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The Silent City

Beautifully expressed truth about a very ugly subject:

I think it fundamentally wrong to think that love and admiration for totalitarianism died in the Fuherbunker with Adolph Hitler. It almost immediately shifted its affections East to Uncle Joe. For him, no sacrifice was too great. Did America have atomic secrets? The highest duty of the most enlightened was to share them with Joseph Stalin in the interests of world peace.

Nothing can disguise the fact that six million Jews died, not in the Middle East, but in ovens which burned in the very heart of Europe. In countries that prided themselves in culture; that listened to Mozart; read books and vaunted their universities. When Golda Meir said with relief, on the occasion of the foundation of Israel that "For two thousand years we have waited for our deliverance. Now that it is here it is so great and wonderful that it surpasses human words" she was speaking of escape from a darkness within the very center of Western civilization.

Yet nothing great or wonderful is safe forever, and that darkness, that love for savagery, that admiration for the brutal, that was believed to have died beneath the ground in 1945 is on the march again. It is crawling out of books, lofty towers, places of culture in precisely the manner Camus warned us against. He said that the evil may be beaten, but it is rarely beaten forever; "that the plague bacillus never dies or disappears for good; that it can lie dormant for years and years in furniture and linen-chests; that it bides its time in bedrooms, cellars, trunks and bookshelves; and that perhaps the day would come when, for the bane and the enlightening of men, it would rouse up its rats again and send them forth to die in a happy city."

But we may not speak of it. And therefore it begins.

Read the whole thing.

Renaming the Paradigm

Bookworm has written a brilliant post which recounts a conversation between herself and her mother. She comes to the conclusion that the labels "left" and "right" ought to be renamed. Highly recommended reading.

...And Just What is Judaism?

"The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism"

"The Nine Questions People Ask About Judaism" is a short but valuable book written by Dennis Prager and Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. In it, I have found some very persuasive arguments on behalf of Jewish religious belief - - perhaps some of the most compelling I have seen anywhere. 

An excerpt:

God may have His own reasons for denying us certainty with regard to His existence and nature. One reason apparent to us is that man's certainty with regard to anything is poison to his soul. Who knows this better than moderns who have had to cope with dogmatic Fascists, Communists, and even scientists?

Emanuel Rackman, in The Condition of Jewish Belief

If the believer has his troubles with evil, the atheist has more and graver difficulties to contend with. Reality stumps him altogether, leaving him baffled not by one consideration but by many, from the existence of natural law through the instinctual cunning of the insect to the brain of the genius and heart of the prophet. This then is the intellectual reason for believing in God: That, though this belief is not flee from difficulties, it stands out, head and shoulders, as the best answer to the fiddle of the universe.

Milton steinberg, Anatomy of Faith

DOUBT

Does God exist? This is life's most crucial question. The implications of the conclusion have the most significant consequences for the meaning of human existence.

Yet, despite its overwhelming importance, serious discussion of Cod is usually confined to theologians and philosophers. The rest of us form simple opinions of belief, agnosticism, or atheism at a relatively early age and are content to retain them without questioning for the rest of our lives.

We must therefore begin our presentation of Judaism with a discussion about God. First, let us briefly note Judaism's attitude toward a most common contemporary sentiment about God: doubt.

Can you doubt God's existence and still be a good Jew? Yes.

Belief in God is often difficult. Crises of faith are to be expected, and acknowledging such crises is not an irreligious act for a Jew. There are four significant reasons why doubts about God's existence should not be an obstacle to your being a good Jew.

1. Judaism emphasizes deed over creed

Judaism stresses action far more than faith. The Talmud attributes to God a declaration which is probably unique among religious writings: "Better that they [the Jews] abandon Me, but follow My laws" (for, the Talmud adds, by practicing Judaism's laws, the Jews will return to God, Jerusalem Talmud Haggigah 1:7). According to Judaism, one can be a good Jew while doubting God's existence, so long as one acts in accordance with Jewish law. But the converse does not hold true, for a Jew who believes in God but acts contrary to Jewish law cannot be considered a good Jew.

It is not, of course, our intention to deny the centrality of God in Judaism, but merely to emphasize that Judaism can be appreciated and practiced independently of one's present level of belief in God. You can incorporate Judaism into your daily life through study and practice even while doubting God's existence, because Jewish study and practice in and of themselves are extraordinarily valuable to the individual and society.

Moreover, our experience has confirmed that once you begin to study and live Judaism, you will find belief in God much more feasible. As the Talmud notes, whereas a man or woman may begin to practice Judaism for reasons unrelated to God (such as rational and ethical conviction), he or she will eventually do so because of God (Pesahim 50b).

2. Absolute certainty in faith leads to fanaticism

In the words of Emanuel Rackman, one of the foremost Orthodox rabbis of our time: "Judaism encourages doubt even as it enjoins faith and commitment. A Jew dare not live with absolute certainty, because certainty is the hallmark of the fanatic and Judaism abhors fanaticism, [and] because doubt is good for the human soul, its humility....God may have had His own reasons for denying us certainty. with regard to His existence and nature. One apparent reason is that man's certainty with regard to anything is poison to his soul. Who knows this better than moderns who have had to cope with dogmatic Fascists, Communists, and even scientists?"

