DONMEH WEST: Neo-Sabbatian Quote of the Day
B"H
"The Christ may have been in Jesus, but Jesus was not the Christ. He was the bottle, not the wine; the lightbulb, not the light; the wrapping, not the gift; the birdcage, not the bird."
B"H
"The Christ may have been in Jesus, but Jesus was not the Christ. He was the bottle, not the wine; the lightbulb, not the light; the wrapping, not the gift; the birdcage, not the bird."
December 4th, 2006 at 10:33 pm
The Christ is in every single one of us.
December 5th, 2006 at 12:03 am
Shalom Sholomanarchy,
I’m afraid that in your eagerness to make your point you missed mine.
Zvi Go’el,
YaLHaK
December 5th, 2006 at 12:35 am
P.S. Please don’t get me wrong; I think your point is a fine point, indeed. A bit frayed around the edges from wear, perhaps, but a fine point nonetheless.
December 6th, 2006 at 1:10 am
Shalom Sholom,
Gutt gezokt! There’s no difference among light bulbs, they all have the same capacity to emit light — except some are turned on while others are turned off. But even those that are turned off are simply waiting to be turned on. If ever.
In some of us, the Christos (i.e., “Zeir Anpin”) is awake; in others it is asleep. But asleep or awake, it’s in all of us, waiting to be switched on by each of us.
Don’t ask me how; for that, you’ll have to go to It.
Zai Gezunt,
YaLHaK
http://www.donmeh-west.com/spon_jesus_lectures.shtml
December 6th, 2006 at 1:58 am
Oh, and as for “Jesus” (if he even existed), it’s important to remember his oft-repeated statement, “It is not I who says and does these things, but the Father dwelling in me.”
So it’s not the physical Jesus who says, “I am the light and the way,” but the aroused FATHER speaking THROUGH him — just as It has spoken through other switched-on light bulbs like Krishna, Buddha, Mehemet, AMIRAH, Jacob Frank, the BShT, his great-grandson, and even (with any naches) assholes like you and me.
But the mere fact that God was alive and well IN these avatars did not MAKE them Gods. To repeat myself, each of them was only “the bottle, not the wine; the light bulb, not the light; the wrapping, not the gift; the birdcage, not the bird.”
Please God, each of us can someday say the same.
December 6th, 2006 at 6:04 am
Is this the real YaLHaK ?
December 6th, 2006 at 12:15 pm
Funny you should ask. I woke up this morning asking myself the same question.
YaLHaK
December 6th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
I have read alot of essays by YaLHak and although I dont agree with everything he says , I have alot of respect for his vast knowledge and many of his writings are brilliant. If that is the same guy posting on this blog I find it amazing that I can directly correspond with him through this medium if I have any questions about his work.
December 7th, 2006 at 1:12 am
Todah! However, I’m really not “posting on this blog,” but only visiting. I just happened to have noticed that a number of visitors to our Donmeh West website come from here, and so I thought I would check it out.
I find you all to be foul-mouthed, heretical madmen after my own heart. Yasher Koach!
There is yet hope.
YaLHaK
December 7th, 2006 at 1:54 am
Is this to say that the ???? ?????, when aroused, channel the divine through the corporeal?
December 7th, 2006 at 2:01 am
it is to say what it says. take it in whatever way you will.
December 8th, 2006 at 12:01 am
Sholom,
I will say this one last thing, however: You do seem to have bought into the goyisheh bill of goods of a literal “incarnation” — or at least to the extent that it’s preventing you from seeing or hearing anything else. So let me walk you through this one more time:
What I’m talking about has nothing to do with channeling the divine through the corporeal or the corporeal through the divine or even some kind of “exchange” between them.
What I’m talking about has to do with an INNER AWAKENING OF CONSCIOUSNESS, not a physical transubstantiation of the flesh. For the third time, those Avatars in whom the divine is “switched on” (such as the so-called Jesus or Sabbatai Zevi) are only “the bottles, not the wine; the light bulbs, not the light; the wrappings, not the gift; the birdcages, not the bird.”
Again, don’t ask me how; for that you’ll have to get out of your head and into your “imagination” — the only gateway (according to the Zohar) through which the Unknowable God can be “known.”
Love & Kisses,
YaLHaK
December 8th, 2006 at 1:49 am
Much love back at you, YaLHaK.
December 8th, 2006 at 9:16 pm
yalhak says the best things in the best ways. please come to NYC and adopt us.
December 8th, 2006 at 11:39 pm
Shalom Kugel,
That’s very sweet of you to suggest. But I won’t be taking you up on the invitation any time soon.
I live at 7,500-foot elevation in the Mountains of Seir (well, actually, the San Bernadino Mountains of California) surrounded by pine trees and Edomites and other chayotim — like Frank, to make good on Jacob’s promise to meet his brother Esau in Seir. So why would I want to leave Edom for New York? Besides, I’m too old and tired to make the trip.
Still, I’m touched by your suggestion. Thanks.
YaLHaK
December 9th, 2006 at 12:04 am
P.S. I, too, love kugel. Bulbeh more than lokshen.
December 9th, 2006 at 1:28 am
Dear YaLHak ,
I want to pose a question to you because I value your knowledge and opinions.
Why do bad things happen to good people and why do good things happen to bad people?
December 9th, 2006 at 2:01 am
Dear Sucks,
Read my essays and listen to my lectures on this very subject at the Donmeh West website, www.donmeh-west.com.
Also, if you are a member of Donmeh West, go to its archives at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/DONMEH_WEST/messages?o=1&yguid=573722, and search the more than 10 thousand lectures I’ve given on this subject by using the search engine there.
