#i was working on an essay on judaism @ 2 am

[sshannonauthor]

I'm sure this wasn't deliberate but I couldn't help but wonder is all - it's a complex topic and education on Jewish history isn't very common outside of Jewish communities 2/2

Hi,

Thank you for sending this, and for the kindness of your message. It's important to me that I always remain conscious of how my work could be read outside my perspective, and I’m really grateful you took the time to share yours.

Apologies in advance for the length of this reply – this is a complex subject, as you say, and an important one, and it deserves more than something I rushed off the keyboard. Before I say anything else, I’m so sorry for the discomfort I've caused you. I want to make it very clear that I would never inflict that on a reader with intent, and it’s shaken me to realise I had this blind spot about a potential interpretation of a series I’ve poured so much of my life into. I’ve always understood and accepted that the author’s intention doesn’t negate impact, but I’ll try to distil my approach to including Jewish mythology in the books, as you’ve asked about it – hopefully without writing an essay.   

I grew up with Biblical stories from a very young age. When I was nineteen – the age I was when I wrote the first book – it seemed completely natural and instinctive to draw on those stories in my writing, since they had, until recently, been part of my daily life. I had been in Christian faith schools and churches since I was a child, and I’d had comparatively little exposure to Judaism – or really, to any religion but Christianity – by the summer of 2011, when I put pen to paper. This meant that, at the time, I didn’t meaningfully separate Jewish and Christian stories in my head; I didn’t have a developed understanding of how they were different, or the specific ways in which I might need to tread with care when drawing them into my work, or even if I had the skill or wisdom to do that. I wanted to reimagine a Greek myth with stories and influences that had impacted my life in various ways (e.g. my link to Ireland, my time at Oxford), and I saw the entire Bible as both as the body of history and myth that I knew best, and one that had affected me significantly from childhood. I didn’t have the maturity, at nineteen or twenty, to dig into the nuances of that. All of this meant that my research process was nowhere near as layered or rigorous as it would have been if I were starting the series now.

When I imagined the inhabitants of the Netherworld, I had always pictured them as both large in stature and associated with death. The word Rephaim brought those ideas together in a way no other word had – I still remember how excited I was by its etymology, even before etymology became my big passion. Since I also thought the Victorian government of England would logically have looked to the Bible for answers when the Netherworld and Earth collided, that was the word I decided on. I didn’t remotely consider that this could have problematic implications; my understanding of potentially harmful tropes, or the need to be familiar with them, was very limited.

I promised myself I’d keep my background explanation to two paragraphs, to avoid turning this into a huge wall of text, but I want to tell you how I’m going to take your message into account, moving forward. I am really humbled to hear you’ve still been able to enjoy the series, and relieved that you alerted me to this reading just as I go into the second arc – it means I still have three more roomy books to do remedial work, and I can keep this at the front of my mind as I go. The good thing about the series, in this context, is that it’s an alternate history, rather than a secondary world, which means I have the creative freedom to actually discuss and acknowledge my use of real mythology and religions on the page; the Rephs exist alongside that mythology, rather than replacing it. 

My hope is that Book 5 is where I can start to make big strides in counteracting my carelessness when I was first building the world – this was always the one where I wanted to start widening the series’ horizons and considering the Rephs from a broader international and historical perspective. Book 5 brings out more of the inspiration from Prometheus and Pandora, associates the Rephs with the Greco-Roman gods and other bodies of myth, and brings them into contact with the world beyond Scion, all of which I hope will help to detach them from a single mythology. This series, its characters, and the people who have supported it all mean the world to me, and I will do everything I can to deliver a finished story that sees and respects all of its readers, with the knowledge and (hopefully) skill I’ve accumulated in the eleven years since I started the first book. 

I caught this message just as I was about to log off for the week – I’m going to make a lot of Bloomsbury people’s jobs very difficult if I don't hit my deadline – but if you have any more thoughts, please feel free to send them, and I’ll make sure I read when I get back and I can devote my full attention to them. Thank you again for sending this – I am grateful you took the time, as it helps me learn and grow.

[the-knights-who-say-book]

Sorry if I'm completely misremembering this but - did you do a course/take a module/etc on Queer theology? It may have been exclusively about Judaism? It's a topic of interest for me and Im not sure where to start so Im looking for book/article recs. Apologies if I am in fact remembering incorrectly!

Hi! Sorry this took so long to answer, I was kind of burnt out after graduating. I took a class on LGBT topics in Judaism and Christianity, and several other classes in which gender & sexuality studies and Judaic studies intersected, so I know of a bunch of books and articles on the subject, mostly specific to Judaism.

Vaguely separated into lists of academic/not academic but it's a wishywashy categorization. I hope you find something you want to check out!

Less ~academic~ books:

Torah Queeries: Weekly Commentaries on the Hebrew Bible. This is a great anthology of short essays, often somewhat personal, on queer interpretations of the Bible. I've been meaning to read it all the way through, so far I've only read specific parts relevant to things I studied

Like Bread on the Seder Plate: Jewish Lesbians and the Transformation of Tradition by Rebecca T. Alpert. This book explores the challenges of being a lesbian and a believer in a religion which has anti-lesbian texts and puts forward a model of how to exist as both by facing troubling texts head on

Through the Door of Life: A Jewish Journey between Genders. An autobiography by Joy Ladin, a poet, academic, and Jewish trans woman, who writes about transitioning in relation to the commandment to choose life. Review

Keep Your Wives Away from Them: Orthodox Women, Unorthodox Desires. An anthology of short stories, personal essays, and academic essays. I think the essay "Women Known for these Acts" is the best introduction to lesbianism in Jewish law that I read while studying the topic; you can probably find it solo elsewhere

Balancing on the Mechitza: Transgender in Jewish Community. An anthology of essays ranging from personal to more academic. Review here.

More ~academic~ stuff:

A Rainbow Thread: An Anthology of Queer Jewish Texts from the First Century to 1969 by Noah Sienna. Collects historical writings on Jewish queerness. I have only read parts assigned for class, but it's a major (and new-ish) resource

The Soul of the Stranger: Reading God and Torah from a Transgender Perspective by Joy Ladin. An exploration of using the transgender experience as a lens through which to gain a better, or different, understanding of G-d. Interesting Biblical interpretations similar to Torah Queeries, more fleshed out. Review

Love Between Women: Early Christian Responses to Female Homoeroticism by Bernadette Brooten. Discusses lesbianism in Judaism and early Christianity, arguing that homophobia in Christianity and Judaism has its roots in misogyny

Saul M. Olyan's paper "And with a Male You Shall Not Lie the Lying down of a Woman: On the Meaning and Significance of Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13." Includes a breakdown of just how weird the language of the famous prohibition is and summary of previous scholars' interpretations of the passage. The author argues that the prohibition is very limited

Jan Joosten's "A New Interpretation of Leviticus 18:22 (Par. 20:13) and its Ethical Implications," which argues that the prohibition against m/m sex is actually specific to adultery

A lot of Jewish trans works discuss the Rabbinic gender categories of the androgynos and tumtum, as well as the saris and aylonit. Charlotte Fonrobert's paper "Regulating the Human Body: Rabbinic Legal Discourse and the Making of Jewish Gender" is an extremely influential essay on gender categories on Judaism (it's included in 2 of the anthologies above, and was assigned in my classes several times). You'll find a lot of other articles on the subject to explore if you scroll down to the bibliography of this Jewish Women's Archive post "Gender Identity In Halakhic Discourse" (which is written by, surprise!, Fonrobert)

More important Jewish/gender & sexuality studies scholars, who have published many books and essays: Michael Satlow ("They Abused Him Like a Woman": Homoeroticism, Gender Blurring, and the Rabbis in Late Antiquity"), Steven Greeberg (Wrestling with God and Men: Homosexuality in the Jewish Tradition),

General resources:

Check out transtorah.com, their "Resources" tab provides access to poems, sermons, and essays by many people who contributed to the anthologies I've listed, so it's fantastic supplementary material or point of access if you can't get your hands on some of these books

Jewish Women's Archive, mentioned above, is a great resource. Their "LGBTQIA Rights" tag has a lot of interesting posts ranging from essays by activists, personal reflections by queer Jews, biographies of past and present queer Jews, film reviews, etc. Their encyclopedia entry for "Lesbianism" is also a great starting point for the topic

I'm looking through old syllabi and finding way more but tbh I've reached my limit for today. Just know that there's way more! Remember to look at the works cited of things you read to find more things to read!

#book recs for book wrecks #the ask and the answer #anonymous

[jaeheewillalwaysbemyfav]

How Obey Me Shot Itself In the Foot: Michael, Part 1

MASSIVE WARNING FOR DISCUSSION OF RELIGION. Specifically of Abrahamic religions (Islam, Christianity, and Judaism) and their shared God. I am doing this in a media analysis context, not to shame any particular religion or anyone’s particular beliefs. If that makes you uncomfortable, feel free to not read this post, stop reading at any point, and/or unfollow/block me. DO NOT try to start religious discourse on this post or in my askbox/DMs, I will clown on and block you.

Also spoiler warnings for a ton of different Obey Me lessons.

Intro (X), Michael (you're here)(X)(X)(X), Conclusion (X)(X)

Part 2 of my way-too-long-essay about why Raphael should definitely try to kill MC. We are still not at the part where I discuss why he should. But we'll get there.

The next rung down from Sky Daddy Himself is Michael. At least, it tends to be him in Abrahamic mythologies. Considering that Michael Obey Me is acting as Diavolo’s foil in many ways, that seems to be maintained in the game. But he’s also foiled against Lucifer: in Abrahamic mythology as the one who defeats him, and in Obey Me as a brother, even a “twin”. And Lucifer is both a leader (as both leader of one side of the Celestial War, and as patriarch of his family) and a right hand man (to Diavolo, and likely formerly to God in a shared position with Michael).

We know a few scattered facts about Michael:

He is physically the complete opposite of Lucifer (according to Satan)

He can drink like a champ, keeping up with Raphael and Lucifer (this just amuses me to think about)

He likes sweets (mentioned several times throughout the game, most often by Luke and Simeon)

On that note he can be kinda childish and whiny (he once, to quote the wiki, “moped dramatically” when Raphael and Lucifer didn’t bring him any human world food from their trip there)

Lucifer has described him as “too upfront about his desires” and others have also called him very strict and demanding, putting a lot of responsibility onto those under him.

He’s Luke’s mentor/supervisor, as he sees a lot of potential in him. It’s Simeon who says Luke was chosen for the exchange program so he could learn more about the three realms.

He likes astronomy (apparently he taught Mammon and Luke about human world constellations, and Lucifer annoyed him by visiting the first Celestial Realm planetarium when it opened before him — a planetarium that Michael himself asked Raphael to make)

He’s the current leader of the angels (mentioned by Barbatos)

He used to be Mammon’s mentor, but later pushed him onto Lucifer because he didn’t know how to handle him

On that note, Mammon says that whatever punishment Michael would subject him to back in the day still gives him shivers to think about — and this is coming from a guy who gets strung up to the ceiling by Lucifer nigh constantly (still-a-morosexual-help has an excellent post about this!)

He was the one originally sent to the Devildom as a liaison, but made Lucifer go in his stead

He often wanders the great hall in the Celestial Realm palace, staring at the place where the brothers’ portraits used to be, lost in thought (Luke attributes this to missing them)

He keeps a collection of Lucifer’s things, including the ring of light, which he quickly notices is missing after Simeon steals it for MC

It’s a pretty safe bet to say that he’s responsible for Simeon’s loss of his angelic abilities (which turned him human?! God i need to make a separate post breaking that shit down), possibly even his first demotion from seraph to archangel

With Simeon’s help, he once sent the brothers mind-controlling bangles that made them act like “proper angels” for a party (angelic demons event — not letting go of that shit btw, that was fucked up)

He’s broadly respected by those who work for/with him, even if he’s not always easy to work with based on the other shit we know

He seems generally on board with the exchange program, but has some kind of tension with Diavolo: he once used Simeon to threaten him, saying that he didn’t like Diavolo’s habit of keeping secrets and that if anything were to be found out that impacts the Celestial Realm, there would be Consequences

I cannot find a source for this bc the ring of light is mentioned like, Once on the wiki, but I’m pretty sure when that all came up, Solomon mentions having a ring of wisdom he got from Michael, which is another tidbit from Abrahamic mythology.

There’s a lot happening there, and some of these traits seem difficult to reconcile into one cohesive character.

So fuck that! Let’s look at Michael’s character through three lenses: as a surrogate for God/Father, as Diavolo’s equal and opposite, and as Lucifer’s foil. (These categorizations, you’ll see, won’t be mutually exclusive, but that’s kind of the point.)

#obey me #obey me michael #obey me shall we date #mine #How Obey Me Shot Itself In The Foot

[convenient-plot-device]

Spock didn't have "Jewish roots," the actor did, and the actor fucking loved bacon. Moreover, your entire essay is ridiculous and based on assumptions that no reasonable human being would put on a show. You are rampantly anti-woman's choice while pretending that it's about eugenics. Nah, women can abort any child they want. You're vile, and I hope your teacher failed you based on the shit logical structuring of that essay.

This is the first time I've received anon hate about an actual thought-out stance I took! I feel like I've reached a milestone.

1. Vulcan culture, through Spock, was very much influenced by Judaism because of Leonard Nimoy's input. This is in so many interviews and articles. Also it was one single line in the beginning of the essay, buddy; I didn't even mention the bacon thing. Why are you so pissed about this?

2. I never said I was anti-choice. I am very pro-abortion. What I said was that the deliberate medical and legal effort in Denmark and Iceland to eliminate Down Syndrome by encouraging abortion of fetuses with Down Syndrome is eugenicist and bad. I said nothing about abortion as a whole. Again, this was one line. If I was writing an essay on abortion and eugenics, I would have dove deeper, but I was not. The essay was about writing problems in a Star Trek show and so I did not think it necessary.

3. My teacher loved my essay and actually let me go over the word limit she had set because she was that impressed by my work. Because she is an AP Language teacher and thus obligated to have good reading comprehension lol.

Honestly thank you for at least laying out your specific problems with my work; I will better address counterarguments to my claims next time (specifically in the eugenics area, the Spock thing wasn't even an argument it was just a framing device). I much prefer this type of anon hate to people yelling at me for not liking Good Omens season two or insulting my taste in video games because I derided their favorite dead white guy.

#this one is my tag #asked and answered

[hymnsofheresy]

i just woke up from a dream where i was being interrogated by a bunch of people asking me if "furbies are kosher" firstly.... im not jewish. secondly........what the fuck

#it felt like a fever dream too it was awful #what the fuckkkkkkk #i was working on an essay on judaism @ 2 am

[judd051]

Lilith in Gardnerian Wicca (or not)

I’ve been seeing posts on tumblr complaining that Witches appropriate Lilith from Judaism. I don’t know about other Witches, but Lilith is not a part of Gardnerian Wicca, one of the root sources for most modern Wicca.  However, I think I might know why folks would think otherwise.

The Wikipedia entry on Lilith, in the section titled “In Western esotericism and modern occultism”, includes the statement that:

<< Gerald Gardner asserted that there was continuous historical worship of Lilith to present day, and that her name is sometimes given to the goddess being personified in the coven by the priestess. This idea was further attested by Doreen Valiente, who cited her as a presiding goddess of the Craft: "the personification of erotic dreams, the suppressed desire for delights".[101] >>

The only source given is the citation to:

<< 101. "Lilith-The First Eve". Imbolc. 2002. >>

This is a blog titled “White Dragon”, and it includes an essay titled: “LILITH - THE FIRST EVE By Anthony Roe, Published at Imbolc 2002”.  The essay includes the statement:

<< The importance attached to Lilith in witchcraft is attested by Doreen Valiente, who regarded her as one of the presiding goddesses of the Craft, calling her "the personification of erotic dreams, the suppressed desire for delights". According to Gerald Gardner there is a tradition of the continuous worship of Lilith to the present time in witchcraft, and that hers is the name sometimes given to the Goddess being personified, in ritual, by the coven Priestess. >>

This is obviously the source of the material in Wikipedia.  There is no citation given for this information. There could be a simple reason for this...  

Lilith is not mentioned in any of Gardner’s published works!  There is nothing to cite.

Valiente does discuss Lilith in her ABC of Witchcraft, but what she says there is significantly different than what Roe reports.  On pages 225-226 of the 1973 St. Martin’s Press edition, she writes:

<< Like Hecate, she [Lilith] is a patroness of witches… >>

In general, in ancient mythology.  There is no reference to her having any place in modern Wicca or being “one of the presiding goddesses of the Craft”.

Valiente says later in this same entry:

<< The Jews regarded her as a queen of evil spirits, and made amulets to protect themselves against her.  She is a personification of the erotic dreams which trouble men; the suppressed desire for forbidden delights. >>

In Judaism!  Not Wicca.  The above is a single paragraph in Valiente’s entry.  By taking a phrase out of context, Roe implies that is it a part of the Craft, not a reference to Lilith in Judaism.

The actual Gardnerian sources, the authors being “quoted”:

1.      do not in any way claim Lilith as being part of the Craft.

2.      clearly place Lilith in her Judaic context.

I have been unable to find any online sources saying otherwise except Wikipedia and the single source it cites – White Dragon – which in turn does not cite any source.

I am sure that there are Witches out there for whom Lilith is an important part of their practice, but it is historically inaccurate to cite Valiente and Gardner as supporting this.

Please stop.

#Lilith #Wicca #Gardner #Gardnerian #Valiente #appropriation #Judaism

[studyscribbler]

26 June 2021 | Saturday, 10:34

guys I made a friend, her name is Cotton and she helped me study Chinese religion

Today I am struggling with motivation !!!

I just took a test for my religion class and I got a 60, so I'm pretty bummed about that. I still haven't figured out how to study effectively for this class because I feel like I am taking in the material up until it's time for the exam, and it doesn't leave time to review. This next test should be over Judaism and Christianity, which I know a lot about already since I am a Christian. Hopefully, this next test will be a lot easier and it will boost my grade. The first exam I got an 80 on, so my test average is currently a 70. If I do well on the next test, it should bring it back up a little. That's the thing about summer classes though, there are fewer assignments so they hold more weight. I only have two exams left for this class.

I just remembered that we can write extra credit essays to add up to five points to our exam grade, so maybe I'll write an essay today.

There's also some family drama that I found out about last night, and I am honestly exhausted and frustrated. It's good I have schoolwork that I can throw myself into. Otherwise, I would hyper-fixate on it and probably panic a little.