3. If God were known, moral choice would end

If we knew God existed and would punish us for evil acts, then good acts would be much less freely chosen. An element of unknowability about God is necessary so as to allow us to choose good. In order to choose good, we must feel free to do bad, and we would not feel this way if we had definite knowledge that God was present and recording our every action. (How much choice do we have to speed when we know a police car is present?)

4. Since God's existence is unprovable, doubt is natural

God cannot be known to exist in the sense that we know a table or a cat exists. Their existences can be physically demonstrated and verified through our senses. But God's existence cannot, since God possesses no physical qualities. One can prove the existence of the natural, the physical, the finite; God, however, is supernatural, metaphysical, infinite. The inability to prove God's existence reflects, then, only on the fact that God has no physical qualities, a position that Judaism has always maintained.

To have doubts about God is, then, normal, permissible, and consistent with being a good Jew. But a good Jew may not deny God's existence. Indeed, the primary task of the Jewish people since its inception has been to bring the idea of a universal God and morality, or ethical monotheism, to mankind. As we shall see below, the most important values of life are dependent upon positing the existence of God: morality, or good and evil as objective realities that transcend personal and national opinions, and ultimate purpose and meaning to human existence. To put it another way, if there is no God, then there can be no objective good and evil, and no ultimate purpose to our existence. For these reasons, among many others, a committed Jew (a) may not deny God's existence, (b) must struggle with his doubts about God (the name of the Jewish people, Israel, means "struggle with God"), and (c) must advocate ethical monotheism, the ideal of a universal God as the basis of a universal standard of ethical behavior. As Elie Wiesel stated it: "The Jew may love God, or he may fight with God, but he may not ignore God."

THE NEED TO POSIT GOD'S EXISTENCE

MORALITY

The first value whose existence is dependent upon positing God's existence is morality. If there is no God, there are no rights and wrongs that transcend personal preference. Gases and molecules, the laws of nature, are not "good" or "evil," "right" or "wrong." If the natural world is the one objective reality, and there is no moral source beyond nature, good and evil possess no objective reality. Moral judgments then become purely subjective. They are popular or personal opinions which are objectively meaningless and represent no reality. It is self-evident and acknowledged by the foremost atheist philosophers that if a moral God does not exist, neither does a universal morality. Without God, all we can have are opinions about morality, but our opinions about "good" and "evil" behavior are no more valid or binding than our opinions about "good" and "bad" ice cream.

This is why in secular societies morality is generally considered to be a matter of opinion. Moral relativism is the only possible consequence of the denial of God's existence; morality becomes a euphemism for personal opinion. As this century's most eloquent atheist philosopher, Bertrand Russell, wrote: "I cannot see how to refute the arguments for the subjectivity of ethical values but," Russell conceded, "I find myself incapable of believing that all that is wrong with wanton cruelty is that I don't like it."

Russell's second point is our whole point. All that can possibly be wrong with wanton cruelty according to atheism and its moral relativism, is that we may personally not like it. Amorality is inherent to atheism.

To illustrate this point, assume there is no God and attempt to explain why Hitler was morally wrong. For the atheist and moral relativist, the only thing wrong with Nazi atrocities, as Russell said, "is that I don't like it."

One may answer that we know "deep down" that Hitler's mass murder and torture were wrong. But from where does this "deep down" feeling of right and wrong come? If there is no God, such feelings are just feelings, and objective morality must transcend subjective feelings. And if in fact we do possess "deep down" knowledge of good and evil, what source of morality put it within us?

Or, one may answer that Nazi-type murder is wrong for pragmatic reasons -- citing the argument that "if we kill them, they'll start to kill us and society will fall apart." This is not a moral argument, but merely a pragmatic one, and it is in any event invalid, since committing evil can be regarded as highly practical. In fact, pragmatic arguments usually favor committing the crime. The Nazis, for example, would have correctly dismissed the argument that "if we kill them, then they will kill us" by noting that "they" will not be able to kill "us." As in the rest of nature, only the weak will be destroyed. The pragmatic argument against committing evil is naive. If you can get away with a crime, there is no pragmatic argument against committing it -- only a moral argument, which is often quite impractical.

Take, for example, the relatively minor crime of tax evasion. The pragmatic argument again argues for, not against, committing the crime. The argument that "if everyone cheated on their tax returns, we would all suffer," understandably dissuades almost no one from cheating. On the contrary, tax evaders are quite certain that nearly everyone else is cheating, and it is precisely this fact that serves as their justification for doing the same. Precisely because one believes nearly everyone else is cheating, he, too, should cheat. Otherwise he loses. Pragmatism dictates immoral behavior at least as often as it dictates moral behavior.

You can purchase a used copy from Amazon for as little as 27 cents and read the whole thing.

