On the road with You-Know-Who

Interesting Bit About Conversion

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 01:46:00 +0000

Rabbi Marc Angel is a rabbi whose beliefs on conversion have no doubt been comforting in this time when many are increasingly confused and afraid after the continuing increase in strictness in the Orthodox world. A reply to an article of his on the subject is now in the current issue of Hakirah as is his reply to that.

I recommend them highly.

This quote in Rabbi Angel's reply is something that stuck out for me.

Rambam states (Issurei Biah 13:17): “A proselyte who was not examined [as to his motives] or who was not informed of the mitzvoth and their punishments, and he was circumcised and immersed in the presence of three laymen—is a proselyte. Even if it is known that he converted for some ulterior motive, once he has been circumcised and immersed he has left the status of being a non-Jew and we suspect him until his righteousness is clarified. Even if he recanted and worshipped idols, he is [considered] a Jewish apostate; if he betroths a Jewish woman according to halakha, they are betrothed; and an article he lost must be returned to him as to any other Jew. Having immersed, he is a Jew.” Rambam is quite clear that a conversion is valid even under very imperfect conditions: the convert wasn’t informed of the mitzvoth; had an ulterior motive; later recanted and worshipped idols. Even in such circumstances, the convert is deemed to be a Jew, as long as he was circumcised and immersed in the mikvah.

Yes, Rambam.

However, the important point that is danced around is this: it is a chilul HaShem to turn Judaism into a lottery win of birth ethnicity instead of faith in G-d by being blatantly openly hypocritical in turning a blind eye to the widespread purposeful defiance of mitzvot, the near deification by cult of personality of many rabbis over the centuries which tresspasses on idolatry, and the selective lowering of various halachot nearly to the status of minhagim and the converse, the raising of various minhagim to the level of halacha.

This is the 800 pound gorilla in the room that we are all pretending doesn't exist.

It's the thing that makes charedism seem clownish more than anything else.

It's the nagging stabbing pain in Modern Orthodoxy's back.

It's the silently ignored stain on the carpet in Conservative Judaism.

This "you're a Jew no matter how you act just because your mother was" attitude has allowed people who are less Jewish than a Catholic and believe in G-d less than an atheist be taken in the vast group photo of Judaism and thence to be taken as at least in part equally representative of it. That same attitude would deny gerim who love G-d, worry about His world, and seek to do right by Him a place in that photo.

G-d may forgive that, but collectively, deep down, man won't because man can't. If man is honest then man must acknowledge that discrepancy, that hypocrisy, and then to apologize and then to repair it or if the man is dishonest, only such dishonesty as the hypocrisy does not exist in his world, is so alien to it as for him to be an alien to the world, only that may allow otherwise.

A man who is so alien can be no Jew or anything else of value to the veneration of G-d's legacy for such a man cannot fathom G-d.

Yet just such men are held to more a Jew than people who've come on their knees begging to serve G-d, and turned away for not being able to promise one hundred percent observance of mitzvot.

They were in their admission more honest than the men who turned them away, were they not?

I'm sure Rambam would agree.

What am I doing online on Passover?

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Thu, 09 Apr 2009 19:01:00 +0000

Well as you know, for me keeping arrangements agreed to supersedes tradition. That is, if the agreement is not in violation or was made before you became obliged to the tradition, law, etc. I agreed to work any hours, any days, before conversion. So I keep my first obligation. It would be selfish to demand slack to be cut to me now as they didn't know at the time I'd be moving towards religiosity and neither did I.

Rest assured my next job will be availability of Sunday through Thursday except for religious days.

Of course, I don't view my job as work so much as torture and G-d never said you can get out of that for observances. If so, then the fiction of sale of chametz would have a matching sort of fiction with regard to marriage and you don't see anyone willing to take your wife please, which explains Henny Youngman's joke.

I wasn't paying attention and fasted on the Taanit Bechorot completely by accident. Then got dizzy and fell down and it became clear for the sake of continuing to draw breath I'd have to eat something.

And stop walking around.

So I drank some fluids, had something light, and tried to remember what we were doing for dinner. My wife suggested shrimp wrapped in bacon dipped in cheese sauce, her mother suggest an On-Cor frozen dinner of ribs. I gave them both an icy stare and did the shopping myself.

So now I'm munching on marshmallows and trying not to smack my head on the desk over the fact that our haggadah had coupons, coming free from the supermarket as it did.

No, I didn't mistakenly read the sales to my family.

Well, I better get back to the suffering. I hope all are doing well.

It's been an interesting day...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 02:37:00 +0000

Well, my day has been very different.

For starters, my car died last night. The garage looked at it this morning and it was hopeless without an engine rebuild. The block and head are fine. It's everything else that is more or less fubar.

My other car being off the road already due to its own set of fixable albeit very expensive problems, I am left without wheels.