SO ANYWAY- What do I need to do today?

work on social problems semester assignment 2

read the intro section of our next unit in English

respond to the social problems discussion boards

watch the video for college and career group meeting

currently listening: Rest (with Samm Henshaw) by half•alive

#study tips #studying #studyblr #study #summer study #university #college #cat

[wolfy22bookie]

Rules: It’s time to love yourselves! Choose your 5 favorite works (fics, art, edits, etc.) you’ve created this year and link them below to reflect on the amazing things you’ve brought into the world in 2020. If you don’t have five published works, that’s fine! Include ideas/drafts/whatever you like that you’ve worked on/thought about, and talk a little about them instead! Remember, this is all about self-love and positive enthusiasm, so fuck the rules if you need to. Have fun, and tag as many fellow creators as you like so they can share the love! <3

~~~~

I was tagged by @flipredmonkey. Man this is hard because most of my work is academic and has nothing to do with fandom...Oh well I’ve written a few papers I'm proud of this semester.

A Seasonal Surprise (Din Djarin x Cara Dune)

This is my debut fic in fandom and I’m so very proud of it despite its flaws. I just can’t believe it is still getting kudos and love after 2 months. It was a late night decision to write and post this since it wouldn't let me sleep. Then I couldn’t sleep because I was nervous about seeing the reactions. It gave me courage to write more of the genre and post my second one.

I’ll Fly For You (Din Djarin x Cara Dune) 

I am known in my department at my small University as a drama queen and as a very passionate person. One of my professors describes my writing as me tearing off my shirt in outrage while arguing a point. So writing such a soft moment was a challenge and I’m quite proud of the result. My favourite review of this one is @maryscarlett2u describing it as “a Hersey Kiss of a story”.

Here comes the unpublished stuff! Most of those are just assignments from my classes because I’m a student and have no life!

“GER297 Creative Projet Part 1 A” GER297 From Cosmos to Chaos: The Discourse on Nature in German Culture (That's the name of the class)

I am terrible at naming my assignments so it is untitled. It is a soliloquy from Ursa Minor (The Little Dipper, or Little Bear, constellation) to Ursa Major (The Big Dipper, or Great Bear, constellation) while she is dying on Earth. I find it so sad and beautiful. It’s meant as a critique of light pollution and how difficult it is to stargaze in cities. I might actually post this on Tumblr... I love it so much, but I had to analyze my work and that might have been the bullshitest literary analysis I have ever wrote because I knew exactly what the author meant by the choices so I laughed so much when I wrote it and just put so many footnotes calling myself out on my bullshit. It was a fun one.

“REL112 Final Project” REL112: The Traditions of Ancient Israel

Another assignment! A little background here: Ancient Israelite Mythology, the precursor to Judaism, was polytheistic and Yahweh had a wife/consort named Asherah. So I wrote a play on some stories taken from the Hebrew Bible where Asherah is nagging Yahweh for stuff he did, for example planting the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in Eden instead of on the Moon. I found it hilarious and so much to write. Satire is not a style I'm used to, but I really liked playing with it. 

“The Red Berry Theory” Used in 3 classes out of the 5 I took this semester.

This one is purely academic. This is basically a theory/allegory that tries to explain xenophobia and scapegoating as a survival defence mechanism driven from the fear of the unknown mixed with ego and hate, which equal assholery. I still need to work on it to polish it so I can argue it properly, but I’m proud of that one. I might even make it my doctoral thesis in 5ish years (I have so many years left of studies!! Good thing I like studying.)  I first wrote it for a class discussion forum, but I used it in essays to argue the cause of scapegoating minorities. Also it surprised my German Professor because I’m forever on the record for saying “But I don’t wanna think!” It was a joke that became a running gag in the department. 

This is my 5 works! I tagged whoever wants to do it because almost everyone was already tagged... @ooops-i-arted, and @maryscarlett2u I think weren’t tagged already... if it was the case I'm sorry.

[princesssarisa]

10 facts about Shana and her mother Darika. Plus the full OC interview with each of them :)

Here they are! Shanna, the “Beauty” of my wlw Beauty and the Beast retelling (which still lacks a definitive title, though I intend it to include the word “rose”), and Darika, her mother.

Shanna 10 facts 1. She is 14 years old during the story’s prologue, 17 when the main plot starts, and 19 by the end.

2. My facecast for her is the late Israeli singer Ofra Haza (best known to some of us for providing the voice of Moses’s mother Yocheved in The Prince of Egypt) when she was very young.

3. She’s mixed race. Her mother’s ancestors were white pseudo-Europeans, while her father’s came from a Middle Eastern-inspired culture. Both practiced the same Judaism- and Shamanism-inspired religion, though. She’s her world’s equivalent of a Jewish person who’s half Ashkenazi, half Mizrahi.

4. Her name is partly a variant of the Yiddish “Shaina,” meaning “beautiful,” and partly an abbreviation of the Hebrew “Shoshanna,” meaning “lily” or, more significantly, “rose.” It has nothing to do with the Hebrew “shana,” meaning “year” – they’re just almost-homonyms.

5. Unlike most traditional Beauty and the Beast Beauties, she’s the eldest of three sisters, not the youngest. Her two sisters aren’t wicked, but they are a bit of a handful because they’re so young, and she’s had to be their responsible caretaker. She plays that role well – her little sister Zuri sooner calls for her than for their mother when she needs help – but it’s kept her from fully exploring her own potential, which she finally does get to explore during her time with Liriel, the lady beast.

6. Her personality is very much like Disney’s original animated Belle: bookish, sweet, emotional, full of dreams, yet intelligent and strong willed too. She’s more socially awkward than Belle, though, and unfortunately, she also has the self-doubt of Robin McKinley or Megan Kearney’s Beauties. Unlike Belle, she’s internalized the idea that she’s odd and oversensitive, so she tries to act like a “normal” down-to-earth villager, until the year she spends with Liriel makes her realize her worth just as she is.

7. She’s an aspiring author and poet. At age 13, before her family fell into poverty, she wrote a play based on the popular story of the heroine Lady Yasfira, portraying her as more flawed and dynamic than in most retellings, giving more sympathy than usual to the “evil” queen who opposed her, and portraying them as having once been friends. (Think either The Prince of Egypt or Wicked, or both.) The play was never performed at the time, but years later, with Liriel’s encouragement, she fine-tunes it, and then they perform it together for Liriel’s animal servants – this plays an important role in their growing feelings for each other.

8. She rarely lets herself get angry, but when she does, she can verbally annihilate you.

9. She realized she was bisexual at age 11 when, after her first crush on a boy at her school ended, she developed a new crush on a girl. She probably realized this more quickly than most real-world bi girls do, because the setting, Zalina Island, has no homophobia. She never acted on her crushes, but only out of shyness, not because she saw anything wrong with liking girls.

10. Despite her gentle personality, she’s not especially femme: she’s more soft butch, or maybe futch. She dislikes dresses (fortunately, Zalina Island has no taboo against women in pants) and generally wears just one or two feminine articles, like a shawl or earrings, with otherwise boyish clothing.

Interview (as she would answer it around the middle of the story)

What did you want to be, when you were a kid? There were so many things I wanted to be at different times. A queen, a princess, a duchess, a prophet, a traveling bard, an actress, a shepherdess, a farmer, a lady knight, a prime minister, a priestess, an acrobat, a cook, a kitchen maid, a dressmaker like my mother, a merchant like my father, a doctor, a midwife, a goldsmith, a fairy… and eventually, I realized that the one way to be all those things was to be a writer.

When did you know you wanted to be a writer? As soon as I was old enough to realize that stories didn’t come out of thin air, but where written by people. I wanted to do it as soon as I knew I could.

Who inspires you? My mother, my father, and a wide array of fictional heroes and heroines.

If you got to choose, where would you like to live? With whom? I’d love to live in a castle. I try not to care where I live as long as my family is with me, but my dreams of living in some splendid beautiful place never seem to die. I wouldn’t want it unless my family was there too, though.

Which item would you never give away? My journal, where I write down my secret thoughts, poems and stories.

Tell us about the biggest mistake you made in your life. Until recently, I might have cited the time I forgot to write an important history essay for school because I got lost in writing my play Yasfira and Anefri. Or else the time I lost my temper with my three-year-old sister Zuri and hurt her feelings so badly that she ran away and was missing for over an hour. But now, there’s no doubt that my worst mistake was asking Mama to bring me back a unique flower if she could find one on her trip to the city. Who would have thought a flower would cost so much?

Did you ever fear for your life? Yes, the moment when I saw Lady Liriel for the first time, after I followed Mama back to her lair – half wolf, half dragon, and entirely terrifying – and even more so, when she sniffed the air and I knew she smelled me hiding there.

There’s people who say you’re strange. Do you have any comment on this? I’m afraid it’s true. So often my imagination feels more real than the real world, my mind flies off to places that no one else believes exist, my emotions swell and crash like tidal waves no matter how much I try to swallow them and put logic first, I’ve always asked too many questions, and I feel less alone with only my books, paper and pen than I do in crowds of people.

Tell us something about you that nobody knows. Well, not many people know how strange I am anymore. I’ve learned to copy Mama and pretend to be as sensible and down-to-earth as she and our neighbors are, instead of spewing my feelings and dreams the way I used to. If the villagers knew about my romantic fantasies or the stories and poems I write in my head, they would laugh or scold even more than the people in the city did when I was small. 

What would make a perfect day for you? A few hours spent reading, a few spent writing, and maybe a trip to the theatre in the evening, with people who understand me and let me feel free to be myself.

Darika 10 Facts 1. She takes on the father’s traditional role in the Beauty and the Beast story. Her husband was a merchant, but he died in the same shipwreck that destroyed his merchandise and left the family impoverished. But a few years later, she learns that one of his ships survived after all, has to travel to reclaim its cargo, but gets lost in a forest… and we all know the rest. Recent BatB retellings have put a lot of effort into answering the question “What happened to Beauty/Belle’s mother?” in interesting and poignant ways. To be different, I thought “Why not make her mother the living parent?”

2. My facecast for her is the New York City Criminal Court judge Rachel “Ruchie” Freier. Not that I know much about Judge Freier, but her face look right for the character.

3. At the beginning of the story, she’s 35 years old. By the end, she’s 40.

4. She was born in a small, poor village at the base of the White Pine Mountains. Her parents died when she was a baby, so she was raised by her grandfather and her older sister, who have since died too. 

5. She worked as a seamstress in the village until she met and fell in love with a wealthy young traveling merchant from an elite port city. Despite the disapproval of his social circle, they married. After his death, she took their daughters back to her home village to start a new life.

6. Her impoverished upbringing and family tragedies have toughened her. She takes a very practical, hardworking, no-nonsense approach to life, tries to teach her daughters to do the same, and is calm and resolute in the face of hardship, focusing on “What are we going to do about it?” She sometimes loses patience with her daughter Shanna’s dreaminess and sensitivity, which makes Shanna, who adores and idolizes her, feel inadequate and weak.

7. Inside, though, she feels just as deeply and intensely as Shanna does. Her love for her family is limitless and she’s actually very dependent on Shanna, who fills the role of the family’s nurturing caregiver more than Darika’s temperament lets her do.

8. One thing she and Shanna have in common, which Shanna learned from her, is strong integrity and deep compassion for others. For her, the best part of being rich was all the good she could do for the poor, while the hardest part of becoming poor again was having so little to give to those even poorer.

9. Her sewing is more than just her job – it’s an art. She embroiders the clothes and quilts she makes with all kinds of colors and unique designs. The vibrant images she creates are an outlet for the emotions she doesn’t express.

10. Her personality is inspired by assorted beloved literary heroines, both classic (Jane Eyre, Elinor Dashwood) and modern (Tamora Pierce’s lady knight Keladry of Mindalen). For all their differences, and though they’re much younger than Darika, all these heroines are quiet, practical, dignified, staunch in their integrity, deeply caring and passionate on the inside, and yet with masks of stoic self-control that they only drop when intensely provoked. I like those heroines and admire them, yet sometimes their popular role model status annoys me, because it’s hard for a highly sensitive, naturally effusive person to act like them. So Darika pays tribute to them, but the story will also emphasize that her daughters don’t need to be like her.

Interview (as she would answer it around the middle of the story) What did you want to be, when you were a kid? A forest sprite or a good witch. I had a wild imagination in those days, before the real world tamed it.

When did you know you wanted to be a seamstress? When I first learned that the flowers and birds on my childhood quilt hadn’t sprouted there by themselves, but were embroidered by my mother, and that the storytelling tapestries that hung on the village temple walls were sewn by other villagers in the same way. I wanted to create beauty like they had, and to tell stories through pictures, while at the same time creating useful things for others: clothes, blankets, handkerchiefs, etc.  I think I willed my own talent for sewing into being to do just that.  

Who inspires you? My older sister Shanna; the namesake of my daughter. We lost our mother very young, so she took on the role of mother for me, and every day her love and strength have inspired me as I’ve raised my own children.

If you got to choose, where would you like to live? With whom? I would live in a clean, elegant, comfortable house with my daughters, a servant or two, and my husband, if only I could bring him back.

Which item would you never give away? My wedding ring.

Tell us about the biggest mistake you made in your life. Three of them, one directly after the other. First, when I was lost in the Great Forest during a storm, I took shelter in what I thought was an ordinary cave. Then, when I found that the inside looked like a castle, I should have turned and left; even then I knew that such an enchanted place would be dangerous. But I was cold, wet, and afraid I would die if I went back out into the storm, so I stayed. Last but not least, when I discovered the greenhouse garden in that castle-cave, I crept in and picked a rose as a gift for my daughter Shanna. Who would have dreamed a single flower would cost so much?

Did you ever fear for your life? I feared for my life when I was lost in the storm, but even more so when I came face to face with Lady Liriel. I’ll never forget the sight of her matted fur and vampire-bat fangs as she glared down at me.

There’s people who say you’re cold and stony. Do you have any comment on this? They don’t really know me.

Tell us something about you that nobody knows. Very few people fully know me, not even my daughters. I play the role of the calm, practical peasant woman, but it’s only skin-deep. Shanna thinks all her wild passions and romantic dreams came from her father, but really she inherited them from me too. My grandfather knew the secret me, and so did my sister, and my husband. But they’re all gone, and as I’ve buried each of them, I’ve buried those aspects of myself more deeply.

What would make a perfect day for you? A quiet day of embroidery by the fire at home, with my daughters all near me and all happy.

#my writing #oc ask #10 facts #oc interview #shanna #darika #my ocs #cinefantastiquemitho

[mikhalsarah]

RIP Open Orthodoxy, eaten alive by parasitic “Wokeness”...

There are already three streams of Judaism where women can be rabbis (Conservative/Masorti, Reform, and Reconstructionist), I should know, I belong to one of them. I’ve never entirely understood the Orthodox commitment to sidelining women in this day and age, but the simple fact is, people who are unhappy with Orthodox halakhah in this area have other places to pray, and the stubborn refusal to pray in any of “those places”, yet fighting tooth and nail to make their own shuls become just like them, smack of a weird sort of snobbish attachment to the word “orthodoxy”....even though the rest of Orthodox is but a hair’s breadth from considering them a treif liberal “fake” Judaism like the rest of us already.

As difficult, but possible, as the issue of female rabbis would be to bring about, (seeing as it is a rabbinic prohibition based largely on cultural attitudes no longer in play in western society), the issue of getting the Orthodox to accept gay couples is another matter. Again, not an insurmountable issue, Centrist Orthodox Rabbi Schmuley Boteach has written quite openly about the need to find a place in Orthodox shuls for gay and lesbian Jews. However Orthodox culture is never going to let them hold hands during service or kiddush, for the simple reason that public displays of sexual/romantic affection, even between heterosexual married couples, are frowned upon everywhere from the sanctuary to the grocery store, due to the strong feeling that sexuality should be put aside, or sublimated, when encountering certain kinds of holiness (engaging in prayer etc). Of course, that does not mean that in Judaism sex is the opposite of holiness in some way, or else it would be forbidden to have sex on Shabbat. Since marital sex is a mitzvah (commandment, meritorious act) on Shabbat, better to understand it as a different kind of holiness, one that is not compatible with some other mitzvot (like prayer) or with public life in general. Sexuality itself is a sort of holiness surrounded by taboos and necessitating the utmost privacy in Judaism, so this is ironically probably the hill Orthodoxy would die on, not figuring out how to tolerate the gays.

I heartily agree that it’s time to stop being racist to the Palestinians. Strange though that a “Woke” rabbi still can’t bring himself to call them what they call themselves, and in typical Israeli/Zionist  fashion emphasizes their Arab otheness, rather than their indigenousness...thus making it seem rather like a favour being granted to them out of the goodness of his Woke heart, rather than an acknowledgement of their intrinsic belongingness. (This kind of stuff is typical for Woke social justice, which consistently cares far more about virtue-signalling and screaming at “white people”, or whomever else is deemed an Oppressor in the situation, than listening and paying attention to those who are actually oppressed.)

I spent decades of my life as a vegetarian, years of that as a vegan. Even though for medical reasons I had to adopt a diet which relies on meat for sufficient protein, I still try to limit my meat consumption. I am very pleased that so many people are seeing the value of vegetarian and vegan diets, and that even regular omnivore folk are adopting “meatless Mondays” and so forth. I’d be even better pleased with governments helping to encourage it by working to make it less expensive if/where possible. I’d nod my head approvingly if rabbis suggested meat-eating be reserved for Shabbat, if one didn’t feel able to give it up entirely. However, even when I didn’t practice (Judaism) and was secular it would never have occurred to me to ban it wholesale. I’m just not Puritan enough for banning things, I prefer the Quakerly ways of  “convincement”. The Woke, on the other hand, are full-bore Puritan, convert-the-heathen-masses.

This is perhaps the strangest part of entire essay. This newly minted “rabbi” is publicly expressing the desire to not just overhaul a big chunk of halakhah in order to make Judaism less restrictive and bring it further into line with the mores of the gentile world... a process that has been going on forever, whether excessively quickly (Reform) or excruciatingly slowly (Haredi)... but is calling to make Judaism more restrictive in other ways, by banning things permitted by halakhah which happens never or so infrequently that I can’t recall an instance offhand. And he’s willing to use secular governments to achieve it by force.

I recall hearing conservatives decades ago saying “Inside the heart of every liberal is a fascist screaming to get out” and laughing derisively at how they could think that. I laugh no more, though I contend that it is a particular species of illiberal liberal, known as the progressive activist, that is to blame rather than liberals in general. Still...there it is, and the regular liberals are generally no help opposing their own extremists because deep down they harbour that intrinsic liberal guilt that they are never doing enough or being enough to be truly authentic and useful. For authenticity and “real change” they look ever to the fringes, on the assumption that the more wildly opposed to society in general an ideology is, the better it is, if only they weren’t too cowardly and comfortable to join up and suffer like the “real” activists. 

