Punk Jews

2 12 2011

Many thanks to Malki Rose, Alana Bruce, Alex Kats, Keren Tuch and Seraphya Berrin! Another successful Limmud Oz Fest, and one with an extraordinary arrangement of engaging presentations and sumptuous food. There were several highlights, but high on my list was a preview screening of Evan Kleinman’s new documentary, Punk Jews (directed by Jesse Zook Mann), which explored the life and work of a handful of Jews who don’t fit into the “mainstream”. From punk-rocking Breslov Hasidim (“Moshiach Oi!”) to a Yiddish theatre group in NYC, from African-American Jews (with Ashkenazi minhagim) to an underground group that meets to rock, shmooze and boogie, the range of people that the documentary explored was fascinating.

The most touching, and perhaps most controversial, component of the film was a section that dealt with the life and work of Kal Holczler, a former Skverer Hasid and survivor of child sexual abuse. As a child, Kal grew up in New Square – a town in upstate New York, so named for the Hasidim who inhabit it. New Square is renowned for having a very organised and tightly-knit power structure, and made headlines some months ago over an arson attack that threatened the life of one of their residents. As a community that looks unkindly on those who leave it, Kal’s bravery in revisiting his former home is amazing, and the scene in which he confronted his parents about the responsibilities of a family was the most powerful scene in the film. Kal is the founder of Voices of Dignity: a not-for-profit organisation aimed at ending the cycle of sexual abuse in religious Jewish communities.

I do not want to spoil the film by relating all of its many surprises, for there was no segment that lacked a twist of some description. At times I found myself smiling and nodding my head, while at others my eyes widened and my head was still. Whenever I should be so lucky as to visit New York City again, I now know of an informal group whose location I will certainly track down…

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Punk Jews will be released in 2012.


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Categories : Jewish Tradition

Yeshivish

1 12 2011

There is a sociolect of English with which few people are aware. Known as “Yinglish”, it was once mentioned under Ethnologue’s section on Eastern Yiddish, where they observed that the number of proficient speakers increases with one’s proximity to New York City. While it is most certainly an English sociolect, the high number of Yiddish words that are employed make it impossible for those who are unfamiliar with Yiddish to understand it. In Australia, many people know what it is to schlepp to the bank, to be a bit of a klutz, to be in awe of a maven or to work for a schmuck. But how many of them shvitz in the summer, do gornisht in the winter, spend time with the mishpocheh, have a nosh, plotz or kibbitz?

In truth, while “Yinglish” proficiency amongst non-Jews might increase as one approaches Brooklyn, the phenomenon of “Yeshivish” (the sociolect of the Haredi yeshiva system) can be found in all places where people speak English and where such institutions exist. As a sociolect, it constitutes something of a mirror image of Yinglish. Yinglish is English, with a number of Yiddish words – primarily nouns. Yeshivish, on the other hand, is most definitely Yiddish, but a Yiddish in which the speaker occasionally inserts English phrases or uses English words. Consider the following excerpt, taken from a talk by Rav Nissan Kaplan (the mashgiach ruchani, or “spiritual advisor” at the Mirrer Yeshiva in Jerusalem):

The sample is taken from his website, where a very large number of his classes are available for download. At the top of the page, you will note a series of hespedim (“eulogies”) for Rav Nosson Tzvi Finkel, who was the Rosh Yeshiva at the Mir and who passed away almost a month ago. After that, the classes are organised by theme and by year. I recommend his mussar schmuessen in particular, as they provide an insight into the general lifestyle of the Yeshiva students:

5767 (2007)
5768 (2008)
5769 (2009)
5770 (2010)
5771 (2011) – current.

If it is halakha that interests you, I especially recommend three Shabbat-related lectures: one deals with the permissibility of dancing, one with religious Jews who work in ambulances, and one is the first part of a two-part lecture that discusses the legality of asking non-Jews to do work for you. His Talmud classes are probably also excellent, but considerably too advanced for me. If they are of interest to you, they each come with a scanned copy of his notes, which can be used to guide your study of the relevant sugya before listening to the class.

The above audio snippet, which runs for a little more than one-and-a-half minutes, is from Rav Kaplan’s introduction to the new zman (“semester”), in which the students are to be learning Tractate Bava Batra. He begins by opining on the quality of this tractate for an understanding of key rabbinic concepts, but then continues by stressing the importance of devoting oneself in all respects to its study. The main part of the segment revolves around the dangers of sitting in the study hall and being less than 100% committed to the task of learning. You can hear the large number of English phrases that he employs, but they are dwarfed by the number of Hebrew phrases (he quotes liberally from the biblical and rabbinic literature – chiefly the latter), and by a generous smattering of Yiddish, which influences his usage of English syntax.

This brings me, of course, to the crux of the matter. If it is linguistics that interests you, over and above philosophy, halakha or the rabbinic literature, this website is a veritable treasure trove for the beautiful Yeshivish sociolect, and is absolutely bursting with potential for discourse analysis. The anonymous sages of Wikipedia declare that “only a few serious studies have been written about Yeshivish”. Perhaps, with the ready availability of this incredible resource, that may soon change.