The say you have to look at what you still have. I have my home. I have my wife. I have her mother. I have our dogs and cats. I have my health, what there is at my age. My job is only the next town over and I can walk the distance in under two hours easily.

Then you have to look on the bright side. The money I was prepared to spend had the engine not been a loss was far more than the couple hundred I spent on a really nice mountain bike which will get me to work in under one hour. I save money on gas for a few weeks to two months which is what I estimate it will be before we can arrange a trade-in for a cheap used vehicle.

I will lose some weight which was of growing importance to me recently as it happened anyhow.

All through this, G-d was at my side, behind me, right in front of me, you name it, wherever He needed to be, wherever I needed Him, before I needed Him, he was there. Every time I wanted to cry, G-d told me it was fine. Every time I wanted to scream, G-d made me laugh and shrug. Every time I felt like I didn't know where all this was going, G-d said go with it.

Somehow some way I know that G-d will be with me. I've been given another chance to get my house in order after falling asleep at the switch on a few things I took little notice of. I can't say that will never happen again, but I can say I hear His voice a little louder now, and it's not frightening. It's warm and wonderful in a way I cannot possibly do justice to.

I'm riding the fate train again, getting back on the rails, and taking the track He needs me on. For so long, I've missed that. It's good to be back.

The credit you do yourself

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 21:16:00 +0000

It does one credit to wish the situation at hand were better.

It does one more credit to recognize the situation at hand as it actually is.

It does one the most credit to reconcile the two, accept the difference, and work cogently, rationally, logically, morally, and all other ways men find in their heart of hearts proper and best to make the latter move towards the former.

My apologies on lack of posting here...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 16:40:00 +0000

...as I've been having my best ideas as I turn in for bed and been somewhat preoccupied with politics of late. I hope to force myself to sit down and write something spiritual really soon. In the meantime if you're looking for generic morality in real world action check out Tr1v14l Pursuits.

Rabbi Shlomo Brady on head coverings for men...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Fri, 09 Jan 2009 16:20:00 +0000

Ask the Rabbi: The way you wear your hat | Judaism | Jerusalem Post

For me, it's a silent visual method of identifying your affiliation, like Christians wearing crosses. Important more for cultural commonality than keeping G-d from seeing your scalp, and I think that's the reason G-d would say to do it. Strengthen the community with commonality in action.

Repeat after me...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Tue, 06 Jan 2009 00:50:00 +0000

My life is not everything I dreamed of or wanted it to be, but it is mine.

Reconformadox?

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:03:00 +0000

Googled it just in case.

Wow, eveything new is old.

An oddly reassuring blog story...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 14:17:00 +0000

Modesty Blasé takes a trip to the gym and asks rhetorically if Jews are obligated to exercise in the sukkah. For some reason, this post was very much just the thing I needed to start my day with.

A Reform Response to Chabad - New Voices

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Thu, 16 Oct 2008 20:43:00 +0000

Way too little, way too late, and wrongly polarizing... The problem is that the entirety of the FFB/BH world is tacitly accepted as the holiest of the holy, the archetype of what being a pious Jew means, even by those who oppose them whether ex-BT or never observant ostensibly Reform. That is the problem in this discussion, the source of the impasse. Those who oppose the charedi (and Chabad Lubavitch are a strain of charedi no matter what they and Satmar or Breslov say about each other) a priori concede the spiritual leadership to them.

It's not different from the Christian world where the Catholics are still regarded subconsciously from before the word go as the true protectors and carriers of whatever it means to be Christian. You will notice it isn't Presbyterian ministers in those apocalypse movies who stand up to evil, it's Catholic priests speaking in semi-old Latin, and badly I might add, and tossing holy water about.

Your average Lutheran never really deals with holy water. Catholics rub it on their forehead as they enter church every Sunday. Bet your butt that the Lutheran believes that should one ever come up against a vampire, head for the Catholic church across town.

Similarly, while this rabbi makes some good points, he is way too late and mostly alone. The bulk of Judaism already sees the BH community as the archetype of Jewish spirituality and if you concede the position to your opponent in advance, then your argument is predestined to fail. It's like playing a baseball game when you have every expectation of losing and in fact intend to because you've already decided the other team is better.

Unless and until a new Jewish spirituality, a neo-Chasidut maybe, grows up and splits from the pack and redefines what it is to be religious for Jews, that argument is pointless and Chabad is already acknowledged to be right before the first argument is constructed.

Not that I oppose Chabad. I like them and the Breslovers and so on a lot. Many things are an issue for me, but I don't see the Reform as offering a lot of spirituality that can be embraced. It's a lot of purposely non-judgmental wishy-washiness that leaves way too much fill in the blanks space for people that they ultimately aren't looking for in religion. They want assurance and Orthodoxy promises that. Their mistake is they promise way too specifically and promise way too much and in the name of G-d, making him look like a horse's ass when the mortal men who shill for him fail because let's face it, you sour on Ford altogether when a bad salesman sells you a lemon. Ford had nothing to do with it, but their rep is screwed.

