these was clearly not religious.  Not only are plastic horns invalid as shofars, but it is forbidden to blow them on Ro’sh hashShanah.  Not to mention these are probably a great way to annoy parents.  These things may work better for Purim.

Peace.

Aaron

Israel is a real place

Greetings.

Jewish date:  26 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Ha’azinu).

Today’s holidays:  Ramadan (Islam), Laylat-al-Qadr (Lailat ul Qadr, Lailat-ul Qadr, Night of Power) (Islam), Twenty-Third Sunday of Ordinary Time (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Henry Louis Mencken (Church of the SubGenius).

Topic 1:  A big backlog on anti-Semitism and the Arab-Israeli War:  “Selective Outrage: Israeli Facebook Photos Spark Media Circus”, “Action Alert: CBC Drags a False Equivalence”, “EXCLUSIVE VIDEO: Dramatic Reunion Ten Years After The Photo That Started It All”, “Iranian youth athlete withdraws from fight with Israel competitor” (translation:  Iran would rather force its taekwondo fighters to chicken out like wimps rather than let them lose with honor), “Lancet Editor "Responds" to HR Critique”, “Ha'aretz Journalist's Speaking Tour: Sponsored by Anti-Zionists”, “BBC Panorama Shocker: Balanced Review of Gaza Flotilla Incident”, “Incitement is not one-sided”, “Dead Jews and living trees” (some people have completely missed what the Holocaust is supposed to teach us), “The Root of the Arab-Israeli Conflict: The Classic Islamic View of Jews”, “The Despair of Zion” by Walter Reich, and “Egyptian minister calls on Muslims to flood J’lem” (completely forgetting that any Islamic identity of Yerushalayim is completely forged and that Muslim pilgrims there will be giving money to Jews, directly or indirectly, if they want to eat, sleep, or travel).

Topic 2:  I need to start writing about my pilot trip to Israel, my future home, and I still do not know where to start.  So let us start with something basic which at first sounds ridiculously obvious:  Israel is a real place.  Rationality requires us to try to recognize things as they are, for what they are.  The Israel I visited is not a religious fantasy of a Jewish or ecumenical utopia.  Neither is it a successor to Nazi Germany, as anti-Semites would have us believe.  In many respects, Israel is a lot like the United States, being a fully modern, Western country.  This includes the general rule of law and familiar products and technologies.

So how does Israel differ from the United States?  The most obvious (and relevant to this blog) is that while most of the West is predominantly Christian, Israel is predominantly Jewish.  There is a sizeable Muslim minority, and there are Christians, Bahá’ís, and members of other religions as well; but I stayed within areas with Jewish majorities, and this was reflected even within the secular culture.  (I do plan to go into this further as I discuss my trip.)  And while in the United States people are often not so visibly demonstrative of their religion, people who look religious are everywhere in Israel.  Even in Tel ’Aviv, the great bastion of Israeli secularism, there were some people who were visibly observant Jews, including one woman I talked with at a company at which I interviewed.  To be sure, there are enclaves, and whole neighborhoods are set up with particular religious groups in mind.  But in many places, people of different religious strains mix freely and without incident.  This includes on buses; despite what you may have heard about Ḥaredhim (sometimes derisively called “ultra-Orthodox”) holding by segregated buses, I saw plenty riding ordinary, mixed buses.

Israel is also a visibly multilingual society.  In the United States, government-issue signs (such as for traffic and street names) are usually only in English.  In Israel, they are typically in Hebrew, the international language English, and Arabic.  And while the most common language spoken on the street and found in non-governmental signs is indeed Hebrew, I also encountered a fair share of English, Arabic, Russian, Spanish, French, Yiddish, and what was probably Amharic.  One may also easily end up talking to people in languages other than Hebrew.  Someone at one synagogue did try speaking to me in Yiddish, which I do not know.  (I got a C in Yiddish in college and have made no attempts to study it since.)  Several people, upon hearing my American accent even when speaking Hebrew, switched to addressing me in English.  (I myself must admit guilt at switching too frequently from Hebrew to English when I had trouble making myself understood in Hebrew.  Hebrew is not my native language, and it requires more mental effort for me to speak or understand.  And I am under the impression that my accent is not the easiest for Israelis to understand either.)

