The Survivor

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Luke Ford

In the last six months of 1996, I lived with a Holocaust survivor who had about 25 cats in the apartment. In exchange for looking after the cats, I only had to pay $200 a month rent. I thought he was crazy. He knew I was a writer and he wanted me to write a movie based on his story. He said it was more incredible than Schindler’s List. I had no interest. I preferred to write about porn stars.

I kept berating myself. I was a convert to Judaism. I was fascinated in all things Jewish but somehow I spent my spare time around comely shiksas when I had a great Jewish story in my very own apartment.

In late 1996, the survivor accidentally started a fire in our kitchen that threatened the whole complex and he got kicked out and we went our separate ways. The roommate service I went to automatically assumed I was gay and only sent me out to gay roommates. One was a philosophy professor at UCLA who specialized in ethics, a great interest of mine. We had a great talk over the phone but he doubted my ability to pay the rent on time. So I moved in with another gay guy. He ran a nude cleaning service that was featured on Jerry Springer.

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Spirituality Vs Religion

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Luke Ford

Greg Leake emails: Hi Luke,
to some extent I think I understand the dilemma that you write about.

In a way it reminds me a little of Rabbs feeling that he had to choose between Judaism or a medication regime that might eliminate his compulsive dilemmas.

However, I think you may be turning this whole matter into an unnecessary problem.

I think that we would probably agree that G-d is omnipresent. G-d is everywhere, from the most distant galaxy to the most intimate part of creation.

As G-d is everywhere, G-d is both “out there” and “in there” — because there is no place where G-d is not present.

This being the case, it is only natural that some people find G-d more easily “out there” and some find G-d more easily “in there”.

This whole line of reasoning that causes an inside and an outside is probably spurious, because these categories are simply inventions of the human mind.

(You will recall your interview with Bruce I Kodish, the subject of which was his book Drive Yourself Sane. And, of course, he is a student of Alfred Korcybski, and the whole view of what is subjective and what is objective is only a conversation for the public sphere. You probably realize that the entire philosophy of idealism essentially states that the world of our perception is essentially the product of a mental phenomenon… which has something to do with why Kant said that we “cannot know things in themselves.”)

My suggestion for those who find G-d within themselves is to see if they can also find G-d outside themselves. Likewise, those who find G-d outside themselves should see if they can locate G-d within.

Sometimes in the study of religion it is pointed out that there is a horizontal and a vertical dimension.

The horizontal dimension is the one we mostly see with our outward forms and cognitions about our religions.

There is also a vertical dimension to religion, which is the dimension of depth, and it is often felt that the dimension of depth is the one passed over.

So anyway, if G-d is omnipresent, there is no real reason why we should be discouraged with the idea that G-d is also within us.

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A Man Could Pay Attention To His Wife’s Every Need

Posted on August 3, 2012 by Luke Ford

Allison Armstrong said on Dennis Prager’s radio show Wednesday that a husband could pay attention to his wife’s every need, but then he’d need to borrow money from her because he couldn’t make it in his job. Men’s minds focus on getting things done at work and men don’t naturally focus on pleasing people. Women’s minds naturally open up a file on everyone they meet and note preferences and how to please, not because women love necessarily, but because that is how their minds work. Women survive in the world through their relationships, through pleasing people and connecting. Men survive in the world by getting things done. Men look to constantly increase their competence.

A man who does not want to provide has never succeeded at providing. That will kill a man’s desire to provide if he never wins at providing.

Men protect before they provide. A wife might want a swimming pool or a foreign vacation, but the husband might say no to protect the bank account. Men protect savings and energy. Men are big energy conservers.

Women think that if a man does not naturally know what she wants without her having to spell it out, then he doesn’t love her enough to pay attention. Not true. Men’s minds are focused elsewhere, such as on competence at work. If men instead focused on continually pleasing their wives and intuiting their every wish, they would have not enough mental space to succeed at their job.

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I Can’t Get Well Until I Put Down My Gun

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Luke Ford

About six months ago, I was telling my therapist about how defended I was. No matter what the bastards did to me, I had my blog. Anyone treats me badly, I can write ’em up. I’m defended. I have barricades. I have Mutually Assured Destruction so nobody sane messes with me. I have nothing to lose. Go ahead, make my day.

My therapist looked at me and said, “What if you can’t get well until you put down your gun?”

That shook me up.

I rely so much on the feelings of anger and vengeance to provide me the energy I need to write and to live. Without this motivation, I’m not sure I’d have the strength to accomplish anything. The problem is, so long as I act and write out of anger and revenge, my acting and writing is poisoned by my emotional addictions.

I know the choice between sitting in shame and sitting in rage and I’d rather sit in rage. I’d rather be angry than depressed. Isn’t depression rage turned inward? I’d rather point outward.

