7fatcow.com

Likewise, the assumption that parents are predisposed to love their children unconditionally and protect them from harm is not universally true. I remember one patient, a man in his mid-20s, who came to me for depression and rock-bottom self-esteem.

It didn’t take long to find out why. He had recently come out as gay to his devoutly religious parents, who responded by disowning him. It gets worse: at a subsequent family dinner, his father took him aside and told him it would have been better if he, rather than his younger brother, had died in a car accident several years earlier.

Though terribly hurt and angry, this young man still hoped he could get his parents to accept his sexuality and asked me to meet with the three of them.

The session did not go well. The parents insisted that his “lifestyle” was a grave sin, incompatible with their deeply held religious beliefs. When I tried to explain that the scientific consensus was that he had no more choice about his sexual orientation than the color of his eyes, they were unmoved. They simply could not accept him as he was.

I was stunned by their implacable hostility and convinced that they were a psychological menace to my patient. As such, I had to do something I have never contemplated before in treatment.

At the next session I suggested that for his psychological well-being he might consider, at least for now, forgoing a relationship with his parents.

I felt this was a drastic measure, akin to amputating a gangrenous limb to save a patient’s life. My patient could not escape all the negative feelings and thoughts about himself that he had internalized from his parents. But at least I could protect him from even more psychological harm.

Easier said than done. He accepted my suggestion with sad resignation, though he did make a few efforts to contact them over the next year. They never responded.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/20/health/20mind.html?_r=1&8dpc

hat tip to vicki polin

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.

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."

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/

 

So "7FATCOW" was the first to break the story of "the-trial-of-the-millennium" between Dov & Woody - pix, interviews, even T-shirt sales. http://7fatcow.com/2009/04/29/we-are-giving-away-free-woody-allen-rebbe-t-shirts/#comment-31983

But now when Dov suddenly chickened out & paid out of his ass for more than an actual me'aneys would pay for trenning Rebbetzin Soon-Yi (as if anyone would want to) — suddenly the activists for free speech & farshpreyten chasidic vibe on the L.E.S. are shah-shitl. Not a peep out of them.

There are still many questions to be answered in this anti-climactic case, most notably, WHY DID DOV PULL OUT (of the case, that is)???

Also, is he even paying the 5 mill, or is his insurance company???

& many more questions.

We all hoped for a majestic "Didan Notzach." But these fraye yidden, they have no mesiras nefesh, no emuneh in their heiliker rebbes or that "Yad hachasidim al ho'elyoynah." It's all just about fucking Mamon. (Come to think of it, not unlike some chasidishe hoyfn these days).

But I can understand Dov's dilemma somewhat: Can you imagine the Lubavitcher Rebbe suing Dovid Nachshon for putting up a picture of Him under the words "Der heiliker Moshiach"???

PS: Will anyone wearing the T-shirts also be sued by Woody?

Cleaving unto the depths of heresy is only in the manner of “to and fro” according to the mystery of “And the living creatures ran to and fro like a flash of lightning” (Ezekiel 1:14).

D’vekus be-omek ha-kefirah hu rak al derech ratzu ve-shov, be-sod “ve-ha-chayos ratzu ve-shov ke-mareh ha-bozok.”

(Reb Shmuel Zanvil of Chechnovitz - Tz’vochin Af Oksin, 231)

The emergence of criticism of death camp trips from the Religious Zionist camp - or, more accurately, from the right wing of this camp - comes as a surprise to many. Criticism until now has come almost exclusively from the left. Dovish critics have taken issue with the way such programs pair the Holocaust and Jews as victims with flag-waving Israeli nationalism.

The reasoning behind the unlikely convergence of opinion against the Poland trips between some on the left and some in the Religious Zionist camp could not be more divergent. The trips that some consider too Zionist are, for the rabbinic critics, the antithesis of Zionism.

In the run-up to Israel's Holocaust Remembrance Day (April 21), Zalman Melamed, head of the Bet El yeshiva in the West Bank, published an opinion discouraging religious school students from going to Poland. He cited the Talmudic prohibition, echoed by Maimonides and other authorities in Jewish law, that those living in Israel are forbidden from leaving except to perform a religious act.