Hence the numbers of disaffected Catholics and Orthodox. One shouldn't set G-d up to get a bad rap that way, but the reason we do is inherent to why we make religions.

Of late it may have been noticed...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 03:52:00 +0000

...that it my commentaries in other blogs' replies, I am much less reticent to be critical of some of the problems in Judaism today. Why? It occurred to me that joining a religion is a bit like getting married. You make a pledge to honor that which you've joined. To cherish that institution and the other party. In sickness and in health, for better or for worse.

In my marriage I've stuck to that more or less consistently and without fail in the end. It has been a rough marriage at time. Temptation was provided that was easy to go for and quite attractive given the troubles in our relationship. I didn't fall and when my wife tripped, I didn't walk away, didn't divorce her.

I am not telling you this to brag. I am not telling you this to say "look what a good person I am". I am telling you this to say that you can do this too. It is as simple as choosing something and standing by it. I had no proof things would ever go better in the future. I had every bit of evidence against that. That wasn't the point. I made a choice to make a pledge to G-d.

As we are made in G-d's image, so too then are we making a pledge to ourselves and all mankind in that moment. If we cannot even trust ourselves, who can we trust?

To give meaning to my choices, to give value and weight to them, I have to do it. I have to give that meaning. I have to give that value.

A marriage with difficulties is no different from finding disillusionment with G-d. You made a choice to believe He was and when that belief seemed challenged, you must realize that the only thing that can make it a meaningless choice, a worthless choice, a false choice, is if you abandon it.

Give worth to your choices, give worth to yourself, give yourself a chance. Though born of an eminently fallible species, you are potentially capable of so much and all any of it requires is simply making a choice. Simply pick something. It's as simple and easy as that.

I made my choice to become a Jew. That wasn't just for the food, the camaraderie, the fellowship, or just any good parts leaving the bad. It was for better or worse. If you choose to believe in something, choose to love something, choose to love people, it must be for a reason even if you are not sure what it was.

For G-d's sake, have faith in yourself that your choice had meaning and reason. Your choice to believe in G-d had reason. Your choice to practice Judaism had reason. Reason not given by others who can make mistakes and betray or disappoint you, but reason given by your own mind and heart. Reason you chose.

My reasoning is this. If something is worth doing, it is worth doing it well. If something is worth loving, it is worth standing by. If something is worth having, it is worth defending. I may see Judaism imperfect and as filled with imperfect people, but I see that religion as worth doing, I see those people as worth loving, I see that community as worth having. They are worth doing well by, worth standing by, worth defending.

What makes a Jew or anything else is choice and for a choice to have meaning, I have to give it that meaning. I must not be only a Jew when things go well and a timid gentile when other Jews discuss the problems they see. I have to discuss them too. To join in the ongoing perfection, to join in Tikkun Olam, to participate in Judaism not only when it is easy or fulfilling or uplifting but also when it is painful. Not to always agree and never disagree but express my own opinion and reason out of heartfelt love and caring for that which I prize.

So I won't be doing anything but saying the way I see it. I may not be right but to only speak when assured of being right is to not do right.

Some thoughts that came to mind while walking...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 21:22:00 +0000

Why is Judaism as a culture so much more obsessed with Jews by Birth than Jews by Choice? Why do people default to assuming "Jewishness" of those born to other Jews, even if they are practicing Buddhists, rather than those born to Christians, even though they practice faithfully in the style of Modern Orthodoxy or even Charedi Orthodoxy?

I think it is because of the fear of choice, and a lack of confidence in being Jewish in a variety of ways.

With regard to choice, choice is a variable. Humans don't like variables such as choice unless they are not so much a choice as a guarantee in their favor. They like to choose their own dinner. They don't like other people choosing their own dinner so much. They might choose something that makes them gassy and fart during the cocktails later. Indeterminacy, flexibility, openness to change, and a wide variety of other appellations are automatically open in the fearful and pessimistic human mind to going wrong. If it can go wrong, it will.

Jews by Choice can choose differently later on. They can join now, leave later. Of course, so can a spouse, but that doesn't stop us from getting married. We enact, if we have sense but for other reasons, strong discouragement of divorce, but it is still one of those might go wrong deals. So too are welcoming converts. They might proselytize for a heretical ideal. Ooh, scary.

The other reason is of course lack of confidence as in the response which various rabbis have remarked on which goes along the lines of "are you insane? Have you seen all six hundred and thirteen mitzvot? You'd actually choose this life on purpose?"

Well, I guess you might if you didn't see it as so much of a negative burden as they do (those who make those comments).

Jews by Birth on the other hand are born to it. You don't choose your parents, you don't choose your family's traditions, you pretty much get no choice. They chose to get it on, have kids that result from getting it on. Those who come before you got all the fun choices. You got stuck with a nearsighted dad who rants at you for bad report cards before he finally sees that it was actually a B and not an F and a mom who can't tear herself away from soap operas long enough to make cookies with you.

