An Eleventh for our Time

Rambam's eleventh principle of faith (old version):
"I believe with perfect faith that G-d rewards those who keep His commandments, and punishes those who transgress Him."

Rambam's eleventh principle of faith (new version):
"I believe with perfect faith... yadda... yadda... reward... punishment... blah, blah, blah... unless you're wearing a red bracelet or have recently said parshas hamon, in which case you are home free."

The problem with Gaza

Gaza: No roads, no trains, no schools, no electricity; but the stores are all well stocked with Danish flags.

Tip of the keffiya: Mis-nagid, first ballot Hall of Famer, commenter division.

More on Mon

Gil Student said:
I assume the intention of this new practice [Parshas Haman] is to strengthen people's faith in God, not to discourage effort.

Well aren't we optimistic.

Actually, the purpose here is neither to strengthen people's faith in God, nor to discourage effort; rather people believe it works. That's all there is to it. They're not trying to keep you out of college; they're not trying to increase your faith in God. They just think it works.

And, ironically, God has nothing to do with it!! (Not the real God, anyway; just the make believe God, ie: the one who has no choice but to act whenever someone reads parshas haman. That's right the Parshas Haman people are worshiping a God so very powerful he jumps at the command of human beings!)

Sigh. And the detrioration of Judaism into rediculous spells and charms continues....

Segulah Time

Hey true believers, good news!

Apparently, the Tuesday before Shabbas B'shalach (ie: today) is an especially auspicious time to ask God to give you money! (Or "parnasa" if you're one of those extra pious types who refuse to use English for certain words.)

In order to get the money, I mean the parnasa, all you have to do is recite Parshas Ha'mon, (the reading which describes how how God provided mon for the Israelites in the dessert, and no "mon" is not a pun on "money" though that's a funny idea; nor does it have anything to do with Jamaica, also a funny idea; rather manna, the miracle food provided for the Israelites during their journy through the desert.)

Anyway, all you have to do is read Parshas Ha'mon, and you too will receive miracle food! Sustenance will fall from the heavens! Checks will miraculously appear in your mailbox! No need to go to college, or to train for a vocation! No need to do anything at all! It will be like being back in the Garden of Eden before that lousy woman and her pet snake wrecked everything! Haha!

Just read Parshas Ha'mon and presto! instant cold hard cash!!

Or something. Keep your day job, just in case. DovBear makes no guarantees.

Ok, back to the hiatus.

The Hall of Fame (the hiatus continues)

With my secret mission taking longer to wrap up then anticipated, I thought I'd give the loyal members of DovBear nation something new to argue about during my (very temporary) absence...

And so with very little thought, yet a fair amount of fear and trepidation, I am pleased to introduce...

UPDATE:
(1) Links fixed.
(2) The Hall of Fame is meant to honor sustained excellence, so I didn't put up any new blogs. Of those on the list only GH and OM are younger than me. Basicly, if you're not GH or OM and you started blogging after October, 2004, you were excluded. If you're older than me, and I left you off it was (a) an error (b) an attempt to upset you (c) a personal attack on your dignity and honor as a blogger or (d) done because I hate you. Or, it could be just that you're still going strong. If you notice, hardly anyone on the Hall of Fame list is still blogging at full power.
(3) If some enterprising artist (AirTime?) would like to design a Hall of Fame banner you can put them on your sidebars. Or now. Whatever you like is ok with me. I am here to serve.

DovBear's J-blogosphere Hall of Fame (DovBear, proprietor)

Members: Blogging Division

AidelMaidel
Ari Goes Down
Burry Katz
ChayyeiSarah
Esther Kustanowitz
Godol Hador
Luke Ford
Heimishtown
Hirhurim
Jewlicious
JewSchool
Mobius
MoChassid
OrthoMom
Psychotoddler
Renegade Rebbetzin
She
Steven I. Weiss and Protocols
Team Shaviv
The Shaigetz
Treppenwitz

Members: Service to the J-blogosphere Division
Air Time - For artistic contributions
Aussie Dave - For the Jibs
Mirty - For teaching us all how to code
SoccerDad - For Havel Havalim

Candidate Members: Commenter Division
Note: This is not an exhaustive list, despite my best efforts.