I’ve been working the Fourth Step of the 12-step program, making a “complete and fearless moral inventory.” The AA Big Book asks that I list off everyone I feel resentment towards and then go through those relationships and look to see where I was at fault. As I do this, I feel flooded with shame and chagrin. Other people don’t seem so horrible. I seem so fallible. I fall off my white horse of righteous indignation. I can no longer see myself as God’s servant, delivering divine karma through my blog.

Revenge is such a powerful motivator. It’s a great source of energy. But what if it is a poison? Often what sustains us and feeds us also kills us. Think about a town with a tannery in some Richard Russo novel. The town depends on the industry to provide all the jobs and tax revenue but that industry is simultaneously poisoning its water and killing the population with cancers.

My life often felt bereft and so I’d treasure the sights of the attractive women who’d pass my way. I needed that eros, I needed that energy, that joy, that shot of inspiration to get through my day, but what I was storing up was a poison to my soul, it was eroticized rage, and every time I took a draft, I was deepening my addictions and isolating myself from real people and real connection. This lack of real human connection opens me up to the sway of my addictive emotions.

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Pakistani Owner of Swanky Santa Monica Hotel: “Get the [expletive] Jews out of my Pool”

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Luke Ford

From The Jewish Press: An upscale hotel on a Santa Monica, California, beach is an odd place to be singled out from a crowd and removed because you are Jewish, but that’s what happened to 18 young professionals who are telling their story to a jury in a discrimination trial taking place in Santa Monica Superior Court this week.

Ari Ryan is the grandson of a Ukranian Jew who lost most of his family in the Holocaust and narrowly escaped death at the hands of the Nazis. Ryan’s grandfather moved to Israel in 1942 and served as a captain in the Israel Defense Forces.

Seventy years later Ryan says he got a small taste of what his grandfather lived through, but rather than in the forests of the Ukraine, it took place at an upscale hotel in Santa Monica. Ryan and more than a dozen others have brought a lawsuit alleging anti-Semitic discrimination against them by a multi-millionaire Muslim American hotel owner.

Two years ago Ryan and other twenty- and thirty-something Jews planned to raise money to send children of fallen IDF soldiers to camp with a charity event at the Hotel Shangri-La in Santa Monica, California.

On the morning of July 11, 2010, Ryan and others arrived at the hotel and began setting up Friends of the IDF banners, literature and piles of shirts for the event guests.

But the event was aborted after, according to one employee’s sworn testimony, the hotel’s owner told staff members, “Get the [expletive deleted] Jews out of my pool.” Then the hotel security and other employees began removing the materials and ordering the guests to leave.

Ryan said, “Anyone wearing a blue wristband,” which identified them as being with the Friends of the IDF, “was asked to get out of the swimming pool and the hot tub.” In fact, no one who was identifiable as Jewish was so much as “allowed to dip their feet in the water.”

Tehmina (Tamie) Adaya, a Pakistani-American Muslim, is the owner of the Shangri-La. Her father, Ahmad Adaya, was a founding partner of the California real estate company IDS Real Estate Group. He also was a founder and benefactor of the New Horizon School for Muslim religious education in Southern California.

The father bought the Shangri-La Hotel in the 1980‘s and the daughter took it over in 2004, investing $30 million to renovate the property into a design award-winning opulent destination. In addition to the hotel, Adaya runs an upscale artist collective called the Crown Jewels which she blogs about at her site “Culture Shock to Culture Architect.”

In the cross-complaint she initially filed, Adaya claimed Ryan and his friends were trespassing on the Shangri-La property and became unruly.

“Not so,” said James Turken, managing partner of the California office of the DC-based law firm Dickstein, Shapiro, attorney for the plaintiffs. He explained that Adaya withdrew her complaint after he interviewed her, under oath, and she was unable to substantiate any of the allegations she had made.

Turken told The Jewish Press that witnesses will testify that, in addition to cursing the Jews and yelling at her staff to remove them from the pool, Adaya was heard saying, “my family will disown me,” and that her “investors will be furious,” if the plaintiffs remained on site.

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Danielle Berrin On ‘The Spiritual Evolution Of Bruce Springsteen’

Posted on July 31, 2012 by Luke Ford

It takes a writer with the sophistication, learning and sensitivity of Danielle Berrin to capture the Jewish themes in the pop rocker’s “spiritual evolution.”

She writes as only she can (truly nobody else in the world could write like this):

How he achieved the seemingly impossible—that is, a fairly normal life for a rock-and-roll superstar; he is long-married with three kids—reads a lot like a religious journey. He begins in the bondage of his youth, journeys through the wilds of his ascending star and lands, at 62, in a contented place that balances his need for idolatry with his need for intimacy. You might say, Springsteen had to transcend himself in order to live with himself. Though he is not Jewish, his journey echoes Jewish texts and teachings.