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Categories : Language

The Persistence of Evil

30 11 2011

I find inspiring a remark made by Tom Shippey in an interview with Peter Jackson for the LOTR extended editions. He comments upon an incident which occurs early in the first book, when Frodo first holds the ring of power in his hand:

Frodo took it from his breeches-pocket, where it was clasped to a chain that hung from his belt. He unfastened it and handed it slowly to the wizard. It suddenly felt very heavy, as if either it or Frodo himself was in some way reluctant for Gandalf to touch it.
- The Lord of the Rings (London: Harper Collins, 1995), 48

As Shippey observes, the text gives us two options. Either the ring is actually becoming heavier in Frodo’s hand, or Frodo imagines that the ring is becoming heavier. The practical upshot is significant: if the ring is becoming heavier, then evil (in Tolkien’s universe) possesses an external, physical presence. Operating upon the protagonists from the outside, it causes them to do deplorable things in their attempts to either secure the ring of power for themselves, or in their reluctance to let it be destroyed. They are no more to blame for their behaviour than is any victim of a violent crime. Alternatively, should Frodo be merely imagining the heaviness of the ring, then evil possesses an internal, metaphysical presence. Shippey refers to this as a “Freudian” interpretation. Latent within the protagonists all along, together with an ability to resist its seductive charms, the capacity for evil is encouraged by the presence of the ring but does not derive from it. One way or another, the greater the power and the strength that the character possesses, the more grievous would be their behaviour under the influence of evil, whatever its source.

This last weekend, I attended Limmud Oz Fest: the second such event to have taken place in Australia, and the first within the great state of Victoria. Keen on pursuing this line of thought, I ran a session on Shabbat morning, entitled “Evolution of a Horny Devil: Satan in the Talmud and Midrash”. My intention was to present a variety of sources within the rabbinic literature, dealing with (the) Satan, or “Samael”. I was rather astonished at the sheer number of such sources that I discovered, ranged throughout the Babylonian and Palestinian Talmuds (although overwhelmingly within the former), Midrash Rabbah (chiefly Genesis-Deuteronomy, but also Esther and Qohelet), Pirqei deRebi Eliezer and Midrash Tanchuma. I have no doubt that, had I really spent some time on this, I would have found much more, and had I opened things up to include later sources (I did, though just for fun, include a single text from the Zohar and some passages from the liturgy) I am sure I would have found abundantly more.

It is curious that so many people assert that Judaism lacks a devil figure, given the overwhelmingly large number of references to not just one, but a veritable army of satans, with Samael (“the chief of the satans”) at its head. Some time ago, I had an argument with John Hobbins about whether or not Judaism possesses (or at least possessed) the notion of eternal damnation. (If you are interested, this is John’s first post, my response, and my response to his excellent comments.) I still consider the idea to be fundamentally problematic (awarding an infinite punishment to a finite crime, no matter how great, is obscene), but recant of my original position: that such a notion was absent from the literature of the rabbis. It was not absent; it has merely been downplayed.

The same could be said, in every respect, for the figure of (the) Satan. He is described as dropping to earth to entice the first humans (Pirqei deRebi Eliezer 13), tempting both Abraham and Isaac not to go ahead with their (non-)sacrifice (Tanchuma, Vayyera 22-23), taunting and causing the death of Sarah (op.cit. 23), encouraging the people to create a golden calf (Targum P-Jonathan, Ex 32:1), being eager to kill Moses (Deuteronomy Rabbah 11:9), actually killing Vashti (Babylonian Talmud, Megillah 11a), and even bringing about the necessary changes on high to allow for Haman’s drafting an edict of destruction:

אמר רבי ישמעאל שמונה עשר אלף וחמש מאות הלכו לבית המשתה ואכלו ושתו ונשתכרו ונתקלקלו. מיד עמד שטן והלשין עליהם לפני הקדוש ברוך הוא ואמר לפניו רבונו של עולם עד מתי תדבק באמה זו שהם מפרישין לבבם ואמונתם ממך, אם רצונך אבד אמה זו מן העולם כי אינם באים בתשובה לפניך… באותה שעה אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא למה לי אמה שבשבילה הרביתי אותותי ומופתי לכל הקמים עליהם לרעה אשביתה מאנוש זכרם. מיד אמר הקדוש ברוך הוא לשטן הבא לי מגלה ואכתב עליה כליה. באותה שעה הלך השטן והביא לו מגלה וכתב עליה

Rabbi Yishmael said, “18,500 [Jews] went to the feast [of King Ahashverosh]: they ate, they drank, they got drunk and they became decadent. Immediately, Satan stood and testified against them before the Holy One, blessed is he. He said, “Master of the World! For how long will you cleave to this people who separate their hearts and their faith from you? If it be your will, eradicate this people from the world, for they are not coming to you in repentance”… At that moment, the Holy One (blessed is he) said, “What do I need this people for, for whose sake I multiplied my signs and wonders to all those who arose against them for evil? “I will eradicate all remembrance of them from man” (Deuteronomy 32:26)!” Immediately, the Holy One (blessed is he) said to (the) Satan, “Bring me a scroll, that I may write [an edict of] destruction upon it!” At that moment, the Satan went and brought him a scroll, and he wrote upon it.
- Esther Rabbah 7:14

[A minor point, but the first reference to the villain in this text is to "Satan", the third to "the Satan", and the second could be construed as either possessing or lacking the definite article, depending on preference. The usage of Satan as a name and as a title is inconsistent throughout the rabbinic literature.]

