Join me

Attention readers: I've decided you and I are going to start a Society for Truth in Judaism. Other than the name, and the fact that I will be president-for-life and CEO, all I've worked out so far is the logo: My initials in the shape of a torah rising pheonix-like from the ashes of historical ignorance, and accumulated piety. We'll also have refreshments.

Watch this space for more information.

Pummeled! Yus gets his clock cleaned again

Really, bro: It's time to give up

Yus: Even Lurker, DovBear's prominent authority for this posting, vanished when I posed the question which is at the heart of this matter:So the question of whether the symposia were respectable affairs, or forums for lewd behavior is not tangential to the issue. This is a central point. Can you resolve this?So I posed this question, and he just vanished.

Lurker: Um...excuse me? My last posting here was one day ago. What are you suggesting, that I should be sitting with bated breath at my computer 24 hours a day, so that I can jump to respond promptly to anything you come along and write? This may come as a shock to you, but I actually have a real life that includes things other than running to answer your postings. Things like going to work, davening, spending time with my family, and going to sleep at night. Let me get this straight: Because you didn't get an instant response, you drew the conclusion that I must have "vanished", cowering away from your withering glare. Man, what an inflated ego you have!Well, I'm not sure if I'm even worthy now of giving an answer, after my long, unexplained absence of an entire day, but what the heck; better late than never: [Read the rest]

Imus Unrepentant. Also Gone

CBS Drops Imus Radio Show Over Racial Remark - New York Times: "[Imus] also expressed bitterness that MSNBC had “pulled the plug” on televising his program less than 12 hours before the fundraiser was to begin. “They got their pound of flesh and made their decision,” he said."

Thanks BSCI

NOTE: CNN is also reporting Imus was fired by CBS. If that's so, Glenn Beck ought to be next, followed quickly by Limbaugh, Hannity, and Savage. If they aren't fired, its clear those suddenly self-righteous media emperors have no clothes. Oh, and, speaking of self-righteous, I'd really like to see Fat Al and Jesse go to a record company to protest they anti-black messages propagated by rap artists. None of this excuses the "nappy-headed ho" remark, but its fair to wonder why the professional protesters bestirred themselves this time, and equally fair to wonder why their protests were, for once, successful.

Four more quality posts

The Friar Yid is a fine friend of this blog, and I am pleased to point you to four of his best posts:

http://friaryid.blogspot.com/2006/08/been-in-bad-accident-burned-bus-full.html

http://friaryid.blogspot.com/2007/02/chuck-norris-is-witch.html

http://friaryid.blogspot.com/2006/10/wingnuts-part-2.html

http://friaryid.blogspot.com/2007/01/more-judeo-christian-narishkeit.html

Remember: If you've written a quality post, please send a link to yourfavoriteblogger@gmail.com

Ugh

The unspoken bigotry contained in this letter to Rabbi Horowitz makes my stomach turn. Not to mention the way the way the author attempts to mollycoddle his adult son.

Here's hoping the rabbi sets him straight.

Leave Imus alone

The PC vultures are circling for the bones of one J. Donald Imus, and though I agree with their central complaint, I think there's something disingenuous about the whole campaign.

Let's begin at the beginning: Imus and his pals should not insult young black women - or anyone else. Unfortunately, part of the appeal of the Imus show is that he insults people: Jews, Catholics, Hispanics, Women, and Republicans all have been on the receiving end of the show's dismissive humor.

So it's fair to ask the vultures: Where were you until now? Where were you when Jews were disparaged by Imus and his pals? Why weren't the advertising dollars pulled and the apologies demanded when Imus referred to the "Jewish" management at CBS records and called them "money grubbing bastards?" Or when he "called the book publishers Simon & Schuster “thieving Jews” (Imus in the Morning, 12/15/04), returning to the subject later in the program to offer a mock apology, saying that the phrase he used was “redundant?""

Anyone who cares to look, can find a long list of Imus "offenses", offenses that were for the most part ignored by his audience, and by the A-list guests who clawed over each other to appear on his show. I'm guilty, too. Once, I called into complain after the show's producer, Bernie McGurk, said something horrible about Rabbis and Christian children. The call screener gave me a glib excuse ("Do you hear what Bernie says about priests?") and I remained a listner. Was this because I accept casual bigotry, or because I understand that Imus's equal-opportunity racism is rooted in satire and shock-jockery rather than hate?

I honestly don't know. And though I can recognize the racism in his remark about the Rutgers team, I don't think it's a firing offense. The women weren't abused or denied an opportunity. They were simply insulted, in the way Imus has been insulting people for years. If you're tired of the shtick, vote with your feet. Listen to another morning program. Boycott his advertisers. The rest will take care of itself.

