Israel, Iran, and the Stuxnet Worm

This is certainly better than a military attack or a war.  Of course, the same technology can be used for more nefarious purposes, and there’s the rub.  Still I prefer it done this way.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/world/middleeast/16stuxnet.html?_r=2

Then again, here’s another piece arguing that that the US and/or Israel did not design this worm and that its effect is much more minimal than what has been reported:

http://blogs.forbes.com/jeffreycarr/2011/01/17/the-new-york-times-fails-to-deliver-stuxnets-creators/

Justice

Where do we find justice? Only by pursuing it. (Deut 16:20)

Jacob’s Ladder

Where is Jacob’s ladder now? Inside each of us.

Honey

“Suckling honey from a rock” (Deut. 32:13): In difficult moments, that’s what we have to do.

Jews and Rowing

The Rowing Team
Yeshiva University decided to put together a scull rowing team. Unfortunately, they lost race after race. They practiced for hours every day, but never managed to come in any better than dead last. The head of the Yeshiva finally decided he couldn’t stand any more embarrassment so he sent Yankel to spy on Harvard’s team.

So Yankel shlepped off to Harvard and hid on the bank of the river from where he carefully watched the Harvard team as they practiced.
When Yankel returned to the Yeshiva he proudly announced to the head.
“I have figured out their secret,”

“They have eight guys rowing and one guy shouting and we have eight guys shouting and one guy rowing.”

A Jewish Bronx Tale

I received this over e-mail from David Wekstein:

GREAT JEWISH BRONX TALE

The  South Bronx in 1950 was the home of a large and thriving community, predominantly Jewish. In the 1950s the  Bronx offered synagogues, mikvas, kosher bakeries, and kosher butchers — all the comforts one would expect from an observant Orthodox Jewish community.

The baby boom of the postwar years happily resulted in many new young parents. As a matter of course, the  South Bronx had its own baby equipment store, Sickser’s.

Sickser’s was located on the corner of  Westchester and Fox, and specialized in “everything for the baby” as its slogan ran.

The inventory began with cribs, baby carriages, playpens, high chairs, changing tables, and toys. It went way beyond these to everything a baby could want or need. Mr. Sickser, assisted by his son-in-law Lou Kirshner, ran a profitable business out of the needs of the rapidly expanding child population.

The language of the store was primarily Yiddish, but Sickser’s was a place where not only Jewish families but also many non-Jewish ones could acquire the necessary for their newly arrived bundles of joy.  Business was particularly busy one spring day, so much so that Mr. Sickser and his son-in-law could not handle the unexpected throng of customers.  Desperate for help, Mr. Sickser ran out of the store and stopped the first youth he spotted on the street. “Young man,” he panted, “how would you like to make a little extra money? I need some help in the store. You want to work a little?”

The tall, lanky black boy flashed a toothy smile back. “Yes, sir, I’d like some work.” “Well then, let’s get started.”

The boy followed his new employer into the store. Mr. Sickser was immediately impressed with the boy’s good manners and demeanor.

As the days went by and he came again and again to lend his help, Mr.Sickser and Lou both became increasingly impressed with the youth’s diligence, punctuality, and readiness to learn. Eventually Mr. Sickser made him a regular employee at the store. It was gratifying to find an employee with an almost soldier-like willingness to perform even the most menial of tasks, and to perform them well.

From the age of thirteen until his sophomore year in college, this young man put in from twelve to fifteen hours a week, at 50 to 75 cents an hour.  Mostly, he performed general labor: assembling merchandise, unloading trucks and preparing items for shipments. He seemed, in his quiet way, to appreciate not only the steady employment but also the friendly atmosphere Mr.Sickser’s store offered.

Mr. Sickser and Lou learned in time about their helper’s Jamaican origins, and he in turn picked up a good deal of Yiddish.

In time the young man was able to converse fairly well with his employers, and more importantly, with a number of the Jewish customers whose English was not fluent. At the age of seventeen, the young man, while still working part-time at Sickser’s, began his first semester at City College of  New York . He fit in just fine with his, for the most part Jewish classmates, hardly surprising, considering that he already knew their ways and their language.

But the heavy studying in the engineering and, later, geology courses he chose proved quite challenging. The young man would later recall that Sickser’s offered the one stable point in his life those days.