American Thoughts Regarding Israel

Poll: U.S. Voters Support Israel (JTA)
    Americans likely to vote in November strongly believe the U.S. should take Israel's side in its conflict with the Palestinians, according to a poll of 800 likely voters conducted on March 18-20 and released Monday.
    "The militant actions by Hamas and disarray among the Palestinians have moved Americans to side with Israel even more strongly than in the past," said Stanley Greenberg of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research.
    93% agree Palestinians must stop their missile attacks before a two-state solution can bring peace to the region.
    84% of Americans agree Israel should remain a Jewish state and a homeland for the Jewish people. Only 20% believe that Jerusalem should be divided.

Not sure how accurate this is.  800 is a pretty small sampling. The fact that only 84% think Israel should be a Jewish state - - wonder what percentage believe that France should be a French state?

An Open Letter to Senator Obama

MUST READ

Mamet Mugged By Reality

David Mamet, liberal author, playwright and director, has seen the light of the free marketplace and taken a political turn toward the right. Very good reading.

And it seems he loves Galaxy Quest too!  One of the drop dead funniest movies ever. 

Does Anybody Know What Time it is?

Does anybody really care?

If you do.

Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.

Tick, tick, tick, tick, tick...(turn speakers on)

A walk through time.

Ticking away the moments with Pink Floyd.

Paradox

Paradox revisited

Jewish time

Beginning the day with the night is, in a sense, a metaphor of life itself.

Clocks

A passage through time.

A man utterly lost in time.

Wars, time and personal reminiscence.

Time

...marches on.

Who Will Win?

Super Tuesday vs American Idol

I Wonder if...

....Dwight Eisenhower, WW2 hero and Republican President, is rolling over in his grave?

Lots of free time available for wondering-type activities.  Husband has been in Arizona on business and he and his law partner were able to get Superbowl tickets at the last minute.  Husband does not have a camera with him. I told him he had to buy a disposable one and take lots of pics or he'd have to bear the wrath of his wife upon getting home.

Obama and Israel

Obama's supporters are people who are not friends of Israel. What does this say about his Israeli policy? Ed Lasky of American Thinker reads the tea leaves:

One seemingly consistent them running throughout Barack Obama's career is his comfort with aligning himself with people who are anti-Israel advocates. This ease around Israel animus has taken various forms. As Obama has continued his political ascent, he has moved up the prestige scale in terms of his associates. Early on in his career he chose a church headed by a former Black Muslim who is a harsh anti-Israel advocate and who may be seen as tinged with anti-Semitism. This church is a member of a denomination whose governing body has taken a series of anti-Israel actions.

As his political fortunes and ambition climbed, he found support from George Soros, multibillionaire promoter of groups that have been consistently harsh and biased critics of the American-Israel relationship.

Obama's soothing and inspiring oratory sometimes vanishes when he talks of the Middle East. Indeed, his off-the-cuff remarks have been uniformly taken by supporters of Israel as signs that the inner Obama does not truly support Israel despite what his canned speeches and essays may contain.

Now that Obama has become a leading Presidential candidate, he has assembled a body of foreign policy advisers who signal that a President Obama would likely have an approach towards Israel radically at odds with those of previous Presidents (both Republican and Democrat). A group of experts collected by the Israeli liberal newspaper Haaretz deemed him to be the candidate likely to be least supportive of Israel. He is the candidate most favored by the Arab-American community.

Read the rest.

"" from pizdaus.com

Will Smith and His Opinion of Hitler

I called Will Smith a pea brain for recent remarks he made about Hitler.  Dennis Prager now writes that Smith was misquoted. 

I am not sure how I feel about Prager's interpretation, though now that I know Smith was misquoted, I apologize for calling him a pea brain. 

The thing is, I don't think that anyone can say definitively what went on in Hitler's head.  I don't think that anyone can say completely accurately that he thought about himself as being a "good" person or not a "good" person. 

It is my personal opinion that people who commit evil acts are not thinking about goodness at all.  Nazis were known for emphasizing necessity, expediency and efficiency.  I don't think I have ever read anywhere of any of them being concerned with what was good or the nature of good.  Hitler may not have wakened every day thinking about what evil act he could commit, but I also don't believe that he wakened every day wondering about the essence of goodness nor where it came from nor what it meant.

It is not enough simply to lack conscious evil intention.  One has to intend to be good in order to actually be good.  It takes a conscious effort to be good because we are in a constant battle to tame our yetzer hara, our selfish inclination.

I don't believe hitler had good on his mind when he conceived of the final solution because a mind thinking of good, having defined it, could not have conceived of such evil.  Such a mind would have been ashamed in the face of God.

I find it inconceivable to think that Hitler thought about goodness at all as he orchestrated the painful and heinous murders of so many fellow human beings.

To think of hitler (yemach shemo) as thinking of himself as good and as doing good considers the possibility of him as a person of good intentions and therefore one worthy of forgiveness.  This goes against the grain as far as I am concerned.