You might also want to attend the live classes I offer on this subject throughout the week on PalTalk. There are more than 20.
At least for me, this is just too large, too important and too complex a subject to discuss here in this format — especially when I have spent the majority of my 72 years studying, writing and teaching about it in literally millions of spoken and written words.
I’m sure you understand.
YaLHaK
December 9th, 2006 at 2:31 am
However, the short answer is to be found in the Yiddish Koan, “Menchen tracht und Gott lacht.”
December 9th, 2006 at 12:33 pm
Finally, here is the first in a series of essays I’ve written on the nature of suffering (which is really what your question is about). You can find the others in the Donmeh West archives on Yahoo-Groups:
December 9th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
B”H[
Chaverim v. Ma’aminim,
“Everything that God has created must of necessity serve a beneficent purpose…..’God saw everything that He had made, and, behold, it was good’ (Gen. 1:31) is explained as including death, the evil impulse in man, suffering and Gehinnom, as each of them contributes in the end to the welfare of the human race.” (Midrash Rabbah Genesis 9:5-9)
Most of us count ourselves responsible for our suffering and believe it comes out of our personal weaknesses, our foibles and our moral shortcomings. From the depths of our existential guilt we say to ourselves, “They do not suffer like I do because they are good and I am bad.” An example of this is found in what used to be called “Holistic Healing” (now, I believe, called “Alternative Medicine”) in which the patient is invariably blamed for his illness by the practitioner. “The reason you have indigestion,” they say, “is because you’re not partaking of life properly.” Thus, we are told, the illness is not an illness but a sign of some moral and spiritual weakness. In the same way we are taught to believe that only the “bad” suffer and the “good” do not. But, I submit, suffering is as much a part of life as breathing. So long as I am engaged in business of life one of the prices I pay for doing business is to suffer. Now, I may suffer in one way and you may suffer in another, but both of us are suffering and your suffering, even though it may seem “trivial” in some absolute sense, is no less real to you than mine is to me. As the Midrash says:
“Even such things as you deem superfluous in the world — e.g. flies, fleas and gnats — were created by the Holy One, blessed be He, for His purpose — yea, even serpents and frogs.” (ibid 10:7)
With these thoughts in mind we can begin to enumerate some general principles of suffering, which we will later compare to those of Buddhism and Hinduism.
Suffering is not the result of a moral or spiritual deficit in the one who suffers; on the contrary, the “good” suffer as well as the “bad.”
It is as natural to suffer in life as it is to breath; suffering is neither a punishment nor a corrective; it simply is.
So long as one is engaged in life — in the business of living — one suffers in proportion to the degree that one lives.
Therefore, it would seem, to avoid suffering one must disengage from life. (We will elaborate on this principle later in this lecture.)
.Now the astute reader will see the similarities between these four principles of ours and those of Buddhism. This is because although differently experienced they nevertheless treat of the same experience — in Buddhism by the Buddhist, and in the present paradigm by us — but there are differences between the two, particularly in the conclusions we draw from them regarding the nature of the human condition. For example, it is no accident that Buddhism speaks of the prime cause of suffering as “attachment” while we speak of it as “engagement.” That is, “attachment” implies an incorrectness while engagement does not; in other words, to say that we are “attached” to life implies a moral judgment, that we should not be, but to say we are “engaged” in it only states what is — an existential fact that is neither “good” nor “bad.” Moreover, “attachment” is passive and mental, while “engagement” is active and physical. That is, it is far more likely that I can be engaged in life while yet detached from it, than it is that I can be detached from life while still remaining engaged.
Finally, Buddhism (along with other Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Taoism) in their most extreme applications propose a kind of spiritual suicide, as it were — a virtual but non-physical exiting from life — as a solution to the problem of suffering. In summary, they teach: (1) the basic nature of life is suffering; (2) suffering comes from attachment to the world; (3) therefore, detach from the world and suffering will cease — and although this construction is logical and demonstrably true (as in Buddhism) it also has the serious limitation of essentially removing us from the world — a world, which Kabbalah tells us, requires our active participation in order to be completed.
This is not to dismiss or denigrate the Eastern traditions such as Buddhism, but simply to offer another alternative. As Jung points out, many souls find release from suffering in the Eastern religions, but others do not — particularly, according to him, in the West. That being said, in the lectures to follow, I discuss a Kabbalistic alternative to the problem — one in which the goal is to transmute, rather than to eliminate suffering by embracing rather than rejecting it. This may sound very Catholic to some, and indeed in certain ways it is, but in even more significant ways (which we shall take up in future lectures) it is not, replacing the Catholic concept of “bearing” one’s suffering with the Kabbalistic concept of “transmuting” it in the same way as the Alchemist is said to have transmuted lead into gold. In the words of the 18th century Jewish mystic and Avatar, the Ba’al Shem Tov:
“In all thoughts of man the reality of God conceals itself…And when in the thinking of man….an evil or alien thought arises, it comes to him in order that he may redeem it and let it ascend. But he who does not believe in this does not truly take on himself the Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven.” (The Ba’al Shem Tov, “Instructions in Intercourse with God,” trans by martin Buber in Hasidism and Modern Man, Horizon Press, 1958, p. 205)
Thus, suffering (which is a kind of “evil or alien thought”) comes upon man in order that he may “redeem it and let it ascend” — and this mystical action by man, this redemption of suffering itself, is the Yoke of the Kingdom of Heaven each of us has been created to bear according to the Way of Kabbalah as I describe it in the lectures to follow.
