=PurRav9 ================================================================= THE BROIGES BEGGARS GAZETTE Publiee en Broiges, Belges -----------------------------------------------------------------* MAR CHESHVAN Edition -- -- But he'll let you borrow it ------------------------------------------------------------------ - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - OUR PRICE: NIE (Nu, Israeli Euros) 1.5 CHEAP "I had one grunch, but the eggplant over there." - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - IMPORTANT HALACHIC NOTICE: This MarCheshvan Edition has been published in Galutz, so it can be read before first tearing off a corner tithe (though not a Fifth, particularly if soaked in Bourbon) and feeding it to a holy goat (or if you're all at sea, to a holy mackeral.) ================================================================ù ================================================================ THIS MONTH'S ISSUE: WHY I AM A REFORMIE --Reasons 327--668 KIDS!! -- Be the first in your Block, Asbestos Kibutz, Friday night Maklat Disco, Ashram, Consciousness-raising Session, Encounter group, or (Cows Defend Us!) Young Republicans Coven to collect all 999 Reasons to BE A REFORMIE, and *** WIN !!! *** a *** FREE SHRIMP COCKTAIL !!! **** with your choice of pareve tomatoe sauce or shaving-cream cake-topping !!! (This offer open only to Free Shrimp; Indentured Servants need not apply.) Kindly specify your choice of Mescal or Fermented Yaks' Milk (subject to availability.) ---------------------------------------------------------------- N.B.: Because I branch off into sub-points each time a fly sneezes -- #L2 (frightfully distracting, as you might imagine, to those of us of exceptional sensitivity) -- #l1 this article will only be intelligible (which it ain't anyhow) if reconstituted into and read under EinsteinWriter format (W.EXE, availabe #L2 (to all who do not scruple at receiving stolen goods) #l1 on my Website); as noted on that (viz: this) Website, a *.txt document is reconstituted into EinsteinWriter format by replacing all occurrences of #L with .L (respectively, replacing (tic_tac_toe__board folled by the letter L), with (a dot (properly called a period, except in Victorian society)) followed by the letter L , NOT case-sensitive) =============================================================== Why I am a REFORMIE -- Reason #327: YOGI BEARA, CATCHER, N.Y. YANKEES "It's deja vu all over again" Just before kol nidre, I took my swimming trunks over to the pblic float on Lugano Lake, wished for a shot of anything 80 proof or better, and took a quick swim. The water felt astoundingly pure and refreshing. So what is a mikve, and what isn't a mikveh. I say it has to be drinkable fresh water. A mikve is a mayim chayim. What is mayim chayim. A running stream, or a lake. Fish can live in it, and we cam drink it and live by it. Fish can live in the sea, but we can not drink it and live. What of the cholorinated water in a swimming pool. What of the Dead Sea. Surely not. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Why I am a REFORMIE -- Reason *582: WALT DROPO, FIRST BASE, BOSTON RED SOX Reform is quite righr, andso are the Rabonim, and the haredim too: religious Judaism was created for a particular place and time -- the land of Israel in the Iron Age -- and must be adapted to change. Reform acknowleges this explicitly, reactionary orthodoxy ('ultra- orthodoxy' -- #L2 (a misleading term, as if modern orthodoxy #L3 (orthodoxy for Young Moderns, the type who would read the New Yorker it and they had changed with the times, and if it were still worth reading) #L1 acknowleges it implicitly.) #L3 (I mean, was it carved into a footnote on the Two Tablets, P.S.-- You can use a Shabos elevator when they make one, maybe for the Tower of Babel when they build it.) #L1 But the Rabonim and the haredim act as lawyers, and pretend to have found a Euclidean deduction, hower far-fetched, from the Bible. #L2 (This is the parable of Moshe Rabbenu's visit to the Yeshiva -- he can't comprehend what they're talkinng about, but is comforted when they say, this is from Moshe Rabbneu. #L1 Whereas Reform is more honest and says, we have adapted. #L2 (So too Spinoza followed a pseudo-Euclinean model, but re- cosidered the First Principles. #L3 (I wonder just now if it could have been that -- reflecting on Spinoza's intellectual motivation -- that led Chaim Grade, in The Yeshiva, to the rather odd notion (for Judaism, though not for Thomistic Catholicism) that it was an attack of doubt about 'First Principles' that compelled his protagonist, 'Tzemach Atlas' -- imagining that he carried the theologic world on his shoulders -- to abandon his position as a rosh yeshiva. #L4 (I once heard Ben-Zion Gold, Director of Harvard Hillel in the 1970's, say: A student had come to him and said, she felt that in good conscience she was obliged to withdraw from religious Jewish activities, since she was no longer sure that she believed in the existence of the G_d. Ben-Zion Gold said that he had responded (best's I recollect, somewhat paraphrased:) But why deprive yourself of all that pleasure while you're making up your mind. I mean, everyone knows, religious Judaism is primarily a matter of doing (the mitzvot) not of believing (some sort of imitation-Catholic credo). #l1 So was the Torah not revealed? I want to say -- it depends what you mean by 'revealed'. And do you presuppose it was revealed with 