Don't visit Krum

Krum is a big bad Pesach Grinch who'd probably put a huge lump of coal under your hesaybeh pillow if he got the chance. Avoid at all cost.

Aside
What's worse? Being a bad actor, or being a Pesach Grinch? Is Krum both?

Odd. In NY we just go to the circus

Some 100 Ultra-Orthodox Jewish youths clashed with police in Jerusalem on Sunday morning [Chol Hamoed], protesting the sale of hametz (leavened bread) during the week of Passover in Jerusalem restaurants.

G'broks is good

DovBear: Go Get Some G'broks

How much did you pay to sell your chometz?

Just wondering...

Also, do Reform Rabbis sell chometz? And do they get paid for it, too?

Today's story you won't see on Yeshva World

Israel to put its babes forward in Maxim-um PR effort Jerusalem Post

The beer 'n' babes magazine Maxim will send photographers to Israel next week for an Israeli women photo shoot that Foreign Ministry officials hope redefines what the magazine's hormone-charged readers think when they hear television reporters say "the situation in Israel is hot."

Comment of the millennium

The following comment, written by "Lurker," my new best friend, adresses some of the terribly mean and off-the-mark objections I received to my post titled Chaval Siddur Pesach. In particular, Lurker uses impeccable Torah sources to rebut the claim (make by Joe Settler) that Afikomin has an Aramaic etymology. Then, he uses some of those same sources to support that contention I made last week about the original meaning of "ain maftirin achar hapesach afikomin." Also, Lurker deals with the disgusting and shallow suggestion (made by Chaim G and Yus, naturally) that attempting to discover the origin of our customs "belittles Judaism" or somehow insults our dead ancestors. Well done Lurker.

Sorry, but with all due respect, [the idea that Afikomin is Aramaic is] way off the mark... The word afikoman is most definitely Greek, and purely Greek, in origin. This fact can be found in plently of meforshim on the Mishna and Gemara. Furthermore, the etymology you present is both problematic and wrong, for a variety of reasons:

The word afikoman appears in the Mishna in Pesachim 10:8: "Ein maftirin achar ha-pesach afikoman". This clearly has nothing at all to do with matza (middle or otherwise), which alone is sufficient to demonstrate that your etymology cannot possibly be correct.

Furthermore, AFAIK, your explanation of afikoman as meaning "take out the middle matza" has no basis in any traditional Jewish source.

The Bavli (Pesachim 119b) gives two interpretations for the meaning of "ein maftirin achar ha-pesach afikoman": According to Rav, it means that you cannot get up at the end of the meal and go join someone else's korban Pesach group (chabura). According to Shmuel, it means that you cannot eat after-dinner snacks (i.e., desserts) after eating the korban Pesach. The Yerushalmi also cites the opinions of Rav (anonomously, in Pesachim 10:4) and Shmuel (also in the name of R. Yochanan, in 10:6). (Shmuel's opinion is also cited anonomously by the Tosefta, in 10:11.) The Yerushalmi (10:6) also quotes a third opinion in the name of R. Inaini b. R. Sisai -- that afikoman means entertainment with musical instruments (minei zemer).

These interpretations dovetail perfectly with the well-established idea that the structure of the Seder is heavily derived from that of the Greek symposia: At the end of a symposium, it was traditional for the participants to proceed over to someone else's house where they would conduct after-dinner merry-making, with delicacies and music. This practice was called epikomion, which means "after-dinner activities" or "after-dinner entertainment". I.e., because someone might think that we can also borrow this idea from the symposia, the mishna makes a point of telling us that it is forbidden to follow the meal with an epikomion. The three interpretations in the Gemara imply three different reasons for the prohibition: According to Rav, its because you're not allowed to eat from the korban Pesach of someone else's chabura. According to Shmuel, its because you're not allowed to eat anything else after the korban Pesach. And according to R. Inaini b. R. Sisai, it would seem to be either on account of (a) the inappropriateness of having musical entertainment after eating the korban Pesach, or (b) the rabbinic prohibition against playing musical instruments on Shabbat and Yom Tov.