* * * *
“Menchen tracht und Gott lacht.” (”Mankind struggles, and God laughs.”) — Yiddish Proverb
Mankind suffers because God suffers. It is not mankind that suffers, but God. The suffering I feel is not my suffering but God’s suffering, experienced through me as if it were my own. Therefore, if I am to be liberated from my suffering once and for all, I must first liberate God from His. How do we know that God suffers? Because mankind suffers. As scripture states, “God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him.” (Gen. 1:27) For this reason, the Ba’al Shem Tov would say,
“Man is a part of God, and the want that is in the part is in the whole, and the whole suffers the same want as the part.” (”Instructions in Intercourse with God,” trans. by Martin Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man, p. 198)
Therefore, we infer that God suffers because we know that mankind suffers. And what is it from which God suffers? According to Kabbalah, He suffers His exile from himself. He suffers the separation in His Name — the YH divided from the VH — that took place when He created the worlds. As Buber writes:
“God has fallen into duality through the created world and its deed: into the [upper] essence of God, Elohim…. and the [lower] presence of God, the Shekhinah, which dwells in things, wandering, straying scattered….It is given to the human spirit, through its Service, to be able to bring the Shekhinah near to its Source, to help it to enter it.” (Martin Buber, Hasidism and Modern Man, Horizon Books, 1958, p. 88)
Thus, God suffers to return to the unity, the wholeness in Himself, that was shattered when He created the worlds. When He created the worlds, His unity was shattered. Therefore, God suffers, and mankind is commissioned to redeem God from His suffering by returning Him to His former state of unity. As Scripture states,
“The Lord shall be King over all the earth. On that day the Lord shall be One and his name One.” (Zechariah 14:9)
So mankind is given the task of releasing God from His suffering by returning Him to His wholeness. Yet, how this be? How can the lesser (man) heal the greater (God)? Doesn’t this imply that man is somehow superior, or at least equal to his Creator? Not at all. Remember the words of Isaiah,
“If he offers his life in atonement . . through him what Yahweh wishes will be done” (Isa. 53:10)
Also, consider when Abraham was visited by the “three men” at the door of his tent — one of whom, according to the Jewish Oral Scriptures was, as we shall see, actually Yahweh himself:
“And [Abraham] lift up his eyes and looked, and, lo, three men stood by him: and when he saw them, he ran to meet them from the tent door, and bowed himself toward the ground, And said, My LORD, if now I have found favor in thy sight, pass not away, I pray thee, from thy servant: Let [me] . . . . comfort ye your hearts; after that ye shall pass on: for therefore are ye come to your servant. And they said, So do as thou hast said.” (Genesis 18:2-5)
First, notice that Abraham addresses the three visitors in the singular noun Adonai, “my Lord,” another Hebrew name for Yahweh. For this, among other reasons, the Midrash tells us, ”
“Yahweh personally appeared to Abraham at the door of his tent…..[and even said to him when He heard Sarah laughing from inside], ‘Why did Sarah laugh’?” (The Midrash Says, Vol. 1, pp. 163-164)
So it is to God that Abraham says, “Let me comfort your heart” — which is to say, “let me console you, my God,” — to which the Lord Himself replies, “Do what you have said — comfort me.” Thus Abraham sees that God is suffering, asks to comfort His heart, and is granted permission. This teaches us that in order to be ultimately free of our own suffering we must: (1) Recognize that God is suffering; (2) Ask His permission to relieve Him of it; and (3) Do as Abraham did and “Comfort His heart.” Only then, when His suffering is healed by us, will our suffering — the suffering of the world — once and for all be healed by Him. And that will be the Kingdom of Heaven.
Raising Up the Holy Sparks Together,
Reb Yakov Leib HaKohain
December 9th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Dear YaLHak,
Thankyou for taking the time to address a question by a regular guy like me.I have alot of respect for you.I will print out what you wrote here and read it in depth later this afternoon and if I have any further questions or comments i will post them here.
December 11th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
dear holy yalhak,
i’ve never heard anybody refer to bulbeh kugel.
do you use bulbeh exclusively or do you mix in an occasional kartofel in your shprakh? since i consider yiddish the urshprache from which all other languages have sprouted this is not a frivolous question.
December 11th, 2006 at 12:48 pm
Holy Shit,
You should find and listen to the yiddish folksong, “Bulbeh” in which a “bulbeh kugeleh” is listed off as one of the many dishes made, by necessity, with the cheap and plentiful potato. My bubeh of blessed memory could and did prepare a banquet of dishes all made from potatoes. My favorite was the bulbeh kugeleh.
That being said, however, I still think your question is frivolous.
YaLHaK
December 11th, 2006 at 1:03 pm
P.S. Furthermore, in my own family at least, when I was growing up in the 1930’s (I’m 72) we never spoke of “kartoffel” kugel, but always “bulbeh” kugel.
But of course, what did we know? We were only ignorant Jews from off the boat who didn’t know from “ursprache” or “ur” anything else, for that matter.
December 11th, 2006 at 1:22 pm
my point was that it’s all small potatoes and i believe you’ve proved that.
December 11th, 2006 at 1:46 pm
ah. thanks for explaining your point to me. it had gone right over my head, being as recondite as it was.
December 11th, 2006 at 1:51 pm
and since you have such a profound interest in Yiddish, let me add, “Gai kocken affen yam.”
December 11th, 2006 at 3:00 pm
“…und as der Shabbas kumt, ah bulbeh kugeleh.” yes that’s the song my family also sang. at least my father’s russian side. on my mother’s side we were sephardim from constantinople, turkey and knew only from rice.
December 11th, 2006 at 3:59 pm
Gai kocken affen yam. when you say “gai” is that gay or guy? i could ask a question about “kocken” as well but that would be too easy.
