*What maga crazies sound like to the rest of us*

Maga crazy: Jim, I think you're a cow.

Jim: Are you for real? My wife says I am a man.

MC: She's part of the conspiracy.

Jim: Well, here is a signed note from my doctor attesting to my being male.

MC: He's just afraid of being canceled.

Jim: But there is no evidence at all suggesting I'm a woman.

MC: Its definitely out there, only the media is covering it up.

Judaism is polymorphous

"I dwell among my people,” said the Shunamite woman, one of the most affecting incidental figures in the Bible, to Elisha. She had no need of any intervention on her behalf with the political or military powers, she told the prophet; the people with whom she lived, the group in which she was a member, was sufficient to her needs. (She was the mother of civil society.) I have always cherished the concreteness of her statement. It is a lucid and elemental affirmation not of an ideal community, but of an actually existing community. The objects of one’s allegiances should not be imaginary, or made unreal by fantasy or ideology. One may differ with, and even despise, aspects of one’s society, but solidarity is premised on a generosity of attitude, on a warm inclination to commonality. Every community has a boundary, but the boundary must not be so wide as to be hollow or so narrow as to be ugly. The search for perfection in love is a prescription for a loveless life. There are conservative American patriots whose contempt for the mores of their fellow Americans is so great that they may be accurately described as anti-American.

But it is not my country that provokes these reflections, it is my people....

The American Jewish community is the sum of the identifying Jews who live in America. In one way or another, and simply for not surrendering or disappearing, they are all saving remnants. In this sense, sociology is identity. And the political and religious variety of the Jews of America is the most obvious fact about them—but it pains the nostalgists and the dogmatists, who see no glory in a plenitude of Jewish dispensations and regard diversity as a historical and ideological disappointment. They prefer to delude themselves with legends of a lost uniformity of opinion that never existed. Quarrel has always been a Jewish norm, and controversy a primary instrument for the development of Jewish culture and Jewish religion. But there are those, the heresy hunters and the truancy hunters, the real Jews, the true Jews, the last Jews, who refuse to accept the community as it empirically is, to engage with the cacophony and its causes, and instead they haughtily promulgate definitions of inclusion and exclusion, certifications of authenticity and inauthenticity. Most of their fellow Jews are, for them, for one reason or another, traif. What sort of expression of peoplehood is that? We are a people, not a sect.

The orthodoxies and the bubbles and the closed loops and the echo chambers are everywhere. Every current of thought, right and left, cleaves to its own—and what dissidents we all are!. Brothers and sisters, get used to it. Whether or not we are perverse, we are polymorphous. The exclusion of an opinion is not a refutation of it. There is honor in the mainstream and there is honor in the margins, if a view is held with intellectual integrity and with a sentiment of belonging—which is not easy to do, since the reason of the mind and the rapture of the heart often compromise each other. Even the man who denies that I am his brother is my brother. That does not make me a fool. It makes me a Jew.

By LEON WIESELTIER

Covid All in the Family

If All In The Family was on the air today, a conservative meathead would be using all of the original liberal meathead's antiwar arguments to protest Covid restrictions and government overreach. Meanwhile liberal Archie would be using all of original Archie's defenses of the president and the war to defend Covid restrictions.

Both Meatheads: The government lied to us. You can't trust the idiot president and his self interested advisors. They just want power at our expense.  I'm entitled to freedom of consciousness. I don't have to go to war/get vaccinated if I don't want to!

Both Archies: You have to rally behind the president and the flag. You can't make decisions about fighting Covid/communism on your own: you're obligated to follow the president's lead and fall into line because otherwise you have chaos. You let one little communist/covid germ gain a foothold and were all doomed. The health of the nation depends on doing everything we can to wipe it out.

