Even though I’ve grown this long beard and I wear my tzitzit out, people can still tell I wasn’t born Jewish. Even non-Jews can tell.
One woman said to me: “You don’t really have the traditional Jewish nose though. Don’t you need that too?”
Yes, that’s why I’m getting nose implants. DDs.
I figure it’s easier than improving my character.
What is the Jewish fast day of Tisha B’Av? Check out its Wikipedia profile.
So, some friends of mine were having a bonfire at Dockweiler Beach last night.
I was ambivalent about going. My soul is so in love with the Torah that it is hard for me to leave the house. I get everything I need via my high-speed broadband connection.
So I put a message on Facebook asking for a ride. I figured if I could get a ride, then I’d go.
So a male friend messaged me and I arranged to go with him.
Then a cute girl messaged me, and I canceled on my buddy, and took a ride with her. A ride to paradise!
I love finding out what the young people are up to. They have such interesting mating rituals.
I love dating young women. They’re not as jaded and bitter and defensive as the hags. They look better and they smell better. I just love the dewy sheen of youth. I don’t care if it is her youth that I am after or my own. I just know that hot young girls make me feel good. That’s all I know and that’s all I need to know. I’m a simple man with simple needs.
Anyway, I forgot to bring a blanket or a towel or a jacket. I figured it was July 6, how cold could it be? Well, when the sun went down, it was bloody cold.
I’m a pretty rugged bloke from the land down under and you’ll have to wait a long time before you hear a complaint cross my lips, but I was feeling pretty bloody crook until the organizer asked me to give a dvar Torah on Tisha B’Av.
Man, I love to talk. The more people paying attention to me, the better. You give me a platform and I’m there to orate.
My dad is a preacher man. I grew up listening to him speak publicly and even though he had a PhD in Rhetoric, I always thought I could do better. All I need is an opportunity.
Well, here was my opportunity.
I stood up on the fire and looked down at everyone. That felt really good. I love to look down on other people.
And then I just started gabbing along these lines:
I grew up a Seventh-Day Adventist goy. We didn’t have fast days and holidays. We only had Christmas and Easter, which my family and my group didn’t observe because of their pagan origins. So we had nothing but the weekly Sabbath.
By contrast, the Jewish calendar is filled with holidays and feasts and rituals and fasts. It makes life more exciting.
I start every day with a cold shower. It’s very exciting. It’s a shock to the system, particularly those first ten seconds. But it’s cool because I know I’m conquering my toughest part of the day first thing. Everything after my cold shower will be easy compared to it.
The cold shower, it’s like rebooting my computer. I come out of it feeling alive and energized.
Judaism’s fast days such as Tisha B’Av and Yom Kippur are similarly a shock to the system.
All of Judaism’s holidays have agricultural, historical and spiritual meaning.
We’re in the middle of the Three Weeks of mourning leading up to Tisha B’Av. Judaism mandates various restrictions now such as no partying, no musical instruments (aside from drums), no banging shiksas. Even though I find this difficult, I abide by this shock treatment to my soul.
On Sunday night, we begin the Nine Days of strict mourning leading up to Tisha B’Av.
You may find all these restrictions a pain and you may ignore them. But at least if you know what the restrictions are and why Jews have observed them for thousands of years, you can then enjoy the illicit thrill of ignoring them. I don’t know about you, but I get a thrill out of sin.
The cool thing of legal-based religion like Judaism is that there are numerous opportunities to sin. So if you learn the laws and the customs and the traditions and the history of your people, you can then shove off and do your own thing with a delicious thrill. But first you have to know the rules before you can enjoy breaking them.
I think religion should be a pier that we push ourselves off from. The more you know about your tradition and its rules, the stronger a pier it can be for you and the more of a shove you can get when you push off and launch your life.
So here’s to rules, to knowing the rules, and to breaking rules.
On his radio show yesterday, Dennis Prager talked about this 17 year old girl camp counselor who said she had to have a week of training, including sexual harassment training, before she started work.
I worked as a summer camp counselor at Pacific Union College in the summer of 1982. We got a week of training.
I was a model camp counselor. I was headed for my junior year of high school and I fell in love with this eighth grade girl under my charge and she fell in love with me. We did not express our feelings in a physical way. We just had a lot of conversation. And then over the next nine months, we wrote each other letters.
Our love was transgressive, but it was so strong that we forsook the bourgeois boundaries that cramped the style of so many of our contemporaries.
Finally, in June 1983, we met up again in person one weekend at Pacific Union College. We sat next to each other in Thursday night Bible study.
There was so much anticipation before our meeting. I remember when I walked in the room, this girl and all her friends turned around to look at me.