100 percent efficiency -- no 'noise' (a Bell Labs term, 1950's) --- no 'loss in transmission' -- a perectly clear receiver. (Cf. C.S. Pierce -- meaing is triadic -- sender--message--receiver. ) What is communicated is not what is said, but what is received. To try one example: To wash one's hands is a blessing in a hot climate, but not in the galutz of northern Europe -- few haredim go on Antarctic expeditions. In a cold climate, even Zfat and Jerusalem -- the whole central highland and the Golan -- how can one not stoke a fire on Shabat - - or even rekindle it, in case of need -- if it goes out, and there are elderly or sick or infants --- I'm sitting here in the low alps, 1500 m. , in the waning moon of Cheshvan, a bit of ice on the ground last night -- and I can't keep a fire going in the iron wood-stove all night, even though I put on a big log before I go to bed -- and as for keeping a fire going without adding to it, I see no way -- even if I had a huge stone fireplace, which would be very difficult to build, not a small earthen one -- And the same applies to heating hot food, or even hot water for a cup of tea -- I'm not old or frail -- heck, I've barely started my second childhood, and growing younger and more spaced out every day -- but I don't think I could get through a Shabat here and now without a boiling hot cup of tea a few times a day, and then retreating to my room, getting under the feather-coverlet (made from the Polyester Bird, a great rarity even in the Court of King Solomon, but easier than plucking a hundred chickens or a thousand ducks) and turning on the electric heater. I can argue, tho not all that comfortably, that turning on electricity is completing a circuit, not kindling a fire. But when it gets to be real winter, I don't see how I can manage without kindling a fire on Shabat. Which contradicts an explicit statement in the Bible. I mean, if they don't say it in the Bible, I can weasel out of it, leaving nothing behind but maybe a bit of my conscience -- I mean, Moshe Rabenu never said don't turn on the electric light -- but how can I go against a biblical command and still say I follow religious Judaism -- well, I'll work on that one, give me half a day and a shot of cognac -- I don't see the 'Shabos goy' as an acceptable solution. It says explicitly in the Bible, and the rabonim have us iterate it at mealtime on Shabat day, which is about when the house is really going to be cold , that you don't do work, and neither do your servants, or your animals. And if you say, but if the servants are not Jewish it's ok, I will say back, Nu, and the donkey wears a kippa? ( I want to say: the commandment that your servants shall not work on Shabat has priority over the commandment not to kindle a fire on Shabat, which comes a bit later in Exodus, in Mishpatim if I recall (I don't have my Bible handy, I left it in the Holy Land for safekeeping, El Al having offered me 20 kg. of luggage) Mishpatim being sort of the Administrative Regulations effecting the Law of the revelation on Mt. Sinai -- but everyone knows, we don't go with the notion of a hierarchy of commandments -- Solevetchik mentions that -- someone said, if this guy isn't circumcised he isn't even a Jew yet, even if he's descended from a hundred Rebitzins, and R. Solevetchik the elder said, No, circumcission is just one mitzva among the 613. And somoene says in Pirke haAvot, be as careful with a light mitzva as a heavy one -- which introduces a hierchic notion of mityvot only to deny it -- ) And IF you say, we don't make the goyim work for us on Shabat (not the Jewish staff in the Glatt kosher kitchen) , they do this of their own free will -- like, they get a thrill for Jews on Saturday instead of going out to watch the half-time show at the SuperBowl, or whatever goyim do for spiritual uplight .. THEN I would be inclined to respond -- Oh, Fartsenfeathers. ================================================================ Why I am a REFORMIE -- Reason #723 -- JIMMY PIERSALL, RIGHT FIELD, BOSTON RED SOX Jimmy Piersall was a brilliant outfielder, who apparently contracted manic depression. He later wrote a book, "Fear Strikes Out." ----------------------------------------------------------------- L'mehadrin is not that at all: it rarely enhances , adds beauty, to mitzvot; it is more often the sin of excessie zeal, tending toward obsessiveness, as if a hiker looked only at the trail- markers, not the spectacular mountain landscape. (I'm not sure what the means, nor if I believe it, but it sounds good. ) ----------------------------------------------------------------- Reason *211: HANK AARON, RIGHT FIELD, BOSTON BRAVES (Hank Aron was one of the first Afro-American Major League baseball players. It was said at the time, that was in the 1950's, some day every team, even the Red Sox, will have black players. ("Today make I mention of my sins."