Yiddish Potato Folk Songs
(many thanks to writer Jerry Newman for the contribution)
——————————————————————————–
Bulbes (Potatoes)
Zuntik bulbes, montik bulbes,
Dinstik uhn mitvoch bulbes,
Donershtik uhn fraytik bulbes.
Ober shabbes in a noveneh a bulbeh kuggele
Zuntik vayter bulbes
Ober shabbes in a noveneh a bulbeh kuggele
Zuntik vayter bulbes
Oi broyt mit bulbes, fleysch mit bulbes,
Varimes uhn vetshere bulbes.
Vetshere uhn varimes bulbes.
Ober eynmol in a noveneh a bulbeh kuggele
Zuntik vayter bulbes
Ober shabbes in a noveneh a bulbeh kuggele
Zuntik vayter bulbes
Ober bulbes, vider bulbes,
Ober uhn vider bulbes,
Vider uhn ober bulbes.
Ober shabbes nochn tsholnt a bulbeh kuggele
Zuntik vayter bulbes
Ober shabbes in a noveneh a bulbeh kuggele
Zuntik vayter bulbes
Translation: Sunday potatoes, Monday potatoes, &c. but on the Sabbath for a change a potato pudding, Sunday once again potatoes. Oi, bread and potatoes, meat with potatoes, lunch and supper - potatoes, still and again, &c.
* * *
Vi Azoi Trinkt Der Kayser Tey? (How does the Tsar drink tea?)
Raboysay, Raboysay, khakhomim ohn a sheer,
Ikh vihl aykh fregn, ikh vihl aykh fregn:
Entfert mir alleh oyf mayne shayleh:
Vi azoy trinkt der Kayser tey? Vi azoy trinkt der Kayser tey?
Men nemt a hittele tsuker,
Uhn men makht a lokh, Uhn men gist areyn dem tey,
Uhn men misht uhn men misht uhn men misht.
CHORUS: Oht azoy, oht azoy, oht azoy trinkt der Kayser tey!
Raboysay, Raboysay, khakhomim ohn a sheer,
Ikh vihl aykh fregn, ikh vihl aykh fregn:
Entfert mir alleh oyf mayne shayleh:
Vi azoy est der Kayser bulbes? Vi azoy est der Kayser bulbes?
Men nemt a vant mit putter,
Uhn men shtelt avek dem Kayser mit an oyfen moyl,
Uhn tsvey soldatten mit armatten
Shteyn uhn shissen dem bulbes glaykh dem Kayser in moyl areyn!
CHORUS: Oht azoy, oht azoy, oht azoy est der Kayser bulbes.
Raboysay, Raboysay, khakhomim ohn a sheer,
Ikh vihl aykh fregn, ikh vihl aykh fregn:
Entfert mir alleh oyf mayne shayleh:
Vi azoy shloft der Kayser bay nakht? Vi azoy shloft der Kayser bay nakht?
Men nemt a tsimmer mit federn,
Uhn men schlaydert areyn dem Kayser,
Uhn a truhp soldatten mit armatten
Shteyn a gantse nakht Uhn shreien, “SHAH! SHAH!”
CHORUS: Oht azoy, oht azoy, oht azoy shloft der Kayser bay nakht.
Translation: Rabbis, Rabbis, wise ones without end, I want to ask you, oh answer me, please answer me my question: How does the Tsar drink tea?
One takes a mound of sugar and makes a hole in it and pours in the tea, and mixes and mixes and mixes. And that’s how the Tsar drinks tea.
Rabbis, &c: How does the Tsar eat potatoes?
One takes a wall of butter and one puts the Tsar in front of it with his mouth open, and a couple of soldiers with rifles stand and shoot the potatoes straight into the Tsar’s open mouth. And that’s how the Tsar eats potatoes.
Rabbis, &c: How does the Tsar sleep at night?
One takes a room full of feathers, and slides in the Tsar, and a troop of armed soldiers stand on guard the whole night and cry out, QUIET! QUIET! And that’s how the Tsar sleeps at night.
December 11th, 2006 at 4:11 pm
lol. take it whatever way you want. i’m lucky to be able to spell my own name.
December 11th, 2006 at 4:16 pm
(When I say I’m a prostiker yid, I MEAN I’m a POSTIKER yid.)
December 11th, 2006 at 4:23 pm
and speaking of the Tsar, I know a yiddish joke that I’ll tell in English:
A Jew is standing and taking a piss when he looks and sees the Tsar pissing next to him. “Tsar,” he says, “how come when I piss sounds rough and crude like rocks hitting rocks, but when you piss, Tsar, sounds like tinkling of little tiny silver bells?” “Because,” the Tsar replies, “I piss on you, Jew.”
December 11th, 2006 at 9:23 pm
hahahahahahah. very funny joke, I like your sense of humor.
heres a quickie……
a hassid was walking through Williamsburg and had to urinate very badly.He went into a few restaurants and stores but nobody let him use their toilet.Finally , he was so frustrated that he just went between two cars , whipped it out and started pissing.Suddenly, an old Rebbetzin walks by and sees him and in disgust she shouts out “vos is dos azoi grubkeit !” and he replies “un vos it mit der lang?”
December 11th, 2006 at 9:25 pm
And he’s got a sense of humor, too! Hey, if we were to come up with expenses and ticket, do you think you’d be willing to host (or at least attend, don’t want to arouse your christ-like humility) an all night jam/kabbalah/chassidis/chulent/apikorsus/etc… evening in midtown manhattan, or possibly the east village? It could be very helpful to our non-cause, and sholomanarchy and i would probrably pish ourselves. Please say yes………..