Our conversation that night was awkward. Then I went to play a basketball game and invited her to come watch me. She did for a few minutes and then she did disappeared. We never connected that weekend. I don’t know what went wrong.
I think I didn’t pay her enough attention and by going off to play basketball, she felt like I was giving her the cold shoulder and so she then gave me the cold shoulder.
We did exchange a meaningful hug Saturday night when she left and that was it. No more letters. No more longings. Finito.
I wonder if Air Supply ever did a song about Young Love?
I hear she became a really religious Seventh-Day Adventist. I think her name was Shelly. She was so cute and sweet. Normally I am a very strong man and it takes a particularly attractive woman to break down my otherwise sturdy boundaries. Perhaps I was not as morally strong in those days as I am today.
I remember the hug goodbye. It was full and rich. I was just dying for female affection. I went prowling around later that night, telling my buddies that I had to get some “action.”
Soon thereafter, I bought condoms for the first time in my life (never had reason to use them for another six years, Baruch HaShem).
Why did I not realize that all the action I needed was in the Torah and all I had to do was to scoop it out?
Dennis Prager: “When I was a camp counselor, there was no training and I suspect we did a better job in a much freer time.”
“I’d like to know in the history of American camping, how many girls were sexually abused by camp counselors?”
Well, none were abused by me. I was totally respectful.
Dennis Prager: “This is the leftist vision of society — risk free. Better safe than sorry. To which my argument is — better free than safe.
“Do I want some safety? Of course. Should there be rules on pilots drinking? Yes. Being non-leftist doesn’t make you an anarchist. It’s a terrible story this girl told me about how they can’t touch these kids. They can’t hug them. They can’t give them a well-earned smack.
“I gave full permission to the counselors of my kids to give my kids a well earned smack. There was no counselor in the history of my kids’ camping who abused my kids with smacks.
“I used to give Richie a noogie if the clouds did not cover the sun in time for a photo I wanted to take… I’d go, Richie, you’ve got ten seconds to get a cloud.
“For those of you who know photography, you never take a photo in bare sunlight.
“A noogie is with your knuckle a good one into the shoulder.
“Richie thought it was hilarious. He was making all these incantations to make the clouds move. This is how guys horse around until the 1960s decided to make guys into girls.”
I want to see this new Australian film, even if just for the Air Supply soundtrack.
David emails: “I got the trailer sent by a friend who was highlighting the differences between the Australian version of the trailer (which he considered superior), and the American one–take a guess as to at least one of the things that was not in the American version?”
Click here to watch last night’s entire Torah discussion with Rabbi Rabbs.
The Ten Commandments for Liberal Jews:
1. You shall take offense to Christians and loudly proclaim Christianity goes against Judaism, while you shall have no problems championing Atheism which Judaism considers worse than Christianity, and you shall celebrate the male homosexual act even though Judaism considers it an outright abomination punishable by the most severe form of death penalty.
2. You shall complain that you don’t want Christians shoving their personal beliefs down American throats, but you shall have no problems shoving your own ridiculous stupidities down everyone’s throats, such as the global warming nonsense and annoying political correctness, not to mention the insane universal health care package at the cost of trillions.
3. You shall embrace criminals that show contempt for US immigration laws even though you are only here because your own family respected those very same laws, and you shall falsely claim Jewish values say to love the illegal alien, even though what Judaism actually says is that everyone must respect the Law of the Land
4. You shall show tolerance towards others, pride yourself on how open-minded you are and how you promote diversity, except you must show blatant bigotry against outwardly-Jewish looking Jews, and label them with derogatory names such as ultra-orthodox fanatics
5. You shall scoff at most of Judaism and call its Laws outdated and often silly, and take offense to any mention of G-d in a public setting, but at all cost, you shall praise and defend Islam.
6. You shall call yourself pro-Israel, but at the same time, you shall worship the Palestinian cause, and embrace left-wing media outlets, college professors, and politicians that condemn the Jewish State
7. Even though your closest connection to Judaism is when you bring your Gentile spouse or lover to Temple for High Holidays, and although you worship European countries that condemn the State of Israel and ban kosher slaughter, you shall smear as anti-Semitic those Christian conservatives such as Sarah Palin, even though amongst all major politicians in the world today, she is perhaps THE most vocal supporter of the Jewish State, and she espouses Jewish values such as the belief in G-d and that marriage is defined as only between a man and woman.
8. You shall blame all the world’s problems on former President Bush, label the US military as a terrorist organization, proclaim that there is no such thing as Islamic Fascism, and actually believe that those that want to kill us can be reasoned with by sitting crossed-legged together with them while smoking a peace pipe.
