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zilch Says:
December 13th, 2007 at 1:16 pm

This might be a good place for a retelling of the story of St. Agnes Blannbekin, who died in Vienna in 1315. Her “Revelations”, as collected by her spiritual advisor, were published by the Benedictine B. Pez in 1731, and included the following tidbit (sorry, just in German: the following is my translation), from chapter XXXVII, “The Lord’s Prepuce”:

“This person had the habit, starting almost in childhood, to weep profoundly at the Feast of the Circumcision, touched to the heart by the blood spent by Christ, who deigned to suffer so early…. Thus she started to wonder, where the prepuce might be. And lo and behold! Soon she felt a little skin on her tongue, like the skin of an egg, full of great sweetness, and she gulped it down. Hardly had she swallowed it, when she felt the little skin again, and so she swallowed it once more. And she did so a good hundred times…. And it was revealed to her, that on the Day of Resurrection the prepuce was also resurrected. So great was the sweetness when she swallowed this little skin, that in all her limbs and in all the muscles of her limbs she felt a sweet transformation…”

St. Agnes’ confessor added after this chapter the note:

“I was greatly comforted, that the Lord would reveal himself to people this way, and burned to hear more.”

I BELIEVE JESUS WAS BORN CIRCUMCISED FOR HE WAS PERFECT. THERE IS BUT ONE ACCOUNT OF HIS "CIRCUMCISION" IN LUKE 2:21 Young's Literal Translation:
And when eight days were fulfilled to circumcise the child, then was his name called Jesus, having been so called by the messenger before his being conceived in the womb.

THERE IS NO MENTION OF AN ACTUAL CIRCUMCISION.

Viewpoint… The Beatific Screen.

Date: Thursday, January 3 Time: 2:30 PM

Audience: adults

Description:
"Lowell Blues: The Words of Jack Kerouac" (dir. Henry Ferrini, 2000). "What Happened to Kerouac" (dirs. Richard Lerner and Lewis MacAdams, 1986).

Location:
Donnell Library Center
20 West 53rd Street
(212) 621-0619

found this while googling for something or other, from a website called frumteens from about 5 yrs ago:

 I'm not a teen, but I've been dealing with issues since I was one. Basically, I'm a bm guy attracted to teen boys. In my past, I molested a few.Most of my former victims have forgiven me, some haven't. I have learned some self-control since then, and avoid situations whereI can hurt people.
The thing is, I'm not a vicious, mean person. I'm a nice guy.Ad yet I have hurt people when I didn't mean to- I just snapped and lost control. It was me, but I wsn' in control. For those who have never lost control, let me describe it- your rational mind is in the background, yelling at you to stop, but your animalistic instincts have taken over, and you molest someone you loved and still love. They hate you, and rightly so. You feel guilty and depressed bcause 1) you hurt someone you loved, 2) they hate you now, and they meant so much to you- being attracted to boys mean you fall in love with them as if they were women, and breaking up is just as painful 3) The torah says misa, yehoreg v'al ya'avor, etc. 4) Everyone who finds out hates you- you are an evildoer who must be banished and deserves no mercy.

I have learned to avoid camps and I don't dorm, even tho I'm still in yeshiva. There are still teen boys who I love,the risk is minimal, but it's there, lurking in my subconscious- will I hurt someone I care for yet again?

much is being written about boston becoming the u.s. sports capital overtaking ny. but i always felt that it was better to have one team do or die than a smorgasbord of possibilities. maybe less championships but a city fully behind their one true beloved team. there's nothing like it. america may be only attracted to the successs but boston has always been the greatest sportstown.

Part Two

Rainer Maria Rilke

Fear of the Inexplicable

But fear of the inexplicable has not alone impoverished the existence of the individual; the relationship between one human being and another has also been cramped by it, as though it had been lifted out of the riverbed of endless possibilities and set down in a fallow spot on the bank, to which nothing happens. For it is not inertia alone that is responsible for human relationships repeating themselves from case to case, indescribably monotonous and unrenewed: it is shyness before any sort of new, unforeseeable experience with which one does not think oneself able to cope.

But only someone who is ready for everything, who excludes nothing, not even the most enigmatical, will live the relation to another as something alive and will himself draw exhaustively from his own existence. For if we think of this existence of the individual as a larger or smaller room, it appears evident that most people learn to know only a corner of their room, a place by the window, a strip of floor on which they walk up and down. Thus they have a certain security. And yet that dangerous insecurity is so much more human which drives the prisoners in Poe's stories to feel out the shapes of their horrible dungeons and not be strangers to the unspeakable terror of their abode.