Also, you always have the old cudgel of the familial relationship to keep you in line. You might have the ability to choose later, but for right now, until you're an adult, you have what, eighteen years to have "being Jewish" reinforced as much as Christians have?

The choices of others and their possible decisions to reverse those choices to our detriment... I think that is what makes the birth rather than choice nature so much more concentrated on. Of course, there was the message firmly beaten in by Rome, Christianity and Islam to not proselytize, and the evolutionary move from faith in miracles and G-d towards rote ritual observance in its place, but I think that fear is the big reason for obsession with birth over choice and I think its not different when it comes to immigration.

However, to those we put through the hoops, we don't usually turn on them and suspect disloyalty just because let's say a naturalized Mexican puts a Mexican flag sticker on his car the way a fifth generation American of Swedish descent puts up a Swedish flag sticker on his car. Forget to observe faithfully, and in religion, it's not so well regarded or felt harmless. Which likely has to do with the rote ritual observance thing being what we place more importance on.

One of my favorite articles online...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Mon, 11 Aug 2008 23:29:00 +0000

Not sure why...

Spring 1997 Michigan Today---The language of the desert

These conditions also may be why the religion of the Hebrews was so appealing. Mendenhall cites Judges 8: 22-3. When various tribes of Israel ask Gideon to accept traditional hereditary rule over them, Gideon replies, "I will not rule over you, neither shall my son rule over you: the Lord shall rule over you."

Yahwism emerged as a sort of peasants' revolt, in Mendenhall's view. "It prohibited graven images. But what were they? They were images of pharaohs and gods, and the purpose of the gods was to furnish authority to the kings as the embodiment of the gods." The ancient Israeli treaty, or covenant, made directly between one God and the people who accepted him, meant that the arrangements between God and the people were immune to kingly authority.

A point I've made regarding atheism versus religion. It's either a system open to challenge based on the dominant central focus, which in the case of atheism is man, which means consequently right and wrong are whatever those ambitious enough to take power and those strong enough to keep it say it is or a system closed to challenge as neither you nor I can proclaim and prove we alone have G-d's ear, despite the attempts of many holy men to claim it.

"Despite the persistence into our own time of an essentially 19th-century view that Biblical narrative is basically historically accurate and supported by the archaeological evidence," Mendenhall says, "there never was a Hebrew conquest of Palestine. But there was a religious conversion to a monotheistic faith of the existing population.

"Now I think that almost everybody has given up that 19th-century theory, but they don't have anything really to substitute for it, whereas I think I do," he continues. "That is, that Moses and a small band came out of Egypt with a new mission and a new concept of God and religious community, one bound together by a voluntary covenant rather than a monopoly of force. When political systems and empires were being destroyed all over the Near East, it really offered a very welcome alternative to populations who no longer had a community or whose communities had been destroyed."

I know that many will sneer at the idea, but what is better? The idea that G-d sent us to slaughter people the way the peoples we supplanted had done for countless centuries before? Or that G-d sent us out to deal with his great creation, free will, and win the day by overwhelming rightness of what we offered?

Interesting afterlife account, linked at Critical Judaism and Other Thoughts

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Tue, 05 Aug 2008 19:07:00 +0000

Critical Judaism and Other Thoughts: Heavenly court proceedings revealed - Finally

I thought the account was... interesting. There's no other word to use that fits as I am not one to judge others' view of the afterlife in near-death experiences. They all seem to vary which fits my view that reality and mentality are not as far apart as we like to think.

To clarify, watch Star Trek: Generations and consider the concept of The Nexus or read the Dungeons and Dragons treatment of the plane of Concordant Opposition. It basically appears much in line with the expectations conscious and unconscious of the viewer, thus denying a totally common and uniform answer to the question, where do we go from here?

That seems like G-d to me.

A word on faith...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 23:00:00 +0000

As Douglas Adams put it, and rather ironically as he was an atheist, G-d exists on faith and proof denies faith and therefore G-d cannot be proven. Man goes on to posit that the grandeur of the world proves He exists and therefore by His logic, He doesn't and goes poof.

It's a good point though. The search for proof is a search for knowing. That which you know, you have no need of faith in. I know my chair is under my ass. I have no particular faith in my chair. I have no knowledge whatsoever that my wife will find a job in her chosen field. I have faith that she will.

It isn't even that the analogue to proof is belief. It's not. It's suspension of disbelief. You can believe whatever you want. It's when you start to not believe in a specific thing that you head towards proof being needed to establish bonafide knowledge.

Let me give you the example of Star Trek. You don't know that it is real or not, but you have a lot of proof that it isn't. But you choose to suspend disbelief, the process of rejecting faith and instead requiring proof because the lack of knowledge discomfits you. In doing this, suspending disbelief by free will, you can in your mind accept that Captain Kirk is real in that assumption that he is, and get on from there to wishing you were snogging with the green Orion slave girl.