Until now, many Religious Zionists have argued that death camp visits do, in fact, have religious value and therefore merit leaving Israel. This is the view of the March of the Living's rabbi, Yochanan Fried, and of regular trip leader Yisrael Meir Lau, chairman of Israel's Yad Vashem's Holocaust Museum council, former chief rabbi of Israel and Holocaust survivor.

Fried said in an interview with the Forward that the trip can be seen as a fulfillment of the religious requirement to study history. The trip's educational content, he said, actually could be classified as "learning Torah." Fried also claimed that students on the trip fulfill the religious act of honoring the dead.

But those rabbis speaking out against death camp trips reject this logic. A year ago, Hebron and Kiryat Arba chief rabbi Dov Lior, who is regarded as the leading disciple of Religious Zionist icon Rabbi Zvi Yehuda Kook, cited his teacher in arguing that a desire to honor the dead does not justify the trips.

The argument that the trips are valid as they involve historical study has been challenged by Aviner, who was born in Nazi-occupied France and now heads Yeshivat Ateret Yerushalayim, formerly Ateret Cohanim. "It is certainly a mitzvah to reflect on history," he wrote. "But the intent is not to study historical facts but to observe the hand of God which acts in the world. There is no mitzvah at all to see historical places."

"I do not see educational value in [the trips]," Lior wrote, arguing that people can read books, visit museums and take advantage of other resources available in Israel. He concluded, "To understand what is anti-Semitism and why they hate the Jewish nation there is no need to travel abroad."

Aviner believes that from a pedagogical viewpoint, Holocaust education should focus on content-based learning, not emotion.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1083387.html

A classic frum blackout, but some info from JJ and Vidyid commenting on  Does anybody have info on the girl who committed suicide in New Square?

VidYid wrote:

Here is how I published the story, without the Loshon Hora:

UPDATED - Girl Found Dead in Lakewood Apartment

Lakewood, New Jersey: Misaskim is on scene now of a woman who was found dead in her aptartment on 7th Street between Forest Avenue and Madison Avenue.

It seems that the woman did not wake up in the morning.

The Nifteres was a teenage girl that boarded in a family’s basement.

Update: Misaskim has left location and the body has been removed. Askanim are working to make sure no autopsy takes place on the frum woman.

It was a 20 year old girl Freisl from New Square that was niftar, the Levaya is tonight.

JJ wrote:

I searched google for this story, and you were the only one covering it.

I know the family, and the story is definitely true, just don’t have all the details.

Her name was Tziporah Friezel

Her father lives in new square and her mother died a few years ago from cancer. Her father remarried already.

She was 20 years old

A younger sister of hers already married.

She didn’t live with her family, she lived in Lakewood NJ where she was found dead.

I don’t know much personal details about the girl, but I heard from someone that she was clinically depressed and a family member told me “She was sick”.
These stories are taboo in new square, and someone a little rebellious could easily be labeled “Sick”.

Would love to know more details

This address was written by Freud on the occasion of the celebration of his seventieth birthday by the B'nai B'rith Society of Vienna, on May 6, 1926. It was to be given by him in response to the official speech by Professor Ludwig Braun, one of his disciples. However, illness made it impossible for him to be present and it was read for him. By 1926 Freud's theories had won enough acknowledgment if not acceptance to make his fame worldwide. He was no longer the prophet crying in the wilderness. Coming at this point in his career, his expression of obligation to his fellow-Jews of the B'nai B'rith Society has particular interest.

ADDRESS TO THE SOCIETY OF B’NAI B’RITH

Most honourable Grand President, honourable Presidents, dear Brethren,-

I thank you for the honours you have paid me to-day. You know why it is that you cannot hear the sound of my own voice. You have heard one of my friends and pupils speak of my scientific work; but a judgement on such things is hard to form and for a long while yet it may not be reached with any certainty. Allow me to add something to what has been said by one who is both my friend and the physician who cares for me. I should like to tell you shortly how I became a B.B. and what I have looked for from you.