We, however, are not prisoners. No traps or snares are set about us, and there is nothing which should intimidate or worry us. We are set down in life as in the element to which we best correspond, and over and above this we have through thousands of years of accommodation become so like this life, that when we hold still we are, through a happy mimicry, scarcely to be distinguished from all that surrounds us. We have no reason to mistrust our world, for it is not against us. Has it terrors, they are our terrors; has it abysses, those abysses belong to us; are dangers at hand, we must try to love them. And if only we arrange our life according to that principle which counsels us that we must always hold to the difficult, then that which now still seems to us the most alien will become what we most trust and find most faithful. How should we be able to forget those ancient myths about dragons that at the last moment turn into princesses; perhaps all the dragons of our lives are princesses who are only waiting to see us once beautiful and brave. Perhaps everything terrible is in its deepest being something helpless that wants help from us.

Christmas celebrates, among other things, the vulnerability of God who took the full risk — to be born as a frail infant and to take whatever came after that of being mortal. For God to take that risk rather than coming among us as a thundering avenger or an incipient angel is the strange and wondrous paradox in which the nativity is shrouded. We are called to see the Christ child with our human eyes and to celebrate his birth under the harshest conditions: in a country occupied by foreign invaders, in winter, in the dirty manger of a crowded inn, his mother unattended by family.

The holy rabbi R. Dov Ber [of Mezrich] explained the gemara “I created the evil inclination (yetzer ha-rah) and I created an antidote/spice (tavlin), that is, the torah.” How is the metaphor like the meaning? Even if you spice meat with lots of spices, the meat still remains the main (ikar) while the spice is just to add flavor to the meat. Thus it may be concluded that the inclination is the main and the torah is a spice for it - and how can that be? And he said that in truth it is so – for torah study without fear and love does not soar above and a mitzvah without fear does not soar. A person must serve god in the entirety of his essence with the power of inclination that is in him - and transform the evil inclination into the good inclination and serve god with it. And only that he not stumble into the desires of the inclination – to satisfy his desires through the inclination as all creatures do – god created the torah so he could perceive from the mitzvahs of the torah how to act with the power of the inclination, to distinguish between the forbidden and the permitted etc.

(Orach Le-Chayim, 110)

This is the formulation in another version:

…and he said that in truth it is so – the evil inclination is the main (she-ha-yetzer ha-rah hu ha-ikar). A person must serve god with enthusiasm which is drawn from the evil inclination.  

(Orach Le-Chayim, 25)

-atgate231

Chapter IV — Giving

from The Prophet, by Kahlil Gibran

THEN said a rich man, Speak to us of Giving.

And he answered:

You give but little when you give of your
possessions.

It is when you give of yourself that you
truly give.

For what are your possessions but things
you keep and guard for fear you may need
them tomorrow?

And tomorrow, what shall tomorrow
bring to the overprudent dog burying bones
in the trackless sand as he follows the
pilgrims to the holy city?

And what is fear of need but need itself?

Is not dread of thirst when your well is
full, the thirst that is unquenchable?

There are those who give little of the
much which they have—and they give it
for recognition and their hidden desire
makes their gifts unwholesome.

And there are those who have little and
give it all.

These are the believers in life and the
bounty of life, and their coffer is never
empty.

There are those who give with joy, and
that joy is their reward.

And there are those who give with pain,
and that pain is their baptism.

And there are those who give and know
not pain in giving, nor do they seek joy,
nor give with mindfulness of virtue;
They give as in yonder valley the myrtle
breathes its fragrance into space.

Through the hands of such as these God
speaks, and from behind their eyes He
smiles upon the earth.

It is well to give when asked, but it is
better to give unasked, through under- standing;
And to the open-handed the search for
one who shall receive is joy greater than
giving.

And is there aught you would withhold?

All you have shall some day be given;
Therefore give now, that the season of
giving may be yours and not your inheritors'.

You often say, "I would give, but only
to the deserving."

The trees in your orchard say not so, nor
the flocks in your pasture.

They give that they may live, for to with-
hold is to perish.

Surely he who is worthy to receive his
days and his nights, is worthy of all else
from you.

And he who has deserved to drink from
the ocean of life deserves to fill his cup
from your little stream.

And what desert greater shall there be,
than that which lies in the courage and the
confidence, nay the charity, of receiving?

And who are you that men should rend
their bosom and unveil their pride, that you
may see their worth naked and their pride
unabashed?

See first that you yourself deserve to be
a giver, and an instrument of giving.

For in truth it is life that gives unto
life—while you, who deem yourself a giver,
are but a witness.

And you receivers—and you are all
receivers—assume no weight of gratitude,
lest you lay a yoke upon yourself and upon
him who gives.

Rather rise together with the giver on
his gifts as on wings;
For to be overmindful of your debt, is
to doubt his generosity who has the free-
hearted earth for mother, and God for
father.

cathusalem