These references aside, there are also descriptions of Satan being identical with the evil inclination, such as is asserted by Rabbi Shimon ben Lakish in the Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 16a. It is not an easy assertion to understand, given his equation of the evil inclination also with the angel of death, and given that the passage falls within the context of an explication the function of the Satan in the biblical book of Job: a role that is clearly both physical and external to the main protagonist, and one with whom the rabbis even sympathise:

אמר רבי יצחק קשה צערו של שטן יותר משל איוב משל לעבד שאמר לו רבו שבור חבית ושמור את יינה

[God tells the Satan that Job is in his power, but that he must spare Job's life.] Rabbi Yitzhak said, “Satan’s anguish was greater than Job’s! This is like a servant who is told by his master to break open a barrel but not spill any wine.”
- Babylonian Talmud, Bava Batra 16a

It is my feeling that internalisations of evil come into their own at precisely the time that Jews begin to assert the non-existence (or to at least downplay the existence) of powers other than God, but that the rabbinic passages under consideration testify to an overwhelming, and considerably more dominant, externalisation of the phenomenon. Whether it’s Rabbi Meir driving Satan out of the two people in whom he dwelt, and who were fighting every Friday evening (Gittin 52a), Shmuel’s insistence on only travelling with a non-Jew, for Satan has no influence upon two nationalities simultaneously (Shabbat 32a), the stipulation that one must blow the shofar on Rosh haShana in order to confound the Satan and prevent his testifying (Rosh haShana 16b), or the assertion that he has no power to indict people on Yom Kippur (Yoma 20a), the overwhelming number of references take his physical and objective reality at face value.

Certain of the participants disagreed with my assessment, preferring to understand the tone of the passages that we considered as ironic, playful or fantastic, which I think is perfectly reasonable. All of the passages were in the aggadah, and I see no reason why any of them should be taken seriously, nor consistently with any of the others. For an example of a particularly playful midrash, and one with interesting parallels to Targum P-Jonathan, consider the following explanation of the origin of evil:

והאדם ידע את חוה אשתו ותהר ותלד את קין ותאמר קניתי איש את יהוה

Then the man knew his wife, Eve, and she became pregnant and delivered Cain. She said, “I have acquired a man with the Lord.”
- Genesis 4:1

ואדם ידע ית חוה אתתה דהוה חמידת למלאכא ואעדיאת וילדת ית קין ואמרת קניתי לגברא ית מלאכא דיי

Then Adam knew his wife, Eve, that she had desired the angel. She became pregnant and she delivered Cain. She said, “I have acquired a man with the angel of the Lord.”
- Targum P-Jonathan, Genesis 4:1

כתיב ומפרי העץ אשר בתוך הגן, תנא רבי זעירא אומר מפרי העץ, אין העץ הזה אלא אדם שנמשל כעץ, שנאמר כי האדם עץ השדה וגו’. אשר בתוך הגן, אין בתוך הגן אלא לשון נקיה, מה שבתוך הגוף, אשר בתוך הגן, אשר בתוך האשה. ואין גן אלא האשה שנמשלה לגן, שנאמר גן נעול אחתי כלה, מה הגנה הזו כל מה שנזרעה היא צומחת ומוציאה, כך האשה הזאת כל מה שנזרעה הרה וילדת מבעלה. בא אליה ורוכב נחש ועברה את קין, ואחר כך עברה את הבל, שנאמר והאדם ידע את חוה אשתו. מהו ידע, שהיתה מעברת וראתה דמותו שלא היה מן התחתונים אלא מן העליונים, והביטה ואמרה קניתי איש את יי

It is written, “but from the fruit of the tree in the midst of the garden” (Gen 3:3). It is taught that Rabbi Zeira says, “From the fruit of the tree? This tree can only be a reference to man, who is likened to a tree, as it says: “For man is a tree of the field” (Deut 20:19). In the midst of the garden? “In the midst of the garden” can only be a euphemism for what is within the body. In the midst of the garden means, “in the midst of the woman”, for this garden can only be a reference to the woman, who is likened to a garden, as it says: “My sister, my bride is a locked garden” (Songs 4:12). Just as with this garden, everything that is planted in it blossoms and grows out of it, so too with this woman: she becomes pregnant and delivers from her husband whatever is planted within her. A serpent approached her and mounted [her] and she became pregnant with Cain. Afterwards, she became pregnant with Abel. As it says, “Then the man knew his wife, Eve” (Gen 4:1). What did he know? That she was pregnant. She saw his form [Cain's form], that it was not like those below but like those above, and she looked and said, “I have acquired a man with the Lord” (Gen 4:1).”
- Pirqei deRebi Eliezer 21


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Categories : Jewish Tradition

The Syntax of Slander

24 11 2011

I refuse to believe that lexicographers don’t have a sense of humour. Having recently looked up the word “malignity” in the Oxford American Dictionary, the better to assure myself that it was really a word (though what it could be if it were not a word, I don’t know), I was pleased to note the following sagely advice:

The Right Word
Do you want to ruin someone’s life? You can malign someone, which is to say or write something evil without necessarily lying (: she was maligned for her past association with radical causes).
To calumniate is to make false and malicious statements about someone; the word often implies that you have seriously damaged that person’s good name (: after leaving his job, he spent most of his time calumniating and ridiculing his former boss).
To defame is to cause actual injury to someone’s good name or reputation (: he defamed her by accusing her of being a spy).
If you don’t mind risking a lawsuit, you can libel the person, which is to write or print something that defames him or her (: the tabloid libeled the celebrity and ended up paying the price).
Slander, which is to defame someone orally, is seldom a basis for court action but can nevertheless cause injury to someone’s reputation (: after a loud and very public argument, she accused him of slandering her).
If all else fails, you can vilify the person, which is to engage in abusive name-calling (: even though he was found innocent by the jury, he was vilified by his neighbors).