(Genesis)) ) ---------------------------------------------------------------- The haredim -- not the chasidm, nor even the Litvaks (mitnogdim), but those clean-shaven glatt kosher legalists -- mistake the means for the end. It is halacha, the way to go. For the haredim, it's like pulling into a gas station, asking for directions, and then turning off the engine and sitting for the rest of one's life in the gas station, contemplating the roadmap. And also: in the next world #L2 ("and the world after that" -- #L3 a woman from Copenhagen said that to me on Rodos, as she tried to perusade me not to spend the next 3 years sitting on a rocky tourist beach pretending to be a bum for fear that someone would identify me as madman, lock me up away from mature, and then pickle me in chemicals #L4 -- a fate worse than jail, as all whom I mmet in the latter agreed.) #L1 We do not do the mitzvot -- but if the mitzvot were and end in themselves, then someone who goes to heaven would be rewarded by dong them in heaven. (Darned if I know now what I meant then by that antecedent phrase. ) ----------------------------------------------------------------- WHY I AM A REFORMIE: (One of the probelems with the Reform Movement, especially in Israel, is that "It don't do nothing; it just sets there." (New England folk-saying, or an imitation thereof.) In the USA, leastways from the 50s to the last I was there which is early 80s, Reform was Modern in the most dated sense of the term -- Radio City Music Hall as modern architecture -- they wildly abridged the siddur, and tossed in electric organ riffs, built synagogues that looked like gymnasiums, which enough asphalt parking lot to grow corn for a shtetl. Well, at best they produced good ethics, tho I think now they tend to political correctness, which is kinda degenerate. A few major figures, notably Larry Kushner, took their stand in Reform. Reason #532 -- DOM DIMAGGIO, LEFT FIELD, BOSTON RED SOX --------------------------------------------------------------- I press grapes for kosher wine -- #l2 a very questionable ruling: that wine which would otherwise be kosher, is kosher only if produced entirely by Jewish labour -- #L1 and am astounded by the waste -- an almost Roman conspicuous consumption -- #L2 like burning olive oil for light -- #L3 I mean, a bottle of real olive oil, with no chemicals added ("extra virgin" they call it, an odd turn of phrase) -- is not cheap -- and is used just to dip bread in, as a special treat - to use it for cooking oil would be unjustifiably extravagant -- a bit for salad dressing, ok -- with lemon or wine vinegar -- but a liter bottle should last me almost a month -- so how could I justify using it for lights, it would be gone in a few days -- #L4 or the Zealots on Masada bathing in the face of the thirst-racked Roman besieges -- an ostensibly -- and ostentatious -- religious flauting one's wealth in the face of the poor -- I mean, those soldiers, the line soldiers, were I bet just enslaved peasants -- as for the officers, I doubt they suffered along with the men -- no wonder Jesus came to the Temple -- I reckon he really did want to free the Jews from Roman tyranny, but he was going about with with nonviolent passive resistance, and nobody could comprehend that #L1 I mean, how could you feed the juice of grapes to anyone but old King Davd, and how could you burn olive oil for anyone but Aaron haCohen, and for Miriam the older sister of Moshe Rabenu and his brother ("he shall be as a mouth to you") Aaron -- I mean, when I crush grapes for wine, almost all of the grape is wasted, and the best parts too -- though maybe with better crushing, more is used -- In Rodos I crushed grapes, and they would sometimes get a tang within a day -- so here it is proper to make no distinction between grape juice and wine -- but if you abort the fermentation process with a preservative, is grape juice still countable as wine -- for now it can never ferment -- and for that mattter, when you kill any further fermentation with modern preservatives, sodium sulfite if I recall -- is the wine still real wine -- for it is no longer living wine -- and furthermore, that sodium sulfite is a poison, maybe potentially (ie, possible statisically)) carcinogenic -- so surely then it makes unkosher anything to which it is added, as_it_is_said of the halachot "ki hen hayenu " -- they are your life, by them shall you live -- so if by them you might die, they can't be kosher -- #L2 I used to tell people, Styrofoam is made from pigs' knuckles #L3 -- and the proof is, you see lots of styroofoam nowadays, but when was the last time you saw a pig's knuckles -- #L4 Nu, so I sinned, I should have told them, cigarettes are dipped in pig-fat to keep the tobacco from falling out -- #L1 ------------------------------------------------------------------ REASON #666 -- CASEY STENGEL, MANAGER, NEW YORK YANKEES "Nice guys finish last." --------------------------------------------------------------- NOTES ON MAKING KIDDISH: The wine of the gentiles, like their food, is kosher if it contains no non-kosher ingredients, and if it has not been consecrated to their deities(s). (Thus wine made in a monastary is problematic. I once got a nice bottle of monastary wine from a shop in East Jerusalem. #L2 That was maybe 1986, before they stared schchting and sacrificing us to on of their deities, maybe that Phonecian Baal of the Lower Depths. I mean, the Palestinians pretend to be Philistines, and the Philistines were an Aegean sea- people, and the Phonecians were so a sea-people, so who knows who works for whom anyhow. But I digress. So anyhow, I used it for kiddish down at Bet Zayit Campground. A few years later I told Eliyahu. He said, best's I recollect: 'Didn't work real good, did it.' I said, 'Nope.' Once I liberatd a few loaves of bread from the Zenith bakery for Shabat. Later I told Chris about it. Same dialogue. But that's easier, everyone knows you can't use an avera to fulfill a mitzva. Can't sleep in a stolen sukka. #L2 Much more