Why do we find it easier to suspend disbelief to "get into" the adventures of fictional people, and yet find it so hard to maintain faith in G-d?

Shabbat Shalom all.

Evidently Jews should not learn about the ancient temple because Muslims thinks it threatens their mosque...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Tue, 29 Jul 2008 21:46:00 +0000

Chabad Temple seminar rankles Islamists | Jewish News | Jerusalem Post

The three-part seminar, which is being held this week and next week at some 200 Chabad Houses throughout the country, comes less than two weeks before Tisha Be'av, which marks the destruction of the Temple.

"We view this as a serious and drastic move toward the fruition of extremist organizations to establish a temple in place of al-Aksa Mosque," Zahi Nujidat said. "This represents a real danger to al-Aksa."

If Islam is threatened by others practicing their religion and embracing their heritage, it is doomed. Pure and simple. Why? Lack of faith. If G-d intends for something, nothing can stop it. If G-d does not intend something, only man can make it happen. If G-d actively opposes something, no one can make it happen.

It is the height of insecurity to believe that Chabadniks learning about the fabled temple necessarily means a plot to destroy al-Aksa. That it would have to happen for the temple to be built a third time on that site is a no-brainer. That the Israeli government populated by strident Jews hasn't lifted a finger to it is also beyond obvious and telling. Namely of the intelligence, wisdom, good nature and neighborliness of those they fear so much.

The temple's strongest foundation is not stone under al-Aksa, it is the heart of the good and decent. A third temple need not be built. As the survival in Diaspora proves, a nation need not have land under its feet. Sincere and pious Jews carry the roof of the temple over the heads of all.

There is no point in fearing G-d if you don't even trust yourself. None. Part Two.

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:55:00 +0000

Are the rabbis less fallible than us? Evidently not if you follow the news. Doubly not if you listen to them bicker and make snide comments as to who is more right than another, or more to the point, as to who is less right and capable than another. The fact that they'd snipe each other in defiance of loshon hara tells you right off that they aren't less fallible than you.

And this leads to a terrible path for the rabbinate. On the one hand they are empower by all those who ask for a psak on which socks to wear on a given day, on the other hand, as Senator Palpatine said, all those who gain power are afraid to lose it. The following of people who rely on a rabbi constitutes a tremendously seductive temptation to make use of that power. It also constitutes an understandable force in their minds leading to disregard, disdain, disapproval, and even outright condescension for those who so blindly follow them. The phrase "useful idiots" wasn't invented for nothing.

Further, while those poor and uneducated Jews of the shtetl of prior centuries were definitely viewed with scant regard by the learned and this was noted by the Baal Shem Tov and his immediate circle with disgust and shame, today we have a system of learning for all. The material wealth of food, energy, and housing has led to the ability for just about any Jew to learn all day long. Many do.

No longer are they uneducated in Torah and Talmud, but can read the works and know them perhaps even better than their own rabbis who might in their age have forgotten something. What does this mean? It means that the human tendency to find mysteries and yearn to solve them comes into play. No longer is it that they don't know and must take the rabbi on his word, but when he says something out of bounds with reality as they've experienced it, they will feel that deviation, and think for themselves. As the explanations and reasoning for obvious contradictions become ever more convoluted, the desire to conform and pretend belief is ever more tested by what they know for themselves.

It isn't for nothing that the skeptidox blogging world is dominated by the formerly deeply religious of the Charedi and Chasidic worlds. The most formidable atheist and agnostic people usually hail from strong religious backgrounds whether early on or late such as for disillusioned Baalei Teshuva or Born Again Christians.

This entire focus on fear is setting us up for disaster. We're creating generations yet to be born who will be trained in the deepest writings of Jewish thought, law, and belief without having a shred of faith in any of it. We're making an army of atheists and agnostics who will walk away turning their back on G-d because those who were charged with keeping Him alive in the hearts of the people themselves feigned faith, and acted falsely, and some were out and out liars.

The very foundation of rabbinical Judaism is being set up for a fall but it is also the responsibility of the faithful to call bullshit when a rabbi errs. Were the average Jew who asks for rulings to only ask for rulings when he truly could not see past his inner doubt and conflict, when he truly could not decide for himself, and all other times have faith in G-d and rely on the conscience and heart He gave them, then he would take from that rabbi the corrupting power a good and decent rabbi has no need of and only give him the truest and most special power of truly being needed and not merely being a default device in the living of his followers' lives.

Why do we rely so heavily on them? Why do we not celebrate those our hears tell us are good but listen to whichever rabbi we do by default? We fear that we do not know enough. We fear that G-d is going to punish us for simple mistakes. We fear that G-d will judge with absolute severity anything less than a truly G-dly effort to avoid error in the first place. WHY?