It’s always good to know that I have options. In the meantime, there is an interesting discussion ensuing between two respectable linguists at Language Log. Geoffrey Pullum says that the OED’s Word of the Year should actually be a word for a change, and filed his post under “Ignorance of Linguistics”. Ben Zimmer, who is the chair of the New Words Committee at the American Dialect Society, strongly disagrees with him, but filed his post under a friendlier file name and left the comments open. So far I see nothing malignant, calumniating, defaming, slanderous nor vilifying, but you never know with these people. Linguists. You really don’t want to upset them.


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Categories : Language

“Liberators”

6 11 2011

The following is an absolutely incredible example of Nazi propaganda, drawn to my attention recently by a friend:

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The poster was designed by a Norwegian cartoonist named Harald Damsleth, and was produced in 1944. The Dutch writing at the bottom reads, “De USA zullen de Europeesche Kultuur van den ondergang redden”. I am told that this means, “The USA will save the European culture from ruin”. It is hard to see it in the picture, but the writing around the midriff states “JITTERBUG – Triumph of Civilization”. If you click on it, you can zoom in for higher definition. I do not think that the Hebrew writing is actually Hebrew writing, but was unable to find a clearer image than this one. A smaller, albeit colour version can be seen here.

How many anti-American tropes can you spot?


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Categories : Random Musings

What They Wore

6 11 2011

Towards the end of my brief stay in yeshiva, I managed to shock my rebbe by admitting that my departure was in order that I might study “ancient history” (O glorious son that can so ‘stonish a rebbe). I remember well his response: they might be able to tell you what Avraham had for breakfast, but only here can you learn what the Torah actually means. I think he might have been further shocked had he known what the academic method really entails, but his views of “the academy” were informed by complete isolation from the secular world, and nourished on an anti-enlightenment attitude that has become as much a part of the Lithuanian Torah establishment as has its reliance on the Mishne Berurah.

Chaim Saiman makes reference to this same attitude in his recent guest post at The Talmud Blog. There, he quotes it a little differently: “in the academy they tell you what Abayye wore while in yeshiva they tell you what he said”. What I found interesting, however, was his suggestion that “you can’t really understand what he said without understanding the world in which he said it, especially if what Abayye “wore” includes the entire social and intellectual world that he lived in.”

Chaim Saiman is Associate Professor of Law at Villanova University, and is currently working on a book with the delicious (if tentative) title, Halakhah: The Rabbinic Idea of Law. Focusing on legal exegesis, Chaim makes the somber claim in this guest post that a true appreciation of the halakha would have to be diachronic, with attention paid in every instance to the social and intellectual worlds of its many contributors. Understanding a passage in the rabbinic literature without regard for the world of its authors is a futile endeavour and we face our intellectual poverty with every step that we take. Even were we confident of what Abayye, for example, might have intended at the time (notwithstanding, of course, any questions that concern the authorship of any passage that ascribes opinions to him), can we be likewise certain about the intentions of Rashi or the Tosafot, of the Rif, the Rambam, or any of a dozen other Rishonim who quoted the relevant passage and attempted to produce a normative legal practise?

As Chaim admits, any such study is both impossible and undesirable, but we can at least be cognisant of our inability to produce it, and aware of the ramifications of our ignorance to an appreciation of Jewish law. So far as any such appreciation goes, I found that his words resonated with me:

The process of law involves making normative arguments about the present by appeal to sources of authority from the past. While we allow rules of the past to make normative claims on the present, the price they pay for this honor is that they are filtered though the present interpretive assumptions. True, present assumptions can and often do contain contain a healthy dose of historicism, but since law incurs normative demands, the history will always be infused by the normative needs of the now… “History” is simply another form of normative legal argument, and its salience is in part determined by how well it fits into the tradition of interpretation.

I have long been of the opinion that history is itself but a complex and chaotic series of events, the imposition over which of a narrative structure is arbitrary at best and propagandistic at worst. Part of what I find so compelling about the halakhic process is its attempt to make of this history a reasoned and logical code of normative practise, from which there always seems to be more in the way of departure than anything else.


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Categories : Jewish Tradition

Ex Libris

6 11 2011

If you live in Sydney and you count yourself something of a bibliophile, go to Berkelouws in Paddington, where much of the late Professor Alan Crown’s library can be found on the third floor. Like a child in a candy store, I actually began to feel rather ill with the sheer amount of books that were there for the purchasing (a feeling that I have not had since the last time I wandered through a second-hand bookshop in Jerusalem), but I wisely limited my acquisitions and kindly left at least some books for the next patron.

I walked away with a mere six books, which is most unlike me, but then my shelves are very heavy and my wallet rather light. The following were the ones that most appealed to me:

• Raphael Posner and Israel Ta-Shema (eds.), The Hebrew Book: An Historical Survey (Jerusalem: Keter Publishing House, 1975). This handy volume contains a great deal of information on the history of Hebrew publishing, the many faces of Hebrew typography, the evolution of the printed Hebrew book, and the science of bibliography. Large and hardcover, it also features a number of interesting pictures of manuscripts (illuminated and non-illuminated), as well as first pages of important editions. Thanks to these pictures, I now know that Alan Crown’s bookplate features an image of the Gutenberg Press;

• Solomon L. Skoss, Saadia Gaon, The Earliest Hebrew Grammarian (Philadelphia: Dropsie College Press, 1955). Actually, this one was from the library of an R.J. Hosking, and comprises a study of Saadia Gaon’s Hebrew grammar. With the exception of two sections at the back on morphology, and one on the influence of Arabic, the “grammar” in question appears to be a sustained study on orthography and phonology, the latter being determined solely through a study of the former;

