Torah

Der Apikoyrus Rebbe

RABBI AKIVA TATZ IS A turned-on guy whose shiurim (lectures) are ripe with mystic but rational Torah learning. R’Tatz tells a wonderful story about apikorsim (singular “apikorus,” from the Greek “Epicurean;” one who disbelieves the divine origin of Torah and the rabbis’ interpretations thereof). I couldn’t find it anywhere on the ‘Net and don’t remember which specific shiur it’s from, but here’s the gist:

A young Jew once found himself possessed of unassailable doubts about Torah and decided that he was an apikorus. A good friend of his, knowing that the young man was not one to do anything by half-measures, advised him to seek out the Apikorus Rebbe.

“There’s an Apikorus Rebbe?” asked the young doubter.

“Oh, yes. He’s famous. And you can’t be a proper apikorus without his guidance.”

So the young man set off to find the Apikorus Rebbe, who lived in [insert heavily Orthodox community here]. He arrived one late Friday afternoon and was directed by a passerby to the Apikorus Rebbe’s house. Knocking at the door, he was surprised to find it answered by a woman wearing a sheitel [wig] and long dress. The heady aromas of Jewish comfort food warmed his nostrils and confusion.

“Excuse me, but I’m looking for the Apikorus Rebbe,” he said.

“Oh, he’s at the mikveh,” the woman answered. “He’ll be home after ma’ariv [evening services]. Do you have a place for Shabbos? Would you like to join us?”

So the young man entered, noting with perplexity the spotless white tablecloth, the shining brass candlesticks, the groaning bookcase filled with Torah, Talmud, Midrash and all the classics. His perplexity increased when, after a suitable interval, the Apikorus Rebbe appeared — dressed in shtreimel [big furry hat]and robe, with long peyos [sidelocks].

After a long and delicious Shabbos dinner (made longer by the Apikorus Rebbe’s insistence on singing every zemir in his well-thumbed benscher), the young man could no longer contain himself.

“Are you really the Apikorus Rebbe?” he asked.

“I am,” replied the great sage.

“But you live a traditional life,” the young man answered. “What makes you an apikorus?”

The Apikorus Rebbe pointed to a well-thumbed copy of Tao Teh Ching on the coffee-table.

“THAT’S IT?!?” cried the young man in astonishment. “That’s what makes you an apikorus? That’s nothing!”

“Well,” calmly replied the Apikorus Rebbe, “what would you do if you were an apikorus?”

“Anything I wanted!” said the youth. “I’d rob! I’d steal! I’d kill!”

“You’re not an apikorus,” said the sage. “You’re a pig.”

Torah

Contradicting the Paradox

“Most people don’t worship God. What they do is make an image of what they think God is, and worship that.”
— James “Sputnik” Gjerde

The biggest problem with Aristotelianism is that it posits false dichotomies (good/evil, up/down, is/ain’t, tastes great/less filling, et al) and forces us to choose between (and subsequently defend) inaccurate pictures of reality.

I don’t like doing that, nor should any sane person. But the Aristotelian Heresy (TM) so underlies our Western linguistic thought-frame that its perniciousness oft goes unnoticed. This is particularly true when applied to theology or other non-mystical apprehensions or understandings of [your favorite metaphor for nondualism here]. One classically smug statement of this sort of ontological oafishness is:

Can God make a rock so heavy He can’t lift it?

Rather than wasting time explaining the inapplicability of language to direct perception, perhaps the best response may be:

Yes — but He can lift it anyway.

Etc

Focus: Israel

As the situation in Israel continues to develop, many are turning to the “local papers” for better coverage than that offered by CNN or (grf) the BBC. The following offer in-depth reportage and up-to-the-minute English-language breaking news:
– Haaretz (left-leaning)
– Arutz Sheva (right-leaning)
– Jerusalem Post (centrist)
– Yediot Ahronot (centristy)

Other sites of note:
– Debka – Military/intelligence analysis, often scooping the American press by a week or more.
– Middle East Media Research Institute – Translations from the Arab press
– Honest Reporting – Countering media bias
– Israeli blogs
– Interactive map of bloggers from Israel, Lebanon and the Territories.

And:
Put A Note in the Western Wall

Be well, all of us.

Etc

37 Years Ago Today

“But the Eagle has landed; tell your children when
Time won’t drive us down to dust again.”
— Leslie Fish, Hope Eyrie

One of the most embarrassing things which ever happened to me was falling asleep for the 90 or so seconds surrounding one small step.

I was seven years old and living in middle-class Matawan, New Jersey. A precocious child, I’d been hard-bitten by the space-and-science-fiction bug; 2001 had blown my wee mind the previous year and infected me with star-pricked visions of silver and flame. There was NO WAY I wasn’t staying up to “watch those guys walk on the moon,” as I so often and loudly put it. My parents were pretty cool with the idea, and as the hour approached we ate McBurgers picnic-style on the living room floor.

The last thing I remember, Neil Armstrong was opening the Eagle’s metal mouth.

The next thing I remember, my mom was shaking me awake. “Honey! You missed it!” she said.