In his telling, no amount of fame or fortune could erase the demons of his childhood, in which a tortured, wavering relationship with his bipolar father was paramount—though not unrivaled by growing up poor or the potential dangers stalking behind the frissons of his ambition.

Yisroel Pensack points out that “Berrin apparently means his need to be idolized, or his need for idolization.”

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Moment Of Silence

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Luke Ford

From Pragertopia.com: Prager H1: Dennis reflects on the opening ceremonies of the 2012 Olympic games in London, Romney’s comments, the Greek tweet, the developing situation in Syria, Woman’s Volleyball uniforms, and the moment of silence in remembrance of the athletes killed in Munich 1972. He points out that it doesn’t bother most of the Muslim world what happened in Munich… what bothers them is the remembrance… the moment of silence.

Prager H2: Dennis talks about his appearance on the Hannity show last week. The topic was Chick-fil-a versus the pro-same sex marriage protestors. Dennis buys Ben & Jerry’s ice cream even though he can’t stand their politics, because he values liberty over equality. Dennis warns that this all leads to a society where people buy things based on the politics of the owner rather than quality… and Dennis hopes that day never comes.

Prager H3: Sir Paul McCartney played “Hey Jude” in the Opening Ceremonies of the Olympic games in London… when it came to the chorus he asked just the “fellas” to sing, then the “ladies.” Dennis wonders why not another round for the “Others,” those that refuse to be labeled man or woman. Dennis also comments about two great columns… Daniel Henninger’s America’s Two Economies, and Ross Douthat’s Defining Religious Liberty Down.

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12 Steps – Spirituality In Place Of Reality?

Posted on July 30, 2012 by Luke Ford

Joe emails: It seems to me that hanging out at 12 step meetings is of diminishing returns for the rational mind. I suppose the first few times you go, you get some rush thinking, wow, it is not just me who is a drunk, drug addict, or gambling addict. But after a time, spending time with sinners is futile. As for sex addicts meetings, such meetings are obviously inappropriate due to the presence of sexual offenders who need to go to prison for criminal acts causing continuing harm such as possession of child pornography and/or pedophilia, A drunk’s only crime is perhaps driving drunk, and if no one was hurt, then there is no continuing crime. Sex offenders, on the other hand, must go to prison, and then, perhaps, go into recovery.

In any event, you do not see the Rambam, in his explanation of repentance, advocating support groups with other evil doers. No, he advocates this simple test:

What is complete repentance? When a person has the opportunity to commit the original sin again, and is physically able to sin again, but one doesn’t sin because of repentance. Not out of fear, or because of physical weakness. For example, if a man had forbidden sexual relations with a woman, and then at a later time found himself alone with her, even though he still loves her as much as before, and he has the physical strength to sin, and was in the same country as when he sinned, yet he refrains and does not sin, he is a baal teshuva (‘master of repentance’). (emphasis added)

The 12 Step program tells you that you are not in control of your addiction, and that, essentially, even with the program, you are never a master, you are always an alcoholic. I believe the inventor of AA actually got into drugs, and on his deathbed asked for a drink. Telling someone that they cannot master their conduct is infantile and talk therapy.

To take alcoholism as a “sin”, then what you must do is to completely repent from alcoholism. And for the Rambam, there is no serenity prayer or 12 steps, but only 3:

“That the person should abandon his sins, remove them from his thoughts, and resolve never to do it again.”

So, you take all the drink out of your possession, do not talk about the drink or associate with others that drink, and resolve never to drink again. None of these is precisely part of the 12 steps – they are all too difficult and demand too much in the way of acts, not words.

If you want to stop exploiting people, as you say you do, then assist people. Commit everyday to do at least 3 separate acts of kindness. It can be as simple as cleaning up a part of the street that is dirty so that others derive pleasure from your acts, it can be as involved as helping an old person with their needs. You will abandon exploitation, it will be removed from your thoughts, and you will resolve never to do it again.

But 12 steps is just more spirituality in place of reality.

>>>Do you think frum jews are any more ethical than anyone else? If not, as I think, then am not sure the worth of your suggestions.>>>

Not sure what ethics have to with anything.

I focus on rationality, and anyone alive from the neck up realizes that the 12 step program is not rationally based.

Your analysis of spirituality and its lack of rationality is why you converted to Judaism and why you deify Prager.

12 steps portray human beings as creatures who need the assistance of others to stop certain action. It is really not rational and it is essentially cult-like to follow a group as your god, versus an idea as your god.

>>>Why do you think frum jews are so indifferent in their ethics?>>>

I think that the Ethics of the Fathers has been replaced by the Talmud of the Brisker Dynasty.