December 11th, 2006 at 10:00 pm
ok. here is another; this time, with apologies to shit, i’ll tell it in my broken yiddish (complete with bad grammar and worse transliterative spelling) as i heard my father telling it in the other room one night a long time ago when i was in bed and supposedly asleep:
Rochel the rebbetzin goes to the mikvah before sundown on erev shabbas. there is a long line of women ahead of her and she starts from the back working her way up to the front by saying to each one, “ich bin rochel der rebbetzin, und der rebbe vart af mir,” to which each woman steps aside respectfully allowing the rebbetzin to go ahead of her.
this works until she gets to the next-to-last woman in line to whom she says, “ich bin rochel der rebbetzin und der rebbe vart af mir.”
to which the next-to-last woman in line replies, “und ich bin nina der nafkeh, und der ganzer veldt vart af mir.”
December 11th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
[allahhuechad: let me think about your exciting invitation and get back to you. there’s a lot i need to consider before i can answer, one way or the other.]
December 12th, 2006 at 12:44 am
[not least of which, I’ll consult the Ba’al HaChalom.]
December 12th, 2006 at 5:28 am
I would love to participate in an online session with YaLHak. I am not familiar with paltalk , I am completely computer illiterate, but if there will be such a session I will figure out or ask someone how to join in.
I am no scholar , I am just a regular angry guy that got screwed over by the Yeshiva system and I am fed up with the nepotism and double standards within the orthodox community.
YaLHak IS a scholar and I think he deserves a fair chance to teach the fundamentals of his movement in a respectful environment of his choice.I would like the oppurtunity to hear more of what he has to say and then decide for myself if I agree or not.
December 12th, 2006 at 2:05 pm
And whether YOU believe me or not makes absolutely no difference to whether I do or don’t.
December 12th, 2006 at 2:19 pm
i don’t give a shit about god. i care about people. i love every facet of the human experience no matter how horrid. i want to be reduced to cinders by the tiniest suffering of another person and i don’t want that suffering to be mitigated by an afterlife, a grand purpose, or a supreme being so it really pisses me off when you’ve got a great exchange of dirty jokes going and you interrupt it to get all holy.
“the matzo balls were delicious but what do you do with the rest of the matzoh?”
December 12th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Dear Shit:
You do and I don’t. But that doesn’t make you wrong any more than it makes me right.
Each of us goes where our heart takes you. I am not in this world to live up to your expectations and you are not in this world to live up to mine. I go my way and you go yours — and if, by chance, we meet it’s beautiful. If not, it can’t be helped.
YaLHaK
December 12th, 2006 at 2:45 pm
P.S. I’m glad you like my Yiddish jokes. Unfortunately, they’re the only two I know. And God forbid I should “get holy.”
Being called an ignoramus or a heretic or “an embarassment to the Jewish people” doesn’t bother me at all. But being called “holy” really pisses me off.
I am NOT “holy,” make no claims to BEING “holy” and take offense at being CALLED “holy.” I’m just as big a stupid asshole as you are. I should think MY telling dirty jokes and YOUR appreciating them proves that.
Yours till the cows come home,
YaLHaK
December 12th, 2006 at 3:02 pm
PPSS. So I suggest you enjoy the part of me that tells dirty jokes but ignore the part that YOU call “holy.” Like Popeye, “I yam what I yam” — take it or leave it.
December 12th, 2006 at 5:45 pm
We are the dirty jokes.
December 12th, 2006 at 5:52 pm
lol. omayn v’ omayn.
December 12th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
[or did i transliterate that wrong, too? i know you care deeply about such things, while i don’t. but, hey — who says i should or you shouldn’t? not i, said the little red hen.]
December 12th, 2006 at 6:14 pm
Life (and transliteration)is too important to be taken seriously. - Oscar Vild
December 12th, 2006 at 6:20 pm
Yasher koach! For that, you get an Oscar.
December 12th, 2006 at 6:22 pm
[hmm. that didn’t come out quite as cleverly as i intended it to, but i’m sure you got the point.]
December 12th, 2006 at 11:56 pm
B”H
Chaverim v’ Ma’aminim,
“[Religious] dogmatism is not good. It is not good to feel that my religion is alone is true and other religions are right or wrong, true or false. I say this because one cannot know the true nature of God unless one realizes Him [in Samadhi]….Do you know what the truth is? God has made different religions to suit different aspirants, times, and countries. All [such religious] doctrines are only so many paths [to God]; but a path [to God] is by no means God Himself…..If there are errors in other religions, that is none of our business. God, to whom the world belongs, takes care of that.” (Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna, Abridged Edition, 1974, p. 336)
In keeping with the universalist nature of our Neo-Sabbatian Kabbalah, these regular Tuesday postings from The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna (and related texts) are part of an ongoing, multi-part project in which I contrast “Yalhakian” Neo-Sabbatian Kabbalah with the esoteric teachings of other religious philosophies including Judaism (Zohar), Christianity (Gnostic Gospels), Islam (Sufi Poetry of Rumi), Hinduism (Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna), Buddhism/Taoism (The Tao Te Ching of Lao Tzu), Frankist Sabbatianism (The Dicta of the Lord, Jacob Frank) and finally — to coin a word C. G. Jung himself certainly would hate –”Jungianism” (Answer to Job).
Sri Ramakrishna was a 19th century Hindu priest and holy man who a religious congress in India, and countless ordinary Hindus along with it, proclaimed then and now to be the Avatar of the Age — which is to say, like Sabbatai Zevi before him, a living container for God. I have said frequently that I feel toward Hinduism and Ramakrishna the way my 17th and 18th century Jewish predecessors — Sabbatai Zevi and his spiritual heir, Yakov Leib Frank — did toward Islam and Christianity, respectively. Like Sabbatai and Frank before me, I am a Jew and more, an hereditary Jewish Priest in the lineage of Aaron. Nevertheless — and for the same reasons Sabbatai Zevi “converted” to Islam and Frank to Catholicism — over thirty years ago, after having studied Hinduism for a number of years on my own, I was initiated into Vedanta by Swami Swahananda, head of the Sri Ramakrishna Order of India in Southern California where I later taught and gave sermons for a number of years, many of which they still have recorded on audio-tape and available at their Hollywood, California bookstore.