seriously, Chartreuse and Benedictine. #L3 But the Catholics use only wine for communion, not their liqueurs, so I guess one can get away with drinking liqueurs made by monks. And as I recall, both Chartreuse and B&B are freely sold in Israel, tho I may mis-remember.) #L2 Should a guest drink of the wine over which the host (baal haBayit) has made kiddish? I say: only if there ain't no other wine. I mean, you don't take a few leaves from the host's artichoke. Should the host pour a bit of the wine in the cup over which he has recited kiddish, back into the bottle from which the guests will drink. I say, Jesus did it, but "you ain't him". Explication follows: We do not 'make Shabat', despite the popularity of that phrase , we merely -- 'merely'! -- acknowlege that Divine Creation has, for us -- at least -- (and presumably for all who will join with us, even if only for a day) -- made Shabat. (And can a guest be included in Shabat for the evening meal, but then released from the bounds of Shabat, to drive off to a football game, and even do business. I don't see how. But when I have guests, rare as that is, I do ask that they keep their own kavanah of what they are undertaking of Shabat, rather than in some sense and to some extent including themselves in mine. For everyone knows, if you profess to have undertaken a religious obligation, and then do not do what you can to fulfill it, you have a problem. The Indians used to say, best's I recollect: If you ask for something, you better take it when you get it.) And we do so over the finest beverage (win) or noblest food (bread, of course= that we have. As to sharing the cup from which the -- master of the house or -- toastmaster, in the goyishce derivationn -- has drunk -- this is derivative of the Catholic priestly custom, and so is not proper for us. (Mark my words: A lot of the shtuyot in Judaism, we picked up from the Christians. Like misogyny. And wearing black.) We may, simply by ansering 'Amen', include ourselves in the host's kiddish. But to say it again: In 'makking kiddish' He has merely acknowleged the consecration of Shatat 'mi Sinai'. It is not he who consecrates it, much less he who is somehow empowered to have delegated to him our acknowlegement of its consecration. ------------------------------------------------------------------- WHY I AM A REFORMIE: Reason Number Three: GOODMAN, 2ND BASE, BOSTON RED SOX NOTES ON 'HALACHA FOR TRAVELERS' No doubt this is a definitive booklet. But it does seem to me, as an unorthodox kibbitzer ignorant of Talmud, that halchic extrapolation might benefit from more attention to 'Aristotelian' logic. As to counting the Omer and marking Shabat when one crossed the International date_line: It seems that one should count the Omer in accord with the day in the land of Israel, since this is a mitzva of the land of Israel. Nut one should observe Shabat in accord with the land in which one is, since this is a mitzva not bound to the land of Israel. For if one were to correlate the day of one's Shabat obserance with the day in the land of Israel, one might consistently correlate the time as well, and that would be an absurdum. ------------------------------------------------------------------ WHY I AM A REFORMIE: Reason Number Four: BOBBY DOER "Bowling Green? Sewing Machine." (Bluegrass talk, as heard at Oberlin College, ca. 1959) NOTES ON THE MEOR MODI'IN MINYAN: It is a bit of a relief to be away from the Modi'in minyan. A good ba'al tfilah should be neutral as running water, and simply carry the minyan: one does not usually want a vehicle, other than Balak's donkey ("Brother Ass", as they say St. Francis of Assissi called his body), to modify one's trip. But many stop off on the astral plane, fancying that they have already arrived at their mystic destination. #L2 And so Yehuda, already enmeshed in supersittion ("lest he dies like his brothers" (Genesis X(Y)) ) stepped aside to offer his seed to what he thought a kdisha, a holy hooker -- no wonder we almost got the wrong Messiach -- and so said truly as well as nobly, 'She is more rightous than I.' I mean, "there is no such thing as a free -- #L3 " a free lunch" says Vonnegut, but Vonnegut is a turkey, I forget now why. " a free Shabat meal, says Chabad, as if to say: you eat my bread, I own you buddy -- I ain't no Christian, feeding the poor out of the goodness of my heart #L4 If that's really what Chabniks or whatever they are do -- I mean, I can't tell one flock of blackbirds from another -- then I gues it's worse than superstition, it's heresy. But I can't yet see why. I think this is related to Freud's remark, 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.' But then is Freudian psycho-analysis (I mean, just a 1-shot analysis, not a 30-year psychoanalytic psychothereapy) also heresy -- I mean, Zen says, the whole point of "hunting the wild ox" is to ride it back to your house in time to eat lunch. So that's what we do on Shabat. And everyone knows, you should "do unto others as you would they would do unto you." or in this case, a free boff. I mean, why do you suppose the heathans put those kdushas at the crossroads, it was not charity -- I mean, those Caananite sacred prostitutes were the most beautiful young women, not some old hag with a habit -- so Yehuda should have bought himself a nice secular chick for coffee break -- not tried to save a few ducats with a freebie that darned near wound up giving away our Messiah to