• Joseph Weiss, Studies in Eastern European Jewish Mysticism (ed. David Goldstein; London: Oxford University Press, 1985). I was hesitating between this volume and a scholarly biography of the Maharal, but a quick glance through the introduction of this one had me convinced of its superiority. Having read only those twenty pages, I am almost embarrassed to admit that I had never questioned the traditional explanation of the origins of the Hasidic movement: that it arose under the charismatic influence of the Baal Shem Tov, and the leadership of his most celebrated disciple, Rabbi Dov Baer of Mezeritch. Weiss suggests a far more complex reading of its origins, and draws lines of congruence between early Hasidic doctrines and the Sabbatean movement, which I have found most fascinating. I look forward to reading this one soon;

• Hyam Jacoby (ed. and trans.), Judaism on Trial: Jewish-Christian Disputations in the Middle Ages (London: Associated University Presses, 1982). This volume constitutes a fascinating historical analysis of three major disputations: Paris in 1240, Barcelona in 1263 and Tortosa in 1413-14. It also includes translations of, and commentaries on, both the Christian and the Hebrew accounts of all three, together with biographical notes on the chief personages present at the Barcelona disputation, and textual considerations in approaching the Ramban’s version of the event. I have been fascinated by the disputation at Barcelona ever since I first read the Ramban’s Vikuach in 2002, so I think that this one might be next on my reading list;

• Sigmund Mowinckel, The Psalms in Israel’s Worship (2 vols; trans. D.R. Ap-Thomas; Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1962). This one is a classic, and while I have no particular interest in Biblical poetry (leastways, no particular interest in the book of Psalms), Mowinckel’s form-critical considerations are of great value to me in my consideration of Hebrew liturgy: particularly the liturgical sections found within the post-exilic biblical literature.

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Speaking of prayer, I recently read a superb review of Rabbi Professor Daniel Sperber’s On Changes in Jewish Liturgy. I have since ordered the book from Amazon, and I eagerly await its arrival! For those of you who are interested in such things, the review can be found here, and is entitled “The Wrong Changes in Jewish Liturgy”. It is the contention of the reviewer (Rabbi Professor Aryeh Frimer) that Sperber is mistaken in his analysis, and that the sorts of egalitarian changes to the liturgy that he recommends are inconsistent with the halakha. It is a sensible and well-reasoned review, and it has inspired me to read more by both authors.

A follow-up to that review, by Rabbi Dr Seth Kadish, is entitled Each River and its Channel: Halakhic Attitudes Toward Liturgy. He disagrees with the first reviewer, although he doesn’t go into specific details about those changes in particular, and it is so erudite an analysis that I was also inspired to purchase his book (Kavvana: Directing the Heart in Jewish Prayer), which I ordered from Barnes and Noble.

Books that have, at last, arrived, are by Professor Raul Hilberg, and concern the academic study of the Shoah: a topic that I have long been interested in, but have shied away from approaching with too much detail. Seeing Prof. Hilberg interviewed on the first disc of Claude Lanzmann’s nine-and-a-half hour documentary, Shoah (1985) inspired me to take the plunge. I ordered, and have received, his monumental three-volume The Destruction of the European Jews: Revised and Definitive Edition (New York: Holmes & Meyer, 1985), and his sober and reflective Sources of Holocaust Research: An Analysis (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2001).

Finally, it remains only to mention the recent acquisition of Rabbi Yechiel Michel Epstein’s eight-volume Arukh haShulchan he’Atid, which nicely complements my thirteen-volume Arukh haShulchan, by the same author. I wouldn’t be so fastidious, were it not for the fact that he fascinatingly so fit to include rabbinic agricultural law in the volume that otherwise treats only of the halakhot of messianic times, and I have been learning (or trying to learn) Seder Zeraim. It would be nice to do so with a little be’iyyun, as they say, though that’s probably something of a pipe dream at present.

I have more than enough reading to be getting on with, nowhere near close to enough space in order to store the books that I am not in the process of reading, and considerably more than enough to be doing outside of my scratching these itches.

Thesis: write thyself.


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Categories : Literature

In Memoriam

6 11 2011

It has been just over one year since Professor Alan Crown passed away, and I spent a couple of days last week at a Dead Sea Scrolls conference that was organised in his honour by Associate Professor Ian Young and Dr Shani Tzoref. Our keynote speaker was Emeritus Professor Emanuel Tov, whose paper on the pre-Samaritan Qumran scrolls and their relationship to the Samaritan Pentateuch was one of the conference’s highlights. A former editor-in-chief of the Dead Sea Scrolls Publication Project, Professor Tov remains one of the foremost experts in Qumranic scribal practise, the development of the Hebrew Masoretic Text, and the Septuagint. His most recent publication is the third edition of his highly-recommended Textual Criticism of the Hebrew Bible, which I have been assiduously using in its first edition for several years.

We were also very pleased to welcome Dr Shani Tzoref, one of the two conveners of the conference, whose paper on the history of Dead Sea Scrolls research was fascinating. Dividing it into three successive periods, Shani remarked upon the various stages of Qumranic research, and the impact that they have had upon the presentation of the results (not to mention the nature of the results themselves), and their reception by the general scholarly community. Shani is presently involved in the Israel Antiquities Authority’s Dead Sea Scrolls Digitization Project, scanning the fragments using multi-spectral imaging and, in partnership with Google, uploading them to the internet. The five scrolls that they have finished uploading so far are 1QIsaa (“Great Isaiah Scroll”), 1QM (“War Scroll”), 1QpHab (“Pesher Habakkuk”), 11Q19 (“The Temple Scrolla“) and 1QS (“Community Rule”). They can all now be viewed online, and prompt an important question: what does the future hold for the expansion of Qumranic research as an open, inter-disciplinary enterprise?