Primarily, because we fear G-d. We don't love G-d, we fear G-d. We fear that the ultimate power in the universe, our Creator, can override our free will, render us irrelevant in our own lives, and take away from us the power to choose for ourselves, most likely the fun things. However, we judge G-d based on our own example. It is other humans who capriciously and whimsically impose on us and take the fun out of our lives and we go by that. Well, I am here to say G-d does NOT work that way. Your free will is the entire point.

As I read a phrase on the Internet once, "everything not forbidden is not compulsory". That is, just because you can do something doesn't mean you need to do it, or should do it. We fear that we will have G-d take away the very possibility of choosing something which in the end when we are good people, we would not do anyhow. You have free will to do anything you want. You also have a nature, a conscience, circumscribing that will. You can choose anything, but what you choose reflects on how you are. As you were made in His image, then so to as you do, so do you reflect on G-d.

If you live in fear of punishment and only do things or not do things for fear of reprisal, of G-d not liking you, and not because they are right or wrong in and of themselves, then you know nothing of right and wrong. You only know punishment and loss versus not being punished and not having something taken away.

When bad things happen, we always look up and ask, "why me". We assume that G-d who made the entire universe and perhaps an infinite number beyond is going to take time out of His schedule of doing whatever it is that He does, to smack you down for not covering your heard or wearing your tefillin right and that's why your car has a flat tire. He is punishing you for doing something wrong. All mankind assumes this. They assume their various deities, or that G-d, or that nature, or whatever is taking time to mess with them.

Humans take pain personally They then share that pain with others, and by the example they set, they judge G-d, and then it all snowballs from there.

We need to stop fearing G-d. Fear is for those who otherwise can't get into the feeling of love for G-d and would otherwise transgress, but not for those who truly feel His love. If you do, act in accordance with that love for G-d as you would someone in your everyday life. If you would not see a parent in disgrace for misdeeds, then would you see disgrace brought upon G-d by those who abuse kids and do not follow the laws and commit fraud? If they are also made in G-d's image, then that which they do reflects on G-d, and, concomitantly, reflects G-d back into them. If you love G-d, then you must also love the transgressor enough to not see them in disgrace but correct them and clean the stains of their disgrace by helping them to change, or if necessary despite all exhortations to teshuva, justice before the community at the earliest possible chance.

When we love G-d enough to trust G-d, we will only give such power to the rabbinate as those within it deserve, and only the deserving. Those who are not will eventually not be rabbis and in the future, no one will be a rabbi who does not deserve the trust of that position's responsibilities. We will be doing the entire rabbinate a favor in thinking for ourselves for no longer will we seem like ignorant frightened children, but worthy of more of the word of G-d, deeper thoughts and cogitations on the meanings and import, and worthy to bantered back and forth on the issues because we will raise no issues that we all know are nonsense, and only those we believe in our hearts are relevant and good to G-d, and His posterity and integrity and honor out of love.

In short, love G-d, do not fear. Think for yourself, and feel for yourself, and know He has undying compassion and forgiveness for you beyond all mankind, so that your errors are not sins worthy of condemnation when you learn from them and change what it is within you that made you commit them, and so do them no longer, or on the way, not so much. Do not unduly press on your rabbi's shoulders with expectations of guiding every juncture in your life. Offer them instead any service you can to lighten their load and help them with their awesome burdens. Care for your fellow man whether Jew or goy because G-d made them all and all are an aspect of Him and if you love Him then so should you love them. Care for their posterity and honor and do not countenance their own self-created disgrace to continue without intervention to change their path from darkness to light. Do not maintain a tight-lipped silence allowing misdeeds to go unaddressed for not a bit of good do you do by the misbehaving, but only let them heap more shame on themselves.

(Brought about because of a week of posts at Failed Messiah, The Kvetcher, and other places reporting more sad signs of fear-centric religious practice instead of love-centric worship. We worship best when we simply truly allow G-d into our lives. He wants to know us. We need desperately to let Him.)

There is no point in fearing G-d if you don't even trust yourself. None. Part One.

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Fri, 25 Jul 2008 22:35:00 +0000

As I read on in theology, especially Orthodox Jewish philosophy, I am struck by the constant theme of fear. Fear it is posited must be in the hearts and minds of everyone who would do G-d's will. I understand the viewpoint. It's laid out quickly and simply in the movie Dogma when Barnaby tells a boardroom of about-to-be-executed sinners basically that lacking fear, they feel free to do whatever. Only fear of ticking G-d off will make people behave.

This is a simplistic notion, really, and one that smacks of distrust of human potential for goodness, for love, for faith. It says that by default, without fear of punishment, people will choose the bad course and do the wrong thing.