&
4jkb4ia
Annoymous
Anono
Anon
Anono1
Anon2
Air Time
Akiva
Al Gore
Alex
AMP
Amshinover
B. Spinoza
balabustainbluejeans
bishul akum
Back of the Hill
Cara
Chana
chandira
charliehall
chardal
Classmate Wearing Yarmulka
Cyrk
David
Dilbert
Dude
Eliyahu
Elf
Esther Kustanowitz
Ezzie
Frummer????????
GaonOfChelm
Ger Tzadik
Godol Hador
Goldaleah
halfnutcase
Holy Hyrax
Hanan
Jack
Jameel Rashid
Joe Schick
Jewropean
J-Freak
Jeff
justajew
Just Passing Through
Judd
Q-Jew
katieb
Krum
latefordinner
lamedzayin
Lipman
LkwdGuy
Mar Gavriel
Mike Koplow
Mirty
Mis-nagid
Moishe Potemkin
mykroft
Naftuli
Noyam
R2J
R' Hyman Krustowskij
Rebecca
Reb Yudel
REReader
S.
Seth Gordon
Shanna
Shifra
SnoopyTheGoon
Steven Brizel
Steg (dos iz nit der šteg)
Still Wonderin'
Surah Malka
The Town Crier
Yitzchak Goodman
Yoinasaschreiber
Uncle Moishy
Velvateen Rabbi
WBS
Warren
Woodrow

Additional nominees welcome. Let the recriminations begin!

The hiatus continues

Stories we're following for you:

Alito: I am glad he was confirmed; I am mad he was confirmed; and I really don't care. Perhaps later today I'll tell you why.

Aussie Dave: What a job he did on the JIBs, eh? Sure the competition got ugly (as I predicted it would back in December 2004) and, yes, the vote pandering reached new levels of absurdity, but none of that should reflect on Dave and his creation. (Anyway, pandering and ugliness is half the fun, as I also said in December 2004.)

Gary Rosenblatt: Apparently he's full of it Any good Rosenblatt he acquired breaking le affair Lanner is now officially squandered.

A Section Ads: We saw an underwear ad on Saturday! A real honest to goodness underwear ad! In the A section! Unfortunately, no one cares anymore and Kobre's credibility is shot. Oh well.

Amona: I am very sympathetic to the religious people who were brutalized by the Israeli police last week (Don't believe me? Screw you.) However, I find myself in a quandry. For the last 20 years outfits like Honest Reporting and Camera have instructed us to disregard all reports of brutality by the Israeli authorities. There's always context and another side to the story, they say. Reports of brutality, they say, are always exagerated by the "anti-Israel" media.

Ok, so how about now? Do I believe the Times, which sided (in my eyes) with the settlers? Or do I believe the bloggers and the Jewish newspapers who've been telling me for years that Times is not trustworthy?

Here's a good example: The front page of the Times last week (was it Friday?) showed a phalanx of horseback riding police men confronting a group of settlers. There was paint on one of the horses, and the caption said that the settlers had been throwing rocks and paint, but at first glance none of the was obvious from the picture. For all the world it looked like the police were unprovoked and attacking a group of unarmed people.

Had those unarmed people been Palestenians, Honest Reporting and the rest of you would have (perhaps rightfully) criticized the Times for running a picture showing the police responding to violence. You'd have (perhaps correctly) asked why the front page picture wasn't one of Palestenians throwing rocks and paint. So why is it different when the rock throwers and lawbreakers are Jewish?

Don't get me wrong, I am pleased as punch to see so many right-wingers sympathizing for once with the underdogs (as do I in this case. Again, don't believe me? Screw you) and against the armed (and arguably lawful) authorities. But it's odd. It's very odd. Or perhaps not. Maybe it always was a matter, not of principle, but of whose ox was being gored.

No post today

I am on a secret mission. Go read the newspaper instead.

(The haitus ends Sunday or Monday.)

Gotta hand it to the GOP....

...seems like they picked a real winner to replace Tom Delay.

Today's Cross Current comment that won't see the light of day.

Toby Katz wants to know why nobody thinks Cross Currents is a religious blog. She writes:

We are working in the arena of hashkafa here. My understanding of Torah Im Derech Eretz is that the Torah has something to say about everything, and that it behooves Jews to act in accord with Torah values at all times... What area is outside the purview of politics? Women’s issues? Day school tuition? Crime and punishment? Israel? [...]But I reject the premise that what we are discussing here is “just politics.” What some casually dismiss as “politics” I think of as “life.”

My answer: Perhaps if there was a greater variety of Torah perspectives present, we'd be able to take more seriously your claim of being a "religious blog that talks about important issues."