Guilt and Pleasure

"Guilt and Pleasure" is a terrific magazine, each issue of which is devoted to a different subject - all of Jewish orientation, though many would be of interest to anyone and everyone.  The publishers intend it to be used to engender salon-like discussion.  I don't know how they stay in business because they post each and every article in its entirety on the internet. I suspect that if and when they gather enough regular readers, they will stop doing so.  In the meantime, there are a few excellent and interesting pieces from their latest issue (the "sound" issue, which includes many articles about the music industry) that I'd like to bring to your attention. They are well-written and as my kids like to put it, "edumacational":

1.  The Jewish roots of scat?

Scat — vocal solo composed of nonsense syllables — first appeared in Louis Armstrong’s 1926 song “The Heebie Jeebies Dance.” Armstrong initially claimed that back in the days of one-take recording, with no technology to add in an overdub, he had dropped the sheet music and just began singing sounds on the spot as a substitute for the missing lyrics. However, Armstrong reportedly later told fellow bandleader Cab Calloway and others that scat derived from the sound he described as “the Jews’ rockin,” which he had heard growing up in a mixed black-Jewish neighborhood in New Orleans.

Fans have come up with two interpretations of this: either Armstrong was walking past a synagogue and heard rapid-fire davening, which struck his ear as nonsense, or he heard nigunim, Hasidic melodies intended to induce a meditative state before prayer (nigunim can also serve as lullabies).

In his writings, Armstrong also recalled lullabies sung by a Mrs. Karnofsky — a woman whose family befriended and employed him as a kid, and to whom he largely attributes his admiration of Jews and Jewish life.

Could Hebrew have inspired the “heebie jeebies”?

Scat was soon ubiquitous, with Armstrong’s friend Calloway becoming a second master of the form. In his greatest hit, “Minnie the Moocher,” Calloway calls out scat phrases and his band responds in black gospel style, yet the minor key and sweeping sound of his scat also recalls cantorial song. More

2.  Tin Pan Alley - A Jewish industry killed by a Jew.  Guess who and how?

During the sweltering summer of 1962, Neil Sedaka’s “Breaking Up Is Hard to Do” piped over and over — and over — through transistor radios and up the charts. Its catchy hook and painfully simple lyrics (Remember when you held me tight / And you kissed me all through the night / Think of all that we’ve been through / And breaking up is har d to do) were the sort of formulaic ingredients that fed the Tin Pan Alley hit factory where Sedaka worked and that dominated popular music at the time.

“Every time I ran out of lyrics, I’d throw in a ‘doo-be-doo,’ and it became a trademark,” Sedaka told Mix magazine a few years ago. “In fact, the night before we tracked ‘Breaking Up Is Hard to Do,’ I called up our arranger, Alan Lorber, and told him I wanted to incorporate ‘down dooby doo down down’ as a prominent part of the vocal arrangement. The record came to be known as the sandwich song. There’s a piece of bread to begin with — the syllabization — then the meat and finally another piece of bread. All of my hits in the ’50s and ’60s used this same technique.”

It was, for a time, an unbeatable system. But the following year brought an attack on Tin Pan Alley, the Midtown Manhattan hit-making industry that produced so many songs like Sedaka’s and whose hooks still resonate more than forty years later. While Sedaka, along with Jerry Leiber, Mike Stoller, Carole (Klein) King, Gerry Goffin, Cynthia Weill, Howie Greenberg, Barry Mann, Jeff Barry, Burt Bacharach, Ellie Greenwich, and dozens of others churned out hits from cramped offices in the Brill Building at 1619 Broadway and its sister (and rival) center at 1650 Broadway — the heart of Tin Pan Alley — Greenwich Village was nurturing an assault on popular music that in the end resulted in the demise of the hit-making business uptown. More

3. Jonathan Richman, suburban Jew, outsider, and with his band the Modern Lovers, a forerunner of punk rock:

For the purpose of making sense of Jonathan Richman, the ideas of Polish-Jewish Marxist Isaac Deutscher are helpful. In his famous 1958 essay “The Non-Jewish Jew,” Deutscher attempted to explain why Jews ranked highly among modern Europe’s most innovative thinkers: people such as Spinoza, Marx, and Freud. He did not attribute this to superior genes or religious values; instead, Deutscher came up with a sociological explanation. Many of Europe’s great iconoclasts, he said, were Jews who had “looked for ideals and fulfillment” beyond Jewry but could not gain full entry into the larger, gentile society. As outsiders twice over, these “non-Jewish Jews” adhered to no entrenched beliefs. They could perceive what members of the majority could not, leading them to develop all sorts of subversive theories in the arts and sciences. Those theories were born out of a certain Jewish condition without expressing any directly Jewish beliefs.

Deutscher did not write “The Non-Jewish Jew” with young, postwar, suburban Jews in mind; he likely would have seen them as too affluent, assimilated, and contented compared to the people he discussed. What Deutscher wouldn’t have been able to perceive, however, was the dissonance many Jews felt in suburban America. Jewish kids typically weren’t captains of the football team or homecoming queens. They weren’t likely to be voted Cutest or Most Desired Desert Island Companion, although they stood a good chance of winning Funniest or Class Treasurer. They worried about their noses and hard-to-manage hair and the humiliation of having to shave a nascent moustache in the seventh grade. They faced occasional taunts and the odd punch. And they suffered through Hebrew school several days a week while their gentile peers ran free. Those suburban Jews were not ostracized, but they didn’t quite fit into the mainstream, either.

