7fatcow.com

From Benatlas.com: Intel gets a Commemorative Pashkevil 

For a while, i've preferred quietly bowing out to dramatic public announcements, not wanting to endlessly retire like an aging rock band. But now, a solid three years into the exciting creation and invitation of theis forum into being, i'm stepping down formally, from any inolvement with 7fatcow, unconvinced that it exists at all.

No bitterness. Dissapointment would imply expectations, and all my hopes and expectations for this blog where satisfied right away, constantly, along with all my concerns and suspicions, re: the inevitably difficult nature of True Expression and Engagement. That was understood from the beginning to be OK. Sometimes, when you talk with people, a lot of bullshit comes out as cushion for any insight and genuine heart-of-self that might be revealed, and that condition was understood from the beginning: along with the genius in our wider community of not-quite-ex/not-quite-ohs is a multitude of protective layer of ego and dogma; of noise and principle, of assumption and of flawed language, furious at the implication that it must be probed to be understood. That's OK, as much as any of the troublesome nature of our world is to be called OK, it's part of who we have been, and how we have expressed.

All that said, it's boring now, because maybe we've gone as far as any of us wanted to go. One of our founding members has moved beyond interest in the conversation here, as a funner life beckoned where the wit was expresseable and the company close enough that trying to blog in a noise filled room of cheesy links and ironically repressive vulgarity became uncompelling, especially once the Twitter and Facebook Status update was given unto us, to let the impulse sound more immediately, without need for context, or consensus. And so, the chance to say just a few things here was all he needed.

Another founding member has tried to give up so many times, and the clamor of each dramtic farewell, combined with the unelaborated links and occasional disavowels of entire identities for fear of Who May Be Listening, and Who May Be Judged along with him, often prevented the depth of his insight from being expressed. He erased all his posts, psuedonym after psudonym, and tried to convince somebody that he was somebody, and not actually somebody. And in that noise, his genius is silenced, and a certain unconfrontational decadence tried to grow around him; alas, woe unto those who think their sacrifices will provide security, money, or love.

And around that, behind that, so much genius was expressed.  Zoroastro/IslamoYid's and Atgate231's Scholarship, Class and Humor, Shitalpin's withering and ultimately humanist hot/cold sarcasm-masking-authenticity, Hashemsucksdick's marriage of post-religious concience and artistry, Mohammed's strange and shocking form of concience, Anivaho's Mercurial genius to let words permute into sublime association (even as any conceit towards divine synchronicty was despaired of) Yalhak's Majestic magnimamity and wholeness of vision/purity of impurity of perspective (along with the  lucid clarity of Yesod, Aisav, and the other maaminim he brought) and the writers we never even really identified, who bought so much class, genius, and perfect kvetchery to the conversation (who was Hiavrom anyway? he was brilliant! I hope he's OK.)

All the Neo-Nazis who stopped by to let us now what was going on, all the feminists and fetishists, all the excited Chabadskers, all the grieving relatives– so much got circulated, and maybe so little was heard, who knows? who knows. Who knows how much we ever hear from each other that we weren't ready to chap. But I feel like a lot of rare expression and relative taboo was aired here, and i'm really proud of that. As proud as one can be of something that one just let happen.

All the martyrs and all the victims; all the heroes and all the wimps. All the Faggotry and all the ugly, ugly Charedi shock-porn. All the piety and simple faith. Everything but the bullshit, and the noise, and the hiding of ourselves inside of our conceptions. It really has been a great ride, and I can only pray that some of this survivesinto the annals ofHistory, the story of how the Jewish Problem was, if only for a moment, touched upon, if not successfully adressed, from within, rather than just from without. God bless you all, to move on, and see how easy it is just to start up a crazy fucking conversation in this great, wide future of accessible interests, may we one day merit to see it to it's end.

Shana Tov, and i'll see you at the Jubilee

Yoseph Leib,

AKA Yhosephus,

AKA the guy that fucked your sister, back when she was still cute.

 Look at his eyes.

06/06/09 10:36 PM ET

NEW YORK — Alex Rodriguez gave a group of children the memory of a lifetime on Saturday. Rodriguez spent his evening managing a Little League team from the Bronx, giving those kids an experience they likely will never forget.

From "The Regal Way: The Life and Times of Rabbi Israel of Ruzhin" [aka "Derech haMalchut"] by David Assaf (Stanford U.P. 2002), notes to Ch. 4, p. 361 n. 16 — paraphrasing from "Der Rebbi von Sadagora" by Arnold Hilberg, printed in "Die Gartenlaube," Leipzig 1870, no. 28, p. 473:

"Hilberg […] recounts that when visitng his followers in nearby towns, Rabbi Israel always went to the local bathhouse, and that a heretic approached him there one day and aggresively attacked Hasidism. Shocked by the man's audacity, the zaddik ordered him thrown into the boiling water, which was immediately done. The heretic was then pushed with pitchforks into the furnace until he was cremated. Rabbi Israel, who witnessed the murder, returned to Ruzhin the same day."

Up through the ashes of Babylon, Cannibus Chassidus shall rise — Jah!

'Tis spring after all….

Batter my heart, three-personed God, for you 

As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend; 

That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend 

Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new. 

I, like an usurped town, to another due, 

Labour to admit you, but Oh, to no end. 

Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, 

But is captived, and proves weak or untrue. 

Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain, 

But am betrothed unto your enemy: 

Divorce me, untie or break that knot again, 

Take me to you, imprison me, for I, 

Except you enthrall me, never shall be free, 

Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me. 

- John Donne, Holy Sonnets, XIV

Here is the torah from R. Heinich Alkesander I posted two years ago about Matan Torah being an act of rape.

http://7fatcow.com/2007/05/22/shvuos-torah-from-atgate231/

 

"The only difference is that in the religious and haredi society abuse is made much easier, because of the gender separation. A predator would go to places where there are no mothers to protect their children. For instance, a haredi mother can't take her son to the swimming pool from the age of 8-9. So the kids sometimes go with an older brother, who doesn't always keep an eye on them.