7fatcow.com

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1142093.html
…In his new book, "Open Secret," Wolfson is interested in the rebbe's messianic doctrine as formulated in his hundreds of discourses available in written form, which Wolfson examines within the context of earlier kabbalistic and Chabad teachings, parallels from other mystical traditions - especially Buddhism - and postmodern thought. But even these most recondite of theories have real-world implications. Advertisement Wolfson shows that intense messianic anticipation, far from being a quirk of Schneerson's in his old age, has been central to Chabad from its late-18th-century origins. Its founding premise was that spreading Chabad teachings would hasten the End Time, a doctrine that assumed accelerating urgency when traditional Judaism came under attack from secularism during the next century, and even more so when the Nazi assault on the Jewish people forced the sixth rebbe, Schneerson's father-in-law, to flee Europe and resettle in the United States. In succeeding his father-in-law, Schneerson became the seventh, a number whose sabbatical identification suggested he was also the last (some even say that this theory motivated him to remain childless by choice). Schneerson sought new audiences for Chabad's message - women and non-Jews. While this was in line with the original plan of continually spreading the doctrine, it also indicated awareness that modernity (he had attended European universities before the war) and the American environment necessitated some rapprochement with feminism and universalism. He developed earlier teachings about the mystical role of God's feminine side and the ultimate breakdown of barriers between Jew and non-Jew in the messianic era, and championed teaching Chabad texts to women and urging gentiles to practice the universal laws of ethical conduct traditionally associated with the biblical Noah. The discussion of Chabad messianic thought in "Open Secret" is tough reading for people used to linear thinking and clear writing. The problem is not just Wolfson, but also the subject matter. Simply put, language is inadequate to convey how an infinite power - called ein sof (literally, without boundary) in Kabbalah - can generate our finite and bounded reality and, in reverse, how the messianic experience can enable us to break through to the infinite. Our logical faculties paralyzed by the human inability to comprehend the divine, we must make do with the metaphors, paradoxes and contradictions that abound in this book. Wolfson writes that "language is stretched to the limit of the inarticulate." The author himself is the biggest contradiction. An exemplary objective scholar, Wolfson is at the same time heavily invested, in a deeply personal way, in the mystical teachings he analyzes. The book begins with the announcement that he was born on Friday night, November 23. Years later, he would learn that at the moment of his birth in 1956, Rabbi Schneerson was delivering a learned discourse on kabbalistic themes to mark the 19th day of the Hebrew month of Kislev. This was the Lubavitch "Day of Redemption," the date in 1798 when Shneur Zalman of Liadi, the first rebbe of the sect, was freed from prison. The Lubavitcher who apprised Wolfson of the significance of this coincidence told him, "Pay attention, this day bears your destiny." Whether personal or scholarly, Wolfson's spiritual quest is contagious, and the intrepid reader will brave the many difficult passages in order to follow him in search of the rebbe's deepest feelings about the messiah, the surprising "encrypted message" that is the "open secret" of the title. I will not divulge it, but if Wolfson is right, the rebbe's messianic vision will comfort neither his followers, who completely misunderstood their leader, nor his detractors, who fail to appreciate his genius. Even as he calls "postmortem apparitions of the seventh Rebbe" indications of "a profound spiritual blindness," Wolfson apparently agrees with Schneerson that the messiah has come "and all that is necessary is for people to open their eyes in order to greet him" - but he also acknowledges that to grasp the meaning of this "involves cultivating a modification in consciousness." People like me, who find such modification difficult, have no choice but to wait

There have been rumors circulating among insiders in crown heights that the R'MSCh has been sighted in the Carribean. If anyone can verify these reports, it would be greatly appreciated. If anyone thinks this is some kindrish joke, they have a lot of self-examination to embark upon. If anyone understands my motives, please make yourself known to me.

Hockey Hacoon

Just read an article which quotes three talmudic dictums about Jerusalem.

No trash was allowed within the city confines and had to be taken out of the city proper.

It was illegal to operate a kiln to craft ceramic vessels since the smell and vapor would ruin the beautiful air in Jerusalem.

It was illegal to rent apartments in Jerusalem during the the three major holidays as all apartments became hefker for whomever visited for that time period.

Does anybody have the sources for this in the Talmud?

Yhosephus wrote that in the original "about" section, and how about a Chanukkah destruction, during the very 7fatcow week in parshas miketz? In all seriousness I plan to take down 7fatcow.com in the coming days. Any protests and disagreements can be voiced in the comments section. I guess this post is a vote, but the voting populace is like AWOL

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2009/12/21/091221crat_atlarge_menand?currentPage=all

Holly or Challah? by Paul Rudnick, The New Yorker

Just because anyone with half a brain celebrates Christmas, no one should ever use the holiday to make non-Christians feel uncomfortable. Here are some tips to help the sensitive Christian make everyone, no matter what they’re wearing on their head, feel at ease and have a Happy Interfaith Holiday Season!