I have to add here, how nice it is despite not having set foot in any shul in over a year, to still have something of the religious Jewish mindset, which makes impressive demands on your time, money, and moral fastidiousness, but at the same time reminds you constantly that you’ll never be perfect and will never accomplish everything you want or that God asks of you and God already accepts that as a given. “It is not yours to complete the task (of repairing the world), but neither are you free to desist from it.” -Pirkei Avot 2:21. Despite the reputation Judaism has for being guilt-inducing, at least we are free from the overwhelming and psychologically destructive levels of guilt induced by secular liberalism, which now has decided, via Wokeness, that merely existing in a society that is imperfect is a damnable offense, even if it is, on balance, one of the least imperfect societies around. This is how Jews like me know that Wokeness is not just a new religion, it’s an offshoot of Christianity, where just being born damns you to a state of perpetual sin.

This authenticity-of-the-extremists mindset blinds them to the fact that while the fringes are the birthplace of some excellent critiques and paradigm-changing ideas that have been of great benefit, those benefits most often only come when those ideas are tempered by counter-critiques and more pragmatic people who can tolerate the loss of ideological purity required to make them work in practice. Also invisible to the liberal mind are those historical moments when progressives have backed ideas that were...well, the term “clusterfucks” springs to mind.

 Progressives less than a century ago were enamoured with ideas ranging from Eugenics to Italian Fascism (less so with Naziism, but even that had its adherents until the war and the atrocities of the camps coming home to roost). They backed Communism to such a degree that it took Kronstadt to shake most of them loose, and they still idolize Che Guevara, the gay-hating, probably racist, illiberal who put people to death without trial and “really liked killing” (his words) and can’t hear a word against Communist China (”That’s racist to the Chinese!”) or Islamic extremists (”That’s Islamophobic!), despite the fact that Communist China is “re-indoctrinating” the Muslim Uighers and using them as slave labour (in part for the profits and in part because keeping the men and women separated prevents them breeding more Muslim Uighers), and despite the fact that the Islamists throw gay men off roofs in public executions. When you do get a left-liberal to admit something on the Left has gone wrong at all, they immediately shift to rationalizing it as somehow really being the fault of conservatives all along...even in a case like Eugenics where religious and other conservatives were fighting it tooth and nail.

(NB: This is not an endorsement of conservatives, who have their own sets of problems but who, when they finally do change their mind on an issue, don’t try to rationalize their former wrongheadedness by claiming it was really the fault of left-liberals that they ever believed such things in the first place)

And that brings us back to Zionism and the Woke. The Woke cannot for the life of them admit that it was secular, and often quite far left, Jews that birthed Zionism directly out of the leftist “liberation” traditions of the day (albeit with a healthy side of pro-Western colonialism-admiring fervour for being “an outpost of the West” shining the light of rationality on the barbaric, backward, religiosity of the Middle East). They don’t want to see it. It disturbs their comfortably simple narrative, which prefers to maintain that it was the “whiteness” of the original Zionist Jews and their early followers that was the problem, not their politics.

But Zionism is merely the predictable result of what happens when you take an oppressed people and tell them that their oppression entitles them to do whatever they need to in order to end their oppression and that violence is not violence when perpetrated by the oppressed. That the world owes them, and their descendants, something in perpetuity for having oppressed them, some sort of special treatment, and that it must never withdraw that special dispensation because that itself would be oppressing them again. The fact that what the Jews would feel like they needed to do was ethnically-cleanse their former homeland of people who had once shared it with them (both Jews and Palestinians can be traced to a shared ancestry in the region going back about 50,000 years) and necessitating a whole new liberation movement to free them was an unintended consequence of th\e liberation movement, but a consequence nonetheless.

The Woke cannot admit that Zionism is, in large part, a direct consequence of the leftist liberation project, and Woke Jews (who are almost invariably “white”) can’t admit that the rest of the Woke movement hates them. They truly deserve each other.

Ah, well, at least this “woke” rabbi isn’t trying to qualify for the cognitive dissonance finals by being Woke and a Zionist at the same time like the current rabbi of my (rapidly sinking) former synagogue. We’ve had rabbis that horrified the congregation by being too right-wing (mostly on halakhic issues rather than politics), and we’ve had rabbis that horrified (the older portion of) the congregation by being too left-wing and running off to march in Selma. Thanks to this rabbi haranguing the congregation daily about LGBTQ issues to the point that even the LGBTQ Jews got tired of hearing him (our sexuality is NOT our whole fucking existence...no pun intended) and marching around the Sanctuary with the Israeli flag on Shabbat (an honour reserved for the Torah even by the most fervently Zionist among us, none of whom are yours truly) we now have the dubious distinction of being a congregation horrified by a rabbi being both too left-wing and too right-wing simultaneously. 

Apropos of nothing, there is now a “For Sale” sign on the front lawn of my former synagogue and the membership at the Orthodox synagogue has grown with astonishing rapidity. We can extrapolate from this that in 4 years time, should the U.S. Republicans run any candidate remotely sane, they will sweep the election.

#judaism #woke #wokeism #zionism #sjw nonsense #sjws ruin everything #open orthodoxy #militant vegans #woke is a religion #puritan #vs #quaker

[lesbianarcana]

Commission Update, a PSA for May - July, and Commissions going forward

Hey all, below is some dot points of my current personal workload so you can get a sense of where I’m at, plus some quick discussions about commissions going forward. Under the cut as it’s a bit long.

tl;dr important points to take away -

1) Priority for my workload - 1) day job, 2) university/Judaism studies if they have specific deadlines, 3) commissions, 4) unpaid beta reading projects, 5) personal projects

2) 1 - 2 weeks is the common time frame for me to properly respond to commission emails, but I leave them on unread and they are not forgotten, and I am easily contactable if you need an update;

3) I no longer do commission work (including emails) from Friday - Saturday due to Shabbat observance.

4) Sprite Pack Commissions are no longer on offer from 16 May 2020. Any existing sprite packs will of course be completed in full.

5) New commission types will be coming soon and I will discuss and seek feedback in a separate post.

Commission Status:

Works in Progress - 1 Sprite Pack (almost complete!)

New Commission Emails - 2 (as of 16 May 2020)

The time frame for responding to new commission emails is 1 - 2 weeks; this is normal. I’m also not doing commission work on Shabbat as I’m trying to be more shomer - this means from Friday night to Saturday night my time, emails won’t be answered, and I won’t be painting anything I’m paid to do. It’ll resume on Saturday evening.

I review my commissions regularly, so that’ll be coming up soon with new commission offerings. I’m going to probably expand my commissions into more lengthy, detailed, bigger projects, although I will likely still offer a few slots for illustrations.

Sprite pack commissions will no longer be on offer from today, though. The reason why I’m stopping them is because they’re too time-consuming. Any sprite packs I currently have will be completed, of course.

I will still likely offer half-body or full body sprites.

The types of commissions I’ll be offering in future will probably be simple busts, then bigger projects like concept design (including orthographics), comics and CG illustrations.

Job & Study Workload:

Full-time job –

Monday to Friday, 8.30am - 4:30pm, working from home until further notice. Takes priority over all other workloads.

University work –

Anthropology research essay due 18 May (3,000 words)* Current priority

History research essay due 25 May (2,500) words

Anthropology exam - due early June (online exam)

Judaism Studies –

Written studies – Units 2, 3, 4 and 5

‘Intro to Judaism’ classes – various dates

Beth din exam – aiming for August

As above, current university work is the two research essays and exam that’s coming up. Gotta maintain that GPA! Once my semester is over, I will have more free time.

Beta Editing Projects:

Fenhawke fic, oneshot, WIP

Zevran x Warden fic, multi-chapter, WIP

Modern AU Solavellan fic, multi-chapter, WIP

At the moment I’m not taking on any extra betaing projects, but once my semester is finished I probably will. I’m an extremely thorough beta, and thus my editing takes longer, so I am not able to do rush jobs.

Personal Projects:

Fenris x Nyssa Fic, Multi-chapter, WIP (next update - 17 May 2020)

Food of Thedas, ongoing

By Any Other Name comic, ongoing (next update - Pages 5 - 8, TBA)

The Arcana comic, ongoing (next update - ??, TBA)

Overall you can see that I’m pretty busy. I expect to be less so when the semester break is, but it’s coming up to exam period and I have these two essays that take priority right now, as well as an actual exam quite soon.

#psa #housekeeping #commissions update

[chernyaevs]

MISHA CHERNYAEV, the MAGNATE, is 23 and a SENIOR. HE is majoring in BUSINESS. They are not part of the Imperium Society and from the outside, they think it’s A CIRCLEJERK FOR KIDS THAT WERE 'GIFTED' IN ELEMENTARY. I often see them around campus PLAYING WITH HIS DOG. They remind me of TUCKED IN SHIRTS, HIGHLIGHTED BOOK PASSAGES, HALF FINISHED MUGS OF COFFEE, AN ECHOING VOICE. 

piper here again with a less sunshiney baby! i have a bit more to say upfront about misha because i made rue on impulse at 2 am and i’ve actually been brainstorming for him for a week straight now! anyway, i actually have a small compilation of wc at the bottom. i know. it’s a miracle. (THIS ENDED UP LONG I’M SORRY. I ADDED A DOG GIF AT THE BOTTOM FOR YOUR PATIENCE!)

was born in the summer time (gemini energy) in a rich village located right outside of moscow as the youngest child in the seven person family. the chernyaev’s are an extremely influential name in western russia, and that reputation has passed down to all of their five children.

two of his four siblings detested the tycoon lifestyle upheld by their parents; one now works in hong kong as a chef, while the other studies art in milan. this has left misha alone with his two other siblings to bare the brunt of work and reputation.

he lived a secluded childhood, the gap between him and his closest sibling being 8 years and his social skills being less than fine-tuned during his elementary years; accidental insensitivity because of his upraising, crude words he learned from inattentive parents, etc. which still lingers to this day.

around age 9 or so he began to display early symptoms of OCD. his family brushed them off for three or so years until his habits became hard to ignore. 

his obsession with judaism, despite coming from a family of secular jews, was what tipped off his mother first. he would beg to be taken to synagogue and spent a few hours at night trying to learn hebrew. if/when interrupted, he would start all over again from the beginning.

he would also never touch anything that came in uneven numbers. the number he likes to count in is 4. he developed multiple counting/touching rituals with things as time progressed and his illness went unchecked.

eventually he was diagnosed and treated at age 13. he’s had his ups and downs with medication and was involuntarily admitted into a psycho ward at age 16. but things began to look up on his 17th birthday.

he was gifted a beautiful lil samoyed pup that he lovingly named yoshi, from his choice mario kart wii character. yoshi has been a great distraction from his sudden compulsions, and though he is no where near a ‘cure’ he serves a great purpose to misha.

misha was accepted into ashcroft with the, erm, assistance of his parents, who were also willing to pay his way into the society as well before he asked them to refrain; simply because he didn’t believe he had any exceptional talents outside of maths and mario kart, plus he didn’t want to be associate with ‘a bunch of jerkoffs’.

he’s had an ok four years! has a close-knit group of friends, doesn’t party that much, just enjoys hanging out with yoshi and studying. he’s taken a few classes in english literature, but he doesn’t expect it to go anywhere :/ he’s well aware of the obligations he has back in moscow.

for now he’s just chilling with his dog, who he takes everywhere. he still practices judaism though isn’t as dogmatic about his beliefs, and tries to keep a semi-low profile.

wanted connections:

seems like a married couple: please..... i would love this. someone who understands him in a very pure way and who he’s comfortable being a little bit affectionate with in public!! can also be a slowburn (; 

roommates!!: misha rents off-campus because rich boy life. he wouldn’t charge that much just to have someone there to make him feel a little less alone, cause although he’s used to it, it can be a little disheartening.

study buddies: he’s wicked at math. can probably be bribed to do essays for you.

unlikely friends: someone who’s an extrovert and has more charisma than him, someone he can learn from considering he’s meant to be a hot shot business tycoon one day.

former lovers to friends: this would have to be discussed in pms lol, but i wouldn’t be surprised if he picked up a girlfriend at any point and shit just went downhill.

love/hate: i love angst. he’s not intentionally cold with most people but he would be with this person!! but he’d also sorta love them. you know how it be.

friends from holiday: misha traveled a lot during the summer months so any other rich kids out there hmu!! or i’ll hit u up. or just anyone who lived in a semi-nice location that a tycoon family would visit. thanks.

AND HERE IS YOSHI, THE BEST BOY

#class:intro #( this is so fuckng long i am sorry. ) #( anyway like this and ill slide into the dms for plots/the wc listed ! ) #( tw mental illess ) #( tw ocd )

[chochmah-binah-daas]

The months since elul 5777 has been a hugely transitional time for me for so many reasons. I’ve been meaning to write about this since, well, late elul, early tishrei but I never had the energy to do so. I broke this up into chunks for easier reading but this is still quite an essay…

I know this is long but please like if you read even a part of this and if you have any insights or advice to offer me, my askbox is open and I’d love some support of any kind!!

Children

I always wrote off the idea of having children, even to the point of being one of those people who thought it was funny to be somewhat hostile towards kids. I did have some legitimate reasons for this, mostly sensory issues, being that I’m autistic and am sensitive to many sensory experiences; however, most of it was me just stubbornly holding onto a general distaste for children. Through the course of my retail job, I found myself more and more warming up to the kids who came into the store to the point where I would go out of my way to make faces and wave at babies at the expense of doing my actual job (not to worry, my job was literally completely ineffective). As I realized just after the High Holy Days began, I didn’t just not hate children anymore, I liked them. I actively like and desire to have children now.

If someone had asked me if I really thought I never wanted kids, I would pretty adamantly say I didn’t, though sometimes I’d admit that I could see myself maybe adopting one child in the future. Now it actively pains me that I don’t have children. Plural. Children. My only image of my future self is me, happily married and raising at least 3 or 4 good Jewish children.

I’m only 23 so I know that I’m not expected by secular society to have kids but seeing my more observant Jewish cousins around my age pursuing marriage really gets me down a lot of the time. I want nothing more right now than to marry a nice gay Jewish man and adopt a few kids. This leads me to my next sections…

Career goals

I never settled on one single thing I wanted to do with my life. I was one of those kids who, probably due to being autistic, was always getting deeply invested in something and then flitting off to another after a couple months. For the last year or two I did have a decent idea in my head that I wanted to get a Master’s of Library and Information Science degree and work in a library or archive. I’m good at that kind of work. It allows me to be quiet and a bit neurotic about my workstation because I’d largely be working alone, away from the general public and most of my coworkers.

After my graduation, my mom and grandma suggested that I consider going to law school. I agreed to at least take the LSAT, which I will be doing in February and oy am I nervous!! My mom, who went to law school, says that she thinks I’d be great at it, that my mind is so well-suited to that type of thinking. I don’t disagree with her but I also can’t imagine myself doing anything with a law degree.

In fact, I can’t imagine myself doing anything in the future. People think I’m joking, but I really do just want to marry someone with a steady, well-paying job and be a house-spouse. I have a deep passion for learning but I have no passion for an actual career that comes along with any path of study. In a perfect world where my mental illness didn’t destroy my ability to read, I would love to go get an MLIS and/or a law degree. I’d even consider going to a yeshiva and studying Torah, Talmud, contemporary Jewish issues, all that. But once I’m out of school, I have no clue what I’d do besides sit at home with all that knowledge swirling around in my head.

Education is never a waste in my opinion, but also formal education is expensive and I’d never be able to afford it without having a prospective career in my future to provide the income for paying off the student loans.

Gender

I never understood the concept of gender. All I know is what language I’m comfortable with, how I like dressing, and what I want my body to be. I am AFAB (assigned female at birth) and I medically transitioned through hormones, chest surgery, and a hysterectomy. My pronouns are they/them or he/him. I am now legally male with a traditionally male name. On most days, I enjoy wearing skirts though I do occasionally choose to wear pants. I could never be cis-passing unless I stuck with wearing pants all the time, which would make me very uncomfortable. If you asked me to get dressed without thinking about it at all, my first choice would be to throw on a skirt, t-shirt, and cardigan. It’s comfortable, psychologically and sensory.

None of this changed during elul 5777; what did change was how my gender and my Judaism were connected. Before, they weren’t. Now, I am working on becoming shomer tznius which involved a major overhaul of my wardrobe, particularly the skirts and dresses. I got rid of almost all of my short and revealing articles unless they could be easily layered and bought a lot of long skirts, three quarter sleeve shirts, cardigans, and other tznius layering essentials.

When it comes to my religious observance, I mix and match though I do mostly connect with the mitzvos for men. In shul and at home, I prefer not to light the shabbos candles if there is a woman who would be able to do it instead. I wear tallis and tefillin to daven and I leyn torah. But I also enjoy occasionally wearing a tichel and being the one who cooks for shabbos, plus the aforementioned movement towards being shomer tznius.

Religious observance

I currently attend, and work for, a Reform shul. I adore my community and the rabbi there. It’s such a loving and supportive community with a small but fantastic group of regulars at Torah study. I’m fortunate in that my community has no problem with the way I present myself. They accept me as a queer Jew who expresses their queerness and their Jewishness in a unique way. But I worry about how other Jewish communities might react towards me, especially since I can see myself being much more observant than I currently am.

Ideally, I would have a kosher kitchen and fully observe shabbos. I would live close enough to walk to shul and I would make sure to raise my children with a strong Jewish identity, and of course a Jewish education. I don’t know if I could have that kind of life while being involved in a Reform community, largely because they don’t tend to celebrate every holiday and also when they do, it can be too lax for my tastes. For example, even in the winter our shabbos services don’t start until 6 or 7 PM, a solid 2 or so hours after shabbos actually begins.

As a queer Jew, who is very obviously gender nonconforming, I don’t know how I would fit into a more traditional community that would probably be more regimented in its separation of genders into a binary. I wear tallis and tefillin when I daven but I would be seen as a woman by some men so I would be immediately singled out as an other. I do wear skirts but I also have a deep voice and facial hair (and my name is Zack) so I’m automatically too male for women-only spaces. Not that I feel entitled to men- or women-only spaces, but I do fear how I could become more observant, when doing so tends to mean an increase in that kind of separation.

Relationships

This is probably the trickiest and most personal portion of this whole shpiel. I’m currently… somewhat in a relationship, I guess? When I transferred to HSU, I thought I was aromantic-asexual and I have since realized that I am neither of those and now identify as someone generally attracted to men. But soon after starting at HSU, I met someone else who identifies as aro-ace and we became really close friends, hanging out all the time in one of our dorm rooms. They were in a non-romantic, queer-platonic relationship with two people and suddenly, they started including me in this relationship. I didn’t mind this so much at the beginning but the more I come to understand my identity and my vague goals and dreams for the future, the more I realize that I just can’t go where I want to go in life and be tied to this relationship.

I know that the longer this goes on, the worse it will be to break it off but I’m terrified to do so, for various reasons I don’t want to get into here. As I said earlier, I want to marry a Jewish guy and have Jewish kids and live a Jewish life. I obviously can’t do that in a household with two pagans and a Catholic, none of whom want kids at all. I know I’m probably becoming one of Those Converts who gets super zealous about Judaism and defensive of their Jewishness but over the last year or so, and especially since elul, I have had this image in my head that I just can’t shake. And that image doesn’t include the people I currently feel tied down to.

