Who Shall Live

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Luke Ford

From WhoShallLive.com:

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Leah Kleim – Voice of Reason

Posted on November 4, 2008 by Luke Ford

Leah Kleim emails me:

I’m good, how you been? By reading you’ blog you seem to be flying off the handle. What’s the deal ? Screwin around , exposing people, talking shit about people etc. I was born Jewish, I have no choice in that matter and yes lots of things and people piss me off and I write about it. But… You chose this life, and why ? Shouldn’t you be out there looking for the good in people instead of the bad? Just curious.

Luke: I look for the news, whether it is good or bad.

Join me live on my cam as I monitor campaign results.

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How An Erotic Dream Led Me To An Understanding Of The Sacred Tongue

Posted on November 3, 2008 by Luke Ford

Monday afternoon, I catch the new Oliver Stone movie W.

George Bush and his cohorts are portrayed as fools but I find myself enjoying every minute and I feel disappointed when it ends.

I park by Borders in Westwood and after browsing for an hour, I walk over a mile to UCLA’s Royce Hall for the Ilan Stavans lecture.

I’m the first to arrive.

As I’m checked in, I’m told by the girl, "Just to let you know there’s no recording allowed."

Busted!

Last time I was here was in May 2007 when I recorded the lecture by sociologist Samuel Heilman and put it online.

(I met someone that night. A few good conversations were followed a month later by rejection, humiliation and shame when she Googled me for the first time.)

Some people must not have been happy.

Some people must’ve been waiting a long time to give me that message.

I don’t notice anyone else getting told that recording is not permitted.

Good luck on enforcing this! It’s a new world. You can’t suppress information. It wants to be free!

The title for tonight’s program? "How An Erotic Dream Led Me To An Understanding Of The Sacred Tongue"

Wow, that’s brave. I’ve had a lot of erotic dreams but I’d never have the balls to stand up in public and explicate them as meditations on Torah.

I remember going to bed with this University of Judaism student a couple of hours after meeting her at a Makor Friday night dinner in 1996 and she told me that she liked to talk Torah while having sex.

Oh man, I’m going to get in so much trouble for writing this. I’ll be the first Jew in history booted from the Happy Minyan.

Of course my writing is inappropriate. All good writing is inappropriate.

I guess I’m an out-of-control kid in an old man’s body.

I’m surrounded by the infirm tonight. They swarm the free eats — salad, fruit, and kosher cookies — and devote all of their limited resources to getting them down their crooked gullets.

This is not a group high on social skills. Eating seems to cause enormous effort. The food lodges at the front of their mouths and I sit in excruciating fear for 90 minutes that it’s going to start dribbling down their shirts.

There’s one hot chick, my Yellow Rose of Torah.

I watch this old guy sit next to her and put on the moves, complimenting her on her sparkly personality even though she’s not saying a word.

I guess other parts of her must be sparking for him.

Me, I’ve only ever thought about her as a big disembodied intellect, sorta like Jesus and jellyfish and my mom.

Rose wears these black boots that reach to her knees. Her foot sways back and forth and I’m unable to concentrate on the higher things. Maybe I’ll write a blog post about how an erotic dream led me to miss the substance of Ilan’s talk.

Dr. Arnold Band begins the evening. He says the regular bloke who does the halting introductions, Dr. David Myers, is "back home in Scranton working on the election."

Gee, I wonder who he’s supporting?

Sway, sway, sway.

Dr. Myers never says "Gut Shabbos" to me. I pass him in the streets of Pico-Robertson and I always wish him a good Sabbath and he never responds.

Hurts my feelings.

Sway, sway, sway.

I must not think of Rose in this way. Must dwell instead on my rabbi’s pure love for me.

There, that’s an excitement killer.

There’s one other bloke in the room wearing a kipa. It’s black and says "McCain Palin," just like mine (except mine is a pink lipstick yarmulke).

Sway, sway, sway.

Think about my rabbi and all he’s sacrificed for me. Think about how great it would be to have him as my editor. Think about all the good discussions we’d have in our little one-on-one chats.

Sway, sway, sway.