You are correct that there is a connection drawn between the word afikoman and the Aramaic word afiku. But you -- and a bunch of other people in this forum -- are mistaken in attributing this to Chaza"l: There is no etymology of the word afikoman to be found anywhere in all of Sha"s -- not in the Mishna, the Tosefta, the Bavli, or the Yerushalmi. The explanations of the word afikoman using the word afiku are found only starting with the Rishonim, in their comments on "ein maftirin achar ha-pesach afikoman": The Rashbam (Pesachim 119b) explains Rav's opinion with the expression afiku minaichu ("take them out"), as in "take out your utensils from here, and let's go eat in another place"; and the Rav mi'Bartenura (Pesachim 10:8 ) explains Shmuel's opinion with the expression afiku minei metika ("take out [various] types of sweets"). Note that nobody says anything about afikoman meaning "take out the middle matza", since the mishna's use of the word is completely unrelated to this. Furthermore, these expressions used by the Rashbam and the Rav are not intended as etymologies of the word afikoman; they are simply mnemonic devices (notrikon). R. Kehati states this explicitly in his comments on 10:9 -- after he explains that the word afikoman is Greek in origin.

I find it strange that you would suggest that citing the Greek etymology of afikoman is un-"Jewish": The simple fact that this word is Greek can be found in the Tiferet Yisroel (Yachin, Pesachim 10:8, note 51), as well as the Tosafot R. Akiva Eiger -- who actually criticizes the Rav mi'Bartenura for not having known (or cited the fact) that afikoman is Greek! The Greek source of the word is also described in Kehati (see above), as well as Steinzaltz. Would you say that the explanation given by all these meforshim is not "Jewish"?

Regarding your description of DB as the "Grinch of Pesach": There's nothing wrong or Grinch-like in his comments on this particular subject: Firstly: If one is intellectually honest, it is impossible to ignore the overwhelming preponderance of evidence that Chaza"l borrowed ideas from the Greek symposia in formulating the Seder. If you haven't already, take a good look at the article he cites on the subject. Secondly: There's nothing un-"Jewish" about Chaza"l having done so: They borrowed many useful ideas from non-Jews -- particularly the Greeks -- while rejecting the bad stuff. ("Tocho achal, klipato zarak", as R. Meir did with Acher.) Many of the Tannaim clearly saw great worth within Greek culture -- in the yeshiva of Rabban Gamliel [who was the Nasi], they actually studied Greek philosophy side-by-side with the Torah (Sotah 49b). They didn't "copy" the Seder from the symposia, but they appropriated a great many elements, adapting them to the purpose of sippur yetziat Mitzraim, and thus elevating them into the realm of kedusha.

Prior to the time of the Mishna, there was simply the korban Pesach, and the telling of the story of yetziat Mitzraim. But there was no canonized structure or liturgy for the night of Pesach. Detailed accounts of the laws and customs of Pesach can be found in several pre- and early- Mishnaic period works, such as Sefer HaYuvalim (perek 49), as well as Philo and Josephus. They all describe the korban Pesach, the matza, and the maror; and the mitzva of telling the story -- but apart from that, there is no mention whatsoever of any of the elements of our Seder. That's because people used to fulfill these mitzvot in a more free-form manner. It was only around the time of the churban that Chaza"l decided to organize it into a unified form. And it made sense for them to adopt the form of the symposia, since this was what familiar to the Jews of the time. Perhaps they formulated Seder as a sort of "replacement" for the korban Pesach after the churban, not unlike the three daily tefillot, which "replaced" the daily korbanot in the Beit HaMikdash.

I question your assertion that there's something un-"Jewish" about borrowing non-Jewish practices and adapting them to something holy. In the Moreh Nevuchim (III:32), the Rambam goes so far as to say that Hashem borrowed the entire idea of korbanot from pagan cultic practices! I presume that you wouldn't accuse the Rambam of "just trying to be contraversial for the pageviews". Compared to an idea like that, the idea of borrowing a few clever ideas from the Greek symposia for the Seder seems rather tame by comparison, wouldn't you say?

Right wing conservatives heart Israel? (not so much)

Denish D'souza, author of the pro-Islam tract "The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11," is the new darling of the ultra-conservative right, beloved both for his stout defense of "traditional values" and for his stout attacks on the so-called immorality of the left. Uh huh.

Here is what D'souza says about Israel: "No one can deny the horror of Palestinian and Chechen attacks upon civilians, but these have to be measured against the state-sponsored terror on the other side: the bulldozing of Palestinian homes, the shooting of stone-throwing teenagers, the obliteration of the Chechen capital of Grozny ... by Russian troops."

Andrew Sullivan unpacks:

There is no mention in [The Enemy at Home] of the pathological anti-Semitism that currently accompanies these traditional Islamic societies. But D'Souza goes out of his way to draw a distinction between Islamist terrorism undertaken purely in the name of jihad--September 11, the Bali bombing, the London and Madrid massacres--and terrorism that he regards as legitimate self-defense. He puts "the conflicts in Palestine, Chechnya and Kashmir" in the latter category. [emphasis added]

What ultra-conservative Christians like D'souza want is a return to pre-modern times when Christianity was dominant, and abortion, pornography, blasphemy and homosexuality were punishable offenses. They have no special love for the Jews, no special love for Israel; in fact, conservatives like D'Souza openly prefer Islam to Judaism. Muslims, you see, can be relied upon to fight and die for their values. They demonstrate obedience to the old moral code --unlike those pesky and disposable Jews.