Okay, then if that is so, how can the story of the Besht and Elijah where the Besht refuses to tell what he did on his Bar Mitzvah to Elijah have any weight whatsoever? Did he do it strictly in fear of G-d? No, he did whatever it was in service of G-d. We do not serve those we fear, we merely do what they tell us when they tell us, or do without being told because we fear reprisal, but we are not serving. Service requires some measure of affection. We do service for love of G-d. The Besht did a good deed out of love for G-d, and that was all he needed to know. It wasn't for reward or fear of punishment or fear of not being rewarded and he purposely didn't answer Elijah despite the prodding, knowing full well that he wasn't going to get the promised reward if he maintained his silence.

NOT out of fear did the Besht act, but out of love. Are we expected to believe we are inherently so much less worthy that we default to doing worse? The story of the Besht is that of a simple soul who had a choice and chose well. We each can do as well and the Besht himself taught that.

Yet do we teach it today?

Today we teach fear and distrust. We've given up on enlightened self-interest and embraced the fallback of ages, unenlightened self-interest. The first of course takes into account positive emotional concerns such as love and caring for others and that we will out of desire for those things do many other things to ensure them, some out of fear of loss, others merely as a constant way of maintaining them which feels natural to us.

The second revolves around fear and greed and while I am all in favor of using the fear and other negativity of others to counteract those same things, it must always be towards a goal of bringing about amplification of their positive affectations. We must not encourage selfish unenlightened self-interest for in that way there is no reliability. Those who do only for fear of punishment if they fail can be fairly guaranteed to not act of their own accord should they either not be ordered to, or should the act not present itself as obvious enough to make sense to avoid punishment. Further, other actions they might in their heads see in fear as needing doing to avoiding punishment might be done and they might be wrong. Act in haste, repent in leisure they say. It is as equally valid when you replace the word haste with fear.

We teach fear first of others, secondly of not having a rabbi to follow, and lastly ourselves. We internalize it, and then we make it our guiding force.

You may wonder why I put fear of not having a rabbi in there. Do I mean to badmouth the entire rabbinate? Heck no. I mean to badmouth our collective dependency on the position and those who hold it without any proper recognition of the great responsibility which goes with it on the part of everyone, both rabbi and congregant.

The responsibility that goes with being a rabbi is that of the spiritual guidance of those that ask for it in all trust. If G-d gives us Torah, and the rabbis then are the position of authority on its meaning and application, then the desire of G-d to educate and guide us is being handled by them. This is clearly an awesome responsibility. One must never try to be an intermediate between someone else and their Creator, but must be a scout and ranger to lead them through the wilderness of unbelief and ignorance to the Torah.

How can any rabbi do that in fear? In fear, do we not slow our progress on the trail? Do we not in fear poke bushes with our staff and timidly take only the safest and most boring way possible, missing out on all of the other places G-d put in the way for us? Of course we do. We take the path most traveled, not the path less traveled. A path where everything is the same, we are put to no challenges, our character decides nothing because all is rote, all is programmed response. Known boulder, walk left and follow path. Step over log one hundred feet on. Continue down hill to your right. Sidestep the gravel.

Is not much in Charedi Orthodoxy of today a clear expression of this fear? Dress the same, look the same, speak the same, do not expose yourself to anything which might require your decision, do not think for yourself, simply do and learn as told.

I think it is and I think the Besht thought it then of the Judaism of his time. I think all the fear first and foremost brought out a reaction of revulsion and sickness from this loving man and his response was to lead from love more than fear. Fear of disappointing someone you love outranks fear of being punished by someone you don't love. The latter takes the course of least resistance and effort, the former takes whatever course may come and often, all the effort in the world.

When I say sickness and revulsion, I do not mean to imply hate or dislike or even disregard for those who were steeped in it. One does not necessarily follow from the other. Sometimes, the feeling of sickness and pain is in the love of someone else, namely fearing that those you care for are in serious error that will harm them and damage their spirits. When a loved one is filled with hate and anger, do you not care that they are hurting their own hearts, and perhaps pray for them to see a better outlook and a calmer mind?

Another place we proceed in fear is fear of not being religious, or righteous, or good enough. Not for fear G-d will be dissatisfied but because we fear that WE will not be satisfied or more to the point that we will not have the satisfaction we yearn for. At what point will you be religious, righteous, or pious enough? People never ask that. They need to. What is the yardstick? The point of a goal is that it defines a journey. Even an endless journey to an unreachable ultimate destination still has the definition of that destination. What is the definition of righteousness? Ask an Ashkenazi and a Sephardi. Ask a Reform, a Conservative, and a Modern Orthodox. See how many definitions you get.

Without an idea of whether we're getting any closer, it's no different than a starship traveling in a void with no landmarks. We have no idea if we're better. When it comes to righteousness, absent a yardstick, we instinctively say, well, more must be better. More conservatism, more suppression, more oppression, more holding back.

Remember what I said about fear, timidity, and choosing the path more traveled. We are at two counts in favor of more stringency. Is it getting easier to see why we keep defaulting in religion to more and more suppression?

However, there is another path. The path of love. The path of effusive good feelings, of embracing openness and caring. The doing of right things because they are right, because your heart tells you that they are right, and not because G-d might smite you.