#jumblr #jewish observance #Jewish conversion #frumblr #judaism

[ki6-7-l8r]

God And The Loss Of God And Other Essays Of Interest.....

God And The Loss Of God March 30, 2017

For most of my life, I was not what you would call spiritual. When I was a kid I had a strong belief in God, that was very Christian oriented. I am a Jew by blood, but

I never followed Judaism. When I reached 16, I became very interested in Eastern Religions. I still believed in God, but in an impersonal God, like the one

described in the Upanishads. I also around 17 got interested in the Occult. I had a friend when I was around 11 who was interested in the occult, who I knew through high

school who influenced me in that direction. None of these things seemed to work very well, so when I reached the age of around 25, I became what you would call a

nihilist. I retained my occult interests, but I was just interested in its Black Magick attributes. This went on, but after awhile I got fed up with it, and from

the years of 1993-2001, I had nothing more to do with it, other than reading tarot cards once in awhile. In 2007, I had some kind of mental breakdown, where I converted

to, and became a Catholic for a couple of years.... Around 2009, due to the intense suffering in my life, and the futility of prayer, I lost all faith in God, or in any

other kinds of spiritual beings, and that is where I am now. If you look around my journal, you will find articles on the occult and other stuff, so I will not repeat it

here. This article has to do with my loss of faith in anything spiritual, including the idea that the occult and mysticism leads to any kind of spiritual "enlightenment"

which I now just view as total nonsense. And so it goes.....

The reason why I am now an atheist and have no belief at all in anything spiritual, is because I do not see spirituality as having any kind of effect in making the world

a better place. I have seen spirituality work (rarely) in making some people better, but that is the exception and not the rule. Religion is stupid, because it makes

people kill and torture each other; over disparate theological systems of what could be only termed, competing forms of superstitious absurdity. Also religion is used as

a pretext to subjugate individuals and masses of people, so they can be personally and collectively exploited. I am not saying that there are no smart and good people

that are religious, I am just saying the religion and beliefs in God/Gods/Goddesses just does not work, because in my view people that believe in these things are

delusional. They are not delusional because entities like this do not exist, they may. But if they do, they exist in alternate universes or planes of existence, that

either have no; or no worthwhile basis in relationship to this one. Because of this, people who believe in these things and spiritual ideas, tend to become delusional.

Spirituality does not work. The USA is loaded with Christians. There are churches everywhere. But if you are poor, the USA is among the worst places to live in the

world. 5 out of the 15 most homeless cities in the world are in the USA, and the USA has a homeless population that has become as bad as the Third World. Poverty is

endemic, as well as hunger and food insecurity, and those with homes are constantly in danger of losing them, or worried how they will pay their gas or electric. I have

spent a huge part of my life in such straits which is why I hate the United States; and have nothing but contempt for its political class and the government. The

election of Trump and his budget cuts were the last straw. The USA will never improve, so I am going to try in the 2-3 years to leave it for good and move to Europe.

I will renounce my US citizenship when it is feasible, and leave here and never come back. But back to my original point, the USA is full of Christians, yet

American society is a greed-obsessed shithole of a country. The Christians in the USA, most of them, are like a Protestant Taliban, pompous hypocrites full of greed and

crazy as shithouse owls. Catholics are no different, but most of them tend to be pretty quiet, which is good.

Another bad thing about America, is that these religious clowns keep the USA socially backward. They succeed in stopping stem-cell research, curtailing abortion,

blocking helping to make the USA more socially advanced by creating a better social safety net, and curtailing welfare, etc. But corporate welfare and the entitlement

policies

for the rich are OK. It is OK if kids go hungry with no welfare, as long as they can use the money to give rich people tax cuts. This is what Donald Trump thinks, and

the Democrats are no better. The rich in the USA are the worst kind of parasites, and all the US government does is bow-and-scrape and do their will, and oppress the

population to serve their venal interests.

This is not even politically radical at all, but perfectly obvious to anyone with half a brain.

What is interesting is in Sweden and Northern Europe, half of them that are Nordic people describe themselves as atheists or agnostics. And they have a far more humane

society with virtually no poverty or homelessness. The only people that are homeless are drug abusers that migrate around crashing on people's sofas, and illegal

immigrants who are there without permission. Legal permanent residents and citizens want for nothing. It seems in this case that atheism seems to actually *make* people

more moral. The USA would be a better place as well, if they just boarded-up all of the churches and gave up on religions. Russia is also gangster capitalist with all

kinds of poverty and no human rights. The Russian Orthodox church is no good at all.

I do not know what spirituality really is. I have no sense or conviction that spirituality is anything other than people being in the spasm of mood-swings.

As for me, my life is way too harsh for me to have even the smallest concern as to what any God/Goddess/Gods think of me. I could care less. Life is hard enough

without cluttering it with religious nonsense that does not work.

The infinite irrelevance of God and his nonexistence for me is the same. (I did not have time to edit this, and only slept 3 hours last night. Apologies for poor

syntax) ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I am just going to throw out some random ideas, as I am thinking about divergent things...

In regards to the idea that if all things are removed, (even infinity) that Nothing is the only thing left that exists. But since Nothing has no attributes that can be

ascertained to be real, Nothing existing is a misnomer since there is Nothing in Nothing to exist. Thus if Nothing exists, its existence must be illusory. Thus Nothing

affirms the illusion of its own existence, and thus implies the existence of illusion. And since Nothing is boundless, this illusion must be infinite; but wrought out of

Nothing and utterly one with it. And since it is all illusion nothing in this fake existence can be real in itself, thus everything in it must be relatively real: i.e.

infinitely self and other defined: So it would be Infinitely Relativized and Actualized Non-Substantiality. But Nothing being Nothing really must in truth, deny the

illusion of its own existence, and thus the existence of Illusion. Then all would be Infinitely De-Relativized, De-Actualized, and before anything could become separate

and amorphous, (nothing existing in itself) it would instantly be gone, non-substantiated into Nothingness Unmanifest.....

What perplexes me, is what if the pole of anything actually existing could be reproduced and then destroyed in an infinitesimal fraction of a second; where

Infinitely Relativized and Actualized Non-Substantiality would come and fade into existence so fast, that nobody would be aware of anything, and the pain of existence

would never actually be experienced by anyone or anything? This would for all practical purposes, keep Nothing in a state of Nothingness, and thus always be pure

Nirvana.

Why am I a determinist? I am of the view that freewill is an illusion. I think this because every complex of thought and action is predicated by some form of motive

force which is determined by its own reason for existing. This is true of everything. This happening as an infinite kind of gestalt across omniform multidimensionality

and

linearity across space and time holds everything together. The totality of what constitutes consciousness, motive force, and all acts is determined by *being* through

which the former emerges as a kind of reflex, of all interrelating with all, at a level of infinite complexity.

What will become of the USA? There is a cultural polarization going on in the country that is unprecedented. Americans used to be apolitical, now they are totally

*misinformed*. They are lied to by everyone.... By MSNBC, by Fox News, by liberals, by conservatives, and the only thing that holds true with all of these interests is

that they are totally self-interested and self-serving. Even Russia Today back in 2012, really concerned me over the "National Defense Authorization Act" that they said

was being used to send American citizens to Gitmo where they would be tortured, and this never happened. Even RT is propaganda in its own way...... But the polarization

runs right through the USA and even up into the wealthy strata. The only thing neo-liberals and conservatives have in common is in domestic affairs: They want to screw

everyone out of as much money as possible. In all else though they are at loggerheads. The liberals hate Putin and see him as another Hitler, whereas 48% of Republicans

admire Vladimir Putin very much. Both views of Putin are wrong. Putin is Machiavelli, with a touch of Jesus Christ. You have a square-off between the socially tolerant,

agnostic and atheistic, sexually libertine, but pro-ruthless capitalist and war-crazy neo-liberals, verses the socially intolerant, religiously fanatical, sexually

repressed, but pro-ruthless capitalist, and sometimes protectionist antiwar, but militarily supportive and at times war-crazy conservatives. This is a culture war, and it

is hard to see where it will end up. You do have some liberal so-called oligarchs, like George Soros who is very supportive of the Left. Soros supplied Occupy Wall Street

protesters with tents, generators, and legal help. If Trump continues neo-liberal economic policies the economy will totally go under. Half of the USA is doing very bad

economically, as in below-the-poverty-line bad. The only good this will do is that this will motivate and galvanize the Left. (Thats if they wake up from the system-

propagated distraction of cultural liberal issues, which will insure that the Left accomplished basically nothing of substance) And they are talking of gutting social

security too, and throwing a bunch of old people onto the streets, really? Is that the best anyone can do?

Hermetic/Platonic Philosophy In Just A Few Words..... July 17, 2016

1. The Infinite Is Unfolded/Regenerated Within And As The Finite; As The Finite Unfolded/Regenerated Within And As The Infinite.

2.The Infinite Within Its Actualized Potentialities; And Potentialized Actualities; And The Finite Within Its Actualized Potentialities; And Potentialized Actualities;

Are Wholly and Utterly One.

3. The Involution Of The Infinite Eternalizes The Finite And Finitizes The Infinite....

4. The Evolution Of The Finite Eternalizes The Infinite And Finitizes The Finite...

5. Therion Said: "Nothing Is." I say: NOTHING ALONE IS WHEN ALL IS GONE; NO THING IS BECAUSE WITHOUT THE RELATIVE IT CANNOT EXIST IN ITSELF.

" " "Nothing Becomes." I say: NOTHING BECOMES WHEN MAYA MANIFESTS; NO THING BECOMES BECAUSE IT IS ONE "IS'NESS" BEYOND SPACE AND TIME.

" " "Nothing Is Not." I say: NOTHING IS NOT/NOUGHT BECAUSE IT HAS NO POSITIVE EXISTENCE; NO THING IS NOUGHT BECAUSE IT HAS AT LEAST RELATIVE EXISTENCE.

" " "God And Man Emerging As Twins From Nuit And Hadit." This means that the Infinite/Eternal Will achieve completion within and as the Temporal/Finite;

and/as the Temporal/Finite achieving completion within and as the Infinite/Eternal. All things will be Infinite And Eternal, yet maintaining their unique

natures evolved and involved within space and time... Apocatastasis in Russian Orthodoxy.

There, I have just saved you from reading hundreds of tomes... Smile

#atheism #god #metaphysics #hermetic philosophy #quantum physics #occult

[skinnyloves-blog]

MOSHIACH COMES TO TOWN (HQ)

the vilna gaon dons beggar’s clothes and goes out of town to do penance. on the way home there are some strange happenings. original music & images added to a retelling of the traditional jewish story. TO VIEW OR DOWNLOAD ALL OF MY VIDEOS, PLUS 1500 PAGES OF MY EXPLANATORY ESSAYS (ALL AT NO CHARGE) PLEASE VISIT MY WEBSITE: franklynwepner.com. ALSO PLEASE NOTE MY NEW EMAIL ADDRESS, IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO SHARE WITH ME ANY COMMENTS ABOUT MY WORK: [email protected]. IN THE LISTING OF VIDEOS THE LETTERS (HQ) REFER TO A HIGHER QUALITY VERSION OF THE VIDEO, WHICH IS AVAILABLE TO YOU IF YOUR COMPUTER CAN HANDLE IT. How can I justify the wild associative leaps that I make in this video? For example, by substituting Netanyahu for the Vilna Gaon, and Barak Obama for Moshiach? The answer is that I am following the formula of Nachman of Breslav, when he writes, “my Torah is completely behinot (hebrew: “associations”). A string of intuitive associations that generates a work salad, such as Nachman’s “Likutei Moharan” (hebrew: “collected essays”) is based on inductive rather than deductive logic. Inductive logic was taught by Francis Bacon and Georg Hamann within the Christian tradition, and no doubt Nachman found similar sources within the Jewish tradition he studied. What follows is my own essay about how inductive thinking is the key to understanding Nachman of Breslav. Since most of my videos also are constructed inductively, it is an important essay to read if you wish to make sense of what I am trying to do in the videos you have here on the net. ……………………………………. ….

FRANKLYN WEPNER [email protected] June 5, 2009 LM 4: BACON, HAMANN AND NACHMAN CONTENTS (1) INTRODUCTION (2) BACON TO HAMANN TO NACHMAN (3) BACON AND PERLS (4) LM 4 (5) HAMANN ON LANGUAGE: (a) imagery (“bilder”) (b) analogy (c) parataxis (d) paradox (e) multiple levels of language (f) affective terminology (6) CONCLUSION REFERENCE: “JOHANN GEORG HAMANN, BY JAMES O’FLAHERTY (1) INTRODUCTION FW: The Breslaver Hassidic movement as it is set up and operates today is an introverted sect, in contrast to the Chabad Hassidic movement which is set up and operates today as an extroverted sect. Breslavers tend to keep to themselves, while Chabadniks drive around town in Mitzvah Tanks seeking wayward Jews as potential recruits. But opposite as the two sects are in that respect, one thing they have in common is an aversion to “philosophy” in its traditional academic sense. Both sects condemn “philosophy” as “chochmot chizoniot” (external wisdom) or “avodah zorah” (strange work). even through ironically they both embody philosophy in the most profound manner possible. Breslav is largely Jewish neo-Platonism, while Chabad is largely Jewish rationalist Aristotelianism. However, since, of course, their educational curriculums contain no Philosophy 101 course. they pay the price of ignorance and intolerance as a result. The Chabad press, for example, once published Nissan Mindel’s excellent “The Philosophy of Chabad”, but today that book is almost impossible to find, and Chabad has no plans to republish it. The book is being supressed most likely because in that book Mindel contends that Chabad is ideologically within the tradition of Moses Maimonides’ “Guide For The Perplexed”, which, as everybody except Chabadniks themselves know, is ideologically within the tradition of Aristotle. Breslavers are even more anti-rational than Chabadniks, since their theory base is primarily neo-Platonic mysticism. Merely mention the word Plato at a Breslaver shul on the Sabbath, and you can be sure nobody will invite you to dinner! Or go to a Breslaver mikvah after demonstrating your philosophical insights concerning the writings of Nachman, and there is a good chance that after you emerge from the holy waters you will not find the clothes you hung up! FW: Another price that Hasidic sects pay for ignoring their intellectual roots is mistranslating the writings of their own originators. The originators, fortunately, were profound philosophers, but much of what they are philosophizing is wasted on their disciples, who are preachers of the sect rather than teachers of the Word. Preachers of a sect aim at building up the sect by glorifying their colleagues, in this case the “tzaddikim” (Hebrew: pius ones) or “talmid chachams” (Hebrew: wise students, students of wisdom) of the local congregation. Teachers, on the other hand, have a primary loyalty to the subject matter they teach, i.e., to the truth. By translating the phrase “talmid chacham” as “wise student” or “Torah scholar” rather than as “student of wisdom”, the deeper reference of the word “chochmah” (wisdom) to the right pillar of the tree of life, or inductive logic, goes into the trash can, and we end up with the notion that anybody who sect leaders designate as “wise student” or “Torah scholar” is thereby empowered to serve as a spiritual guide. But preachers are not necessarily teachers, and so most talmid chacham’s today are serving the needs of the sect rather than propagating the message of the sect founder. Thus, for example, Nachman’s emphasis on the individual’s search for God by “hitbod’dut” (being alone with God) is these days transformed into a typical cult emphasis on groupie gatherings, mob hysteria, guru adoration, nonsense “bubbeh maysehs” (Yiddish: grandmother stories), 18th century sect uniforms and scribbling the name of Nachman of Breslav on public buildings. Have you heard, for example, the bubbeh mayseh about how Nachman himself is sitting up there somewhere near God’s footstool sending letters or emails to the chosen few?! What ever happened to the basic belief of Judaism that God is One, not two or three or whatever? FW: But fools step in where angels fear to tread, as the saying goes, and so this essay is all about the roots of the Breslaver Hasidism in the neo-Platonic tradition as this was modified by Francis Bacon in the scientific renaissance of the 16th century. As if this topic is not heretical enough, I will in this work find much of the support for my contentions in the writings of a Christian theologian whose writings appeared in Europe not far from the doorstep of Nachman, fifty years or so before Nachman wrote his main work, his “Collected Essays” (Hebrew: Likutei Moharan). Now, I am not at all claiming here that Nachman plagiarised Johann Georg Hamann, since it is extremely unlikely that a person growing up in the communities that Nachman did had direct contact with the work of Hamann. But the mere historical fact that the two authors published books dealing with similar topics in a similar manner in the same historical period certainly suggests that they both were tapping parallel Christian and Jewish threads of the religious world that flourished in 18th and 19th century Eastern Europe. One can muse that perhaps Nachman during his occasional trips to Lemburg for medical treatment or to dialogue with members of the Haskalah movement thriving there did come upon a Yiddish translation of something by Hamann or by one of the followers of Hamann, but to date there is little basis for such fantasies. FW: My goals in this essay are modest. I will make use of an excellent commentary upon the work of Hamann by James O’Flaherty, his “Johann Georg Hamann”, Twayne Publishers, and merely demonstrate how the same six key ideas which, he maintains, underlie the work of Hamann can be used as a royal highway to quickly penetrate what appears to be in the writings of Nachman of Breslav an impenetrable hermeneutic jungle. As a prelude to my interweaving of Hamann and Nachman, I will tap a bit of the philosophical tradition which underlies both authors, in particular the work of Francis Bacon who lived in the 16th century. Why Francis Bacon? Because even though Hamann and Nachman are often cited as the epitome of anti-rationalism, yet at the heart of both authors is a sort of logic which is quite profoundly rational. We will contrast inductive logic, what Bacon calls concrete, analogical logic based upon juxtaposing ideas, with deductive logic, which is abstract, mathematical, systematic, and based upon arranging ideas in syllogisms. Once we grasp this distinction between the two types of logic, we will understand why in essays that embody reasoning of the inductive sort, Hamann and Nachman can tell us – without fibbing – to avoid like the plague “philosophy” or “reason” and rely upon faith. The two theologians simply are splitting hairs between induction (which they like) and deduction (which they do not like). They mystify us, however, by calling deduction “philosophy” and induction “kabbalah” or “Judaism or “the Word of God”. But obviously any philosophy or theology worth the name must incorporate both sorts of thinking. So let’s stop mixing up apples and pears and recognize both of them as fruit! The Word of God is smart enough to encompass both the left pillar of sefirot (deduction, differentiation, creation, the downward path), and the right pillar of sefirot (induction, integration, redemption, the upward path back to God). We are dealing, after all, with the dialectical tradition of mainstream Judaism, within which Chabad appeals to folks that stress the left pillar, while Breslav appeals to folks that stress the right pillar. For the Catholics analogous slots are occupied by the Dominicans (rationalists) and the Franciscans (pietists), respectively. O’Flaherty says it well: O 87. A superficial analysis of Hamann’s prose may result in the conclusion that its all too frequent obscurity is rooted in sheer irrationalism. This is, however, by no means the case. Its obscurity derives for the most part from an excessive use of intuitive reason rather than from true irrationalism – quite a different matter. Having seen to what extent Hamann is committed to intuitive or analogical reasoning, while at the same time rejecting the abstractions of the Enlightenment, we can more readily understand why he alternates between praise and vilification in his references to reason. Thus, when he makes such statements as “Faith has need of reason just as much as reason needs faith”, “Without language we would have no reason, without reason no religion,” As soon as one knows what reason is, all conflict with revelation ceases, since Hamann is obviously referring to what he considers the legitimate use of reason.” FW: Most of the essays that constitute Nachman’s Likutei Moharan anthology would serve as examples of Nachman’s use of intuitive reason, of induction, and I have here merely selected LM 4 arbitrarily from the list. Like the others, the overall structure of LM 4 consists of a