the goyim -- ) @L1 Others romanticize, or simplify. Tunes must be used very carefully -- used for prayers, they can block our prayers, like jamming a radio broadcast with static, as Russia used to to do Radio Free Europe. So too with the reader's repetition of the amidah. Only the greatest composers could set somethinng like the k'dusha to music. (One who learns of Judaism from the Christians might as well take marital counseling from a monk, or learn wine-tasting from an Ishmaelite.) The Shabat minyan has been largely given to the teenagers; excellent training and a noble gesture of trust, but the result sounds like a football game, though less spiritual. Lately a tune has been introduced appropriate for discharging one's marital obligation, but not notherwise Shabasdik. On Friday nights I would stand outside the Bet Knesset -- a small concret building that is chomofortably full with a weekday minyan, but a bit packed with 5 to 10 tiems that on Shabat -- #L2 I do think that the 4 Amud rule applies; one should be able to twirl with arms outstreteched #L3 which may be the origin of the whirling dervishes -- safeguarding one's personal space, which is maybe the space, or basic space, or minimal space -- I don't know -- for one's aura. [ And this may be the American-ism, quoted by Mark Twain in Innocents, 'room to swing a cat'.] Recall that in the whilring zikr, one does not move from one's spot, but merely whirls about it. #L1 I was playing shomer, tho that was a good excuse too. ----------------------------------------------------------------- Why I am a REFORMIE -- Reason Number 328g: SATCHEL PAIGE, PITCHER, ST. LOUIS BROWNS "Don't get riled up, don't eat fried food, and don't look back, something may be gaining on you." ---------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Does one have to stand within the space demarked by the Bet Knesset mezzuzah to be counted in the minyan? I say no. He stands outside the door -- #L2 is it open, part-way open, or shut -- #L1 and hears every word, #L2 or practically every word, or the gist #L1 of what the ba'al tfilla says. Is he counted in the minyan? R. Joshua Witt once said -- there is a difference of opnion. Most say -- and R. Yekutiel Hoffman of Mevo Modi'in clearly holds -- he must have passed and be within the sspace demarked by the mezuzah. #L2 [ Oddly enough, except for the Moshav, there is an unclarity at the Modi'in Bet Knessset, where there is a mezuza at the front doorway, and a 2nd doorway and mezuza to the men's section, but none to the women's secdton. Yet men who stand in the women's section are counted if the mehitza curtain (but not the lower half-wall) is withdrawn, while men who stand in the entry way are not. Yet men in the women's section have not passed the 2nd meyuzah. #l1 Does the mezuzah than demarcate a sanctified space, and is it the case that only those within the santified space are counted in the minyan. I say no to both. I say we have not had sanctified spaces #L2 (though the Catholics, striving to emulate and surpass us, do so) #L1 since the Temple was destroyed YOU ARE NOW TEMPORARILY LEAVING SUNNY UPPER SAUSALITO #L2 for the Catholics strive to deny the destruction of the Temple, or rather to claim that they have, with authorization ("New Testament") rebuilt it -- #L4 we say, only Meshiach can rebuild the Temple, and can do so in the twinkling of an eye, #L5 and they say quite so, and as a matter of fact He came, but unfortunately only to us, not to you -- and the proof is, you see, that we have a rebuilt Temple, and you don't. #L6 To which we can only say -- Nonsense, by definition Meshiach is one who comes to us. #L7 YOUR WERE JUST IN *UPPER SAUSALITO*. YOU ARE NOW ENTERING 'LOWER GOLETA'=='TIER TWO OF SUCCESSIVE BLOCK-INDENTS' This is not a matter of historical facts, but of eschatalogic necessity. #l1 [Tier 2 L1, ie L8] By an obvious corallary (that I just though of) of 'Steve's Transcendental Ontological Proof' #L2 [ ca. 1976, but rewritten from a paper written in my pothead days at UCSB, ca. 1968 -- "'Quodlibet est, est Unum, Verum, Bonum," written for Mrs. Iyer's class ]] , #L1 (Corallary 1 to Steve's Transcendental Ontological Proof: **Every people needs must dream of its own perfection, salvation, completion.** Steve's Transcendental Ontological Proof is more of less this: ***We canot but conceive of Perfection, So there ?X? ain't no point in asking if it exists, it is a necessary category of thought, and we can't transcend thought, so as far as we're concerned, it's maningless (by the Verifiability Criterion of Meaning) to even imagine much less affirm that it does not exist, therefore it necessarily exists.