For my critics

I've been asked:

Why do you delight in describing the origins of our customs and rituals? Is Purim improved after you've discovered that our custom of masquerading was copied from Gentiles? Is Chanukkah made better when you know that we light candles for eight days because the original Chanukkah was a late Sukkos? How can you sit at the Seder with any sort of Jewish feeling if you believe/know that many of its forms were copied from Greek banquets?

My answer:

What's better? To sit in a room with the lights off, or with the lights on? Finding out the origins of some of the Seder's forms and rituals (as well as seeing how the Sages improved/changed them l'shem shamayim) is like putting on the light.

A high quality post

http://myrightword.blogspot.com/2007/03/electric-shavers-and-prejudice.html

(the one two posts down is better, IMHO, but I'm biased)

You're invited

I was asked to publicize the communal Passover seder, written about here: http://rchaimqoton.blogspot.com/2007/04/invited-to-passover-seder.html.

What Pesach means

On Baseball in General, and Pesach in Particular

Bernard-Henri Lévy on the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York:

[The Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown] is not a museum, it's a church. These are not rooms, they're chapels. The visitors themselves aren't really visitors but devotees, meditative and fervent. I hear one of them asking, in a low voice, if it's true that the greatest champions are buried here—beneath our feet, as if we were at Westminster Abbey, or in the Imperial Crypt beneath the Kapuziner Church in Vienna. And every effort is made to sanctify Cooperstown itself, this cradle of the national religion, this new Nazareth, this simple little town that nothing prepared for its election and yet which was present at the birth of the thing.

An edifying history, told in the exhibition rooms and the brochures, of the scientific commission created at the beginning of the twentieth century by a former baseball player who became a millionaire and launched a nationwide contest on the theme "Send us your oldest baseball memory." He collected the testimony of an old engineer from Denver who in 1839, in Cooperstown, in front of the tailor's shop, saw Abner Doubleday, later a Northern general and a Civil War hero, the man who would fire the first shot against the Southerners, explain the game to passersby, set down the rules, and, in fact, baptize it.

It was in honor of this story that the year 1939, exactly a century later, was chosen for the inauguration of the museum...

The only problem, Tim Wiles, the museum's director of research, tells me, is that Abner Doubleday, in that famous year of 1839, wasn't in Cooperstown but at West Point; that the old engineer, who was supposed to have played that first game with him, had been just five years old; that the word "baseball" had already appeared in 1815, in a novel by Jane Austen, and in 1748, in a private letter found in England; that a baseball scholar, an eminent member of the Society for American Baseball Research, had just discovered, in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, an even older trace; that the Egyptians had, it seems, their own form of the game.

The only problem, he says, is that we have always known—since 1939, in fact, since the museum's opening—that baseball is a sport of the people, and even if, like all sports of the people, it suffers from a lack of written archives, its origin is age-old. The only problem is that this history is a myth, and every year millions of men and women come, like me, to visit a town devoted entirely to its celebration.

Two hypotheses to work from.

Either the visitors in question are ignoramuses who believe, in good faith, that it's all true; or, on the contrary, they are in the know. They know that the story doesn't hold true... They are all in full agreement about the falsity of the legend; they celebrate a myth, not believing for an instant that it's true.

To revere a counterfeit as if it were real. To rewrite the history of an age-old pastime as if it were a national sport. What is at stake in each case is a relationship to time, and in particular to the past—as if, with this nation so eminently oriented toward its present and, especially, its future, regret for the past occurs only on condition that the past can be reappropriated with well-calculated words and deeds. As if with all one's strength—including the strength and power of myth and forgery—one had to reassert the power of the present over the past....

There's an analogy here.

For those, like me, who believe the Exodus occured preciesly as the Bibles says it did, though no evidence supports the account, Pesach holds a special charm. When we sit at the seder, and repeat the maggid we celebrate, not just the redemption of the Jewish people, but the creativity of our great sages, and the wonderful, reassuring myths of Jewish history. It's when we recognize that Seder isn't merely a celebration of the past, but of the ideas that were invented to give the past meaning. The facts of the Exodus are believable but unknowable and, anyway, completely beside the point. What we admire is the message that was attached to those facts.

We don't really care exactly how baseball began. We simply love the game.