Houdini magical demonstration of how just about anything can be seen as an aspect of anything else, without losing the encompassing subordination of particulars to emerging generalities. The longer the process of finding associations and aspects (Hebrew: “behinot”) goes on, the more the series of particular items coalesces into higher and higher levels of integration and encompassing general ideas. But let’s now zoom in and be specific. On the side of the particulars Nachman cites at the outset a Talmudic yarn calculated to boggle any deductively oriented mind and delight the imagination of most 5 year olds. Here is the Talmudic fable. LM 4:10 Rabbah bar bar Chanah recounted: One time we were traveling on a ship and we saw this fish in whose nostrils was sitting a mudeater. The fish died and the water tossed it about and cast it ashore. It destroyed sixty cities. Sixty cities then ate from it. Sixty cities salted its flesh. And from one eyeball they filled three hundred kegs with oil. When we returned after twelve months time, we saw them sawing planks from its bones with which to rebuild those cities. (Bava Batra 73b) FW: And on the other end of the chain of exegesis in LM 4 Nachman presents his final inductively derived generalization. LM 4:11. This (the above Talmudic story) is the explanation of the opening verse: “I am God your Lord Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery.” FW: The entire essay LM 4 is a string of associations and analogies that begins with the ship, the fish, the mudeater, the cities, the oil and the bones and gradually arrives at a level of intuitive wisdom sufficiently profound to qualify as an important contribution to our grasp of the meaning of God’s role in the Exodus saga. You will see, of course, that during this intuitive, inductive process of “behinot” there are very few abstract, deductive syllogisms of the sort “if A and B, therefore C”. The process is mostly intuitive leaps of the sort, “this is an aspect of that, and that is an aspect of something else”. My project, then, outrageous as it might appear to be at the outset, is to apply an account of the methodology of Christian theologian Johann Georg Hamann, in an effort to decode the compositional procedure which Nachman has followed in this LM 4 essay. First I will set out some simple logical rules that Francis Bacon gave us in the 16th century, and then I will present a grid of six linguistic techniques which, according to O’Flaherty, 18th century Romanticism overlaid on Bacon’s framework. In a word, 16th century Bacon plus 18th century Romanticism together give us a key to decode much of the vast, profound, Scriptural and kabbalistic tapestry which is the work of either Hamann or Nachman of Breslav. I am grateful to O’Flaherty for making these connections clear to me and encourage you also to profit from the work of an excellent teacher by reading his book. Just substitute Moses for Jesus as you read and your Jewish ego will be immune to indoctrination! (2) FROM BACON TO HAMANN TO NACHMAN Here then, to start off, is a brief chapter summarizing the contribution of Francis Bacon concerning these matters. My text is simply a presentation of the succinct summary given us by Vatican priest Frederick Copleston in his “History of Philosophy”, Volume III. But Hamann and Nachman of Breslav are figures of the late18th century, and so in their work a tradition of Romantic style exegesis and poetry overlays and masks the underlying rigorous logical foundation provided by Bacon. Bacon’s theory of induction is the philosophical seed of which Hamann and Nachman are glorious flowerings. For what appears in their work to be the exact opposite of scientific rigor is indeed, as I shall demonstrate here, a meticulously devised associative network of the most profound logical interconnections. Let us begin, therefore, with the basic logical principles of Francis Bacon, which are spelled out quite clearly by Copleston in his presentation of the influence of the new Renaissance sciences on philosophy. C 289. As a preliminary, one may remind oneself of the two elements of scientific method, namely the observational and inductive side and the deductive and mathematical side. The first aspect of scientific method, namely observation of the empirical data as a basis for induction and for discovering causes, was stressed by Francis Bacon. C 300. [According to Bacon] the purpose of science is the extension of the dominion of the human race over nature; but this can be achieved only by a real knowledge of nature; we cannot obtain effects without an accurate knowledge of causes . . . The syllogism (deduction) consists of propositions; and propositions consist of words; and words express concepts. Thus, if the concepts are confused and if they are the result of over hasty abstraction, nothing which is built upon them is secure. Our only hope lies in true induction. . . finding the truth may proceed from sense and the perception of particulars to immediately attainable axioms and thence gradually and patiently, to more general axioms. . . this is the true way. The mind proceeds from a careful and patient examination of particulars to the interpretation of nature. . . . Induction starts with the operation of the senses; but it requires the co-operation of mind, though the mind’s activity must be controlled by observation . . . Bacon rejects the syllogism on the ground that induction must take its rise in the observation of things, of particular facts or events, and must stick to them as closely as possible. The logicians wing their way at once to the most general principles and deduce conclusions syllogistically . . . In induction we proceed in the opposite direction to that in which we proceed in deduction. C 302. But to attain a certain knowledge of nature is not so easy or simple as it may sound at first hearing, for the human mind is influenced by preconceptions and prejudices which bear upon our interpretation of experience and distort our judgments. It is necessary, then, to draw attention to “the idols and false notions” which inevitably influence the human mind and render science difficult of attainment unless one is aware of them and warned against them. Hence Bacon’s famous doctrine of “the idols”. There are four main types, the idols of the tribe, the idols of the cave or den, the idols of the market place and the idols of the theater . . . (a) The “idols of the tribe” are those errors, the tendency to which is inherent in human nature and which hinder objective judgment. For example, man is prone to rest content with that aspect of things which strikes the senses . . .”for what a man would like to be true, to that he tends to give credence”. Further the human mind is prone to indulge in abstractions, and it tends to conceive as constant what is really changing or in flux. (b) The “idols of the den” are the errors peculiar to each individual, arising from his temperament, education, reading and the special influences which have weighed with him as an individual. These factors lead him to interpret phenomena according to the viewpoint of his own den or cave. (See Plato’s metaphor of the cave.) (c) The “idols of the market place” are errors due to the influence of language . . . Sometimes words are employed when there are no corresponding things. (d) The “idols of the theater” are the philosophical systems of the past, which are nothing better than stage plays representing unreal worlds of man’s own creation. C 305. The best demonstration is experience. But it is necessary to make a distinction. Mere experience is not enough . . . True experience is planned, . . . proceeding by an orderly and methodically inductive process. What, then, is true induction, positively considered? Human power is directed to or consists in being able to generate a new form in a given nature. (Read: a new gestalt in a new situation, here and now.) From this it follows that human science is directed to the discovery of the forms of things. Form does not refer to the final cause; the form or formal cause of a given nature is such that “given the form, the nature infallibly follows”. It is the law which constitutes a nature. . . . the primary task is to prepare a “sufficient and good natural and “experimental history” based on the facts (Read: what Hegel labels an “objective history” in contrast to our subjective illusions.) . . . These tables having been constructed, the work of induction really begins (Read: what Nachman is referring to when he says, “my Torah is entirely behinot”, i.e., a string of associations and interpretations.) . . . which is not completed until a positive affirmation is arrived at. (For example, the “existential message of the dream”, which emerges at the end of a three hour gestalt dreamwork session, which is what Maimonides labels the unripe fruit of prophecy now ripened into a Word of God.) (3) BACON AND PERLS FW: But before we jump into the great ocean, the turbid waters of inductive interpretations and Romantic theological poetry that is the work of Hamann and Nachman, let us stop at the banks of the ocean and examine a rather clearcut version of the same process, a contemporary example cut from the same cloth. I refer to the Gestalt Therapy lore of Frederick Perls, which while it makes no pretense of being the basis of a religious sect, probably has attracted more devotees worldwide than the opus of either Hamann or Nachman of Breslav. Perls gives the seeker after truth a rather simple task to explore. He tells me, his gestalt therapy client, to talk about what pops into my awareness and to stay in the here and now. Focusing this process on a dream raises the efficiency level, but just shooting the breeze also will yield useful results. Now, if I accept Fritz’s invitation and set out on this verbal monologue, a mysterious sequence of events is likely to unfold. As I listen to what comes out of my mouth and respond to those sounds, a sort of instantaneous feedback system is generated. In fact, it is genesis in the most profound biblical sense. For lo and behold, I begin to create a world. I am operating, as says Maimonides in his “Guide For The Perplexed”, “in the image of God”. For I am copying the manner in which God does His creating. We need to distinguish the path of Fritz Perls from the path of Sigmund Freud in these matters. For if the therapist has me lie down while I do my dreamwork monologue, and if he hides behind me and limits much of his function to being a tape recorder documenting my output, then the setting is Freudian. But if, on the other hand, the therapist takes an active role, helping me to take responsibility for my actions and deal actively with the impediments to truth which come up along the way, then we have the Gestalt approach. From the theological point of view, the crucial element that Perls and Freud share here is that language is the medium for a truth search, and that man speaking is paralleling God creating His world. FW: Entering even further into theological analogies to psychological processes, do we not have here also the unfolding of the love affair of Adam and Eve, as I, the subject, the kabbalistic First Adam, emanate language, the object, Eve from my own being and then precede to constantly impregnate it/her with my ideas as my dreamwork monologue goes on and on? Just label me, as Nachman does, the Talmid Chacham, wise student learning as I go along, and label my verbal output “my world”, and we have the makings of a kabbalistic mystical system, with chochmah (Hebrew: wisdom) impregnating binah (Hebrew: building a world) with ideas. In the neo-Platonic version of the kabbalistic tradition, all this is unfolds on the level of pure Platonic ideas, known as “sefirot”. The Hebrew word “sefirah” means “number”, as in the use of numbers by Pythagoras in Greek philosophy to relate theological truth. In terms of the Romanticism of the 18th century I am, furthermore, during the course of my Gestalt monologue generating “poetry”, in the sense of an emotionally grounded form of linguistic action. Returning to Francis Bacon, let me repeat the previous quote and we will explore what else we may learn from it. C: Human science is directed to the discovery of the forms of things. Form does not refer to the final cause; the form or formal cause of a given nature is such that “given the form, the nature infallibly follows”. It is the law which constitutes a nature. . . . The primary task is to prepare a “sufficient and good natural and “experimental history” based on the facts. . . These tables having been constructed, the work of induction really begins . . which is not completed until a positive affirmation is arrived at. FW: Let us interweave these words of Bacon with the Gestalt therapy monologue. The monologue of here and now verbal expression is part of the flow of here and now contact experiences. These experiences constitute what Bacon labels an objectively real “experimental history based on the facts”, and what Hegel labels an “objective history” of real experiences. Then, “these tables having been constructed the work of induction really begins, which is not completed until a positive affirmation is arrived at”. The positive affirmation that is the result of the work of induction is a new idea which is the result of “Platonic collection”, i.e., gestalt formation or a figure emerging from a ground here and now. In Gestalt dreamwork, this could be, for example, the “existential message of the dream” that might occur to the protagonist after three hours of exploring his objective history in the here and now dreamwork process. The protagonist is working his way up from specific concrete contact moments, weak gestalts (Perls), low level monads (Leibniz), some would say angels (Maimonides), towards more and more encompassing strong gestalts, monadologies, some would say archangels. Maimonides labels them “cherubim”, since the Hebrew root is “karov” (near), and cherubim are closer to the oneness that is God than are ordinary angels. The new idea emerging from the void of not knowing the answer is what Bacon labels “the form of things”, the “law which constitutes its nature”. He is referring to the distinction between matter and form, the form being the idea which is the gestalt or pattern which man imposes upon the items of his sensory and motor experience. Nachman says in LM 1:1, “The Jew must always focus on the inner intelligence/idea of every thing, and bind himself to the wisdom and inner idea that is to be found in each thing. This so that the idea which is in each thing may enlighten him, that he may draw closer to God through that thing.” We already have here the logical seed upon which Nachman built his LM 4, but as a transition into the text of Nachman let us see what his contemporary Hamann has to say concerning similar matters. Hamann is a convenient bridge here, linking Francis Bacon with Nachman of Breslav. O: While it is correct to say that Hamann stands in the empirical tradition of Francis Bacon, John Locke, and Hume, the important qualification must be added that for him experience is always crystalized in language. There exists, of course, an inner correlate of the objective facts of language, the invisible essence of our soul which is conjoined with the outer correlate by an “incomprehensible bond”, which he describes, invoking religious terminology, as a “sacrament”. But whatever the nature of the inner correlate, it is the evidence of the objective facts of language to which Hamann appeals, and from which he draws inferences as to the nature of mind and of reality. “I concern myself with the letter and with what is visible and material” . . . In his view God is above all a speaking God, indeed an Author: “God reveals Himself; the Creator of the World is a Writer”. It is always God’s Word which evokes our rational powers in the first place. Hamann employs a sexual metaphor in this connection, stating that our reason must be “impregnated” by the “seed of the divine Word”. FW: It is this mysterious freely associating monologue in the here and now, this mix of thinking and speaking unimpeded by the distractions of everyday cause and effect logic, which is the open sesame which for inductive “science” (from the Latin, “scire”, to know) unleashes something analogous to The Word. C: Such unity as man possesses is mysterious in its origins, and derives from a source which lies outside of himself. Only through the individual positive response to the Logos can man’s collective powers of faith, passion, and reason be brought into harmony. Otherwise they fall all too easily into strife with one another. For Hamann God is the One in whom all opposites coincide, and it is this principle of the coincidentia oppositorum which, embodied in the Logos and manifested above all in the “form of a servant” in which Christ appeared, which succeeds in reconciling the opposites within the human psyche. . . . “Here on this earth there is no possibility of a metamorphosis or transfiguration into the divine nature, but only the old message of rebirth”. FW: Jews do not need the allusion to Jesus as “the form of a servant”. In LM 4, which we are considering here, Nachman attributes to Moses the same function. LM 4:9. This is: “No man knows [the burial place of Moses] – even Moses did not know. For he was negated in Ein Sof (Hebrew: God as Endless). All this was at his death. However, also during his lifetime Moses certainly stripped away all corporeality and attached himself to the Light of Ein Sof. But then, this stripping was in an aspect of “the living creatures ran [from being an ego] and returned [to being an ego](Ezekiel 1:14). This is because the Holy One desires our service, as is written (Yom Kippur Liturgy), “You desire praise from mounds of dust, from lumps of clay.” FW: Hamann, writing only a few years before Nachman, created his own theology by portraying language as a powerful creative or destructive force in the world. We need not now grope further back into the history of religion to find other predecessors of Hamann and Nachman. It is sufficient to recognize that the two authors here under scrutiny are drinking from the same fountain, with some minor variations. One of these is the question whether we are to label the holistic embodiment of language the Jesus function or the Moses function. We will ignore that battle, but now we are ready to appreciate Nachman’s contribution in LM 4 to this linguistically inspired tradition of the theology of The Word. As we read, we will keep in mind (a) that YHVH and the Talmid Chakham (wise student, Torah Scholar) are standing in for the subject, the Divine Author learning as he creates His world, and (b) that Elohim is standing in for the object, the world being created, and (c) that the Kingdom of God, Malkhut d’Kedushah, is standing in for the language of the dreamwork monologue on the material level. The problem, for Nachman in particular and for Romanticism in general, is that language in its pure, primordial form of “poetry” has been co-opted by the system of deductive logic and lost its original roots in inductive logic. For Nachman, as for Hamann, it is only the complete system encompassing deduction and induction in a higher synthesis which will give us a “foretaste of the World to Come”, the messianic idea, and get us out of Egyptland. This is a longing, paradoxically, on the one hand for the messianic future and on the other hand for the pre-Industrial middle ages of shtetl life. Nachman is talking primarily about a Gestalt or hitbod’dut (being alone with myself and talking to God) monologue here, even though he provides a second level of meaning for those not privy to philosophy and linguistics, and for those who need an excuse to follow Torah Scholars and other gurus blindly. For as a matter of fact, (a) hitbod’dut and (b) confessing in front of a Torah Scholar, and (c) doing a Gestalt Therapy monologue, all mean the same thing, given the manner in which the concepts are used in Breslav theology. FW: Confessing in front of a Wise Student means doing my Gestalt Therapy monologue in the manner of a feedback loop and carefully (as the “subject”) paying attention myself to what comes out of my mouth (the “object”). Just substitute “God is listening” for “I am listening” or “the wise student is listening” and this will be clear. Basically, it is The Author, the Creator, the Gestalt client, who is listening to Him creating, and this feedback loop by itself re-animates the dead forms, the selfinterrupting non-creative speech habits and manipulations, which man in his Fallen state tends to spew forth. In the down-to-earth jargon of Fritz Perls, instead of verbalizing my usual elephantshit in defense of my ego games, I need to emanate poetry, sacred truth from my true source. What clearly distinguishes Breslav pietism from Chabad rationalism is the emphasis on being alone before God, me being immersed in my monologue and relying on faith, rather than me being part of a vast pyramid of scholars and relying on guidance from a Jewish pope on the top of the pyramid. The Catholic parallel here is the Dominican sect versus the Franciscan sect, or more generally the Catholics versus the Protestants. (4) LM 4 FW: Here, then, is the beginning of Nachman’s LM 4, as it is published by the official Breslaver translators. Let’s immerse ourselves in Nachman’s poetically inspired prose for a few moments, to get a sense of the overwhelming assault to which our rational, deductive faculties is subjected in such an experience. PROLOGUE. I am God your Lord, Who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery. (Exodus 20:2) LM 4:1. When a person knows that everything that happens to him is for his benefit, this perception is a foretaste of the World to Come. As said, “When He is YHVH, I will praise His word; when He is Elohim, I will praise His word” (Psalms 56:11). And this perception is a foretaste of the World to Come, as our Sages taught: “On that day God shall be one and His name one” (Zechariah 14:9). They asked: Is He now not one? And our Sages answered: At present the blessing “Who is good and beneficent” is recited over good, whereas “the truthful Judge” is recited over bad. But in the Future it will be entirely “Who is good and beneficent”(Pesachim 50a). The holy name YHVH and the holy name Elohim will be totally one. LM 4:2. Now it is impossible for a person to grasp this perception except when he uplifts Malkhut d’Kedushah (Kingdom of Holiness) from its exile among the nations. For presently, malkhut and rule the nations. This is the reason . They nurse from the aspect of Malkhut, which is called Elohim, as is written (Psalms 74:122) “Elohim is my King from long ago”. But when a person raises Malkhut from among the nations, it is the fulfillment of the verse (Psalms 47:8) “For Elohim is King of all the earth.” LM 4:3 Yet it is impossible to return the kingdom to the Holy One, except by means of spoken confession in the presence of a Talmid Chakham (Torah scholar). Through this one rectifies the aspect of Malkhut and raises it to its source. [Take d’varim (words) with you and return to YHVH (God) (Hosea 14:3)] This is the meaning of “Take D’VaRim with you . . .” – i.e., spoken confession. This is the aspect of Malkhut, as