The haredi must be starved out, by DK

Yhosephus wrote that in the original "about" section, and how about a Chanukkah destruction, during the very 7fatcow week in parshas miketz? In all seriousness I plan to take down 7fatcow.com in the coming days. Any protests and disagreements can be voiced in the comments section. I guess this post is a vote, but the voting populace is like AWOL

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.

Some 7fc New Year's posts:

http://7fatcow.com/2009/08/29/the-letter-of-the-rebbe-reb-bunim-on-rosh-ha-shanah/

http://7fatcow.com/2008/09/24/shofar-concerto-op-1-1885/

http://7fatcow.com/2008/09/29/the-jews-the-jews/

http://7fatcow.com/2008/09/29/time-is-in-the-mind/

http://7fatcow.com/2007/09/13/caught-dipping-his-apple-in-a-honey/

http://7fatcow.com/2006/09/19/day-of-broken-dreams/

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.

I too would love to turn my back on my friends, and justify it that helping them would just be enabling them to harm themselves even more.It would be far more convenient if I could just drop all my struggling brother and conclude that I am just better than them, that we have never really been friends anyhow, that my greed is compassion, that I am all good while they are all no-good junkies. Than I too would be able to spend my money on myself and other fellow well-to-do gift-exchanging freaks.

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

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."