In 1993, in his position as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, two years after he guided the American victory over  Iraq in the Gulf War, General Colin Powell visited the  Holy Land. Upon meeting  Israel’s Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir in  Jerusalem, he greeted the Israeli with the word
“Men kent reden Yiddish” (We can speak Yiddish).

As Shamir, stunned, tried to pull himself together, the current Secretary Of State continued chatting in his second-favorite language. Colin Powell never forgot his early days working at Sickser’s.

Humor

To be really funny, you have to have suffered.

Transforming Destructive Impulses

Transforming destructive impulses into something good is a key part of shalom (wholeness) for human beings.

Bad Can Lead to Good

Sometimes doing the wrong thing leads to good: Gen 50:20.

The Mistakes the Spies Made in Numbers 13:30-33

What was the mistake the spies made when they scouted the land of milk and honey?  They allowed fear to overcome trust.

What was another mistake the scouts made?  They focused on what others thought rather than on what there were to do.

What was another mistake?  They assumed that size was more important than wits.

What was another mistake? They acted like slaves rather than free persons.

What was another mistake? They were there to figure out how, not whether.

What was another mistake?  They exaggerated rather than coolly assessing.

What was another mistake?  They could not leave the past and move forward.

What was another mistake? They could not envision an alternative to their current situation.  They preferred the familiar and the customary to change.

What was another mistake?  They quit.  They just gave up.

Vanessa’s Wedding

From Dianne Bazell:  A Jewish family celebration.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KgZ4ZTTfKO8

Creation Never Stops

Gen 1:1: “When God began to create . . . “: Creation never stops.

Carrying Our Ancestors with Us

Ex 13:19: Just as Moses carried the bones of Joseph out of Egypt, we all carry our ancestors with us wherever we go.

YIVO Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe

A useful website: http://www.yivoencyclopedia.org/

“The only resource of its kind, this encyclopedia provides the most complete picture of the history and culture of Jews in Eastern Europe from the beginnings of their settlement in the region to the present. This Web site makes accurate, reliable, scholarly information about East European Jewish life.”

Translating “God” and “Lord”

Because of the anthropomorphic connotations of the English words, “God” and “Lord,” because of the human tendency to use “God” as a thing or object (thereby objectifying “God”), and because of their inherently gendered meanings (”Lord” as opposed to “Lady” and “God” as opposed to “Goddess”), these words have too much baggage to use in current translations of the Hebrew Bible. Therefore, I often replace “God” with “THE ALL” and “LORD GOD” with “ALL THAT IS.” For “LORD,” I simply use “SOURCE.” This will no doubt prove strange for many readers, but de-familiarization is part of the process of reacquainting oneself with the deeper meanings of the biblical text.      These translations also have the advantage of preserving the actual significance of the Hebrew words which have become ossified in English (and other modern languages) translations and consequently lost their original meanings.

YHWH comes from the Hebrew word, “to be” (hayah), and is explicitly associated with being, becoming, existence, etc. By using a verb to describe the Divine, early Jewish writers imply that the Divine is fundamentally not an object or a thing, but rather that it is relational in nature. One might describe it as “energy,” because it is a force, not an object. The English word, “Lord,” reflects the Hebrew vowel pointing of YHWH as adonai (a – o – ai), used by Jews from antiquity to the present day to avoid saying the Divine name. There are other circumlocutions used by Jews to avoid saying the Divine name:   e.g. “the name” ( hashem) and “the place” (hamaqom). By using “SOURCE” or “ALL THAT IS,” I maintain the original meaning of the word without using the Divine name.

Elohim  is the word that normally translates “God” (from El, the chief deity of the Ugaritic pantheon), but it is a plural form that naturally implies a multiplicity of deities. In the Hebrew Bible, it normally indicates the deity of the Jewish people: the One God, the Eternal. Occasionally it directly indicates more than one god (such as in Genesis 1:26 and 3:22), but even there the notion of oneness persists. As a plural form, Elohim suggests that one cannot limit the Divine to a single thing (which a singular form would connote) and actually implies that the Divine is so all-encompassing that no thing falls outside of its compass. Elohim means unity. From a metaphorical perspective, one might see the Divine as a choir rather than a soloist; here the many become one. This is why the term, “monotheism” (which implies singularity rather than oneness or unity) is inadequate for describing the Jewish and Christian concepts of Divinity. “THE ALL” preserves the all-encompassing character, relationality, unity, and oneness of the Divine.