Catholic frumkeit

Why don't Catholics have a concept of frumkeit? All Catholics, regardless of personal piety and personal levels of observance, can attend the same churches and live in the same neighborhood without any problem. They aren't worried about being tainted or corrupted if the neighbors are less sincerely Catholic. They don't start new congregations over issues of liturgy or decor or in protest of something the priest said. They don't create new Catholic schools to emphasize minor philosophical differences at the drop of a hat either 

From what I understand Sephardic Jews are above these sort of petty and narcisstic divisions, too. (Yes?) 

So why do the Ashkenazi OJs have this hang up? Why do we live in mortal fear of looking un-frum or of being tainted via association with the less frum? Why do the shul and the neighborhood and the school have to be exactly perfect in terms of style and hashkofa and every last stringency and leniency in order for us to feel safe? Looking for sociological explanations, not religious justifications please.

This is why Efrem Goldberg blocked me on Twitter...

Some people expect to be seen in a certain light and will block you on social media when you refuse to comply.

It happened to me (again) when I had the audacity of pointing out that a certain famous Rabbi was being blind, patronizing and hypocritical in his account of a vacation to New Square, NY.  

In my remarks, I was not rude or impolite. I didn't deploy words like blind, patronizing or hypocritical. I simply used Twitter to make the points I will summarize below and can only conclude that the Rabbi blocked me in response because he expected to be admired for publishing an "open-minded and inclusive" travel valentine and I just wasn't playing along.

Lets begin at the the beginging. For those unaware, New Square is a Hasidic village in upstate NY with values this Rabbi would normally find repulsive. In 2018 he published an effusive account of his visit which glossed over the serious problems in a way I found strange given his values.

 As I told him, New Square is a misogynistic, anti-Israel place that overwhelmingly supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election. The residents rely heavily on welfare and do not study much math or English after 6th grade. 

Can you imagine a proper Trump supporting, Israel loving, YU educated Modern Orthodox Rabbi such as Efrem Goldberg gushing about such a place if it wasn't Hasidic?

What, for instance, would he say about a Hispanic or African American village consisting entirely of people who vote Democrat, disdain secular education,  stay on welfare, mistreat women, refuse to speak English and hate Israel?  

Would he call the spiritual leader of such a place "warm, personable, wise and inquisitive?" (Doesn't promoting such values automatically forfeit any right to be called wise?)

If he visited such a place would he overlook the abject poverty of the people and neglect to mention the extreme wealth of the ruling cadre?

But it gets worse.

One of the best things about New Square, the Rabbi tells us, is the central synagogue where "thousands daven together and yet you can hear a pin drop and feel the walls reverberate as Amen and Kaddish are responded to in deafening unison."

Somehow the rabbi forgets to mention how that wonderful unity is achieved. It's not entirely by choice. The Rebbe of New Square does not allow any other synagogues to be established within two miles of the official one and in the past this ruling has been enforced by what can only be described as terrorism. Car tires are slashed, windows are broken and in one famous case, a member of the rebbe's staff tossed a molotov cocktail into the home of a dissenter. These are not trivial oversights on the part of the rabbi and his reporting. As a whole, they bring to mind the famous question Bellow asks in Herzog:

"Would you ask them to labor and go hungry while you yourself enjoyed old-fashioned Values?"

For our rabbi, the answer seems to be yes. Let the residents of New Square stay trapped in the 19th century, he seems to say, so long as I can have a nice, exotic place to visit. And rather than confront and adjust his patronizing attitude - let them suffer with the Square lifestyle so I can have a tourism moment - he chooses to block me, the person who pointed this out. 

RELATED: https://www.aish.com/sp/pg/From-Montana-to-New-Square-Breaking-Out-of-My-Bubble.html

The spoken word and piyuttim

People used to enjoy listening to the spoken word. The headliner at Gettysburg was not Lincoln, but Edwards Everett and his two-hour oration. And there are many other examples. The piyuttim, properly understood, belong to that world, not ours. The point was to *hear* them, not read them and the intent was for the power of the words themselves to affect you in the same way a soulful kumsitz might affect us now.