They had two basic choices, the Jews of suburbia. They could try to adapt (which entailed its own psychological and practical challenges) or go their own way. Jonathan Richman chose the second route. More

Being a Jew

I wouldn't trade places with the Queen of England.  I only wish I could put into words how much, the unmeasurable value, that being a Jew* means to me.  But there's no doubt that the heritage brings along some baggage with it. 

I am in the middle of a very slow reading of Ruth Wisse's "Jews and Power." Unfortunately, my memory stinks and I don't have the time/opportunity to sit down and read uninterrupted very often.  I do a lot of writing (it doesn't all find its way here by any means, and a good deal of it just gets deleted).  I don't consider myself a writer (no talent for it) but I still enjoy doing it and find it helps me sort out thoughts.  So, a great deal of the time I might spend reading is devoted elsewhere.  I plan on taking Wisse's book with me when we go on vacation in a few days.  Think I'll bring a long a highlighter as well.  It's very relevant to me right now, and I want to learn and remember what she has to teach.

John Podhoretz touches upon some of Wisse's ideas in a must-read post at Contentions.  He also describes some episodes of antisemitism through the eyes of a  new documentary film, and some thoughts that make me stop and say: This is important to make note of.

*I deliberately frame it as "being a Jew" rather than "being Jewish," because I abhor the fact that the term "Jew" was turned into an epithet.  It's just my own small expression of protest. "Being a Jew" encompasses both religion and identity; it is a declaration that I am who I am and I don't care what anyone else thinks.

Regarding Values and the Lack Thereof

Jonah Goldberg on Hillary Clinton:

...Her career is indisputably a product of her marriage. But for most of her life, Hillary had an independent ideological identity that now seems to have gone down the memory hole. In her own words, she championed a whole new "politics of meaning" and sought to redefine "who we are as human beings in this postmodern age."

But, bit by bit, she sliced off chunks of her soul. Hillary used to be the personification of hope for the left. On the welfare debate, she was supposed to be Bill's conscience. She was the Eleanor to his Franklin.

But now Hillary is the Democrats' establishment candidate, pitted against the true believer, John Edwards, and the idealist, Obama. Even committed liberals tell focus groups she's too cold, too calculating.

And how did she get that way? She studied at the feet of the master. Bill Clinton cast himself as a champion of the "Third Way," a grandiose political phrase with disturbing intellectual roots. For Bill, it mostly meant that he could split the difference between any two positions. Any hard choice was a "false choice." When asked how he'd have voted on the first Persian Gulf War, he said he agreed with the minority but would have voted with the majority. He smoked pot but didn't inhale. Monica Lewinsky had sex with him, but he could swear under oath he didn't have sex with her.

Bill can make those sorts of things work because he really believes them -- or at least he does as the words are coming out of his mouth. Hillary has nowhere near that sort of skill. She's learned the dance moves and she's memorized the lyrics, but she can't hear the music. That was evident in the now-infamous Oct. 30 debate performance during which she said she was both for and against driver's licenses for illegal immigrants and for and against pulling troops out of Iraq.

In this race, she's tried to be hawk and dove, idealist and pragmatist, martyr and hero. But unlike her husband -- a jazz impresario of people-pleasing prevarication -- she's a terrible liar. She comes across as calculated because that's all that's left to her: calculation. Jesse Jackson once famously said that Bill Clinton had no core beliefs, he was simply "appetite" all the way down. That appetite seems to have become community property in the Clinton household, such as it is.

Obama is surging because Democrats want idealism and hope. Hillary has jettisoned her idealism, and she's filed down her hope to mere yearning.

Her story is fascinating in a way - like a Greek myth or a Shakespeare play. 

What Kind of a Girl Am I, Anyway?*

I was a fan of both the Three Stooges and Mad Magazine when I was growing up.

*Should've said, "What kind of a girl was I, anyway?" Girlhood came and went a long time ago.

Jewish Philosophy

It is wrestling with our nature, rather than perfection, which constitutes true righteousness...Jews look up to Abraham, who made mistakes in his parenting of Ishmael. Jacob is criticized for favoring Joseph. Moses was so imperfect that he was not allowed to enter the promised land. What, then, made these men great? It was their capacity to wrestle with their nature and do the right thing amid a predilection to do otherwise. Jews believe in struggle. The angelic model of he for whom goodness is intuitive is not compelling to Jews. Rather, we admire those who act altruistically amid the pull to behave with selfishness.

Therefore, Jews, while of course condemning hypocrisy, still understand the concept in a totally different way. Most people are inconsistent rather than hypocrites. They preach one thing and practice another not because they don't believe in goodness, but because they cannot always master their natures to do the right thing. No matter. Imperfect people can still vastly contribute to the perfection of the world.