Think about my dreaded Wednesday morning coffee date. Oy, how I hate it when they come over on Shabbos and ask for my contact info. That always means ejection is just hours away.

Sway, sway, sway.

At least I’ll always have the virtual shul of Lukeford.net.

My dead mommy. Never got invited to Gavin Brown’s birthday party. Leaving that note in sixth grade on Cindy’s desk and getting the reply, "I don’t feel the same way." Arriving at UCLA in September of 1988 too sick to man up under a normal load. Repeating my dad’s life.

Humiliation. Ejection. Rejection. Humiliation. Shame. Ejection. Rejection.

Rinse, repeat.

Sway, sway, sway.

Oy, bearing the body. Oy, Ehud.

Oy, oy, oy. I’m so f—–.

Arnold Band thanks us for "coming out on a night of so much anxiety."

Oy, perhaps King Moshiach Obama will not be crowned tomorrow.

White racism!

Sway, sway, sway.

I look at my own feet. They’re contorted on the floor, black tennies housing white socks.

The pineapple on the old guy’s fork just in front of me shakes violently as he struggles to put it in his mouth.

That’s how I am when I try to take a —-‘s — off.

Ilan retails a dream he had about a woman in her early thirties with short black hair who got naked at a party and spoke a language he couldn’t understand.

His friend told him he was dreaming about Hebrew. That he was suffering from language separation anxiety.

So Ilan goes to Israel. After a long day of research, he comes back to his hotel and visits the sauna. As he sits there, a naked young woman very much like the girl of his dream, walks in.

When she sees him, she says, "Slicha" (pardon) and leaves.

Or did she say "sh–"?

Ilan is not sure.

Question time.

I ask the second one: "You said tonight, "I was born into the Spanish language. I’m very proud of that.’ Why are you proud of an accident of birth? I’ve never heard anyone say they were proud of being born into the English language."

Have you noticed that the only people who say they are proud of an accident of birth have a chip on their shoulder?

It is weird and sad. It’s a cry from the heart. It’s a public claim to matter that is only announced when you fear you don’t.

The only Jews who say they’re proud Jews are Jews ignorant of the Jewish tradition.

Straights never say they are proud of their heterosexuality. Only insecure gays need to proclaim pride in their homosexuality.

Dodger fans are never proud of being born Dodger fans but San Francisco Giant fans are often absurdly proud of being born Giants fans.

In San Francisco, Giants fans regularly chant, "Dodgers suck." At Dodger stadium, the hometown fans never chant "Giants suck." They’re happy rooting for their team but don’t feel the need to get nasty about it.

I never hear white people proclaim pride in their Caucasian status, yet we’re supposing to respect those who claim "black is beautiful?"

Ilan answers: "I take pride in a language that produces Don Quixote. It could not have been written in any other language. Only in Spanish. The ambivalence of being a Spanish speaker. The way that you see the world as treacherous. In having a language where Jorge Luis Borges could write his stories, no matter how often they are translated into other languages… There are things you can say in Spanish that you can’t say in any other language. I was born in Mexico… I teach it to my kids. I teach it to my students. It is the language of Cervantes and Borges and it is a language you can say things that you can’t say in any other language."

I wonder if Ilan’s proclaimed pride in being born into the Spanish language is a reaction to the criticism he’s received, as summed up by wikipedia: "He has been criticized by some Chicanos, Puerto Ricans, and other Latinos who have attempted to discredit him for writing on Hispanic culture while being Jewish and Caucasian[1] [2] [3] ."

That criticism is even more bizarre than Stavans saying he’s proud of an accident of birth. What in being Jewish renders one incapable of writing on Hispanic (or any other) culture?

Ilan tells the New York Times: "’In Mexico, I was a Jew. In the U.S., I became a Mexican, but all these dichotomies helped me to see that you can be an outsider and an insider simultaneously. You become a member of another minority, but not fully. Here I’m a Mexican in the U.S. I’m a Latino. I’m a Jew. I’m an American.”

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News or Fark? Rabbi writes Election Day prayer

Posted on November 3, 2008 by Luke Ford

As soon as I read the headline, I thought "self-promoter! This is fake news. This is like a report on a guy translating the Bible into Australian."

Others must think, "Holy man!"