Perhaps that's why the piyuttim have become a kumsitz. No one actually *listens* to them anymore and I suppose hardly anyone even reads them carefully. Instead, they are sung, or - worse - the congregation chants or hums over them. In such places its nearly impossible for the words to reach you at all.

If the piyuttim are no longer used as intended why keep them? There's no magic to them. They aren't spells. Rambam and ibn Ezra fully opposed them. If we'd rather kumsitz why not reconstruct the service to support that preference just as it was first constructed to support an earlier preference?

Today's topic is the behavior of some Hasidim on planes.

Today's topic is the behavior of some Hasidim on planes. When they are comfortable they are disruptive. On friendly airlines, like United and El AL, they mass in the aisles greeting friends and neighbors and making minyanim. They ignore crew commands and interfere with flight operations (notably they don't do this on unfriendly airlines. I've flown Royal Air Jordanian and Turkish and the Hasidim take a low profile on those flights.)

What to do? Will their leaders act? No. Not immediately. Not at the request of outsiders.

I don't believe a Hasidic rebbe will ever tell people to miss a minyan, even on a plane, even if it disturbs others or interferes with flight operations. Why?

Because the mind of the typical Hasid will recoil against it. Miss minyan? I've been ingrained from age 3 to never do that!! And Rebbes never do anything that cause the minds of their Hasidim to recoil.

Their business is show business. They make money by playing a role, by standing at the front of the room and projecting confidence, by pretending to be a conduit to the divine, not by telling people things they don't want to hear.

If you want change in those communities you don't go to leaders, you go to kanoim, who via intimidation, propaganda, harassment and other dark arts make people receptive to the idea of doing something new. Once that space is created a rebbe can act.

But please bear in mind what you're seeking is a big change and a tall order. Hasidim daven. Telling Hasidim not to daven is like telling them not to keep Shabbos or not to wear hats. It's a very hard sell. They might agree that their davening shouldn't disturb others but all they will do is blind their eyes to the fact that anyone is being disturbed.

WAIT Before you write a comment accusing me of bashing Jews, read the source material. Its a post written by (someone who posted it in a public group but then after after nods took it down posted it in a private group and now doesn't want her name associated with it) that was picked up by Natan Slifkin here: http://www.rationalistjudaism.com/2021/10/chassidim-on-plane.html.

Morality changes with the facts

Irrespective of the origins of the torah and the legal code, men have been using their limited, fallible, and subjective intellects to interpret it for well over 2000 years. At one point, they read the law in a way that permitted slavery and plural marriages; later they imposed new imperatives on the law and decided that neither practice could continue. At one point, they read the law in a way that outlawed interest and required us to forgive debts every 7 years; later they imposed other imperatives on the law and now we charge interest and debts are not remitted during shmitta.

What happened? The convenient explanation is that morality changed so the law had to change with it.

 Unfortunately, the word "moral" isn't a very good one. When we say that "slavery is morally wrong" do we mean that God disapproves of it or that we, the citizens of this time and place, are against it. Do we mean that slavery is always wrong, or that its only wrong when people say that its wrong?

My proposed solution is to abandon the use of the word "moral" and instead speak in terms of facts. 

Its a fact that society works better - people are happier, healthier and wealthier - after slavery is outlawed. At first, human beings did not understand this, just as they didn't understand that drinking sewage water was a health hazard. But in the fullness of time, men came to realize that society could reasonably expect to enjoy better outcomes if slavery was outlawed. 

We can say the same about the economic changes our Sages made. In the fullness of time, after enough data had been collected, they came to realize that society would function more successfully if debts could be collected after shmitta and if Jews could charge each other interest. So the changes had to be made. Not because "morality shifted" but because we acquired new facts and a new understanding about what makes a society more successful.