It happened that in the years from 1895 onwards I was subjected to two powerful impressions which combined to produce the same effect on me. On the one hand, I had gained my first insight into the depths of the life of the human instincts; I had seen some things that were sobering and even, at first, frightening. On the other hand, the announcement of my unpleasing discoveries had as its result the severance of the greater part of my human contacts; I felt as though I were despised and universally shunned. In my loneliness I was seized with a longing to find a circle of picked men of high character who would receive me in a friendly spirit in spite of my temerity. Your society was pointed out to me as the place where such men were to be found.

That you were Jews could only be agreeable to me; for I was myself a Jew, and it had always seemed to me not only unworthy but positively senseless to deny the fact. What bound me to Jewry was (I am ashamed to admit) neither faith nor national pride, for I have always been an unbeliever and was brought up without any religion though not without a respect for what are called the ‘ethical’ standards of human civilization. Whenever I felt an inclination to national enthusiasm I strove to suppress it as being harmful and wrong, alarmed by the warning examples of the peoples among whom we Jews live. But plenty of other things remained over to make the attraction of Jewry and Jews irresistible - many obscure emotional forces, which were the more powerful the less they could be expressed in words, as well as a clear consciousness of inner identity, the safe privacy of a common mental construction. And beyond this there was a perception that it was to my Jewish nature alone that I owed two characteristics that had become indispensable to me in the difficult course of my life. Because I was a Jew I found myself free from many prejudices which restricted others in the use of their intellect; and as a Jew I was prepared to join the Opposition and to do without agreement with the ‘compact majority’.

So it was that I became one of you, took my share in your humanitarian and national interests, gained friends among you and persuaded my own few remaining friends to join our society. There was no question whatever of my convincing you of my new theories; but at a time when no one in Europe listened to me and I still had no disciples even in Vienna, you gave me your kindly attention. You were my first audience.

For some two thirds of the long period that has elapsed since my entry I persisted with you conscientiously, and found refreshment and stimulation in my relations with you. You have been kind enough to-day not to hold it up against me that during the last third of the time I have kept away from you. I was overwhelmed with work, and demands connected with it forced themselves on me; the day ceased to be long enough for me to attend your meetings, and soon my body began to rebel against a late evening meal. Finally came the years of my illness, which prevents me from being with you even to-day.

I cannot tell whether I have been a genuine B.B. in your sense. I am almost inclined to doubt it; so many exceptional circumstances have arisen in my case. But of this I can assure you - that you meant much to me and did much for me during the years in which I belonged to you. I ask you therefore to accept my warmest thanks both for those years and for to-day.

Yours in W. B. & E

Sigm. Freud

P.S. Freud apparently first presented his theory of sexual development to an audience at the B’nai B’rith and, as I heard from Prof. Sidorsky, by the end of the lecture everybody had their chairs moved six feet back in shock.

-atgate231

Any honest thinker has to admit the insecurity of all metaphysical positions, and in particular of all creeds. He has also to admit the unwarrantable nature of all metaphysical assertions and face the fact that there is no evidence whatever for the ability of the human mind to pull itself up by its own boot-strings, that is, to establish anything transcendental.  

Materialism is a metaphysical reaction against the sudden realization that cognition is a mental faculty and, if carried beyond the human plane, a projection. The reaction was ‘metaphysical’ in so far as the man of average philosophical education failed to see through the implied hypostasis, not realizing that ‘matter’ was just another name for the supreme principle. As against this, the attitude of faith shows how reluctant people were to accept philosophical criticism. It also demonstrates how great is the fear of letting go one’s hold on the securities of childhood and of dropping into a strange, unknown world ruled by forces unconcerned with man. Nothing really changes in either case; man and his surroundings remain the same. He has only to realize that he is shut up inside his mind and cannot step beyond it, even in insanity; and that the appearance of his world or of his gods very much depends upon his own mental condition.   

(C.G. Jung, Psychological Commentary to The Tibetan Book of the Great Liberation, xxxi-xxxii)