SRI RAMAKRISHNA:
RAMAKRISHNA: [To Mahendra Mukerji]: “Why do people come here? I don’t know much of reading and writing.”
MM: “God’s power is in you. That is why there is such attraction. It is the Divine Spirit that attracts.
RAMAKRISHNA: “But not all people are attracted to God by any means. To love God one must be born with good tendencies. Otherwise, why should you alone, of all the people [in the town where you live] come here? You can’t expect anything good in a dung-hill.” (abridged edition, 1974, p. 324)
REB YAKOV LEIB’S COMMENTARY:
“Was I not a fool in your eyes, Torah-less and illiterate?….But see, it is well-known: when Italian nuts are gathered the outer shell is green and bitter and stains the hand. Then one comes to the Center….An aspect of the Godhead, a true aspect, grew in me like a pearl that grows of itself, and I have no man to whom I might reveal the true matter.” — Avatar Yakov Leib Frank
It is not so much what the God-Inspired teacher says, or the words and ideas he actually teaches, that gives him his authority in the eyes of others. Such information — the “reading and writing” about which Sri Ramakrishna, by his own admission, knew little — is not the substance, but only the peripherals, of that which his charisma, his darshan, conveys. The words, the ideas he speaks with his mouth can be just as easily found in books and College classes, but not the Divine Spirit that leaks out with them from the Divinely Inspired teacher. This is why the great Western mystic, Carl Gustav Jung, said: “Always the more unconscious person gets spiritually fecundated by the more conscious one. Hence the Guru in India.” (C. G. Jung, Collected Letters, Vol. 1, p. 172)
Sri Ramakrishna, like the Jewish mystic Yakov Leib Frank a century before, was an illiterate. It was not the words and ideas he taught that attracted people, but the Divine Spirit radiating from him. Yet, just as not all teachers radiate this Divine Spirit, not all other people are attracted to it when he does. There must be a “match” between them, preordained by birth. For this reason the Jew called “Jesus” allegedly said, “My sheep know my voice” and “Let those who have ears, hear;” and the Buddhist proverb declares, “The fool is like a spoon; it can sit in a bowl of soup forever and never taste it.” However, it is usually the tendency for the spoon to the blame the soup for being tasteless, and for the spiritually deaf to accuse the speaker of saying nothing. Thus, “You can’t expect anything good in a dung-hill.”
HaKol Mayal Motzai,
Reb Yakov Leib HaKohain, Founder & Spiritual Director
DONMEH WEST (Founded 1972)
http://www.donmeh-west.com
December 13th, 2006 at 12:03 am
For example, I invite you to listen to the live lectures I am currently giving on the RaMChaL’s “138 Openings of Wisdom” at http://www.donmeh-west.com/zohar.shtml.
YaLHaK
December 13th, 2006 at 12:04 am
Let me try that link again:
http://www.donmeh-west.com/zohar.shtml
December 14th, 2006 at 12:20 am
Sorry, the link to PalTalk in the above schedule is broken. Here it is again, in working order:
http://www.paltalk.com/
PalTalk is a free voice-conferencing program that, even if you don’t attend my shiurim, you should know about and use.
December 14th, 2006 at 2:37 pm
Yalmakhaq sounds to me like one of those illustrious y’shiva bochers who was rejected as a Rebbe by the Frumballs, and alternatively went after the “wider” audience - AKUM. These include Saint Paul, Svi, Frank (well his daddy was a m’lamed, anyhoo), and Mordchai Marques (Marx; his uncle and GGF, respected rabbanim). Fine company, Yakov. What amazes me is how the rest of you are so attracted to such a playmate. Bitches.
December 14th, 2006 at 3:28 pm
Wrong. Never attended a Yeshiva in my 72 years. Never was rejected as a rabbi by frumballs or anyone else because I never wanted or tried to be one.
As my sainted bubeh used to say, “Opinions are like assholes; everyone has one.” So if you’re going to bother farting from yours, I suggest you get your facts straight at http://www.donmeh-west.com/yakov.shtml before passing your gas.
YaLHaK
December 14th, 2006 at 3:40 pm
P.S. And yes, it IS “fine company,” indeed, that you lump me in with. God willing, I should be worthy of being mentioned in the same breath as them.
December 14th, 2006 at 4:03 pm
Neo-Sabbatian Quote of the Day
Monday December 11th 2006, 9:18 pm
Filed under: Ruckus
That senior editor of the JahfilteFish blog was right: I am, indeed, an embarrassment to the Jewish People. But I come from a long line of such embarrassments beginning with the ignorant donkey-driver, Yeivah Savah, right up to and including the apostate Yakov Leib (Jacob) Frank, after whom I was named, by way of my maternal grandfather.
Like Frank, I too am Torah-less and illiterate . . . and the whole Torah will be destroyed by my hand. But I also I know what he meant when he said, An aspect of the Godhead, a true aspect, grew in me like a pearl that grows of itself; and I have no man to whom I might reveal the true matter. Reb Yakov Leib HaKohain
December 14th, 2006 at 4:53 pm
Have browsed through your yahoo archives and website. Lots of fluent, articulate New Age syncretistic stuff. My guess is that you have flirted with rebbes, swamis, imams, priests, etc.. I’d say that “ten thousands pages”, a fancy website, and 15-20 hours of Paypal broadcasting weekly is a rather lugubrious way for diffusing the word of truth.