in, “one DaBoR (spokesman) to a generation” (Sanhedrin 8a) – dabor connotes and ruler. ” . . . and return to YHVH – so that they rectify and elevate the aspect of d’varim/Malkhut/Elohim to [the level of] YHVH. As mentioned above, “When He is YHVH I will praise His word; when He is Elohim, I will praise His word.” This is, to know that everything that happens to him is all for his good, and to recite the blessing “Who is good and beneficent” over everything. LM 4:4 Knowing all this is called complete awareness. For the essence of awareness is the union of . This is called daat. In other words, he does not differentiate between lovingkindness and judgment, but blesses “Who is good and beneficent” over everything. This is called “YHVH is one and His Name is one”. As our Sages taught: In the Future there will be total oneness and it will be entirely “Who is good and Beneficent”. This is: YHVH is echod (one) [and His Name is echod].” “His Name corresponds to Elohim/Malkhut, as is written (2 Samuel 8:13) “David made a name for himself” – . Echod has the same numerical value as ahavah (love). Therefore, whether it be YHVH – which is compassion – or whether it be “His Name” – which corresponds to Elohim judgment – all is for your benefit and a result of the love which the Holy One has for you. As it is written, “For those whom God loves He rebukes (Proverbs 3:12); and “Of all the families of th earth I knew only you [Israel}]. That is why I will punish you for all your iniquities (Amos 3:2). (5) HAMANN ON LANGUAGE FW: Rather than a crystal clear Torah message graspable by deductive logic, the above word salad strikes us as a murky bowl of borsht or shabbat cholent. Therefore, we will turn now to Bacon and to Hamann to help us get our bearings in decoding Nachman’s Torah offering. The allusion to goyishkeit suggested by the names “Bacon” and “Ham” need not, I hope, deter us! I stated above that aside from the philosophy of language, much of Hamann (and Nachman) is an update on the philosophy of Francis Bacon, in the context of an 18th century aesthetics of Romanticism. In support of that contention, here are six specific techniques of Romantic style poetic expression which, according to O’Flaherty, lend themselves to the purposes of intuitive (inductive) rather than abstract (deductive) reason. but to start off here is Hamann’s version of Francis Bacon. O 83. In order to comprehend Hamann’s understanding of reason it is necessary to distinguish between two modes of cognition, namely, the intuitive and the abstract . . . Abstract reason affects language in precisely the opposite ways from intuitive reason . . . “Human living seems to consist of a series of symbolic actions by means of which our soul is capable of revealing its invisible nature, and produces and communicates beyond itself an intuitive knowledge of its effective existence” FW: And now comes Hamann’s list of the six Romantic techniques for poetic expression, which in the sequel we will illustrate using the text of Nachman’s LM 4. In my essay our focus is to illustrate these six techniques. Therefore, we will not give as much attention as perhaps we should to other important aspects of Nachman’s text. Most of what Nachman has to say he says again and again, we surely will run into these other themes in the sequel. Here, then, is a preliminary listing of Hamann’s six techniques of language expression. O 83. Since in Hamann’s view there is no thought apart from language, it seems quite appropriate that we should look to language for the earmarks of reason. It will be seen that there are six salient features which characterize the language of intuitive reason, i.e., reason functioning within its appropriate limits. To be specific, we may say that intuitive reason manifests itself in language by the following: (a) the abundance of concrete images (Bilder); (b) the employment of analogical reasoning; (c) the frequent recourse to paradoxes; (d) the presence of multiple levels of meaning; (e) paratactic sentence structure; and (f) the presence of affective terminology. O83 FW: We will examine how Hamann explains these six poetic tools, and at the same time we will illustrate how Nachman of Breslav brings over each technique into the realm of Hasidic Torah commentary. (a) CONCRETE IMAGERY OF EXPERIENCE VS. ABSTRACT RELATIONSHIPS OF WORDS O 84. Hamann maintains that natural language is, to adopt Henri Bergson’s phrase, “molded on reality”. Ordinary language or “the language of nature” is for him the historically developed vernacular of a people, which has been “unimproved” by grammarians or the creators of technical jargon. It is this kind of language which can be raised to the level of poetic expression . . . Wrote Hamann, “The sphere of poetry does not lie outside of the world as a fantastic possibility conceived by the brain of a poet; it strives to be precisely the opposite, the unadorned expression of truth, and must for just that reason reject the deceptive finery of the alleged reality of the man of culture” . . . Hamann’s conviction is grounded in the essential nature of both God and man. Hence, God, “the Poet at the beginning of days”, always speaks to man in poetic language. “The Scriptures cannot speak with us as human beings otherwise than in parables because all our knowledge is sensory, figurative; and because understanding and reason transform the images of external things everywhere into allegories and signs of more abstract, more intellectual, more lofty concepts.” FW: Analogous to Hamann’s theory of poetic expression is that of today’s Gestalt therapists, as laid out by Perls, Hefferline and Goodman in their text, “Gestalt Therapy”. For Gestaltists poetic speech refers to contactful speech, supported by man in action, rather than man stuck at an impasse and brooding abstractly about his life. The choice is between a concrete reality and mere aboutism. If I see a fly buzzing over there and I say, “I am aware of that fly buzzing over there”, that is “language molded to reality”, even more so if I identify with that fly and say “I am a fly buzzing over here, hoping that my buzzing will get you interested in my ideas.” By identifying with the fly, finding the inner idea of that fly as Nachman puts it in LM 1:1, I am concretely at this moment in touch with my existence. But if I am an entomologist and I say “flies are arthropods”, that particular fly out there has disappeared from my life into abstract jargon. Verbalizing has replaced poetry. The fly buzzing out there had the potential to be part of my existence, say, my tragic death as one day it may buzz around my rotting corpse, while the “arthropod” of an entomologist is cut off from my existential experience by being locked into a grid of dead, abstract terminology concerning, for example, information about how many legs it has. Likewise God, the “poet at the beginning of days” is engaged in a living action of creating His world, while a geologist who lists the layers of rocks making up a particular mountain range is cut off from the real experience of creating that mountain range. How does Nachman of Breslav deal with this requirement that expression be poetic? That is to say, how do Nachman’s Torah commentaries serve as a symbolic overlay for human action? First of all, he is assuming he, Nachman, the writer, and we, his readers, and also the protagonist he is describing all are spiritual pilgrims, seeking to return to God. All three personnas therefore share a common grounding in concrete here and now experience. Let us see how all this works in the continuation of Nachman’s LM 4 text. LM 4:5 And a person’s iniquities are on his bones, as is written (Ezekiel 32:27), “And their iniquities will be etched upon their bones”. Each sin has its own combination of letters. When a person commits a particular sin, a negative letter combination is etched upon his bones. This brings the spoken aspect of the prohibition which he has transgressed into the realm of impurity. In other words, he brings the aspect of Malkhut among the nations, giving them the power to rule. For example: If he transgressed the utterance of the prohibition “You shall have no [other gods besides Me]” (Exodus 20:3), then he destroys the utterance’s positive letter combination and forms a negative letter combination. This letter combination is etched upon his bones “It is your iniquities that have turned away these things (Jeremiah 5:25). And it is written, “Evil is the deathblow of the wicked” (Psalms 34:22). By means of spoken confession, however, the letters disappear from the bones into which they have been etched and are transformed into the words of confession. For speech emanates from one’s bone, as is written (Psalms 35:10), “All my bones will say”. He tears down the negative structure and combinations, and from [the letters] builds Makhut d’Kedushah. This is what the Sages said: During the time the Israelites traveled in the desert, Yehudah’s bones rolled about [in his coffin] until Moshe said (Deuteronomy 33:7) “Hear, O God, the voice of Yehudah” (Sotah 7b). Moshe requested that the Holy One remember for Yehudah’s sake the confession he had made. And this is just what happened. Thus it was specifically “his bones rolled about”, as is written, “and their iniquities will be etched upon their bones.” But by means of the confession they were rectified and each one went into its place. And Yehudah corresponds to Malkhut – an allusion that the aspect of Malkhut is rectified through spoken confession. This was accomplished with the aid of Moshe, who recalled the confession. For it is necessary that the confession take place in the presence of a Talmid Chakham. And every Torah scholar is an aspect of Moshe “Moshe, you said it well” (Shabbat 101b). By Moshe’s mentioning the confession, it was considered as if [Yehudah] had now confessed . This caused the aspect of Malkhut to be rectified and the negative letter combination, which had been etched upon [Yehudah’s ] bones to be torn down. FW: There is a real life struggle going on here in Nachman’s text, involving bones, Yehuda and Moshe, as though the story has been told around a campfire or dreamed by a Gestalt client. Nachman is not merely “talking literature”, but is presenting an epic human action being carried out by a protagonist, and by implication also by a reader who is struggling with the iniquities etched in his own bones. Moses first identifies with the needs of the bones of Yehudah. Then the confession, hitbod’dut, mini-Gestalt session that Moses expresses in language brings those needs of Yehudah into the midst of a committed authentic action by Moses. Moses as strong gestalt and encompassing messianic monad here fulfills the logical function of induction, Platonic collection, in relation to the bones and essences of the existence of Yehudah. The parallel to Gestalt dreamwork is very clear here. According to Perls, we must identify with each of the different images and aspects of the dream we are exploring, in order to grasp the overall existential message of the dream. We move from ordinary everyday objects, like trees and clouds and bones, more and more in the direction of encompassing ideas, encompassing essences of our existence, as we move inductively upwards towards the final encompassing existential idea and message of our work on this particular dream. And yet in this dreamwork process everything must remain concrete, articulated, eventually, in terms of the unfinished business of important childhood relationships. The inductive ascent is not at the same time a flight to abstractions. That is to say, the three personnas involved in the ongoing storytelling process are active readers. They (we) maintain their (our) identification with the story which is unfolding. Here is an analogous message from the work of Hamann, with the messianic role shifted from Moses to Jesus. O 86. The abstract language of the philosophers fails, according to Hamann, to take into account the fact that God’s infinite love for man is revealed precisely in His willingness to condescend to man’s estate. God has humbled himself to the extent of speaking in the everyday idiom of the people by means of “little contemptible events” and “humanly foolish, indeed sinful actions . . . For Hamann does not subscribe to any form of the double-truth theory; spiritual truth does not require two forms, one for the philosopher, another for the masses. “To say that Moses wrote only for the common people is either meaningless or a ridiculous view of the matter” . . . Philosophically speaking, the “images” (German: Bilder) of natural language represent for Hamann “objects”, which may be defined as uncritically perceived entities of ordinary experience, principally visual in nature. Abstract or discursive reason has the power, however, to eliminate such objects and to replace them with terms which actually stand for relations . . . “Existence [ i.e., concrete existence in a world of real objects] is realism, and must be believed; relations are idealism and rest upon connective and discriminatory procedures” . . . Metaphysics misuses “all the word-songs and figures of speech of our empirical knowledge” by transforming them into “nothing but hieroglyphs and types of ideal relations” . . . Another fundamental aspect of imagery is, of course, its strong appeal to the emotions, a quality which is lacking in the case of abstract terminology. FW: In Hamann’s reference here to concrete objects of experience disappearing into abstract verbal relationships no longer in touch with their initial concrete reality, we recognize the terminology of 14th century Nominalism as articulated in those days by William of Ockham. See my essay on “Nominalism: the Here and Now, There and Then”, for more about this. (b) ANALOGY VS. LOGICAL SYLLOGISMS O 87. The second characteristic of Hamann’s use of reason is his preference for analogical, as opposed to purely logical, thinking. Whereas the rationalist establishes a principle, whether deductively or inductively, and thereupon proceeds to draw inferences from it, the intuitive thinker establishes a model on nonrational grounds, as, for example, instinct or faith, and thereupon proceeds to draw parallels to the model. This latter procedure accords, in Hamann’s view, with the proper use of reason, despite the fact that reasoning from analogy does not yield the certainty one might desire. Thus, he writes that “reason cannot grasp anything but analogies in order to obtain a very ambiguous light” . . . Following the lead of Francis Bacon, Hamann maintains that man, in his original state, thought analogically rather than logically. This idea is clearly stated in the famous passage at the beginning of the Aesthetica In Nuce: “Poetry is the mother tongue of the human race” . . . Hamann places analogical thinking, as opposed to the later development of discursive thinking, within the framework of his general anthropology with its emphasis on man’s retrograde development away from his primordial state. It is more natural for man to think in metaphors or parables, which involve analogical thinking, than to arrive at deductions based on rational principles . . . “All mortal creatures are able to see the truth and essence of things only in parables”. For Hamann to metaschematize means to substitute one set of objective relationships for another, analogous set of subjective, personal, or existential relationships, in order to throw some light on their meaning. FW: Hamann here is saying what Nachman says when he says “My Torah is all behinot (Hebrew: aspects, interpretations, associations, analogies)”. The notion of “man’s retrograde development away from his primordial state” stems from the Platonic theory of anamnesis, “not forgetting” that primordial state by groping in the void for primordial ideas. Anamnesis entails immersing oneself in a chaotic sea of fragments and using Platonic collection or kabbalistic tsimtsum in the cognitive void of “not knowing” to discover/remember the primordial ideas by means of a series of associations, behinot. The obvious illustration in Nachman’s LM 4 text is the endless string of associations, behinot, which lead Nachman from concrete particulars towards his final grand conclusions. “A” is an aspect of “B”, and “B” is an aspect of “C”, etc., etc. In the section which follows, for example, the string of behinot leads on and on, apparently endlessly, from (a) the lust of Nevatt to (b) fire to (c) purging via fire to (d) the fire of sin to (e) sins themselves to (f) crossing over to bundles of fragments being collected into a new idea (Platonic collection), and then on to (f) the wrath of God as fire negating all the negations of the One Without A Second, which itself leads on by means of tsimtsum to (g) nothingness, which is analogous to (h) humility as an aspect of (i) wisdom, leading to (j) the elevation of language, which itself is analogous to (k) the kingdom of God and refers by contrast to (l) the secular government, which needs to be brought back to its source by means of (m) the intervention of Moses, who is aspect of (n) Mashiach himself! All this in two pages. Note how Nachman gives Moses the Mashiach function of pulling all the fragments together, in exactly the same manner that Hamann gives that messianic function of Platonic collection to Jesus. For both Hamann and Nachman what is lost in logical precision is more than compensated for by the vast range of insightful sparks generated in the process of induction – provided, of course, that the spiritual pilgrim and the audience are receptive to this sort of pietist, Romantic, poetry. What makes this word salad “poetry” in the profound Gestalt and Aristotelian sense of committed personal action is Nachman’s own biography, i.e., his self-proclaimed role of Tsaddik of the generation and messianic savior of the world. Whether we take him seriously or not, we at least know that Nachman is not just writing a book. He also is living the role he has carved out for himself in his own pained existence. FW: As Hegel in his “Aesthetics” points out, one major characteristic of Romantic art that distinguishes it from Classical art is that Romanticism allows emotional content to flood and overwhelm the forms in which it is packaged, leaving an audience gasping for breath. Hegel was less than appreciative of this form of expression, and he regarded the Absolute or God to which it all finally associates as “the night in which all cows are black”. That is to say, most people, like the rationalist Hegel, prefer to let words mean what they do mean rather than have them all end up being symbols for the same thing: the Void of all-knowing and all not-knowing. Here, then, is Nachman’s version of Platonic collection or tsimtsum in the void, from (a) to (n), from the lust of Nevatt to Mashiach himself! See if you can find your way through the maze, and at the same time see how many insightful associations are stimulated in your mind as you follow the creative mind of Nachman along his chosen trajectory. LM 4:6 This is the aspect of returning Malkhut to its source. For the source of Malkhut is fire, as our “Sages taught: ‘why did Nevatt err? because he saw fire escape from his member (Sanhedrin 101b). And the Torah is called fire, because it is from there that Malkhut originates. As it is written (Jeremiah 23:29) “Behold, My Word is like fire,” and (Proverbs 8:15), “Through me kings rule.” And the essence of Torah is the Torah scholar, as our Sages taught (Makkot 222b): How foolish are those who stand up before a Torah scroll and yet do not stand before a rabbinical scholar! This is: “Every davar (thing) that was used in fire must go through fire ” (Numbers 31:23). “Davar corresponds to Malkhut, which has been into the realm of impurity the heat of the evil inclination, as in “the fire of Amram” (Kiddusin 81a). “. . . must go through the fire” – its rectification is by means of fire, i.e., spoken confession before a Talmid Chakham. And this is the connotation of aveyrah (transgression): the AVeyRah letter combination OVeR (crosses) within his bones, from AyVeR to AyVeR (side to side). The word mitzvah, however, connotes joining together. When a person performs bundles of commandments, he binds together the shattered fragments of his bones, as is written (Psalms 34:21), “[God] safeguards all his bones, [not one of them is broken].” FW: Note: not one bone is broken; not one fragment of the symbolic collage is lost or damaged in the process of Platonic collection. All the antitheses, one after the other, are encompassed in the higher inductive synthesis. But there’s more to come . . . LM 4:7. [“The King’s wrath is a messenger of death, but a wise man can pacify it.” (Proverbs 16:14)] And this is the explanation of the verse: “The King’s wrath is a messenger of death.” For the wrath of the Holy One is on account of Makhut , ” . . . but a wise man can pacify it” – i.e., the aspect of Talmid Chakham/Moshe who will atone for [the sinner]. As it is written (Micah 7:18), “[The Lord] forgives the transgression for the remnant ” – for the sake of the one who considers himself as remnants (Rosh HaShanah 17a). We find, then, that when he comes before a Torah scholar and expresses all his letter combinations in a Talmid Chakham’s presence . . . The Torah scholar is an aspect of Moshe who considered himself as remnants, as is written (Numbers 12:3), “The man Moshe, however, was very humble.” This is the reason he is called a wise man, as is written (Job 28:12), “Wisdom comes from Ayin (Nothingness).” Through this the wise man has the power to appease, as is written, “but a wise man can pacify it.” This is why when Moshe prayed that the sin of the Golden Calf [be pardoned], he said (Exodus 32:32), “If You would, forgive their sin. But if not, please blot me out [ from the book that You have written]!” It is impossible for a person not to feel some pride when he hears himself being praised. All the more so, when a great king praises and lauds the person; then it is certainly impossible that he would not be moved to some feelings of self-importance. However, this necessitates the negation of all one’s emotions and corporeality. Then, a person can hear himself being praised and not come to any pride. This was the case with Moshe Rabbeinu, who saw it written in the Torah: “God spoke to Moshe,” [and] “God said to Moshe.” Each day the Jewish people read in the Torah [God’s] praise of Moshe. What’s more, he himself related his praise to them. Yet Moshe had no feelings of haughtiness or pride from this, as is written, “The man Moshe, however, was very humble.” And certainly, by means of his humility Moshe had the power to atone for the sin of the Golden Calf, as is written, “. . . but a wise man can pacify it.” FW: The mashiach function that Moses or Jesus fulfils here is that of identifying with all the fragments, one after another, and then, by means of consumate humility, negating all of those fragments by negating himself. He then is the true servant, serving God as the negation of all negations. Each fragment is an extreme antithesis of the others, and the messiah manages to negate all of these negations of the One Without A Second. Also here, once again, not one bone is broken; not one fragment is lost or damaged