All it takes is one good deed.

- Shmuely Boteach

The Dress: A Disconnect

These are the type of dresses daughter told me she is considering for the Homecoming dance.  She will look for similar items at the local mall:

http://www.edressme.com/4668b.html

http://www.edressme.com/c2029w.html

http://www.edressme.com/dresses874275.html

http://www.promgirl.com/popups/biggerimage.cfm?filename=/KT//KT6.27.07/C1014Rachel1.jpg 

http://www.promgirl.com/popups/biggerimage.cfm?filename=/PD//DaveJohnny/DJ5.9.07/3759.jpg

I thought she might find something nicer here:

http://www.eternitystore.com/SearchResult.aspx?CategoryID=12

Or here:

http://www.beautifullymodest.com/

And they had some exceptionally lovely things here as well:

http://plainlydressed.bravepages.com/ladiesgirlsclothingfile.html

Modern Terrorism Cocktail

A combination of the annihilating power of Hiroshima with the nihilistic gospel of Auschwitz.

Transportation

"...flight does not have to be foul, cramped, undignified and an easy way to get a DVT (Deep Vein Thrombosis)."

Why not float to your destination on a zeppelin? (As long as you aren't in a hurry)

The Man Who Singlehandedly Killed ManBearPig

Via The Corner

Vive la Difference!

This piece of research from Scientific American completely refutes what I would have said if anyone asked me:

Sons are tough on their mothers. Whether it is heavier birth weights, amplified testosterone levels or simple, hair-raising high jinks, boys seem to take an extra toll on the women who gave birth to them. And by poring over Finnish church records from two centuries ago, Virpi Lummaa of the University of Sheffield in England can prove it: sons reduce a mother’s life span by an average of 34 weeks.

My sons have been 10,000  10,000,000 times easier to raise than my daughter.  I would not trade her for anything and I love her to pieces, but she's a tough cookie.  The saddest thing in the world to me though, was recently hearing her say that when she has kids, she hopes she has all boys because she doesn't want to have a girl who is as difficult as she is.  I responded to that by telling her that there is a special relationship between mother and daughter that is different than any other.  I have this with both my own mother and with my daughter.  We might argue, but we know one another like no other.  My husband knows me very well after 32 years, but he does not know what it is to be a woman. A woman who can share a close relationship with her own mother and then share something similar with her own daughter is enriched by an intangible thing that is wonderful beyond words. We look at one another and what we see contains different details than what a man sees or even what our best friends see.  And I am certain that men have this same intangible thing with their own fathers and sons.

I certainly don't want to slight my sons - they are the most delightful of young men and treat me wonderfully.  Watching them grow taught me so much about the differences between men and women and the value of male qualities.

Male and female qualities are both wonderful.  Ying and yang. Spring and fall.  Music and art.  They are different but each has a lot to offer. 

I can't stand it when people - male or female - disparage either gender as a group.  I've known great and not-great people of both sexes. I would never say one group is better than the other.

All I will say is that they are different in ways I can't always define very easily, but those differences make all the difference.   

Visions of the Universe That I Reject

1.  Everything is random.

2.  Man has no soul.

3.  God doesn't exist

4.  There's no free will; everything is pre-determined.

5.  Faith is more important than deeds.

*6. Morality is relative. (Thanks Oceanguy)

*7.  Humans are born evil.

*8.  Sins of humanity are expunged by or forgiven through the death of Jesus.

List may grow longer with time.

*Added 10/4

Fire and Brimstone

My daughter's teachers email us with her assignments.  One of her assignments involved the following quote from Jonathan Edwards (from the 1700s):

The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours. You have offended him infinitely more than ever a stubborn rebel did his prince; and yet it is nothing but his hand that holds you from falling into the fire every moment. It is to be ascribed to nothing else, that you did not go to hell the last night; that you was suffered to awake again in this world, after you closed your eyes to sleep. And there is no other reason to be given, why you have not dropped into hell since you arose in the morning, but that God's hand has held you up. There is no other reason to be given why you have not gone to hell, since you have sat here in the house of God, provoking his pure eyes by your sinful wicked manner of attending his solemn worship. Yea, there is nothing else that is to be given as a reason why you do not this very moment drop down into hell.

O sinner! Consider the fearful danger you are in: it is a great furnace of wrath, a wide and bottomless pit, full of the fire of wrath, that you are held over in the hand of that God, whose wrath is provoked and incensed as much against you, as against many of the damned in hell. You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe it, and burn it asunder; and you have no interest in any Mediator, and nothing to lay hold of to save yourself, nothing to keep off the flames of wrath, nothing of your own, nothing that you ever have done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.

All this and witch hunts, too. What a lovely time period to not have lived in.

 

Observations

Interesting that the left, who have been insulting the hell out of President Bush since he came into office, are so upset that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad  - head of a nation that unapologetically held American diplomats hostage for over a year, supplies weapons to terrorist insurgents fighting US soldiers in Iraq, executes homosexuals, flogs and imprisons journalists, fines and berates (and worse?) women who don't follow the dress code - was not treated with the full honors of a head of state visiting the US. 