Then I saw the article was about someone I knew and I hesitated.

Here’s the JTA article:

A Massachusetts rabbi has written a prayer to say before voting.

The prayer is nonpartisan, says Rabbi David Seidenberg, a Conservative and Renewal rabbi in Northhampton, and based in part on the custom of pledging tzedakah when called to the Torah.

The prayer also includes a promise to engage in "tikkun olam."

"Just as I participated in elections today, so may I merit to do good deeds and repair the world with all my actions," reads the prayer, which then asks the reciter of the prayer to fill in a specific pledge to undertake "on behalf of all living creatures, and in remembrance of the covenant of Noah’s waters to protect and to not destroy the earth and her plenitude."

"The voting booth felt like a sacred space to me," said Seidenberg, and thus he hopes the prayer will put those who recite it "in a different frame of mind" when voting.

I knew Rabbi Seidenberg when he lived in Pico-Robertson. He was a colorful character, very much into protecting the environment. He was on a panel discussion I attended with various religious leaders talking about what they could do as religious leaders to reduce global warming.

I thought the panel discussion was phony posturing because none of the clerics had PhDs in meteorology and hence had no business making proclamations about global warming.

I hate it when people who have knowledge in one area believe that entitles them to make public pronouncements on stuff they know little about.

Rabbi Seidenberg stopped the discussion to force each of us in the audience to meditate on concrete steps we’d take to reduce global warming.

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Pico Kosher Deli – Four Stars Out Of Five

Posted on November 3, 2008 by Luke Ford

Joe emails:

The best way to tell how good a Kosher restaurant is to count how many non-Orthodox patrons it has. Orthodox people do not know good food and think that anything they do not have to clean up their dishes after is satisfactory. At Pico Kosher Deli (PKD), the lunch crowd is about one third to one half non-kippa wearing jews. That means the food is good – in fact, the only comparable restaurant for patronage by the non-from is pat’s (review to come). Nonjews will regularly say – this is the best deli food i have ever had – and these are people who know the usual suspects such as the yorkshire grill downtown, langer’s by alvarado, jerry’s deli wherever anyone is stupid enough to visit to actually go to jerry’s, brent’s in chatsworth, and even canter’s in fairfax.

PKD is best know, as its name implies, for its deli food. A half pastrami half corn beef is perfectly warm, indescribably moist and just the bomb. But PKD has more than just a good sandwich. Its burgers are great comfort food and the more upscale items on its menu such as the steak entrees are fantastic. The sides such as matzo ball soup, stuffed cabbage, and even eggs with tomatoes are all good.

The owners, the sons of Mr. Hecht (a survivor who knew how to run a deli), are there on a daily basis. It is one of the few kosher restaurants to actually expand its space – and it is still crowded. If you want lunch there, you best arrive before noon as the tables are full by 12:15. For dinner, it is easier, but still can be crowded on the weeknights – Sunday night is actually a breeze there as people opt for the more tony options such as Shanghai Garden or Pat’s.

There is so much good about the place it is hard to knock on it, but since lashon hara is permitted with regard to the improvement of deli sandwiches, here are some negatives. I think – and cannot prove – that the sandwiches have gotten smaller. But again, this is probably due to the economy. The service is ok – huge plus goes to the older hispanic lady waitress, but sitting a single lady at a booth while four people wait is pretty bad.

There is a bit of chillul hashem (desecration of g-d’s name) committed mainly by jewish day school kids eating there like slobs — there is actually a sign on the booths asking people not to put their feet up. Maybe Rabbi Kanefsky should lecture about that.

Bottom line – PKD is mandatory reading for the orthodox jew and fellow homo sapiens in the area. Note that they have a take out place a door down – I recommend the barbecue chicken and the kugels – have to admit I have not tried the cholent although a non-jewish friend has and it is the only thing keeping his jewish kids (wife is jewish) connected to the faith. If you have a client or business associate you want to eat lunch with, PKD is a great place for goyim – just do an Annie Hall reminder not to order milk – but note that you can get a salad at PKD with imitation ranch dressing. All in all, 4 stars out of 5 – they want more stars, they should open a valley location and expand the existing location.