With only Shira Schmidt here to speak for the parts of Torah that coincide with liberal, democratic, and progressive politics, the result is a blog that speaks about "important issues" from only the conservative, republican and regressive perspectives. (That fact that many of your writers are likely scratching their heads wondering which parts of Torah coincide with liberalism all but makes my point for me.)

A blog that had a religious agenda, and not a political agenda, would reference Torah thoughts from all over the political spectrum. Not just the right. A blog that had a religious agenda and not a political agenda would never have published Eytan Kobre's attacks on the Times, or Toby Katz's obscene celebration of Tookie William's execution. A blog with a religious agenda would be attempting to show us the great multiplicity of opinions that all fall under the rubric of Torah thought, rather than being committed to just one, very narrow perspective. And there are legions of other examples.

As for myself, I reject the idea that God is a Democrat or a Republican, and I acknowledge that a fair amount of Jewish law and belief overlaps with Republican positions. However, if Cross Currents is truely a religious blog, they ought to give equal time to the parts of Torah that don't fit the GOP talking points.

Morality

Q Jew's current post has me thinking: Where does morality come from? Is it out there, and absolute; or is it defined by God?

Let's look at the second possibility: If morality is defined by God, doesn't that make morality sort of arbitrary? Wouldn't it mean that, before God said it was wrong, murder was not immoral?

And if it was immoral before God said so, then the argument that religion is essential to morality takes a blow. Because if morality has nothing to do with God, shouldn't atheists be able to tap into it?

Pandering post of the day if not the decade

Click here

[Attention morons: The link above will lead you a work of satire. If you find yourself unable to appreciate or understand satire please DO NOT CLICK THE LINK. The post to which it leads will only make you mad, and then you'll spend the rest of your day writing a pathetic post on your pathetic blog decrying GH for his poor sportsmanship. Ok? So save yourself the trouble, and save us the aggravation. If you have no sense of humor: DO NOT CLICK]

More magic

One of my email correspondents alerted me to an error in yesterday's post about the Egyptian magicians and how they were complete frauds, with no powers.

It has been corrected.

A Section Ads.

Finally! We're pleased to report the appearance of a scantily clad woman in the A-Section of the New York Times! Alas, for Eytan's first premise, it was not an underwear ad or even an underwear wearing woman, but a Lord and Taylor model showing a heck of a lot of leg. Does that count? Judges? Should we throw Eytan a bone, and say that he finally won a day? Or do we stick to the original rules, and count underwear only?

Having spotted an immodest ad in the A-Section, I was, at long last, able to test Eytan's second premise: The idea that juxtaposing near-naked women with serious news stories somehow undermines the Times claim to be a serious paper. To test this theory I stared at the Lord and Taylor ad for thirty seconds, then read the article and asked myself the following questions:

Was I able to understand the article? Yes.
Did the article seem serious to me, despite its close proximity to a black and white picture of an attractive woman's thigh? Yes.
Do I still think the Times is a good paper? Yes.

Now, I admit that I am not be the best test subject for this particular experiment, because I don't accept Eytan's second premise. I don't think that the Times sees itself as a "font of intellectual and moral gravitas." I just think it's a smart paper, with some good writing and analysis on the day's event, so it doesn't strike me as odd to find an unclad woman mixed in among the good writing.

To really test Eytan's argument, we need someone who embraces the second premise. Do any of you, out there in reader land, believe that the Times is produced by (as Eytan put it) "bleeding heart humanists, who fancy themselves exquisitely morally sensitive and committed to truth, justice and (People for) the American Way?" If so, do me a favor and look at Page A3, and see if that Lord and Taylor advert seems inappropriate. Thanks.

POST JIBS

Q Jew explains why the JIBs are even dumber than we first thought.

(Yes, I recognize this looks like a change of course. Previously, I was whoring for votes like everyone else; now I am saying that not only are the JIBs dumb, but dumber than we first thought. Deal with it.)

Update
No, it's not sour grapes. I am doing as well as I could have expected, and currently stand to medal in three categories.

That makes me glad, and happy and proud, of course. But it isn't like I wasn't away that the JIBs are of questionable significance, given how they boil down to not just a glorified popularity contest, but a popularity contest capable of being skewed by an outsider with a very large audience (and the fact that I was one of the prime beneficiaries of this ought to give me some credibility here.)