I need to move on to other things today.  I hope to write about the Old City of Yerushalayim tomorrow.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor: “The transition”:

And again, if anyone knows anything about where this notion of black cats being evil comes from, please let me know.

Peace.

Aaron

I am finally back in the US after two weeks in Israel

Greetings.

Jewish date:  24 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Niṣṣavim-Wayyelekh).

Today’s holidays:  Laylat al-Qadr (Islam), Ramadan (Islam), Feast Day of Gregory the Great (Roman Catholicism), Feast Day of St. Wendy O. Williams/St. Lawrence Welk (Church of the SubGenius), Buresloth (Discordianism).

Topic 1:  I am finally back in the US after about two weeks in Israel.  The experience was simultaneously thrilling, scary, exciting, insane, confusing, and inspiring.  Not to mention tiring.  After I got home yesterday, I spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping.  But I did come back with good reason to believe that I can find work in Israel, and I am now determined to move there.

Directly relevant to this blog, I got to see a nice slice of (mostly Jewish) religious life over there, which I hope to do some blogging about next week, possibly running over into the week after that.  I lodged in Yerushalayim (Jerusalem), about 30 minutes away on foot from the Western Wall, and so I managed to visit the Western Wall and other places in the Old City.  I also managed to visit Tel ’Aviv, Ḥayfah, Nethanyah, Be’er Sheva‘, and Qiryath Shemu’el.  I have seen synagogues and Judaica stores.  And for some reason there was a good deal of Jewish graffiti, which surprised me and will probably have a post dedicated to it.  Please be patient.  I have a lot of photographs to sort, and I need to get my ideas better organized.  Not to mention I have competing things to do;  Ro’sh hashShanah, one of our new years (we have four) is coming up next week, and I have preparations to do.  Not to mention writing to various people.  But posts on Israel will come (YHWH willing).

Topic 2:  Since Ro’sh hashShanah is just around the corner, you may want to read about it at the Orthodox Union’s site.

Topic 3:  For today’s religious humor: “Conscience cat”:


Peace and Shabbath shalom.

Aaron

Theological analysis of Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids (The Discworld Series, book 7)

Greetings.

Jewish date:  6 ’Elul 5770 (Parashath Ki-Theṣe’).

Today’s holidays:  Nag Panchami (Hinduism), Feast Day of Stephen of Hungary (Roman Catholicism), Solarinite Day (Church of the SubGenius).

Worthy causes of the day:  “Take Action: Tell President Obama: Make Our Food Safe NOW!”, “GOP: Stop Punishing the Unemployed - The Petition Site”, and “Save the Internet: Take Action!:  Dear Chairman Genachowski: Don't Let Google Be Evil”.

Note:  My trip to Israel begins tomorrow afternoon.  Expect posting disruptions and (YHWH willing) cool pictures of places in Israel.

Topic 1:  Theological analysis of Terry Pratchett’s Pyramids (The Discworld Series, book 7):

WARNING #1:  SEVERE SPOILERS.  READ AT YOUR OWN RISK.

WARNING #2:  WRITTEN IN A HURRY BEFORE THE REVIEWER GOES ON A TWO WEEK TRIP.

Pyramids is aptly titled, as pyramids really are one of main focuses of this book in two of their aspects.  The first aspect of pyramids is their being the tombs of dead kings, in this case of the Discworld kingdom of Djelibeybi, which corresponds with ancient Egypt.  Djelibeybi has a very extensive necropolis of the pyramids and monuments of all its previous rulers.  In each of the pyramids lies the mummy of a ruler, the later ones preserved in something close to Egyptian fashion:  with the brain and internal organs removed and pickled in jars and the empty body embalmed.  Laying the mummy in its pyramid, along with models of the necessities of life, is supposed to give it a good afterlife.  The other aspect of pyramids which shows up melded with the first aspect is the New Age concept that pyramids have occult powers, including the (flakey) idea that pyramids can sharpen razor blades.  The pyramids of Djelibeybi are nothing so trivial; their pyramids are magical devices which can stop the flow of time (or at least some “arrows of time”) and flare off accumulated new time from the top periodically in something akin to lightning.  The original point of pyramids is to stop time therein so that the entombed king never dies.  Real mummification is a later development.