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The Secrets Of Making Converts To Orthodox Judaism

Posted on November 2, 2008 by Luke Ford

Rabbi Gil student writes:

Urim Publications recently published A Circle in the Square, a book that is a combination of a biography of R. Shlomo Riskin until his aliyah in 1983 and the story of the innovation that is Lincoln Square Synagogue.

What is the secret to outreach success? From what I gather from the book, it requires four character traits:

1. Profound Torah knowledge
2. Eloquence in teaching that knowledge
3. Excitement about Judaism that is contagious
4. A personal interest in people

With that, you need to experiment and innovate (if and when necessary, and always with the guidance of Torah giants) to create the right programs to fit your audience. You also need to develop an honest and open relationship with your audience so that even when you cannot do what they want, they will know that you understand their needs and are working together with them.

I found the book to be fascinating, particularly that much of what was started in Lincoln Square has now become standard in the Modern Orthodox world. R. Riskin’s successes at outreach are legendary. I only heard him speak once, around 20 years ago in a lecture to my high school, and I still remember how exciting and uplifting his speech was. The final chapter has short descriptions of rabbis he trained, including R. Kenny Brander of YU’s CJF, whose success in Boca Raton is also legendary.

Here is a video of R. Riskin on this week’s Torah portion, although I suspect that he is much less animated than usual because he is talking to a camera and not an audience (I hear the same on some audio lectures, where the speaker is less interesting because he is speaking to a microphone and not an audience).

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The Cabalist’s Daughter – A New Novel

Posted on November 2, 2008 by Luke Ford

Check it out here.

Here’s my Q&A with Yori Yanover via email:

* Why did you write this book?

Since I read the first in the Douglas Adams’s "Hitchhiker Guide to the Galaxy" series, I knew I wanted to do to Yiddishkeit what he had done to Physics and Philosophy. I’ve been a Sabbath Observer since 1983, and in all those years my take on Jewish tradition has always been enriched by my other cultural experiences. Moreover, it has always been way different from the way my friends in yeshiva or shul see Yiddishkeit. I wanted to show our tradition as this cultural vortex that sucks in values in all aspects of art and the sciences from everybody, and somehow makes it authentically Jewish. That’s what I wanted my readers to walk away with. The rest is pretext.

* How much was this book influenced by your experience of the last two years of the rebbe?

The bulk of what I know about the Rebbe and the movement from my personal involvement, first as outsider journalist researching Dancing and Crying (1994), then as editor for the Lubavitch News Service (1998-2000) — was invested in the bits of the book that describe the Cosmic Wisdomniks. The part where Nechama interviews her father is a near-verbatum pluck from an interview I conducted over three days with one of the movement’s strong men. The stroke scene is based on an interview with Yudel Krinsky, who was with the Rebbe that afternoon. Except that in The Cabalist’s Daughter I opened up the plot, to make the Rebbe’s stroke and dying intentional, to fool God and His dark aspect.

* Why did you dedicate it to her Hershy Worch and how has he influenced you?

Hershy really taught me everything I know about Sod. His understanding of Cabala is the simplest and most exciting that I have known. Usually, when you attempt to tackle Jewish mysticism, you run into graphs and diagrams and numerologies, which are all barriers hiding the real thing from the reader. Hershy’s take is almost always psychological and spiritual, depicting the real-life applications of cabalistic ideas. I read Kaplan’s work on Sefer Yetzira and I fall asleep. I read Hershy and I’m thrilled, time and again. I’ve known him for 18 years now, and I continue to learn his Torah.

* Was there any particular emotional state that helped you do your best work in this book? If so, how was it achieved? Did alcohol or drugs assist or hinder this novel?

The last time I did drugs was in 1975. I almost never drink when it’s not Shabbat or holiday. My fantasies start with staring at a page of gemorah and getting a charge from the uninhibited imagination and language of our rabbis. All you have to do is get in synch with them, the stuff just keeps flying. Likewise with some passages of the Zohar. Even the straight Chumash is packed with fantastic ideas. We just read about the children of God coming down to grab the daughters of Man — I mean, this stuff drives your imagination bonkers, doesn’t it? All you need to do is fantasize…

* Did you have any literary influences on this work?