in the process of Platonic collection. All the antitheses are encompassed in the higher synthesis by means of the Platonic messiah/poet/artist that Nachman or Hamann is embodying in his writing. What Plato labels a “poetic frenzy” of artistic interpretation, based on passionate personal involvement in a process of committed action, Nachman relates to the state of humility he sees Moses attaining in the biblical text. Nachman concludes his series of behinot by stressing the humility of Moses as the quality which qualifies him for the messiah function. LM 4:7 This was Moshe’s argument: “But if not” – i.e., if You do not forgive their sin, You are demonstrating that I do not posses the humility needed to atone for the sin of the Golden Calf. This is why I requested, “please blot me out,” so as not to be tripped up by pride. For I constantly see and hear the recounting of my name and praise in the Torah. Who can stand up to this – hearing his praise recounted and not become haughty – if not a very humble person? And if I am humble, You must pardon their sin, as is written, “[The Lord] forgives the transgression for the remnant . . .” This is (Deuteronomy 33:5) “There was a MeLeKh (king) in Yeshurun” – indicating that MaLKhut had risen to its source, as it is written (Psalms 37:11), “But the humble will inherit the earth.” “Earth” is dina d’malkhuta (the law of the government) as is written (Job 20:27), “Earth rises up against him.” FW: Moses with his messianic degree of humility has here re-elevated language (Malkhut d’kedushah, the kingdom of God) back to its primordial holistic power. This is anamnesis, “not forgetting” that the primordial idea of language as The Word has emerged from the void of nonbeing. Looking back at the entire journey of inductive logic through which Nachman just has led us, and with just a bit more analogical thinking, the parallel to Gestalt dreamwork ought to be clear. (a) First, Nachman expects you to find the inner idea of each thing by identifying with each image of the series. In Gestalt dreamwork you do that by play acting each dream image and attempt to say it with your whole body. In Nachman’s poetic style Torah exegesis you, as Orthodox Jew, are expected to identify totally with each nuance since it all is God’s word, right out of the Torah with chapter and verse included. How can it possibly not be the truth? (b) The second part of the process, in Gestalt dreamwork, is to commit your whole being to the project as a whole and negate your ego totally by the “rhythm of contact and withdrawal”, which is the Gestalt version of tsimtsum. This death of ego is the negation of negations that translates you inductively up beyond your own existence, as you serve as a vessel for the existential message of that particular dream. The dream itself was only 1/60th of prophecy, while the dreamwork provides the other 59/60. The dreamwork is the Platonic collection or kabbalistic tsimtsum which accesses the messianic idea which was implicit from the primordial beginning of the dream itself when in the middle of the night you dreamed it. Again we have Platonic anamnesis of primordial ideas by means of tsimtsum, as the Gestalt therapy protagonist contracts his ego down to zero in order to embody the intuitive dialectical logic of induction, in order to serve as the messiah capable of redeeming his own fallen state. FW: And what is the equivalent to this “rhythm of contact and withdrawal” in a Torah lesson being given by Nachman or one of his disciples? The answer is, likewise, to commit yourself totally to the quest for truth. In your daily life you are to embodying as many Torah commandments as you can find the time and resources to accomplish, and also you are to commit your will completely to following the guidance of your Torah teachers, whether they make much sense to your rational mind or not! Along with that you are to assimilate each and every word of the mind boggling Torah lessons. You are not, God forbid, to try to understand it all using deductive logic, since most of it is inductively written and admittedly too lofty for your rational understanding. Rather, accept it all on faith as absolute truth. If you find yourself bewildered, get advice from your Torah teachers (who, unfortunately, also are forbidden to understand it), and then go talk to God out in the woods if there are any loose ends. FW: Nachman taught that the messianic soul of Moses is re-embodied to some extent in the tsaddik ha-dor, the righteous man of each generation. But, Nachman maintains, only in certain key historical figures, especially Rabbi Simeon ben Yohai and Nachman himself, is the embodiment totalized. Fritz Perls begs to differ, and encourages each of his clients to do fulfill the mashiach function himself. Fritz was Jewish, but not religious. Neither did he know Yiddish. But if someone had asked him why he gave his clients that option, and if indeed he had spoken Yiddish, perhaps he would have given the famous Yiddish retort, “Far vus nit?” (English: “Why not?”) Now, my own suggestion is to meld the two approaches, that of Nachman and that of Fritz, which brings the caricature of Nachman’s teachings which I just have presented back to the source that Nachman intended in the beginning. That is to say, begin with hitbod’dut, with the verbalized monologue. Do it rigorously, according to the system of Fritz, so you do get the results you need. Then, from that foundation go about dealing with the commandments and the Torah exegesis. This puts Tevye’s “Fiddler On The Roof” horse back in front of Tevye’s cart, with the proper Kantian stress on conscience as a liberation from the closed system of everyday habits, groupiness and chit-chat. This also puts Nachman very close to the position of Fichte, and historically exactly where he belongs as an heir to Kant’s theory of the moral autonomy of the practical reason. See my essays on Fichte and Nachman for more of this. Doing hitbod’dut intelligently clarifies most of Nachman’s enigmatic texts and helps balance the conflicting demands of 613 different commandments. Having discovered your own built in Moses function, you will not be flying blind and you will less vulnerable to demagoguery. This inner gyroscope was lacking when Hitler’s Nazis adapted the teachings of Fichte as the basis of national socialism. They made a travesty of the teachings of Fichte. Hopefully you will not make a similar travesty of the teachings of Nachman of Breslav. (c) PARATAXIS FW: O’Flaherty makes a distinction between parataxic and hypotaxic sentence structure, a distinction which is as relevant to the work of Nachman as it is to the work of Hamann. O: The roots of the terms are “para” (by the side) + “tassein” (to place). “Parataxis” is the placing of clauses or phrases one after the other, without coordinating or subordinating connectives. On the other hand, from “hypo” (under) we get “hypotaxis”, which is arranging clauses with a conjunction that subordinates one to the other. Paratactic sentences are characterized by brevity and the absence of long involved dependent clauses; the word order tends to be natural or to follow elementary logic in that the subject and predicate are expressed at or near the beginning of the sentence, with the other elements following generally in the order of their importance. Aphorisms, epigrams, etc., because of their laconic nature, are necessarily paratactic in structure. Hypotactic sentences, on the other hand, are characterized by greater length, involving, as they do, longer dependent clauses . . . Because of its frequent use of dependent clauses, hypotaxis involves the subordination of certain elements within a sentence, whereas parataxis involves their coordination. Both styles do occur in Hamann’s writings . . . In his most characteristic and influential writings the aphoristic mode dominates . . . It is precisely in these works that we find him employing intuitive, as opposed to abstract, reason. FW: The following sections from Nachman’s LM 4 illustrate nicely this contrast between parataxic and hypotaxic use of language. Nachman begins with an introductory fable in the style of parataxic language. PARATAXIS: TYPE 1 A SIMPLE FABLE LM 4:8. This is the meaning of what the Sages said: It is comparable to someone who was walking along a path in the utter darkness of night. He was afraid of the thorns and the ditches, of wild beasts and bandits, not knowing which path he was on. When he happened upon a lit torch he was saved from the thorns and the ditches but he was still afraid of wild beasts and bandits, not knowing which path he was on. When dawn broke, he was saved from wild beasts and bandits, yet still did not know which path he was on. What is this crossroads? Rabbi Chisda said: It is a Talmid Chakhkam and the day of death (Sotah 21a). PARATAXIS:TYPE 2 SIMPLE SENTENCES LIST FOUR ALCHEMICAL ELEMENTS FW: Next we learn of the four alchemical elements, mineral, vegetable, animal and human, which are variants of the usual water, earth, air, fire sequence. Here the presentation also is in the parataxic style, though a bit more complex. LM 4:8 It is known that all evil character traits and their derivatives stem from the four yesodot (fundamental elements), the four humors. As is brought in Mishnat Chassidim: Melancholy and its derivatives stem from the mineral life form; evil passions and their derivatives stem from the vegetable life form; idle chatter and its derivatives stem from the animal life form; pride and its derivatives stem from the human life form. Anyone who would take the path of must break all of the vices in the presence of a Talmid Chakham – i.e., spoken confession. The Torah scholar will then define and clarify a path in line with the roots of his soul. PARATAXIS: TYPE 3 COMPLEX SENTENCES, WITH BEHINOT FW: Also presented parataxically are three steps for attachment to a tzaddik, which also are a code for three stages of human action in general. Since Nachman’s version will get a bit murky, I’ll do the dissection as a preface, in my own inimitable Fallen, deductive, hypotaxic manner. If this were a Gestalt session, Fritz no doubt would have me examine my own need to insert prefaces and dissections into the flow of life. Anyway, concerning the tsaddik, (a) first, perceive him properly, (b) second, give him charity and (c) third, accept his advice at the moment of crucial existential choices in your life. To each of these simple instructions, Nachman adds subordinate and related ideas. (a) For the first instruction, more generally establish contact with the situation, (b) for the second instruction, undergo death of ego by giving it away charitably, and (c) for the third instruction, choose a new idea in the void of not knowing. But these corollaries are not appended to the initial three ideas deductively using hypotaxic sentence structure, the way I just have taken pains to do it. That is to say, Nachman’s stress is not on making sure we “understand” it all by laying out his ideas in a series of primary and subordinate clauses. Rather, to the first three ideas he appends a series of only tangentially related ideas, parataxically by simply laying them down, one after the other. Then he leaves it up to us, the readers, to open our minds and hearts to discover the higher level encompassing experiences. For Nachman wants us inductively to “grasp” macrocosmic Platonic ideas, and not merely deductively to “understand” microcosmic concepts. LM 4 is not just a textbook of clinical psychology, it is also inductive science and Platonically inspired Romantic poetry. Hence, Nachman injects into the basic flow of the hypotaxic framework quite a bit of parataxic embellishment. Nachman begins with the three themes, in the manner in which a Beethoven or Mozart might begin a symphony with three simple themes. Then, in the manner of a fugue or stretto, more and more interlocking variations and distantly related motifs pile up as a magical information overload. Schopenhauer, a 19th century philosopher who shared this Romantic aesthetic, held that music is the highest form of art, since it embodies ideas purely without needing to incorporate naturalistic content. Nachman’s prose in his stretto sections approaches the level of musical art, as kaleidoscopic ideas overload their reference to the deductive framework and leap up inductively from our Fallen microcosmic world to the liberated macrocosm of pure Platonic/Torah ideas. When Nachman does it, it works fine. Of course, when an Adolf uses a media blitz inductively to peddle an overgrown Idea of the Third Reich we may have second thoughts about “inductive science”. LM 4:8 Now, there are three steps in attachment to the tzaddikim. Through these three steps everything is rectified. The three steps are as follows: The first step entails seeing the tzaddik, as in (Isaiah 30:20), “your eyes will see your teacher,” This step negates the vices that stem from the two yedodot, mineral and vegetable – namely, melancholy with its derivatives, and evil passions. For the tzaddik of the generation is called “Mother” because he nurses the Jewish people with the light of his Torah. And the Torah is called “milk”, as is written (Song of Songs 4:11). “Honey and milk under your tongue.” We have empirical validation for this: Even when a child is sad and lethargic, if he sees his mother, he very quickly stirs toward her – i.e., toward his source. We also see clearly that when a child is absorbed in his own nonsense, even through he has a great desire for this, if he sees his mother, he throws away all of his desires and draws close to her. We find, then, that the vices stemming from the two yesodot, mineral and vegetable, are negated by gazing at the countenance of the tzaddik. This is: He was afraid of the thorns, the aspect of the vegetable life form; and the ditches, the aspect of the mineral life for. When he happened upon a lit torch – this is a Talmid Chakham, who with the light of the Torah. Through him he is saved from the vices that stem from the two yesodot, mineral and vegetable; and then he is saved form the thorns and the ditches. LM 4:8 The second step is the charity one gives to a Talmid Chakham . Through this he is saved from the vices that stem from the two yesodot, animal and human – the aspects of wild beasts and bandits, which are idle chatter and pride and their derivatives. This is because idle chatter and slanderous gossip engender poverty, as is written (Exodus 4:19), “All the men have died” – this is poverty (Nedarim 64b). Also concerning pride it is taught: Poverty is a sign of a haughty spirit (Kiddushin 49b). But by giving charity a person becomes wealthy. As the Sages taught: “Though they were united and likewise many, even so they are over and gone; I have afflicted you, but will afflict you no more” (Nahum 1:12) – he is never again made to experience the markings of poverty (Gitten 7b). And this is: When dawn broke, he was saved from wild beasts and bandits. The break of dawn is an allusion to charity, as is written (Isaiah 58 7-8), “When you see the naked, and you clothe him . . . Then your light shall burst forth like the dawn.” We find, then, that through charity one is saved from the vices that stem from the two yesodot, animal and human, corresponding to wild beasts and bandits. LM 4:8 The third step is when one makes a spoken confession in a Torah scholar’s presence. Through this the Talmid Chakham guides him on a proper path in line with the root of his soul. This is: When he came to a crossroads. And Sages comment, It is a Talmid Chakham and the day of death. This is the step of spoken confession before a Talmid Chakham. The day of death is an allusion to confesson, as the Sages taught: All those about to be put to death confess (Sanhedrin 43b). This is called PaRaShat DeRaKhim (a crossroads), because the Torah scholar maPhRiSh lo DeReKh (defines his path ) in line with the root of his soul. Then, he was saved from all of them. Because, before he confessed, even through he was close to the Torah scholar and had given him money, he still does not know which path he was on. For “A path may seem right to a man, but its end leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12). But when he comes to “a crossroads,” which is a Talmid Chakham and the day of death – i.e., spoken confession before a Talmid Chakham – then, he was saved from all of them. PARATAXIS: TYPE 4 COMPLEX SENTENCES, WITH BEHINOT AND ALSO WITH PARALLELS OF FORM AND CONTENT FW: Later, as the style of the text approaches pure poetry, content joins form in telling the tale, which in this case is the tale of a completed action. The actor/poet Moses/ messiah undergoes death of ego at the crossroads of his life, the moment of committed choice during an action. At that moment, according to Aristotle, the knower, the known and the knowing all are one. Ego is minimal in the midst of an action. The theological context of an action for Nachman here is “the word of God”, and for him, like for Hamann, that means language in the sense of The Word as the Kingdom of God, Malkhut. Language and action here are parallel concepts, grounded in the dialectical framework of deduction/induction, the descending and ascending sides of the tree of life, the kabbalistic sefirot. Each counterclockwise cycle around the complete tree of life is one “beat” of the dialectic, one cycle of the rhythm of contact and withdrawal, one moment of running and returning, one moment of action. If the process works properly we have induction, intuitive reason, positive letter combinations, poetry, If the process does not work properly we are stuck in deduction, abstract aboutism, negative letter combinations, verbalizing. After completing the action, the protagonist retains a sense of what is was all about. In the context of a Gestalt Therapy session he can tell us what was the existential message of the dreamwork, what he got from the session. He can see the details of his present life situation (Elohim, the left pillar of the tree of life) in the context of the Oneness of authentic action (YHVH, the right pillar of the tree of life), and at that moment he has a sense that the One and the Many are One Without A Second. A parallel in the aesthetics of Romanticism and the work of an actor in the Brechtian theater is the notion of “the performer on top of his material” creating “live form”. When, in this style of work, an actor prepares his material, he works deductively and assembles a junk collage of forms into a complex poetic image which is his “character”. Then, at the moment of presentation for an audience, he relies upon his here and now reactions to images that flash in his imagination to give him macrocosmic ideas with which to illuminate that microcosmic junk collage of forms. The result, when it works properly, is “live form”, a meld of content (ideas discovered inductively) and form (the junk collage which was derived deductively), which is, theologically speaking, the macrocosm in the microcosm, the One in the Many. LM 4:9 This applies each time a Torah scholar. The Talmid Chakham is an aspect of Moshe, who is an aspect of Ayin, as is written, “Wisdom comes from Ayin.” And in this way you become encompassed in Ein Sof (Infinite One). This is the concept of Zarka: it is thrown back to the place from which it was taken (Tikkuney Zohar #21). This is return Malkhut to Ein Sof, which is the will in all the wills. For Malkhut corresponds to the letters of speech, with the will of God clothed in each and every letter. It was God’s will that one letter have such and such a shape, and another letter have a different shape. We find, then, that [God’s] wills – i.e., the forms of the letters – serve to reveal His Malkhut, And all these wills, the forms, stem from the will of Ein Sof – which has no form . And all the objects and material existence in the world originate from the letters, i.e., from Malkhut. This is because material existence is a consequence of Malkhut, of the Holy One’s desire that His Malkhut be revealed in the world. Through this He created the world ex nihilo. All the wills – the forms and all material existence corresponding to Malkhut – receive their vitality from the will of Ein Sof. As is taught (Migillah 31a): “In every place that you find the greatness of the Holy One – i.e., His Malkhut wills – “There you find His humility” – i.e., the will of Ein Sof. And this is an aspect of stripping oneself of corporeality. For when a person wants to be encompassed in the will of Ein Sof, he must negate his material being. This is what is written in the Zohar (II 88b), that Moshe passed away on Shabbat, at the time of Minchah. For that is when raava d’raaven (Will of Wills) is revealed. This is the will of Ein Sof, from whom all wills receive their vitality. This was because Moshe had totally negated his material being, as is written, “After all, nachnu mah (what are we)?” (Exodus 16:7). “So Moshe, the servant of God, died there, in the land of Moav, by the kiss of God. [God] buried him in the valley in the land of Moav, opposite Beit Pe’or. No man knows his burial place to this day” (Deuteronomy 34: 5-7). This is the meaning of “[God] buried him in the valley” – it alludes to as is written (Isaiah 40:4), “Every valley shall be elevated.” “In the land of Moav” – this alludes to Malkhut, for King David descended from Moav. Moshe ascended into Ein Sof, into Will of Wills, raava d’raaven. This corresponds to the will of Ein Sof, which is clothed in the wills/forms of the letters, the aspect of Malkhut. As explained, “In every place that you find His greatness” – i.e., Malkhut, the aspect of – “there you find ” – i.e., the will of Ein Sof. FW: For the kabbalistic tradition, the metaphor of “running and returning” tells this story, in the sense that we first run away from ego and later return to ego. The jargon of Gestalt Therapy here overlaps that of Romanticism. Gestalt speaks of the rhythm of contact and withdrawal. During action we move from contact, from awareness of the contact boundary, to withdrawal, withdrawal from the contact boundary. Withdrawal from the contact boundary, by means of tsimtsum, puts us in the void of not knowing, the messianic now, and then we return to awareness of the contact boundary as the action comes to an end. Nachman describes running and returning by invoking the notion of “da’at” (Hebrew: knowing, knowledge). But “da’at” is a slippery term, used by many authors in many ways. Here is reference is knowing in the sense of the Gestalt process of establishing contact by means of awareness. Da’at here is awareness. Awareness establishes a bubble contactful experience, a “world” that the protagonist “knows”, in the sense that Adam knows Eve during an orgasm. When the contact boundary becomes clouded by neurotic games, by self-interruptions of the life force, and the Gestalt client finds himself deductively at an impasse of polarized cloudy ideas, he needs to withdraw from that contact boundary into the realm of inductive, intuitive experience by closing his eyes and going into his body awareness and fantasies. This is the moment of withdrawal and tsimtsum, contraction of ego. And this also is “running” from his ego and the microcosm in general into the void, where hopefully new macrocosmic