No, we experience fear. Fear that we do not know enough to make our decisions in religion for ourselves. Fear that we do not know enough to help make decisions in religion for ourselves with the rabbinate. Fear that we can do nothing. The only way to salvation is to follow the rabbis.

(to be continued shortly)

The Simpsons Talmud - By Noah Gradofsky

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Mon, 21 Jul 2008 19:21:00 +0000

If you need something amusing and light then this is probably what you're looking for. I thought it was a hoot. I only found it because I was searching Google for an idea of how often Talmudic content is someone saying something in someone else's name, which is often as well many know.

Sitting on a ledge...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 21:56:00 +0000

I sit on a ledge, looking out on the world.

I sit on a ledge, looking out on the world, and wondering if there's anyone still left out there.

I sit on a ledge, looking out on the world, and wondering if there's anyone still left out there, who is thinking and feeling and wondering still.

In my travels around the JBlog world, I've seen a lot of things that make me smile, and a lot of things that make me cringe.

I've seen promise and sorrow, genius and idiocy, and all the other dynamics of societies the world over that strain credulity for anyone who wants to believe it can all work out somehow.

Not stopping though.

My local synagogue has lost our rabbi to the needs of family and age. She's moving to be closer to loved ones. She and her husband are wished well by the congregation, but it leaves us sans rabbi for two months at least and indeed, we have not even Shabbat services for July and August. Since when do spiritual needs of the religious community go on summer hiatus?

Oh well, can't have my conversion overseen by multiple rabbis each inheriting unfinished business. Besides, I have a long way to go before I feel comfortable making it official there and I have work previously agreed to. The mark of us is how we stand up to our word, right?

Not stopping, no not now.

My Orthodoxy Nerd Test

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Thu, 08 May 2008 22:21:00 +0000

I swear I gave the most honest answers I could:

Left Wing Modern Orthodox: 57%
Right Wing Modern Orthodox: 88%
Left Wing Yeshivish/Chareidi: 43%
Right Wing Yeshivish/Chareidi: 14%

The Orthodoxy Test
says that I'm Modern Orthodox

The link is at the bottom of the right side column.

There is no nation in the world like the State of Israel' | Jerusalem Post

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Wed, 07 May 2008 23:23:00 +0000

I kept the article title for the blog post title because it says it all. Congratulations Israelis, Jews, and everyone else on not killing each other which given the last 27,000 years of history is a bonafide miracle of human will.

Though, this paragraph at the bottom was loltastic:

US President George W. Bush will attend a conference in Jerusalem next week marking the anniversary, along with Tony Blair, Henry Kissinger, Mikhail Gorbachev, Rupert Murdoch and the founders of Google and Facebook.

Emphasis mine of course.

Dov Bear must be apoplectic at Darth Foxius being there, the conservative outlet that it is.

Google and Facebook? Hello? Are they really snubbing bangitout.com?

Here's the article, go read it, and say a congratulations to another milestone.

High Rabbinic Court: Annul conversions | Jerusalem Post

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Fri, 02 May 2008 19:43:00 +0000

In an unprecedented decision, the High Rabbinical Court of Israel has called to invalidate all conversions performed since 1999 by Rabbi Haim Drukman, the head of the Conversion Authority.

The decision was made after the court rejected an appeal of a ruling by Ashdod's Regional Rabbinical Court rendering a woman's conversion invalid.

In a 50-page decision, a panel of three high court judges ruled that all conversions conducted since 1999 by Rabbi Drukman - who heads the Conversion Authority - and another rabbi, must be declared invalid.

They also ruled that it was permitted to retroactively cancel the conversion of someone who does not observe the Sabbath.

High Rabbinic Court: Annul conversions | Jerusalem Post

Emphasis mine.

Oh this was good too:

Out of extra caution, her husband was also added to the list of illegal marriages despite his being a Jew by birth.

Meanwhile, conversion rates AWAY from Judaism continue to climb unabated, observance continues to fall, Baalei Teshuva continue to drift away after a fitful start of observance, and conversion rates TO Judaism are... anyone?

Next up, born Jews will be excommunicated officially by the state of Israel for not being shomer shabbos.

Way to go rabbis! What a great decision!

A very important article, I think

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 18:32:00 +0000

One on One: By virtue of her sex | Jerusalem Post

Please take the time to read it.

A really sensible article I agree with...

noreply@blogger.com (-suitepotato-) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:37:00 +0000

The Sephardi Perspective: The Kitniyot debate: between tradition and unity |JPost.com | BlogCentral

...and so does my family. Other than my wife's room clearing joke*, we actually are somewhat more observing this. Beans and rice, absolutely.

*When I asked her what she is planning for Passover while in line at the grocery, she retorted without missing a beat, "a big ham like we do every year!" A Jewish woman nearby nearly choked and I quickly covered and said, "she gets Easter and Passover confused... Pay it no mind."