I mentioned Douglas Adams. He charted the way, in structure, pace, daring. Otherwise I can’t point to a specific influence, except to say that my taste in everyday reading is really trashy, mostly detective novels, hard Sci Fi, and Alternate History. I don’t believe I was channeling Dostoyevsky in this one.

* Did you feel any psychic satisfaction that you were settling scores by writing this?

Here and there, yes. There was one passage which my editor, Eve Yudelson, cut out, saying it was too mean. It had to do with an ex-Cosmic Wisdom rabbi who is caught with two goy toys. He was supposed to be the Lazarus character, but Eve vetoed him.  There’s certainly some score settling with some influential Lubavitchers, but I must say it was not done for the sake of settling scores — that was merely a side benefit. Like the rich guy who runs kosher cancer hospices, or the 8th Cabalist Master — they’re all based on real people and I found them especially inviting to be used as fictional characters. Same with the Master’s secretary who is dying in the bunker in Crown Heights.

* Did writing this make you happy or sad?

Neither. It transports me to a place that is about turning dreams into text. I’m almost always silent when I write, I rarely listen to music. I write in short, frequent spurts. I break to play solitaire or backgammon, then dive back into the writing.

* How was the experience of writing this novel different from your other writing experiences?

The first version was terrible. It was mostly a set of friezes over which I planted my ideas. It took one year to write, through most of 2003. Since then it has been re-written 4 times, getting tighter and fuller each time. The most significant plot tightening was done in collaboration with Larry Yudelson by his wife’s family’s pool out in the Hamptons (not the super rich Hamptons, though). The book presents a problem in editing, namely, it’s half plot and half midrashic fun that supports the plot. Larry forced me to bring most of the midrashic stuff and the history to Book 1, which coveres the first 20 years after the death of the Master from Brooklyn; and the bulk of the mssianic resolution we brought into Book 2, which covers the final 2 days. Then Eve had to polish it down for the inevitable inconsistencies such a massive edit created. So I spend about a week with Larry, then about six months with Eve, solving plot problems over email. Many chapters were born as answers to plot issues that were caused by the edit.

* Do you think in Hebrew or English? Are you more adept at writing in English or Hebrew? How does your thinking change when you are in Hebrew as opposed to English?

I write faster in English and read faster in Hebrew. I’m sure the very fact that ideas are generated in one language or another forces many stylistic differences. All the references, all the cultural subtexts ride on the choice of language. But I’ve done a lot of professional translation work and by now I think the differences might be more subtle in my own writing. Although my wife still picks up on Hebrewisms in my work.

I hate it when people, mostly religious US Jews, pepper their English with Hebrew words for which there are excellent, accurate words in English. It’s born by some notion of being a subculture, but, really, it’s stylistically boorish. I love writing monograms on Jewish law for our local LES message board, and I avoid like the plague writing in Boro Parkese, first out of respect to non-Jews and non-Orthodox, and second because an educated person should strive for stylistic consistency. But that’s just my pet peeve (I have an entire kennel of them).

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Rabbi Ovadia Yosef Says Women Can Lead Israel

Posted on November 2, 2008 by Luke Ford

From Ynetnews.com:

Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, Shas’ spiritual leader, said last week that in principle, a woman could be the prime minister of Israel.

The halachic ruling was given in response to a question sent to the rabbi, and clearly stated that it was only in principle and did not refer specifically to the general elections, a ruling which is to be given by the Council of Torah Sages.

Rabbi Yosef discussed this issue at length in the Hebrew website "Halacha Yomit" saying, "Regarding appointing a woman as prime minister – if she conducts herself with dignity and honesty, and is instrumental in strengthening religion more than any man who submits his candidacy, then we most certainly should give preference to electing the woman."

Despite the ruling, Yosef addressed the problematic aspects of the matter. He mentioned that the Sages of Blessed Memory learned from the verse, "Be sure to appoint over you the king the LORD your God chooses" (Deuteronomy, 17:15), that it should be a king and not a queen that would rule of over Israel, and therefore, a woman could not be appointed queen of Israel as long as there is a king who is as fit to rule.

