=purav5
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THE BROIGES BEGGAR'S GAZETTE
Publiee en Broiges, Belge
"I had one Grunch, but the Eggplant over there."
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OUR PRICE: -- NIE (New Israeli Euro) 1.5 -- -- CHEAP--
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VOLUME 2: #3
AFTERMATH EDITION
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Pesach is a bit of a tornado, one tries to stay standing.
Ted Martin taught math at MIT, having survived the 50's Witchhunt.
Then he retired and got a place on Block Island, which he named
Aftermath.
Speaking as a neo-conservative,
(which I'm not, of course;
I mean, one might as well wear polyester;
politics as a fashion accessory),
[Yhe world is engaged in a battle to preserve civilization.
The Bushie Neo-Cons
[I mean, Oy, for this we rode Bill Clinton out of town on a rail?]
are leading one last Crusade against the neo-traditionalist of
Islam.
Only it is not clear which side represents civilization:
Big Macs & blue Talk shows & Frankenstein Soybeans
vs.
Algebra, calligraphy, and blue--green tilework. ]
{Anyhow: Speaking as a neo-conservative}
I side with the Sadduces.
On the Omer, they seem quite right
(so Yom haRishon would be Chesed,
(as-it-is-said, "Monday's child is full of grace")
erev Shabat would be Yesod; Shabat would be Malkhut)
(as-it-is-said, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating")
(although it ain't clear which Shabat was intended: before,
during, or after;
so maybe they're not quite right after-all)
That is: contracts are an illusion; bedike hametz is for real.
Mysticism has ontic priority over realism (except Zen and pueblo
Indians ways), and a fortiori over legalism.
T.S. Eliot, --l'havdil! that paradigmatic turkey --
is said to have said that the only drama which still moved him was
a High Mass.
(Anglican, one presumes; no garlic here.)
Is the Seder an intricate ritual or a burlesque.
Joel Rosenberg said: It's like a page of Talmud; the set table is
surrounded with commentaries.
Hard to find good non-orthodox commentary in Israel.
Eg, Larry Kushner's Book of Letters, and his lovely long Jungian
midrash, following Avraham chasing the calf down the cave back
into Gan Eden.
And Art Waskow's Seasons of our Joy, with those intricate paper-
cuts by the Farins.
Did Jesus exist, or is it just a set of commentaries, like the
Zohar.
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TODAY'S QUIZ: WHAT'S WRONG WITH THIS PICTURE?
The Setting:
Phileas Phoghorn has just submitted the following Mini-Thesis in
Thomistic Cosmology to the Lower Slobdovian Institute for Advanced
Beserks (an Affiliate of the University of Chelm Mule-Skinners'
College).
The Thesis Committee is befuddled, and asks for your assistance,.
How many concpetual errors can you find?
The winner will receive a free 6-month subscription to the Broiges
Beggars' Gazette.
"Spring forward, Fall back."
One warps too abruptly into summertime right after Pesach.
So where does that lost hour go.
Obviously into some sort of hyperspace construct.
This is the year 5765 A.C. (Absolute Calendar).
That is, it is going on 5765 years since the Big Bang.
So obviously there are now 5765 hours in hyperspace.
But then does that mean that if I move to hyperspace
(one must plan ahead nowadays; everyone needs a sealed room)
that I have only 240 days to live there? (Cows Defend Us!)
Obviously not; I can check baggage allowance right now:
Because, allowing for inflation --
and everyone knows that the universe is inflating
the earlier hours are progressively much longer than present hours
So Hyperspace is almost infinitely long
And this can be proved from Einstein's Theory of Relativity:
Einstein said (who knows why) that e=m(cc)
where c is (who knows why) the speed of light
So as anything approaches the speed of light (as the limit), its
mass approaches infinity; and time becomes of relatively longer
duration, approaching infinite extension
Now everyone knows that at the instant preceeding the Big Bang
(which was, of course, the Start of time), the Universe was of
almost infinite mass (density), because (except that causes did
not yet exist) it was of minimal size
So that indicates that just before the Start of Time, the universe
was travelling at almost infinite speed
(speed, not velocity, since at that stage, as it were, the
Universe didn't care where it was going, since there was nowhere
to go because space came into existence only at the time of the
Big Bang -- when time also came into existence)
Therefore, before the Big Bang, one direction was the same as any
other, it didn't make any difference; therefore the universe had
only speed, not velocity.
So at the instant preceeding the Big Bang, the universe had nearly
infinite mass because it was travelling (albeit not through space,
since space did not yet exist) at nearly infinite speed
Of course 'infinite speed' means only some 185,000 miles per
second, since Einstein says nothing can travel faster than the
speed of light, because if it did we couldn't see it in time to
step aside, so nobody could know so who cares so forget it because
the Verifiability Criterion of Meaning says so.
So that means that Infinity in our Cosmos -- or whatever it is
that a Universe fits into -- is relatively small potatoes.
Oh well. Everyone says, gotta be humble.
Nu, so what happened.
Obviously the Universe, which had been traveling Perfectly (as the
Thomists tell us) contentedly at nearly Max Speed, suddenly braked
And then, by Newton's first law of Motion, it started farting out
gas from its backside (not, as we would rather imagine the Big
Bang, expanding forwards in all directions, preferably ahead)
So it remains only to ask: What caused (as it were) the Universe
to suddenly brake
Obviously, as anyone who took the train from Jerusalem in the
'80's knows, the Primordial Palestinians put something on the
cosmic tracks
So as Heraklitus says, all time begins with the Primordial
Intifada
(Reference: Heraklitus, fragments on 'Strife'
Q.E.D. Bungagee, it's half-past time for the mid-morning minyan.