Suddenly, they are nostalgic for the 50s!  Whoever would have thought the left would be looking back longingly through the fuzzy lens of time to that period of oppression, segregation, repression, dinner jackets, white gloves and pearls?

Jews and Intellectual Movements

David Bernstein addresses whether or not neo-conservatism can be considered a "Jewish" movement. Statistics shed light on why the fallacy continues.

A Must Read: The Hidden Basis For Hostility to Israel - and America

Michael Medved has written a very insightful essay exposing the roots of modern contempt for Israel and how it connects to anti-Americanism.  I am not going to post an excerpt - the article is one which needs to be read in its entirety in order to understand the crux of Medved's argument. Highly recommended reading.

Most Popular Post?

Well, it's not the all-time most popular, but at the moment, this one seems to be generating a lot of hits.  Boobs and politics - a killer combo.

Is This Offensive?

Mark asks.  What do you think?  

The Existence of God

A quote found in the book "Jewish Wisdom" by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin written in the 11th century by philosopher and rabbi Bahya ibn Pakuda states:

Do you not realize that if ink were poured out accidentally on a sheet of paper, it would be impossible that proper writing should result, or legible lines such as written with a pen?...Now, if we find it impossible to reconcile ourselves with the idea that written forms can make themselves, how is it possible to say, when we see something more subtle in form [and] more difficult to create...that it was made without the purpose, power and wisdom of a mighty designer?

Morality without God

Another quote from Telushkin's book, this one by Irving Kristol in American Jews and the Separationist Faith:

[Those of us in the Western world who are secular] have found ourselves baffled by the Nietzschean challenge: if God is really dead, by what authority do we say that any particular practice is prohibited or permitted?  Pure reason alone cannot tell us that incest is wrong; indeed, the only argument against bestiality these days is that, since we cannot know whether the animals enjoy it or not, it is a violation of "animal rights."

Don't Be a Lamb Going Quietly to the Slaughter - Updated

I found the above picture on Hermit's blog, and it spoke volumes to me about history and the situation in the world today.  Jews were defenseless sheep during WW2.  What do we learn from that?  Well, in my view, we are meant to defend ourselves and we are meant to forcefully fight evil.   

Evil and irrational hatred do not respond to reason, and those who hate do not care if you are defenseless.  If you are in their way, they will run you over. We can't waste time asking questions about their culture or psyches or the background of hatred so great they wish to see us dead - they won't spend a minute worrying about our psyches or background.   

Pacifism, passivity, weakness, and appeasement aid and abet baseless hatred and promote the murder of the defenseless.

Credit where it is due:

Ok - yes. Quite right. I was reminded in email that, as Daled Amos writes, Jews DID fight back. (HT: SoccerDad)   

The World Clock

You can watch it and see into it all sorts of things, from theories about global warming to liberal bias.  I simply observed the births for about 30 seconds or so and got an incredible feeling of awe at the workings of the universe.  Beings, created every second, one after another.  Each one unique and different from the next.  The graphic representation seemed to underscore the mind-blowing aspect.

Who is This Man?

You'll never guess.

Yes, it is likely that you DO Know him - if you are 45 and over.

A Jewish View on War

What does Judaism say about war, violence and peace?

Sometimes war is necessary. Judaism teaches the supreme value of life, yet we're not pacifists. Wiping out evil is also part of justice. As Rashi explains (Deut. 20:12), dangerous disputes must be resolved. Because if you choose to leave evil alone – it will eventually attack you.

People today don't relate to the concept that if you don't destroy evil, it will destroy you. Today, most Westerners grow up in nice neighborhoods, they never experience war, real suffering, or in the case of Jews, anti-Semitism. Therefore it's very easy to pontificate brotherhood, peace and other liberal notions at the expense of defense. There's a well-known funny expression defining a liberal as “a conservative who has never been mugged.” Questioning the ancient Hebrews' sense of justice and morality is not really fair if you haven't dealt with harsh reality of their experience.

It is ironic that the Jewish people created the basis of Western morality – such as an absolute morality and the concept of the sanctity of life, and today civilizations that rest on our foundation turn around and throw into our faces the accusation that Torah espouses cruelty to Canaanites! People today can only criticize ancient Hebrews because those very Hebrews taught them that murder, conquest, and abuse are wrong and immoral. The values such as respect of life, freedom, and brotherhood, all stem from Judaism. Today we have the mindset that wiping out a city down to the children and animals is immoral because Jews have taught that to the world!

* * *

People mistakenly think that the Torah's directive was to wipe out the Canaanites indiscriminately, in a cruel fashion. In truth, the Jews would have preferred that the nations never deserved punishment. That’s why the Canaanites were given many chances to accept peace terms. Even though abominable inhuman practice had been indoctrinated into the Canaanite psyche, the hope was that they’d change and accept the Seven Universal laws of humanity. These “Noachide Laws” are basic to any functioning society:

1) Do not murder.
2) Do not steal.
3) Do not worship false gods.
4) Do not be sexually immoral.
5) Do not eat the limb of an animal before it is killed.
6) Do not curse God.
7) Set up courts and bring offenders to justice.