Now it turns out that a hacker could also skew the totals, making the results even less significant.

Update Again
What we really need is something to augment the JIBs. Here's what I propose. I think the medaists in each category should serve as judges in a contest that rewards not blogs, but posts. Let them choose the best humor post, the best advocacy post, the best Torah post, and so on.

Your thoughts below, please.

Miracles amazing wonders... NOT

Edited Feb 2, 2006

Today's post discusses the Chartumei Mitzrayim, the Egyptian court magicians who attempted to duplicate Moshe's miricales. According to the Sages, these men tapped into legitimate black magic, forces that God built into creation, and manipulated it to create wonders. For a time, these wonders deceived Pharoh into rejecting Moshe's demands.

Except, some Sages says it's all nonesense. Notably, the Abarbanel writes that the court magicians were never able to replicate a single miracle. He says they either used David Copperfield-type illusions to trick Pharoh, or simply spread false rumors of their abilities. (My hunch is that Hasidic-miracle workers operate the same way, and I eagerly wait a James Randi expose of their methods.)

The strongest argument that the Egyptians magicians were frauds is made by Samason Rephael Hirsch and it is a textual argument.

R' Hirsch points out that the Torah never actually says that the magicians were able to turn water to blood, or produce frogs, rather it says "And the magicians of Egypt did so with their enchantments [v'yasu chen... b'latayhem]" According to Hirsch this doesn't mean that the magicians were successful, only that they imitated Aaron, ie: After Aaron hit the water or the dirt with his stick, the magicians copied his action with the powerless tools of their own impotent trade.

He also asks (I'm paraphrasing)"Why would the magicians want more frogs and more lice? Wouldn't it make more sense if they were trying to remove the plauge?" And, in fact, the word the Torah uses to describe the intention of the magicians(l'hotzi) can mean both to "bring up" and to "remove."

Here then are the relevant passages as Samson Rephael Hirsch understands them with my own interpolations in blue:

Frogs:
6 And Aaron stretched out his hand over the waters of Egypt; and the frogs came up, and covered the land of Egypt.

7 And the magicians copied Aaron's with their magic charms, [nontheless] frogs covered the land of Egypt. [How do we know the magicians were trying to remove the frogs, and failed? Because right away Pharoh calls for help. See next verse.]

8 Then Pharaoh called for Moses and Aaron, and said, Intreat the LORD, that he may take away the frogs from me, and from my people; and I will let the people go, that they may do sacrifice unto the LORD. [Doesn't sound like someone with much faith in magicians, does he?]

Lice:
17 ...Aaron stretched out his hand with his rod, and smote the dust of the earth, and it became lice in man, and in beast; all the dust of the land became lice throughout all the land of Egypt.

18 And the magicians copied Aaron's action with their magic charms to remove (l'hotzi) the lice, but they could not: so there were lice upon man, and upon beast. [This verse is the best proof of the magicians intentions, if you, follow SRH, and read l'hotzi as "remove": Immediately after we're told that the magicians could not "l'hotzi" the lice, the text says they were everywhere.]

Underwear Ads

Ads in the A section appeared even more modest than usual today: I saw no kissing, no hugging and no bare shoulders. Someone let Eytan know it's safe to start reading the paper again.

Today's results
Underwear ads: 0
Other ads picturing women in their skivies: 0

Score
DovBear:6
Eytan Kobre: 0

[Background]

There is strength in numbers (JIBs)

Today's Lesson: There is strength in numbers. For proof, look no further than the JIB voting where outstanding solo blogs like Godol Hador, OrthoMom, and RenegadeRebbetzin are being trounced by collaborative projects. Out in front in multiple categories are JewSchool (7 writers), Jewlicious (7 writers) and the fake-Torah blog (11 writers, though we think Sarah Schmidt, the Alan Colmes of that group, probably voted for us.)

Anyway, today's the last day of voting, so here's what I want you to do. First, go to the fake-Torah blog and let Yaakov Mencken know that you think its really cool that he was awake between 12:20 and 1:00 am this morning monitoring the votes. Tell him you don't think that's pathetic at all. (You also may want to mention that accusing Gil Student of cheating, even in the most backhanded of ways, is despicable but I leave that to your discretion.)

Next, head over to the JIB voting page. DovBear could use a push in this category, and a nudge here and here. I'd also really like to see Gil Student win here. (I'd really like to see GH win that category, too, but he's been numerically eliminated, I think)