9. You shall worship African Americans, soothe your soul by voting for a Black man, and do so based solely on his skin color, and you shall label his opponents as racists, but at the same time, you shall discriminate against Whites, and shout ridiculous anthems such as “white privilege”, and explain that racism against Whites somehow isn’t racism.
10. You shall steal from the rich through progressive taxation, brag how charitable you are by giving away other people’s money, while the only charity that you give from your own pocket goes to foreign people across the globe in places nobody ever heard of such as Darfur, and you do it in the name of Tikun Olam, while poor Jews in your own backyard are left starving, and the same religion that preaches Tikun Olam also mandates to take care of your local Jews first.
Monday night, Rabbi Hershel “Rabbs” Remer and I discuss this week’s two Torah portions — Maatot and Masei.
Luke: “Did you sense the holiness of the land of Israel when you were there?”
Rabbs: “Yes! The kedusha (holiness) of eretz Yisrael (land of Israel)! When I got off the plane, it was the first time I had been there, oh my G-d, it’s the Holy Land. I kissed the ground. I said shehecheyanu. Blessed are you L-rd, our G-d, Ruler of the Universe, who has given us life, sustained us, and enabled us to reach this occasion.
“I took a spit at that statue of Ben Gurion.
“The first six months, it was like a honeymoon. I was going to all these holy places.
“After six months, it turned into just another country. It was the secular state of Israel. The kedusha (holiness) of eretz Yisrael dissipates. You’re on this fantasy high. The you realize you’re in this secular third-world backward country and this is probably not the best place to be. That was probably the time to leave but I was too stupid to leave after six months. I stayed for two years. I never left.”
Luke: “Have you been back since?”
Rabbs: “No. I’m never going back. I hate that country. It’s not a country for a Jew. The state of Israel is no place for a Jew.”
Luke: “Why is there so much trash lying around? It’s the trashiest place I’ve been to in the first world.”
Rabbs: “I haven’t been there since 1987.”
Luke: “Maybe you left it there.”
Rabbs: “That was probably my trash. I just remember a lot of cats running around.”
Luke: “What do you have against the state of Israel?”
Rabbs: “What don’t I have against the state of Israel? There are the personal reasons while I was there. I wasn’t accepted anywhere.
“I am much more embraced right here in Jew Town, Jewfoundland, where we live. I’m more embraced here in LA by the Jews on the street, in the restaurants. Everybody here likes me. That wasn’t the reaction I got from any Jews anywhere I lived in Israel. In the state of Israel, everything is like you’re either you’re with us or you’re with the terrorists. I didn’t fit in anywhere. Rabbs doesn’t fit in. I’m like a pig. If I was in this group, I stuck out because of this. They hated me.”
Luke: “What were some of the things that got you out of the group?”
Rabbs: “For instance, I was dressed like this, which is the Belzer uniform. I was learning in Belz. Then I started learning with Chabad. Chabad prides itself in how open-minded and loving they are. Bull****! A bunch of a**holes where I went.
“Do you know what they did? They couldn’t stand it. I was there in that yeshiva for a year. After six months, all the problems started. But they love you. It was like the Mormons. You move into a Mormon neighborhood and everybody loves you. You go to Utah and everybody loves you. After six months, if you don’t join the Mormon church, you’re a pariah. Nobody is going to talk to you anymore. That’s how Chabad is.
“Chabad is like, ‘We love you. Come spend Shabbos with us.’ They’re really sweet for about six months, but if you don’t join Lubavitch and you’re outwardly more frum than they are, they get nervous and they take it out on you.
“I’ve had this happen in America too.”
“What’s going on?”
Luke: “I’m just banning someone.”
Rabbs: “Who are you banning?”
Luke: “A guy who’s calling me a homosexual.”
Rabbs: “He’s probably a homosexual. The Baal Shem Tov says the world is full of mirrors. Whatever you call somebody is usually what you are.”
“One night the climax came with Chabad. I went outside. I was carrying my laundry because you have to do it by hand. A group of bocherim surrounded me and they threatened to kick my ass because I would not change and I would not accept the rebbe in my heart. I wasn’t going to do it. The rosh yeshiva didn’t say I had to do it but they couldn’t stand it. Thank G-d, their rosh yeshiva walked out at that moment and they scurried like insects. I knew it was time to leave. The next day, I started looking for another yeshiva.”
Luke: “Why didn’t you join one of the groups like a regular person?”