Further questions may be directed to Eliahu Gal-Or; I don't know
what I just said.
sa, Mevo Modi'in, 18 Nisan 5765
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NEW FEATURE! ASK THE PURAV:
"It ain't so bad talking to yourself.
It's when you start answering yourself that you got problems."
Jack Kerouac, quoting an old forest-fire lookout.
We welcome your questions, and will strive to find an
incrementally more machmere response than any of our competitors
have yet (like one who, having become a graceful swimmer, bobs
upside down and goes down into the muck) come up with; thereby
gaining relative zhut and eventually maybe passing GO and becoming
Chief Rabbi for Parchesi (Connecticut; adjacent to to Haddam in
Stevens County).
[Mevo Modi'in, Pesach '04]
I am often asked -- each time I open my 2" solid steel front door,
as a matter of fact -- : "Why are the mitzvot of Pesach incumbent
upon cats?"
First of all: is your cat wearing a collar?
Anyone wearing about the neck a collar which he/she cannot remove
-- of iron band, thin gold-link, or even imitation pearls -- is a
licensed, purchased 'eveD and falls under the owner's obligation
to keep those mitzvot. (If this applies to you, you are quite
possibly a cat, and should endeavour to determine who or what your
master is.)
However, if your cat acquired you -- that is, settled on your
front door-stoop, and usually returns there to sleep at night --
then the cat is a TOShav or a GeR and is apparently not obligated,
and maybe not even allowed, to abstain from hametz.
(May, or should, one invite a gentile to one's Seder:
Some say, one can and should,
as this is 'let all who are hungry come and eat',
as-it-is-said, 'and the hunger will not be for bread, but to
hear the WORD of the LORD',
and as-it-is-said, 'we will hear and do', meaning, one can hear
only by doing.
But others say:
No gentile is to eat of the Pesach, and now the matza at the Seder
stands in place (but most say: in memory, not 'in place') of the
Pesach, so no gentile may be invited to a Seder.
I say: Risk-benefit analysis proves that a gentile may go to a
Seder. For the penalty to a Jew for eating hametz on Pesach is
most severe, amd since who knows who's a Jew, let them in, however
awkwardly they ask, as-it-is-said, "better to be safe than sorry".
So this is a fence, and a fence is 'do not put a stumbling bloc in
the way of the blind'.
For nowadays, many are Jewish and do not know it. Some are
Chinese, or Sioux Indian, or American Negro.
Delores Gray came to Jerusalem from L.A. as a Minister and said, I
want to go to a Seder. They said, we can't let you in. She said,
of course I can, I want to be with my people.
Then some years later she converted, which proves she was always
Jewish, as-it-is-said, all who convert stood with us at Sinai.
A visitor came to Jerusalem to see Jews and met her. He was
disappointed, because she didn't speak Yiddish.
Well, R. Shlomo would say something about that. Eg, "What do we
know" and "Where were my eyes".
Rinata came from Heidelberg and sat in the attic of Bet Bernstein
and said, I want to convert, and all I know about my grandfather
is that they said he used to do something with a chicken. I said,
you don't have to convert; you're Jewish. Because there is only
one memorable thing that anyone but a chicken can do with a
chicken, and that's kaporet. )
But we are discussing whether a cat must keep the Pesach halachot:
First of all: the mitzvot or chametz are incumbent only upon
Jewish cats. And the only known species of Jewish cat is, of
course, Siamese cats, because they talk too much.
Furthermore: The avoidance of hametz (by Jewish cats) is only
obligatory upon cats of bar/bat mitzva age.
So that raises the question: at what age is a Jewish cat bar/bat
mitzva.
To calculate that, note that one cat-year is equivalent to
approximataely 4 human years.
So under certain circumstances, a cat is permitted to go to the
Doggy Diner during Pesach and order buttered toast.
However, room service (or door-stoop service) is another matter;
as it is said: There shall be no hametz in your habitations (or
maybe it is said: you shall see no hametz).
So a cat may be fed hametz in the Thailand-y slave-shacks; but not
in the Filipino servant's quarters.
But then is not one permitted to feed one's cat standard catfood
(which contains wheat) in one's own home, provided one does so
blindfolded?
As Pesach has now ended (except arguably for Siamese cats, who
might be obligated to keep an 8th day), this discussion may be
adjourned, for arbitration by the cat of Eliahu haNavi (for when
Eliahu haNavi at long last leaves exile and comes to this land "of
milk and honey" what intelligent cat would not follow him?).
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Q: What should a SHOMER do?
A: As little as possible; this is a free country.
Commentary:
I was hitching through Kansas one summer day '59. Willing to meet
the goyim half-way, I was conservatively dressed in a wool grey-
flannel suit, in the 90-degree Fahrenheit summer sun. An officer
of the Highway Patrol stopped me, and, after having telephoned my
parents, asked: What's with this beard bit? [ He was a most hip
Highway Patrol Officer, as such things go. ] I said: Oh --
School play [theatre group; maybe I was playing Abe Lincoln. ] He
telephoned my parents, and then drove me to the railroad station,
where I continued to Denver and climbed, almost, Mt. Harvard. It
was about 14,000 feet, and toward the end I could walk only about
8 strides at a time, before pausing to catch my breath; so they
left me behind and went up to get back off the peak before the
afternoon lightning storm. On the way back down we did a
'glissande' (or 'rumpage') down the snow-fields.
At the time I had finished my freshman year at Oberlin. What I
knew about Judaism boiled down to: I was Jewish; being Jewish was
something to be proud of; as an historically oppressed people we
now had an obligation to help defend all oppressed peoples; and
Jews wore beards because the Bible said to.
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