7fatcow.com

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.

I was going to write a poem while walking on Eastern Parkway but chanced upon a Psalm when I suddenly found myself outside the Rebbe's room.Forget the poem, David's way better…

PSALM 88

1 1 A song; a psalm of the Korahites. For the leader; according to Mahalath. For singing; a maskil of Heman the Ezrahite. 2 LORD, my God, I call out by day; at night I cry aloud in your presence. 3 Let my prayer come before you; incline your ear to my cry. 4 2 For my soul is filled with troubles; my life draws near to Sheol. 5 I am reckoned with those who go down to the pit; I am weak, without strength. 6 My couch is among the dead, with the slain who lie in the grave. You remember them no more; they are cut off from your care. 7 You plunged me into the bottom of the pit, into the darkness of the abyss. 8 Your wrath lies heavy upon me; all your waves crash over me. Selah 9 Because of you my friends shun me; you make me loathsome to them; Caged in, I cannot escape; 10 my eyes grow dim from trouble. All day I call on you, LORD; I stretch out my hands to you. 11 3 Do you work wonders for the dead? Do the shades arise and praise you? Selah 12 Is your love proclaimed in the grave, your fidelity in the tomb? 13 Are your marvels declared in the darkness, your righteous deeds in the land of oblivion? 14 But I cry out to you, LORD; in the morning my prayer comes before you. 15 Why do you reject me, LORD? Why hide your face from me? 16 I am mortally afflicted since youth; lifeless, I suffer your terrible blows. 17 Your wrath has swept over me; your terrors have reduced me to silence. 18 All the day they surge round like a flood; from every side they close in on me. 19 Because of you companions shun me; my only friend is darkness.

View through open gate shows empty expanse of former camp

The photograph above shows the entrance into the former Buchenwald concentration camp through the iron gate of the gatehouse. This was one of several entrances. The sign on the gate can only be read from the inside. Unlike other Nazi concentration camps which had "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work makes Freedom) over the entrance gate, the sign over the Buchenwald gate reads "Jedem Das Seine" which means "To Each His Own" or "Everyone gets what he Deserves."

now i cannot help but think that every insect that gets incinerated in my zapper is exactly like the jews in the camps. the fact that i take great joy in every electrifying snap only enforces the holocaust scenario. now, my first instinct was to create a little sign that said arbeit macht frei but i felt that the promise of work was a lie and though the nazis never intended freedom for the inmates their culture was so jingoistic that somehow it had meaning to them. they probably told similar things to the soldiers they sent to the eastern front. so i thought this buchenwald epithet would be appropriate but i find that worldview so patently false i can't do it. in my limited judeo-german i could go with "scheisse passeirt"  - shit happens.

and here's ha'aretz Israeli troops humiliate Palestinians - and put it on YouTube

Russian document, printed in "Ruskayia Starinah," 1901, #5, by A. Mardar — brought by David Assaf in "Derech haMalchut" (J-m, 1997), p. 467 in Hebrew translation:

"On 13 December 1838, the governer of the Kiev provinces, Podoliyah Julian [aka General Dimitry Bibikuv — Assaf's note], sent the following document to the governers:

"'In one of the provinces under my rule, certain events occur frequently, the outcome of which is that Jews are found murdered in synagogues and small prayer-houses [i.e. shtiblakh, kloizen]. This crime is particularly heinous since it is executed in places intended for prayer and religious studies. This phenomenon is due to the independent adjudication by the Rabbinical court, which implements [this verdict of capital punishment & assassination] on the basis of their false teachings concerning eradicating informers who reveal their co-religionists' crimes. The greater the crime, the more the Jews concoct ways to hide the guilty ones [i.e. the murderers] and the true reasons that led to it. Despite all the intensive investigations, they succeed in covering it up, so much so that not only the identity of the guilty ones remains unknown for a lengthy time, but even the identity of the slain [victims are unknown].

"'In order to prevent this as much as possible, the governer [Bibikuv] presents to the governers [the following solution]: To obligate the Rabbis and Kahal [representative]s (and where there is no [Rabbi or Kahal] — other representatives from the communities), in the cities, towns and settlements where there are synagogues, to hire special supervisors to guard the keys to the synagogues and small prayer-houses, and to also provide guards [at the synagogues]. They [the governers] should [also] obtain from the police supervisors  in writing their commitement to take responsibility for such possible events.'"

This seems to be a direct reaction to the authorities' frustration over the "Ushitz Case," whereby 2 mosrim were killed al pi da'as hakohol & even the Rizhiner himself [hemshech yovoy]. One was Yitzchok Oksman, and the other, Shmuel Svartzman. The former's body was found by fishermen in a river; the latter, whose body was never found, was "strangled while praying in the Ushits town synagogue; his body was dismembered and cremated in the bathhouse furnace" [i.e. the mikveh] ("The Regal Way" p. 110, "Derech haMalchut" p. 169)

According the historian Shaul Ginsburg, all the Jews in the region knew about the murders, including the victims' families, since it was practically commited in public; yet out of communal solidarity they all kept silent. (ibid.) Ginsburg also writes that "were the Dnieper able to speak, it could tell of many informers who were drowned in its waters by decision of the kahal in the Shklov region." (ibid. p. 105)

In fact, it seems that even after the abolition of  the "Kahal" system in 1844, these "rub-outs" still occured. [Hemshech yovoy]

