It's official: Albert H., age 102, has ascended to his eternal trip…

 from The New York Times

Ezagui portrayed himself as a devout man and played on the religious sensitivities of the apartment purchasers, all members of the Lubavitcher Hasidim.

For example, the late Lubavitcher leader, Grand Rebbe Menachem Schneerson, is thought by many followers to be the Messiah. Ezagui named his building's corporation Chaisom Inc. Chaisom, which means "live here," is also Mosiach - Hebrew for Messiah - spelled backward.

And the addresses he chose, 770 and 613, have religious significance: 770 Eastern Parkway is Lubavitcher world headquarters; 613 is the number of laws God gave Moses.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/2008/04/27/2008-04-27_builder_flees__40_hasidic_families_face_.html

hat tip to shmutzi

So, having had a child together, and seen how it is to live together for a bit, and since we had a whole engagement party, we've decided to finally actually get married.

So
You are cordially invited to the Wedding
of Idit Miriam
and Yoseph Leib

June 26th/Chuf Gimel Sivan
7 ish
Mevo Modiin, in the back

Yeah

I really want most of you to be there, but alas, no private flight has been charterable. Anyone know how to get a group discount? Anyone need an excuse to travel?

—-Yoseph Leib

Noted Israeli cantor dodges sex trap

BY BILL HUTCHINSON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Friday, April 25th 2008, 4:00 AM

A nasty rivalry between two of Israel's most famous cantors has led to a sex-and-the-synagogue scandal.

Cops are investigating the alleged dirty tricks of one cantor to entrap the other into falling for a tawdry hotel hookup.

Cantor Israel Rand of the Great Synagogue of Ramat Gan near Tel Aviv is accused of plotting an unholy scheme to topple his one-time mentor, Cantor Naftali Herstik of the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem.

In a complaint filed against Rand, Herstik charges his former student hired a sexy female private investigator to seduce him into a hotel romp so that he could get compromising photos.

Herstik said he agreed to meet the woman, who posed as a music student, but he bolted from her Tel Aviv hotel room when he spotted the hidden cameras.

"If indeed it was Rand, it brings into question why he would be allowed among civilized Jews," said Rabbi David Fuld, president of the Great Synagogue of Jerusalem's board.

Israeli police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld confirmed the allegations against Rand were being probed and prosecutors were mulling an indictment. Rand refused to comment when contacted by The Associated Press.

In a police statement, Rand claimed his feud with Herstik began three years ago when the older cantor disrespected him at synagogue in the Hamptons.

"The man has been persecuting and defaming me for years. He has been making up stories about me. In the last two or three years he has harassed me," Rand said in the statement, which was obtained by Israel's Haaretz newspaper.

a few of us have tried to contact you but do not have the right email address.

please email 7fatcow@gmail.com…

thanks.

NYC Bar Association to Discuss Cannabis Prohibition in New York                                                                                                   New York, NY:                                                                                                                                                        The New York City Bar Association will host a lecture entitled ‘New York City’s Marijuana Arrest Policy: Thirty Years After Decriminalization,’ on Wednesday, April 30, at 6:30 PM.                                                                                                                                  Based principally on the research of Professor Harry Levine, Ph.D of Queens College, and Deborah Small, Esq., head of the non-profit group Breaking the Chains, (along with the longstanding criminal justice research of Bruce D. Johnson, Ph.D) the lecture will review and discuss law enforcement patterns and motivations regarding targeting cannabis consumers and alternative policing policies and practices.                                                                                                               Dr. Levine’s and Ms. Small’s research has previously been submitted as testimony to the New York Senate. In that testimony, they focused on cannabis law enforcement practices in New York City, and revealed that arrests for marijuana possession had risen from 39,000 arrests between 1987 and 1996 to 362,000 arrests between 1997 and 2006. In the latter period, 196,000 blacks and 108,000 Hispanics were arrested for cannabis possession, while only 52,000 whites were arrested on similar charges, despite the fact that whites have higher rates of cannabis use than blacks or Hispanics.                                                                                                                                        Dr. Levine presented this testimony in an address at the 2007 NORML Conference in Los Angeles                                                                                                                                                                                               -NORML 

ID fraud arrest roils Hasidic community
BY RON SYLVESTER
The Wichita Eagle

…The news of Floyd assuming the identity of a dead man, however, has caused an uproar in the Hasidic community of Lakewood, N.J., where he lived with his wife and four children.