*** ----------------------- AN EPISTEMOLOGIC DIGRESSON: Note that a transcendental deduction can prove the existence of G_d #L3 (as a necesary category of thought, that is, as a necessary aspect of our conceptualization of perception #l4 (you see that here Kant did accept Hume's, and if I recall Locke's, conceptualization, that is, 'theory of knowlege', that experience is conceptualized perceptions -- #l5 (as it were, as soon as a naked perception comes in the door of our Gaugin Garden of Eden (Prof. Carl Shorske of UC Berkeley showed how to catch the images that epitomizes an era in the history of ideas) we, like good missionaries, cover her up with a Mother Hubbard, #L6 for we, unlike Chapman's(?) Euclid, can never "look upon beauty bare" -- that is, in Kant's terminology, can never experience 'noumena' #L7 Like I say in my Unpublished Poems: "Says Kant, you may think there's a Ding_an_sich [i.e., noumena], but it's only an epistmologist's shtick" (sa) But Kant's terminology is misleading, for it leads folks who could never let go of Hume's 'empiricist epistemology' as I have termed it, to suppose that there are such things as noumena; but alas, we lesser beings can never perceive them, until we go to heaven and become angels and "live happily ever after". And this misconception of Kant derives from the misconception -- started with Aristotle I guess, who got it from Plato, who as a matter of spiritual fact did know what he was talking about -- (metaphyics is (useful) nonsense only when predicated, in the best British fashion, of ordinary, 'middle-range-' (PVK's trm) experience, it does have designata when predicated of mystic experience -- and it will not do to say that mystic experience is 'sujective';it's quite real, but alas most folks can't perceive it -- but not to worry, most folks can't perceive much of anything -- like those nouveau-riche who will order a single-malt Scotch with a Coca-cola mixer, and eat their herbal souflee while smoking a cigarette -- then go out to an evening at the Boston Pops and say we must defend Western Civilization from the -- Yellow Peril, or Communists, or nowadays the unwashed hordes of Islam -- (I mean you try taking your morning shower when you're running a donkey caravan through the Arabian desert (Albright, on Avraham Avinu) or chopping a hole in the lake to catch something to put on your bagel, with lucks) That's Professor Sam Huntington of Harvard College, the Evil Ideologue of the Bushie's -- an inbred WASP on the order of George III -- and just when Kissinger melted down into a penitential old age and is probably sorry he trashed Southeast Asia and tried to sell Israel to the Ayrabs in '73 Plato was a real mystic; his revelation was of Archetypes. PVK (and HIK before him) speaks of them, though he speaks of much more as well. And yes, most folks can't perceive the truths of mysticism, but that don't mean they ain't true, or ain't real. Heck, most folks (men, and women too, sad to say, for all that they must bear the burden of it) can't perceive the truths of sexual pleasure, but nobody says "it's all in the mind, y'know" (Beattles, Yellow Submarine). Bertrand Russell said this first -- I think his example was of an auto accident -- we take 'facts' as the consensus of reliable witnesses -- it is not the case that a fact is something that everyone sees, or can see -- not all people witness every event, and not all witnesses are capable of accurate perception, and not all qualified witnesses honestly and accurately report what they saw (and this is why we found PVK so valuable, for he was a qualified honest observer of the mystic realsm, with cultivate precise and delicate command of English -- and I„m sure of French, and I would assume of German, though I think he learned that only as an adult -- Vayu took PVK's German as crude, and so presented his transcriptions only in editted form (editting as he transcribed); Rinaya Nachaman said no, PVK was crafting new forms of German expression to express what he had seen -- rather like the Buber- Rosenzweig translation of the Bible) (I've said all this hitherto and elsewhere, but like Kafka says: Stuff gets lost. We'll miss Don Rumsfeld, he has set new benchmarks of literary ineptitude. It has to be just one of my bad drams that those idiots were re- elected. I mean, don't they read the New York Times in Des Moines? (8 Nov '04, and still shell- shocked.) -- yet we needs must carry on, however cautiously in action and tentative in belief, with the best available information to which we have access (and this is Wittgenstien (PI): "my reasons will run out, and then I will act -- without reasons") Of course Plato was an effete elitist snob, and an insufferable effeminate bore when he comes back to earth for a brief visit -- I mean really, Sokrates deserved a better intellectual biographer, or at least a honest one, who would not have turned him into a strawman mouthpiece for his own (ie, Plato's) ideas. (Kant's transcendental deducton [LOST THAT TRAIN OF THOUGHT] but not of a chocolate bar in my larder. This is what Kant ponted out in remarking that his metaphysical 'theory' )or rather, desxcriptn, since it has no falsifying , muh less verifying, conditions) a falsifying condition definitely can falisfy a statement, for a verifying conditin only tends , provisionally, to verify a staaement of knowlege consittuted 'transcendetnal realism and empirical idealism' (or maybe he said the converse, but this formualton is better) #L2 (where, following Cavell (UC '62), Kant is viewed as a Wittgensteinian, wrapped up #L3 like one of Rembrandt's noble bums #L2 in the vestigal motheaten metaphyics of German culture, #L3 if you can call it that with a straight face) #L1 plus the verificaton crterion of meaning. BUT, #L2 as_it_is_said #L3 (in the USA, or used to be before it was conquered by Rummie & the Stepford Wives), #L1 "nobody's perfect". THEREFORE it must be logically possible for us to become perfect - #L2 - that's MESHIACH , as a 'Necessary Potenttial' #L3 ("and though he may tarry, I will wait") -- #L1 AND There must be a way to "get there from here" -- #L2 that's HALACHA Alta Kacher #L3 Maimonides was quite right: Belief in Meshiach #L4 (transcendental perfection of