1. When non-Christians are present, don’t call Jesus “Our Saviour,” “Our Lord,” or “Mister Perfect.” Refer to him more casually, as “the Son of God, or maybe not,” “the Jew that got away,” or “the bachelor.” When chatting with Jews, try to avoid the subject of the death of Jesus. If a Jew asks, “So how did Jesus die?,” simply reply, “Natural causes.”

2. Don’t refer to Christmas as a day to celebrate the birth of Jesus. Instead, try calling it “the world’s day off ” or “a big party for almost everyone.” Instead of saying “Merry Christmas!,” try calling out, “The plain wrapping paper is right over there in the corner!”

3. If you’re visiting a mixed couple during the holidays, here are a couple of gift suggestions: for the Christian wife, a bayberry-scented candle or a fresh evergreen wreath; for the Jewish husband, a lovely framed portrait of his parents, rending their clothes and sobbing.

4. Try to take a delighted interest in the Jewish holidays by asking questions like “Do you ever create a tiny Victorian village under your menorah?,” “Does your family sing ‘Silent Night’ in Hebrew?,” and “When you were little, did you ever wonder if Santa hated you?”

5. When you’re walking down the street with a Jewish friend and you pass a sidewalk Santa, say something comforting, like “Jesus barely knew him,” or “I bet you liked sitting on the big rabbi’s lap.” You might even introduce Santa to your friend by saying, “Santa, this is Richard Weiner. And it really doesn’t matter if he’s been bad or good.”

6. On Christmas Eve, why not remind Jewish children to leave out milk and cookies for Mayor Bloomberg?

7. For a jolly holiday film festival, invite your Jewish neighbors over and screen “White Christmas,” “Miracle on 34th Street,” and “Munich.”

8. When a Jewish friend compliments your Christmas tree, modestly reply, “Oh, but it’s not as nice as your couch.”

9. Change the words to popular Christmas songs, as in “Frosty the Orthodox Rebbe,” “Deck the Halls with Photos of Your Many Beautiful Grandchildren,” and “I Saw Mommy Kissing Our Accountant.”

10. Never refer to Hanukkah as “their Christmas,” “Merry Wannabe,” or “the Goldberg variation.”

11. For real holiday enchantment, tell your kids the story of “Yussel, the Reindeer Who Spent the Whole Night Studying.”

12. If your town wants to put up a life-size crèche on public property, suggest that there should also be, right beside the Nativity scene, mannequins representing a Jewish family, sitting outside the manger and reading the Sunday Times. ♦

Read more: http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2009/12/21/091221sh_shouts_rudnick#ixzz0Zvd3cHSL

from the 1987 issue of the New York Times Magazine http://www.nytimes.com/1987/11/15/magazine/reflections-on-hanukkah.html?scp=12&sq=ozick%20israel&st=cse&pagewanted=1

…Hanukkah marks the earliest battle for religious freedom in the history of our planet. But more than that: Hanukkah marks the beginning of the very concept of religious freedom. If the life of a little people had been extinguished, if a small nation had not been victorious over a savagely reductive oppressor, if Judaism had been uprooted - if the light of Torah had been snuffed - what would our allegiances look like today? There would be no legacy of monotheism. The Ten Commandments would be absent from the treasure house of world culture. There would be no Christianity. There would be no Islam. There would be no Bill of Rights. That little bit of oil has lasted and lasted - like the burning bush it reflects, it stands for the glory of God.

Or, if that phrase tends to embarrass us skeptical moderns (in whichever millennium our modernity happens to fall), let us choose words more accessible, more comprehensible - but also more arduously demanding, because they are ineluctably bound to the immediacy of human responsibility. Say, then, that the little cruse stands for mercy, conscience, freedom, dedication, thanksgiving. Call it civilization.

THE EGALITARIAN MENORAH is lighted by women and men and children. The rule is to set it in a window - liberty's annunciation - for passersby to see. (The rule does not apply when there is danger of persecution, as in ancient Babylon, when the surrounding fire worshipers prohibited the lighting of the menorah, or in Inquisitional Spain, or in certain cities of Germany and Poland in the 1930's, when a glimmering candelabrum might bring a rock through the glass.) No work may be done by the light of the menorah - its light is for celebration, not for commonplace household use - so while the candles burn, play is decreed. Hence the dreydl, that four-sided medieval teetotum carrying the initials of the words A Great Miracle Happened There - there in Jerusalem, long ago. Dreydl spinning is a kind of gambling game, with nuts for stakes; in a more puritan era it represented a dispensation for other frivolities - riddles, acrostics, even card playing. Under the menorah's light, lightness reigns.

