Gil

Four Assorted Thoughts

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Assorted thoughts:

1) Abraham abinu and Sara immenu had to become immigrants before being brought into a covenant with the Creator. Moshe rabbenu had to become a foreigner in a foreign land before being sent as an emissary of the Creator. The children of Yisrael had to become (mistreated) immigrants and be given a Tora that repeatedly demands compassion and even charity for immigrants, before the Creator gave them a promised land in which to dwell securely. This is all very suggestive to me of a deeper dimension to the tension between natives and immigrants in human society.

2) Fundamentalism causes many problems in the world. Humanism solves many problems in the world. The problem is that both do so in the name of religion (as well as secularly, but that’s not as big of an issue). The problem is compounded by the fact that, due to their mental state, fundamentalists are louder and more power-hungry. Despite the advantages of their worldview, humanists are at a disadvantage in resisting the tide of fundamentalism that has drowned humanity for thousands of years.

3) Antisemitism is the oldest of the modern prejudices, and while it shares much in common with other veins of bigotry it is as unique as the people of Yisrael are unique. The refusal of the Jew to accept the violence at the basis of imperialist “civilization” and “culture” – the insistence on preferring, even in the smallest part, the remaining vestiges of an alternative civilization and culture – ultimately marks him as anathema to “civilized” society, no matter how much he assimilates or seeks his place in the imperial pyramid of social privilege. This has held true for the Jewish people across Christian and Islamic lands alike, to this very day. But it is not enough to simply react to the fact of antisemitism: The ever-present challenge is to avoid internalizing the worldview and values of the antisemite, in both the diaspora and our homeland.

4) Reminder to myself: Nothing has a single cause and not every cause is linear. “Train your tongue to say I don’t know.” And just choose the good because it is good, so that there will be more good in the world.

Zionism Started with Herzl?

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Today’s reading from Yirmiyahu… Zion.

Today’s recital from the psalms of Dawid…. Zion.

Today’s selection from the Pele Yoéts… Resettling the Land.

Is it just me or did none of these authors get the memo that Zionism started with Herzl in the 19th century?

How I Changed the Robot’s Mind on Women in the Minyan

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Counting Women: A Brief Chat with a Robot

…where the chat started:

“Classical sources generally limit the minyan, the quorum required for certain communal religious obligations, to men. The foundational source is the Talmud in Megillah 23b and Sanhedrin 74b, where the requirement for a minyan of ten for davar she-biqdusha (matters of sanctity) is derived. This derives from Leviticus 22:32, linking sanctifying God’s name (qiddush hashem) to the assembly of \”children of Israel,\” traditionally interpreted as male Israelites.”

…where the chat wound up:

“Yes, that’s correct. The distinction between the rabbim for qiddush hashem barabim (public sanctification of God’s name) and the quorum for devarim shebiqdusha (matters of sanctity) in terms of including women is largely an interpretive development that arose post-Talmudically.

The Talmud itself does not explicitly distinguish between men and women for qiddush hashem barabim. Rambam, among other later authorities, includes women in the count for qiddush hashem under the principle of universal obligation in situations of public martyrdom or communal sanctification of God’s name, without any Talmudic text directly mandating a gender distinction for this context.

In contrast, the exclusion of women from the minyan for devarim shebiqdusha—such as public prayer and Torah reading—was later codified based on Talmudic passages interpreted through traditional gender roles, though these interpretations were derived from the example of male participation in the biblical narratives rather than from an explicit Talmudic prohibition against including women. Thus, the gender-based exclusion for devarim shebiqdusha evolved as a post-Talmudic consensus.”

Read how I changed the robot’s mind:
https://chatgpt.com/share/672258f3-32c8-8007-9f24-f34eac4c8ece

Israel’s ‘Warmongering’

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“Israel’s warmongering”

[sic]

🤢🙄🫠

Otherwise educated, intelligent, moral individuals really out here claiming that Israel is the aggressor.

On the Hebrew anniversary of Hamas’s invasion no less.

I Never Said Yizkor. Until This Year.

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Yizkor is a memorial prayer for the departed that the hassidé Ashkenaz established as a reaction to the brutal losses suffered by the Ashkenazic communities during the crusades.