incarnate, necessarily imperfect ("fallen") humanity -- #L5 Meshiach is not an individual, but rather the teleologic #L6 ("final", #L7 as_it_is_said, "last in Creation, first in thought") #L5 cause ) #L3 is an inseperable (essential) part of the notion of Divinity, as is the belief in a Way #L4 ( revealed torah, halacha) #L5 (Cf. Charles Olson, best's I recollect: "'Der Weg stirbt,' sagt mann, and was surely right " ) #L3 to get "there from here". #L4 (So you see, this wasn't a joke after all. #L5 Just defensive irony.) ** YOU ARE NOW LEAVING LOWER GOLETA, which was the first stop on the astral plane. WELCOME BACK TO REALWORLD (lowrent District)*** #L6 YOU ARE BACK IN TIER 1, **THIS IS BALTIC AVE*** We say -- too bad about that Jesus chap, and sorry if some us contributed to any misunderstanding some time back, but evidently it just didn't work out. Happens that way a lot you know -- #l7 like y'all say **SORRY FOLKS, BUT THE DRUNKEN DRIVER INSISTS, he says, ON MAKING A QUICK DETOUR INTO UPPER GOLETA -- YOU ARE ENTERING TIER 3 -- Please see that your headsets are properly adjusted -- the Tour Operator recommends Brahams at moderate volume -- #l8 shucks, scratch an Anglican and you get a hard-shell Baptist -- like Bored Again Georgie -- #l9 or even Jimmy the Grin, who had more brains than a corkscrew -- stick a soft-shell Baptist on the airhose and you got you a parvenu Anglican - - like Gropin' Billy, who put George in the White House -- or maybe that was Dave McReynolds, darned near the only mensch ever to run for President -- except for Dukakis, Gore, and Kerry -- and Dole and McCain and Lieberman -- I mean, the kulturkampf is in the USA today, not in Israel -- we put up real men, and they throw programmed Cyborgs at us -- Ike was the best of a cardboard placards, but everyone ignores his Farewell warning of the 'military- industrial complex' -- and then Regan who was so hollow he got Alzheimer's and nobody noticed, but at least he had a heart -- and then Goofy Georgie & Dipso Georgie -- not to mention LBJ the Instant Texan, for all that he Did the Right Thing on Civil Rights -- I mean, he did defend the USA's blacks and the poor, and for that his name should live, like Elisha ben Abuya, for all that, like one of those Four Horsemen of Star Wars, he trashed the subcontinent of SouthEast Asia - - and Kissinger his Machieavelli -- one of the gentlest holiest civilizations of our known history, the trees of the rainforest still scream dioxin from their leaves -- But I digress Hit freezing tonight, about 05:30 Cowtime. Nature may kill you, but it will never mock you. "Cultiver son propre jardin" -- I put ear-covers over my ear-plugs -- that was on the Haga shooting range -- I shot my clip and broke down into tears -- hit the target 3 out of 10 though -- "The cat is on the mat but I don't believe it" -- and Breindel said, instead of making movies about all those ghosts of the Shoah, I could have been a sorority girl and spent all day painting my toenails -- I used to say, if I could be born again, I'd like to come back as a WASP -- I'd say it again today, but I'm getting almost tired enough to give my daily begrudged thanks for having been born into the Jewish people -- Cha-cha cha -- Kerry says, this is a time for healing, but you can't fix a bayonet cut with thimble and thread. ** YOUR ARE NOW LEAVING UPPER or Lower, or Whateer GOLETA ** RETURN TO TIER 1 (BALTIC AVE, Flophouses for Sale) -- You may remove headsets, Thank you for your involuntary endurance. ----------------------------------- AS I WAS SAYING: #L6 YOU ARE BACK IN TIER 1, **THIS IS BALTIC AVE*** We say -- too bad about that Jesus chap, and sorry if some us contributed to any misunderstanding some time back, but evidently it just didn't work out. Happens that way a lot you know -- #l7 like y'all say IF I MAY RESUME MY DISCOURSE HORSE: Enter Tier 2, displayed as Tier 1: #L2 (That is, Tier 2 L2 ie L9) TO RE-ITERATE: **THIS IS BALTIC AVE*** Welcome, Guest-Workers -- How Fortunate that the Beerbellied god of Globalism -- #L3 I mean, you want avoda zora, we got it here, all you can eat, I mean, forget those Hindoo Temples with zaftig devi's doing things you've never seen and never will Mel, #L4 And anyhow, what they got ain't really avoda zora, they just paint it up that way to keep out the frummies and the Chabad Shabat McDonalds, but all they really are is doti with a few extra arms and a trunk or two -- #L2 So fortunate that the Pantheon of White Trash Heaven created GuestWorkerPersons with lungs that can breath toxic gases, and guts that can digest septic cultures -- our own lower clases just won't do that kind of work for less than a dollar an hour -- white man's burden and all that -- globalism is just updated imperialism -- PARDON MY ACID FLASHBACK, We were discussing the notion of 'Messiah' in the context of Whitehead's 'fallacy of misplaced concretion' -- I had argued that 'Meshiach' is a teleologic process, not an individual -- I am also suggesting that one can show a fundamental incoherence in the Christian notion of Jeus Christ as a universal Messiah -- ( that is, of a Christian triumphalism such that Jews -- #l3 and 'a Jew' exists only in galutz, eg the cinematic nighmares of Mel Brooks -- an Israeli is not 'a Jew', he/she is a member of the Jewish people -- so please don't step on my toes, buddy, there's about 4 million behind me with some formidable armaments and a spirit so free that if the USA pulls the plug