See how I do this in “translations of Genesis by larry” in “about mystic scholar”: http://mysticscholar.org/about-mystic-scholar/translations-of-genesis-by-larry/

“Some Restorative Thoughts on an Agonizing Text: Abraham’s Binding of Isaac and the Horror on Mt. Moriah (Gen. 22)”

By Laurence H. Kant

1) “Some Restorative Thoughts on an Agonizing Text:  Abraham’s Binding of Isaac and the Horror on  Mt. Moriah  (Gen. 22)”: “Part 1,” Lexington Theological Quarterly 38 (2003) 77-109; “Part 2”  Lexington Theological Quarterly 38 (2003) 161-94

2) “Arguing with God and Tiqqun Olam:  A Response to Andre LaCocque on the Aqedah,” Lexington Theological Quarterly 40 (2005) 203-19 (this was a response to an article by André Lacocque, “About the ‘Akedah’ in Genesis 22:  A Response to Laurence H. Kant,” Lexington Theological Quarterly 40 (2005) 191-201)

AqedahArticlePart1a; AqedahArticlePart2a; and AqedLacocqueResp1

Isaac Meditates

“And Isaac went out to meditate in the field at sunset”: Gen 24.63.

(Meditation means both “meditate” and  “study” in Jewish interpretation and bears both connotations here, along with “stroll.”)

Learning Lessons

How many lifetimes does it take to learn a lesson?  As many as it takes to learn the lesson.

Free Will

Free will means the choice to be who we are.

Judaism in Indonesia

Judaism thrives in a sliver of Indonesia: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/world/asia/23indo.html?hp=&pagewanted=all

Our Destiny

Our destiny is not destruction, chaos, and an end, but wholeness, hope, and a future (an interpretation of Jer 29.11).

Abraham and Isaac

On Mt. Moriah, the Source offered Abraham the chance for a mystical ascent to heaven. But Abraham understood the path as going upward to hell (Gen 22).

Neturei Karta

This is from an email I wrote to a friend about some photos depicting clearly ultra-orthodox Jews happily meeting with Mahmoud Ahmadenijad, the President of Iran.

—————————————————————

Photos like these are actually pretty well known. Most ultra-Orthodox or Haredi (whether Hasidic, followers of the Lithuanian Yeshivah tradition, or Sephardic) have always opposed Zionism and the secular Jewish state, but they do not support harm coming to Jews.  Many of these have by now compromised (such as Agudat Israel and Shas and Hasidic groups such as Lubavitch), working with the Israeli state even though they oppose it in principle.  Among the Haredi, however, there is a particularly fanatic, right-wing group who goes beyond their opposition to the state of Israel by advocating for Israel’s destruction and who support violence against Israelis and against Jews who actively support the state of Israel.  They actually virulently oppose other Haredi who work with the Israeli state, back Ahmadenijad, give credence to Ahmadenijad’s holocaust denial (in part because they believe that many of the Jews murdered in the holocaust were not “real” Jews), and embrace Ahmadenijad’s threats of violence against Israel.  The group is called Neturei Karta (“Guardians of the City”), whose members live in various places around the world, most notably in  Meah Shearim in Jerusalem. Ahmadenijad has been photographed with them before.  See the following links:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/nyregion/15rabbi.html?fta=y
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neturei_Karta

Neturei Karta is radically isolated and cultish, the most extreme of the extreme.  In short, they’re crazy.

P.S. There is an Israeli film called “Kadosh,” which gives a glimpse at the lives of ultra-Orthodox groups like Neturei Karta in Meah Shearim.

American Synagogues

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWJ2WJTUei8

This is a lovely video

Eating in a Sukkah

Eating in a sukkah (hut), we realize we are all Adam, beloved creatures of the earth.

We Are All Wanderers

We are all wanderers searching for a home that ultimately exists inside ourselves (Num 33.1).

What is the Wilderness?

What is the wilderness? The best place to encounter ourselves and the Source. Where is the wilderness? Inside us. Why is there a wilderness? To transform us.

Who Are the Egyptians in the Exodus Story

Who are the Egyptians in the Exodus story? They are not only outside us, but inside us. Most of the time we enslave ouirselves. That’s why the Jewish people wanted to return to Egypt rather than deal with uncertainty and choices in the wildnerness (Ex 14.12).

Our Lives as Sacred Stories

Each of our lives is a new story to add to the book of Genesis.