Other highlights included Ian Young’s “Loose Language in 1QIsaa“, in which he considered the linguistic profile of the Great Isaiah Scroll, a paper on the layout of 1QpHab that was delivered by three Macquarie University students (Stephanie Ng, Alexandra Wrathall and Gareth Wearne), and Prof. William Loader’s paper on eschatology and sexuality in Qumran. Unfortunately, as neither Prof. Loader nor Prof. Albert Baumgarten could be with us (the former stuck in Perth and the latter in Alice Springs – both with tickets to fly Qantas to Sydney), Prof. Loader’s paper was read by Ian and Prof. Baumgarten’s paper was replaced with an opportunity for general discussion.

Alan would have been rather bemused by so many people turning up to an event in his honour, but the papers all dealt with topics that were close to his heart and his expertise was certainly missed.


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Categories : Language, Literature

Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company

12 10 2011

I don’t know why I do it to myself, I really don’t. For some reason, I just can’t leave well enough alone, and succumb repeatedly to the urge to engage stupid people in conversation. Experience has taught me that there are certain forums that are unsuitable to such a discussion (YouTube being the very top of the list), but I am also learning that there are certain people who are likewise unsuitable. Based on the conviction that there is a silent majority who reads threads without engaging in them, and that those are the people to whom I may be addressing my remarks, I have long contributed to online “discussions” that concern the historicity of the Holocaust.

In a nutshell (and I’ve every reason to suppose that, here, I’m preaching to the choir), the following are the characteristics that typify the “historical revisionist”:

• You take all of the evidence that testifies to the nature and scope of Hitler’s war against the Jews: the reams of archival footage, the written documentation, and the sworn testimony of survivors, “bystanders” and perpetrators, and you put it to one side;

• Remove carefully any material that pertains not to the Jews, but to the Third Reich’s malicious genocide of the Romani, or of their murderous treatment of homosexuals, political dissidents and general “undesirables”. You’ll want to keep this material for later;

• Indicate the teetering pile of evidence that confirms in both substance and extent the Shoah and declare it all a forgery. All of it. Some was invented by the Russians, who were eager to make the Germans look cruel. Some was invented by the Allied forces, who needed to make it seem as though Hitler was insane. Most of it, however, was made up by the Jews, who started the war in the first place, who have been funding wars around the globe both before and since, who have utilised this fabricated “Holohoax” to colonise Palestine, and who are disseminating these lies to the world via Hollywood, which they control;

• Next, what you’re going to want to do is get your hands on some material that contradicts the traditional narrative. A favourite in this regard (and something to form the basis of David Irving’s defence) is an obscure piece of evidence known as the Müller Document. Named for a general who is otherwise unknown (the Journal of Historical Review suggests that he was “perhaps a veteran of the International Brigades in Spain”), the document in question purports to be a letter that was sent to a number of different individuals, claiming that the Nazis never used poison gas for the purposes of extermination, and that any testimony to the contrary was obtained under torture. The original missive no longer exists, but don’t worry. Despite bearing all of the hallmarks of an actual forgery, this sort of material is the real evidence;

• In line with the preceding point, what you are now going to want to do is make what real historians call “an argument from silence”. Since you have dismissed all of the actual evidence as forgery, the fact that no evidence for the Shoah exists means that there was no Shoah. If any Jews died, it was due to their having been rounded up for being political dissidents (they did, after all, fund an international war), at which point some of them died from typhus, and others died when the Allied powers bombed the towns in which they were living;

• Are you with me so far? This is where it gets fun! The global Jewish confederacy of scoundrels (the Learned Elders of Zion, as we prefer to be known) is smart enough to be able to hoodwink the entire Western world, but too stupid to fool a small group of fringe academics with links to neo-Nazi movements. In order to silence such people, the Jews have engaged in a global smear campaign, the result of which is that it is actually illegal to deny the Holocaust, and good men like Ernst Zündel have to sit in prison while criminals like Elie Wiesel get to walk free;

• We’re almost done, but to deliver the final coup de grace we’re going to have to be a little bit inconsistent. You don’t mind being inconsistent do you? Excellent news. All of the documentation that we put aside before, testifying to the genocide of Romani (the “Porajmos”) and the murder of other “undesirables”, is going to be useful. Depending on your own personal taste, and how far you’d like to go with it, this material is all more-or-less true. You can refer to it freely now, in the context of lamenting Hollywood’s single-minded fetishisation of the Jewish Holocaust and the media’s unequivocal support for the State of Israel (!?).

They’re a delightful bunch, these “historical revisionists”, and the only reason that I enclose the term in quotation marks is because that’s merely what they claim to be. In actual fact, historical revisionism is the practise of returning to the original sources in order to reassess what they teach us about history, despite whatever popular traditions may have developed. Historical revisionism can be a useful tool. Holocaust denialism, on the other hand, is conducted by abrogating the original sources in an effort to promote a racist agenda. It’s an enterprise conducted by pseudo-historians whose only methodology (if it can be termed a methodology) is to write their conclusions before they have conducted their research.

I know that I am not going to convince anybody of this, and I’ve the ulcers to prove it, but I’ll be damned if I won’t at least try. Which brings me, of course, to the point of this post.