on the computer, even a shepherd boy can think fast and pick up a pebble from the brook -- and like Reb Shlomo says, behind those 4 million -- they should all stay completly alert always, the last bracha of the Amidah is for the shomerim haShalom, all the armed forces, especially all our young people -- #l2 are theologically obligated to acknowlege Jesus of Natzereth, #l3 -- or Yehoshua the Nazir, or whatever he wwas called whoever he was and/or wasn„t -- #l2 as their own promised Messiach -- #l3 (Amazing how a stupid idea can last 2000 years with a bunch of rich Romans pushing it -- I mean, Oy, Essav.) SO OK ALREADY, TO BACKSPACE AND TAKE UP MY PARABLE AGAIN -- I mean, Balak was an amateur, and anyhoow after he lost a good job with the Royals who went back to chasing the girlies and came to a bad end, you should pardon the expression, but that's Balak, not me -- ------------ TO BACKSPACE AND RESUME THIS DISCOURSE: #l2 (DON'T PARK IN THIS BACKSPACE MAC:) We say -- too bad about that Jesus chap, and sorry if some us contributed to any misunderstanding some time back, but evidently it just didn't work out. Happens that way a lot you know -- #l3 like y'all say IF I MAY RESUME MY DISCOURSE HORSE: ENTER TIER 2, DISPLAYED AS TIER 1: "many are called but few-" - - none yet, to be precise -- #L3 "are chosen". -- lots of guys say thry're Meshiach, and many make a pretty good start at it -- #L4 look at Meher Baba -- L3 #L3 but maybe they goof up -- look at Shabtai Zvi -- or mayabe they could dreally ------------ SORRY FOKS, BUT WE'RE MAKING ANOTHER QUICK DETOUR My compliments to Twinning's English Breakfast Tea, or possibly it was the dash of Fermented Yak's Milk, but I hope I get to the end of this Paragiraff -- which is a mutating paragraph growing a longer -- neck, so to speak -- than Pinochio -- in time to watch the dawn and put in another piece of toast before the rolloff to Shaharit -- ------------- ['dreally'='really but drearily' -- I mean, Finnegan said I could, and besides, I have poetic license -- I got it from a vending maching in the Penny Arcade at the Revere Beach Amusement Park in 1956, Barry Seidman drove us out there -- I mean, that remark belongs in my Autobiography, but let's be wholistic not rectalinear squares; rather than tidying up my room before Shabat I'll just say that this Website is an organic unity, so put that in your omlette and wash it down with an Alka- Seltzer -- I give English lessons real cheap, oh come all ye over-cultured Europeans] #l5 (Sorry about the typos, but if you think I'm gonna reread this stuff you're crazy, even compared to me ) ------------------ BACK THE CAR UP A BIT AND FAST-FORWARD: -- lots of guys say thry're Meshiach, and many make a pretty good start at it -- #L4 look at Meher Baba -- L3 #L3 but maybe they goof up -- look at Shabtai Zvi -- or mayabe they could dreally ON WE GO, MY MINVAN JUST GO OUT OF THE MUD AGAIN: have been Meshiach, but the world -- our world, that is, starting from Crown Heights and moving outward -- just wasn't ready. So we just have to hang in there, and have to do better next time. It's not that we dispute or disagree with Christianity, we simply don't find relevant. Ok, that was all a footnote to the notion of 'sacred space'. RETURN TO UPPER SAUSALITO, WHICH REALLY IS TIER 1 STUFF: ------------------ JUMP UP TO SUNNY SAUSALITO WITH A HOP SKIP AND BACKSPACE: I say we have not had sanctified spaces #L2 (though the Catholics, striving to emulate and surpass us, do so) #L1 since the Temple was destroyed YOU ARE NOW BACK IN SUNNY SAUSALITO: FLOOR IT AND GO, It's 06:30 IST and Campra Cowtime, there's a dash of pale green below the pale blue, I could maybe feed the dog rather thanthe wolf ---------------- I say we don't have that since the Temple fell. There is no mezuzah at the Kotel, and none implied, for crowds can fill the whole plaza and be counted even on the steps leading to it. #l2 (Be counted -- who needs to count them, there are already more than 10 men present -- I mean, they count themselves as included in the congregation, eg when the Cohenim bless the congregants, they consider themselves included. ) #l1 I say -- a mezuza is just PSHAT -- what it says in the Bible, and no more than that, not in essence -- a reminder, put in a useful place where you can't help bumping into it -- #l2 (so it is odd, but not wrong, to wear a mezuza about your neck, as Uncle Herzl did -- #l3 except tht it is not specifically called for, so one is "adding" - #l4 - but MEHADRIN comes close to legitimizingg -- not ADDING , but ENHANCING ) #l1 so a mezuza does not 'sanctify space' -- that gets too close to magic, and we don't do magic. #l2 (Not that magic ain't real enough -- or rather: magic is real, but it's not real enough, so we don't do it. I mean, all the yogi schools say the same thing about siddhis. (Except for Carlos Casteneda's Don Juan, and it seems now that he was merely an alter ego for the author. ) #l1 Except infsoar as it augments the sanctity of those whom it influencs. ZOWIE FOR HOWIE: CUT AND PRINT AND PUT IT BY THE WOODSTOVE There's half a handspan of pale green over the ridgeline, and I could recognize a friend if she would only leave her husband and walk over the mountain to me, I don't really want to warm up the erev shabos pasta again. Too late for toast, but if I cheat I can squeeye in one more cup of hot tea with milk and maybe sugar. =================================== ============================