It’s not my custom to say yizkor.

I don’t think yizkor is appropriate to Yom Tob.

I stepped out of the synagogue when they said yizkor.

But never have I felt the emotional impetus behind the establishing of yizkor as a minhag, as I did this year.

It’s astonishing to consider the loss of over 1,200 people in a single day, just one year later.

May their memory be a blessing and a revolution.

We Will Dance Again

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אין מספקין ואין מרקדין וכו’

But shuffling in a circle singing songs and saying prayers seem alright 😀

We Will Dance Again

(at הקפות שניות)

Sinwar Died Like a Rat

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Well now.

The murderer whose life was saved not once but twice by Israeli doctors – and who nevertheless then went on to risk the entire population of Gaza in a savage and bloody invasion of the southern cities and towns of Israel that left thousands dead and ultimately resulted in the abysmal destruction of the Gaza Strip – has finally met his judgement. Certainly an occasion to sing the Lord’s praises…

It seems that Sinwar was hit in an operation that wasn’t specifically targeting him – a unit just spotted “three combatants” in an area they were clearing and neutralized them. Divine providence at work even when we’re asleep at the wheel?

According to YNet, Sinwar’s corpse was first visually spotted (I won’t post the photo here but yeah it looks like him) and then identified based on dental records. He had on his person thousands of Israeli sheqels and (forged) ID/travel documents. While many expected Sinwar to die a martyr’s death surrounded by hostages and devotees, he apparently died like a rat on the run amidst the rubble of the city he ran into the ground.

And there you have it, folks.

May the joy of your holiday be enhanced by the open revelation of divine justice…

A Modern Lexicon for Yom haKippurim

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A modern lexicon for Yom haKippurim:

Sanctity is distinction
Purity is clarity
Atonement is rehabilitation
Repentance is reconsideration
Prayer is self-assessment
Charity is giving
Forgiveness is letting go

Last Year We Were a Mess

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A meditation and a prayer.

Last year, we were truly a mess on Yom haKippurim. Publicly fighting over how and where to sit during services, with acrimony and venom and self-righteousness and hatred. On the day when we should have been most united in love for each other and for our Creator, we showed our worst selves.

Then came October 7th. On the day we should have been celebrating the Torah together, we were in hiding. Savagery and devastation swept the south while rockets rained across the entire land, leaving hundreds in captivity and an entire nation traumatized. In the wake of such a morbidly potent reminder of who we actually are to our actual enemies – and their supporters worldwide – we came together and mobilized waves of support for the survivors, the families, the homeless, and the soldiers. We showed our best selves.

It’s true that a year later, the war frustratingly still continues while the captives inexplicably still remain imprisoned. It’s true that hundreds of thousands of people are still refugees from the north, the south, and the Gaza Strip. It’s true that waves of missiles still target our homes and masses of rioters still call for our collective death. And it’s painfully true that after so much seemed to change so quickly that morning one year ago, so much in our country and our world still seems to remain the same.

But this year, we met October 7th before Yom haKippurim. This wasn’t just a day of remembering the fallen and the lost – truthfully their memory has not left us a single day of the past three hundred and sixty five and is always before our eyes, in our feeds and groups and Shabbat newsletters. This was a day of remembering how we came together and supported one another in the wake of the worst horror since Auschwitz, an ongoing nightmare for countless families, a doom against which we have collectively, consciously chosen to offer hope and light.

This year, as we make our way across the narrow bridge between Rosh haShana and Yom haKippurim, we pause and remember who we have shown ourselves to be over the past year. People who step up and who volunteer and who care and who fight for each other. People who choose hope and light, even as many in the world choose darkness. May we bring that hope and that light in our return to the Holy of Holies on Yom haKippurim this year, and may we merit to see the day when all creations are united in the sacred peace of knowing our Creator.

After the Holiday Dinner

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Imagine having a holiday dinner with your family and enjoying a cup of coffee in the autumn night air afterwards and going to sleep with grateful thoughts of how blessed you are, and then you’re woken up by gunfire and shouts and gunmen storming into your home and they literally capture you and you starve in captivity for an entire year.

For. An. Entire. Year.