Doesn't God knows what makes a society most successful? Yes, he does. But we have to figure it out on our own. We have to stumble and lurch towards the truth. And during that process of discovery, we tend to read things in light of our existing prejudices. Once, it seemed crystal-clear that the book of Genesis described a recent creation, and a geocentric universe. Now, we know that neither of those proposals are true and we read and interpret the creation story in light of those new, correct facts. Our morality didn't change; the correct facts merely became known to us making the old readings untenable. 

We can approach the slavery and economic passages the same way. Once it seemed crystal clear that the Torah wanted society to be organized around kings, slavery and debt remittance every seven years. But now that the facts tell us that people are much better off when those policies are not followed, we have found new ways to interpret those passages. The original error was not God's, but ours. We are the ones who misread the book. We are the ones who interpreted the laws in light of our own incomplete knowledge. Now that we know more, and our facts are better, the passages must be re-examined in light, not of new morality but new facts. 

Whether our modern sages choose to lead - as in the case of pruzbal or heter ishka - or follow -as in the case of the Internet which was verboten until we all realized that internet usage was essential to living in the 21st century - this process of reinterpretation in light of new facts continues.

Can you give me one good reason to believe in a young earth?

"Can you give me one good reason to believe in a young earth", I asked.

"We have a Torah", the rabbi replied.

"Ok, but where does the Torah say anything about a young earth? That's speculation. Interpretation. Genesis could just as easily be read in support of an old universe if you were inclined to do so. In fact there are a fortune of suggestions in the Rabbinic literature that tell us the Sages were not wed to the idea of a young earth. In fact a few of our great Rabbis expressly embraced the idea of an old universe.

So, given all of that plus the piles of evidence and peer reviewed studies that tell us the universe is fantastically old what, specifically, obligates us to believe in a young earth?"

The rabbi acknowledged my point, to his credit but left my question unanswered so I'll repeat it here:

Why do otherwise intelligent Jews think that denying the ample scientific evidence for the old universe and rejecting the ample rabbinic support for the old universe is some kind of high religious accomplishment? Isn't it just stupid?

Susannah Levin Quit her Job at Ben and Jerry: Is She Making a Mistake?

I fear this nice woman may have made a terrible mistake. Ben and Jerry is CONTINUING to sell ice cream in Israel. The only inconvenience for Jews is that those living in settlements will now need to drive a few minutes into Israel to purchase their ice cream. This is something to quit about?

What is really bothering her?

As the great Joshua Shanes tell us a boycott of the West Bank IS NOT the same as a boycott of Israel itself, and we should not equate the two.

Because if you do equate the two, you're putting yourself in a bit of a moral predicament. Here's why:

When people accuse Israel of being an apartheid state, the correct and popular reply is this: The West Bank is the problem, and the West Bank is not part of Israel; however...

When you sit shiva over boycotts of the West Bank, such as this one, you're confessing that you do not actually believe that the West Bank is not part of Israel. And if you say the West Bank is really and truly part of Israel you're also saying the the detractors are correct when they accuse Israel of apartheid.

If you think the Ben and Jerry boycott is something to cry about, by necessity, you also must think that Israel is not a democracy. If you think this boycott of the West Bank alone, constitutes a boycotts of Israel itself you make it impossible to defend Israel against accusations of apartheid. 

So which is it true believers?

Hypocrite Netanyahu and hypocrite Deri and hypocrite Smotrich are by accident doing the right thing

The law of unintended consequences is that actions of people, and especially of governments, always have effects that are unanticipated or "unintended."

An unintended consequence of Israel's new and amazingly diverse government is hypocrite Netanyahu and hypocrite Deri and hypocrite Smotrich are now opposing the discriminatory and racist family reunification law they previously championed. 