Rabbs: “My rav wasRav Avigdor Miller, and he told me to be a bee. A bee goes from flower to flower and takes the pollen. Everywhere it goes, it takes the best. He told me that’s how I should be. Go learn in a Chabad yeshiva and take the best. They couldn’t handle that in Chabad. They couldn’t handle someone who was different from them.
“They can handle it if you show up in a Metallica t-shirt and long hair and a clean-shaven face and you’re still like that six months later, they can handle that because you’re below them. They feel like they’re better than you. They’re not intimidated by you. But if you walk in [looking like this] and you say, I’m frum. I’m shomer mitzvos. I learn Torah. I want to learn with you guys. They’ll say, great, have a seat.
“Six months later, if you’re still sitting there and you’re not rebbe, rebbe, rebbe, they’ll want to kick your ass. They’ll want to kick you out. They’ll have no room for you.
“I had a similar thing here in LA. I got close to a Chabad community. I’d been going there for a couple of years. I’d been spending Shabbos with these people. Then one day out of nowhere, I totally got caught off-guard, the rabbi of the community goes up to the bima and says, ‘We have somebody here who’s been with us for two years and he hasn’t become Chabad. The expectancy is that you become Chabad.’
“Nobody tells you this when you join Lubavitch and you eat by their houses, you’re expected to join the cult and if you don’t join the cult, they become very nervous.”
Luke: “Every kiruv organization is like this.”
“Did the other yeshivot embrace you and take you to their bosom and set you up with their daughters?”
Rabbs: “No, that’s never happened.”
“I met with the Bostoner Rebbe. He said, ‘You know what your problem is? Wherever you go, you don’t fit in.’ OK, that’s me, but it works for me.”
Luke: “I’m the same way. Wherever I go, I marginalize myself.”
“What was Rav Avigdor Miller like?”
Rabbs: “He was a great man. You can tell that I’m a follower of Rav Miller’s because I just let it fly. I’m not afraid to call a heretic a heretic. I’m not afraid to slam Chabad or Aish HaTorah. I say there’s no room in Torah for ideas of evolution or Zionism. He didn’t go out looking for members. He brought in more members for Torah than anybody but people found him through his books and word of mouth.”
“In the state of Israel, even in the secular community, maybe 90% are well defined. You have your political party. You dress a certain way. All your beliefs are on your clothes. There’s no mix and match. There’s no mix and match. If you mix and match, then they say, he’s one of those nuts from the Carlebach group. Everybody is in a box and hates people in those box. Everybody hates each other and puts each other in cherem. To me, it’s poison.”
Luke: “How many shtups can a rabbi have outside of marriage before he’s out as a rabbi? Do you get one affair or two? How many divorces do you get?”
Rabbs: “I’m going to give you an answer that you won’t like. I think it’s irrelevant. A rabbis not a priest. We don’t purport to be better than anybody else.”
Luke: “But you’re supposed to be a holy man, right?”
Rabbs: “No, we’re not. That’s the misconception.”
In a 2004 lecture on Deuteronomy 16, Dennis Prager says: “The Jews are very tempted by Canaanite paganism. We’re all tempted by paganism. Pagan is the natural state of things. An invisible one God is hardly natural compared to a goddess of fertility.
“In Turkey when I was there in my 20s, they were selling ancient fertility gods. One of them was a little male god with an appendage that was about four times longer than him. He was very seriously fertile. I sent a postcard of that to my parents. My father I know got a big kick out of it. God knows what I wrote, probably ‘Self portrait in Turkey.’ I was a little wild in those days.”
Dennis says that for ten years on his radio show Religion on the Line, he asked Christians “what does three in one mean?”
There is no answer. The Christian doctrine of the trinity is a logical impossibility.
Christians believe they believe in one God so who am I to say differently, says Dennis.
“I would ask the Christian clergy what does it mean. I almost started a fist fight between two Christians on this one. One Christian clergyman said, Dennis, here’s a rough idea. You are a father, a husband and a brother. Are there three of you? No.
“The other Christian said, that’s heretical. That’s a heresy. That heresy was wiped out in the fourth century. That is utterly unacceptable. Dennis, don’t listen to him.
“And I just sat there and knew the ratings were going up as they yelled at each other. I was a happy dude.”
“I was on safari in my twenties in Kenya and Tanzania. You’d go on these Volkswagon buses. I was the only serious theist in the group. I’d keep having these revelations. I finally realized that if I wanted to maintain cordial relations, I should shut up. I’ll never forget when I’d watch the lions would attack the weakest of whatever animal they were eating, such as gazelle or zebra. Anybody could tell you which zebra would die that day. If he limped, he was dead. But if a human limps, you take him to a doctor. We don’t kill the weak.”