Well, then: Hanukkah as cheerful lively domestic bustle and cozy Jewish family festival? Unquestionably. And surely here and now, in an American December. But when the latkes in their frying pan, bubbling and spurting and crackling, suddenly sparkle with little bursts of oil, know that those sparks are for the redemption and rededication of the world.

then there's the sancrosanct
of doing it alone
it being winter and cold
perhaps it's in the preparing of cotton to oil
rolling the wick
your fingers annointed
then the pouring of cask
to candalabra
enunciating the blessings as if the kanei* hamenorah are there with you
the humming of that anciant tune,
slowly, softly,
the light of olive
breaths

Two discourses which discuss the anropomorphication of the menorah, by the Lubavitcher Rebbe Zy"a and by the Alter Rebbe can be found here http://chabadlibrary.org/books/default.aspx?furl=/admur/mlukat/2/19 and here http://chabadlibrary.org/books/default.aspx?furl=/adhaz/toraor/10/32d

"We've got ourselves a tragedy. Heart attack. Two a.m., passed away in intensive care. Not that she's any sort of spring chicken. Marlene Miller-Weinstock, you know her?"

"So there's no play," Matt said; he was out of a job.

"Let me put it this way. There's no playwright, which is an entirely different thing."

"Never heard of her," Matt said.

"Right. Neither did I, until I got hold of this script. As far as I know she's written half a dozen novels. The kind that get published and then disappear. Never wrote a play before. Face it, novelists can't do plays anyhow."

"Oh, I don't know," Matt said. "Gorky, Sartre, Steinbeck. Galsworthy. Wilde." It came to him that Silkowitz had probably never read any of these old fellows from around the world. Not that Matt had either, but he was married to someone who had read them all.

"Right," Silkowitz conceded. "But you won't find Miller-Weinstock on that list. The point is what I got from this woman is raw. Raw but full of bounce. A big look at things."

Silkowitz was cocky in a style that was new to Matt. Lionel, for all his arrogance, had an exaggerated courtly patience that ended by stretching out your misery; Lionel's shtick was to keep you in suspense. And Lionel had a comfortingly aging face, with a firm deep wadi slashed across his forehead, and a wen hidden in one eyebrow. Matt was used to Lionel — they were two old war horses, they knew what to expect from each other. But here was Silkowitz with his baby face — he didn't look a lot older than that boy out there — and his low-hung childishly small teeth under a bumpy tract of exposed fat gums: here was Silkowitz mysteriously dancing around a questionable script by someone freshly deceased. The new breed, they didn't wait out an apprenticeship, it was drama school at Yale and then the abrupt ascent into authority, reputation, buzz. The sureness of this man, sweatshirt and jeans, pendant dangling from the neck, a silver ring on his thumb, hair as sleek and flowing as a girl's — the whole thick torso glowing with power. Still a kid, Silkowitz was already on his way into Lionel's league: he could make things happen. Ten years from now the scruff y office would be just as scruff y, just as out of the way, though presumably more spacious; the boy out front would end up a Hollywood agent, or else head out for the stock exchange in a navy blazer with brass buttons. Lionel left you feeling heavy, superfluous, a bit of an impediment. This Silkowitz, an enthusiast, charged you up: Matt had the sensation of an electric wire going up his spine, probing and poking his vertebrae.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/books/chapters/first-chapter-dictation.html?_r=1&pagewanted=4

C.P. Cavafy
A Young Poet in His Twenty-Fourth Year

Brain, work now as well as you can.
A one-sided passion is destroying him.
He’s in a maddening situation.
Every day he kisses the face he worships,
his hands are on those exquisite limbs.
He’s never loved before with this degree of passion.
But the beautiful fulfillment of love
is lacking, that fulfillment is lacking
which both of them must want with the same intensity.

(They aren’t equally given to the abnormal form of sensual pleasure;
only he is completely possessed by it.)

And so he’s wearing himself out, all on edge.
Then—to make things worse—he’s out of work.
He manages somehow to borrow
a little here and there (sometimes
almost begging for it) and he just gets by.
He kisses those adored lips, excites himself
on that exquisite body—though he now feels
it only acquiesces. And then
he drinks and smokes, drinks and smokes;
and he drags himself to the cafés all day long,
drags the weariness consuming his beauty.
Brain, work now as well as you can.

Translated by Edmund Keeley/Philip Sherrard

http://www.cavafy.com/poems/list.asp?cat=1