Other aspects of ancient Egyptian religion are reflected in Djelibeybi.  The inhabitants are polytheists, worshipping various animal-headed gods.  Notably the sky is a goddess, and much emphasis is placed on the Sun and its movements across the sky.  The king is considered a living god, sacred in his person, and somehow responsible for making the Sun rise each day.  There is also a priesthood, headed by the high priest Dios.  “Dios” is a rather strange name for a priest, meaning “god” in Spanish, but it fits his character.  He has been around for as long as anyone can remember, is opposed to changing anything ever, and effectively rules Djelibeybi with a proverbial iron hand, even creatively interpreting the commands of the king to mean what he wants them to mean.

Curiously, the Djelibeybi religion is intrinsically inconsistent.  Now, it is common enough for real people to have not thought things through enough or not to know enough and thus to not realize that some of their beliefs are in conflict.  However, there are blatant inconsistencies in the Djelibeybi religion which even fairly dull people can recognize are contradictions.  E.g., it is not possible for the Sun to be rolled across the sky by a giant dung beetle and to be a boat and to be a hole in the sky and to be a flaming ball of gas orbiting the Disc.  What usually happens in real religions is that when conflicting beliefs are noted, some way is found to harmonize them.  E.g., conflicting beliefs may be things which are possibly true, or they may each be in some aspect true.  However, occasionally there are individuals who are not that wise and thus embrace contradiction.

All of this interacts to create the two major problems of the plot.  The easy one to understand is that the new king, Teppicymon XXVIII (“Teppic” for short), is highly displeased with Dios effectively countermanding his orders, including ordering the execution of the handmaiden Ptraci for refusing to voluntarily be buried with the old king and Teppic’s father Teppicymon XXVII.  Despite Teppic being a recent graduate of the school of the Assassin’s Guild, he has enough of a conscience to try to work against Dios underhandedly and effectively become an outlaw in his own kingdom in order to save Ptraci.  (To be fair, members of the Assassin’s Guild are supposed to kill only for large sums of money, and Dios is not paying Teppic anything.  And, yes, killing only for money is a rather strange concept of morality.  On the other hand, the Discworld pokes fun at a lot of the really nutty things that real people do and believe.  In our world, we have the no less bizarre notion of regulating warfare, which in turn is perverted by failing to apply the standards in anything resembling a fair manner.  But I digress.)

The other major problem is wholly due to the construction of the pyramid of Teppicymon XXVII.  This is the largest pyramid ever constructed in Djelibeybi, and with its construction come bizarre magical effects.  Pyramids, as noted, have magical effects on time, and effects are felt even before the pyramid is finished.  The Ptacslup clan who build it and their workers are frequently “looped back”, so they may be effectively present in multiple places at the same time, enabling them to do the job in a matter of days.  Flaring begins before the capstone can be put into place, and when two of the Ptacslups try to hurriedly manhandle it into place, all of Djelibeybi is rotated 90° through another dimension away from the rest of the Discworld, effectively isolating it.  (The effect is done in a way which shows that Pratchett really has not quite gotten the hang of four-dimensional geometry, but since this Divine Misconceptions and not Scientific Misconceptions or Mathematical Misconceptions, I will let it slide.)

Now, remember that on the Discworld belief changes reality.  While Djelibeybi is part of the Discworld, the beliefs of everyone on the Discworld go into creating reality.  But after the isolation, the belief system of the Djelibeybi religion takes over, unimpeded by the beliefs of other people.  But the Djelibeybi religion is inconsistent, which contradicts a principle that most of us take for granted:  reality is always self-consistent.  As much of the Djelibeybi belief system as possible is manifested, but the result in chaotic.  All of the sudden, gods who are supposed to be fulfilling the same function are fighting each other, including multiple Sun gods fighting over the Sun so that it gets tossed all over the sky.  Even worse, these gods are fairly stupid and ignore humans, causing a lot of damage wherever they go.  This is not what the gods are supposed to be like, suggesting that a lot of people in Djelibeybi, while believing in their gods’ existence, give little thought to their gods having minds and personalities or caring about humans; instead, they are just indefinite, uncaring powers.  All this is a shock for the priests, especially Dios.  Dios invented these gods and the entire religion of Djelibeybi in the first place, and he is at a loss at what to do.