He added that Maimonides wrote the above verse applied not just to kingship, but to all positions of public rule. Yosef continued to say that this was only Maimonides’ opinion, which the other sages, who said gender was only an issue in kingship, did not share. Yosef said that Nahmanides’s writings also showed that if David had not had any sons, it would be lawful to say that David’s daughter was queen, and she could even bequeath kingship to her sons, as he wrote that the reason David couldn’t leave the kingdom to his daughter was because he had sons.

 

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Female Teacher In Israel Accused Of Having Sex With Her Teenage Student

Posted on November 2, 2008 by Luke Ford

I can’t imagine that the boy in this case has any complaints.

From YNETnews.com:

A female teacher in the town of Rehovot, south of Tel Aviv, was arrested Thursday on suspicion of engaging in sexual relations with a 17-year-old student. the teacher denied the claims during her interrogation, and the boy has been summoned to testify.

Police suspect that the English teacher, who is in her 30s, took the student to guest rooms and to the beach, and also bought him presents.

The teacher came under suspicion due to "inside information" received from within the school. Following the revelations, other students are being asked to come forward with information on the case.

Police intend to ask the courts to keep the teacher in custody until further information is received.
 
A similar case, also in Rehovot, was reported three years ago, when a substitute yeshiva teacher, 34-years-old and married, was arrested after having sexual relations with five students.

She admitted to the charges during questioning, after officers mentioned the names of the students.

 "I did it because of sexual urges," she said. "It was silly and I regret it."

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Aish HaTorah’s ‘Obsession’

Posted on November 2, 2008 by Luke Ford

The following project is by the same people who produced and promoted "Obsession":

The following are updates from the United American Committee regarding our ongoing efforts against Islamic jihad.

  • A 30 minute preview of the fantastic film "The Third Jihad" has been posted on the UAC’s YouTube channel linked on our site at UnitedAmericanCommittee.org.
  • Our first billboard is paid for and is about to go up. It’s 48 feet long and says simply "Sharia law threatens America". More updates to be posted when it’s up.
  • New radio show archives are posted of our hit syndicated AM radio show UAC Radio Jihad. Listen to them at UACRadioJihad.com.

    • Sarah Posner writes for The Jewish Week:

    Officials of Aish HaTorah, one of Orthodox Judaism’s most successful outreach programs, have launched a controversial media campaign depicting masses of Muslims worldwide — including mainstream American Muslims — as an extremist threat, while Aish itself denies involvement in the effort.

    In moves suggesting a new, more partisan direction for Aish activists, spin-offs of the popular educational group have produced or promoted films depicting anti-Western Islamic extremists as heading a mass movement enjoying the avid support of tens of millions of Muslims worldwide who are keen to bring down Western civilization.

    Charges of presidential politics have also entered the picture: Last month, an Aish offshoot, the Clarion Fund, distributed millions of DVDs of one of the films, “Obsession,” to swing states in the presidential campaign.

    And until it was removed recently, Clarion’s Web site touted the counter-terrorism policies of Sen. John McCain, the GOP presidential candidate, as superior to those of Sen. Barack Obama, the Democratic nominee.

    DVD copies of “Obsession” were also inserted into a book that went out last March to about 20,000 members of the Republican Jewish Coalition, a partisan political organization. The coalition distributed the book, via a Virginian mailing house, at the request of Christians United for Israel, an Evangelical group opposed to a two-state solution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Both CUFI and the RJC deny they were responsible for the insertion.

    Critics charge that Clarion, a tax-exempt charity, has inserted itself into a partisan political race in violation of its charitable status. But officials at Clarion Fund reject this. And Aish HaTorah, with a yeshiva and branches in 35 cities around the world, adamantly denies any involvement in the film.

    “We have people involved in different things all around the world,” said Aish spokesman Ronn Torossian. “Two employees were involved in the film. We [also] have Aish employees in Brazil involved in green campaigns and rabbis in New York who run the marathon.”

    In fact, at least six top Aish HaTorah officials are tied to “Obsession” via Aish spin-offs, including Clarion’s president and two vice presidents. Clarion’s address is also the same as that of Aish HaTorah International, a fundraising arm of Aish HaTorah.

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