ideas await him. After his moment of gnostic enlightenment, then he “returns” to his ego in its new form. But he brings with him a vague trace or “reshimu” (Hebrew: remainder) of his other worldly experience. Overall, then, he runs from deduction to induction, and then he returns from induction to deduction bringing with him the results of the induction. LM 4:9 This is “opposite Beit Pe’or”. As the Sages taught: Why was [the idol] called Pe’or? Because it opens its mouth wide. For when one blemishes Malkhut, [Pe’or} then has the power to open its mouth wide with negative letter combinations. But Moshe rectified the aspect of Malkhut, and as a result Pe’or could not open its mouth wide (Sotah 14a), This is “No man knows [his burial place]” – even Moshe did not know (ibid.). For he was negated in Ein Sof. All this was at his death. However, also during his lifetime [Moshe] certainly stripped away all corporeality and attached himself to the Light of Ein Sof. But then, this stripping was in an aspect of “the living creatures ran and returned”. (Ezekial 1:14). This is because the Holy One desires our service, as is written (Yom Kippur Liturgy), “You desire praise from mounds of dust, from lumps of clay.” Therefore, it is imperative not to remain [in this state of negation] until such a time that the Holy One Himself comes and takes one’s soul. LM 4:9 This is why we see that now and then a person becomes inspired while praying and he recites several words with tremendous fervor. This is due to God’s compassion for him; the Light of Ein Sof has been opened to him and shines for him. When a person sees this radiance – and even though he might not see, his mazal sees (Megillah 3a) – his soul is instantly ignited in great devotion, so that he attaches himself to the Light of Ein Sof. And to the degree that Ein Sof is revealed – commensurate with the number of words that have been opened and begun to radiate – he recites all these words with great devotion, with a surrender of self, and with a negation of all his senses. Then, during the time he is negated in Ein Sof, he is in a state of “and no man knows” so that he himself is unaware of his own existence. But this must be in the aspect of “running and returning” in order to preserve . We find then that when he is in a state of “returning” he must also disclose to his daat. For at the beginning, at the time of devotion, his daat was nullified, as in, “and no man knows”. But when he is in a state of “returning”, returning to his material being, then he returns to his daat. And when he returns to his daat, he knows the oneness and beneficence of Ein Sof. Then there is no difference between YHVH and Elohim, between the divine attribute of judgment and the divine attribute of compassion. For a change of will is not applicable to Ein Sof, Heaven forbid. Changes only occur in the changing of the forms. Nevertheless, by virtue of a person’s attachment to Ein Sof – where there is no change of will, for there the will is uniform – afterwards an imprint of this oneness remains within him. Then later, when he is in a state of “returning”, this imprint illuminates , so that he knows that all is good and all is one. This is what Moshe said to his generation: “It has been clearly demonstrated to your daat that YHVH (God) is the Elohim (Lord)”. (Deuteronomy 4: 35). For Moshe corresponds to Thus it was fitting for his generation, who were attached to him, to [have] daat – i.e., to illuminate the daat with an awareness of Ein Sof/raava d/raaven, the aspect of “YHVH is the Elohim.” (d) PARADOX O: An important aspect of Hamann’s conception of reason as it emerges from his use of language is his acceptance of the paradox as a vehicle for the expression of spiritual truth. His reason for such a positive view of the paradox is, in the last resort, theological. Since God has condescended to reveal Himself in lowly, even contemptible form – as the Scriptures everywhere attest – the paradox possesses the highest possible legitimation. “One must view with astonishment how God accomodates Himself to all small circumstances, and prefers to reveal His government through the everyday event of human life rather than the singular and extraordinary events.” The supreme paradox of Christianity is, to be sure, the incarnation in Christ, the appearance of the Creator of heaven and earth in the form of a servant. FW: To appreciate the relevance of paradox in this sense to the work of Nachman of Breslav, let us backtrack a bit now and zero in on the last section of LM 4 which we just cited under the heading of “parataxis”. These six techniques of Romantic poetic language certainly overlap, and there is no reason why we may not find all six of them at work in a single passage from Nachman’s “Likutei Moharan”. In this last section we found an obvious parallel between the messianic function Christ serves for the Christians and the same messianic function the soul Moses serves for the Jews. As is the case for Christ in the work of Hamann, Moses for Jews is a supreme example of paradox, the apparent contradiction that the pure idea of Moses/Mashiach – Moses as symbolic code for the messianic idea – embodies on the one hand the most encompassing notion of all-reality and on the other hand the idea of absolute nothingness, total self-obliterating humility. This rudimentary example of dialectical thinking, a thesis and an antithesis encompassed in a higher synthesis, is basic to kabbalistic metaphysics. In this respect, then, the parallel between Hamann and Nachman is clear. However, in what follows, as we decode the jargon to get to the philosophical foundation, we find that this clear conceptual parallel is fogged over by the work of the official Breslaver translators. We unearth one more example of what happens when the sorcerer’s apprentice, ignorant of the dialectical powers of his master, grabs his master’s broom and makes a big mess the laboratory! Once again we will see the dangers of preaching dialectical religion rather than teaching dialectical religion. I repeat, a preacher aims at propagating the sect, primarily by glorifying his colleagues, while a teacher has other objectives, especially ferreting out the truth of his subject matter. Watch, now, how the translators of LM 4 muddle the dialectical message of Nachman in this passage, and shift the focus from the individual’s search for God towards the direction of creating a herd of sheep following other sheep following other sheep, just as lemmings might follow other lemmings right off a cliff into the sea! Here once is LM 4:9. LM 4:9 This applies each time a Torah scholar. The Talmid Chakham is an aspect of Moshe, who is an aspect of Ayin, as is written, “Wisdom comes from Ayin.” And in this way you become encompassed in Ein Sof (Infinite One). FW: Nachman begins with the pshat, the superficial code. This is step one in creating the paradox, the apparent contradiction that this Torah scholar you meet in the street is at the same time an aspect of Moses and the Jewish version of the messiah. LM 4:9 This is the concept of Zarka: it is thrown back to the place from which it was taken (Tikkuney Zohar #21). This is returning Malkhut to Ein Sof, which is the will in all the wills. For Malkhut corresponds to the letters of speech, with the will of God clothed in each and every letter. It was God’s will that one letter have such and such a shape, and another letter have a different shape. We find, then, that [God’s] wills – i.e., the forms of the letters – serve to reveal His Malkhut, FW: Another paradox, then, is that the all encompassing Kingdom God corresponds to the tiny individual letters of the Hebrew alphabet, and each letter has its particular form and message. LM 4:9 And all these wills, the forms, stem from the will of Ein Sof – which has no form . And all the objects and material existence in the world originate from the letters, i.e., from Malkhut. This is because material existence is a consequence of Malkhut, of the Holy One’s desire that His Malkhut be revealed in the world. Through this He created the world ex nihilo. All the wills – the forms and all material existence corresponding to Malkhut – receive their vitality from the will of Ein Sof. As is taught (Migillah 31a): “In every place that you find the greatness of the Holy One – i.e., His Malkhut wills – “There you find His humility” – i.e., the will of Ein Sof. And this is an aspect of stripping oneself of corporeality. For when a person wants to be encompassed in the will of Ein Sof, he must negate his material being. FW: Here is the paradox cited by Hamann above, that the messiah (Christ or Moses) embodies the apparent contradiction that what is the All is also Nothingness, abject humility and the will of God. LM 4:9 For a change of will is not applicable to Ein Sof, Heaven forbid. Changes only occur in the changing of the forms. Nevertheless, by virtue of a person’s attachment to Ein Sof – where there is no change of will, for there the will is uniform – afterwards an imprint of this oneness remains within him. Then later, when he is in a state of “returning”, this imprint illuminates Likes: 11 Viewed:

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[poetryofchrist]

Biblical Studies Carnival for July 2020

Biblical Studies Carnival # 173,

An odd, deficient, odious, but balanced prime.* July 2020. 

I, your host, did a carnival in February of this year just around Mardi Gras. I closed that carnival with the Quartet for the End of Time. Little did we know what was coming our way, though we had seen early warning signs. Let this carnival be heralding the beginning of the end of the disaster that is upon us. Let it be that we realize how critical is our support of each other, our 'mutual responsibility and interdependence', and how foolish is the thought, and all its attendant actions, that freedom belongs to the individual at the expense of the whole body. Fun? Enjoyment? Carnival atmosphere? Gaiety? Song and Dance? Unlikely, but let's see if some Immersive Distraction is worth the try.

Tanakh.

Michael Avioz writes on translation of place names in Targum Onkelos which

... became so popular in Babylonian rabbinic circles that the Babylonian Talmud requires Jews to read it every week together with the weekly portion, in the law known as שניים מקרא ואחד תרגום, “[read] scripture twice and the translation once” (b. Ber. 8a).

Hagar

Ariel Kopilovitz explores through a review of the war against Midian how the priestly Torah was compiled. Abdulla Galadari explores the intertextual connections of the Quran with the Shema. David Ben-Gad HaCohen explores the region of Ar-Moab. The Velveteen Rabbi comments on man, woman, and vows in parashat Matot. Nyasha Junior reimagines Hagar in her book on Blackness and the Bible. Lawrence Hoffman sends an open letter to his students outlining 5 valuable principles to be learned from 'tradition' and putting them in the context of Amalek and the current stresses on social order.

Thirty years ago, while researching an article on the subject, I asked my teacher and colleague, the late Harry M. Orlinsky, to define “tradition” and he replied, “Tradition is just a lie going back at least a century.”

Your host continues to dig into the music embedded in the text of the Hebrew Bible. Here is an English arrangement and a Hebrew performance of Genesis 22. On the governance of the Body, Pete Ens begins the month with using the Bible to support ...

The stories of Israelite kings match the Trump presidency remarkably well. And the condemnation of their actions by biblical authors is persistent to the point of being tedious.

Elkanah and his wives (I Samuel)

Laura Quick considers the bed of Og the King of Bashan. (Remembering Remnants of Giants, last seen in 2019.) The Medieval Manuscripts blog shows some Old Testament passages from the Rochester Bible. Francis Landy introduces the Prologue to Deutero-Isaiah.

The seven Sabbaths following Tisha B’Av, the fast day commemorating the destruction of the First and Second Temple, are known as שבעה/שב דנחמתא “the seven [Sabbaths] of Consolation.” All the haftarot are taken from Isaiah 40-66, the work of an anonymous exilic prophet (or prophets), who expresses hope for the future rebuilding of Judea and repatriation of its people.

Doug Chaplin gives us a draft prayer card inspired by Jeremiah 12:1 as used by Gerard Manley Hopkins, in his poem “send my roots rain”. Jim Gordon continues his poetry series with A poem for the Sabbath,  by Wendell Berry, a little different from Psalm 92. Carmen Joy Imes praises the laments and imprecatory Psalms.

Mark Whiting writes on penitential wisdom in the penitential psalms. The Hebrew versions of the five poems in the book of Lamentations are riddled with debated readings... It's not very often that Lamentations as poetry gets a mention. A real rabbi now with greying whiskers, and also a poet, Rachel Barenblatt, teaches about feelings in this time of destruction as the period of  approach to Tisha B'av.

I'm finding it difficult to face Tisha b'Av this year, in part because every time I read the newspaper feels like Tisha b'Av. There's mourning and grief and loss everywhere I look.

Ah in such solitude sits the city. Abundant with people she is as a widow. Abundant from the nations, noble among the provinces, she is into forced service.

Andrew Perriman continues a four year conversation on redefining Daniel. Is there a Unity amidst this diversity. A question by Anthony Ferguson on the state of the text of the Old Testament.

I am going to discuss the non-aligned manuscripts. I hope to show that these manuscripts are largely secondary and dependent on an MT-like text.

Hebrew language: Your host is beginning a series on explaining the transformation of pointed text into 'spelling lacking niqqud' here and here.

Slave

Jonathan Orr-Stav addresses the difficulties of rendering the cantillation in standard characters. In these days of deception, you might enjoy this note on clothing from David Curwin of Balashon. Archaeology: Jim Davila links to a report on seals that may show more about the gradual resettlement and bureaucracy in Jerusalem after its destruction in 586 BCE. He also points out a deep excavation under Jerusalem. Matthew Susnow explores the ancient temples with an essay on What is a ‘House of a God’? Airton José da Silva links to articles on the administrative storage centre from the time of Hezekiah and Manasseh. Ian Paul offers an essay on 'good'.

for all the wondrous joy of this claim about goodness, Genesis 1 chooses not to say ‘it was perfect’.

Canonical Edges

James McGrath reports from day 2 of the Enoch Seminar on the origins of evil.

Cosmic

Day 3 continues here and here from Jim Davila. Day 4 concludes with a response from Jim Davila and a plug for 1 Enoch as Christian Scripture. In James McGrath's report we read of:

degeneration of the generations, i.e. that evil doesn’t come into the world in one fell swoop but gradually over time, and involved(s) groups rather than individuals,

James Tabor reflects on the good and the ugly. Andrew Perriman draws us into cosmic thinking and then back to political reality. If you are hungry, watch this.  Making 2000 year old bread. Absolutely marvelous technique.

New Testament

Having mentioned targum for Tanakh, I am reminded of targuman. Christian Brady is now very active in parish work, and posts on drinking the cup. Timothy Lewis asks why some mothers are included and not others in Matthew's first chapter. Bosco Peters continues his Matthew in Slow Motion, Episode 33. Ian Paul writes on the lectionary and the parable of the sower. Jim Gordon writes on invincible ignorance.

"I don't know how to explain to you that you should care for other people." (Dr Anthony Fauci)

Marg Mowczko meditates on meekness in warhorses.

Sickle

In an essay on John as the mundane gospel, Paul Anderson demonstrates now much mundane detail is in John's Gospel. Trinities posts a podcast with Daniel Boyarin on the prologue to John's gospel. Christopher Page continues a series of posts, #86, (and counting) on living with Jesus through the words of John's Gospel. Michael Bird cites Harold Attridge on the beloved disciple. Adele Reinhartz vs. Chris Keith and James Crossley, an online discussion of her book addressing the thesis of Lou Martyn on 'being cast out of the covenant'. Gary Greenberg posts on the case for a proto-gospel and the healing of a blind man in Bethsaida. (via FB and Dr Johnson Thomaskutty. And here is a lecture on the signs in the gospel of John from the Church of South India. Jason Staples writes on 'Reconstituting Israel: Restoration Eschatology in Early Judaism and Paul’s Gentile Mission.'. Second installment here. Andrew Perriman puts glossolalia into a historical framework that "Jerusalem faces a catastrophic judgment".

The gift of speaking in other tongues signifies the extension of Joel’s prophecy beyond geographical Israel to include all Jews who looked to Jerusalem as the centre of their religious life and practice. The city and its spectacular temple would soon be destroyed.

Eyal Regev asks if Christians mourned the destruction of the temple. And if you have forgotten what prosopological means, here's a reminder. James Tabor reminds us with a paper from the 1980s about Paul's words on apotheosis. Christopher Page seems to double this thought with his mid-month 100th pandemic post on Jesus. And to continue the subject, Ian Paul asks what to think of AI. (Homo Deus?) What's in the translator's choices of gloss? Brent Niedergall posts on temptation vs trial. Brian Small notes that Cyril's lost commentary on Hebrews has been found. CSCO has a number of notes on the Oxford Handbook of Pauline Studies. Phillip Long continues his series on Revelation with questions on 'the son of man' and 'the harvests' and 'the final visions'. James Tabor reflects on washed in the blood of the lamb. For another take on Revelation as an orchestral score, and with respect to more recent historical contexts, see Ian Paul on the present crisis. Derek Demars argues that Revelation is a musical!

Miscellaneous

Family

Marc Goodacre teaches by example about fatigue

... one can see an author making characteristic changes to a source at the beginning of a passage, only to lapse into the wording of the source later on.

Jim West has posted Larry Schiffman's lecture on the DSS here. Airton José da Silva announces a new Bible.

Brazilian translation of the famous French “Traduction Oecuménique de la Bible” (TOB) (according to the 12th ed., 2010). It is the model of ecumenical translations, because of the interfaith composition of its collaborators and because it even adapts, for the Old Testament, the Jewish sequence of biblical books. It is an excellent study bible, with rich notes and many references of parallel texts.

And here is an insight into the culture of Biblical Studies in Brazil. Brent Niedergall points to a paper on the CBGM as material for the upcoming virtual SBL annual meeting. And for more on CBGM, see Brent Nongbri's article here. The cosmologist Bishop of Rhode Island, Nicholas Knisely, expresses a hope that we can go beyond our self-images, on his blog, Entangled States. More than a little uncertainty in the referent in the blog name. James McGrath writes on Academic genealogies. Ken Schenck continues his review of the works of his doctoral advisor, Jimmy Dunn, finishing on the twelfth day. Helen Bond remembers Jimmy Dunn. James Tabor traces his history of learning Greek from age 17 to 74. This spring chicken explains how 'older is not better', and that Westcott and Hort are seen by some today as part of 'a “plot from hell” to destroy God’s truth'. (See also a later version here.) This post on his 'first book' is too good to pass up. The first week of July presented several posts which seemed to be strong on issues peripherally related to the Bible, but grounded in the questions raised by our persistence with its content: So a note by Ian Paul on the priesthood (presbyter), running the risk of self-justification but showing the stuff of Cranmer, and on the meaninglessness of life in response to facing death, by Christopher Page, and on manufacturing belief, a documentary in which many famous appear, noted by Bart Ehrman. There is even a commentary by OUP on being prepared. Nicely juxtaposed is Phillip Long's note for the day on the winepress. Westar Think Tank Fellow, Terrence Dean interviews Nontombi Naomi Tutu: Five current questions. On issues of gender in Biblical Studies, note this discussion with the title, Sarah Rollens and Candida Moss vs Chris Keith here.

Books

Abel Mordechai Bibliowicz has made a pdf available on Jewish-Christian Relations-The First Centuries. 

Bart Ehrman talks about his book, Heaven and Hell: A History of the Afterlife, in a long podcast on Reason and Theology. (Take care with whom you chose to spar.) His blog also has a guest post by Cavan Concannon on the Bible Museum.

Not to be outdone, Tyndale house is starting a new podcast series on Trusting the Bible.

April Deconick notes a new book on Jewish Roots of Eastern Christian Mysticism.

Marg Mowczko notes a new book Holding Up Half the Sky.

Stephen Nadler reviews Spinoza.

Reuven Chaim Klein reviews Pharoah, Biblical History, Egypt, and the Missing Millennium, reworking the chronology of traditional Egyptology.

Jim Davila highlights a review of Fredriksen's When Christians were Jews. A good review that I missed from last month's feeds. A good book, too, I am sure.

Brent Niedergall reviews The Greek of the Pentateuch by John A. L. Lee.

Richard Briggs reviews John R. Levinson's The Holy Spirit before Christianity

In a study that is both poignant and provocative, Levison takes readers back five hundred years before Jesus, where he discovers history’s first grasp of the Holy Spirit as a personal agent. The prophet Haggai and the author of Isaiah 56–66, in their search for ways to grapple with the tragic events of exile and to articulate hope for the future, took up old exodus traditions of divine agents―pillars of fire, an angel, God’s own presence―and fused them with belief in God’s Spirit. ... Like most (if not all?) good New Testament ideas, the Old Testament got there first.

Unavoidable

In Memoriam: Alister McGrath has written an obituary for James Packer, certainly a man of some influence and who was known by many in the far west of Canada including former blogger, Suzanne McCarthy most recently of BLT, not just a sandwich. (I knew I could get a bit more poetry in this carnival somehow. I'd rather have good poetry than bad tattoos with lots of ads any day.) ... August is coming up, not April, that cruelest month ...

Next Carnivals

Phil is always looking for volunteers. Fun or not, spending a month actually reading the bloggy scholars and the scholarly blogs is an education... Occasionally, people actually suggest posts too. Chris Brady began the month with a post comparing Facebook to the old blogging community with vigorous discussion of issues in the comments and among the blogs. He also announces the upcoming virtual SBL.

August 2020 – Phillip Long, Reading Acts

September 2020 – Brent Niedergall (who is beginning a video series on James.)

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