The law uses "security", a word that in the wrong hands can be used to justify anything, to justify overt discrimination against Israeli citizens who have Palestinian spouses from the Occupied Palestinian Territories from living together in Israel. (Israeli citizens who have *Jewish* spouses from the Occupied Palestinian Territoiree are not similarly burdened which is what makes the law discriminatory)

Previously, hypocrite Netanyahu and hypocrite Deri and hypocrite Smotrich were strong supporters of the discriminatory law on the specious claim that racism makes Israel safer. But now they are going to vote against the law. Not because they have seen the light and now realize that racism actually weakens Israel. No, no. They are opposing the law because they believe that toppling the government is more important than doing what they previously swore was essential to Israeli security. So either they were lying all along about the importance for security of their racist law, or they value their own power more than they value Israel's security. In any event the unintended consequence is that three terrible people are by accident doing the right thing but the voters of Israel should punish them for their mendacity all the same.

EatUpTheBorders mistreats Israeli food truck in a way that should be familiar to Israelis

There is no good excuse for what #EatUpTheBorders did to that Israeli food truck. The event organizers  entirely and completely overreacted to a security concern and as a result of their over reaction engaged in blatant discrimination against innocent people. 

PS: Overeacting to security concerns causes the IDF to discriminate against innocent people every day so דַּעֲלָךְ סְנֵי לְחַבְרָךְ לָא תַּעֲבֵיד = that which you find hateful don't do to others. 

You can't defend two sets of rules in the West Bank while opposing them in Philadelphia. You have to oppose them in both places.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.jpost.com/diaspora/antisemitism/israeli-food-vendor-removed-from-philadelphia-event-due-to-security-risk-671535/amp

Jake Turx Interviews Trump but Did He Seize the Important Opportunity?

Jake Turx's interview with the ex president for his horrible magazine has just been released. Did Turx, the most visible Orthodox Jew in media, take the opportunity to mention to the former president that it was blatant and overt anti semitism when Trump:

Tweeted an image of Hillary Clinton’s face atop a pile of cash next to the Star of David and the phrase, “Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!”

Released an ad featuring the faces of powerful Jewish people with a voiceover about them being part of a “global power structure” that has “robbed our working class” and “stripped our country of its wealth

Told a room full of Jews they were "brutal killers" 

Suggested that anyone who votes Democrat is a bad Jew

Appealed to Jewish voters by suggesting all they care about is money and only he could protect their wealth. 

Acted on multiple occasions like Jews are a monolith who care only about money and Israel and that he deserves our loyalty and deference because he promises to protect both

The article is behind a paywall so I can't see for myself but I'm not optimistic.

What I do and do not understand about the Israel Palestinian Problem.

There are many things I do and do not understand about the Israel Palestinian Problem.

THINGS I DO UNDERSTAND

1) Why HAMAS must be fought tooth and nail. These are bad guys, committed to destroying the state of Israel and killing every Jewish Israeli. Anyone who thinks they are freedom fighters who just want fairness and equality for all is at best misled.

2) Why Palestinians are upset. Their parents and grandparents were tossed out of their homes, and got nothing in return. Israel owes them in the same way the US owes the native Americans. 

3) The Central Palestinian Complaint. I understand that perfectly. Imagine a hundred thousand Martians, escaping prosecution on Mars, descended on your city and claimed it as their own on the basis of (a) a book you don't accept (b) stories you don't believe are true and (c) the consistent presence of a handful of other Martians who had been living in your city for thousands of years - that you had never really noticed. I think you'd be upset. I know I would.  You certainly would not like to lose your home because of a few verses written in the Book of Mormon.

4) Israeli Security Concerns. 

THINGS I DO NOT UNDERSTAND

1) Why Israel is called an apartheid state. I agree that there are apartheid-like conditions in parts of the West Bank, and I agree that should end. Its terrible, and I mean that.  But I am also aware that 20 percent of the citizens of Israel are Arabs, and that while they do suffer some of the discrimination endured by minorities everywhere, they also enjoy full voting rights, access to higher education and are employed in plenty of excellent fields - and not as "tokens" either. So anyone who thinks that is "apartheid" can kindly shut up

2) Why Israel's war with Gaza and various displays of very bad behavior are called "genocide" Even the worst police brutality, indifference and corruption isn't "genocide" and no-one fair, honest or  informed can say a war that kills a few hundred people on the weaker side is "genocidal."