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/

 

[On the messianism of the circle of Sefer ha-Meshiv – Castile, Spain c. 1470-1492

Part II - The real story behind the death of R. Joseph della Reina]

Here is the link to Part I: http://7fatcow.com/2009/05/09/if-you%e2%80%99re-going-already-go-all-the-way%e2%80%a6/ 

One of the prominent members of this school of thought was the notorious magician and Kabbalist R. Joseph della Reina. Kabbalisitc as well as more popular stories relate that this band of Kabbalisits, apparently including the anonymous writer himself and della Reina, were visited by a heavenly revelation commanding them to cause the two princes of evil, Ammon of No and Samael, to descend and be tied, subdued, and have their wings clipped, which meant the Kabbalists were destroying the powers of evil. This neutralization of the powers of evil by destroying their princes or, according to a certain version, converting them to Judaism is tantamount to the destruction of Christianity, considered to be a product of evil. Thus, the redemption will be made possible. According to some of these texts, Christianity will have to undergo a total revolution which involves its abolishment only in order to be transformed into an army, namely into some sort of defending body of the now-victorious Judaism. In the apocalyptic Armageddon, Samael’s contemporary embodiment will have to change its spots, forfeit its position as prosecutor and become its enemy’s defender, a revolutionary turn of events. This is the inverse of the Christian view that when the redemption does come in the Second Advent, all the Jews will convert to Christianity. The Kabbalisit who authored the Sefer ha-Meshiv and his followers in the sixteenth century envisioned the exact opposite scenario. Here we have a hitherto nondominant emphasis on the apocalyptic side of Kabbalistic messianism, a side that was not emphasized by Abulafia or the Zohar and only partially by Abulafia’s earlier contemporary R. Yitzhaq ben Jacob ha-Cohen. Thos thirteenth-century Kabbalisitc circles were not so heavily influenced by the popular apocalyptic literature of the seventh and eighth centuries. But now, in the last third of the fifteenth century in some circles of Kabbalists, the apocalyptic element became much more prominent: Armageddon was supposed to include blood baths, the participation of superhuman evil beings – although not so monstrous as their prototype found in the original apocalyptic literature – a novel idea introduced by this circle into Kabbalah. From this perspective, there is a deepening of the use of demonology in discussion of the apocalyptic battles. Besides the magical techniques, which include oneiric devices, incantations, and medical recipes, in this huge corpus there is an attempt to describe the entire span of history. These Kabbalists attempted to describe the whole chain of evil powers and incarnations engaged in perpetual conflict with the Jewish people, only to be resolved by their religious metamorphoses in the end, believed by these Kabbalists to be witnessed in their time. This is an example of a comprehensive messianic historiosophy unlike the Kabbalistic systems discussed earlier. During the sixteenth century this view was embellished in the book called Galia’ Raza’. Despite the fact that the wars themselves are depicted as involving hordes of demonic powers, for these Kabbalists the conflict was real and was due to occur in an historical context.

This messianic theory was not to be realized through inner intellectual or divine perfection explicitly described as gradual processes, but by a group effort to work together toward a national goal, bound to bring about the divine redemption as well as to attempt to bring to a halt an insufferable historical situation. This is the perception of people who see themselves as acting on the stage of history and not exclusively on some inner level. It is appropriate to emphasize the group nature of these activities. The most popular stories found in this literature, concerning magical practices and R. Joseph della Reina, depict the rites as the product of a group of Kabbalists and not as the outcome of one man’s activities, for all have to join forces in order to vanquish evil. There is a wide gap between this magical model and the one developed by Abulafia, in which the individual who has reached his own perfection can then act alone on behalf of the whole nation. The roots of the concept of group effort can be traced back to the Zohar, which stipulates that theurgic activity was accomplished by a group as opposed to individuals acting alone.

Della Reina’s attempt to secure the redemption by magical means, only twenty years or so before the expulsion from Spain, of course failed. Later on the two “events” were inextricably bound in the minds of some Kabbalists, who connected the unorthodox method of magic to hasten the redemption and the ensuing expulsion. The strong messianism of Sefer ha-Meshiv drew mixed reactions from later Kabbalists in Safed, who condemned the use of magic for religious or messianic ends. Accordingly we find after the expulsion that the messianic theories of Sefer ha-Meshiv are continued by a small group of Kabbalists, whereas the great majority of the Kabbalists who had been compelled to leave the Iberian peninsula have rejected this magical model, whether by ignoring it in their writings, as in the case of the famous Kabbalists R. Yehudah Hayyat and R. Meir ibn Gabbay, or by explicitly stating their reservations. Sefer ha-Meshiv is one of the largest Kabbalistic compilations ever written, possessing tremendous scope and expressing a redical position on messianism and magic. It would be logical to expect that after the expulsion, Kabbalisitc-messianic thought and activity would be no less represented than already demonstrated by the apocalyptic concerns of the author or the group of Kabbalists related to Sefer ha-Meshiv. Yet the empirical evidence shows that this vast literary phenomenon remains unduplicated after the expulsion. Therefore, the only realistic way to describe the subsequent development of messianism in Kabbalistic literature in to presuppose a certain tendency to moderate the eschatological elements, in comparison with those found before the expulsion.

(Moshe Idel, Messianic Mystics, 130-32)