I think I cried for a week. (The trauma has leached from my mind the exact duration.) But ever since, whenever I look up at the moon (which is often) my eye automatically lands on the Sea of Tranquility.

“That’s where we first touched you,” I say to myself (and anyone within earshot).

Since then, albeit with with robot fingertips, we’ve touched Mars, Saturn’s moon Titan and the asteroid Hayabusa ; we’ve grabbed bits of the Sun, crossed its outermost echo and even marked a comet. And, please God, we’re just getting started.

Homo sapiens explorator. Cheers, mate.

Torah, Writing

Message From Beyond

NOT ALL MITZVOT TURN INTO ghost stories — but when doing holy work, it’s always a good idea to expect the unexpected.

Ann and I are members of the Sonoma County Chevre Kadisha, which literally means “holy fellowship;” it’s a centuries-old Jewish institution committed to preparing the dead for burial. Doing this is considered to be the most selfless of all mitzvot (commandments), partly because there’s no way the beneficiary can pay you back.

In 2002, we joined a crowd of about 50 at Cotati’s Congregation Ner Shalom where, over the course of an afternoon and under the tutelage of Rabbi Elisheva (Sachs) Salamo, we learned — as one participant put it — to “gift-wrap people for sending them back to God.”

Read more →

Torah

Midrash Ko(r)ach

Torah Study Saturday, July 1
10:00 a.m. – noon
Neal’s and Ann’s house
Portion: Korach (Numbers 16:1-18:32)

“To a man with only a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.” – Anon of Ibid.

This week’s portion, Korach, seems fitting for the Shabbat before Independence Day: One bold man, fed up with Moses’ continual refusal to bow to the Will of the People, stands up for Truth, Justice, and the Paleoisraelite Way. “Who made you king?” he says. “The people, ALL of them, are holy.” Gd disagrees, and Korach is swallowed into the earth.

In the modern context provided by historical scholarship, Korach’s rebellion seems to echo of the ancient struggle to unify and centralize Israelite worship at one specific location: i.e., Jerusalem. A cautionary tale backed by Ultimate Authority was needed to ensure that the people toe the line drawn by Judaism’s primitive, intolerant-of-dissent early religious codifiers. Thus Korach. End of story.

Right? Well … no, at least not entirely. Because if it is – if the story is as simple as that, with only one literalist and unimaginative interpretation – then we might as well chuck the Torah and watch TV, which (superficially) seems a lot more relevant to our hectic modern lives.

One of the most difficult things to understand about Torah (both Written and Oral) is that it largely developed outside the Aristotelian tradition which shaped Western civilization and subsequently, our own education. To Aristotle, the universe was a binary matrix of yes-no, up-down, hot- cold, with no middle ground. That’s a fine approach for computers and mathematics, but it tends to blind us to more subtle and equally valid/consistent intellectual systems – such as the one we inherited from our ancestors.

Thus we assume the Torah is a history text, and wonder why it includes laws. We assume it’s a law code, and wonder why it includes myths (in the Jungian sense). We assume it’s mythic, and wonder why so much of it accords with known history.

The Torah is all of these and none of these, at the same time. Like Judaism, which defies the simplistic categories of “religion,” “ethnicity,” “faith” or “creed,” there is always more to Torah than meets the eye – as long as the eye is open, and not blinded by preconceptions.

Rabbi Larry Kushner, Temple Emanu-El’s scholar-in-residence, says we can build our Jewish study on two assumptions: Either we’re smarter than the text, or the text is smarter than us. If we assume the first, there’s no reason to study; if we assume the latter, who knows what we might learn – especially if we do it together?

Torah

Comfort of Nothing

Addressed to a mailing list of old and dear friends, during one of the perennial and genial “Nature of God, or Someone Like Him/Her/It” discussions, and whether Immanence vs. Transcendence helps one sleep better at night:

Back when I first learned the noble trade of printing, I noticed that matchbook covers looked different to me: I could /see/ tightness of registration (e.g., printing a red border around a blue square), or if the press had had too much ink or water in the ink/water mix; soon the entire printed universe looked different too. Similarly, I’ve recently become interested in geology (in a purely amateur, that is to say love-inspired, sense): and thus the hills look different to me now; I can /see/ the slow subduction of the Pacific Plate in the ripples of the surrounding hills, and am beginning to /see/ the two-million-year process which started with the Sonoma Volcanics and, in my brief lifetime, has become a rich winemaking paradise (and, I can /see/ nomadic hominids coalescing into cities whose long and varied line of cultural gestation led some of them to settle here to grow that wine, and others to create the words and technology by which I can type these thoughts and send them to you).

And in all that, there’s only one of me, and of you, and of everyone we know, and those we don’t. The cosmic and infinite seamlessly married to the finite and human: complexly connected, simultaneously ephemeral and eternal, trivial and important. “You may see where I have been, but no man may see My face — and live.” For me, that perspective/experience — the vasty void pinpricked by kindness and curiosity, which are the signs by which “ye shall Know” — is more comforting than the boxed-in Gd painted by human prejudice and predilection.