3) Why this conflict keeps dragging on. Look, I can agree with anyone who says that the Israeli West Bank cities shouldn't have been built. You are right. That never should have happened. Only it did happen. By the same token, a hundred American cities built on stolen land should never have been built. But they were built.  We aren't going to deconstruct San Antonio or Sioux City and we aren't deconstructing Beitar and Ariel either. The bell has rung. Instead of demanding the impossible, the Palestinians should follow the sage advice Carmine Lupertazzi gave Johnny Sack about the Ginny joke grievance: "Either name a price or get the [bad word] over it!" I know this sounds unfair. I agree it IS unfair. But tossing the 75,000 plus men, women and children of Beitar out of their homes would also be unfair. So that's where we are.

The very inconvenient ancient synagouges of Israel

---

Quite by accident, I came across a WIkipedia entry entitled "Ancient Synagouges of the Land of Israel". It includes a shul in Bar Am, that is believed to have been active until the 8th or 9th century, and one in Katzin that was used until the 8th century.

The existence of these shuls and others like them is very inconvenient.

First they entirely undermine the famous idion about 2000 years of exile. If there were Jews praying in Bar Am 1100 years ago the exile can't have been longer than that.

Second, they tell us that the exile wasn't perpetrated by Rome (identified with Edom) but by the Islamic Mamluks (Ishmael) This little inconvenient fact defeats all sorts of famous midrashic teachings and well known ideas about  Edom and its metaphysical, supernatural role in the world.

Finally, the presence of these synagouges defeat the precious Haredi notion of an unbroken halachic tradition known and recognized by all Jews at all time. It seems unlikely that the Jews of Northern Israel were aware of the as yet uncompleted Babylonian Talmud and the Savaroaim who finished it up. Perhaps they were in correspondence with those schools, but why would they have respected its authority when they (likely) had their own tradition dating back to the time of the Mishna, when Judaism had flourished in their region.  True, the sages of the Talmud also claimed to be the heirs of that tradition, but communities that are isolated from one another always develop different interpretations and applications of their inherited tradition.
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Gave us?

God gave us the land of Israel 

What do the words "gave" and "us" mean in that sentence?

Can Covid Cautious People Now Rejoin a Covid Reckless Shul?

What is the "right" way for people who were Covid cautious to relate to people who were Covid reckless?  For example, let's say you belong to a shul that went back to normal as early as last summer. The shul made no special provisions for the Covid cautious, and many of the members were mask shamers - or worse.  For the last several months, you and like-minded members have been praying outdoors or observing precautions indoors, but eventually, you will have to make a choice. Rejoin, or stand on principle.

The problem for many Covid cautious people in this situation is that they feel betrayed by their synagogues.  As a result, going back is hard. Re-establishing friendly terms with the people who committed this betrayal is hard. From childhood, Covid cautious Orthodox Jews were taught to honor the following ideals:

Rules apply to everyone

Science is reliable

In matters of halacha we follow the scientific experts 

We need to show respect and concern for our neighbors

We should always strive to be mekadesh shem shamayim in our behavior

We should go out of our way not to harm others in any fashion

We should minimize eiva

In religious matters, we should always error on the side of caution (be machmer) 

The Covid reckless, and the institutions that supported them, rejected all of these ideals. 

To get inside the head of a Covid cautious person who belongs to a Covid reckless community, consider the following example: Imagine your Orthodox shul installed an organ. To make it worse, imagine that your shul did this not on the basis of a sound halachic position, but in deference to a trend, and also as a way of showing political support for an immoral, hedonistic, vulgarian who strongly encouraged the trend. 

Would you understand why Jews who were brought up with different Jewish values might now feel betrayed, why they might balk at rejoining such a place, even after the organ was removed? Aren't the Covid cautious who belong to Covid reckless communities now in the exact same situation?