At the root of these laws lies the vital concept that there is a God Who created each and every person in His image, and that each person is dear to the Almighty and must be respected accordingly. These seven laws are the pillars of human civilization. They are the factors which distinguish a city of humans from a jungle of wild animals.

* * *

Even as the Jews drew close to battle, they were commanded to act with mercy. Before attacking, the Jews offered terms of peace, as the Torah states, "When approaching a town to attack it, first offer them peace." (Deut. 20:10)

For example, before entering the Land of Israel, Joshua wrote three letters to the Canaanite nations. The first letter said, "Anyone who wants to leave Israel, has permission to leave." The second letter said, "Whoever wants to make peace, can make peace." The final letter warned, "Whoever wants to fight, get ready to Upon receiving these letters, only one of the Canaanite nations (the Girgashites) heeded the call; they emigrated to Africa.

In the event that the Canaanite nations chose not to make a treaty, the Jews were still commanded to fight mercifully! For example, when besieging a city to conquer it, the Jews never surrounded it on all four sides. This way, one side was always left open to allow for anyone who wanted to escape. (see Maimonides, Laws of Kings ch. 6)

* * *

It is interesting that throughout Jewish history, waging war has always been a tremendous personal and national ordeal which ran contrary to the Jews’ peace-loving nature. King Saul lost his kingdom when he showed misplaced mercy by allowing the Amalekite king to live. And in modern times, when Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir was asked if she could forgive Egypt for killing Israeli soldiers, she replied, “It is more difficult for me to forgive Egypt for making us kill their soldiers.”

The reality is that war makes one callous and cruel. Therefore, since God Himself is commanded the Jews to rid the Land of evil, God likewise promises the soldiers that they will retain their compassionate nature. In the words of our parsha: “God will have compassion on you, and reverse any display of anger that might have existed" (Deut. 13:18).

With blessings from Jerusalem,

Rabbi Shraga Simmons
Aish.com

Link

Chinese Foot Binding

How could anyone prefer this to a normal foot?

Putting Things into Perspective

The universe is so vast and we are so small.

And one day, it all just suddenly burst into existence?  No Creator of this miracle?

I just don't believe it.

But then again, Who/What created The Creator? 

A Woman Who Lived Undercover as a Man For 18 Months

Just to see what it was like.

Fascinating story.

The Relationship Between Jews and Christianity...

...is very complicated.      

War Games

China vs Taiwan - - Who would win?  According to Taiwan, China would not:

A computer simulation projected that China could land forces on rival Taiwan, but they would be repulsed after two weeks of fierce fighting and harsh losses to both sides, Taiwan's military said Tuesday.

Link

Question: What is Ha-Ha-Ha-Eeeew?

I'd read this earlier today and immediately forgot about it.  And so it took me a minute to understand what this was all about when I read it this afternoon.

Answer:  My reaction 

Schindler's List

My middle son (18 yrs old) was watching Schindler's List last night as I was preparing dinner.  I've seen it twice before, but found myself running into the family room every chance I could get to watch bits and pieces.  I'd forgotten how compelling it was. 

It was the end of the movie, the scene where Schindler is presented with a gold ring by the people he saved and he cries because he felt guilty that he didn't save more. Following that scene, the film shifts to Jewish survivors arriving in Israel after the Holocaust. Then another shift to  modern times, and the real life people who Schindler saved, elderly now and accompanied by their children and grandchildren, pay hommage to Schindler through the Jewish custom of placing a rock on the headstone of his grave as the hauntingly beautiful tune, "Jerusalem of Gold" plays in the background.  I found it, once again, to be incredibly moving.

My son, who is and always has been the epitome of masculine self-contained cool, and who pretends he doesn't care a whit about Judaism (but who, I notice, keeps a well-thumbed Siddur (prayerbook) on his bedside table), turned to me and said, "They ought to make that movie required viewing in high school."  And surprised, I turned to him and asked, "They don't show it?  How do they teach the Holocaust anyway?"  And he replied that they don't do much. (Getting a lot of words out of him can be like pulling teeth.  He's similar to his mother, who is unusually - for her - chatty on her blog.) No wonder Holocaust denial continues to rear its ugly head...

Whatever else Steven Spielberg does or has done in his life, Schindler's List is a great movie and a tremendously influential accomplishment.  It captured the essence of the Holocaust from the irrational hatred, to the casual cruelty, to the all too rare kindness of an ordinary man like Schindler.  It graphically illustrated the Talmudic saying "Saving one life is like saving the world," through its emotional portrayal of the Schindler survivors and their descendents. It clearly demonstrated why Jews treasure, need and deserve a land of their own.

But maybe its greatest gift is what it does for young Jews like my son, reminding him of the great lengths his people went through to maintain their Jewishness.  I don't believe anyone can watch that movie and take their Jewish identity for granted.