Snags get no respect

what is it the clothes? the B.O.? There are more people in the US that know the difference between sunni and shiites than the difference between chasidim and misnagdim. once you get to the realm of ultra-orthodoxy we're so bizarre and inscrutable, literally beyond the pale that trying to treat them as real human beings is both futile and impossible. HELLO! JOURNALISM IS NOT HOLLYWOOD! it's not supposed to be about recognizable stereotypes and mumbling the wrong blessings. it should be about facts. the japanese and the chinese hate each other regardless of the shared slantiness. reb ahron, of blessed memory, let chasidim starve to death in order to print gemorrahs. get it right.

fucking link:  http://www.kansas.com/213/story/381435.html

hat tip to isaac

It appears a singular thing if you think about it. Once a year virtually the entire content of our extended selves comes under conscious review. All is taken account of on some level no matter the importance or relative use. It is quite remarkable and I would venture that it doesn’t exists, to such an extent, anywhere else in the world. Ah, yes, you might say, but it is a legal thing that has become an ocd-like obsession with the letter of the law. That is true, it is a legal thing, but the very fact that is demanded by the law makes it such a potentially powerful thing.

On Pesach one has the opportunity to live in an environment every single aspect of which has been assessed with conscious awareness and intention. This is not about gaining control, as some may counter, but rather about consciously relinquishing control. Letting go does not merely mean “losing yourself in life” “going with the flow” etc etc. People who think that are just as much trapped in illusion as those who try obsessively to maintain control over their lives. Letting go is a highly conscious exercise of working through and relinquishing in full awareness. The other ways of letting go only serve to keep whatever it is out of conscious awareness but they nevertheless remain held on to just as strongly by the unconscious.

Yes, Pesach often ends up being a time when you fill every aspect of you life with anxiety and obsession but the very same neurotic character of the law affords the occasion to create a reality entirely by conscious intention. The legal aspect is in a way precisely what hold the entire thing together and makes it real. A legal procedure such as selling the Hametz to a gentile is not just some loophole but a legal categorization of certain possessions which, through the power of the law, enables and validates the conscious categorization within one’s psychological reality. While the legal aspect is limited to the extended self or external reality it is obvious that it provides the most firm basis for an internal shift as well.

This whole idea may explain something I used to wonder about. We find that even those Rebbes who all through the year were ardently against any sort of legal stringencies, on Pesach they too encouraged it. Why? If it is a legal attitude then why is Pesach any different than any other commandment? But if we view the legalities of Pesach as that which provides the legitimacy for one’s self-constituted reality it is understandable. The legalities all year round define the limits of the obligation and are about the manner of fulfilling the law as God’s will and so obsessing about details can easily detract from the essence of the fulfillment. But on Pesach the legalities define the limits of one’s reality – the boundary of the law is identical to the borders and limits of one’s “purified” reality and consciousness. Since on Pesach were are supposed to live in a reality that is completely and absolutely reified by conscious awareness, any aspect of that reality which is questionable – that is, which one is not absolutely confident about vis-a-vis the psyche – must be placed outside the limit of the law and outside the limit of one’s reality.

A few moments after this occurred to me I was looking into Medrash Pinhas and read the following:

"Blessed is the Place, Blessed is He." All the year man must go himself into God (muz zich arayn geyn in hashem yisborach) and on Pesach come all conscious states - of both constriction and expansion. God thus envelops man and He is called the Place for “He is the Place of the world” – and it is a night of protection. And all year man must draw down upon himself supernal protection; but now it is so on its own (ve-achshav hu memela). (21, #7)

VD”L.

I was also thinking about how these days Pesach is generally celebrated as a remembrance for what was, without it really having much relevance to our own present condition. Even something like “Next year in Jerusalem!” is not really about us now. Next year, next year…it is almost like a memorial for what will happen in the future. But what about the present? Here is what Reb Pinhas Koretzer had to say:

"Why is this night different…both Hametz and Matza, but on this night, only Matza:" And he asked, what is the question? It is now a time of Mercy! And he said that the second question is the question of “for all nights…but on this night, only Maror” – but isn’t this a symbol of constriction? Thus the question is as follows: if it is Mercy then what is the relation to constriction? And the answerer answers that in truth it is Mercy and the reason we eat Maror is only to remember what happened then…(26, #22)

-atgate231