BTW, I think your attempt to force all these disparate systems into a Jungian paradigm is rather remarkable. You’re an inspiration for all day-trippers. Come to New York. I’ll buy the marshmallows and weenies.
December 14th, 2006 at 4:58 pm
yalhak,
i’m intrigued by your insistence on answering all detractors/nudniks, including myself. with your 5 billion shiurim where do you find the time? i somehow find it wonderfully frish and young and refreshingly immature, especially at 72. yasher kochacho.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
“What amazes me is how the rest of you are so attracted to such a playmate. Bitches.”
hiyyavrom, how wonderfully “street” and incisive. regardless of yalhak they are bitches.
December 14th, 2006 at 5:23 pm
hiyyavrom,
gee, i’m flattered. but i suggest that rather than “browsing” through our website, you actually read it — particularly the part that talks about my “flirtation with rebbes, swamis, imams, priests, etc.” at http://www.donmeh-west.com/yakov.shtml. (If you try not to move your lips, the reading will go faster.)
YaLHaK
December 14th, 2006 at 5:27 pm
oh shit,
my day starts at 3:30 am (est) and ends at 10:30 pm (est). and i’m intrigued by YOUR fascination with ME. best be careful; people might talk.
yalhak
December 14th, 2006 at 5:36 pm
p.s. and i don’t know what i can do or say to convince everyone that, like you, i’m just an immature asshole. the rabbis believe me; the academics believe me; the WORLD believes me — why can’t you?
December 14th, 2006 at 6:01 pm
“One must resort to all sorts of foolish things.” — Rebbe Nachman of Breslov
December 14th, 2006 at 6:17 pm
I’ll accept that you’re one big lekhel. Although considering the incessant flow of detritus, I question whether it’s immature. I’m sure Sibling Shitalphin will eventually agree. Not to worry. I’ll not be judgmental and suggest “shithead” as a more poignant self-appellation. AND I don’t read your stuff with my lips; they’re not quite poetry. Sorry if I’ve bored you, bitches. I’ll stop this dipshit criticism right now. The dude is very cutesy, and I guess your reverential attitude is an interesting contrast to your usual expression. Kishknish and karis umin.
December 14th, 2006 at 6:39 pm
it’s nice to be able to get reverential sometimes. To find a temple where it feels safe to revere for a minute, before getting back to work.
December 14th, 2006 at 10:04 pm
That’s why they invented rock and roll
December 15th, 2006 at 12:27 am
AND the Rock of Ages, if I might be so bold as to add.
December 15th, 2006 at 10:20 pm
i have nothing to say but i don’t want the comments to stop at 83.
“If I were God I should be eternal, I should have neither beginning nor end and that would ultimately bore me. And as the Almighty, when everything has been done, what should I do afterward? I should amuse myself by undoing, perhaps.” - Dr. Jean Martin Charcot
December 16th, 2006 at 6:44 pm
Alright. If you insist, let’s get serious: I am writing this note on Shabbos for the expressed purpose of BREAKING the Shabbos in accordance with the rabbinic principle of “mitzvah ha-ba’ah ba-averah” as understood by The Holy Lamp, Nathan of Gaza in his Sabbatian Judaism.
So, put THAT in your pipe and smoke it — especially on this or any other Shabbos.
YaLHaK
December 16th, 2006 at 8:31 pm
Happy Channukah Reb YaLHaK !
A great miracle happened to me last Channukah , I only had enough marijuana for one day and it lasted eight days !!!
December 16th, 2006 at 11:01 pm
B”H
December 17th, 2006 at 5:11 am
i wrote my comment on shabes with the expressed purpose of nothing. which chilul shabes is greater?
December 17th, 2006 at 5:32 am
Someone inform the Illui and Masqil Yalhak what mitzvah ha-ba’ah m’Avayrah is. I swore that I’d be nice. Explain to him that it is b’onays, not b-mayzid. Even Frank was too lamdonish to make that faux pas. Or that every nebbish was perfectly free to do antinomian piruets. It was a very deep and complex art (antinomianism), necessitating a mumchar-guide as much as the “black arts” of qabala. Not something to be garnered from Gershom Shalom in English. Well, I guess I just contradicted myself. Night all.
December 17th, 2006 at 1:27 pm
gosh thanks. you’re a smart boy. and so polite. a real credit to your parents.
but now please explain to me why your understanding of redemption through sin is any more correct than mine.
no, wait. don’t bother. i’m sure you’re right and i’m wrong. a poor shmuck like me doesn’t stand a chance with a brilliant tzaddik like you. you win.
now go away.
December 17th, 2006 at 1:32 pm
shit,
yours, obviously.
yalhak
December 17th, 2006 at 1:47 pm
“I keep telling you that I’m a damn-fool ignoramus, but you won’t believe me. You think I’m being coy, perhaps, or even modest. But no such thing; I am what I say . . . a prostiker yid, an ‘ignorant Jew.’ The scholars believe me; the rabbis believe me; why won’t you?” — Reb Yakov Leib HaKohain (11/22/2006)
December 17th, 2006 at 5:06 pm
yalhak,
I BELIEVE you’re a “damn-fool ignoramus” but YOU DON’T and the more you keep repeating it just proves it. a quote about protesteth comes to mind from a previous incarnation. YALHAK IS GOD. ALL PRAISE YALHAK. he is ignorant to the point of perfect simplicity and his mind being perfectly empty is totally open to receive god. the shekhina speaks through yalhaks throat because yalhaks brain doesn’t even control his motor functions. i suspect that yalhak’s physical body knew what we call death years ago and he’s hardwired to and living in the internet it’s the only way he could respond to every stupid comment instantaneously. PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US! DON’T LOOK DOWN ON US MERE MORTALS WITH DISDAIN! we who are still caught up in the net of knowledge, reason and rational thinking. FREE US! look not at our affronts but rather to our inadequacy for the ways of your mind are as distant as the heavens from the earth even though these two things actually touch from our minds. TAKE PITY!
don’t demand us to be worthy but out of your pure goodness shine your light on us. MY SOUL THIRSTS FOR YALHAK!