A much stronger belief is in the afterlife for kings.  Now, in the Discworld people survive after death in according to their beliefs, so it should be no surprise that Teppicymon XXVII survives as a ghost to watch his mummification in grisly detail.  After the isolation of Djelibeybi, however, the belief in the mummy as the physical form of the deceased king took hold, and his mummified remains become his actual physical form.  Teppicymon XXVII quickly realizes that what has happened to him is probably happening to every other mummy in Djelibeybi.  He enlists two embalmers, and the three of them set out to free the other mummies.  Indeed, every pyramid contains an active mummy, many expressing a hatred for pyramids.  (You just try lying in a casket for 1,000 years.  You would probably hate it, too.)  But there is one exception to this rule:  one small, extremely primitive pyramid.  This pyramid is empty, and enough aspects of time run backwards in it for a lit torch to unburn.  (The amount of fuel increases rather than decreases.)

The plot resolves with three different groups converging:  1) the mummies and the embalmers, 2) the priests, who really have no idea how to handle the situation, but are still determined to do something anyway, and 3) Teppic.  Teppic, with the help of the mummies, manages to get his father’s pyramid capped, causing a huge flare.  Besides a lot of pyrotechnics, most of the pyramids are destroyed, the mummies fall into water and are dissolved (thus sparing them the horrors of eternal life), Dios disappears, the gods of Djelibeybi disappear, and Djelibeybi drops back into the Discworld.  Teppic abdicates in favor of Ptraci, who it turns out is his half-sister.  But then, at their last scene together, Ptraci demands that he not leave and ends up snogging him.  (I know:  EW!)  I am well aware that the ancient Egyptian royalty (and gods) had a thing for incest, but I am left wishing for something other than historical accuracy on this point and hope this pairing does not recur later in the series.  We also learn what happens to Dios:  he is blown right back to the beginning of Djelibeybi history, to found the kingdom.  His life history is circular, without beginning or end, and he never ages, due to his pyramid.  Appropriately, the symbol on his staff is the ouroboros, a snake swallowing its own tail and thus a kind of circle.


Also:  All rulers of Djelibeybi have a dream about seven fat cows and seven thin cows.  This should be familiar to anyone with a decent knowledge of Genesis as one of the two dreams of Par‘oh (Pharaoh) interpreted by Yosef (Joseph), though in that dream no cows were doing anything silly (unless one considers cannibalism silly).  Descriptions of Djelibeybi as “a land flowing with milk and honey” are less appropriate, since that description normally applies to Israel; it is only applied to Egypt once, by Jews dissatisfied with life in the Desert.

Also:  Djelibeybi lies between two powers, Ephebe and Tsort.  Once Djelibeybi disappears, these two countries decide to go to war, more out of principle rather than any real cause.  However, they base their tactics on what happened in a previous era, and both sides build giant wooden horses, which their soldiers hide in.  (Shades of the Trojan War.)  Fortunately, Djelibeybi reappears before anything actually happens.


Also, and finally:  I am well aware what the name “Djelibeybi” plays on.  I have seen more than enough Doctor Who to know that.


Next up:  Probably The White Goddess by Robert Graves.  This work is famous for having influenced the Neopagan movement and infamous for historical inaccuracy.  Though I have a ways to go in it, I am so far dissatisfied with the quality of its scholarship to the point that I am likely to title the review “I spit on Robert Graves”.  (Thanks to Barry for devising that title, intended for a nonexistent movie.)

Topic 2:  For today’s religious humor: “Puff, the Kosher Dragon”.  This is a song which goes at least far back as my childhood.  There is also an audio version (RealPlayer required).  And, for the record, dragons are not suitable for food according to Jewish law; Puff is kasher in the sense of eating kasher food and being Torah-observant.

Peace.

Aaron