Amazon.com is presently selling a number of different books that can only be described as “hate literature”. They are written by people like Michael Hoffman, who brag of having spent years studying the Babylonian Talmud, but who utilised none of that time in an attempt to master the original languages of its composition. I can only imagine what sort of person spends years studying something that makes him angry, but cannot imagine why a reputable company like Amazon wishes to sell the fruits of his labour. Having grown tired of arguing with people on their actual site, I decided to write them a letter and issue a formal complaint. The following is what I wrote to them a fortnight ago:

To whom it may concern,

After browsing through your catalogue of books, I was struck by the fact that you don’t seem to selling anything that accuses Protestants of drinking the blood of children. Not only that, but I can’t find any literature to substantiate the fact that Catholics are running all of the world governments, that Romanian gypsies are flea-ridden vermin, that Hindu immigration is corrupting this country, or that the Armenians fabricated their genocide. And I thought I’d ask why this is so, for I know that such revolting material does exist. It surely cannot be that you find it offensive, for you have a large number of books here that make these very sorts of claims about Jews and Muslims.

In some instances (as with Luther’s “On the Jews and Their Lies”, Hitler’s “Mein Kampf”, or even “The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion”), these works have an historical value – slight, in some cases, as it may be – and that value may even persist despite the timbre of their reviews and the discussions that they have generated. In other instances, however (as with Marrs’ “The Conspiracy of the Six-Pointed Star”, Hoffman’s “Judaism Discovered” and Hitchcock’s “The Synagogue of Satan”), no such value exists.

Unless the definition of literature has been extended to include absolutely everything, irrespective of whether it is cogent or informative (or, in the case of Hoffman’s work, even correctly spelled), then I am forced to wonder what such material is doing here in the first place. I have purchased a great many products from Amazon in the past, and will continue to do so in the future. You are providing an excellent service with a fantastic range, and while I applaud the absence of malicious and inciteful hate literature when it comes to certain other groups, I would that this same courtesy were extended to all.

Considering the very real danger that underscores the viciously antisemitic and anti-Muslim material that you are selling, and given the acerbic nature of the discussions that they have engendered, I respectfully suggest that you encourage the uninformed and the mentally ill to purchase their propaganda from a lesser vendor.

With many thanks, and sincerely,
Simon Holloway

After a delay of only one day, the following is the response that I received. As I have not heard back from them since, I will assume that this response is to be considered final. I have emphasised a line in it, for the purpose of drawing attention to the fact that the sloppiness exhibited by Amazon’s customer service representative extended well beyond an inability to read my letter, and that she seems to be struggling with the English language in general:

Hello,

Thanks for your suggestion about other types of books to be available in amazon.com. I know this may be disappointing that all books is not available in our website, I hope you understand our supply for the books depends with our publishers.

We appreciate the time you have taken to bring this to our attention. Customer feedback like yours is very important in helping us continue to improve our services.

…

Thanks again for your feedback. We hope to see you again soon.

Best regards,

Melody G.
Amazon.com

Your feedback is helping us build Earth’s Most Customer-Centric Company.


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Categories : Literature

An Elusive Midrash

9 10 2011

Not so long ago now, I found myself teaching a four-week course on the development of the Kabbalah. Not my area of expertise (an understatement, to say the least), I found it necessary to bury my head in some wonderful literature by the likes of Gershom Scholem and Isaiah Tishby – not to mention getting stuck into some truly fascinating passages from the Sefer Yetzirah, Sefer Bahir, Sefer haZohar, etc. As Rosh haShana was coming up, I also sought to tie in some material each week that pertained to the contributions made by the Kabbalists to the development of this festival and their interpretations of it. In researching that particular component of the topic, I happened to alight upon the following midrash, recorded in a recent acquisition of mine, entitled חגי ישראל:

חכמינו מסבירים: בראש השנה, שהוא יום הדין, מתעוררים הכחות המבקשים להרע לישראל ולהרשיעם בדין. אומר להם הקדוש-ברוך-הוא: לכו והביאו עדים לאשור דבריכם. הולך השטן ומביא את השמש הצופה על כל מעשי האדם, שתבוא ותעיד. רוצה הוא להביא גם אם הלבנה (הירח), שתעיד אף היא, כי צריך שני עדים לאשור דבר. והולכת הלבנה ומתכסית ומסתתרת. ומכיון שהשטן אינו מוצא שני עדים שיאשרו את דבריו, אין טענותיו מתקבלות
- חגי ישראל, p110

Before I translate this midrash, it’s worth noting a curious feature of Rosh haShana, and one that distinguishes it from the other festivals. Hebrew months (which, unlike months in the Gregorian calendar, are not simply divisions of the year) are synodic. That is, they represent the length of time between one new moon and the next. Jewish festivals tend to occur either in the middle of the month, when the moon is at its fullest, or towards the end of the month, as the moon is waning. Pesach occurs on the 15th of Nisan, Yom Kippur on the 10th of Tishrei, Sukkot on the 15th of Tishrei, Simchat Torah on the 23rd of Tishrei, Hanukkah on the 25th of Kislev, and Purim on the 14th of Adar. The only other festival to come close to the beginning of the month is Shavuot, which occurs on the 6th of Sivan, at a time when the moon is a sliver. But Rosh haShana, to which the psalmist is traditionally believed to be referring in Psalms 81:4, is the day of the moon’s utter concealment.