December 17th, 2006 at 6:57 pm
I’m back Yakov. I set the microwave for 5 mins, instead of 15. Mea culpa. My potato is not fully baked. I “personally” have long thought that your slant on antinomianism might be very old, even primal; but was only making the point that the Babble-onions wouldn’t allow it in “our” Talmud, and it is not there. B”H they weren’t able to also totally fukup the SOD, the escoteric tradition. I wasn’t trying to make you into Hannukah mincemeat. Hopefully my words were not more than some residual sarcasm-cynicism osmosized from Babble-onion rebbeim and Eastern Church Fathers, and I guess I must stomp on that shit much harder.
I also have a problem with being academically anal at times. Fuck the footnotes. Your plain message demands serious consideration. At the very least, it is stimulating. And it will provoke a few in the right way. I accept that you are here because you care about the few.
Regardless of your self-deprecation, I know for a fact that your tzitzis are longer than mine. Or better said, no one’s could be shorter (except conceivably in a Black/Lech Hole).
I apologize for my weakness. Just throw this baby out with the bathwater. GBU.
December 17th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
And l+rd knows whose pics they use on their glossy Chinese Auction catalogues.
December 17th, 2006 at 9:27 pm
the difference between lakewood and 770 is that while constantly being called baalei gayve they are the ones who awed by the task of mastering all jewish learning think of themselves as nothings and while in 770 they scream about bitul hayesh they learn one page of tanya and think they have reached union with the godhead. out of my nothingness i see my own faults and find love for all of man because they are all my betters those who see themselves as god are kind out of their infinite generosity for these poor humans, yuck, i spit on your love. and when you bandy about snagindustrialcomplex i say lubavitch is the mother of all industrial complexes stamping out shluchim at a merciless pace while the biggest complaint against lakewood is that there is no guidance or supervision and they don’t need it because they have a shulkhan oruch that keeps them in line a book you burnt because it damaged your ego because it says that not all actions are right. how dare one tell a god what to do and are not all the actions of a god good by definition?
December 17th, 2006 at 11:45 pm
i just wanted to be the 100th comment. i love you all.
December 18th, 2006 at 12:09 pm
I wish to pipe in a comment re Lakewood vs. Lubavitch. Now listen.
In Layabitch, the Rebbe says, “Don’t smoke”. They smoke and crown him Mashiakh.
In Lakewood, the rebbe says, “Learn”. They learn their butt off, and don’t crown him Mashiakh.
Furthermore, the penultimate capitalist state is a police state. For instance, Kinoyza. But the Rebbe knew these 40 years earlier. Go figure.
The untershiur is that Siz gut tzu zein a Id. We can fuk our cousins. Even our step-sisters.
December 18th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
let us not judge yalhak by his personal flaws let’s just stick to what he says. if that pearl growing is merely a brain tumor does it really make a difference? should we be surprised by the worshipfulness of ex-chasidim? we are after all israelites who were willing to trade in god for a golden calf because you can adore it. jesus was a step up, at least he was incredibly hot.
December 18th, 2006 at 2:00 pm
“WHO, WHAT & WHY IS THE TZADDIK”
December 18th, 2006 at 2:01 pm
http://www.donmeh-west.com/special_topics.shtml
December 18th, 2006 at 2:28 pm
Listen to the live lecture, “Who, What & Why Is The Tzaddik” @ http://www.donmeh-west.com/special_topics.shtml
December 18th, 2006 at 2:35 pm
Sorry for the multiple postings of Reb Yakov Leib’s lecture. Was just trying to get the link right. He has asked me to periodically post his live lectures for those of you who might want to download them. I’m trying to find the best way to do that.
December 18th, 2006 at 7:27 pm
In Layabitch, the Rebbe says, Dont smoke. They smoke and crown him Mashiakh.
that’s funny cuz the rebbe himself smoked.
December 18th, 2006 at 9:58 pm
Possibly he and the rabbit-sin shared a joint while pishing, nithiernitdaw. Clearly he didn’t toke or smoke in public, lest the ashes drop on the freshly minted dollars.
The first week they went outside 666 to smoke. The second week, they were puffing away in the Collisseum (”bayt-medrash”), but put them out when he entered.
The third week they didn’t bother putting them out.
That’s first-hand info. I got it from Hussayn who heard it from Hasan who got it from Ali who heard it from Abu Hureira who got it from ar-Rasul pbuh!
Too damn bad u lick mules, nishtaher.
December 19th, 2006 at 10:49 pm
hey rohloh your full of shit, and you know it.
i already check my facts, maybe you should check your facts.
December 19th, 2006 at 10:51 pm
hiyyavrom.
it looks like your the one with experience with licking mules.
happy holidays
December 20th, 2006 at 12:13 am
i shall not argue with you because it’s pointless, i will say just one thing my sources are as pure as gold.
December 26th, 2006 at 9:53 pm
just want to make it 115
that’s it.
January 8th, 2007 at 2:05 am
Hey Yakov, Thanks alot for what u’re doin……though u might not give a damn anyway if ur thanked or not. but thanks…..its really helpin me so much…..