Status in Judaism is now much more dependent on mastery of the presumption accorded to someone who is in possession of a garment, rather than dependent on one’s acts of kindness. It is partially driven by Orthodoxy’s repulsion to Conservative/Reform’s concept that being a good jew and being for social justice are one and the same. That concept leads to the end of Judaism because any teenager quickly realizes that keeping kosher has nothing to do with being ethical, and then, the teenager simply becomes a secular jew and his children are out of the religion from intermarriage.

So, Orthodoxy eschews true ethics because preservation of the religion is more important than kindness – anyone can be kind, but not anyone can learn 10 hours of Talmud a day sitting in a single spot.

I would think that it might make sense for jewish high schools to have courses in Gemilut Hasadim, just like they have courses in Talmud. Of course, it would not be so much study, as action, but again, remind me how helping someone cross the street, feeding the homeless, etc, is exclusively Jewish in such a way to make permanent one’s jewish identity?

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Spirituality Vs Religion

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Luke Ford

I notice that a lot of people these days describe themselves as spiritual rather than religious.

I’ve always been suspicious of spirituality. I’ve always had contempt for most people who talk about it. Spirituality has usually struck me as cheap grace and most of the people who preach it seem like charlatans.

Spirituality is a way for people to try to get the benefits of belonging to an organized religion without paying the price of such belonging. I don’t think anyone in Orthodox Judaism has any illusions about the price of belonging to an organized religion. It makes a lot of behavioral demands on you, time demands on you, monetary demands on you. It makes intellectual demands on you. You can’t publicly disagree with the beliefs of your religion if you want to get along with your co-religionists.

Religion is hard work and serious commitment. Spirituality can wax and wane with the wind. Religion makes external demands on you. Spirituality only makes internal demands.

In religion, God is primarily a being outside of you who demands certain behavior. With spirituality, you and God may be one. There may be no morally-demanding God outside of you.

Anyone can proclaim themselves spiritual, but to proclaim yourself an Orthodox Jew or a Seventh-Day Adventist, there are criteria you need to meet or you’ll look like a fraud.

It is easy to feel spiritual at the beach or in the mountains or while watching a good movie or listening to music. Where’s the objective moral code that a spiritual person is accountable to? What code can you point to when your spiritual but not religious roommate is obnoxious?

My last girlfriend was raised an Orthodox Jew, educated through 12th grade at Orthodox day schools, and she just hated Orthodox Judaism. She had so much contempt for me. If I ever failed to keep a mitzvah, she’d call me a hypocrite.

“You’re lucky,” I told her. “You can never be a hypocrite because as a secular leftist you don’t subscribe to any objective moral code.”

So I have this contempt for spirituality, and then I realize that for all my religiosity, it’s not changing my basic exploitive nature. So I start 12-stepping. And to my joy, it’s all about spirituality. It’s about having a relationship with God.

I thought I left that talk behind in my Christian upbringing. There I overdosed on talk about loving God, relating to God and the like.

And now I’m stuck with that same challenge.

Most people tend to relate to God the same way they relate to their father. I have a distant relationship with my father. I have a distant relationship with God. I see my father as the moral arbiter. I see God as the moral arbiter. It’s never occurred to me to try to have a relationship with God.

So I’m struggling with that. I’m struggling with accepting that I’m powerless in the face of love, sex and fantasy. I’m powerless over my tendency to get into co-dependent relationships. It’s hard for me to say that because I think of myself as so strong, so disciplined, so determined, but it ain’t working. I need to accept my powerlessness over my addictions. Step one. Step two, accept that there’s a power greater than myself that can return me to sanity. Step three, make a decision to turn my life and my will over to God as I understand Him.

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Filling That Big Hole Inside

Posted on July 29, 2012 by Luke Ford

From TheFix: Find me a woman who hasn’t been 13th stepped—successfully or unsuccessfully—and I’ll show you a post-menopausal nun or a tragic case of facial acne. Old-timers have been seducing newcomers ever since Bill Wilson started the tradition in the 1940s. Since that time, Step 13 has been judged, disparaged, reviled…and perfected. “Let’s go to coffee. We can talk program.” “There’s a great meeting 50 miles from here. I’ll drive.” “Have I showed you my First Edition Big Book? Oh, wait, I left it in the bedroom…”

When I was new, 20-something years ago, a man with 17 years of sobriety (and a wife) wanted to read his latest fifth step to me because his sponsor “didn’t get him.” I was so flattered. Me, with my under 90 days, had something to offer an old-timer! It turns out I had something the old-timer wanted, all right; it just wasn’t my wisdom. His number one resentment, he explained, was toward his frigid, alcoholic wife. He was so sad, so lonely…and I was so naïve. Let’s face it; newcomers are easy. Getting sober leaves a honking great empty hole in us, and Mr. 17 Years was more than happy to (ahem) fill it.

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