Creation Never Ends

Gen 1.1: “The Source (God) began to create”: As long as the universe exists, creation is a process that rests periodically, but never ends.

Mystic Scholar study in spirituality

I am reflecting on the fundamental shift away from institutional religion. It affects every religion and every religious community globally: churches, mosques, synagogues, temples, etc. It cuts across the ideological and political spectra. As educational attainment increases, so does disaffection with traditional religious modalities. Yet the vast majority of people still seek to explore the fundamental questions of existence, matters of ultimate concern (as Tillich says), interconnectedness, community, ethics, and love and relationships. Why are so many religious institutions unable or unwilling to address the hunger for meaning and purpose that so many yearn for?

Looking forward to commenting in the future on these topics.

Rest from Creation on Shabbat

The Source rests from creation every shabbat. So should we. Then, on the next day, we join hands to continue creation (Gen 2.3).

The Woman Was Not Expelled in Eden

Did you ever notice that the Source explicitly expelled Adam, not the woman, from the garden of Eden?

The First Adam

Gen 1:27: The first Adam was both female and male, bi-gendered, whole, integrated, one.

The Talmudist Takes a Train Trip

This comes via John Harrison. I can really relate to this one: very representative of the importance that Jews place on analysis and thinking.

“After months of negotiation with the Soviet authorities, a Talmudist from Odessa was finally granted permission to visit Moscow.  He boarded the train and found an empty seat.  At the next stop, a young man got on and sat next to him. The scholar looked at the young man and thought, ‘This fellow doesn’t look like a peasant, so if he is no peasant he probably comes from this district. If he comes from this district, then he must be Jewish because this is, after all, a Jewish district.’  ‘But, on the other hand, since he is a Jew, where could he be going? I’m the only Jew in this district who has permission to travel to Moscow.  Aahh, wait!  Just outside Moscow there is a little village called Samvet, and Jews don’t need special permission to go to Samvet.  But why would he travel to Samvet? He is surely going to visit one of the Jewish families there.  But how many Jewish  families are there in Samvet?  Aha, only two – the Bernsteins and the Steinbergs.  But since the Bernsteins are a low, terrible, family, such a nice looking fellow as this young man must be visiting the Steinbergs.’  ‘But why is he going to the Steinbergs in Samvet? The Steinbergs have only daughters, two of them, so maybe he’s their son-in-law. But if he is, then which daughter did he marry? They say that Sarah Steinberg married a nice lawyer from Budapest, and Esther married a businessman from Zhitomer, so this must be Sarah’s husband.  Which means that his name is Alexander Cohen, if I’m not mistaken.’  ‘But if he came from Budapest, with all the anti-Semitism they have there, he must have changed his name.  What’s the Hungarian equivalent of Cohen?  It is Kovacs.  But since they allowed him to change his name, he must have special status to change it.  What could it be ?  He must have a doctorate from the University.  Nothing  less would do.’  At this point, therefore, the scholar of Talmud turns to the young man and says, ‘Excuse me.  Do you mind if I open the window, Dr. Kovacs?’  ‘Not at all,’ answers the startled fellow passenger. ‘But how is it that you know my name?’  “Ahhh,” replies the Talmudist, ‘It was obvious.'”

Creation Rests on Shabbat

Creation rests on Shabbat, but recommences the next day.

Close Reading

Close reading does not mean just words, but images and experiences as well.

Women and Temple Priesthood

In fact, there’s some evidence from antiquity that suggests that there were Jewish women who may have served as priests in the Graeco-Roman period (for example diaspora Jewish inscriptions). Obviously this goes against the heavy weight of rabbinic tradition, but I bet that there is evidence in rabbinic texts to suggest something similar (probably when a rabbi criticizes some other practice)–I need to look into this some time. Is it possible also that some of the women (Sarah) in Genesis functioned as priests, but then that tradition was reinterpreted by the biblical writers? Controversial, but I would not rule it out.

In any case, whatever the technical sense of priesthood in modern contexts, Jews reformulated priestly and Temple practices into home and synagogue life after the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE. So a woman who lights the Shabbat candles functionally takes the place of a priest.

Who Are the Temple Priests

Who are the Temple priests? Those who light the Temple menorah. The only way to drive out darkness is with light. (Num 8.1-3)

Breath, Words, Creation

Breath + words = creation (Gen 1)

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