I translate the midrash that I quoted above as follows:

Our sages explain: On Rosh haShana, which is the day of judgment, the powers that seek to harm Israel and to cause them mischief in judgment are aroused. The Holy One (blessed is he) says to them, “Go and bring witnesses to confirm your words!” The adversary (the “Satan”) goes and brings the sun, who watches over all the deeds of man, that she might come and bear witness. He also wants to bring the moon, that she might testify as well, for one requires two witnesses to confirm a matter. But the moon goes and conceals herself and hides herself away. Since the adversary cannot find two witnesses who will confirm his words, his claims are not received.

Truly fascinating, and yet – like so many of the midrashim recorded in this excellent book – there is no source! So, guessing that the actual midrash in question most probably quotes Psalms 81:4, I whipped out my copy of Torah haKetuvah vehaMesorah, which was gifted to me by my excellent friend, Rivqa. Under this verse, the following sources are listed:

Babylonian Talmud, Beitzah 16a;
Babylonian Talmud, Rosh haShana 8a, 11a-b, 34a;
Babylonian Talmud, Sanhedrin 11b, 96b;
Tosefta, Rosh haShana 1:10;
Mekhilta deRebi Ishmael, Bo 14;
Leviticus Rabba 29:6;
Tanchuma Bo 9;
Pesiqta deRav Qahana 152b, 154a;
Pesiqta Rabbati 40;
Pirqei deRebi Eliezer 7;
Yalqut Shimoni I:177, 210, 645, 646, 782, 860;
Yalqut Shimoni II:278, 419, 436, 534, 831, 923, 1071;
Sheiltot deRav Ahai Gaon Bo 46;
Zohar I:114b;
Zohar II:135b, 184a, 267b;
Zohar III:86a, 98b, 100b, 121b, 231b, 275a.

It is with great pleasure that I am able to declare that every single one of these texts is in my bedroom, and it was with great pleasure that I devoted a full hour to trying to discover which of them contained this particular midrash. Would you believe it? It was the very last one on the list. Rosh haShana may be over for another year, but the midrash in question is so interesting that I thought I would share it. This is how it appears in the Zohar, together with my translation:

ולא עוד אלא שמשא וסיהרא סהדין על בר נש כמה דאוקמוה תקעו בחדש שופר בכסה ליום חגנו מאי בכסה ביומא דסיהרא מתכסת ואמאי מתכסת בגין דכד מטי ראש השנה יתי סמ”אל למתבע דינא לבנוי קמי קדשא בריך הוא והוא ימא לה דיתי סהדין והוא יתי לשמשא עמה אזל לאיתי סיהרא והיא מתכסית באן אתר מתכסת אלא סליקת לההוא אתר דאתמר בה במכוסה ממך אל תחקור לפיסא לה על בנהא

Not only this, but even the sun and the moon testify against a person, as they established: “Blow the shofar at the start of the month, at the concealment, on the day of our festival”. What does “at the concealment” mean? On the day when the moon is concealed. And why is the moon concealed? Because as soon as Rosh haShana arrives, Samael comes to indict his children before the Holy One, blessed is he, and he tells him to bring witnesses, so he brings the sun with him. He goes to bring the moon, but she is hidden. Where is she hidden? She has gone up to that place, of which it is said, “Do not investigate that which is concealed from you”, in order to conciliate him concerning her children.
- Zohar III:275a

In the original version, as you can see, the adversary is Samael and not the Satan, although the role that he plays is the same. If you are interested, the Jewish Encylopedia has an article on him. For my part, I find far more interesting the quote that is employed, concerning the place to which the moon has gone.

במכוסה ממך אל תחקור (“Do not investigate that which is concealed from you”) may appear to be a straight quote from the Babylonian Talmud, Hagigah 13a. In fact, in my version of the Zohar al-haTorah (published in three volumes by Mossad haRav Kook), it is Hagigah 13a that is listed as the source. But if you consult this particular source, you will find that the full quote is במופלא ממך אל תדרוש ובמכוסה ממך אל תחקור (“Do not seek out that which is too wondrous for you, nor investigate that which is concealed from you”). Are you curious? It’s not from the Hebrew Bible, but from Ben Sirach 3:21.

Given that a major part of my focus during this course was on the ways in which the “apocryphal” literature resurfaced in the Kabbalah, this was a real find. We witnessed the emergence of the Enoch traditions and their utilisation in the Heikhalot of Rabbi Ishmael, and we considered the possible role of the calendar from Jubilees in the very early mystical literature. It seems a curious feature of the kabbalistic tradition that it came to serve as a storage house (a metaphysical geniza, of sorts) for all that was marginalised and rejected. It is likewise a curious feature of this tradition that it was to internalise the anti-mystical tendencies of halakhic Judaism, even after its normativisation in the 16th century, and to develop a certain anti-mysticism of its own. Before that could happen, and long before the extreme popularisation of the Kabbalah under the aegis of the Hasidic movement, texts like the Zohar were to straddle both worlds.

On the one hand, they serve as a veritable cornucopia of the esoteric and the bizarre. They feature characters and traditions from the farthest flung reaches of unorthodox Jewish thought, and reference on more than one occasion books that are well outside the established rabbinic tradition. On the other hand, however, they are closed books to all save the initiated, amongst whom I cannot even begin to imagine including myself. By closing themselves off from the eyes of outsiders (a tradition that I believe originated with the prophetic guilds, during the movement from prophecy to apocalyptic), they not only internalised the ban on studying mystical matters, but they testified to the need for such a ban in the first place. It is ironic that Ben Sirach’s warning against investigating that which is hidden and obscure (a warning which finds its parallel in Deuteronomy 29:28) should have been utilised in a text that, to all intents and purposes, could have constituted the subject of the warning itself.


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Categories : Random Musings

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